Horoscopes by the Fishing Guide to the Stars starting July 18, 2013

“An ordered world or a mishmash. But still an order. Can there be order within you and not in everything else? In things so different, so dispersed, so intertwined?”

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book IV, #27

While I tend to use Shakespeare, I’ll occasionally divert into more classical sources. Marcus Aurelius is a long-time favorite as a source of succor and enlightenment. I always liked the subtitle, Living, Dying and the Good Life.

Give it a pause. The Shakespeare’s Globe, the rebuilt and iconic theatre on the South Bank, it was the first structure to have a thatched roof in London since the Great Fire in 1666.

Cancer: Mars is the active symbol. Symbolizes action. Symbolic of movement. Motion, movement. Mars.

Mars enters. With a loud fanfare and the flourish of trumpets, oh Mars does enter. The cautionary tale is — go look on You Tube for silly pet tricks. Kitten chasing its own tail. Dog chasing his tail. Cat attacking something, funny.

Hint?

The (mighty) Leo: I was with some friends, new coffee machine at their place. It was fancy, that machine. Put coffee beans in one end, the machine grinds then brews the coffee. One machine, does it all. Pretty cool. In my own living place, first in a trailer in South Austin, then elsewhere?

I have a grinder. A special grinder, only used for coffee beans. One tool for the job. I have a tea kettle which I use to warm the water. Then I have a French Press, press-pot, to make the coffee. I have three devices whereas my friends have one. I’ve found that the a single tool for a single job is optimal. A single tool for a single task. The multitask tool, complex and expensive? Really fun to play with and for some casual use, quite functional. However, in my example? A single tool for each step of the process. Don’t try and combine the tools, or skip the steps. One tool, one task, for now. (Mercury goes straight but still.)

Virgo: Around the time the Sun squeaks in Leo, Miss Venus will traipse into Virgo. The problem being, one of more important Virgo influences starts out at a retrograde point, and doesn’t quite get all back together, not quite yet, and more important, not quite this week. Venus, even Sun in Leo? Good. Almost (but not all the way) Retrograde Mercury? Not so good. Kind of a problem, really. It’s not big stuff, not this week. It’s details. What Virgo doesn’t love sweating through the details? You’re going to sweat some details, but look: if you didn’t look out for the myriad of details that no mere mortal can ever hope to keep up with, I mean, if you didn’t do it? Who would?

Libra: Most common expressions this week? “They don’t get it!” Or? “They’re not catching on?” Better yet? “No one seems to understand my situation!” It’s as if there was a groundswell of very common people, the plebeians, as it were, and this forms into a marching and semi-organized band of illiterate and uninformed people who are on a direct path to confuse, block and otherwise impede the good, Libra progress.

Every time you turn around?

There they are. In the way. Milling around in the middle of the pathway, the sidewalk, the freeway. Someplace, and always, in your way. Impacts your ability to perform. Impacts your forward motion. If I were a Libra? It would piss me right off. However, since I’m not a Libra, I can offer some advice: go around. That simple. They are standing in your way? Cut around to the left. Or the right. Depends. Go around the obstacles and the hordes of people determined to make your life miserable, this next few days. They are still there, standing there, just go around. I mean, as much as you would like to plow right through them? Go around.

Scorpio: I’ve used this before, but I’ll try it again. Any decision based on fear alone isn’t for the best Scorpio outcome. There are many things to be afraid of, like, I’ll name a few of mine. Fear of spiders. Fear of stingrays. Fear of the poisonous barbs of the “hardhead” catfish. Normal, to me, fishing fears. Maybe a little irrational, but mine, nonetheless. Some of those fears, like the venomous Portuguese man o’war? That’s a rational fear because the sting of the floating colonial coelenterate is painful. Not usually deadly, just very painful. Action, reaction, then fear. Self-preservation fear. Some fear is good. Some is unnecessary. Afraid of a critter that bites, stings or otherwise inflicts pain? That’s a rational fear. Still, making a decision, based on fear rather than options isn’t always in your best interest. Careful with fear-motivated decisions.

“I was afraid you say that.”

Shut up, smart ass.

Sagittarius: Two terms for Sagittarius. “I feel,” is one. “I think,” is another. Don’t confuse the two. The challenge we face, this next few days, especially these few days, is there’s a good chance to let the little trickster, Retrograde Mercury, fool us into thinking we’re feeling it, or feeling we’re thinking it. Or some variation caught in a crossfire, between those two points. It’s not worth it. While the heart never lies, the brain — particularly a Sagittarius brain — can read what the heart says, and get the material all confused. Therein is our problem. The two terms, “I feel,” and, “I think,” both of those get confused. I suggest, the most expedient route through this mess of a week? Stop, pause and consider what the Sagittarius intuition is saying. Then think about it some more.

Sometimes, in a situation like this?

Inaction is called for.

(Forget Dan Brown’s Inferno.)

