When The Universe Conspires to Assist You

2009 is a strange year.  If you planet-watch at all, either as an astronomer or astrologer, you may already know that Mercury, that planet that rules communication, transportation, thinking and perception, processing and disseminating information, commerce, and education, goes retrograde several times in a calendar year.

What’s that mean, you ask?

A planet is described as retrograde when it appears to be moving backwards through the zodiac. According to modern science, this traditional concept arises in the illusory planetary motion created by the orbital rotation of the earth with relation to other planets in our solar system. Planets are never actually retrograde or stationary, they just seem that way due to this cosmic shadow-play.

As a rule, retrograde planets mark a period of seemingly inevitable or fated events that relate to their sphere of influence. Unresolved issues from the past tend to rear their heads. Retro phases present us with a series of events over which we seem to have little or no conscious control, relating especially to the sign in which the retrogradation occurs. For example, Mercury retrograde in Libra (relationships; tastes; harmony) awakens quite different sets of circumstances from those generated when he retrogrades into Virgo (analysis; critical ability).  When Mercury begins to go retrograde, there’s a thing called the “shadow,” which we fall under the influence of up to two weeks before and after the cosmic event.

Retrograde periods are good times to delve within and chart an inner course of action for your life.  Many times, one feels the need to retreat anyway because of the chaotic influences of Mercury retrograde.

I always know when Merc’s going backward, because I tend to drop things all the time, or trip, or stub my toes.  All that began about a week ago, alerting me that Merc was headed in reverse, which actually took place today.

The wonderful benefits of this event is that, at least for me, my writing flourishes.  By the end of the long weekend, I will have written 50 new pages in my work-in-progress, Plummet. Creativity tends to double or triple during this period.  Of course, there are frustrations, too.  Like relationships tend to get tougher to maintain.  Small things seem to conspire to make you late, or trip you up, or run amok.  It’s also not a good idea to sign contracts or agreements during these periods.

And why 2009 is strange, is that Mercury will have gone retrograde FOUR times in the calendar year.  That’s quite unusual.  But I’m making the best of it, certainly.  Which isn’t always possible.

If Today Is Your Birthday: June 15

The Year Ahead

Forecast for June 2008 to June 2009

With the Sun conjunct Venus, and both bodies in harmonious aspect to Chiron and Neptune, socializing, healing, imagination, and creativity are enhanced and in focus this year. Love, friendship, relationships, and social life are emphasized. You are creative, and you succeed in areas that allow you to make something beautiful, attractive, or entertaining. You are also especially romantic this year, and your happiness in romantic relationships is a large determinant of your overall happiness. You may fall in love, meet a future partner, or take a relationship to a new level under this influence. Your charm, tact, and attractiveness are in the spotlight. Any artistic or musical talent you have is more prominent this year.

Something big is in the works regarding your love life. You’ll have a chance to heal old wounds with regards to love this year. You’re also bound to find new ways of making money. You are recognized for your more unique qualities. Your personal magnetism runs quite high. You have the chance to improve your relationships with others–and with yourself! A humbly confident approach to life earns you respect. Opportunities—both personal and professional—are likely to present themselves as a result. You are not looking for credit for what you do, which frees you up to get it anyhow! Teaching others may be part of the picture, informally or formally.

With the Sun trine the North Node of the Moon, you are likely to form new relationships or connections that further your spiritual growth, or to enhance existing relationships with a spirit of camaraderie. People in authority regard you favorably. Events take place in which you feel like you are moving forward and growing into a new phase of your life.

