Alone at Last - Jupiter conjunct Part of Fortune

What else would you expect, really, with a Part of Fortune in Pisces in the Twelfth? Almost exactly four weeks after the arrival of  Star Child and the White Mummy from Kathmandu, sleeping in the downstairs entrance hallway with no real space to call my own, people popping in and out with and without dogs, Christmas with even more people popping in and out with and without dogs, dishes reappearing in the sink as soon as it's emptied of dishes that were in it before, washing machine going at least once a day and more presents under the tree than I've seen since I was six, suddenly they are all on a plane going off to the Caribbean and me and Sweet Pea are as alone as we can be in the apartment, no TV on, no guests expected, just us and a computer or two and peace, glorious peace.

Has it all been Pluto opposed to Saturn square Neptune (saving grace), and Neptune and Chiron sextile Mercury? Certainly that's all Astrodienst has been showing for my long-term transits for a year and a half, so it kind of has to be. There hasn't been a moment, really, to look at day-to-day transits of personal planets, let alone answer email or see what's going on in the Daily Mail - just constant concentration on this beautiful child who's dropped into our lives and is such a delight and joy none of us can completely comprehend it.

Yes, I noticed that Jupiter sextile the ascendant brought me the fabulous Christmas gift of a fifteen inch MacBook Pro from an appreciative Grannie. Yes, I noticed Jupiter sextile the Midheaven brought me an email from a friend with the name of an English director who might be willing to take a look at Just For You, which I have done absolutely nothing about. Yes, I noticed Venus trine Mars had me in T J Maxx at the Fresh Pond Mall last week buying a pair of rubber wellies and some fleece boot liners for a total of $30, but really the past four weeks have been a blur of the wheels on the bus going round and around, the driver on the bus saying move on back and my poor Sweet Pea taking up residence in a closet during the day and emerging only when Star Child has finally retired for the day, at which point White Mummy and I try to stay awake for five minutes and then totter off to our respective beds.

Tomorrow brings more peace, I hope, even though Mars squares the Sun at 9:36 am. (This may already have manifested with me walking to Harvard Square today to try to buy New Year Cards (and knowing I'm in Cambridge because the sign on the door of the stationers says "Please Eschew Cell Phone Use While in the Store.")), if that is anything like the proper punctuation and even if it's not. I can spend the day gathering up what I need to take back with me to New York for two weeks before Sweet Pea and I hitch a ride with an obliging neighbor on her way to New Jersey to spend New Year with her sister,  and welcome 2011 in true natal Sun in Twelfth fashion by diving into bed at ten pm with the Barbara Vine I got today with my new card from the Cambridge branch of the Boston Public Library.

Pluto opposed to Saturn Exact

Okay, so maybe it wasn't a very good idea to leave Boston for New York on the Bolt Bus at 3:00 pm on the Friday of the weekend before Christmas. We didn't hit rush hour traffic in New York but we did in New Haven, Stamford, Hartford and whatever other places you come through on that route, so the bus was an hour and five minutes late when it got to 34th and Eighth at 8:05.

No way on earth to get a cab but I gave it a go anyway walking up Eighth, finally giving in at 42nd Street and deciding to take the subway. I managed to lose my temporary old person's reduced MTA pass, so was using the official photo ID one for the first time, with no luck whatsoever when I swiped it through a turnstile. Maybe there's no $$ on it, I thought, although dimly remembering I'd put a big $10 on it with an automatic refill.

Nothing to do but buy a full price Metrocard, but being as thrifty, money-conscious or cheap, whatever you want to call it, as I am, I wanted to spend as little as possible and fumbled around for two dollar bills and a quarter to get a Single Ride card and after waiting 15 minutes for a train, got to 86th and Broadway where I could use the card to take the crosstown bus to a block and a half from my apartment.

Another long wait, but eventually the bus arrived and I got on, stuck my newly purchased Metrocard into the slot and  "Already Used" shows up on the LED monitor. "But I just bought it" I say, straw sticking out of my hair, rosy cheeks shining in the wintry air. "I just bought it 20 minutes ago." "What does it say there?" says the bus driver. "Already Used," I say, going on to repeat "But I just bought it 20 minutes ago."

"What does it say on the front?" says the bus driver, and, with as much dignity as I can muster under the circumstances, I'm forced to say "I don't know. I didn't have my glasses on." "Single ride," he says. "Single ride. No transfers." Shit, I think, I don't belong in New York any more I'm so clueless, I don't belong in Cambridge sleeping in the hallway, I don't belong anywhere any more, I'm this nomadic nothing, and I turn and go back down the front steps of the bus and walk to the corner of 86th and Broadway ready to hail the next available cab.

There's a honking from the bus and the driver is beckoning me to get back on, so I climb up the steps one more time and he gestures for me to go towards the back of the bus and take a seat - my natal Saturn Neptune square kicking in and coming to my rescue, I suppose it being obvious to him that I am a clueless out-of-towner groping my way through the labyrinth of rules and regulations of the big city and taking the bus back to Pumpkin Center at the end of the week and not some conniving manipulating very street-wise New Yorker.

"Ah, that's nice of him" says a woman on my left as I walk down the aisle to find a seat. "He's giving you a chance," the meaning of which I'm still trying to figure out but who cares, nice city bus driver took pity on poor pitiful Just-Got-Off-The-Bus farm-girl and only seven-and-a-half hours after I left XXX Concord Avenue, I arrived at 1674 First Avenue to find my wireless mouse had decided to die and I had no way to read email or the Daily Mail and the only thing to do really was to go to bed.

Perhaps I Shall Go Back and Catch Up One Day but...

...if I don't and can at least go on from here with reasonably frequent entries, all I can say is when did you last have lunch at a place with a sign on the wall that said "Shoes On, No Yelling, and Play Nice"? And when did you last take a two-year-old to get an MMR shot and have Nursie say "All right, Mummie, sit over here with Baby in your lap and do a peeky-boo" and have to not only say "I'm not her mother, actually" but have to add "And what's a peeky-boo?"?

More will be revealed, but did you know there are cookies manufactured for nursing mothers that, if the advertising can be believed (hah!), will increase the quantity and presumably also the quality of breast milk?

Furthermore, did you know that when you get off the elevator on the fourth floor at Harvard Medical Services Pediatrics is to your right and Mental Health to your left? Total coincidence, I'm sure, but I'm just saying...

Sun Opposed to Uranus

This was the first and probably the last time I hit the nail on the head with a prediction - that the White Mummie would return from Kathmandu with her beautiful new daughter. Bingo!

Mercury sextile Venus

I made a feeble attempt at posting for Sun opposed to Ascendant, back on November 17, and managed to write one paragraph about it was the day I got on Skype and talked to the white mummie in Kathmandu, but I never got as far as writing it was also the day I talked to a computer *expert* charged with digitizing a cassette tape for me so I could transcribe it from an MP3 and and almost lost it when he said he wouldn't send it to me via a file transfer program online, but would burn it to a CD so I could spend $$ and time going physically to pick it up - one of the very few times I have been able to stay consciously aware of a transit and been able to avoid conflict by saying "Okay, fine, you want to put it on a CD, put it on a CD and I'll come and pick it up"with only a mild note of hysteria and suppressed rage in my voice.

Mercury trine Venus, today, was much simpler: two hours before it perfected, I got an email from oneactplays.net informing me permission to perform had been granted to the Edward Alderton Theatre for one week next April, and would I like my $175 Canadian dollars via Paypal or my checking account? THAT'S the kind of straightforward manifestation we like.

Sun Opposed to Ascendant

Or conjunct the Descendant, as you prefer. This turned out to be the day I signed up for Skype so I could talk to the new mum on her travels half way around the world. At that point she had *only* reached Doha, in Qatar, where she had a twelve-hour layover before going on to Kathmandu, which (Kathmandu) was the real reason we'd decided Skype might be the only solution for communication. It worked perfectly from Doha, where as part of the travel arrangement she was put up in a hotel instead of having to spend half a day at the airport. Ten out of ten for Skype.

Mercury the little Trickster

So here I am with P Moon squaring N Mercury exactly in 24 hours time, and in the past week I have bought from either eBay or Amazon:

One Mabel Lucie Atwell ABC book
One Toddler 3 black cotton t-shirt with a scottie dog on the front
One Richard Scarry Best Word Book Ever
One set of fifteen 24-inch bamboo circular knitting needles
One hot pink Toddler 4 robe made in France (she'll grow into it)
One pattern for a child's short-sleeved ruched sweater
Four balls of dark blue viscose/cotton blend Anny Blatt yarn
One EuroTalk interactive Learn Nepali CD
One Lonely Planet Nepalese phrasebook
One Richard Scarry Little ABC Book
One set of Lands End full-size flannel sheets
One Toddler 4 blue and green corduroy coat (see Toddler 4 robe)
and
Fifty dollars worth of self-striping wool and acrylic yarn from Knitpicks that is supposed to be used for socks that I am going to knit cardigans with because if you order more than fifty dollars worth you get free shipping.

More will be revealed.

Last Published October 22?

And now it's November 10?  Well I'm in New York now, that's my excuse, and it does take a while to adjust from living on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere to living on First Avenue in Manhattan with six lanes of traffic outside the second-floor front window. Just ask Sweet Pea.

So whatever the aspects were on Wednesday and Thursday October 27 they passed me by completely as I was asleep.

Friday 10/29, with Venus trine Saturn, I made my first public appearance and had dinner with my sister-in-law, my brother's widow, here in New York on holiday with a friend and who I've known for 30 years: nice and fitting.

