“I’ve heard of your paintings too, well enough. God hath given yourselves one face, and you make yourselves another.”
Hamlet to Ophelia in Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark [III.i.142]
Horoscopes by the Fishing Guide to the Stars starting 2.19.2015
Pisces: There’s an unrequited love theme that runs through Shakespeare’s Hamlet. You know, Hamlet and Ophelia, the courtesan’s daughter. Then, too, Hamlet is a bit of a jerk to her. Guys can be like that, especially young guys. In the historical context, Hamlet was probably only 15 years old. Those crazy Danes, huh?
In Pisces, there’s a very mixed message. In Pisces, Mars and Venus exit, while the Sun gets closer to aligning with your planet, Neptune, which, in turn, leaves everything confused. Mixed messages. Not something a decent Pisces wants on a birthday, but there it is. The theme is mixed messages, and the answer is a definite maybe. As long as you understand that the messages might have two, maybe three or four meanings along several different levels, allegorical, metaphorical, and reality-wise? Grab onto that idea that there might be more than one answer, you’ll be happier. Have a happy birthday, any way, and that’s not a mixed message from me.
Aries: Mars can be your friend, and he’s arriving this week Venus, too, can be your friend and she slinks into your sign, as well. The dynamic duo, headed for an alignment with Uranus. Problem?
It’s like your birthday has arrived, but you’re not due for another month. Is that a problem? Yes. You’re in happy-happy birthday mode, what with the glad tidings brought by Mars and Venus and no one is on the same page with you. No one is up to the same speed you’re on. No one understands. I do, but I’m not everyone. Everyone else is missing the joyful, Aries exuberance. Is that a problem? When one person asks you why you’re so happy today, and you beam an answer, smiling back at the other person, you’re doing good, working in concert with Mars and Venus. However, as you keep encountering these sad, doleful people, like 9 out of every 10? It’s not you, it is them, but you might wonder with odds like that. Here’s the idea: keep the joyful exuberance to yourself. You can share it with me, but I’m the only one. Got that? No, I’m happy for you, This is good It’s just not everyone understand yet.
Taurus: Local place, here in San Antonio, makes some of the best tamales I’ve ever tasted. What’s even better, the corn husk shell? Perfect microwave package. When I’ve commented about the tamales, and what the secret ingredient was? “Love, the secret ingredient is love. And lard.” Nothing says “love” as well as a dollop of lard.
When I microwave these tamales, they “sweat” with an oily sheen. It’s the grease, lard, I suppose, and that’s why those tamales are so good. Probably not good for cholesterol, or a swimsuit diet, but then, as guilty pleasures go, it’s okay, once in awhile. Love, made with love. The tamales are handmade, and as such, they represent a labor-intensive operation. Made with love and lard. There’s a guilty pleasure as a Taurus, that you love. There’s a guilty pleasure, might be delicious tamales from a place in San Antonio, or some similar kind of pleasure of the flesh. I prefer the pork/jalapeño ones, but it varies. One, maybe two, is an okay number. A whole dozen? Not a good idea. Made with love (and lard) — some guilty pleasure, a Taurus favorite, is okay. Not a dozen, just one. Or two. Made with love. Love and lard.
Gemini: Over the years and more so in the last dozen years or so, I’ve started to experiment with cooking. While I’ve always been a tolerably good chili chef, maybe not an award-winning chili cook, but good enough that there were few complaints, I’ve tried to branch out to accommodate stricter dietary regimes. No where in any of the literature did it recommend staying away from various hot sauces. As a gift, last Xmas, I got a selection of “Mexican” hot sauces. A dozen bottles, different shapes, different sizes, different colors; however, the ingredients were all about the same. The flavors varied dramatically, but the main ingredients were tomato, peppers, vinegar, water, spices. At least one of them used habanero for high heat, and one was strictly tomatillo and jalapeño, again, on the warmer side of hot. Still, as a selection, all different shapes, sizes, colors, and flavors. Makes for interesting cooking. I learned to sample before just dumping half a bottle of the stuff on an entree.