The Sun and Venus are also square Uranus. Some disruptions in your friendships and attachments are possible this year. Unusual attractions (to people and things) can have you acting on a whim. You may deal with freedom versus closeness issues in your relationships. It may be that you experience sudden changes or breakups with a friend or lover. However, the chance of a sudden new friendship is just as likely. At the root of this is a stronger taste for the unusual. What is familiar is less exciting to you than what is new and different. If a relationship seems to threaten your sense of freedom, you may have an easy time separating from it. Some fireworks in both your social and financial lives are to be expected, keeping things fresh and exciting. The best way to handle this energy is to open yourself up to the need for change in your love life or with regards to how you spend and make money–or both. Get in touch with this need for new experiences and/or attitudes so that changes are not forced upon you. Your creativity is stimulated this year, but so is your excitability and your need for freedom. You are likely to be more outspoken than usual, perhaps even rebellious.

Interesting synchronicities occur this year that make you feel like matters are “meant to be”. You are often in the right place at the right time, for example. You are more imaginative and attuned to the world of beauty and romance this year. Gentleness with others is the best way to harness this energy and to attract what you want into your life. There could be truly “magical” times on a romantic and social level. Benefits come through paying attention to your dreams and intuitions.

Mars opposing Neptune in your Solar Return chart suggests that your energy levels are likely to be quite variable this year–waxing and waning in a moody fashion. Inspiration comes from unusual sources, but you can have a hard time staying focused and organized at times. You may find that is too easy to waste your time and energy, perhaps due to occasional periods when you seem to lack drive and direction. You may also experience passive-aggressiveness in others, which impacts your life in frustrating ways, or you could find relationships with others confusing and hard to define. Although you may enjoy an increase in your intuitive capabilities, you can also be too open to influence so that fears or delusions impact your ability to see your life clearly. This could also be a year when you are more creative, yet not always in a reliable or organized manner.

Relationships, socializing, and creative expression are emphasized in your year ahead. Your ego is tied up in your social life and you have a chance to improve your social relationships, although a tendency to rebel could get you into hot water at times!

If you have any contracts or issues that require specific communications have them finished, or at least in a solid, agreed upon place, before June 15th. If you can’t do so before then DO NOT do so until after July 10th.

Right now you are very quick on the uptake and can see both sides of any issue. Don’t let seeing both sides prevent you from deciding on a course of action. This vision is there just to keep you aware of where the consequences will lead, not to clutter your reasoning ability. Additionally, you know you have a habit of not listening too well since you’re, more often than not, busy speaking. Make an extra effort to stop and to hear what another is saying, not just waiting for the pause for breath and the words that will trigger your next “explanation.”

If you must speak with any intensity it would be a great time to write that you have in mind. Since you are seeing both sides of issues more clearly now explanation and exposure would work best in the written word. Whether it’s a journal or a novel just write!

As we move closer to the 3rd of September, make yourself aware of any possibilities for moving, figuratively or literally, and changing the way you relate to your home and family. The responsibilities there will certainly come to the forefront and you had best have an idea of how you want to handle things.

Learn to be your own forecaster and depend on your own information. If you wait until circumstances are upon you before you decide on how to act, your options will be severely limited by the passage of earlier opportunities. You will find yourself between a rock and a hard place. Tackle small jobs when they’re small. Then, the work is at a minimum. Wait and you’ll have a tiger by the tail. When we get to mid December, all family, home and tradition issues will find a new resting place. Everything you’ve been doing since the summer will show its value then. January 2009 will bring all legacy, insurance, inheritance and outside resource issues to a head. If you’ve been planning and adapting with your eyes open since the summer, everything will just seem to fall into place. Perhaps by then you won’t feel so much like an orphan like you have all year. Your key for this year is to listen to your own counsel from the silence within your heart NOT everyone else’s wordy information. Be quiet for a change. You might find that you enjoy it.

2008 is a Number Four year for you. Ruled by Uranus. This is a year of work and development. It’s “nose to the grindstone” time. It’s a time to deal with practical matters, and it’s not a time to be lazy or especially gregarious. Sometimes, it can be a year that feels hard, monotonous and routine, and/or lonely. Positive new relationships are not as frequently formed in a Four personal year than they are in other years. Advice – get yourself organized, work to build your resources, keep busy.

