Monday, November 28, 2005

Now, that's how it's done.

Sometimes, the Sun in aspect to Uranus (such as today's square) acts like a truth serum - especially with the Sun in ethical Sagittarius. Case in point: Scandal-plagued San Diego Congressman Duke Cunningham resigned today - with honor and grace - from the House of Representatives.

It's a first step. First, get them to resign with honor. Then someday - dare we hope? - get them to serve with honor.

Saturday, November 26, 2005

Thankful...

For this. I'm going to stock up on canned pumpkin so I can make this on a fairly regular basis in the coming year. Because oh.my.God.

Thanksgiving was cool. We schlepped to the high desert as usual to share an excessive feast with my siblings. This year, for the first time ever, we celebrated on Wednesday, Thanksgiving Eve, so my sister and her family could visit her in-laws on Thursday. We weren't sure how we'd feel about it - Thanksgiving has always been sacred to my sister and me, enshrined in complex, precise, and non-negotiable ritual - but celebrating a day early ended up being completely fine. Other than getting stuck in horrible traffic coming home to San Diego on Thanksgiving Day, the trip was a complete success - nice weather, great food, a complete avoidance of political conversation.

Plus I came back with this little gem, courtesy of my brother. I think I saw Evil Dead back in 1983 or something, against my will (I sang in a band with a bunch of horror movie freaks and they made me sit down and watch it), and actually enjoyed it, but that's not why I asked to borrow the book. I'm just a sucker for amusing books about the behind-the-scenes world of moviemaking, and Campbell is a pretty funny guy who's had a singularly strange career. Good fun.

Now that the hideous Santa Ana winds have died down and Thanksgiving is behind us, it finally feels like fall (with only a few weeks to go before the winter solstice). The nippy weather is invigorating, and last night we enjoyed our fireplace for the first time this season. But these shorter days... oy. It's getting dark by 4:45 pm, and this is San Diego, latitude 33 north; in Scotland it must start getting dark at, what, noon or something? By 7:00 I'm ready to hit the hay. It's pathetic. My 94-year-old neighbor stays up later than I do.

The skies are changing as well. The Sun has sneaked into cheerful Sagittarius (although it probably has a few surprises in store for us on Monday, when it squares Uranus), and Saturn has gone into retrograde remission for awhile. Mars and Mercury are still retrograde, but not for much longer. The isometric tension of the current transiting fixed-sign configuration (Mars, Saturn, Neptune), which came to a head with the Sun moving through Scorpio, is beginning to feel a little less like a pressure cooker, a little more like a popcorn popper: hot, but effervescent. A bit of a relief, I must say. Enjoy - and be thankful.

Monday, November 14, 2005

Drive, she said.

The lovely Ethereal Girl has posted a wonderful essay on her personal blog, Amethyst. Girlfriend nails that itchy, melancholy, "put me on the road to anywhere, pronto" mid-life angst. The feeling that it's too late to have the life that you want, and that if you had it to do all over again, you probably wouldn't do it any better.
Fear. Of failure. Of success. Fear. Of feeling. Of longing. In my head, it reverberates a foolish unbidden mantra: Just drive. But I won't. I won't because anywhere I go, I'll arrive with myself and the nagging longing and the unanswered questions and the half-over life in tow. And I can drive around the world a million times over and never be rid of it. If I can't accept the path of least resistance and I can't bear to drive right over the cliff of uncertainty then I'd better find a path that leads somewhere deep inside to the heart of this matter and turn shape this wanderlust and unanswered longing into something that will bring me purpose and peace.

Full Moon: The Tao of Taurus

In honor of tomorrow evening's Full Moon in Taurus, I've posted a new article titled "The Tao of Taurus" at my website:
It seems whichever way we turn we meet resistance, and the impulse is to dig in our heels and then charge, full speed, at the brick wall in our path. But with Mars moving backwards, the forceful approach is not working. The harder we push forward, the more resistance we encounter, and the angrier and more frustrated we become. So why not follow the Tao of Taurus, the cow standing in the pasture, mooing contentedly? Why not just let things be for awhile?...


