Photo by Carlos Mesa (cc)

It’s snowing in Seattle right now… we’ve gotten about two inches in my neighborhood so far.

When I lived in Miami, winter was about 75 degrees Fahrenheit– I was happy to get used to that kind of cold weather. But occasionally, a frigid Canadian storm front would sag all the way down to us, and the temperature would plummet. I heard more than one person refer to this as “iguana-dropping weather”.

What the hell?

In Florida, iguanas and little lizards lounge around lawns and trees the way people up north are used to seeing chipmunks and squirrels. Apparently, when the temperature drops so rapidly, the iguanas will automatically go into hibernation no matter where they are. If they happen to be in a tree… well, they’re up in a tree, immobile and stiff as a board. If the tree shakes, or if their footing wasn’t so solid, down they go. Wham!

“Don’t park your car under the trees when it’s cold; the iguanas will dent your hood.”

That’s some life wisdom, right there.

Ok, so what’s all this about iguanas?

I picked up the iguana metaphor from Havi, who got it from Karen Lloyd. Iguanas are, basically, Things That Don’t Want To Be Done Yet that persist in hanging around and getting in your way until you stop avoiding them and do something.

One of my iguanas is SYSTEMS. I persist for some reason in thinking that I can carry everything around in my head because I can’t create systems that will handle everything I need to do. The problem with that is, of course, that my poor brain doesn’t maintain lists with 100% accuracy and so things fall through. 80 or even 90% completion isn’t good if you’re part of the 10% of people or stuff that gets un-dealt-with.

This summer I blew it pretty bad with a communication issue- the systems I had didn’t scale as fast as I was taking on work. Now I’m trying to set it right and build a system that will keep that sort of thing from happening again. I’ve also gotten buried in Email Hell and haven’t quite yet figured out a system that works for me, although the new Gmail priority inboxes may give me a fighting chance.

Damage control

I noticed that various chickens came home to roost (I’m so totally mixing metaphors in this post) for a few different iguanas after things started moving direct again on Thursday. And most of them have to do with not releasing work until it’s perfect, or not establishing solid enough communication.

But today it got cold, and snowed, and my iguanas are all going into hibernation and falling out of the metaphorical trees. I feel like I’ve gotten more done today than I have in weeks. So I’m going to continue emailing and calling and systemamizing and moving iguanas while it’s cold. I hope the weather holds.

How are your iguanas holding up?

Photo by Jenny Downing (cc)

Modern Halloween is, at its roots, a stepchild of the pagan holiday of Samhain (pronounced sow-wen).

Samhain used to mark the end of the harvest year, back when everyone had a harvest to tend to in late fall before the weather turned. It was a border post between the “light” half of the year and the “dark”; after today the days in the northern hemisphere will rapidly grow shorter until the winter solstice. It’s an appropriate enough holiday for the time the sun is in Scorpio, when we all more naturally are looking under the surface of things and exploring for truth.

The thinning of the veils

Around this time a phenomenon is described known as “the thinning of the veils”. Because the weather is growing colder and things are expiring—plants, tree leaves, animals that are “harvested” for winter, folks who are not hardy enough for yet another winter—and so the border between our world and the “other” is felt to be more porous at this time.

Peeking through

Neptune is the planet of dreams, illusions, mystery, and imagination. Confusion is Neptunian. So are fog and clouds, and even cinema (shadow images that capture your imagination). Sea voyages and storms are Neptune’s turf. Spirituality, and dreams of what you can do with your life, are tied to Neptune. It is also the planet that rules this thinning of the veils. (Pluto rules a lot of the things you find after you step through them.)

Dreams, meditation, śavāsana, tarot reading, energy work, and any other kind of intuitive practice are all more potent at this time, simply because it’s easier than normal to get where you’re going. Some people experience dreams of passed loved ones or strange things happening around the end of October. Why? It’s easier for everyone to work through those veils right now.

Exploring safely

A lot of people experiment with different intuitive practices around this time of year, partly because society seems to give people a pass on “spooky” things right now, and partly because we can sense, in a way, that this is a good time to try them out.

Like anything else, though, there are ways to be responsible and safe when you’re dipping into the woowoo a little.

Some things, like reading tarot or meditating, don’t require a lot of prep work to practice effectively. But if you’re looking to have some sort of out-of-body experience, contact something or someone, or work with energy, you will want to get yourself in a good place first if you want to have a positive experience!

Getting started

A few recommendations before starting intuitive work:

• Get centered: Calm yourself. Take a minute to sit quietly, focus on your breathing, and set aside your everyday concerns. Don’t worry, they will be there when you’re done; carrying them with you into a practice will only hinder your work, however. Listening to calming music or even working a sudoku or crossword puzzle works for some people.

• Raise your vibration: I’ve been working on a different way to say this because the phrase sort of bothers me, but the concept stands. If you are full of guilt, shame, anger, or other negative emotions, you will tend to have negative experiences and be aware of mostly negative things. If you are able to release those and be more calm, compassionate, and open to possibility, you will tend to have positive experiences and be aware of more positive things. It also “repels” negative energy in some ways. Over time, you can accomplish this through activities like regular meditation, eating better, consuming less caffeine and alcohol, and practicing more compassion toward animals, vegetables, and minerals. In the short term, you can use centering exercises like the ones above.

• Protect yourself: This is up to interpretation what you’re protecting yourself from: a bad experience, mental or emotional distress, or something else. The answer is the same for all these things; you want to very consciously set boundaries for yourself, both in terms of what you will and won’t do (“I will be open to whatever I read, but I will only act in the interest of what is highest and best”) and as a visualization. For this second part, I sometimes imagine myself inside a large, invisible egg. Sometimes the shell is permeable, sometimes it isn’t, depending on what I’m doing. Even if you see this as a flight of fancy and it’s all in your head, it has value because emotional and mental reactions are “just all in your head” as well. You can also picture yourself glowing with your favorite color, or with “white light” the way reiki practitioners describe.

While you’re working

What you do during your exploration will depend on the particular activity you’re trying out (chances are, you’ve already googled something you want to try so I won’t cover everything here). This is where spending even a couple minutes beforehand getting yourself ready really pays off, either in the form of richer readings, better results, or more generally positive experiences.

In general, remember to breathe deeply while you’re working, and to stay grounded as you work by keeping both feet on the floor and sitting upright. Please remember to do this, especially if you’re in a group! I’ve given myself more than one rotten migraine by reading tarot “too hard” for other people and exhausting myself.

