Mercury Retrograde Reminders

Frankly, dear readers, I have been far too blue this month to wish you a happy new year. The world continues to wobble on its Uranus-Pluto square of an axis, with satirical cartooonists being murdered by homegrown terrorists in Paris and more exercises in bloody futility. Ah, but never mind the rest of the world: at home, the U.S. economy is well out of the valley of the shadow of recession. Wall Street is humming. Congress canceled a vote restricting abortion -- for now -- because it managed to piss off their distaff RepubliCON counterparts. Your daddy is rich, your momma's good-looking, they just seem a little weird, surrender, but don't give yourself away. If you aren't recognizing my mashup lyrics, turn to Google and all will become clear as a river whose crystalline quality is due to its complete lack of marine life.

And life seems more fragile than ever. Earlier this month, an acquaintance of mine whom I knew from various parties straight out of a Fellini film failed to regain consciousness from the coma he'd slipped into due to a fall down a flight of stairs prior to the new year. He couldn't have been any older than yours truly -- perhaps even a bit younger. My best friend's friend is dying. Another friend's best friend just had a serious stroke and is in a medically induced coma. All making my first-ever pinched nerve and julienned sanity look like a small order of fries.

Mercury turned Retrograde at 17 degrees of Aquarius on Wednesday 1/21 at 10:54 a.m. BST (Brooklyn Standard Time). It turns Direct at 1 degree of Aquarius three Wednesdays later, 2/11, at 9:57 a.m. Now repeat after me:

Nothing important -- or even not so important -- will be resolved during these three weeks.

If you're worrying even more than usual, or obsessing endlessly over what might've been ("I coulda been a bartendah!"), you're right on schedule. Don't even bother trying to relax. It'll just make you more tense.

Those bad habits you swore off for good on January 1? They've really missed you. They're back for a visit. Depending on the degree of harm these badass visitors bring back into your life, either fall off the wagon with a chocolate-stained smile or check yourself into a rehab clinic immediately.

Nothing will be resolved during these three weeks.

That extremely important binding contract you just signed? Whether it's related to marriage, a job, or a home, it may wind up being not as binding as you had every good reason to think. Oh well, sucks to be you. At least you'll have plenty of company.

If your doctor calls you in to discuss some rather alarming lab results, and you had the bloodwork or whatever done after last Tuesday (1/20), before you panic, demand a retest...preferably after 2/10 if you can wait that long. If you can't, get a second opinion after 2/10. That does not mean that you won't have to go coffin shopping -- just that it shouldn't be your first response.

Has your sibling, neighborhood pal, BFF-who's-like-the-sibling-you-never-had fallen off the planet or something? What will it take for them to respond to your texts/phone calls/emails/smoke signals? What makes this even more annoying is that the shitheel whom you thought you'd gotten rid of for good is now texting or sending bat signals to you. Gross.

If you have a pet, he or she may be regressing or withdrawing without warning or reason, and guess what? You can't reason with Rex or Tigger-Boo, and unless you are a pet whisperer, you won't know what is causing this strange behavior. You can certainly consult a vet, but remember: repeat lab tests apply as much to your fur-babies as they do to yourself.

Chances are good that at least one electronic device you own will spaz out, become infected with malware, or simply break. And the new smartphone/laptop/iWhatever you purchase will have something wrong with it. Even your blender or toaster may start speaking in tongues.

So, you really think you know where you're going, either literally or metaphorically? You don't need a map 'cause you got mad GPS? Call me when you get hopelessly lost in the wrong part of town or forget your own name so that I can laugh my ass off.

You may lose things other than yourself, especially keys, important documents, rings, gloves, and friends. With the exception of that last example, consider duct taping them to your person, or just lock them in a vault till 2/11.

Have I mentioned yet that nothing will be resolved during these three weeks?

On the plus side, this is an excellent time to catch up (aka binge-view) a TV/cable/Netflix show or three...especially if the weather sucks (as it probably will in a good chunk of the U.S. -- after all, it's mid-winter and we've officially wrecked the weather), you come down with a nasty bug or flu (as you might even if you got the flu shot), or you twist your ankle or pinch a nerve to the extent that you're couch-ridden.

Now pour into a cocktail shaker this kooky elixir known as Mercury Retrograde, shake, pour into a tall frosty glass, add a cherry and a little umbrella, and spill it all over your charmingly eccentric outfit before you get to take even one sip.

A Missive to Saturn in Scorpio

Dear Saturn in Scorpio,

This is not an epigraph to you, as much as I wish it were. I realize that your departure is more of a sabbatical than a death, and that we'll all be seeing you again next summer. Yes, between mid-June and mid-September 2015 you will once again remind us that we have some unfinished Scorpionic business to deal with.

