“Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!”

King Richard in Shakespeare’s Richard III (V.iii.340)

(Hint: doesn’t end well, loses a horse, gets buried in a carpark; vilified, some say unjustly, throughout history.)

Horoscopes for 11-21-2023

• 11/22 Sun enters Sagittarius 9:03 AM
• 11/24 Mars enters Sagittarius 5:15 AM
• 11/26 Moon oppose Mars 1-2° Gemini/Sagittarius
• 11/27 Full Moon Gemini/Sagittarius 4°51’ 4:17 AM

Sagittarius

Couple of months back I signed up for an e-mail list from a book retail giant. In the first week, I got a daily sales e-mail, weekdays, nothing on Saturday or Sunday, but that was too much, for me. I changed the preferences to just once-a-week, and that was OK for a month or so. Because of the variety of my interests, from Science Fiction, Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Thrillers, Crime, True Crime, Mystery, Murder-Mystery, and Classics? Wading through that list of offers was overwhelming. I like $1 bargain books, usually electronic, usually some author’s backlist. But the content to useful data was stultifying low in that one sales list. Not much stuff worthwhile. I did buy a few stinkers, like books that I read the first chapter, and then abandoned the text, and that happens. As Sagittarius starts? The simplest of actions can have the biggest results. Instead of weekly aggravation of looking at the sales? I just unsubscribed from it. Or rather, I just unchecked every preference, so, at a later date? I can still get the list of deals. But for now? Noting’s coming in, and I am not longer aggrieved by the paltry offerings.

Capricorn

I got to ask, “What’s the bottom line?” To add some details, “What’s the lowest we can go on this?” What’s the least that is required, or, as I started? The bottom line? Lot of questions, and for Capricorn, this has to do with value.

Holidays, Full Moon, and so on? More questions than answers, but the central theme spelled out by the passage of the planets is about Capricorn establishing a value on some action, some object. Day job, hobby, real world, fiction, someplace. It’s about establishing a value and assigning it a figure, a number, a quantity. I start with, “What’s my time worth?” I don’t know if this physical or metaphysical, and I suspect it’s a little of both, so there is that. But it is about establishing a value, and getting — setting — that as a quantity. “What’s the bottom line?”

Aquarius

I try to live with as few regrets as possible. I’ve used this analogy before, but it bears repeating, and especially now, with the onslaught of the holiday season, what’s up ahead, and what’s behind us — now. The first suggestion, and as an author this is appalling, but as a reader, this is a great idea: used books bookstores. I have a favorite, but your Aquarius tastes might vary from mine. I found an astrological reference, a copy of book that I used to learn about astrology, many years distant, part of my foundation, and this one text, new, updated, had been marked up by a student. There were dogeared pages, underlines in a variety of color schemes, and even some of those page post-it notes, all still in place, and everything seemed to be keyed to certain colors. I passed on the book, and went back a few days later, thinking it might be good to dissect the analysis then pass the text along to a client — my regret? It was already sold. Used books are terrible mishmash of condition, quality, and content. Some good, some rare, some rarely read because it’s not that good. This week is browsing in a used bookstore, and you might not know what it is you’re looking for — until you see it. No regrets, either.

Pisces

Mars and Saturn get cross-wise with each other. It’s not a long-lasting influence, but it is a source of Pisces discomfort. Bad? Hardly. More like a hot sauce, in particular, I’m thinking about this one seedy BBQ dive, had the best sauce. The first problem? Meat was so good, it didn’t require the sauce, and the second problem? The name of the sauce itself was a take-off from a metal band’s album cover, and that band was known to be litigious. Finally, though, the sauce was piquant with a ghost-pepper heat hidden in the velvety folds of flavor. “This stuff is good,” first bite, “little hot, but really good, second bite, and the third bite, with an extra dollop of that sauce? Sweat. For me, it was piquant, for one of my buddies? It was too hot, and he was asking for milk, beer, water — anything to cool the burn. “Kind of sneaks up on you, don’t it?” I warned him. I’m warning gentle Pisces, too, take this slow, test before jumping in wholeheartedly.

Aries

I cornered another astrology author and pestered him to give me a single title, an astrological reference that he would turn to, every time. Last ditch, go-to, best, most thoughtful, whatever. He suggested a particular title, after much back and forth, and his answer was good. In a similar vein, for Aries, looking at the way these stars play out over the next few days? It’s not a single text, but two (Full Moon is in Gemini, sign of the twins).

Someplace, I tried to get an image grab of my earliest versions of these texts, slim, paperback editions that are dogeared and tattered. At various points, one or the other copy of these texts rode around in my pack or travel gear, and have been “around the world” (metaphorically). Two books, or rather, two texts — think I’ve got a free digital copy here someplace — that have the information Aries needs. Because Aries can be a broad topic, I won’t pick one, or the other, book for you. I’ll just suggest, it’s one of them. Dig in, or better yet, let your fingers cruise along until you hit something that resonates.

• Zen Flesh Zen Bones
• Meditations
• pursuant to terms in the fineprint

Taurus

The relative motions of Mars and the Sun, moving into Sagittarius, signal a collective sigh, maybe a moan, from Taurus. Better because there is less astrological pressure. Worse, and that little moan? The collected holiday pressure plus a full moon makes this better and worse at the same time. I have a long-standing suggestion that we do as much as we can, but when we’re done, out of energy, or run out motivation?

Stop.