Getting resettled

It’s good to make a little routine for yourself after any kind of intuitive work, to “bring you back” to everyday life when you’re done. Making a certain kind of tea, doing a particular yoga pose or two, changing your clothes, or even just stretching are all ways to do this. It helps your subconscious mark the activity as “done” and lets you detach and move on with the rest of your day.

Energy or intuitive work can be intense and build up stale or leftover energy, so it is very important to take a shower or at least wash your hands very well to help shed some of this and reorient yourself in your body. Taking an epsom salt bath is also a highly effective way to help draw out “leftovers” and get recentered in your body.

If you become irritable, emotionally fatigued, or generally feeling out of sorts, soaking in an epsom salt bath is one of the best home remedies to try.

And one more thing…

It doesn’t matter whether you “believe” these things work or not. Even if it’s all in your head, you’re creating an experience for yourself and gaining something from it. So don’t worry too much whether it’s “real”, and spend more time thinking about what you want to experience, and what you’ll get out of it.

Bon voyage!

From the 101 Days of Potential project.

From the 101 Days of Potential project.

Pocket Astrologer calendar

3days3ways.org

From the 101 Days of Potential project.

From the 101 Days of Potential project.

Last week on my birthday I started a new project. I’ve kept it under wraps for a week, but I’m ready to show you my baby now.

Every day, I’m creating a mind map or some kind of visual process. Then I’ll upload it to Flickr, and post it here. I’ll be doing this for the next three months, until January 22, 2011. Jupiter moves into Aries on that day too, but I totally did not plan that. Just got lucky.

I will still be writing regular posts as well, so there will often be two posts a day here instead of one.

You can see the first set here:

I’m really interested in your feedback on this. Let me know what you think! And if you decide to join in, be sure to send me a link so I can see what you’re up to.

Photo by Wonderlane (cc)

Today is my birthday, and I’m spending it roaming around the beach at Golden Gardens here in Seattle.

I’m definitely in a much happier and less eventful transit pattern than I was at this time last year. As I head into some intense work-related transits over the next two years, though, I am making a deliberate decision to spend much more time and energy on self-care and restoration, and on making sure my own physical, emotional, and other needs are being met.

It’s easy for me to get caught up in a workaholic mindset and let everything personal fall to the side, but I know that if I don’t change that habit I will be setting myself up for a world-class case of burnout sometime next year. So my first act during this new year of my life is to attend Rachel Whalley’s new Spirit Walk workshop. Here’s the short version:

Spirit Walk is a one-day workshop held outdoors where I will lead cautious spirit-seekers on a journey into themselves. We will be exploring what *your* physical and internal senses tell you about Spirit, using nature as a guide.

We will spend time with the four elements (Air, Water, Fire, and Earth), and the five senses (taste, touch, sight, sound, and smell) to discover more about your connection with something Greater.

I think it will be interesting. I’m not particularly woo, but I know Rachel and she’s not a purple-robe-wearing woo-master either. So I am confident that it will be full of tasty, useful stuff, and that I will get something out of it that I’m not expecting at all. I expect a tiny adventure, though. I think I will get that part.

So send invisible yay-vibes, please, and I will bring you a full report after I’ve digested whatever interesting experience I have today.

Photo by Greg Ma (cc)

Often, when people find out I’m an astrologer they want to talk about luck. “I have a lot of bad luck; is that in my chart?” or “someone read my chart and told me I have a lucky trine… what’s up with that?”

Luck, my friends, is not something that just spontaneously happens to us, like a sunny day or a pimple. There are two factors involved in “getting lucky”.

The bad news? Yes, some people have more of these two things innately, and are “lucky” people. The good news? These things can be learned and developed. So even if you feel unlucky, you can learn to have better luck.

Sounds crazy, right?

All about luck

There are four categories of “luck”, and they’re based on two factors:

1. Your quantity of opportunities

Lots of Opportunities:

Some people are bombarded with “lucky” moments left and right. Every day something new happens- they meet someone famous and influential in the grocery line, a long-lost uncle leaves them a surprise twenty-thousand dollar inheritance, they get great new job offers even when they’re already working a job many of us would envy. These folks live in a flood of opportunity.

Few Opportunities:

For other people, those moments are few and far between, so they take on more importance. The one time you won a radio contest for a backstage pass to see your favorite band, or that time you found a twenty dollar bill on the sidewalk, is a much bigger deal if that sort of thing doesn’t happen to you very often. People on this end of the spectrum see just a trickle of opportunity.

2. Your ability to maximize those opportunities

Very able:

There are some people who know a pivotal moment when they see it, and act accordingly to make the best use possible. People who are able to capitalize on an opportunity often look at things in a “it’s now or never” way, and generally have prepared themselves beforehand to be able to take advantage of a good situation. So-called “lucky” people tend to do this innately, without thinking much about it. These people often realize opportunities.

Not so able:

Some people are not able to properly take advantage of a situation when it comes to them. This is often for one of two reasons:

• You recognize the good opportunity but don’t act upon it. This can be for various reasons, like not feeling prepared for the situation, feeling insecure or unworthy, not being ready for the good things that will follow, or fear of change.
• You don’t recognize the moment when it happens. In this case you may not realize until later, or not realize at all, that the situation you were in was ripe with potential. Many we don’t see the truth of these moments until we describe them to another person, after the fact.

No one can take advantage of every single opportunity that comes their way; it’s impossible. But your ability to be at least moderately open and ready for unexpected moments is a barometer for your “luck”. People who can’t, or don’t, do not often realize opportunities.

What kind of lucky are you?

These two factors combine in a few different ways, and produce four different categories of so-called luckiness.

1. Those super-lucky bastards we all love to hate

These are the flood of opportunity + often able to realize people. Opportunities come at them like softballs, and they swing at most of them. Basic probability says they will connect with a lot of balls, get in some solid hits, and maybe knock a couple out of the park over time. These are the people that appear to have all their shit together (or sometimes the ones who are doing well in business despite being complete willful morons). It’s a delight, though, when these people happen to be awesome.

Note that this has absolutely nothing to do with them being good or bad people, or deserving of these opportunities or not.

2. Folks who “don’t know a good thing when they see it”

This is the flood of opportunity + not often able to realize crowd. The good things come, they meet cool people, they have a great idea, and then… nothing. They blow it. They get taken advantage of. Then they lick their wounds and move on.