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Thursday, November 03, 2005

Sun + Mars + Saturn = Compound Agony.

The agonizing pressure you've been feeling over the past couple of days has been the two-pronged attack of Mars retrograde approaching an opposition to the Sun, while the Sun ramped up to a conjunction with Saturn. Sun + Mars + Saturn = Compound Agony.

Poor Spike took the biggest hit in our household, although lord knows it's been no picnic for me or Jonny. On Tuesday morning, Spike suddenly and unceremoniously hurled, and for the rest of the day he was Not Himself - listless, pooped out. Since I wasn't feeling so great myself that day, I didn't dwell on the change in his mood until later that evening, when he would normally have been nagging me to play catch with him. Instead, he moped around on the couch, his eyes slitty and watchful.

When he hadn't snapped out of it the next morning, I hustled him off to the vet, who examined Spike and proclaimed him magnificent and, from the looks of things, generally healthy. However, the youngster has a history of unmentionable gastro-intestinal problems, and I had my suspicions. Tests are being done, and meanwhile we're charged with giving him medicine to treat the likely malady.

However, we were given these medications in the not-handy-for-cat-owners pill version. I've been dosing cats for this and that since 1989, and never have I been charged with administering anything in non-liquid form. It looked easy enough when the vet gave Spike his first pill, so I didn't give it much thought. People did this kind of thing every day, I reasoned; we are capable, intelligent people; surely we could manage.

Despite a battle of wills that continued late into the evening and sorely taxed the serenity of our happy home, Spikey won in the end and went to bed dopeless. This morning I got the best of him by hiding crushed up pills into a pliable, if stinky cat treat and tricking him into eating it. But he was not pleased, and with the memory of last night's defeat fresh in my mind I did a little research.

Now, I'm waiting for a call from the vet to say our prescription is ready to be picked up and taken to something called a compounding pharmacy, which will transform the distasteful medication into a lucious, liquid delivery system that is sure to delight Spike - or, at the very least, be easy to slip down his unsuspecting hatch in a big hurry.

It's all worth it. By this morning he was already bouncing back, eating with enthusiasm, showing interest in his toys, and fending off attacks from his sorely neglected sister. Perhaps he would have improved on his own without any medication at all, but I'm not taking any chances. To the mysterious-sounding compounding pharmacy I will go. Maybe they'll have something there for me - I'm not bouncing back from the ordeal quite as quickly as Spike.

Wednesday, November 02, 2005

It's ON.


Yesterday's New Moon at 9 Scorpio made a tight square to Saturn at 10 Leo. On Monday, a desperate Bush declared all-out warfare on Americans who are slightly to the left of Genghis Khan with his appointment of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid returned fire by forcing a closed session discussion of the lack of investigation into the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. His surprise move left Majority Leader Frist visibly shaken. Oh, it's on, alright.

Reid was born December 2, 1939 in Searchlight, Nevada, with his Sagittarius Sun in tight square with Mars in Pisces - the classic aspect of a fighter. In fact, Reid did some boxing in high school. He also has a bit of a reputation for bluntness (as befits a Sag); last May, Reid notoriously described GWB as a "loser." Appropriately for the leader of the "loyal opposition," Reid's chart features a Sun opposed the U.S.(Sibley) Mars, a Moon that is likely opposed the U.S. Moon (I don't have his time of birth), Uranus square the U.S. Mars (surprise attack!), Venus opposed U.S. Venus. Asteroid Reid (3422) sits today at 16 Aries - opposed the U.S. Saturn.

Yet tellingly, there is at least one striking conjunction between Harry Reid's birth chart and that of the U.S. - Neptune, which is at 22 Virgo in the U.S. chart and at 25 Virgo in Reid's. The highest ideals of the United States are best represented by people like Reid, men and women who know that good intentions will only get you so far... then you've got to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

Photo and caption idea from Daily Kos.