With the Sun where it is, and everything else, where it is, there’s a very Gemini tendency to just upend one bottle of hot sauce, and hope for the best. Test. Taste and test, sample. Try before you dump the whole bottle into the mix. Some of those were quite hot; mere mortals (non-Gemini) don’t do well with that much heat.
Cancer: I’ve had several “offices.” Usually, it’s a small office, perhaps a hundred square feet; one was a little larger, one was a little smaller, and for years, my “office” was the “living room” of a trailer in South Austin (before that was cool, I might add.)
So when it comes to decorating an office, I don’t have much to offer. I’ve been on both sides, from hiring an interior designer, to tacking up an old poster of a motorcycle and calling it good. Works both ways. What I was aiming for Cancer, was, see, it’s a good time start something, and renovation of the “Cancer Office” was the idea, only, with Mars and Venus in Aries, that means your taste isn’t so good. In a previous version of my life, we used to have lurid images of nearly naked women tacked up over tool boxes. In a nearly all male environment, that was OK. In these more sensitive and culturally attuned times, the old tool calendars with nearly naked women are probably not the best choice.
So, in this example of what to do, and maybe, what not to do? My old “working in the back of the garage” kind of decorating might not be the most politically correct way to decorate. The challenge facing my Cancer dear, is that you would revert to the old ways of decorating, and that might, in a few weeks, offend some of your clients’ equally delicate sensibilities.
The (mighty) Leo: As a Leo, there are some aspects to your job that you make look easy. “This is so simple a child could do it.” Fine, go get a child and you try it. Snicker, right?
I’ve been known to glance at an astrology chart and start talking. What I saw was Mars and Venus in Aries, making a nice angle to Saturn in Sagittarius, and then, the placement of several heavy objects, we’ve known for a while, Neptune and Saturn moving into a square (tension angle). It might appear to be a casual glance, it might appear that the Leo is doing something that comes easy, so easy, “anyone could do it.” Sure, give that a try. I know what I’m good at. As the mighty and majestic Leo, you know what you’re good at. When someone else suggests that your mighty Leo task is easy, offer to let them try and do it. “You’re welcome to try, if you’d like.” Hand them the reins, the driving wheel, whatever it is, offer to put them in charge. There’s a time to call a bluff? Now.
“That’s hard. You make it look so easy.”
I’ve done this for a long time. I’m good.
You’re Leo. You’re good. If that other person thinks it’s so easy? Ask that person to do it.
“I’ve done this for a long time. I’m good.”
Virgo: As a self-employed person, I can set my own office hours. More than one client has gotten an email from me at three in the AM, local time. “Dude, do you EVER sleep?”
It was intended as humor, but that’s the way we roll around here. Yes, I do sleep, quite a bit. I’m really kind of lazy, but this isn’t about me. This is about Virgo and setting office hours. Schedules are important. I used to say, “Live by the appointment book; die by the appointment book,” but I’m not really comfortable with the second half of the expression. Still, it’s about setting a schedule.
I have semi-regular office hours, myself. I’m not usually available evenings, and weekends, but I do make exceptions, as need be. I can make exceptions, if the work is lucrative enough. Whether you’re self-employed, like me, or maybe you work for “The Man,” or whatever the situation? Here’s the deal: set some hours and stick to them. Open at 8:00 AM, close at 5:00 PM. If some one shows up 5 minutes before closing? Me? I’m not Virgo, I’ll take the work. However, as a Virgo? Maybe stick to the posted hours. It’s about setting a schedule, then? Sticking to what you set. Stick with the agreed upon framework.
Libra: If you ask me, I think every car should be white. I’ve lived in the American Southwest and Texas, which might be part of the Southwest, I’ve lived here for almost all of my life. Lots of sun.
Black is a seriously cool looking color, but totally impractical during the warm months. For me, the warm months are March through November, or roughly three quarters of the year, maybe longer. I’m a fan of the light-colored tints for vehicles. No fancy piping or stripes, nothing like that, although, I’ll admit, I admire the local car culture, no, it’s not for me.
Plain vanilla is what I’d suggest. Looking at the Libra chart and various elements, there’s an idea, a plan, sense of something about to occur. “White, I want a white car.” You get to the dealership, there’s the make and model, and it’s red. Or yellow. Or black with a giant death’s head painted on the hood. With flames painted, emerging from the sides. Anything. Something. I’m just suggesting , if the plan was for a vanilla white car? Stick with the plan. Better yet? Maybe no isn’t the time to make a color selection — at all.