Because they receive a lot of opportunities, they are able to move on to the next one; then maybe a deal goes through, they get a piece of business often enough to stay solvent, or they make the most of a rare situation and do ok. But these folks often put themselves in the category of “unlucky” because so many of their lucky moments go sour, or don’t pan out. It’s hard for them to get much sympathy, though, if others are watching them lose out in the same types of situations over and over again.

3. The self-made men… and women

Over here we have the trickle of opportunity + able to realize people. This is America’s favorite version of luck. From this camp we get rags to riches stories and awesome, bootstrapping role models. These are the kids that grew up hard, met a famous speaker that came to their crummy inner-city school, saw their message (and presence) as a ticket out of the ghetto, and took it. These are the folks who had that “one good idea” that they poured their life savings into, made a killing on it, and never looked back. They are our small-town American Idol winners and cute old retired couples who are able to take a cruise around the world together after clipping coupons for 40 years.

These are the people who are incredibly tenacious about achieving a goal, whatever it is, because they know their opportunities are limited and they don’t want the few they get to slip through their fingers. You tend to respect them, even if they bug you enough to where you wouldn’t want to have a beer with them. They worked hard before and after they got that one lucky break, and everyone loves a hard worker.

4. Those poor sods who never get a break

These are the stereotypically unlucky people, trickle of opportunity + not often able to realize, whose moments are few and far between and who are rarely able to make proper use of them. Sometimes they get a break, and sometimes it’s big, which is more like #3 above. The difference is that their later situations overshadow their previous golden opportunity, or their big break is in a situation that is not sustainable.

On the whole, we love to see these people succeed most of all, even though they tend to be a flash in the pan. The whole Susan Boyle thing was such a sensation because, let’s face it, she didn’t have a whole lot going for her beforehand, by society’s standards. She had a moment, it was huge, but the last a casual observer heard of her was that she went off to a psych clinic after her narrow loss, and many relegated her to the land of flukes, spectacular boom/busts, and one-hit-wonders. In truth, she’s recorded a few albums now and is doing rather well, although she’s gone back to a fairly quiet life and is off the media’s short-attention-span radar. The appearance of failure, by society’s benchmarks of being very famous, attractive, or otherwise magical, can often hide a rather fine success on a personal level.

My point here is that these people are often closer to being #3 folks, even when society would box them into the #4 category.

People who strongly self-identify with the idea of being unlucky will often see themselves in this description because they dodge, miss, or push away those few opportunities that come their way. These people often focus on their regrets and missed opportunities.

Where do you see yourself here?

Getting lucky

So you’re a lucky bastard, or a poor sod, or somewhere in between. Now what? Here are a few things to work on, no matter where you fall along the spectrum, that will help you bring more luck into your life right away.

You get a flood of opportunities + you’re often able to realize them

The biggest thing you may run into here is that you may not be aware that so many opportunities come your way, even though other people might be. When you’re flooded by anything all the time, good or bad, you will become desensitized to it after a while. If you can’t figure out why other people tell you that you live a charmed life, this might be your combo.

• Recognize the good things that come your way. You don’t need to start an Oprah-style gratitude journal, but grab a pen and jot down 5 lucky things that happened to you over the last week. Do this right now. Use a post-it or the back of an old receipt.
• Make some assists. Introduce an influential person you know to a friend you respect. Find someone to mentor, give an interview, or promote someone else’s hard-fought (worthy) cause. Share the love, and it will come back to you a hundred-fold.
• Fuck the naysayers. If other people give you a hard time because you haven’t achieved some arbitrary level of experience or “paid enough dues”, shake it off and keep going. It’s important to be authentic and honest in your work, so don’t skimp on that, but hiding your message because someone has a problem with it doesn’t do anyone any favors.

You get a flood of opportunities + you’re not-so-often able to realize them

You, darling, are almost there. This can be the most frustrating place to be, because it’s hard to be patient with yourself as you learn to work with what comes to you. Work on getting unstuck; it’s the sticky, procrastinating, doubting stuff that is getting in your way. This will not happen all at once, and you shouldn’t get down on yourself for needing time. Chip away at it little by little.

• Identify your roadblocks. Often when you’re not taking advantage of an opportunity, it’s because you know there’s a weak link further down the chain. Didn’t mention your new class to that shop owner? Maybe you haven’t worked out exactly what it’s about. Resisting running that ad or promo piece? Maybe you know, deep down, that you can’t handle more than ten clients right now and you don’t want to turn away work. Your subconscious is smart, even if it’s getting in your way. Find out what it’s trying to protect you from.
• Rewrite history. If you get into repetitive situations, imagine a different outcome. For example, if you find yourself often agreeing to bad business decisions because you don’t want to argue with your financial backers, imagine yourself putting your foot down. Not just telling them off (although that may be cathartic), but really articulating why cutting that corner, or making that particular deal, isn’t in the best interest of your business. It’s not enough to tell yourself “I better not do that again”… you need a different scenario in mind to change that pattern.
• Get an outside opinion. If you are having trouble taking advantage of the opportunities that come your way, your friends—your real friends—will tell you where you’re missing the boat. You may have to get a couple glasses of wine into them before they’ll open up for real, but if you ask for honest feedback a good friend will be able to give it to you.

You get a trickle of opportunities + you’re often able to capitalize

You’re great at seizing opportunities; in fact, you can be a little too good sometimes, grabbing them by the throat and throttling them into submission. Your luck will improve through breadth- when you stay connected to the world you will recognize very small opportunities, not just big ones. Don’t sift out the little moments because you’re so focused on finding that one big one.

• Remember to take breaks. You probably have a tendency to work until you drop. You will do better work, though, if you stop working before you run yourself right into the ground. Try tacking your productivity when you take a break every two or three hours instead of every six; you may surprise yourself.
• Don’t get tunnel vision. Don’t drop every hobby and outside interest to work toward your goal, whatever it is. Drop most if you feel the need, but hang onto at least one completely separate thing. Likewise, achieving your distant goal may not bring you all the happiness you could ever desire. Give yourself benchmarks along the way, so you don’t (get ready for a mixed metaphor) put all your eggs into one pot at the end of the rainbow.
• Stay connected with your friends and loved ones. When you’re doggedly pursuing something, it can be easy and natural to let everything else come afterward. However, make sure that you are keeping yourself accessible to the people in your life who matter to you.