That's about it, though, as I've been too distracted to post and also too busy to take notes, so most of how the universe has been connecting me to it by way of the Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars over the past couple of weeks has to pass undocumented, to the eternal regret of my future biographers, I'm sure.

With Mars sextile Neptune one day last week, I did selflessly get myself down to the Strand with two bags of books I was supposed to sell for a friend last winter. All but two of them were rejected so I walked away with a big four dollars to give her, but wasn't selfless enough to not charge her the dollar it took to get me there, as that was also the day I applied for my bus pass and was given a temporary one. Also Neptunian? I'm not tired or poor or homeless or tempest-tost, but I am sixty-five.

Neptune squaring the Ascendant is the biggie for me at the moment though, with a close acquaintance finally succeeding in adopting a daughter from Nepal and about to leave next week to take custody of her and bring her home. I shall be helping take care of her and so coming full circle in my years in this country, as said close acquaintance is the ten-month-old I came here to baby-sit for in 1963.  Maybe I'm finally getting to experience how having an Aries Sun intercepted in the Twelfth - the beginning in the end, the alpha and the omega and all that - is working itself out. Who knows?

What's for sure is I now spend most of my time buying Girls Toddler 3 clothes on eBay, and that yesterday, when Pluto, the North Node and the Moon were conjunct and opposing Saturn from my eighth house, I got a call from Quicken Loans asking if I wanted to refinance the house.

Holy Cow!

This sh*t works, to borrow from Michael Lutin, it really really does, and sometimes it's so uncanny it makes your hair stand on end - a fitting metaphor, as shall be revealed. In two hours time, at the full Moon at 29Aries33, the Moon will be almost exactly on my Venus: the actual conjunction comes five hours later, when the Moon gets to 29Aries45. Close enough for government work, don't you think?

So, of course, for weeks I've been wondering just how this aspect might manifest, not that I have too much time on my hands or anything. Could this be the day I get a response from The Royal Court about Just For You? Forget about an acceptance, one of their encouraging rejection letters would be fine. Maybe Apple would announce a split and ensure my future for the next six years instead of three, or perhaps Anonymous would get over himself and answer my email of six weeks ago. I did go and buy my lottery ticket, as advised by Lora Lake, but when I checked the mailbox there was nothing but requests FOR money (charities, not creditors), nothing in my email from Anonymous and Apple went down a point, not that I was really expecting that one.

So - home at five with friend who's staying for a couple of days and he goes to lie down before dinner and I decide to sit on the front porch while the sun's still up. I mean really, I have a friend here, we're having pasta with home-made pesto from another friend for dinner, we have beer and wine and if I have enough clothes to give him we can sit out on the back patio and watch the Moon come up through the trees, it's been a beautiful day - what more can I ask, really? Isn't all that Venusian enough?

As soon as I open the front door I fall over a little brown box left by UPS. It's addressed to me, duh, but I can't see who it's from and the first thing I think is it's a thank you present from someone who was at last Saturday's barbecue, not remotely likely but it was the first thing I thought. When I get it open I see it's from L'Oreal's Women of Worth program -  L'Oreal, you know, the French hair color and skin care and cosmetics maker that if you wanted to stretch things a bit you could associate with Venus, Goddess of Love and Beauty - THAT L'Oreal.

And why, you might ask, am I, whose daily makeup routine consists of a squeeze from a bottle of Oil of Olay and a quick whip-around with a dollar eye liner from Walmart, getting a letter and package from L'Oreal two hours before the Full Moon falls on my Venus? Well, because when I was leaving New York in April and had to give up my beautiful old fostered cat Patches, he was taken in by a woman called Blair Sorrel, to whom I shall be eternally grateful, who runs StreetZaps and who told me she had nominated herself for the afore-mentioned Women of Worth program. As a tiny token of gratitude, I said I would also nominate her, which I did, hence my thank you package from L'Oreal three months later which completely by coincidence arrived on the day the Full Moon falls on my Venus, if I haven't mentioned that before.

Praise the Lord I mentioned what was due to happen to friend BEFORE I got the package, as I can hear him opening and closing drawers in the kitchen and now I can go and show him the manifestation of FM on my V - two very snazzy looking lipsticks and two packages of eye shadow, four colors in each package. Then all I have to do is rustle up some blankets so we can go and sit on the back patio and wait forty-five minutes till the Moon comes up and I get an email from Anonymous.

Two Weeks At A Glance

Last post 10/7, today's date 10/21: how does it happen, I ask myself. Getting ready to leave the house for the winter and go back to New York, having a barbecue for 30 people and now a house guest five days before I leave probably has something to do with it, as does Progressed Moon in Cancer literally down at the nadir and now one degree into the Fourth House conjunct the Progressed Ascendant, along with Saturn conveniently trining Uranus and perfecting yesterday.


Finally, after eight years, I've been through every drawer, cupboard, closet, bookshelf and box in this house, and while a lot of it went straight back where it came from, at least I know what's where - or rather, I do now. When I come back in May it will be another story, but we're going one day at a time here and I have a box for the thrift store, a box to mail to New York, a box to go to Restore, a pile of paperwork to sort through and a ticket to leave ELP next Tuesday.


Along with the first paragraph, Jupiter's been sextiling the Midheaven and the Ascendant, coinciding nicely with the Third Annual Little Walnut Sausage Cookout last Saturday when everyone who came brought something that contributed to the grub, or, like Bayou Seco and John Tank, not only brought food but brought their instruments and provided foot-tapping live music while the rest of us jogged up and down and stuffed ourselves with Italian sausage with peppers and onions and Caesar potato salad and hummus and tabouleh and macaroni salad and I can't even remember what else as everything got eaten and all who brought food took home their empty dishes.


I then retired to bed for a couple of days while Mercury and the Sun squared the Midheaven, Venus trined Mars (sound asleep) and the Sun opposed Mercury (ditto). Back to cleaning and sorting while Mars sextiled the Midheaven (house guest arrived twelve hours early) and opposed the Ascendant (went with house guest to say goodbye to knitting group for the winter).


Long-awaited aspect now is the full Moon smack on natal Venus tonight. My own personal prediction from Lora Lake: "Full Moon on top of your Venus - money, creativity, romance - or, excess, extravagance and sentimentality. Nah. You have an Aquarian Moon and a Taurean Ascendant so I'm going with the former trio! Buy that lottery ticket ;-) "


Will do, as soon as I've been to the dump.

Mercury Sextile Pluto

This is a good one. So I'm sitting here at the computer, wasting time again when I *should* be organizing and packing, and I'm reading Gothamist and come across an article about some fabulous new French pastries that supposedly have only 25 calories in each.

Having just finished a meal comprising only about 1,500 calories I'm immediately interested, and click on the link to the 25 calorie French pastries, only to immediately find an error in the copy. It truly is a curse, having an eagle (proof-reader's) eye, but in this case, when I make the 25-calorie-miniature-pastry-baker aware of the error, she thanks me and asks if I would like to try her wares, which is like asking former president Bush if he would like to run away to Texas and never be seen in public again.

Once I get back to New York, I am very much looking forward to going to wherever Celine tells me to go to pick up my reward for having Jupiter and Chiron in Virgo.

Jupiter Conjunct Part of Fortune

The last time this happened was back in May when I was referring to myself as "the girl" because "the boy," someone I knew - well, let's not dance around here - someone I lived with forty-five years ago and had been looking for for the past twenty-five years had found me through this blog, left a comment and then not responded to my response to that.

This time around was different in the same way ha ha. The boy did respond to my response a couple of days later back in May, and we began an email correspondence which made me realize - what? All kinds of things, none of which are clear enough in my head to begin to put down here, but our 2010 pen-pal friendship ended abruptly at the beginning of September when I was perhaps far too honest and sent an email which presumably hurt and/or offended the boy as I never got a response. Considering that by that time I knew his Sun opposes my Uranus, I shouldn't be at all surprised, me knowing all about astrology and all, but still, it's not the way you'd choose something that picked up again after forty-five years to end, pardon my syntax.

Anyway, more than a month after the presumably offending email I sent, the boy has chosen not to respond, just as I chose to send an email I was aware could be wounding. Only as I write this has it occurred to me to check MY transits for that day and I see that Saturn was exactly conjunct Neptune, er, kind of clouding my sense of reality and I suppose, resulting in my coming down hard on poor Anonymous who found me after forty-five years. Oh yes, it's a wonderful thing to know all about astrology and all and to use it as a tool to help you grope your way through life. Oh yes, it's a wonderful thing.

So what I got, with Jupiter conjunct my part of fortune in Pisces in the Twelfth House, was this: an eight-inch-across astonishingly beautiful Dinner-Plate Dahlia that I've been admiring

all the time I've been collecting my free lava rock from its grower's house, along with tomatoes, eggplants and zucchini, which I made into an eat-your-heart-out-whoever-the-current-celebrity-chef-in-New-York-is ratatouille and had enough left over for the next day. And to finish the day in true Piscean fashion, I had a long phone conversation with someone attempting to adopt a child from Nepal who is encountering obstacle after obstacle. But if you read about May, them seeds did get sown.

Pluto, Pluto, Go away...

...and don't come back another day.

If it isn't rattlesnakes it's turkey vultures - my neighbor was in his front yard when I got back from playing tennis and I stopped to tell him about the rattlesnake. I didn't get very far because he told me he'd just called the house because he was worried about me, and when I asked why, he said it was because there were three turkey vultures sitting on the utility pole outside my house.

