- “Our kingdom’s earth should not be soil’d
With that dear blood which hath fostered.”
- Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of King Richard the Second [I.iii.129-30]
Mars starts to un-retrograde, but the pattern is still set.
Horoscopes by the Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 5.15.2014
Taurus: I have several grocery stores I favor. To be honest, the best one is still in South Austin, but that’s because it’s so much more than just a grocery store, as it reflects the local population — the interwoven strata of lives — but that’s a different question. Locally, the mighty Austin chain, now a universal icon, Whole Foods. It’s good enough, and a valuable place to go if I need certain, pricey, all-organic, free-range, no-antibiotic items, cage-free. (Hint: read the labels.)
There’s a derivative of the local grocery chain, sort of an upscale, Whole Foods knock-off, and that’s my favorite place to shop. Then, there’s the plain, local grocery store, and its sidekick, the “Mexican” grocery store. This list goes from most expensive to least expensive and the order I tend to chose is the opposite, as I’ll start at the local “Mexican” grocer first. The produce seems fresher, even if it isn’t rated as “organic,” it probably is. Same stuff, costs less. This is a time to shop around. Where is it least expensive? Pays to shop around. One, last happy Taurus birthday.
Gemini: This week is the set up. This week is the precursor. This week is the start of the start. This week is like a Gemini birthday, only, it’s different. When I looked at the line-up, again, I had to wonder, “Have we seem this before?”
Most years, the week before Gemini starts, Mercury will already be in Gemini, so, most signs get a birthday month that’s 30 days long, and so far, Gemini’s birthday month has already started — sort of — nothing wrong with doubling the allotted time for a birthday month, right?
So here it is. You’ve been celebrating birthday-like energy, Mercury in Gemini, for a week or more. It’s not until this next week that the Sun catches up and it’s “officially” Gemini time. Here’s the trick, you can celebrate, and astrologically aware folks can celebrate, but let’s keep this to ourselves until next week.
Cancer: “My guess was yoga,” I said as a delightful (tall and stately) Cancer woman sat next to me. “So what did you think my sign was?” The more prurient answer would’ve been, “Open,” but that wasn’t my answer. I demurred, with “Yoga.” The yoga girls (girls is a frankly Texas terms, it defines female, usually a woman, and the term is not sexist, so please, don’t start that argument) all have a certain look, healthy, glowing skin, less make-up, clear eyes, straight spine. Just a certain inward peace that’s more obvious, which was why it was my guess. Educated, based on years of observation. As a Moon child with Moon Child influences? Guess. Guess like I did. You’re almost assured of guessing wrong, like I did, but even then, I was left with a conversation opener. There was someplace to take it from there. Even a right wrong guess can move us forward. Give it a shot.
The (mighty) Leo: Lyric came on over the radio. Yes, radio. Weird, I know, but we all have some quirks. I was listening to the radio, and the lick I jotted down? “Tongue-tied and twisted/Just an earth-bound misfit…” It’s about stars, but that one lyrical refrain reminded me of so much more, almost mystical in its interpretation. It’s an oblique Pink Floyd allusion, with transparent imagery that pays homage to a brilliant if troubled musician. “So is my Mercury in Retrograde? Is that what you call it?” No, there’s other explanations, but for the next couple of days, see, as the mighty Leo, you’re tongue-tied and twisted, and you will feel like an earth-bound misfit. Now that you know this is a temporary situation, there’s no need to seek out permanent solutions, not at this moment, not this week, and maybe not next week, either.
“Just sayin’.”
Virgo: Got this one client, master salesman type. Occasionally really down-to-earth type, too. “I can sell cow-shit to cowboys,” he once bragged. It’s true. Usually. These aren’t usual times. Have to be more circumspect. Go around from the side. Not taking this issue head-on. “‘No,’ means it’s time to start working,” another one of my super-salesman’s quotes. I was thinking of him, as he more than one way of persuading. When the direct approach doesn’t work, he comes around the side, comes around the back, comes in from the far left — he uses his special “herding” technique. My buddy has an excellent record with success, due, in part, to my continued assistance with timing, and his understanding of personal dynamics. I want you to succeed this next few days. To be successful? Borrow Mr. Super Salesman’s trick, herding. It’s not so much a matter of saying, “Over here is better,” but saying, “over there isn’t as nice.” Herding, not any kind of direct coercion.
Libra: Given a choice, I’ll cook with lots of garlic. I tend to favor it in just about anything I can make in the kitchen with the exception of desserts, although, there does seem to be some appeal to a chocolate-covered garlic clove dessert. That’s an idea. So the garlic useful as a flavor additive and support spice. It’s also useful as a metaphysical spice, laden with curative and restorative powers, near magical, except there’s some documented evidence that garlic does what’s advertised, along the curing and restoring functions.
However, if there is any kind of close physical contact involved, garlic is contraindicated. Get it? If I want to kiss someone? No garlic in the food. I endeavor to stay free of onions, too, in that setting. So I’m enamored, especially from both a cooking and metaphysical point of view, of onions and garlic, but I’m hesitant to suggest them in Libra food. Comes a point when even mouthwash and breath mints can only do so much. Here’s the deal, as a Libra, there’s a tempting temptation, hence the name, vying for your attention. Not now. That simple, no garlic cloves in tonight’s dinner. Or the rest of this week.
Scorpio: There’s a general sense of “unease” in Scorpio. Rumblings, fears, unconnected material that tries to thread its way into your conscious mind, but you can’t quite get a grip on, material that seems unresolved.