You get a trickle of opportunities + you’re not-so-often able to capitalize

This one is rough, because it’s easy to get discouraged and think nothing will ever change. You can upgrade your luck, though. You are not stuck with this situation, no matter how badly it sucks. One way to do this is to switch to detective mode: search for opportunities, and search for ways to build on them.

• Play to your strengths. There’s something you’re good at. It may be playing video games, or whistling grass blades, walking aimlessly through your neighborhood, or entertaining your grandma’s cat. Find it, and enjoy the hell out of it. Forget monetizing or going pro or taking advantage or whatever, just have a good time.
• Pan for gold. If you’re not seeing many opportunities, it’s time to look for smaller ones. A potential new friend on the Twitters, an exquisite china saucer for $2 in a junk shop, three green lights in a row… these are all lucky events. Luck doesn’t have to be a winning lotto ticket or a raise at work- it comes in small ways too. Find them.
• Sling some hash. You’ve probably heard this before, but a good way to appreciate what you have is by helping out people who have even less than you do. Hit a soup kitchen volunteer meeting, train for a crisis hotline, or donate to a charity. This builds good karma too, and if you’re feeling unlucky getting some good karma in the bank can help turn things around.

You’ve heard the old saw– “luck is where opportunity meets preparation” and all that. You can affect, to some degree, what you see as opportunity. And you can control, in some measure, how you prepare for and respond to opportunity.

So go forth and get lucky. I’d wish you luck, but you don’t really need it!

Photo by Geert Orye (cc)

Yesterday evening I went to an astrology event and ended up reading tarot for the other people at my table. I did a reading for one friend, and even with only a few cards we had a really riveting discussion. It very clearly showed that he had reached the conclusion of the career path he currently has, and whether he stayed in that place or moved on he would need to really head in a new direction to keep growing and to avoid stagnation. He was at a very natural end of this particular path.

“You’re not just changing careers here,” I told him. “You’re changing phases.”

Change is a lot of work. It’s hard even when we want it, even when we’re ready to do it. One of the reasons it’s so hard to choose a new path, and commit to a new stage of growth, is that by definition we’re deciding against doing other things. Holding ourselves back lets us leave the door open on all those other choices just a little longer… just in case. It hurts to shut the door on something we care about, or have invested a lot of ourselves in, even when those things no longer serve us.

So what to do? We don’t want to be paralyzed by the good stuff, but it can still happen. There are a few ways to soften it up a little:

Recognize what you’re moving toward.

This may be a concrete goal, like becoming self-employed, or it may be an ideal you’re working on expressing more fully, like expressing gratitude for things coming into your life. It’s important to know and be able to articulate at least to yourself, what you want- not just what you don’t want to do anymore.

Acknowledge what you’re giving up in the process.

Every conscious choice requires us to choose not to do something else. Even when we are moving toward what we want, we’re still giving up something to do it. Sometimes we’re ambivalent about getting what we’ve worked for, because we’re not letting ourselves mourn the passing of the old things. For example, if you’re moving toward self-employment you will be giving up a steady paycheck, and external structure, a reliable routine, social connections with co-workers, and other things associated with working a “normal” job. Even though you want the flexibility and freedom of working for yourself, these other things are not bad and so it can be hard to choose to give them up. Forcing that ambivalence to stay underground often comes up as resistance and procrastination… sound familiar? I’m still working on this; even being able to name it is a big step.

Give yourself permission to adjust.

Transitions take time. And they always take more time than you want them to. Sometimes part of honoring those things you’re giving up or not-choosing is really mourning them. That takes time too. It’s sad to watch people grit their teeth and tell themselves no dammit, I should be happy because I’m getting what I said I wanted and it’s supposed to feel amazing, even when that’s not always how they’re feeling. It’s ok to be conflicted about the good stuff too.

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I almost titled this post “Mourning Our Former Selves”, but I don’t mean it to be such a negative idea. But all these old pieces, the old relationships, the old pastimes and hard lessons, have been part of you even if they’re not who you are anymore. So be kind to yourself as you move forward, please. There is time and space for all of it, and you’re doing enough right now. If you needed to be doing more you would be doing it. Let everything unfold in its right time.

Photo by Dan Foy (cc)

I’m finally crawling out of my cave now.

This summer’s Creative Initiation adventure has been affecting us all in different areas of life, and for me it involved my husband and I uprooting from Florida for good, and coming back here to the Northwest. After a 4400-mile road trip that got longer as we traveled, we both declare that we are never, ever, moving again (although with Uranus in the 4th I can only hope that’s true).

I continued to appear on my Thursday radio segment while I was traveling, so I have quite a few audio posts for you as well.

We had a grand adventure, to be sure: a tour of Atlanta, some time with my family up north, a great stay in Chicago, national parks, and of course, lots of cornfields. It wreaked havoc on our schedules and our blogs, but we’re settling back into Seattle now and life is getting back on track.

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A lot of people run around like the sky is falling before the few weeks that Mercury turns retrograde, but I’ve always found these three-week periods to be unusually productive. It may be because Mercury is retrograde in my birth chart, so this is one of the few times of the year that the rest of the world is in step with me! I joke that I have a Mercury retrograde vaccine- I’m inoculated against some of the more annoying side effects.

No matter where Mercury falls in your chart, now is the time to go back and revisit old projects, to revise your plans, to reestablish good habits, and to recover a bit from this intense summer we’ve been having. People with Gemini or Virgo in their chart tend to have it a bit rougher during these times, but we’re all affected to some degree.

Mercury is retrograde in the sign of Virgo from August 20, 2010 to September 12, 2010. What areas of your life need attention right now? What old projects and ideas can you resurrect at this time?

Photo by José Luis Mieza (cc)

To be rather than to seem.

I had stopped by Simone’s blog a little earlier and her tagline caught my eye.

This is at the heart of why I’m an astrologer, I think. Astrology, to me, is a tool. We can use it to slip beneath the surface of ourselves, or the appearance of a situation, and discover the truth inside.

Astrology can help discern motivation. If you’re sensitive to nuance, you know that the reason a situation happens in the first place is really important… maybe even more important in the long run than the dramatic moments along the way. Two people can be fine accountants, but when one is driven by a love of beauty and order and the other haunted by a parent that told them they’d better pick a “safe” major, you have two very different people under matching facades.

Lord knows I seem “normal” (whatever normal is), at least until I open my mouth. I went round in circles for years trying to find a way to put a so-called “respectable” face on what I do here… or just leaving it out of conversation altogether. What do I do? Oh, I’m a chef, I’m a web designer, I’m teaching a class (nevermind what sort of class), I’m… yeah. All true answers, but I still felt like a liar.

