“I spurn thee like a cur out of my way.”
Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar [III.1.46]
Horoscopes by the Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 3.13
Pisces: Good news, my Pisces friend. Good news, indeed. Mostly good news. Partial good news. Mostly good news. I’d like to think it was all good news, but that’s not going to make it so. However, there is an indication that there should be good news on the immediate horizon. Read the symbols. Good news at work. Good news from the distant family. Good news from the roommate. Good news from everyone but the romantic (Pisces) entanglement. There’s always a catch with me, isn’t there? I’d suggest that there’s either a “rough patch,” or a “hiccup,” or some other term that denotes minor problems in the Pisces romantic arena. Read the symbols. This is a caution, not a solid prognostication. With this caution, though, there’s also the suggestion that there is a way around this problem. Read the symbols. The way around? It’s way around, not cutting through, but as a way around the problem, go around. Read the symbols. As the line goes?
“The universe is speaking loud and clear tonight.”
Aries: You can holler, yell, and blame me, if you want. You can scream, rant, rave, tear your hair out, and blame me for the way the planets are. You can find fault with my fiction, dramatic structure, and more, if you want. Or, we can calmly look at other alternatives.
I’m just the one who reports where the planets are and what that does to Aries. An “unidentified source” is going to slip you some information, someplace in the Aries stream, maybe on a social media site, maybe in an e-mail, or seemingly anonymous text, or even a mysterious voice mail message.
Most electronic messages have a breadcrumb trail. Only on TV do we see messages that are bounced from one server to another in order to be “randomized,” and even then, according to the last TV show I watched, the good guys can always figure out where the message originated. So we know who really sent the message, but you have little, if any recourse. That’s the clue with this “Mars is backwards” time. You have little recourse. Now? Now isn’t the time to plot revenge or try to get even.
Blame me, if you must. It’s not my fault, though, I was just attempting to give you a heads up about this.
Taurus: I was dealing with “lit crit” (the art and science of Literary Criticism); it was some Shakespeare pondering. The take-away point that stuck with me? As I was looking at the Taurus chart, this popped into my head, as a way to illustrate? “Through disguises, we find ourselves.” It was about a different play, not the Julius Caesar I used for this week’s introduction, but the idea does run through the canon of plays. Disguises. Kind of like Halloween, where the costume tells us more about the person than the regular appearance does? More is revealed when we attempt to cover stuff up? This is a mental teaser for Taurus, for the next few days. What’s your disguise and what does that costume choice tell about you? This Mars-thing (Mars Retrograde in Libra) is about your chosen disguise, and what that means.
Gemini: I recall seeing Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar on stage, in London (UK). The clash of armies was depicted as a small contingent of “spear carriers,” facing off, and doing a choreographed dance, of sorts, that represented battle. A staged kind of symbolism that was supposed to invoke the feeling of heated, Roman battle — if not a factual representation.
That battle reminded me of Gemini and what goes on with Mars (god of war) at odds with his orbit. There’s a choreographed dance with the planets, and this Gemini war of wits, you seem to be losing? Stop. You are losing. You’re going to lose a battle this week. Tactical defeat in the short run? That’s all right, not a big thing. Might sting a little, right? Look at how that play turned out?
Cancer: One client, Cancer sun sign, really — desperately — wanted this new job. It was new position in the corporate framework of where she was already working, one of those ideal jobs that only comes along once in a lifetime? “Look at my chart, tell me I’m going to get it?” Half-pleading, half-whining, half-demanding, half-not-good-with-fractions? I looked, but I’ve done this for so long I don’t need to look, Mars, backwards tail-end of Libra, Jupiter, just now inching forward in Cancer? Besides, this was a position, in my opinion, she was more than qualified for, so, from my way of looking at it? No brains involved, will definitely get the position.
Week goes by. Two weeks. I’m suddenly not a welcome person because client never heard back about the job. Calls me up, bitches me out, swears she’ll never rely on me again.
I shrug.
Two weeks after that? I see she’s reading my horoscopes. Two weeks after that?
She got the job. Going to happen, just not on your immediate time-table. Got it?
The (mighty) Leo: Fishing buddy, he has a rocky relationship with this wife. Her name’s Susan. Buddy is a Leo, right? Our joke is that he suffers from “Post Traumatic Susan Disorder.” It’s funny, at least, to us, as an inside joke, it’s funny. He finally got to a place where he realized she was fickle, at best, and no matter what happened, he was going to get yelled at. “But I love her so!” It’s not a relationship that I want, but he’s happy, and that’s all that matters. When he’s not suffering the slings and arrows of wicked sharp tongue. I think he’s a little bit of a masochist as he seems to enjoy the abuse, on at least one level. Without doing a dramatic, psychological profile, it’s easy to see, while it’s not what I want, he’s happy. That couple thrives with the conflict.
It is not our place to judge.
“Shut up! Get back here! Now!”
So with the current patterns in the planets’ movements? Things have been quiet for my buddy. How are they getting along with this influence?
“It’s weird, man, she hasn’t yelled at me once in the last week. I worry that she doesn’t love me anymore.”