Saturn in Scorpio, you are an impressive mo'fo. You are an ancient museum housing top-secret treasures. You have tantric and shamanic abilities. Your structure manifests as the three certainties of life: sex, death, and taxes. You live to control, and are the power behind the throne. You are the shadow government and the underworld. You are capable of unspeakable brutality. And you can be one rabid pitbull when it comes to protecting your fears, your hopes, and, y'know, your feelings. You think vulnerability is for suckahs. For you, no matter what side you're on -- sunny-side up or sunny-side down -- it's easy to be hard. You are certainly not over easy.

I can't say that I'll pine for you for the next six months, since I got pretty damned depressed when you passed over my Moon in the fall of 2013, when you also manifested in my body as recurring UTIs, which made me even more depressed. I have also felt old, fat, and unattractive, and have been gradually losing money -- and I don't mean dropping small change on the floor of my corner bodega at two a.m.

That said, I have to admit that when you passed over my Neptune earlier this month and trined my Mercury, I regained my creative discipline. It had been a pretty dry autumn. So sincerest thanks for that. Your dismount, as it were, has been a beautiful one. And I guess it's not how you start -- it's how you finish.

About that unfinished business next summer -- if I try my hardest to face it with dignity and respect, with an open mind and an open heart, will you consider playing fair?

In the meantime, I look forward to getting into Saturn in an entirely different sign, Sagittarius. The lessons of Saturn in Sagittarius will be very different, involving abstract stuff like philosophy, higher education, the higher mind. I am sure there will be long-distance travel for business, not pleasure. I am sure there will be sibling shit to work through. Saturn in any sign can be a pain in the ass, but in Sagittarius it simply won't wrench my heart, guts, and private parts the way you have, Saturn in Scorpio.

Goodnight and good luck. I'd say "See you next June," but you'll undoubtedly see me first and not play hard to get.

Love and kisses,

T.C.

Enough with This Uranus-Pluto Square, Already!

Being an astrologer, like being or doing anything else that is viewed by most as flaky or downright stupid, can sometimes be a real pain in the ass. This past weekend, being an astrologer was particularly frustrating, since I knew with absolute certainty that with the Uranus-Pluto square bearing down on us for the sixth time since June 2012, the media would bring news of another major-league disaster or three -- and there I was, unable to do a damned thing about it.

I knew that even after the Uranus-Pluto square ended at 1:14 a.m. ET Monday, the Moon in Libra would keep "translating the light" (i.e., strengthen the separating square) till the wee hours of Tuesday (later in the day in Europe, the Middle East, etc.), so that more extremely bad news was to come early this week. The recent rape allegations against Bill Cosby, U.S. protests over police exonerations for killing black men, the published CIA torture scandal (which will quite possibly become the U.S. equivalent of Germany during the 1930s -- not coincidentally the last Uranus-Pluto-square era), and unusually severe storms on the West Coast (plus a tornado in L.A.) were simply not enough to mark Uranus-Pluto Square Number Six. There would surely be more instability, violence, and death.

If ever there was a time when I wished astrology would prove itself to be meaningless bullshit, the past two and a half years have been it. But once again, astrology delivered the goods (or bads, in this case): on Monday, a fatal hostage crisis in a Lindt Chocolate Cafe in Sydney, Australia, courtesy of an Iranian-born Islamic gunman who had been arrested previously for extremist activity, charged with being an accessory to his ex-wife's murder, and was out on bail after being charged with sexual assault. On Tuesday, seven Pakastani Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in Peshawar and, in a siege that lasted for hours, slaughtered at least 145 innocent students and teachers and injured over 100 more, before the last gunman was killed.

Now, no one who "believes" in astrology truly expects astrologers to predict exactly where such large-scale disasters will occur, how exactly they will manifest, and exactly what kind of backups will be needed, much less be some invincible Superman type who can stop the world from spinning on its axis while battling evil in various corners of the globe. I myself think it's unrealistic at the same time I will sit and stew over inevitable Uranus-Pluto calamities. However, it's a thornier issue for me to deal with that in my own little world, where it was best to tread lightly, I could not quite manage that. In the face of continued work-related hit-and-misses as Saturn lingers in the final degree of Scorpio, I could not keep my hands off third-rail issues and come back another day.

Maybe by next March, when the Uranus-Pluto square returns for the seventh time before going on sabbatical for eighty-some-odd years, I will finally have learned to handle this fanatical, unstable, crisis-driven aspect. However, I am lucky that I am still here to fight this square at all; many others over the past two and a half years have died for it, or from it.

It can certainly help if you know which houses the Uranus-Pluto square falls in your own natal chart, so you can confirm what areas of your life have been quite reliably under siege since 2012 (or as far back as 2010 or '11, if you are highly attuned to the square's vibrations). Still, even if you are ultra astrologically conscious, it can remain a challenge for even relatively placid, patient souls to remain calm, cool, and collected. The Uranus-Pluto square can rage against the machine, but it is also the machine.