- “I love the not, therefore pursue me not.”
- Shakespeare’s A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream [II.i.188]
Horoscopes by the Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 7.31.2014
The (mighty) Leo: Can’t ever go wrong, sticking to Shakespeare’s Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, even a little later in the summer. So we’re passed the Solstice by a month or more, but this is still a point of “new” that’s happening. I’d like to think it’s the beginning of the new year for Leo. Now.
New year, new start, pick a single direction and go for it.
It’s that simple.
Virgo: Buddy of mine (Virgo fishing buddy) does computer consulting. Virus removal, client training, and his specialty? Hand-holding. I learned a good trick from him, once, about not touching the keyboard and making the client do all the work. Another trick? The blank slate. Get an upgrade, or a new machine, or new, used machine? Erase it all, and start over? Sure. Or even a fresh install from a back-up? The blank slate.
“Dude, what you do, don’t use one of those ‘migration assistants,’ or any other deal, don’t just write over with a back-up, no, what you do is start fresh. Fresh installs — only the stuff you need, or use, you know, use, like, a lot.”
The way it works, this week’s guideline, regrettably, life isn’t as simple as a new computer, but the idea is sound. Take time to just install the very basic, the minimum of what you want or need. Think: just the stuff you use.
- “Here is good horse to hire.”
(Much Ado quote)
Libra: There’s a very “unsettled” energy currently present in Libra. You would think, or I would think, after Mars makes a hasty exit? Things for Libra would settle down. Can’t make that happen fast enough.
“I want patience and I want right now!”
Let me know how that works out, OK?
Things are better, you just have to let this catch up with you, the “better” part.
Scorpio: My favorite tag line for myself? “World famous and unknown in my own hometown.” Which was addressed to Austin, Texas, and at the time, it was too true. As I’ve drifted further south, trying to follow the sun (and fish), I’ve come back to using that line, “World famous and unknown in my own, hometown.”
Mars enters Scorpio this weekend. Start looking, but I think you’ll find that you have the same feeling. Scorpio: world famous and yet, unknown in your own Scorpio neighborhood. If you play with Saturn, you’ll get no where fast, but if you properly engage that Mars energy? Might not get famous, but you can turn that drive into getting some traction about one of the issues you’ve been meaning to address.
Sagittarius: I learned this many years ago, and I observed the effect of a manager “un-learning the lesson,” just the other morning. Early morning walk, I go to a certain brand of coffee shop because, at that hour, it’s the only place that is open. There’s patio furniture to set out. At the old location, the manager used to be tasked with setting out the patio furniture; took a manager ten minutes to do it. Hourly employees would take a whole hour to perform the same task. Ten minutes for a manager, someone who has to hustle. Add an additional 50 minutes for the hourly, plus probably a smoke break, and spurious, unprovoked, and unnecessary running commentary. So the other morning, the manager was standing behind the register and the hourly wage earner was slowly, laboriously, painfully, unloading the patio furniture.
- Tip one: management should always pitch in.
Tip two: this is not a new lesson; it’s in the manual.
Tip three: learn the lesson over again? Seriously?
Capricorn: I wanted to caption this one, and never got a chance. I wanted an image of the sticker, too, and never saw the opportunity. I did catch the phrase, though, and I’ll pass that on to my Capricorn friends for this week’s advice: “Be patient, I’m lowered.” The car, obviously, was a slamming Low Rider, not really of epic proportions, more like a cross between a daily driver and a show car. Nice enough, deserves respect. I’m not dissing the car, or the driver, just admiring the work. Then, I’m also stealing that comment from its bumper sticker and passing that along. “Be patient; I’m lowered,” I think, that’s how it should read. If I recall, again, no image, so I can’t say for sure, but as I recall, this was the other day, the sticker was two lines with no punctuation. However, as I’ve adapted that, I’ve made an effort to follow the rules of grammar, and the punctuation helps with both meaning and message. The delivery. This is the week when you’ll want to tell people to be patient, because, like that car, you’ve had some modifications, and it takes patience to work around what’s been done.
Aquarius: I’m not a musician. Never have been, never will be. I used to get asked a lot, something about being a white male long, curly locks in Austin, the usual comment implied, in one degree or another, that I played guitar. Untrue, but never let the facts interfere with the tale, eh?