2009 will be a Number Five year for you. Ruled by Mercury. This is a year of exploration and freedom. It’s a time when exploration and reaching out to others brings opportunities. It’s a good time to advertise and sell. Surprises are in store, and the routine is broken. This is a year when exciting relationships can be formed, or, if you are already in a partnership, new life is breathed into the relationship. Advice – explore, look for adventure, keep your eyes open for opportunities, mingle.

Pronoia

Excerpted from Rob Brezny’s book, Pronoia Is The Antidote for Paranoia: How the Whole World is Conspiring to Shower You With Blessings:

FLIP-FLOP THE TRAUMATIC IMPRINT

Beauty and Truth Laboratory researcher Artemisia had just begun menstruating, and was suffering from debilitating cramps. Massive doses of ibuprofen were not relieving the distress, so she went to her regular acupuncturist, Dr. Lily Ming, to get relief.

Dr. Ming had Artemisia lie down on the table and proceeded to insert 10
needles in her belly and hand and ear. Then Dr. Ming introduced a treatment that Artemisia was unfamiliar with: She lightly pounded the nail of Artemisia’s big toe with a small silver hammer for a few minutes.

“Why are you doing that?” Artemisia asked.

“It is good for the uterus,” the doctor replied.

Indeed, Artemisia’s cramps dramatically diminished as the doctor thumped, and in the days to come they did not recur.

After the session, as Artemisia prepared to leave, the usually taciturn
Ming started up a conversation. Artemisia was surprised, but listened attentively as Dr. Ming made a series of revelations. The most surprising was Dr. Ming’s description of a traumatic event from her own childhood.

During the military occupation of her native Manchuria, a province of China, she was forced to witness Japanese soldiers torturing people she loved. Their primary atrocity was using hammers to drive bamboo shoots through their victims’ big toes.

The moral of the story: Dr. Ming has accomplished the heroic feat of reversing the meaning of her most traumatic imprint. She has turned a symbol of pain into a symbol of healing.

To read other features from Rob Brezny’s book, go HERE.

To buy PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE FOR PARANOIA:
How the Whole World s Conspiring to Shower You with Blessings, the book from which the above piece is excerpted, go to Amazon and Powells.

Are You Pondering What I’m Pondering? V.4.21.2008

THINGS YOU THINK YOU’LL NEVER HEAR YOURSELF SAY: “No, don’t eat your sister’s vomit!” Just…ewww.

THINGS YOU THINK YOU’LL NEVER HEAR YOURSELF SAY II: “Hey, stop humping your sister!” (Not applicable in Arkansas and parts of Georgia)

DINNER. IT’S WHAT’S FOR BREAKFAST: I have never been a traditional meal-eater. Having grown up in rural Michigan, breakfast was always eggs, pancakes, sausage, bacon, toast, milk, juice, and coffee. On the mornings when no one cooked, it was whatever cereal we could find, as long as it had a prize in it somewhere, and more sugar than Tammy Faye Bakker’s smile. As an adult, I find those foods too fatty, sugary, and that they slow me down rather than energize me for the day. So what do I eat instead?

I’m a hooj fan of dinner. And so for breakfast this morning I had: garlic shrimp with fresh-steamed broccoli sprinkled with shredded parmesan, an anything bagel with yogurt spread, and home-brewed iced tea. Mmmm, mmmm, good. *burp!*

HELP! I’M FALLING INTO MY MONITOR!: Some things are just TOO too much. I upgraded my home computer this past week, and realize that I may have become inflicted with “Tim Allen Disease,” or TAD. My 6-year old computer came with a 17″ monitor. While browsing the computer website for new components, my gaze happened upon a 24″ wide screen monitor. Immediately, I began salivating. Huh, I thought. Imagine what I could do with THAT.

That was immediately followed by: Well, if you’re going to get such a HOOJ monitor, you need something to make it go zoom-zoom.

And so I did.

May I just say: HOLY CRAP!