I immediately thought of Sweet Pea and the rattlesnake's extended family that people keep telling me to look out for now, and after reassuring Tom that it wasn't me the TVs were waiting for to die, I drove back to the house as quickly as anyone can drive on a rutted dirt road. The Pea was right there on the back patio, peacefully asleep, but I got him in and kept him in for a couple of hours. The TVs stayed for quite a while before taking off. I didn't see them swoop down on anything, so maybe they were just hungry and settled on the pole because it's the highest perch around and gave them the greatest long distance view.

And of course I'm only joking about Pluto, ha ha. Just because Saturn sextiled natal Pluto on Saturday is no reason at all to have a rattlesnake on your back patio two days before and three turkey vultures on your utility pole the day after.

A lot, including Pluto

Sheesh. Today started with Chiron sextiling Mercury exactly while I graciously declined an unwanted invitation to dinner this weekend and moved on to Mercury trine the Midheaven at midday while I bashed out emails like IMs to several people at once and emptied out a lot of my mailbox. Late afternoon, as it got cooler, with Mercury trining the ascendant, I went outside to transplant a couple of cabbage plants into the wooden box on the back patio and heard a funny buzzing noise. Standing up and turning around, I did a bit of a double-take as I found myself almost nose to snout with this guy curled up under

the artemisia on the ground behind the rock wall slightly above my waist level. My first thought was camera, and with my super zoom lens I was able to get the above from about two feet away. Next thought was what kind is it, and I emailed the image to a friend here with the subject line Do You Know What This Is? I'd just hit the Send button when a friend from New York called, and when I sent the image to him he immediately said he thought it was a rattler because of the diamond shaped head and the, er, black thing that's his tail where the rattle is.

I do sometimes wonder if my medication level needs adjusting as my next move was to grab the camera again and rush out to take more pictures, waiting patiently with my arms propped on the rock wall until he stuck his tongue out for me.

At this point the person I'd originally emailed called to tell me to kill it, and if I couldn't do it myself (!) to call a neighbor. How would he kill it, I said. With a gun, he answered. Oh yeah right, I thought, that's just what I need, bloody smattered rattlesnake all over the windows of the computer room, and I then remembered the local wildlife rescue man who has a slightly more compassionate approach to unwanted critters. I've called him several times before with city person wildlife questions, and he's unfailingly civil in the face of my embarrassing ignorance and calm, patient and never condescending in his responses. Please email with any questions you may have about rattlesnakes' diet, preferred location and venom production.

His suggestion was for me to put a large trash can on its side and to gently poke the black-tail (as I now knew it was called) until it slithered into the trash can, at which point I was to up-end the can, secure the lid, load it into my car,  take it a long way away up into the forest and then let it out, presumably hoping it had no internal GPS system, map or compass. He'd come and help me, he said, but he was out of town, so if I didn't think I could do it myself I should call a friend for help.

Thinking that any friend I called for help with rattlesnake removal would happily relinquish that status in a heart beat, I remembered that the husband of the sister of the woman who rented the house last year was a Search and Rescue volunteer, admittedly of lost or injured humans, not rattlers (as us that know them call them), but any port in a storm and all that, and in ten minutes Marc arrived with his vacationing brother, Marc armed with a long wooden stick and his brother with a broom. After a long and reasoned discussion of options, (one of which, offered by a retired botanist Marc called for advice, was to secure the snake's head with a forked stick, pick it up by the neck right behind the immobilized head and throw it into the trash can, which we decided we would do the next time I have a rattler on the back patio) I went up to the adobe and retrieved an old three-panelled fireplace screen while Marc got the trash can and put it on the ground, open end facing the rattler, who had obligingly remained coiled up exactly where I first saw him throughout all this.

I positioned myself behind the rattler holding the screen, Marc stood at the closed end of the trash can holding a long pole, and his brother stood between us, broom at the ready. One poke with the stick and the rattler made a smart left turn, headed for Marc's brother, who leapt back about two feet, and disappeared completely under the artemisia, only to reappear almost immediately slithering past my left foot and attempting to burrow into the rock wall. My reputation for sang-froid cemented (Mars in Scorpio trining natal Mars, perhaps?) and the rattler clearly visible, it was relatively easy for Marc to poke him into the trash can, and once the lid was on and hinged in place, the next step was what to do with him, or rather, where to do it.

The other side of Bear Mountain seemed to be the answer, and while I'd have been perfectly happy to take him myself, it was decided I should have a passenger so, should rattler escape, there would be two of us in the car flailing around in panic instead of one, sang-froid going only so far. I could go on with this and describe how Marc's brother and I took a wrong turn and lost Marc, who was leading the way, and how it was getting dark in the middle of the forest with no cell phone reception, and how when I did get service I called Marc's house to get his phone number and got his brother's wife on the phone to her daughter in Vermont who asked me for my phone number so she could call back, and how I didn't know my phone number because I never use my cell, but there's not much point, really. I'm already home safe and sound with the Sun not due to sextile Pluto for another ninety minutes, by which point I shall probably have been asleep for an hour. I'll need to get a good night's rest as Saturn sextiles Pluto exactly at 9:00 am Saturday morning, so I'll need to be alert and on the look-out for the next deadly critter. It's different out here.

Sun conjunct Neptune square Saturn

Mr. Log helper came this morning and started to assemble the logs scattered around while I got out the hacksaw and went into the oak grove where I've been cutting lengths of rebar and cut some more so he could get going with the log retaining wall. When I'd done three I took them over to him and then went up the stone side steps to get to the house to change to short sleeves.

The flower beds I made by the side of the steps have been there about four years now, but this is the first year my *gardening* attempts are paying off, and I was stopped in my tracks (sorry) by - all of a sudden - how beautiful they looked. The dusty miller and vinca have been there all along, doing well because they're in some shade and don't have the relentless Land of Enchantment sun beating down on them all day, but today I saw cornflowers, larkspur, marigolds, daisies and a few unidentified wildflowers - blue, dark purple, yellow-orange, white, pink - all mixed up together in between the grey-green foliage and looking as though they had grown there naturally with no help from any human hand - just what I've been working towards for the past eight years.

The only word I can come up with is "transfixed", which is why I'm better at writing dialogue than prose, but I was; a few seconds of wonder and awe at nature's beauty and all that, and then I went and changed my shirt, cut some more rebar and took off in the car to the neighboring house where I can have all the lava rock I can pick up, returning with a big tub full to Mr. Log, who started to tell me could build me a beautiful small stone wall for not much money. Umm, lovely, not this year though, I said, can only do so much each time I'm out here. But maybe we can run a tab, he said, I'll do the work and you can pay me bit by bit. Umm, I said, let me think about it, and off he went, log wall built, while I immediately started weeding what will one day be a wildflower meadow but at the moment is so unlike one it's too daunting to even describe what it is.

Two phone calls interrupted me, both of them degenerating quickly into mutually held highly pessimistic views of the future. I'd intended to put down more weed-cloth and spread lava rock over it, but it got cold earlier than usual and I ended up knocking off at six and picking the last of the green tomatoes so I can pull the plants up tomorrow. How's that for a totally uninspired saturnine ending?

Just the Biggies

Four whole days - Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and today - when none of them rolling planets in the sky made exact aspects to anything in my natal chart, unless of course you count the Moon, and even I am not (yet) that anal.

What are the biggies doing? Well, Neptune and Chiron have just opposed Chiron and are sextiling Mercury, Jupiter and Uranus are approaching a conjunction with my part of fortune and shortly after will each in turn become the midpoint of my midheaven and ascendant, i.e., sextiling both, Pluto is on his way back but still two degrees away from opposing Saturn and squaring Neptune, and Saturn, God bless him and love him, is going to be sextiling Pluto at just about the same time the Sun does at the end of next week.

The plot thickens when you add in progressions. The most significant thing there, I sincerely hope, is that the Moon in Cancer is just one week away from conjuncting the IC, and my sincere hope that this is significant stems from my total inability at the moment to do anything at all about what could be called my career, or making any kind of effort to look for work that would bring in some money.

If my focus is supposed to be building a foundation at home that will support me when (and if) I ever begin to think about those two things again, I'm on the right track, although whether or not attempting to weed the half an acre of the Gila Wilderness that is my back yard and then laying down old shower curtains covered with lava rock can be considered building a solid foundation is something else again.

The other progressions include P Ascendant opposing the Midheaven, P Midheaven coming to oppose Chiron, P Ascendant and Moon coming to square Mercury and Mercury beginning to square Jupiter. Maybe THAT'S why I told the Actors Studio I needed an English director and actors for my new play, when I submitted my application for the Playwrights/Directors Workshop this year. I didn't want to be in it anyway this year. I've got a lot of landscaping to do before it gets too cold.

Mercury opposed to Mars...

...Sun conjunct Chiron and Mars trine Saturn - 11:00 am this morning to 10:00 pm tonight, almost as I'm writing this.

Mercury opposed to Mars was bad news for the businessman holding the Dish network franchise in Silver. I'd called him last week to say I'd lost satellite service on one of the TVs (ah, America!), and could he send a technician out as I'd exhausted all the trouble-shooting options offered. I got a long story about Dish charging $95 for a service visit and my records having been falsified by a previous franchise owner to give my address as 41, Village Road (instead of 14, Village road) because there had been a previous Dish client at this address and that was the only way they could continue to give me service, or something, all complete fabrication. (John had put service in his name only when we co-owned the house, and when I wanted to switch to my name after buying him out, the only way to do it was by closing his account and opening a completely new account in my name, which we did, using the correct address, 14 Village Road.)