Hashtag “justsayin’”
Although, the grinning skull? That would be kind of cool, no?
Scorpio: It was a Scorpio (female) who taught me about a particular word. Discernment. And it’s me, echoing that word back to the Scorpio.
There’s all kinds of material floating free, and if we look carefully, like a little cartoon thought bubble? Maybe a cartoon-like dialogue box? There’s a set of Scorpio fears, gradually drifting away. The proper use of the good, Scorpio discernment? Figure out what it is that you’re letting go of, figure out what the problems is that is slipping away into the Cosmos, to bother Scorpio no more. Easy enough, right? The problem with the problems is that, as a tenacious and occasionally stubborn type, there’s one problem you don’t, can’t, won’t seem to let it go. That’s what the discernment is all about. Use that fancy, high-dollar word to figure out what it is that is letting itself go, and maybe, you can just let it go. Let is slide. Say good-bye to niggling, bothersome issues.
Sagittarius: Focus outward. Focus on helping one, significant other right now. Focus on something away from the Sagittarius “Oh Woe is Me” Saturn-inspired diatribe and lament.
Can happen with Sagittarius, in the same breath. Angry rant at the odd gods, and doleful cry for all those crimes against Sagittarius that we are suffering at the moment. Get over it. Quickest route to “get over it?” Focus outward. Focus away from ourselves. I live in a place that inspires me with its awe and beauty. From my catalog with its clash of cultures to the natural beauty of untamed landscapes to native structures, and then the towering spires of towns like Austin and Dallas, with the skyline reaching for the heavens? It can be breathtaking. I live in a place that inspires me, and when we get down with Saturn, like now, and wrapped up in our own, Sagittarius, thoughts? Focus outward. Something outside of us.
Capricorn: Uranus and Pluto are in an exact “square” right now. Saturn and Neptune are moving into that, and there’s a pile of little planets in Pisces. Spells uncomfortable change for Capricorn. I’m nothing if not Capricorn compliant, check my rating, and I’m certainly empathetic to the Capricorn Cause.
The Capricorn Cause Change?
Before you attack, and this would probably be a verbal attack more than anything else, but before you unleash a torrent of verbal abuse — from which there is no recovering — before that happens? Give the Cause a Pause. Slow down. Take it easy. Think this one through. With all that Aries Ire and then compounded by Pisces, and punctuated by the ongoing Uranus and Pluto inspired tension?
Wait a minute. If you can’t wait a whole minute, give 30 seconds. 15 seconds, even. We need to let the tempers simmer down before we’re ready to address the Cause. Capricorn Cause. Capricorn Cause for Change.
Aquarius: The only planet left in Aquarius, and other than the Moon, the only real, observable action? Mercury.
“You’re not going to lecture me about Mercury in Retrograde, AGAIN? I’m tired of your rants.”
Nope, not talking about that part of the orbital pattern. What’s I’m suggesting is that Mercury is like the triangular “play” button on the player. Phone, iPod, in-dash music-thing, whatever it is. Computers usually have an audio player, and the “play” button is a universal triangle (looking) thing. Mercury, with Mars and Venus, have hit your “talk-the-talk” button. There are several influences, but let’s just chalk this one up to Mr. Mercury.
The impact of Mercury’s lessons, the way he works, he is trickster. Because Mercury can be a trickster, the Coyote in some native cultures, the Fox in northern European traditions, in the American Northwest, the Raven….
Because Mercury can be a trickster, things are not always as they appear to be. Because they aren’t, or maybe they are? With the trickster pushing the play button, he might try and get you to say something you’d regret.
I watched, one time, as a fishing buddy got himself in a whole lot of trouble with his (wife) because he was busy trying to explain a large purchase, recent big expense. She wasn’t having any of it. Best choice for my buddy? Shut up. There are ways to prove you’re right. Continually talking? Doesn’t always work. Well, it works for me, but I’m not an Aquarius with Mercury leaning on me.