This monitor is so big, I have to sit five feet away from my desk for fear of being sucked right into it. The new hard drive is so fast, it’s creating its own planetary pull. Oh, I’m not complaining. My motto has always been:

BIGGER BETTER FASTER MORE

See? TAD

ARE YOU KIDDING?: Just found out that my favorite comedian, Eddie Izzard, is playing the Paramount Theater here in Denver at the end of July. Tickets? Check. Eagerness? Check. Excitement? Check.

OW! MY COCCYX!: I had forgotten how much bike riding hurts my tailbone. There’s a new type of exercise bike at my local gym that has a video monitor attached to it, so that it’s like riding into a video game. It’s pretty awesome, as the minutes absolutely zip by. However, I think I get so wrapped up in the video course I’m riding (complete with roadside sheep that get startled by my riding past and bleat and run away), I forget to monitor my biking form, and somehow sit back too far on the saddle, thereby irritating my coccyx. Owie.

YEAH, OK, BUT I DON’T TRUST IT: Spring seems to have arrived in Colorado. However, I have not yet tucked away my winter gear, for just last week, we had a blizzard. And the week before that. In between, it’s 80 degrees. Somebody’s playin’ wit us.

SO SAY WE ALL! PT. FORTY TWO: Yesterday, walking by a playground, I overheard the cutest little tow-headed six year old say, Hey, get outta the frackin’ way! It tickles my happy parts that a youngster is quoting from Battlestar Galactica. Even if it is a replacement word for a four-letter word that also starts with F. So say we all!

14 DAYS OF NEIGHBORLY NON-POLLUTION: As mentioned in a previous post, my next door neighbor smokes like an unregulated factory, and right outside my usually open bedroom window. I approached the management company and asked if they could speak with her, but they (as I knew they would) declined. Mostly because they’re fat, lazy bastards who can’t tear themselves away from their Danielle Steele novels long enough to care. So I took it upon myself to compose a professional letter to post on said neighbor’s door. (this after she refused to answer her door on several occasions so that I could start a dialogue with her about her smoking outside my open bedroom window habit) The letter worked! She has not smoked on her balcony in over two weeks. And…I found out that she’s moving in May. Huzzah!

THIS JUST IN: MAN STILL DEAD THIRTY YEARS AFTER DEATH: The investigation into the assassination has taken a new turn several decades after the death of Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Forensic investigators are stating unequivocally that Sirhan Sirhan was not the assassin he was reported to be, but that there was another person in the crowd who actually shot the much-loved Senator. CNN has posted an interview on their site. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the Senator still dead? And isn’t Sirhan Sirhan also dead? So what’s the big deal? Unless we find out that Hilary Clinton was somehow involved, I don’t think it really matters anymore, does it?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, TAURUS!: If you were to describe the typical Taurus temperament, you would probably use words such as ‘cautious’, ‘practical’ and ‘purposeful’. One word you definitely wouldn’t use is ‘impulsive’.

When you are making important decisions in life, decisions about things that are vital to your security and the welfare of those you love, you spend a long time on them. You want those decisions to be rock solid.

Once your mind is made up, you have amazing persistence and follow through, plus tons of energy — you rarely give up on a task once you’ve decided on it. And you’ll stick to your guns, even if you’re being provoked, tempted or ridiculed. This will be a blessing at some times and a curse at others.

Sometimes this ability to hang in there can turn into pride and obstinacy. At other times you refuse to accept another opinion or suggestion, even though the advice is reasonable and the person offering it has nothing but good intentions. What if the person is right?

Those who love you and offer you constructive criticism don’t mean to hurt you — they have your best interests at heart — and what they offer can be useful to you. Try to remember that.

If you look inside yourself, you’ll see that sometimes the reason you hold on to your position or opinion so fiercely is that you fear change. Because you take such pride in your ability to see things through to the end, people who try to meddle with what you have set out to do, or change the rules of the game, are likely to hear from you, loud and clear. You really, really want to finish what you start.