Dish franchise man's solution to this totally made-up problem was to have me switch providers to DirectTV, the service John and I had had before we switched to Dish, presumably because he (franchise man) would then collect a commission for the switch. It would be much cheaper, he said, $30 a month less than what I'm paying for the similar service from Dish, and when could he come out to install the new equipment, of course all completely free of charge?

I had a house guest at the time, as well as being totally turned off by the lies Dish franchise man was telling me, and told him to call me back at a more convenient time. Blah blah blah, and this morning, with Mercury opposed to Mars, at the urging of a true friend, called Dish Network directly - or rather, had an online chat with someone representing Dish Network - and have a technician coming out tomorrow at the cost of $15 to check out why I can't get reception on TV #2.
Mr. Dish Franchise, after calling twice a day for the past few days, has become suddenly silent.

Sun conjunct Chiron: Somehow I was able to sit here and make corrections to an editing job I've been working on for literally months and send them back to the client and then - Mars trine Saturn - with a clear conscience I got myself into the *garden* and continued the let's-make-at-least-one-half-acre-of-this-property-look-cared-for project. In true Mars (iron) fashion, I went back to cutting rebar with the hacksaw lent me by a friend, and thanks to last night's rain was able to whack the rebar into the wet earth hard enough to hold back the logs I'm trying to do erosion control with. I was also able to hold in place the corrugated iron I dragged up from the barn yesterday, which I hope will give me yet another terrace on the triangle I'm trying to landscape. As for the weeding, there's only one way to do it - do it, duh - and once again last night's downpour helped. It's all a long way from the Upper East Side.

Venus Square Pluto

It's official - if Venus square Pluto by transit gives a taste of what progressed Venus square Pluto will bring, I'll be spending the next two years as the progressed aspect perfects cutting rebar by hand, dragging sheets of corrugated iron up from the barn and lugging tree trunks and great big logs into place in my ongoing effort to landscape one of the six acres surrounding this house.

When Anonymous tracked me down on this blog in May after 45 years I dared to think progressed Venus square Pluto might manifest as a love affair with a married man - the way you would think it might if you were *normal* - but I haven't heard from him for weeks now ever since I was more truthful than perhaps necessary in an email. (I do wonder if he'll reappear when Venus stations on his Jupiter in early October, not that I'm obsessing over his chart or anything, but that will be then and this is now.)

More will doubtless be revealed, as John always says, but in the meantime I'm calling the man on Little Walnut tomorrow who has a big sign in his front yard saying "Logs for Sale" to ask exactly how much and if he'll cut them.

Mars opposed to Mercury

With optimism bordering on idiocy, I took one half-read New Yorker, one un-read same, an almost finished copy of Three Men in a Boat, an unopened copy of The Daughter of Time and two letters (you know, those sheets of paper covered in ink marks that come in oblong-shaped paper sleeve things with more ink marks and a little square picture in the top right-hand corner) I have been *supposed* to answer since Christmas up to Santa Fe with me for a less than 48-hour stay. By the time I left, I'd read nothing but half a page of the already started New Yorker, but did manage to write and mail a four-page response to one of the letters, marveling all the time at the wonders of astrology.

I was a little alarmed at the thought of starting the drive back to Silver with Mars coming to oppose Mercury at the end of the five-hour trip, but the first part of the journey went so well - L in the lead in the nondescript rental with Mabel, the pug puppy, me following in the Volvo with Finn the standard poodle, keeping L in my sights all the way and following her off the 25 onto the exit for Socorro, meeting in the plaza for coffee and dog runs - my vague thought about paying more attention to what kind of car the rental was went out of my head completely as our little convoy set off towards the highway again, with plans to go over the Black Range to get home.

L was in the lead as I'd told her the Volvo started doing 90 on the highway with no conscious help (or hindrance) from me, and she wasn't sure the rental was up to that. As it turned out it obviously was, and she sped off into the distance with me and Finn in hot pursuit, pardon these truly terrible cliches as here comes another one - imagine my surprise when the exit for Hillsboro and the Black Range appeared and L kept on speeding right past it.

OK, I thought, something's come up and we're going the longer and more boring Hatch to Deming way, and savoring the irony of me being the only one with the cell phone I fell in behind her again. Imagine my even greater surprise when she sped past the Hatch exit as well, heading straight for Las Cruces, which set off a bit more of an alarm bell for me. She must be sick, I thought, or Mabel has been taken ill and we are off to the hospital or vet in Cruces, although I thought it more than passing strange that she didn't pull over, as we'd arranged in case of an emergency, to tell me exactly what happened.

Instead, I pulled over and put on my hazard lights, which the car I was following ignored completely a) because as I found out when I read the manual and pulled out again, what I had actually switched on was my rear-window defroster, and b), because the car I thought contained L did not contain her at all, as every astute reader has by now figured out, but which dawned on me only as I followed it onto the "Hospital" exit - honest - and then to a Bank of America ATM at which point two elderly Hispanic women got out.

At that point there was nothing to do but dredge up every memory I have of Cruces, find my way to the 10 and give the Volvo its head to get me to the kennel in Silver in time to board Finn, who had been asleep in the back throughout all this, lifting his head briefly when I pulled over and defrosted the rear window. I pulled into their driveway at 5:55 pm, just as they were about to close. Time of perfection of Mars opposed to Mercury: 5:56 pm. Two more cliches: All's Well that ends Well and You Had to have Been There.

Second Waxing Saturn Square Saturn

So now I have a full understanding of how my natal Saturn square Neptune works - floating around in a dream world half the time, work work working away the other half. After yesterday's purposeless piddlings, reality set in and I realized having a house guest meant getting the addition ready for human habitation and going up to Santa Fe meant packing clothes to wear whilst there.

Thus began a great emptying of drawers and sorting of clothes, discovering long-searched-for and considered lost items of clothing, rummaging up in the adobe for a travel bag, making space in a closet in what was to be "my" side of the house once I got back from the north with the friend I'd be staying with up there, remembering the drawers under the day bed in the dining room, remembering that if I took the wooden mattress support off the day bed there was even more storage space to be had, carrying this pile here and this pile there, ironing ironing ironing as while I'm happy here in Silver to be a runner-up Person of Walmart in Wrinkled Clothing I have standards to uphold in Santa Fe as an emissary from the south - in short about eight hours of nonstop domestic labor before deciding I'd do the rest in the morning before I left ha ha and falling into bed.

Second Saturn conjunct Neptune

Complete and utter opposite of social butterfly act of yesterday. Stayed in house and on *property* all day, mainly because too exhausted to move much.

Put on t-shirt, neck felt tight, put a hand on each side and tugged and broke the chain of the protective angel 9/11 symbol have been wearing daily since being given same in October 2001. Picked up pieces for repair; aware of symbolism of chain.

Poked around in garden, decided to take nap, read New Yorker but couldn't sleep, got up, poked around a bit more, went to bed, couldn't sleep, kept trying to remember the way I felt wasn't the way I feel normally (?), woke up at three, got up at four, went through paperwork ignored for months, wrote this. Going back to bed.

Venus opposed to Mercury

In the car to play tennis at eight, back in the car for coffee with tennis partner, walk to thrift shop, buy two hand puppets for great-nieces and aqua linen and rayon tunic sweater thing for self, total $5, walk around greenmarket, have animated conversation with wine maker from the Mimbres, back in the car to go to another thrift shop, buy slotted serving spoon for $1, back in the car to go to Habitat's Restore, buy small aluminum bucket thing for $1, home and unload.

Eat lunch, collect plastic plant buckets and go with friend to deliver to person selling plants for good cause, decide on spur of moment to go the Gem Show at the old Walmart. Admission free, much oohing and ahhing, many beautiful things if you like that kind of stuff, tempted by five inch green sphere with black rings that reminded self of Saturn but upon discovery of price of $35 found it easy to resist, back home.

Water plants, take shower, wear (washed) aqua tunic top and skirt and go in car to barbecue, eat, drink, talk, drive home, fall in heap, wonder if I am starting to live here.

Sun Opposed to Mars

This perfected at 8:23 am but hung around till noon, by which time I'd been to the dump with many, many bags o'trash, taken library books back that were a month overdue but as this is Silver there's no fine, gone to Walmart and done shopping for the weekend and stopped by the house where I can take all the lava rock I can pick up for nothing but the cost of carting it away and carted away yet another big bucketful.

Things ground to a halt after that, but with Mercury square Uranus later in the day, I went to AmericanMeadows and ordered yet another couple of pounds of wildflower seeds for what might with any luck and a great deal of blood, sweat and tears be a wildflower meadow one day, especially now I know deer-resistant wildflowers are one woman's deer-resistant wildflowers, one woman's weeds.

Mercury opposed to Mars

So the last time I managed to post on here was when Mercury stationed retrograde on natal Jupiter, and here it is only two weeks later and with Mercury R opposed to Mars in six hours time here I am again, to put down what happened yesterday when Venus squared the Midheaven.
First thing in the morning I got an email from a woman I know casually but would like to know better asking if I wanted to play tennis, and 30 minutes later I met her on the university courts. After beating me 6-0 - no surprise at all - she asked if I would be interested in meeting the woman who helps her clean her house and perhaps hiring her for a few hours a month in the future. As I've just been paid for feeding a friend's cats while she was away, and as Lindy works for $10 an hour, exploitation anywhere but here, I think, I agreed, and tennis friend brought Lindy up to the house to introduce us later in the afternoon. We agreed she'll come and help me clean and get the house ready for potential tenants in two weeks time - four hours for $40 - and with my cat money I can repeat the performance if I am lazy enough.
Then there was a brief phone talk with a female client I'm editing a document for and never using prepositions to end a sentence with, and finally at night a friend from New York who now lives in Portland called to say she was going to be in New York at the end of October and hoped I would be too. If the potential tenants materialize, I shall be.

