Break off thy song, and haste thee quick away.
Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice
Hath often still’d my brawling discontent.

Marianna in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure 4.i.7-9

Happy Birthday Capricorn!

Saturn and Sun align this week, but might not be able to see it with a naked eye. What that means? Portends a saturnine flavor to the coming year, for sure.

What the year looks like as tables? Here.

Horoscopes for 12.27.2018

Capricorn

Saturn is hard on 11 signs and one sign that gets the good treatment is Capricorn. No where is that more evident than now. When I was in the bar business, New Years Eve was called “amateur night” — and for good reason. People who had no experience or excuses to drink were playing with forces beyond their ken.

As public service reminder, don’t drink and drive. However, as an over-arching theme, stick with what is safe, tried, and true for Capricorn. This isn’t a time to go and experiment with factors and factions beyond your Capricorn range of experience. Whether this is a party scenario with illusive intoxicants — that your Capricorn self has no experience with — or a giant leap of faith in another arena, doesn’t much matter, that giant step, outside of the Capricorn Safety Zone, simply put?

“Yeah, no.”

While I’m a huge fan of pushing limits and stepping outside of the individual comfort zones, big proponent of that, I’m suggesting — this week, start of the new year — we all stick with what is tried and true. What already works. Whatever the tradition is? Stick with that. It’s quite alright to explore the edges of the comfort zone, but stay well within the Capricorn Safety Zone, as a solid Saturn solution.

Aquarius

With zero scientific evidence weighed against dozens of years of personal experience, it’s hard to say. Way it was explained to me, what I was doing on New Year’s Day, January First, set the tone for the rest of the year. Zero — zilch, nada — hard scientific evidence to support this claim, yet, over the years, the patterns start to emerge.

Several times, New Year celebrations — for me — were marked with January 1st, me sailing off to work, in various locales. I’m not complaining, it was part of a way of life, and one I enjoyed. So January 1 was marked with work — career — activity. Dragging my lazy ass to the airport and board a plane on January 1, always a fun trip. On and off commercial air for years, different story, all about the same. What came to mind was meeting a former lover, one New Year’s Day in Austin, a bright, sunny morning, getting together for coffee, and looking at the new year with hopes and dreams. At the time, my dream was probably to see her naked before the end of the day, and I can’t recall that I was granted that wish. Memory is a fickle beast. The New Years tradition stays with me, though, the single action or steps taken towards a goal, symbolic or otherwise, sets the tone for the rest of the year. Zero scientific fact corroborates this, yet, in a practical sense, it’s easy to see how this is a good time take those steps towards that goal. In some ways of seeing this, the notion of the month is and the idea of the new year starting now is all an artificial construct, yet the tradition persists. Takes steps, Aquarius, take steps towards getting it done. Symbolic steps towards a better new year.

Pisces

With something like more than 20,000 natal charts on hand, trying to locate a specific set of data from a single individual is difficult at times. While that’s just the data I’ve saved in my years at this, there are countless others, astrology charts calculated on phones and tablets, and this belies the number of times I’ve asked a person a birthday and just, “Done the math in my head.”

Do this long enough and it becomes easy. So with that many charts on hand, that’s close to a whole alphabet worth of names with attached birth data, I found that I have to be quick when I face off with my familiar clientele — always got to keep it fresh. One branch of astrology is “horary,” which is about looking at the chart at the moment as the answer to the question. Takes a different kind of expertise, and some folks don’t grasp all the concepts. However, I’ve found this to be an exceptional ice breaker and starting point when a client sits down and I can’t locate the natal chart quickly. As a methodology, it works rather well. Someone sits down with your Pisces self. You cast a chart for the moment, and start with inclinations, aspects, rising, and setting planets. This buys us a little time, and, in all fairness, the material I deliver tends to be astoundingly accurate, but some suggest that there is a confirmation bias. Pisces should, like me, start fast, start quickly, dive in, and use whatever is most expedient while we dig around to find the rest of the files.

Aries

This is a time when the secret is the process. Aries, typically, don’t understand “process,” it is more about specified goal and destination. There is no goal, herein, and that can create a problem. Creates an Aries problem, for sure, as ya’ll tend to wander aimlessly when when there is no definite direction. What the heavens portend, though, is that there is a definite direction, and there will be a stated goal, eventually. In order to arrive at that, though, there is a certain amount of process involved.