So the deal is, I have one musician friend, and his written work is some of the most inspiring material I’ve ever encountered. Brilliant, in a word. As a session musician, he’s much in demand, and as a technician, again, in big demand; his workshops were the stuff of legends. However, this shows my bias, I’ve found some of his written work to be the most enthralling. When my buddy writes about music, making music, playing music, the art and science of his arts and sciences, it’s pure magic, for me. I turn to a musician for inspiration, for advice, for help with understanding something I have no intention of ever participating in myself. Aquarius: try my trick — if you ARE a musician, look to painters. If you’re painter, look to a musician. Or a writer, like myself. Turn to another source for help. Think, Aquarius, think: different media.
Pisces: I’d call it, “Unclear on a cultural issue.” Just my shorthand tag for a situation I observed. She was a thin, quite pretty, young female in a sash and attractive dress with a tiara on her head. Sash read, oversize ribbon to me, it said, “Miss Oklahoma,” something. Her and her handler paused on a city street, and then, a large (plus size) apparent Latin family started snickering, in a low tone, in Spanish.
I can’t answer for the princess from Oklahoma, but the Spanish jeering was amusing to me. Different tastes for different people, and in this example, it was a clear cultural divide.
Me? I’m not biased, as I like them both. The skinny, pale ones, and the voluptuously rounded darker shades. What’s more amusing, about the cultural divide, the way the differences were so easily described along sociological, gender-specific lines. As an outsider, it’s easy to mock both parties. As a Pisces, adopt my “outsider” role, this next couple of days. As Mars enters Scorpio, there’s a moment where you get to see both sides being catty.
Aries: In downtown San Antonio, I became fascinated with the pedestrian “Walk/Don’t Walk” signs — and their audio tracks. At the corner of Market and Commerce, a couple of mornings ago, it was dark, no traffic on the street save for the homeless and the exercise walkers like me, I paused with the red light and admonishment, “Do not cross Commerce.”
Mechanical, probably electrical, and sounds male-like. I pay attention. I looked both ways, despite this being an intersection of two, one-way streets. No vehicular traffic whatsoever. I made my way through the intersection an onto the curb quite safely. Technically, I broke the law. Practically, I did nothing wrong. As an Aries, with this little push from Mars and so forth? The sign reads, “Don’t walk.” The voice box says, “Don’t walk.” Your brain says it’s OK to walk, as long as you’re careful. You can bend the rules this next few days, but check, look both ways, and it helps if there are no witnesses — at all.
Taurus: Which way will you take this? It’s about a decision, it’s about a process, it’s about a time to assess and decide, “Is it time to change this? Or not?” Time to change or not a time to change? Maybe think about it like this, I was fishing, see, and I was using one kind of a lure. Buddy fishing with me? He kept changing baits. Soft bait, hard bait, spinner bait, back to a soft bait with spinner on it, and nothing, all the while, I kept tossing the same lure. It was a sort of like a minnow with a tiny propellor at the end of it, just a tiny ,metallic set of fins that flashed and jiggled in the water. Action, but not too much action. I kept tossing that one lure, and the pictures are on the website someplace, me with a fish. My buddy? Not so much. So when I write about a question for Taurus, “Is it time to change this, or not?” The question is relevant. Sometimes, just changing for the sake of changing? Is that a good idea? Just ask my buddy.
Gemini: One Gemini buddy — categorically — considers himself “under-employed.” He’s good at his job, he just feels like he should be paid more, and because of that feeling, he doesn’t always put his heart in the labors required, which, in turn results in him being paid at scale which is less than what he feel he should be paid. It’s largely cyclical. Goes around and around. Heart-to-heart talk with his boss? Again, we’re back to him being “under-employed.”
As an outside observer, I know what the problem is, he should show that he could do the work — consistently — before he does the drama queen thing, “You try and find someone else who would do this job!” That’s a lot of data about jobs, work, employers, and some basic pop-psychology. Still, the point should be clear, and if it’s not crystal-Gemini-clear? Extra effort along the lines of employment, job, that sort of career stuff? Extra effort will — eventually — be rewarded.
Cancer: Deviate from your routine. Doesn’t have to be a big change, but stray from your established comfort zone. For example, in the summer, like now, I usually stop at one particular coffee shop in the morning. Follow some of my advice, and I know, we’ve used this as an example before, but stray from your routine. Different shop, different location and therefore? A different route. Really, didn’t do much, and during the course of that errant, new (different) route, I was beset with troubling thoughts, all the while, still thinking, “Change is good.” I checked the location thing, and I covered a little less mileage but at a substantially faster rate, increasing the burn rate, and so on.
Doubt I’ll try that route again, and that one coffee stop, it’s not really convenient for me, although, to be honest, the extra-big cup of coffee was well-prepared by a darling Virgo. Not what this is about. It’s about deviating from the standard to explore a new possibility. Need to shake it up. Choose a new direction, or one gets chosen for you.