Mercury stationed R conjunct Jupiter

If you're going to try to start to post every day you may as well do it on the day Mercury
is stationed almost directly on your natal Jupiter - I live to serve, and all that.

Today I was rejected by the Actors Studio for the 2010 - 11 Playwright/Directors Workshop - scarcely a surprise as the minute I sent my application demanding an English director and three English actors I knew I'd, er, made a mistake, and my Apologetic Addendum of last week would make no difference whatsoever; I listed the house for rent on Craigslist; I made an appointment for a cleaning at *my* dentist; I made an appointment with a PA for my *free* Medicare physical; I called the Fire Department to see what if anything I could do about the big high fence a neighbor has installed, blocking my view of the road; I called the utility company about removing an old electrical box that blocks access to *my* house; I went to the dump; I tried to help a neighbor understand the concept of cut and paste (see I live to serve) - unsuccessfully, unfortunately; I called my mortgage holder to tell them they were mistaken in their belief I am behind in my property taxes; I did so many things I've been procrastinating about for weeks if not months I'm a little stunned.

But I posted something on here. Ten points.

If You're Posting Again After Five Weeks...

... you may as well do it on the day Mercury squares Uranus and opposes Mars, as though you had any control over it. Where have I been? Nowhere. What have I been doing? Nothing. Not quite - I've been redoing all the things the handyman did wrong while I was in California, then putting all the furniture back (he did floors), then having J here for ten days which was great but just a little bit trying because I ran out of medication and almost had a nervous breakdown when my client in New York kept calling to ask if I'd finished the flap copy for him and J was asking me all kinds of questions about what kind of latches I wanted to use on the gates he was making for me (hey, I'm delicate) - then J left almost two weeks ago and since then I've been doing basically nothing. Maybe it's called "relaxing" but as that's almost an unknown concept I'm not sure.

So Mercury squares Uranus this morning and I get a phone call telling me the child I babysat for 45 years ago has been matched with a two-year-old in Nepal for adoption. That'll do for that manifestation. Now I just have to stay up till 11:27 to see what happens when Mercury opposes Mars. Fat chance.

Boy, That Universe...

For six weeks, ever since anonymous, a boy I lived with far too briefly many many moons ago and have been trying to find ever since, or at least since there was a Switchboard, contacted me via this blog and then promptly disappeared on vacation to the only place on earth where presumably there is no Internet connection,  I have been walking around in - how to say this -- does "a constant state of arousal" do it?  Wandering around Walmart wondering what I went for and vaguely wishing I'd made a list, driving there or to the few other places here that make up my existence -- the landfill, Gospel Mission Thrift Shop, the tennis courts if I can find someone to play with me -- talking on the phone to whoever might be on the other end, digging up plants that aren't happy and moving them somewhere where they might be -- sex, sex and more sex is all that I've had on my mind, all of it, of course, with anonymous, someone I have not seen for forty-five years, and may well never see again.
That sums it up pretty neatly and avoids mentioning the detailed erotic fantasies that go along with thinking about sex during every waking moment, and of course some of the non-waking moments but we don't need to get into that here, and in the meantime life chugs along and off we go in our beloved 1992 Volvo for a long-planned trip to California to visit best friend in the world, detour to Las Vegas in the middle to win a free buffet for two, back to California and then after a week back to Silver, on back roads as much as possible with only an hour on the 10 between Phoenix and Quartzsite.
This is probably the tenth or so time I've made this trip, each time, back and forth, whizzing past what looks like an interesting bookstore right off the 10 at Quartzsite and never stopping, just as I whizz past Fresh Home-made Jerky in Parker. This time, on my way back to Silver, I was determined to stop at both places, but a gigantic truck between me and Fresh Jerky took paid to that stop and made me extra-determined to check out the bookstore.
No big trucks in Quartzsite, and I was able to pull into the Oasis (great name for a bookstore in the middle of the desert) parking lot with no problems, of course with my mind firmly fixed on one of the afore-mentioned erotic fantasies. The store -- a great big wooden shed half-open to the outside --  seemed to be empty, and I made straight for the Drama Section and started to poke around. It was a real bookstore, an Aladdin's Cave for someone like me, and I was rifling through books when I sensed someone behind me. I turned to see the scrawny naked back of what was obviously a man, even to someone who hadn't had sex for thirty years. He turned towards me, showing an equally naked front except he was wearing, if that's the word, a kind of enclosed hair scrunchie over what my sister would call his bits, and with a friendly smile said "Looking for anything in particular?"
"I wonder if you have a copy of Albee's Zoo Story," I say, Miss Unflappable International Playwright and New Yorker for forty years before I moved somewhere where you have to take your own trash to the dump. "Sure," he says, "I think I have at least one," and for the next ten minutes we discuss books, theater, the importance of hydration in the desert, the gem show and flea market that I learn are held in Quartzsite every January and February, how air-conditioning would cost him $500 a month so instead he offers all his customers free cold drinks -- many many interesting topics except why he's wearing a scrunchie over his bits and nothing else, and why after driving past his store twenty times over eight years I choose the one time I have nothing but sex on my brain to stop, although God knows I think the ten minutes I spent talking to him were probably the longest time I've gone WITHOUT thinking about sex since May 10, not that he wasn't perfectly charming and informative and knowledgeable and all.
I was back in the Volvo and halfway to Phoenix pondering the last paragraph before the obvious struck me -- duh, he's a nudist (!!!!!!!) -- and as soon I got home I googled Quartzsite Bookstores. Naturally (ha ha) everyone in the world except me is aware of him and his bookstore -- 22,600 results in 0.39 seconds -- but I'd still like to know what possessed me to stop there this past time and that time only. Boy, that universe...

Trying to Get Back on Track...

... posting on here, that is. For months all Astrodienst has given as my long-term aspects has been Pluto opposed to Saturn, Pluto square Neptune and Saturn conjunct Chiron, transits I've been looking at for years and dreading. Lora Lake, an extraordinarily gifted astrologer I met here in Silver a couple of years ago and became friends with until she moved away, and to whom I once admitted my dread about the coming Pluto/Saturn/Neptune configuration, told me, not quite in so many words as she's English and polite, that she thought I had nothing to worry about because the Neptune was going to save me, and I shall send her this link as so far she's been spot on.

If Neptune symbolizes art and love and all that stuff, since May 10 when someone I've been trying to find for years contacted me via this blog, I've been dominated by Neptune, (if Neptune is capable of domination), and managed to rewrite Act II of the play I've been writing since 1997. Today, thanks to a neighbor who understands country life, knows my car is in the shop and volunteered to take two envelopes to the Post Office for me, Just For You is on its way to the Royal Court in Sloane Square and The New Group on Theatre Row in New York. Nothing like aiming for the top.

In Thrall to Neptune

I could change this blog's name to once-a-month-astrology, but hope springs eternal and here I am again. It's not that nothing has been happening: line dancing seems to have fallen by the wayside and I haven't done a grocery shop for a week, but a new handyman has been coming and fixing things up and last weekend I went down to the Blues Festival with friends twice and had drinks with other friends. It's just that since the comment on here from anonymous life seems to have taken on another dimension.

The only time I don't think about him is when I'm "gardening" or writing, and thank God I'm doing a lot of both. The weather is finally gorgeous and I'm often outside till 8:30; one night a bit of work on the cactus garden, another transplanting some of the cacti I'm uprooting, another trying to rake the ground in the *backyard*, which results in nothing more than a pile of caliche that I then shovel into a big kitty litter container and take down to Battery Park City by the side of the concrete pad, thinking all the time I'll go down to the barn and bring up the wheelbarrow to make it easier, which I never do.

As for writing, I promised a friend last weekend I'd have Act II done so I could give her the finished script this weekend, and that seems to have propelled me into a frenzy of revision. A deadline - what a concept. Right now I have Mars trine Venus for the next couple of days to help me along with both projects, and all in all I'm so thrilled that the Pluto opposed to Saturn square Neptune that I've been dreading for years has brought nothing more than a friend asking for a loan and anonymous reappearing in my life I'm quite happy to float along  on my Neptunian cloud, work on Just For You in the morning,  throw cornflower seeds left, right and center all afternoon and fall in a heap in front of Turner Classic Movies at the end of the day.

Jupiter conjunct Part of Fortune

For days the girl had been watching this conjunction approach and wondering what it might bring. As said PoF is in Pisces in the Twelfth, she was not expecting riches, at least, not material ones. Only once, when Venus was conjunct the PoF and the girl was in Las Vegas feeding dollars into a slot machine, had money appeared on this aspect - nice money, $1,000 - and she of course was *playing* Wheel of Fortune. But that was long ago, before we dipped our bread in olive oil, to plagiarize a New Yorker cartoon, and this was the beginning of this week, Monday May 10, with natal PoF at 26 pisces 21 and Jupiter at 25 pisces 41.