I have an almost crippling need, sometimes, to put a lot of distance between myself and some of my less-grounded colleagues. But this year was finally the year I started to get over it a little. The amount of effort it took to pull off a double life, at least online, was staggering. And I’m a raging nerd; I spend hours and hours every day online. I get hives if the internet on my phone drops out, for cripes’ sakes.

I like to think I did a pretty good job of it, judging by the number of people I know who were shocked to find out what I “really” do, but eventually it wasn’t worth maintaining the facade.

Who am I trying to appear respectable to, anyway? People who won’t respect me or my work no matter the circumstances, because they’ve already decided what they think about astrology? Or about life, period? I worried about it for a long time. I was terrified that just by saying “I’m an astrologer” when someone asked me what I did, I would somehow end up like Dorothy and those damned shoes, except that I would magically turn into a purple-robe-wearing woo master instead of ending up in Kansas.

Kansas would be preferable, frankly.

And then one day I just said, screw it. People are going to think what they want anyway, and anyone who’s known me long enough to know me at all will just be curious how “the whole horoscope thing” fits into my relentlessly analytical brain. I told my friends that 2010 has been sort of my coming-out party, professionally. No one’s gotten me a fabulously gay cake yet, but a girl can hope.

:::

I started studying astrology earnestly because I was am a science nerd, and my whole high school career was designed to funnel me into being an astronomer (until I decided I loathed college-level physics). I was already a tarot reader, but wait… astrology involved lots of math! I must investigate!

And then some of it was right. Dammit! said my inner scientist. About me, about people I knew… so I tested it a little more. Do these parts work? Yeah, those apply too. So my circle of techniques I was willing to trust slowly widened, as I observed people in my life, asked questions, collected anecdotes. Even now, I only apply techniques when I’ve found them to be both reliable and useful.

Studying my own charts validated that there was a lot going on under the hood, yes. And it’s nice to be able to look at a piece of paper and know that there are reasons I feel crazy sometimes, that I’m not merely a basket case. That there is depth and order and meaning in the way I think and feel, and that those are driven by certain things even when I, or other people, sometimes wonder what’s behind it.

I became a professional astrologer because it’s a privilege to help other people go diving in their psyche, to uncover the reasons and motivations behind their patterns. It’s an honor to bring other people the same kind of validation I find. Not because it’s a shortcut, because it’s not… a chart isn’t a ticket to fame and riches and ease, otherwise every pro astrologer would be retired already. But if you’re at all intrigued by this, if it really piques your curiosity, it’s not because you’re looking for a shortcut; you’re looking for truth. And astrology is a window into every person’s own truth.

So yes, I’m tired of seeming. It’s finally less taxing, and less painful, to just be. Not that I’ve figured it all out… not by a long shot. But things have shifted, and that’s a good place for now. Alana wrote earlier about honoring the season we’re in, and that’s the space I’m in for the moment.

Happy solstice, whatever season you’re in.

Late last night I stumbled upon Bindu Wiles and her lovely site, with a project that instantly fired up my creative juices. The idea is that for 21 days, you practice some kind of yoga for 5 days of each week, and write 800 words a day. How marvelous is that?

I had already written a heavy wordcount yesterday, so even though I’m officially on the bandwagon a day late I’m not feeling icky about it. Neither should you– if you want to join, don’t worry about the date.

And if you’re already doing it, hello!

I’ll either be writing here, or on 750words.com. Hopefully both. And I’m lucky enough to be living in Seattle again, where there are two yoga studios on my block and a third not much farther… but I’m a hermit lately so there’s a good chance it will just be me and a rug or my Shiva Nata DVD on most days.

I’m not even sure what I plan to get out of it. I already write every day now… although I’m terrible at doing any kind of purposeful movement often. But I saw it and thought zomg I have to do this, so here we are. Whee!

Photo by Adrian Boliston (cc)

As I was talking with Keesha the other day during our Uranus in Aries set, it occurred to me that I have a very reflexive reaction to using a lot of regular personal-growth or new-ager talk. When I back away from certain terms, it’s a visceral thing for me… more like, “Yuck! Back off the hippie talk, Shannon!”

I realized, though, that I don’t want you guys to take this the wrong way. Modern astrology is all about personal growth by definition.

Here’s my deal- I want to be real with you. I don’t want to just throw around terms and buzzwords to sound like an expert, and I also feel that so many of the catchphrases in personal growth—”expansion of consciousness” was the phrase that set me off on the radio this week—have been so overused that they’re almost meaningless for a lot of people. I know if I read something that has too much of the fluffy stuff in it, my eyes start to almost slide over the page and it’s hard for me to filter out the good stuff; even when I know it holds a real gem of a concept. So it’s a personal bias. It’s not you, it’s me.

As far as flower power goes, I have nothing against hippies, be they aging, ageless, reincarnated, or otherwise… my own parents married in a park in the early ’70s, wearing crowns of daisies and matching hand-embroidered linen tunics. I dig. I just want to make sure that the truth of all these things doesn’t get dismissed out-of-hand by people who have lost patience with the cult of positive thinking that can be part of the new age worldview. Plus, I have Saturn. I can’t get too Neptuney-woo for long without a hard landing back on earth!

In the wider culture, being connected to spirituality can often be seen as being disconnected from reality, or even just being batshit crazy. And yet, people hunger for truth; look at Eckhart Tolle’s meteoric rise after his appearances on Oprah, or how the west has embraced yoga and eastern teachings in recent years.

How do you talk about truth? Do you try to translate, or figure that the right people will mesh with you anyway? Have you found an entirely different approach?

Photo by col_adamson (cc)

The Time Clock started as an offshoot of Havi Brooks’ nifty weekly check-in ritual, now known as the Friday Chicken, over at The Fluent Self. After years in the kitchen, and because we’re all about the march of time here, my weekly review involves gratuitous photos of clocks and often notes about food. If you want you can join me in the comments, too.

It is an amazing day outside. Like, almost impossibly nice for a day in Seattle that’s not in August. True, I am sitting inside right now anyway, but I’m one of those people that goes to the beach and then sits in the shade so it’s not much different from that. All my windows are open and that counts, right?