Also, people will not have much success if they try to push something onto you and leave you no room to control your destiny. Then the bull in you really starts to make itself heard and felt.

On the other side of the coin, you also like to take it easy. This goes back to liking to leave things as they are. You may need to keep an eye on this — complacency and apathy are down the end of that path.

Change is the only constant in life and you may need to remind yourself of this every now and then; trying to resist all change leads only to stress and dissatisfaction with your life and relationships.

You also have a great love affair with the finer things in life. If you could find a servant to help with all the boring jobs you hate, you could live the luxurious life you dream of!

You are a great mate. When you agree to help someone, you go to any lengths to keep your word. You’ll never let yourself or others down. You are extremely dependable.

You’re also exceptionally sensitive and very patient. You’re prepared to wait as long as it takes for the right moment to act and you seize the opportunity when it wanders anywhere near you. Patience is one of your greatest virtues and it usually pays off.

Having honourable intentions, plus your patience and perseverance, are what others see as your finest — and most recognisable — character traits. Your one-track mind about doing a job right— either at work or at home — has a good and a bad side. It means you’re very focused on what you’re doing, which is good but it also means you drive people crazy by showing them the ‘correct way’ to do things. Your family may not appreciate lessons in how to clean and stack the dishes or drive the car!

Actually, simplicity is what appeals to you — you can’t stand pompousness and look-at-me behaviour. You know that beauty is not about what you wear or what hairstyle you have.

You enjoy getting your hands dirty with gardening, practical hobbies and odd jobs around the home. Hard work doesn’t scare you in the least. Taurus is a touchy-feely sign, which means you rely on your feelings rather than your mind when you try to understand your experiences.

You trust your own intuition about others — and you are usually right. However, you have terrific reasoning skills as well, so don’t dismiss your sensible nature; balancing these two sides of yourself will increase your success in life.

The Magician

The first card of the Major Arcana in the Tarot is The Magician – symbolizing creative power and manifestation. A magician manipulates the physical world in order to achieve his or her own reality. Look at it this way – you’ve studied diligently and done your homework so now is the time to use your skills to achieve goals and reap rewards! Pulling The Magician generally means that something great is developing through the power of your own creativity.

What a fortuitous day to draw this card! I felt the gears of the universe grind into motion again this past week. I’m ecstatic!

Just In Case You Doubted…

…the power of Mercury Retrograde (which began on January 28th and will go direct on February 19th), read on:

UBAI, United Arab Emirates (CNN) — Large swathes of Asia, the Middle East and north Africa had their high-technology services crippled Thursday following a widespread Internet failure which brought many businesses to a standstill and left others struggling to cope.

One major telecommunications provider blamed the outage, which started Wednesday, on a major undersea cable failure in the Mediterranean.

India’s Internet bandwidth has been sliced in half, The Associated Press reported, leaving its lucrative outsourcing industry trying to reroute traffic to satellites and other cables through Asia.

Reports say that Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Bahrain are also experiencing severe problems.

Nations that have been spared the chaos include Israel — whose traffic uses a different route — and Lebanon and Iraq. Many Middle East governments have backup satellite systems in case of cable failure.

Mercury Retrograde affects all forms of communications (internet and computer systems, cell phones, fax machines, conversations, relationships, et al.), automobiles, any machine that uses parts or components that must communicate within itself in order to function, and other crucial elements of our every day life. Never sign an important contract during these retrograde periods, as the terms of that agreement will come back to haunt you in a not-so-good way somewhere down the road.

If you’ve been experiencing odd phenomena (for instance, in the first days of the MercRetro period, I tend to get the “dropsies,” which means that I have a horrible case of fumble-fingers. Everything hits the floor, or I stub my toe repeatedly, or accidentally bite my tongue (or the inside of my cheek)… You get the picture?) you can be certain that pesky Mercury going backward on us is the culprit!

Good luck. You’ll need it.