“I can’t anymore” is the simplest expression I’ve heard. Described what happens in this week’s Taurus with the motion of Mars, the Sun, the Moon, and so forth. Might be time to take a nap. Kind of an over-simplified suggestion, but even a ten minutes in a meditative state will help immeasurably, with clarity, renewed focus, and more energy.”But I can’t!” Which means you should.

Gemini

There are days when it just feels like all the odds are against you. There’s a single Gemini that I know and she won’t be feeling this, but the rest? Just feels like we’re trying to roll a giant rock up a hill while a big bird is pecking away at our back. Not a comfortable position. Look: holidays and all? That means family, friends, relatives, and traveling, plus the omnipresent crush of the following season? Xmas is only a few weeks away? While the odds are not really against your good, Gemini selves, it will feel that way until the rest of this crap gets caught up with the Sagittarius Sun, and that’s not this week. Instead of running, and trying to push that rock up the hill? I’d suggest that dear Gemini take a much-needed, and well-deserved, break. Let someone else, some other sign, let them push that rock. Let them push that rock up the hill.

Cancer

For some reason the backdoor on the place I was staying? The doorknob, not the lock, just the doorknob itself, it came loose. The first time? I avoided any maintenance until the doorknob fell off. But now? I’m older, and wiser. Not like I learned this the easy way, but what I found? A simple twist of a screwdriver, from the inside, fixed everything. So now, I watch it, and as it starts to loosen up a little? All I’ll do is fish a small screwdriver out of my pen caddy, give the handle’s set screw a few turns, and it’s all fixed for a while.

I realize this is merely delaying an inevitable repair, but it works. A tad bit of preventive maintenance works wonders. Takes less than a minute, and that includes fetching the proper tool, effecting a repair, and return the tools from where they came. Less than a minute and over the upcoming holidays, no one in my family will rip the doorknob off its frame. Cancer, Moon Children? A few seconds of preventive maintenance solves a whole world of problems for yourself, before we arrive at the holidays.

The Leo

Speaking, as the silly Sagittarius that I am? In that respect? The nascent Sagittarius silly season is upon us, and while I have many grand Leo friends? There’s a kind of cautiously bemused attitude that works best when face-to-face with the start of this silliness. A proper sense of the absurd helps, but that’s a little too thin for decent Leo folks. One, I think I know one who will look upon this and agree about that absurdity, but the rest of the wonderful Leo corner of the sky? Don’t take us so serious. Matter of fact, don’t take any of this too serious. While it is serious business, it’s not something that you can afford to take too personal. The mix of Sagittarius and Scorpio, with a layering of lunation just makes this easier to stomach if you can adopt a “Well, we’ll just see…” attitude. In other words? The Sagittarius flavors intend well, just lack a decent Leo follow-through.

Virgo

There’s a very cyclical nature to the turn of events. Wish I could stop some of the Virgo cycles from being recurrent nightmares, but alas, I’m not so gifted. What I can point out is the very circuitous and roundabout nature of this, and how it’s all back. Again.

“Not again?”

Why make me the heavy? But yes, there’s a message that keeps popping under the Virgo consciousness, like an echo, or distant piece of print that’s too hard to read so far away. Ghost signs are another favorite, and when I lived downtown, it was fun to see the old buildings with antiquated marketing messages in faded paint, like “Dr. Pepper, 5¢.” That’s the hint, the echo, the recurrent thematic elements as the Sun begins its traverse of the Sagittarius slice of the heavens. For vestal Virgo? The brash, rash, and occasionally explosive Sagittarius stuff doesn’t work, and it brings up those distant echos.

Sagittarius to Virgo? Please be kind, we intend no harm.

Libra

Saturday morning, early November, and the sun had yet to climb in the Scorpio sky. A person, insert generic Anglo-sounding name, called my private line. That person purported to be from a banking institution. He left a generic, name, number, and “call me back message.” I thought about it. Probably sales, might be a scam, could be bad actors, but in likelihood, just sales pitch for a product or service that I don’t need and won’t buy.

I called the number, and started to climb the phone tree. “Press one to connect to the various departments, press nine for Spanish,” and we’re all familiar with the way this works. I had in wireless earbuds, so my hands were free, and I wandered around the kitchen while playing with the phone call until it got to the point where personal information was involved. Yeah, not doing that. Climbing the phone tree is a major pain the backside, and I don’t have anything kind to say about that company, products, or whatever. But rather than be annoyed, I burned up some of their time while I played with their systems. Takes patience, a special Libra calm, and certain attitude to make that work. This week? Follow in my footsteps, and be prepared to deal with climbing the phone tree, preferably with a hot beverage in hand, to soothe the rankled nerves.

That, and? Don’t put give up any personal information.

Scorpio

We all have weaknesses. I’m man enough, let’s amend that to “person enough,” to admit to my foibles. Despite a shelf full of half-used, under-used, or totally devoured grammar books? I still get excited when a book sale list includes includes new, under-used, or over-looked grammar guides. My style guides go back as far as the last few university visits, and the one grammar book predates all of that.

The operative question as an online listing for a “new” (old) grammar guide popped up the other day. My heart raced. I got excited. I read the blurb with glowing anticipation, thinking, all the while, “Do I really need another reference manual I won’t use, after a few days?”

We all know the answer, the correct answer, to that question. If not, and since I’m so very fond of Scorpio? The correct answer is “No,” and the longer version of that? “No, we don’t need anymore tools that we won’t use, despite what advertising, marketing, and internal desires might claim.”