Capricorn: You need an entrance song. “You know, like they do on wrestling?” One of my professional buddies was talking about a radio gig, and the song that played before air-time. Thinking along the lines of “Don’t Fear The Reaper,” which, as I’ve noted before, has both good lyrics and good message. The back-story in the song and the songwriters, that’s cool, too. Somehow, though, that doesn’t work for Capricorn. Another Capricorn’s song? “Volcano” by Jimmy Buffett. It’s not over and we’re not out of it, not yet. Mars is going to ratchet the heat up and that volcano might just pop. I’ve warned you. Some kind of Capricorn music might help. Adjust as need be to make you feel better. I don’t know what will be your entrance song. I’ve toyed with many, myself, and I’ve yet to come up with a good solution. What do you think would work best? For me? For you? This week? “Go, Go Godzilla?”

Aquarius: I used to ride and race big street bikes. I have a passing interest in two-wheeled conveyances. So, coming down the street, the other morning, I was out for an early walk before the temperature got up to a tame Texas, “Medium-Broil,” and there it was.

A stripped down, hot-rod, low-rider, rat-bike scooter. Stretched and lowered, I think. Stripped, for sure. Kind of nasty little growl to the lawn-mower motor. Sounded mean — in a tame way — as this was a scooter. Probably less motor displacement than most gas-powered weed-eaters. Sort of fun, too. Big guy with goggles and dark, worker-bee clothes. Still, it was a cool, to me, scooter.

The number of elements that were combined, from sports and performance to aesthetic appeal, to a throbbing and hearty motor roar, all the pieces combined to paint a weird, radical image. An Aquarius image, if you will, as it is a vehicle that makes more sense in the urban environment, more so that anything else. Practical, with enough individuality to make a statement. Noisy, but not overtly so. Full Moon triggers something in Aquarius. Perhaps it’s time to think about your own super, low-rider, rat-bike, hot-rod. Scooter or otherwise.

Pisces: One of my little girlfriends from West Texas stopped off here for a spell. West Texas is High Desert. Here, on the other side of the hills, Central Texas, we’re Coastal Plains. Gentle offshore breezes laden with moisture gently drift by, and the humidity, approaching a 100%? Fried my little desert flower. “How do you stand all that moisture?” Easy. I sweat a lot. Buckets. Drink lots of water and sweat.

As I’m fond of pointing out, “It’s hot, sure, but it’s a wet heat.” We all have our preferences. Like my West Texas friend, though? You’re going to find your Pisces self in an uncomfortable situation. Too hot, too cold, too dry, too wet. One or more of the uncomfortable elements that you, personally, don’t like. Look around, there’s a guy, just like me, enjoying the local whatever it is. Won’t be much longer, but look around, there’s an inherent peace and tranquility that some of the natives have with whatever the situation is. Learn to enjoy it, and Pisces (dear)? Quite complaining about elements you have no control over.

Aries: A consultant, pretty much what I do besides write horoscopes, but a consultant is a person who outlines a course of action. A coach, for a comparison, is someone who works alongside you. I’m adverse to the term, “coach,” unless it’s strictly in a gaming sense. “Coach,” in Texas lore, the High School Football Coach, is the revered and iconic figure.

I’m not coaching Aries this week. I’m telling you. I’m not working alongside you, I’m being blunt and telling you.

Action is required. Movement. Get off your butt, get out of the house and go. Do. Be. Motion. With the planets where they are, I’ll bet that you take a wrong turn, more than once. Why I’m consulting, right now, not coaching. Get out. You need to take three wrong turns and get back to where you started in order to see the correct route. It’s not bad, and it’s really not a waste of time, because, if you don’t do it this way? You’ll never get there. Start. Jump. Go. Do. Get active.

Taurus: There was a scare, one of the giant ‘social networking‘ sites had a long list of compromised passwords. Evil-doers, hackers of some stripe, broke in and stole the access information. Much hue and cry, end-of-the-world, and the best? Proof: never trust the machines!

I use throw-away passwords for places like that. The more sensitive the data, the harder, longer and more arcane my combination of letters and numbers, sometimes with punctuation. My own, little nod towards sterile cyber-security. So far, I’ve never been compromised. I am responsible for my own output. One website did get an injection virus that temporarily wiped out the front splash page, but that was then. And this is now. With the problems we have, here in Taurus? I’d suggest, just as an idea, early next week?> Go through and reset all of your passwords that are important. Once the worst of the Mercury Mayhem is passed us by? A gentle, and intentional, reset might help.

Gemini: I run across items that make me wonder. Most recently, it was an app called, “Sushi Cook.” My exposure to Sushi isn’t too limited, but I do enjoy most of my redneck friends referring to sushi as bait. Not really an invalid comparison, they do look a lot alike. Can’t say if they taste the same, but I’m not so sure there’s that much difference with the material used. The difference is really just the little wad of rice and piece of seaweed holding the bait, I mean sushi, to the top. Not entirely unlike a certain home-made bass lure I built. So the term “sushi cook” gave me a moment’s pause. I figured it was a joke of some kind, but subsequent investigation, there’s a lot of cooking involved with making sushi; it’s not just sliced up raw fish, akin to bait. The rice has to be prepared just so, the raw fish needs safe handling, and there are some kinds of sushi that is cooked. I think a better title would be “Sushi Prep,” unless the “cook” term was ironic. Might be. Even though Mercury unwinds? There’s still a problem with irony and sarcasm in Gemini land. Tread lightly.