The relative shifting of the Mars position, that’s a lot of what this is about. It’s stirring up dormant memories, as much as anything, all those memories, dreams, lost desires and assorted other mental ephemera, much of that would be better left alone.
Only, as a Scorpio, you can’t leave it alone. Dog with bone, eh?
Sagittarius: My current workspace, frequently viewed on the video portion of the site’s entertainment package, is a man-cave. At least in outward appearance, it looks like man-cave. I have books and not much else. Works well for me. AC blows cold in here, and with a ceiling fan, it gets downright chilly. Good, there’s a lot of computer equipment I like to keep cool. Machines run hot; this place is cool. I was settling in with a tech support issue. Instead of just sitting there, though, client was on the phone, I started to get warm. Hot flash from sugar in my coffee? No, coffee was black, and bitter. Didn’t have any breakfast, so whatever the source of the heat? Maybe just internal fire for a fire sign? I suddenly ripped my shirt off. No problem. I settled in and worked just fine. Back in the years before, in a trailer in South Austin, I would work shirtless. I was younger, thinner, and prettier then.
Still, the subtlest of changes made all the difference. This is not a plea for the ladies to go topless at work, that would be too distracting. This is about a simple adjustment to accommodate an uncharacteristic change. Something simple. I just peeled out of a shirt for a few minutes.
Capricorn: Over the years, I’ve alluded to “Cookbook Astrology,” and my antidote for such, Bare Foot Astrology. My cooking — preparing of food for ingestion — has become the stuff of legends, as I can’t (won’t) follow any recipe exactly. Use them as guidelines rather than hard, cold facts. I was toying with cooking some fish, and I stumbled across a useful inter-web note about cooking fish, “There is no recipe. To make fish crisp, heat in pan with hot oil, and only flip once, after the fish is bronze.”
Or blackened, in my favorite examples, or crisp. Or whatever. I like my seafood rare, when possible, a good tuna, or tuna-like fish? Seared outside and tender, moist inside. This week, I’m using cheap Trader Joe’s olive oil. Last week was cocoanut butter from Costco, sort of depends. Week before that, it was soybean oil and fresh Redfish from the coast, caught that day. The fish were fresh, the soybean oil was leftover grocery goods. The premise is, the fish cooks until done, burnt or seared on one side, then it’s flipped over. Simple. Easy. Not turning and over and over, no mess, and this process results in the crispest, best-tasting fillets I can serve. Turn once. No recipe. As a guideline, Mars unwinding, Sun headed to Gemini? Turn once. No fiddling with it. There is no recipe, just a guideline. Turn once. Flip once.
- (See Pisces, too.)
Aquarius: Statistically, there’s a better than 50% you have an ex-spouse. Last time I bothered to check the real numbers, something like 77% of my (loose knit) client base (group) was married more than once. Which means, if you think about it, there’s an excellent chance you have an ex-wife or an ex-husband floating around out there.
Have to ask yourself, is this a worst-case scenario, or best-case scenario, to run into an ex in the next week? Best-case situation? You’re leaner, meaner, better-looking and happier than before. When that happens, and I’m sure it will, a cool, slightly detached air is best. Be yourself. Leaner, meaner, HAPPIER than ever before. Nothing so annoys the other folks as the good example. Plan on setting that example, as your Aquarius self might otherwise feel “taxed” by such an encounter. What I’m aiming for you to hear?
- “I was fool to let you go.”
(Never mind there was no letting go, you feel like you were shoved out of a moving car, and rolled down the highway’s embankment to land in a ditch with scattered trash. All behind you now. You look better and feel better than before.)
Pisces: My poor, much picked upon Pisces friends, it’s about small frictions. Not big deals, little deals. As a Mercury spins along its orbit, and as Mercury makes his way through Gemini, this is about a small friction. Smallest of frictions. Mars rights himself, but not enough to really count, so I’m back to the Mercury planet thing. The smallest of influences are also the largest of influences. Not long ago, I was sitting in the middle of Corpus Christi Bay, and we had a couple of big Reds (Redfish) in the cooler. A bobber bobbed, and I set a hook and started to real in rather large Sheepshead. I got him in the boat, and started the process of unhooking him and grabbed him wrong. The back spines, the dorsal fin on one of those fellers is just dangerous. My careless grab netted me two tiny pinpricks oozing blood. No one’s fault but my own. Didn’t lose a fish. No permanent damage. My clumsiness resulted in a small friction. Fins’ spines poking me? Not a big deal, not to me. Small friction.
Aries: “Toast or tortillas?” To me, that’s not even a valid question. However, in a tourist-target area, I suppose, it is a common question. Poor, non-natives get served a round piece of flexible flat bread, unaware of how to deal with it — is it a coaster? A flour wrap? So when I was asked, “Toast or tortillas?” I didn’t blink, didn’t react, just agreed tortillas would be fine. I’ve been shoveling breakfast in my mouth with tortillas for almost all of my life. I can’t think of time I didn’t eat TexMex. It’s relatively common fare, and oddly enough, rather well-executed in places I tend to favor.
Here’s the trick to this week’s energy, some damn fool is going to ask you an obvious question. Anyone who knows you, anyone who is familiar with the situation at hand, any damn fool knows, you want tortillas. The little trick? She was a new person. Never seen me before. Unaware that I can speak kitchen Spanish, know her boss, and probably have done readings for a number of her friends. While it should be abundantly clear that I would want the tortillas, she asked me. Feigned indignation, real angst, possibly a growl, or other negative emotion? That doesn’t get any of us anywhere. I politely suggested tortillas, por favor.