But yes, it’s deconstruction time now. In the last few weeks I’ve been pulling all my routines to pieces and looking at what is working and what isn’t. Most parts of my life have ground to a complete halt, but I’ve also gotten more old business taken care of in the last couple weeks than I have in years. Now I’m making a more deliberate effort to start from scratch and add the things that are good (even if I don’t want to do all of them… baby steps) and spend less energy on the things that send me off in the wrong direction.

Hard stuff this week:

Feeling like I need to be EXTREMELY productive.

Especially now that I’m not getting up and going off to a job in the morning. Part of the point of leaving the day job was to give myself some space to recover and rest a bit since I’ve become very depleted in the last few years. But that sets off all my security scariness alarms that are now saying Warning! You must now extract maximum efficiency from all your days or you will end up sleeping in a cardboard box. And not be able to afford internet. Gaah. In the coming week I will definitely be spending some time coloring monsters and working on this one.

Feeling kinda bad about feeling hermity.

I have gone into serious 12th-house retreat mode, which I need, but it leaves me feeling like I’m letting people down. I’m so used to being the rock of stability for folks that it’s extremely uncomfortable to start shamelessly doing things for myself. Mars has just crossed my ascendant which gave my do-stuff-for-myself impulses a boost, but this whole good-boundaries thing is ever a work in progress. At least I’ve reached the point where I can hold them and just feel funny about it, instead of capitulating. Still nerve-wracking though.

Fear of failure.

For a really long time I’ve been avoiding taking my work really seriously, and hiding behind the “I don’t have time to really devote to My Thing because I’m so busy taking care of people and working myself to death” argument. And now fsssst! Gone. Just like that. And I’m left with these wide-open spaces of time that I can now choose to fill with the things I really want to do, and share, and have been kicking down the road for years for just a little longer, until I have time to really do it right. So, now is the time to do them right. It’s terrifying as hell. So many things I want to write, and make, things I think need to exist that don’t exist anywhere yet.

Good stuff this week:

Abundance, baby.

Trust me, I’m nowhere near sleeping on a pile of money at night (I’m not even sleeping on real furniture right now, since my whole house of furniture is still down in Florida and I’m too stubborn to replace anything I own there) but I have definitely felt a shift in my thinking over the past several weeks from that old fear-based routine into… well, the hippies call it a love-based mindset which I will have to use for now, because I can’t think of anything better. I still think the crass Secret/Law of Attraction stuff is a bunch of bunk, but it is nice to go around feeling happy and grateful for things, rather than constantly being tense and worried. A very slow change but steady progress here. Saturn is in the last few degrees of my second house and will be making a more permanent exit soon, so hopefully the mental load will continue to lighten.

Camaraderie, and some intellectual stimulation.

Last night I went to see Mark Dodich give a thoroughly interesting talk on prenatal eclipses at the monthly Washington State Astrological Association meeting. It was great, and I came home with pages of notes and a new tool. I love learning about completely new stuff. He also piqued my interest in esoteric astrology- I don’t think I’ll be incorporating it too heavily here for a while but my brain is happily puzzling over the rulership chart and a couple other facets now. I also got to finally meet a few other great astrologers in person, and I’m really looking forward to NORWAC now.

An avalanche of awesomeness.

So many opportunities have been coming along for me in the past month or two that I feel like I’m running as fast as I can just to keep up with them. It’s scary but amazing. Trying to just roll with it and not worry too much, and so far that strategy is working pretty well.

That’s pretty much my week. What was good for you? What was hard?

Photo by James Cridland (cc)

Listening to the NPR pledge drive pleas over the past week, I kept hearing the local announcers say something that made me think back to Amy Herring’s portrait of Scorpio Seattle.

To make your pledge give us a call at (206)543.9595. Or, if you really don’t want to talk to anyone over the phone right now, you can go online and pledge at KUOW.org.

All week long, there were variations of this. It was woven almost seamlessly in, like they don’t give it a second thought. On one pre-6am appeal:

If it’s so early that you can’t bear to talk to anyone yet, go online to…

and then later on it was

if you’re shy and would rather pledge at your convenience, please visit…

By the end of the week every time I heard this all I could think was “We’re a Scorpio town! Of course we’d rather pledge online than talk to an actual human being sometimes!”

Scorpio is secretive, and sometimes shy, and just has little to no patience for small talk. Scorpio cuts right to the heart of the matter; even when doing the right thing, this is often still the order of the day. What flavor does your town have? Are there little moments that really embody that for you?

Photo by Ghetu Daniel (cc)

The Time Clock started as an offshoot of Havi Brooks’ nifty weekly check-in ritual, now known as the Friday Chicken, over at The Fluent Self. After years in cooking, and because we’re all about the march of time here, my weekly review involves clocks and usually kitchen notes. If you want you can join me in the comments, too.

Back before online journalism and the 24-hour news cycle, the Seattle P-I was a newspaper on real paper that came out in the morning, and the Seattle Times would print a couple times in the afternoon. The last version was the night final printing, and it was the most up-to-date news you could get… hunting down a copy with my dad was a real mercurial treasure hunt. This post is later than I expected, but it’s the up-to-date version of what’s been sloshing around in my brain this week! So off we go.

The good stuff this week:

I’ve been writing at 750 Words every day since the beginning of the month. I really shied away from doing too much free writing on the computer before, but I’ve finally come to the conclusion that I like it because I can type as fast as I think, but I sure as hell can’t write longhand that quickly. I would get distracted in the span of time between having a thought and getting the full thought written out, even. So this is great for the brain dump. I’m terrible at journal writing in any kind of organized way, so this is just the thing for me. There are stats and everything! And badges! Total win.

I may be back in Florida to teach a workshop in May, at my super favorite teaching place. With my super favorite tarot people. Will know more about this on Monday- it was going to happen, then it wasn’t, now it might be on after all.

My woowoo chakra candles were on sale when I went into Whole Paycheck for something, so I got three. Then I wandered into the shop next door and found pretty hand-painted taper candles. It was like a waxy pyromaniac field day.

Today I got the keys to my new office! More on that later.

I have pear and gorgonzola ravioli to make for dinner, and the end of a bottle of Gewürztraminer for a sauce (and to drink, yes). I mean, come on, it has an umlaut in the name. It’s automatically more metal than just a Riesling.

The hard stuff this week:

Bicoastal marriage is hard. Not as hard as bicoastal dating, but still a real drag. This should be over by July, but the glitter has worn off our two-household lifestyle pretty quickly.

I’m in hoarding mode. It’s weird. I want to uncork the weird pent-up stuff and let the happening-things happen, but I’m at a weird plateau right now. Writing pages every day is helping I think, so I hope it will knock loose soon.