It was the beginning of week four in New Mexico for the girl, and she was having a hard time adjusting after seven months in New York. The weather had been miserable, too cold or windy to go outside and *garden*, and the girl had been spending a lot of time huddled by the fire watching Law and Order and Turner Classic Movies. She was not working, either for someone else or on the play she was supposed to be rewriting, and the house had been left so spotlessly clean by her tenants of the winter there was nothing to do there, not that that was anything to complain about.

OK. So get up, let out cat, put on kettle, clean teeth, make coffee, check email. Staples weekly deals, High Country Gardens' newsletter, a friend in New York and - oh,  a comment on the girl's blog from Anonymous. Click, and the world changes. "Once a boy lived with a girl in a more-often-than not coldwater railroad flat on 92 and Ist." The girl's heart stops as she reads this, and is just beginning to beat again when she gets to "One day many years later the boy awoke with her name on his lips." The girl is stunned, blown away, not sure she's reading what she's reading. She has been thinking of this boy for years, periodically looking for him online and never finding him, giving up for five years or so, going on with life, typing his name into Google's search box again, same result, another five years...

The girl finishes reading, holds her head on with both hands and closes her eyes. When she opens them again, the post is still there. The girl is 65 years old but still an Aries, with natal Venus there as well, and though she feels as though an electrical storm is raging in her head she types "Name, please. Does it begin with C?" and hits reply. She gets up and wanders through the house shaking her head from side to side in disbelief, holding it on with both hands. She goes back to the computer, looks at what she's posted, and realizes "Does it begin with C?" is not quite what she meant to say, implying as it does the answer could equally have been M or T or W or J. She hopes it's possible to delete a response on Blogger and is relieved to find it is, although the words "This post has been deleted by the author" sit there instead. The boy had ended his comment by saying the girl would have to speak for herself, so she types "And the girl would be more than happy to, but not on here." That was better.

It's not until the next morning that the boy responds, by which time the girl is - the girl is what? She doesn't know herself, in all meanings of that term. The electrical storm in her brain has not died down, synapses popping and fizzing away, all circuits on overload, rush hour expresses on every neural network. "I saw your post when I got in late yesterday, and found myself too tired to write." Too tired to write? the girl thinks, but then she remembers there are eleven other Zodiac signs. She wishes she knew the boy's. She reads on. "But yes, you were right about it being C." Shit. He saw it. Oh well. He's given her his email address so she can respond privately. She does. That was on Tuesday morning and Saturday, four days later, she has yet to hear from him.

The good news for the girl is the storm has passed. By the time Jupiter (big) conjuncted her Part of Fortune in the Twelfth House (suffering and self undoing) exactly on Friday, the winds were dying down. The Greater Benefic and higher octave of Venus, that jocular bringer of joy, must have had his mind on other things, like hope and faith, as he approached and overtook. The girl is not yet sure if he left the other things behind. She wonders if, when Jupiter retrogrades over the same degree in October, the boy will reappear. She wonders where he lives, what he looks like now, whether he is married and/or a grandfather. She wonders why he would bother to search her out and then let things drop. A friend in whom the girl could not help but confide suggested helpfully that he may have been hit by a bus, as indeed he may. He may also have fallen down a manhole, been hit on the head by an air conditioner (if he lives in New York) or entered the Federal Witness Protection Program (if he lives in New Jersey) ha ha.

The girl began to cry when she was writing the third paragraph, which was probably a good thing. The week has made her realize she would like someone in her life she cares and feels about as much as she did the boy who would care and feel about her as she believes the boy did. She has a great deal more to say for herself than this but this will have to do for now. She is going outside to sow some seeds.

What but Saturn could make me post again?

My poor neglected blog. My writing about my fascination with the wonders of astrology has taken a back seat in the past month. The writing I have done has involved finishing up  my latest play, an accomplishment in itself, though I'm the one to say so. Before I left New York to come out to Silver I was fortunate enough to hear it read, which confirmed my opinion that Act II needs work and since I've been in Silver I've been tackling that, when I'm not huddled by the fire wrapped in a blanket, that is. Sunday, May 2, we had a snowfall. April 29, the beginning of the Tour of the Gila bike race, we had 60 mph winds. Friday I don't think the temperature got above 55, and yesterday it might have made it to 60. Today - whoopee - it might get to 69 and I might be able to start some of the clean up the "garden" needs. Maybe not.

This is all back-story (sorry) to Sunday, April 26, the only beautiful warm day since I got here on the 18th. For the first few days I was here I had absolutely no energy, and was beginning to think that it was because I was 65 when I remembered the altitude - 6,000 feet and  not quite as much oxygen in the air as in New York. That made me feel better, but the weather was still horrible, too cold to go outside and work. That Saturday was better and Sunday was wonderful - blue sky, sunny, over 80. The plan was to go into town, get some grub for my neighbor who was coming over for a beer at six, and spend the afternoon outside weeding, cutting back the vinca, sweeping up the pine needles etc. etc., until five when I'd take a shower and get ready for a visitor.

Saturn conjuncted Chiron exactly at 9:53 in the morning that Sunday. The title given to that aspect by Astrodienst is "Don't Give In." With an inexcusable lack of punctuality, the universe waited four whole hours before kicking in. Just as I was about to drive into town, the phone ran and there was my neighbor who was coming for a beer later.

Me: Are we on for tonight?
Him: Well, I have an invitation you can't refuse.
Me (thinking we are invited out for dinner): Oh?
Him: I know how much you love choral music and this afternoon the Silver City Chamber Music Society is giving a concert in the Episcopal Church at three. I'm inviting you to come with me.
Me (speechless, thinking of having been inside in a New York City apartment for six months, how much I was looking forward to scrabbling around in the dirt for the first time
this year, what an idiot I was to have thought I could have survived Saturn to Chiron unscathed and wondering how I could possibly refuse): Uh -
Him: I'll pick you up about 2:30, that should be enough time.
Me (truthfully): But I don't have anything to wear.
Him: You'll find something, I know.
Me: Uh -
Him: See you then.

I have now experienced what it feels like to have one's senses reel. For the rest of the day - on my way into town, shopping, on my way back, taking a skirt out of the laundry and sniffing it, showering, dressing, back into town with my neighbor, sitting in the church, back here having a beer, trying to read when my neighbor had left - I felt - well, I felt as though my senses were reeling. Of course I couldn't say no to him. He's elderly, his friends are dying off, he just donated his beloved mare to a breeding program as he feels his bones are getting too brittle to risk riding so now he has nothing to do on Sundays, he's turning to the church - I had to give in. It was Saturn.

Venus to the Sun...

...and the first really warm day, so I go charging off to one of the few stores here where I can find clothing that looks like me when I put it on for a *reasonable* price. For the past eight years I've bought almost nothing except t-shirts from Gospel Mission in Silver for 25 cents each, so with my 65th (!!!!!) birthday fast approaching I decided I could spend some money after my winter of living like the church mouse.

I found a beautiful charcoal colored top, much fancier than anything I normally wear, and an unstructured cream colored very lightweight linen coat/jacket thing that I wasn't sure about but bought anyway, figuring I could take it back within ten days if I changed my mind, and felt only slightly sick as I handed over my charge card.

Going from the sublime to the ridiculous, I brought both pieces home and then took off to the local thrift shop here where I had a $25 credit and bought two pairs of lightweight stretch pants. Home again, I took out the sewing machine  and began to tailor both pairs to fit me, as they were both one size too big. I'd almost finished the first pair before the transit passed, and am curious to see when the sewing machine comes out again. Considering the state of my bank balance, I'm hoping it will be soon.

Uranus conjunct Part of Fortune

With a part of fortune in Pisces in the twelfth it isn't very likely to bring me financial gain, no matter what planet lands on it. Only once since I've been tracking transits has it happened, and that was seven years ago in Las Vegas when Venus conjuncted it. Appropriately enough, I was sitting at a dollar Wheel of Fortune machine and lo and behold, the pointer stopped at the $1,000 mark. Never happened before, never happened since, not that I spend too much time in Las Vegas.

Uranus sitting on top of my PoF last week coincided (yeah, right) with the final collage class I've been taking at the Stanley Isaacs Senior Center, near where I live. About 15 of us, with the guidance and support of an out-reach person from the Whitney, put together over six weeks a three panel collage of the center, measuring about eight feet by nine in total, and evidently the biggest ever constructed to date by the program. 

Last Wednesday we were all invited to the Whitney for a personal tour of the Biennial, given by the ever-patient out-reach person who helped us with the collage, and then taken into a conference room where the individual collages we'd made in the class had been photographed and matted and were on display, along with the original collages. Photographs of our masterpiece - too big to transport - were projected onto a screen while we all sat around and ate chocolate biscuits - (Venus was opposed to Neptune for me that day as well, to enhance the sugar and the art aspect) - chatting away to members of the out-reach program and nodding sagely at any connections they drew between our art work and "real" artists. Of course I intended my collage to evoke the Bauhaus. Why else would I have used a photograph of a mop and bucket and another of the wheels on a garbage can? We all got a Whitney shopping bag to take our masterpieces home in, and were also given a pair of passes to go back whenever we want and check out the parts of the Biennial we missed. Nearly as good as a thousand dollars.

A better than a thousand dollar aspect came into play the next day, when I left my wallet in the supermarket, didn't realize if for six hours, and found it had been handed into the manager's office when I went back for it. My big $25 was still in it, my driver's license, my credit card, Duane Reade card, library card, MetroCard, life in general - all still inside and all I had to do was give my name to get it back. It's so corny I can barely write it, but life's just a great big wheel of fortune, and it was on my side last week. 