Ever build a kit from a box of parts and an exploded diagram view? There were always these instructions that never made any sense, not at first, but it was a matter of building up the base, the foundation, whatever the rest of the model stands on, or under, or beside, the structural framework, that has to go together first. That’s akin to this week’s stuff. Process. There is a process at hand. Have to take this stuff in order, and while some of us — like me — can get by without having to follow all the steps, yeah, Aries, especially this week?

Taurus

One year, one time, the weather was perfect. Bright, sunny South Texas day, as the new year rolled on into town. We were up, barely made out to midnight, and rolled out a few hours later to fish. Start the year out right! Fishing, first day of the new year! Not being much of an amateur party animal, it was easy to exchange the single night’s reverie for an option to fish, starting early. Simple as that. In subsequent years, the onerous weight of girlfriends, obligation, other work, and, of course, non-compliant weather, all conspired to keep this from happening. But that one time, it was great. I still recall the guy at the convenience store, while we grabbed fresh cups of coffee and stale doughnuts for the road, the counter help all blurry-eyed, and maybe not totally sober from the night before. In my defense, that was a great year for fishing, and the pictures were on the site someplace, proof that I started a new year with a fishing trip. I also believed that our early morning optimism annoyed the counter help. Think there were only, like, three boats out at the time. Two trailers in the parking lot before we got there. This is a time, like that fateful morning for me, this is a time for Taurus to get a jump on the new year. Can be as simple as a symbolic fishing trip. But there’s an action required, and your Taurus self is best served getting a jump on it soonest.

Gemini

New Year, new start, and single piece of heartfelt Gemini advice? Don’t take the cheap shot. I know, when someone waves a target in front of you, it’s difficult not to take that quick riposte, that bitter jab, that sarcastic response that just seems funny — to your Gemini self. Other folks, like the intended target? It might sound more hurtful than helpful.

There’s a mean streak imbedded in the comment. That’s the problem; the other people, non-Gemini, hear hurtful. Your Gemini selves hear brilliant, witty, caustic commentary. So, to start the new year well? Single bit of advice?

Don’t take the cheap shot.

It’s not that you’re not witty, urbane, polished, loquacious, or stunningly accurate with that careful crafted commentary, no, it’s that it comes across as a cheap shot. The reply to your Gemini reply? Phrases like, “Dude, not cool,” and “too soon!” Maybe the loudest of punctuations, that roll of the eyes. How can a single gesture make so much noise? I’ll agree that the Gemini commentary was cute and cutting, but I might be the only one who gets it, and everyone else thinks it’s Gemini being unkind. We both know that is not the intention. So, the suggested course of inaction? Don’t take the cheap shot, not this week.

Cancer

A friend of a friend stopped to chat with me, other afternoon. Brief conversation, but I found, about halfway through, I had to clear up some common misconceptions about myself. “If you didn’t hear it from me, didn’t read it in one of my books? Just consider the source of the story, which it probably is, not a fact.” Not an unusual disclaimer, either, not coming from me. However, with the activity in Capricorn, which is opposite Cancer, there is a need for the usual disclaimers and warnings, and then, the best way to see this week? “If you didn’t hear it from me? I cannot accept credit for it.” Hear it, see it, feel it, one of those. Tangible, irrefutable evidence — in hand. Simple as that, dear Moon Children. Tangible, irrefutable proof, in hand, a hard copy, not supposition, or implied (but not stated). Simply put? Evidence, hard proof. I’m really good about taking the slimmest shards of suggestive material and build an ornate structure out of the hints and wisps of an idea that might not even be based in fact. That’s me. However, in this next few days, if the story, the narrative thread that we all start to follow, if someone starts to lead you merrily down path that is surely built from fantasy? Be aware that if you didn’t hear it from me? Then the story might be fiction, pure and simple.

The Leo

Because I lived in a trailer in South Austin, back in the bad, old days, I got used to a certain amount of consumer vigiliance. As an example, the bookshelf space was rather limited, and after having books overflowing the tiny trailer’s cramped quarters, I got to where I wouldn’t buy a stack of books unless I was sure that the books were “keepers.” I have — to this day — maybe three pieces of travel gear that I use despite having a fetish for luggage and whatnot, durable, reusable, and sturdy.

Life-long.