How was your week? What was good? What was hard?

Photo by Clever Cupcakes (cc)

This is the final post in a series on choosing a wedding date using astrology. Part 1 covered the general factors taken into consideration, and I detailed the process of selecting a date in Part 2. Today we’ll look at finding the best time of day for an event, using the potential charts as a guide.

We had narrowed the day down to March 21st, a Sunday, with April Elliott Kent’s wedding date guidelines and our own criteria. To choose a time, I began making possible charts with different event times to see what our options were. There are several electional time considerations from an astrological perspective:

• Ruler of 1st  MUST NOT be in hard aspect to ruler of 7th house
• Keep malefics (Mars, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto) out of 7th
• Keep Uranus out of 7th and out of adverse aspect with ruler of 7th, Venus, or planet in 7th.
• Moon in 7th or angular; or, Moon applying to beneficial planet in 7th (avoid Moon in 6/12).
• Keep malefics off angles if at all possible
• Ascendant: no fewer than 3, no more than 27 degrees rising
• Fixed Ascendant is desirable
• Moon good aspect to rulers of 4th and 10th

(source)

We we also hoping for something nice in the first house, to go with our Aries stellium, and something in the ninth since we want to put our energy into traveling and studying more. The logistics of time, luckily, were less critical. We were having a small wedding in Miami Beach, with at least half the guests coming from out of town; whether the ceremony ended up being at 10am or after sundown, the people we were inviting would be there. So to be methodical, I started with the morning. Here’s a 10:15 chart, for a 10am ceremony (click to enlarge):

Well, ok. This chart has Taurus rising, which as a chef I like, and the moon and Saturn are trining an Aquarian midheaven which is nice- we both want to end up self-employed. But Venus is in the twelfth here, Pluto in the eighth ruling the seventh, and Saturn is in the fifth. I’m having a hard enough time deciding what I think about children- I don’t need that decision made for me, thanks. That grand trine also puts Saturn at the point of a kite which is too heavy for my taste… I have one of my own and don’t want another to deal with. Too much bad news in this chart! Moving on.

Let’s try an evening wedding. We want a short ceremony so starting at 6:30pm would give us 6:45 for vows, a nice sunset, and reception by 7:30. Here’s 6:45pm the same day:

Oh… right. The 2010 cardinal t-square business means that a pretty South Beach sunset will give us Saturn rising and Pluto in the fourth. We have composite Pluto in the fourth already, and Uranus in a Pisces-ruled seventh house is already the story of our relationship. Next!

Brunch? Let’s try a 2pm ceremony, we could be eating by 3 (Taurus moon is more concerned about the food than the ceremony time). Here’s a 2:15 chart:

Close! Cancer rising, Venus on the MC, and lots going on in the ninth- Sun/Mercury for cross-cultural bonus points. Capricorn on the descendant is normally something to run away from, but we’ve both gone a few rounds with Saturn on our own and our composite chart has the same placement. However, we now have an empty Saturn-ruled seventh, north node in the sixth, and that Mars is too close to the ascendant for me. A phone call also finds that the restaurant would want us seated by 2pm for (their fabulous, award-winning) Sunday brunch. Maybe a 1pm ceremony?

Too far. We have the node in the seventh now, which I like, but Saturn’s moved into the fourth, moon in the twelfth, Pluto is stalking the descendant, and Uranus sits right on the MC. People think we’re weird enough already, and I will not have any fourth-house problems in this chart.

So here our Libran heroine arrives at the moment of truth- my inner astrologer needs to reconcile a later ceremony time with my inner chef, who is now determined to avail herself of Nemo’s amazing Sunday service being handed over on the proverbial platter. We both want a short ceremony… can we have a 1:30 wedding and have everyone in the restaurant by 2:15? It is a short walk from one to the other. El Pisces says yes: the brunch must go on!

And so astrologers and foodies both win, with our 1:40 chart:

Anything after 1:32 keeps the node in the seventh and the moon out of the twelfth house, Libra now rules the fourth, and Mars and Pluto are both off the axes. Saturn is almost on the IC but is exalted in Libra, and the moon is making an applying trine, so I’m willing to let it go since it rules the seventh from there. Pluto in the sixth seems appropriate, given our composite chart, so that’s a fitting enough work in progress. Damage control is officially done.

The good news is that the travel junkies get a ninth house sun, Jupiter makes a nice big trine to the ascendant, and the sun, Mercury and Venus crowd the MC in almost the same way they do on our composite descendant which is kind of nice. Gemini moon in the eleventh could be a bit too impersonal for other couples, but we both have strong angular moons; no big worries there. On the whole it matches up nicely with our charts. Success!

There is no perfect event date, or time, but we got most of what we wanted:

• Aries, Aries, Aries
• No Mercury, Venus, or Mars retrograde
• Good Mars aspects
• Moon waxing and making nice aspects
• Good final moon aspect (trine Neptune) before going void of course
• The moon rules the 1st and is making a nice aspect to the 7th ruler
• Ascendant is between 3 and 27 degrees of its sign
• 9th house Sun and Jupiter
• Airy moon sextile Mercury on the MC will bolster good communication

And that’s as good as it gets sometimes; early afternoon on a Sunday in South Beach is definitely not the most convenient arrangement for a wedding, and our photographers were aghast at the 1:30pm time (the harsh tropical light! The squinty eyes! So many sunglasses! Are you sure you don’t want a sunset ceremony?) but it worked out. The weather was great, everyone had a good time, and- most importantly of all- the food was excellent.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

Photo by Clever Cupcakes (cc)

Yesterday I talked about my cram session for choosing a date suitable for El Pisces’ and my wedding. A quirky relationship quite naturally leads to an odd date, so I wasn’t too concerned about the ceremony falling outside of the normal Friday-or-Saturday-evening window most couples require… people already think we’re weird and a Wednesday afternoon or Monday morning wedding would just be business as usual.

That being said, no matter where we decided to get married someone’s entire family would have to board a plane, so falling near a weekend would be a bonus. The other, more major consideration, is that we have a pretty tough composite chart and were hoping to use the wedding time to smooth out some of the wrinkles (Libran diplomacy there!) in that.