Jupiter Opposed to Sun

Line dancing at the senior center is now only every other week, and I missed the last two sessions due to total inability to get myself there. The day of this aspect, three days ago, I was raring to go and took myself off to get there exactly on time at 10:30. As it happened, completely by coincidence of course, Vera, our indefatigable leader, was giving another line dancing class that afternoon at another center in the neighborhood, and I was asked if I would show up to boost attendance and prove to the new center's management that, if a dancing class were offered, people would come.

Being as how I live to serve, I said I'd go, and did. Several of the ladies from the Isaacs Center, the original place, were there, as they lived in the building, and after the (successful) class, one of them asked me and others to go up and see her apartment, of which she was obviously very proud. I had intended to go to Daffy's and see if I could find some new spring clothes, as I've been wearing the same things since 9/11 just about, but again, as I live to serve, I said yes and went up to see the apartment. While we were oohing and ahhing over the view, which was a good 'un, another of the ladies who lives in an adjoining building asked.....so I did that as well, leaving with just enough time to get to the Studio for Playwrights/Directors Workshop and ten minutes or so to spare.

Jupiter then decided I had enough time to stop in at a Daffy's before I went to the Studio, which I did, but I didn't, if you see what I mean, and got to the Studio (with no new clothes) after most of the participants had gone into the theater, squeaking in just in time to be allowed up in the elevator just as the moderator was introducing the first presentation. There ended the manifestation of Jupiter opposed to the Sun, as all I did after that was have a normal-sized dinner with a friend and go home.

Two at One Blow

My Week at a Glance was a wonderful solution for someone seemingly incapable of posting every day, she said modestly, so I shall continue with a variation on the theme.

Uranus sextile Ascendant, Tuesday February 23
Holistic cat people seem to be this aspect made manifest for me -  most unlike any of the earthlings I've met before. I'm used to seniors by now and theater people are nothing new, but women who have telepathic chats with Patches and then tell me he told them he has a fear of abandonment are definitely an alien species, as are those who tell me that whenever I leave the house I should have a chat with Sweet Pea and tell him he's in charge and he's to keep the pigeons and sparrows out while I'm away.

Just to put a bit of real surprise into my life though, and to make this aspect completely memorable, an hour before it was due to perfect my kitchen door suddenly swung open (yes OF COURSE I should keep it locked) and just as suddenly closed, as one of the workmen on his way up to the third floor indulged in a bit of wish fulfillment and decided to think the second floor was the end of his climb. Scary for a moment.

Sun square Uranus, Sunday February 28
I was going to stay home and work on my quarter-of-a-million word proofreading job, which is all I ever seem to do these days,  except a friend called and we decided on the spur of the moment to go and see Crazy Heart. I'd never even heard of it, which means nothing, as I have a stalk of virtual hay sticking out of my hair now at all times, and it turned out to be one of the best movies I've seen in years (not that that means anything either, as I've seen about two a year since 2001.) The point is, what used to be a reasonably ordinary thing to do  - going to the movies - has become an unusual event, partly because it involves spending money, which might be why going out to eat has downsized into having a slice of pizza. That's exactly what we did after the movie.  I did splurge and have pepperoni on top.

Astrology Triumphs Again

So there it was the day before Jupiter conjunct Mars in the eleventh house and all that seemed to have happened was that I'd been bitten AGAIN by the cat I was fostering and the bite had become infected. Yes, it was drama workshop at the senior center in the morning and workshop leader wanted to know if I'd be available to be in the Celebrate Women's Month or whatever is it show/pageant later in March, and I would, so we all go over our parts and I'm Sappho, oh great, and will have to read my little blurb from Great Women's Hall of Fame or whatever it is, but gimme a break - THAT'S Jupiter conjunct Mars? Final proof that God has a sense of humor?

Not quite. That afternoon was also the final collage workshop with The Artist From The Whitney at the senior center, but in between my two visits to the center I had, of course, to check what is laughingly called my portfolio - a collection of equities, as I now know to call them (as opposed to stocks, which is what I called them when I knew even less about them than I do now) - a motley collection indeed, all bought without the help of financial advisors, all based on whatever *trend* my hayseed self might have thought was about to *pop*. Years ago I bought a big 190 shares of TIVO. Usually I buy 100 or less, but TIVO when I bought it was $4.99 so I could splurge.

It's some kind of box that connects to your TV that lets you record programs that are on when you're not home so you can watch them when you are, she said vaguely, showing the acute understanding she has of each equity in which she *invests* (read 'gambles') ; there's a monthly subscription rate that is way over what I would pay for such a service. I get (almost) the same service from Dish network, the satellite TV provider I use in Silver, for $5.00 a month. That was the problem with the stock - a great idea but one that could be easily copied, and the company has been in a legal fight with Dish for so long I'd forgotten about it.  The poor thing has struggled its way upward over the years, and gotten stuck at around $10.00 for a long time. That's a 100 percent return, but with 190 shares, still nothing to write home about.

But - Jupiter conjunct Mars with no other manifestation that I can see  and TIVO wins its latest battle against Dish and is awarded $200 million and the stock jumps $5 in a day and my *investment* is up by $1,000 since I left the house to go to drama workshop.  And with not much angst at all - Citibank having rejected me for having a portfolio worth less than $25,000 and passed me on to some lower form of financial caretaker, with said transfer taking place the day after I want to sell my TIVO so that when I go to my Citibank account online and attempt to sell my TIVO I'm told "You cannot sell a stock you do not own"-  a simple panicked phone call puts me in touch with a Citibank investment advisor who is as surprised as I am when he sees what I'm trying to do and asks me if I know of any reason for the stock's pop. When I tell him, he gets as excited as I am, and lo and behold, a month and a half gets taken off the time I have to live comfortably and $3000.00 or close goes into my checking account.

And people say Pisces means spirituality...  
  

Sun conjunct Mars square Uranus

The manifestation of the above on Monday, with the Sun conjunct Mars at 11:30 am and JUPITER SQUARE URANUS pardon my shouting exact at 5:32 pm, is I think a perfect example of how my life has shrunk and narrowed itself under the overlying Pluto opposed to Saturn. On what by any interpretation *should* have been a reasonably out-of-the-ordinary day, I took myself off to the Bronx on the subway to spend the day with my quarter-of-a-million word proofreading job client, going over the changes I'd made and getting his approval.

It was a big day for him in that I walked him through How to Send an Email and showed him and bookmarked for him the Inefficient Drinker http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KswnjMa-MQ cat video, which I gather he's been watching constantly ever since. It's just that I would have expected something more, as I've gone to work with him at least five times before, but that's the same silly trap I often fall into of expecting transits to bring me something exciting when I've been living the life of a slug for months.

In a very boring mundane in its not pertaining to the world sense, I can find some correlation between the aspects and the day - natal Jupiter is in Virgo, ruled by Mercury, words words words, and Mars is of course in Pisces - no boundaries - and God knows this proofreading job is deficient in the boundary department, but still...

Oh well, it got me back to posting here, so it's a boring wind that blows no good, or something, and now back to the last 50,000 words.

Pluto Opposed to Saturn

Last post February sixth? That seems to answer what the above has brought - paralysis of some kind, life shrinking to a bare minimum of going to the studio, working on the GK proofreading job, working on the everlasting play I've been getting out and putting away for years, and of course the cats, who I realized could be symbolizing the Pluto opposed to Saturn aspect, although it's difficult to think of Sweet Pea as Saturn.

He certainly symbolizes some of the structure I've built up in my life. I've been his human (as I've learned to identify myself, thanks to Uranus sextile the Ascendant bringing people the likes of whom I've never known into my life) for almost two years now, a record in my being the human in a cat's life life. He's gone from being a traumatized nine-month-old to a still fearful of everyone but me going-on-three year old, but until Pluto disguised as Patches appeared last November, he's always been Only Cat in Household. (It was my less-than-brilliant idea that fostering a cat would provide Sweet Pea, used to roaming his own six acres of New Mexico and now confined to a railroad flat for six months, with company and a playmate.)

According to the holistically inclined cat people I've now spoken to, I ought to have had someone other than me bring Patches into the apartment while Sweet Pea and I were here. That someone ought to have deposited the carrier with Patches still inside somewhere near our feet and we *should* have had a long and meaningless chat about anything but the new arrival, totally ignoring the carrier, and giving Sweet Pea a chance to have a sniff at it and get to realize what was inside. (This ideal scenario overlooks the fact that the minute the door to the hall opens and a stranger comes in, Sweet Pea vanishes under the bed for the duration of said stranger's stay. The point is I *should* not have brought Patches in myself.)

The ideal scenario continues for a week or so, I think with me having hourly chats with Sweet Pea about how he is still the alpha cat and I love him more than any other cat and he will never be deposed etc. etc., while Patches continues to be ignored and spend most of his time separated from Sweet Pea.

What actually happened was that I walked in with Patches in a carrier, put it down on the kitchen floor and let him out immediately, so the holistic approach to introducing a new cat to the household was over before it had a chance to begin. The ensuing fights have not been pretty, with me the blooded one. And if they do represent Pluto opposed to Saturn, that aspect is no longer exact and the two of them are still a long way from being the best of friends. A noble experiment, but at least I'm back to posting.

Special Message for Dust In Bliss

Thanks to a posting from Anonymous, I've discovered a comment you made back in July of last year asking if Progressed Sun in the second house had brought me any sudden windfalls. Er, no, would be the short answer, but the main point of this - with Mercury on the MC today - is to say thanks for the question and apologies for not seeing it before.