As I’ve expanded, my library itself has expanded, but I’ve managed to hold onto that sense of consumer vigilance, ever watchful about both big — and little — tickets purchases. This kind of discipline is what The majestic Leo requires, next couple of days, especially for The Leo, as there is tendency to acquire unneeded consumer goods. Deal I make with myself, and I hope this helps, I won’t buy a new one unless the old one is worn out and the old one is going to get thrown away, or, at the very least, recycled. Some would interpret this as a sort of self-denial, perhaps an ascetic aesthetic, redolent of my own, monkish ways, but no, this is a form discipline for The Leo. With Saturn and Capricorn, I can get into the details, but ask, before acquiring, “Do I have something I can toss out or recycle, first?”

Virgo

Focused, patient attention pays off. Abrupt, unplanned, impromptu activities do not help. One of the my life-long, best excuses? “It seemed like a great idea,” with the obvious limiting factor included, “at the time.”

What I would like to help prevent is such a mistake on the part of the Virgo slice of the heavens. The alignment between the Sun (in Capricorn) and Saturn (in Capricorn) creates a brief, illusionary sense of strength. The best way through, parties — or not — is to stay focused on that main goal, whatever the Virgo destination is supposed to be, and then, patiently attending whatever needs to be done to move the Virgo from here to there, whatever that stated Virgo goal might be.

Patient, focused steps, and staying on task, between now and the start of the new year, staying on task, on target, on point, on whatever expression works? Pick a word or series of words that’s work, but staying true to the goal is the serious part of this week’s missive to Virgo.

Saturn/Sun — Capricorn — is good, if, and that is the tricky part, if one pays attention to the over-arching destination. “I got side-tracked and it seemed like a good idea at the time?” Wrong answer. Wrong Virgo answer, for me, some might call it a lifestyle choice.

Libra

It’s a time to think about tools. The tools we use to do what it is that we do. Libra tools, as it were. I was tending to a small website issues. Problem. Challenge. Call it what one will, and the tool I would have preferred wasn’t available. I carry the software equivalent of a Leatherman ™ array of tools, mostly simpler bits and pieces, but there’s always a second — and then — third choice for a way to handle the problem, the challenge.

More than one kind of tissue for the issue, as one buddy would say. That Leatherman ™ approach derives from the Swiss Army Knife school of thought, and it’s a handy tool for a quick repair. Not a dedicated implement for prolonged utility, but a quick answer. I was thinking about Libra as I implemented a quick, executed a short software “patch” on a recalcitrant server thing, with the “Not the best tool, but it works well enough” software at hand. Not the most efficient, but it worked. Not the most expedient, but it worked. Maybe not the optimal piece of hardware for the task, but it worked.

Libra is faced with a current situation, and the quickest, shortest, most direct answer, might not be the easiest, but it works. Grab the closest tool and make that work for you.

Scorpio

A really interesting — to me — image captured my attention. Fact it was on the leg of young woman certainly might’ve helped draw my attention. Never can tell what works. There was a clear grizzly bear woven into the imagery. I struggled with the meaning, other than some women I’ve dated used to have grizzly bear side when their children were threatened.

One — more than one now — went by the sobriquet, “Mama Bear.” Got to digging around to find the connection, and I realized it was an artistic riff on the California State animal, the Grizzly Bear, or something like that. It was a spin, a sideways spin, but a spin, nonetheless, on the CA state thing. That’s when I realized the connection. Took awhile, took a cursory search, and took poking around with some image databases to figure out what was connected to what and how. The holiday between the holidays is great time — specifically for Scorpio — to get out and dig around. We’re looking for connections, now, more than ever, and the connections are there, but like a simple tattoo image? It might take a little digging to arrive at the poetic, metaphorical, allegorical understanding required. Doing so will yield the proper results, but it might take a little digging.

Sagittarius

In my own world, I used to get really popular around right around next week. I would have “nothing doing” between Xmas and New Years, then, I would see business accelerate. After being in this business for close to three decades, I’ve trained clients and friends — family — how to react. The problem being, after chasing away so many friends and family, in anticipation of the beginning of the new year crush? Like me, all my little Sagittarius brothers and sisters wind up with a few moments alone. The New Years observation, holiday, and its localized insanity strongly suggests that we all get out and party.

Business, dear prudence, and an innate Sagiuttarius warning system suggests we avoid crowds and crowded places. While I am a huge fan of the middle of the road, as a Sagittarius, we tend to one extreme or the other, and the median average doesn’t work well, not for the way we’re wired. However, noted and observed? That middle of the road, the Sagittarius “median average,” that’s where we should all set our collective Sagittarius sites. In other words? Aim for the middle.