So here’s my chart, followed by El Pisces (click for larger version):

We have some very classic synastry: each person’s Venus falls in the other’s seventh house, and there are some Sun-Moon-Venus contacts going on there. But our main contacts are oppositions and that inconjunct to my Sun I can never shake. And, of course, that bear of a composite chart:

Don’t get me wrong, that composite Venus in the 7th is quite the good luck charm, and Mercury on the descendant makes good communication an attainable goal, even if we have to talk ourselves blue to figure out what the hell the other person is trying to say. But composite Sun in the sixth is hard (one of the most difficult house placements, in Rob Hand’s writing) and take a look at that fourth house. Saturn/Pluto, and Mars for good measure, at the point of a Sun-Mercury/Mars/ascendant t-square.

So yes, we love each other very much, but t-squares need an outlet. Otherwise, that Mars easily turns us into a Democratic Party-style circular firing squad. And how do you vent the pressure on a t-square? Well, you turn in the direction the apex points: in our case, we need to head up top there, to Aries in the tenth. When we each work harder at doing our own thing our relationship smoothes out considerably.

So, a springtime wedding it is! Specifically, we zoomed in on the span where the sun, Mercury, and Venus would all be lining up in Aries. This was the first rule we stomped on. Normally, Venus in Aries is something to steer away from in wedding charts, but El Pisces has almost zero fire in his chart and I have an overabundance of Libra- we wanted all the Aries we could get. The other reason we went stellium hunting is that I have north node in the twelfth house and he in the first. All my Libra will quite readily drag him back southward, and that’s not good for his first-house independence work, nor all that twelfth-house alone time I need. Again, a dose of Aries could do the trick.

Venus in Aries made a nice trine to Mars in Leo in early March, but that would give us more Pisces, and Mars was still retrograde. We have enough Pisces/12th, thanks, and more than enough Mars problems to boot with my Leo Mars square his Scorpio Mars and that t-square business. So NO MARS RETROGRADE went on the list of requirements also, along with having some lovely Mars aspect in the chart if at all possible. I have Mercury retro in my chart already, so we didn’t need that either. The Sun-Uranus conjunction, another aspect normally avoided for weddings, didn’t concern me much since I have Venus-Uranus, and El Pisces has Uranus in the seventh- that’s just par for the course for us.

This narrowed our range down to the dates between March 20th, when the sun would enter Aries, to March 31st, when Venus would be leaving for Taurus. But near the end of that Venus would be approaching a square to Mars: an aspect we both have in our charts, but still best avoided if possible. The new and improved shopping list, based on April’s tutelage and our special bits here, became:

NO VENUS Rx!

NO MARS Rx!

Good aspect Sun/Moon

Good applying Mars aspect

Moon must NOT be void of course.

Moon MUST have good final aspect before going V.O.C.

Avoid Sun approaching square or opposition to Saturn.

NO MERCURY Rx!

Venus should apply to good aspect, or be applied to by Moon or Mercury. Avoid hard aspects from Venus to malefics. Avoid moon in Aries, Scorpio, or Capricorn.

Good aspect Venus/Mars

Moon waxing (between New Moon and Full Moon) is best, but in my opinion, not as important as a good Moon/Sun aspect.

Good applying Saturn aspect

So we just started at March 20th and worked out from there, drawing charts for Miami. Seattle’s lovely in the spring, at least when it’s not raining every five minutes, but Florida won easily.

Saturday, March 20th- an easy wedding day for logistics, mellow Taurus moon, and the astrological new year as a bonus. Oh, but wait… the sun doesn’t enter Aries until 1:33pm, and the moon is applying to a nice square with Neptune before going void at 3:41. No good until the moon enters Gemini at 8:30pm, which gives us Venus in the seventh, but Sun/Mercury/Uranus in the sixth (wrong), moon in the eighth (wrong), and Saturn in the twelfth (wrong again). No bueno, and we really can’t go much later into the night. Rejected.

Sunday, March 21st- The moon is still waxing in Gemini and doesn’t go void until after midnight on Monday, after a nice Neptune trine, so we’re on solid footing here. Mars is also making both a trine to the Sun and an applying sextile to Saturn which gives us our (high-priority) Mars aspects. We’re at at Sun-Saturn opposition, which I’m not pleased with but is part of the package, along with the Pluto square. Signs of the times, alas. Side benefit is that it’s my grandfather’s birthday, and will give us an anniversary that is usually on the first day of spring. Very nice. This date’s a winner; no need to keep digging.

So that’s how we found our date. Tomorrow I’ll go over how we selected the best time, much to the chagrin of our photographers.

Keep reading with Part 3 – Choosing the Time or go back to Part 1 – Wedding Date Astrology

Photo by DoubleM2 (cc)

In my earlier post on Mars retro, I was a little apprehensive about going about my day-to-day work while Mars was backing up over my ascendant. I have Mars in Leo by birth so I’ve been getting knocked around for the last couple months just due to that, never mind the angle. But, thinking that by now Mars has backed up well into my twelfth house, 15 degrees past my Asc, I should be clear of all those warnings, right? Well, perhaps so, but I got socked from right field nevertheless.

The moon can act as an event trigger as it passes over slower-moving planets and forms angles to parts of a chart; when the moon touches a transiting aspect it forms what is sometimes called a transit trigger, or a triple transit. Diane Lang wrote a post about this same a couple weeks ago that I found and read and then merrily went on about my business.

In my chart the Neptune-Chiron conjunction left over from the detox stellium is neatly opposing my natal first-house Mars in Leo, which has been taking a beating over the retrograde season. It’s been hovering in opposition for a while but has just in the last couple days pulled into exact opposition (within 45′). Transiting Neptune opposite Mars has been a thorn in my side for some time now but this is really the apex of it. Well, yesterday when that moon in Leo hit 26 degrees, touching my moon and opposing that Neptune-Chiron party, less than an hour later I was off to the emergency room for the first time in four years.

(Don’t worry, I didn’t lose anything that won’t grow back.)

But yes, my right hand was in the wrong place at the wrong time when I got distracted (Neptune) and cut the hell out of my finger (Mars), wrapped it up and went back to working (Mars in the 1st house has lots of work to do that no one else can get done), before I had to give up and go to the hospital because it wouldn’t stop bleeding (Chiron much?). The moon trigger was accurate to within the hour, when I went back and pulled the chart.

I’ve come to terms with not getting a lot accomplished until Mars goes direct, and I’m learning to better love my neighbor and not shoot before asking questions and all that crap, and worker’s comp paid for the trip so I’m not out any actual money, but I’m so ready for this Rx period to be over. Are we done yet?