I only recently allowed comments, not because I didn't want them but because I didn't know it was possible (and also because I didn't think anyone was reading this), and even then didn't realize I could be notified by email if there was one, and your comment was made months before either of these realizations.

I answered it yesterday as soon as I saw it but, as I have two Google accounts and three computers set up in this apartment, wasn't logged in until five minutes ago to the correct account to approve my own posting before it was published, which I've just done. (There has to be a workaround for that,  but I haven't found it yet.)

However, as I cleverly wrote my answer to appear on the post you responded to  - written in February '09 - I would think chances you'll see it are pretty slim, although of course you could well be more blog savvy than me and have arranged somehow to be notified if you get a response.

At least in the future I'll know if a comment is posted and will be able to respond to it. I hope you'll get to see this and please know it makes my ever-hungry South Node in Capricorn very happy to know somebody reads this once in a while. And I love that name, BTW.

Snapshots

Natal Mercury in Aries solution for getting behind with posting:

Last Thursday, January 28: Mars sextile Uranus: exact at 1:30 pm as second collage class at Stanley Isaacs began: paired up with a partner, given digital camera by instructor and told to prowl around the center taking photos for group collage. Even more fun than line dancing.

Friday January 29: much anticipated Sun trine Uranus, full Moon with Mars: nothing. Working on Rupert play, working on Georgie, bed early with wild dreams about astrology charts: maybe not nothing.

Sunday January 31: Mercury square Sun: Rupert play, Georgie.

Monday February 1: Mercury trine Jupiter: Went to Rita's Needlepoint on 79th to buy embroidery silks, as requested by Silvery neighbor on Saturday. Remembered to take list of requested skein numbers and also address to mail them to; after buying went straight to post office, put in priority mail envelope and sent. Felt amazingly productive and self-satisfied.

Tuesday February 2: Venus conjunct Moon (in Aquarius): email from Silvery friend undergoing massive Pluto transit; have barely heard from her in last six months. Early Wednesday morning retrograde Mars conjunct Pluto - ("A ruthless burst of ego energy" ha ha) passes unnoticed. Must have been asleep.

Thursday February 4: Chiron square Ascendant exact: this deserves its own posting but I'm so enamored of this new catching up method it's not getting it, at least not right now; have been working on my Rupert play for weeks, often reducing myself to tears as I do so as it involves a painful childhood event transmuted into what I hope is art. Like everything else I write it's a black comedy, but this one's blacker and I hope funnier than anything I've written so far, details to come when it gets its own post. I have Jupiter trining Saturn right now, exact on Sunday night, and I need to make the most of it. Back to the tissues.

Sun opposed to Pluto, Mercury conjunct South Node

I never check aspects before I make plans, but almost wished I do when I realized what would be happening on this day. I'm working on a huge proofreading job - an oral history  chock full of Russian nouns, people and places - and the client is adamant about keeping the tone of the non-native-English speaker's narrative. Getting him to let me delete one of the many if, ands, buts, whens, wases, wheres and such ones so on that get in the way of the sense of what's being described requires a long and detailed explanation of the reason for the deletion and infinite patience, not one of my stronger points but medication helps ha ha.

The true saving grace is that the client is a gentleman and a scholar from bygone days and we enjoy each other's company,  so any struggle usually ends up with an exaggerated "whew!" from me and laughter from him as one more word bites the dust from the 600 page manuscript.

Once again I've waited far too long to write this post - it happened a week ago today and we're already three days into a new month - have completely lost interest in it and am not going to finish it. If I'd made New Year's resolutions one of them would have been to write this up every day, but fortunately I didn't.

Venus opposed to Pluto, then trine Uranus

This turned out to be the day to paint the shelves in the computer room and kitchen. I bought the paint weeks ago after the Keystone Cops installed the french doors by nailing up two by fours to make the door frame smaller, and had slapped a coat of paint on the unfinished wood soon after they'd finished the work (didn't mark aspects - slipping), but that was as far as I got.

I haven't paid much attention to this apartment for years and it's starting to show. (I did paint the living room magenta when Uranus conjuncted Mars, but that was three years ago.) I have a once-white particle board computer station that I bought at Conran's, which dates it right there, and that was looking particularly dingy. It now looks spanking fresh, even if you can see a few brush marks, and I rack up further evidence that my twelfth house Venus in Aries is much happier slapping semi-gloss white paint around than involving herself in messy relationships with earthlings.

Further evidence of the non-sexual nature of that Venus appeared two days later as she trined Uranus and brought me my first copy of The New Yorker since November 26 (I'm aware of the date as I had to find it to email their subscription service and complain); the generic Celexa I ordered from a Canadian pharmacy three weeks ago, rather than have my 78-year-old neighbor in Silver go to Walmart for me and mail it here; a serious inquiry about the 1957 Chevy truck I've listed on Craigslist for said neighbor, and, as far as I know, the first comment left on this blog by someone I haven't told to read it (and none of them do anyway) saying that he or she enjoys it and thanking me for writing it, bringing the grand total of readers even closer to a two-digit number. Many thanks to whoever that was from me and my twelfth house on the upper east side. 

Solar Eclipse on MC, Part II

The atmosphere around here got pretty charged last Thursday night as the folly of my thinking this event was going to have some kind of benevolent effect on my playwriting career became clearer by the second.  I'd been thinking -- (HOW long have I been studying astrology?) --  that I might get confirmation of a go-ahead from the artistic director interested in producing one of my plays, and instead, after not working for her for about three months, was asked by a friend if I could help out and transcribe a sudden rush job that had come into her agency.

If you're looking for a definition of a solar eclipse on the Midheaven to an Aries (this one, at least), Thursday's is about as literal as it could get; tether yourself to a machine by putting on headphones, complete subsume  your own personality to the requirements of the task at hand, type verbatim whatever it is you hear on the MP3 file and stay tethered until the job is finished, as there's always a deadline.

By the time the file arrived in my mailbox, I'd been on the phone with my friend/boss several times, getting updates on how quickly the uploading was going and, my normal foghorn voice at top pitch, telling her what I had been dopey enough to think might happen.  (She's astrology friendly-- she's the friend who told me to start this blog.)

It was once I'd downloaded the MP3, transferred it to the transcribing software, put the headphones on and started working the foot pedal that the fun started in earnest. The sound on the file was super fast -- so speeded up that it was unintelligible and impossible to understand, let alone transcribe. Slowed it down, using the software - still too fast. Shut the software down, restarted - still too fast. Took several deep breaths, reminded myself I was but a little piece of stardust experiencing the ineffable As Above, So Below workings of the universe and called my boss, telling her the problem.

I got the expected answer - the file was fine when she sent it to me - said I'd try again and call her back.
Tried again, sound still chipmunky. Picked up foot pedal, cleaned off dust, blew on it, clicked the moving pieces once or twice to see that they connected, put it back down on floor, pressed right pedal -- 150 watt light bulb appears over head and strangled moan escapes mouth as I remember this is the foot pedal I'd used the week before when using analog transcribing machine with cassette tapes and the foot pedal I ought to have been using - the one that works with the transcribing software - was in the bottom drawer of the file cabinet.  Changed out foot pedals, called boss, explained lack of brain cells and finally finally finally began to work.

The cats, in the meantime, had picked up on the imminent absence of the three billion megawatts of electromagnetic energy they're used to being bombarded with and had been chasing each other up and down the apartment even more furiously than usual, with Sweet Pea getting braver and braver (or more and more crazed) the more charged the atmosphere got and taking fiercer and fiercer bites at poor old Patches' heels, tail and underbelly.  At one point the skirmishes escalated to such a level I took off the headphones and untethered myself, stood over the two writhing bodies, clapped my hands and said "Stop", which to the amazement of all three of us they did, Sweet Pea skulking away into a corner and Patches standing shaking in shock.  I of course chose this moment to say "poor old boy" and reach my hand out to Patches, but the cotton balls, Peroxide and Neosporin now live handily accessible on a shelf in the bathroom and I've learned you have to squeeze the saliva out of the teeth marks and run water over them.

Things calmed down a bit after that. I only got a bit of Neosporin on the keyboard, the cats retired to separate ends of the apartment,  I transcribed the file and was in the middle of spell-checking it when my mailbox pinged and there was the bi-monthly newsletter from the Dramatists Guild, to which I belong. (Another of my unvoiced to the world *predictions* about the eclipse had been that notice of publication of one of my plays in a special edition, with a foreword by me, would appear in the next DG Member News section, not too surprising as I had just sent the notice in myself, a mere four months after the event.)

Of course I had to stop spell-checking to go and see my name - if not in lights, at least on a computer screen and not on an invoice I was sending out - but it was definitely not the night for this little piece of cosmic matter. Not a mention of me and my play appeared, for reasons which became apparent as I read properly for the first time the instructions for submitting material. Future events only were to be sent to the newsletter, past events should be emailed to the webmaster to appear on the website, the eclipse is in Capricorn and that means Saturn and there are rules here that you have to follow....

And there ended the eclipse on my Midheaven. That was more than a week ago. The Leo full Moon at the end of this week sextiles Uranus in Gemini for me, while the Sun trines it. Mars is with the Moon in the sky, Jupiter will be beginning to trine Saturn for me, and I would say it's a pretty sure bet notice of the special edition of my play will be appearing on the Dramatists Guild Website before the week is over. Always assuming, of course, that I remember to email them and tell them.