Virgo: One of the handiest appliances I’ve ever used, this isn’t a joke, I’m serious, the dishwasher. After a succession of domiciles, ending in a trailer park in South Austin, I forgot what a luxury it was. Leap out of the past, and into the present situation. I can’t say I dirty enough dishes to make it necessary to run the dishwasher every day, or even once a week. But it is a handy device. Luxury, too. Luxurious and handy. Unless, well, there was a certain Virgo included in this one. She would carefully wash the dirty dishes BEFORE placing the — now clean — dishes in the dishwasher. I don’t get this.
Part of it is heritage and upbringing, but I tend to find fault with the over-cleaning Virgo side of the chart rather than heritage and parents. Me? I can blame the stars. Watching that one Virgo wash the dishes before setting them in the dishwasher? I’m reminded of the “Mars is backwards (in Libra)” thing and how that affects the Virgo charts.
As far as advice for the next couple of days? I don’t care if it does make other (non-Virgo) people (me) crazy — continue on with the Virgo mission (even if it makes no damn sense to some of us).
Libra: To fish at the Texas coast with me, you need a fishing license. Then, that license has to have, what we call it? “Salt Water Tag.” This title, “saltwater tag,” goes back to an era when there was an additional tag on the paper fishing license. Peel it off and stick it on. There is no “tag” included, not now. The term is archaic, a left-over image that’s become verbal shorthand, or more appropriately, verbal longhand, to cover a certain situation. All the fishing guides I know require a “saltwater tag” if it’s saltwater fishing.
There is no tag.
The term won’t die, won’t fade away, won’t drift off. We’re stuck with it. This spring, this summer, want to fish with me down at the coast? You’ll need to make sure your license has a saltwater tag on it.
I tried to fight the verbal shorthand, the vernacular, but the expression is so ingrained, at what point, your question, Libra, at what point to give up the fight for better terminology and just go with what everyone understands?
- Cell phone, not even really cellular anymore. And still the name sticks.
Scorpio: “Mining the past” is the secret keyword (phrase) for my Scorpio friends. It’s about digging in, and then, digging deeper on material that you’ve previously covered. Stuff you’ve jotted down and forgotten about. For me, this is easy, I grab a book off the bookshelf, usually a textbook of one sort or another, and flip through the pages, looking at my notes. Most recently, I did this with the epic “Complete Works of Shakespeare,” and I was looking for undergraduate notes about a play. Sometimes useful. Sometimes, not so much. Jogged a memory. The advantage to having several decades of material online is that I can easily plug in a search term and get some hits on my own material, as answers. What I was looking for. Maybe not exactly what I was looking for, but close. Or perhaps an idea that knocks a memory loose and it falls out, to answer that unasked Scorpio question. With the current look of the planet line-up for Scorpio? Mine the past.
Sagittarius: “Old is the new new!” I read it someplace on a website. New news. Fashion statement. Old is the new new. I’ve been around the world a time or two. This isn’t my first rodeo and this isn’t the first time that “old” is the “new new.” Works for me. Works for Sagittarius, too.
There’s time when, not buying into the latest gizmo, tech toy, fashion statement, web page thingy, the latest and greatest isn’t all that important. Instead of “new,” let’s look for “old.” As an author, I detest used book stores because I get no royalty payment from a used bookstore. My book shows up there? I’ve already been paid my royalty for that text. However, as a voracious consumer of written material, I love used bookstores. Good stuff, cheap. Sometimes for pennies on the dollars. Sometimes with notes. Sometimes, too, a chance to see what doesn’t work. Old is the NEW new. Time to explore the “old” in some capacity.
Capricorn: Have to work in unison. There’s a problem you can see it looming up on the Capricorn event horizon, and you know this spells out trouble. Trouble with a capital T. The easiest solution is the enlist a group of comrades to help and join arms. Throw in together. Work as a team. More, though, it’s a matter of working together in a coordinated fashion in order to get from “here” to “there,” or, in other terms, to get this done. Have to work together. The hard part of this solution is finding companion, cohorts, confidants, and other assorted players that you feel comfortable with. At least, find people you think you can trust. Makes it easier for you to work in unison.
Aquarius: “Feature Creep” is a term that covers a number of sins, mostly software sins. Feature Creep, or, as I’ve heard it before, “creeping featurism,” is just a part of our world. This modern world demands more, newer, cooler, doodads, and gimmicks that offer more potential. More connectivity. More something or other.
“I want it with BlueTooth and it needs to connect to my FaveBook! With Twitter, too!” As the ever perspicacious Aquarius soul that you are, do you need the new features? Is this a step forward (for you)? Is this creeping featurism going in a direction you want it to go? Or is this growth and accessories for the sake of growth, and as such, are these really steps forward? Sometimes, simpler is better. This is a time when it’s great idea to pare away at what’s already there instead of giving into “feature creep,” and adding more bells, more whistles, and more things that go “bonk.” Is it really an asset? Or does this turn it all into a giant, cobbled together (Aquarian) mess?
