A Poetic Portrait of the Astrological Week

8.2.04


I. The Sun continues to travel through Leo

'Shine down and heat our bones. Release the creak in our joints, so that we may bend and bustle theatrically.' With looser movement, we do what we want. We sing odes to the lazy hazy days of summer, eating hot dogs and cracking jokes to our co-workers about how much we'd rather be outside singing odes and eating hot dogs on a day as nice as today. Laughter erupts. The grump from down the hall tries not to join in—she has her pride to maintain—but secretly has her own list of poolside activities and barbecue foods to hallucinate, to plan for the weekend or to slip out and enjoy while no one's looking. Those who disagree, at least have respect for the loving mischief in each other's smiles. No tattle-telling.

II. Mercury in Virgo

Henceforth, each idea must be filed within its appropriate category. Section titles, consequently, have been provided for easier analytic digestion. Please arrange the following concepts in logical order, according to age (as dated by gauging the magnitude by which radioactive isotope carbon-14 has transmuted into nitrogen-14 through beta-decay), mass (assessed using the water displacement method) and density (a factor only ascertainable once girth has been measured and combined in ratio format with previous mass figure)—(a) self-improvement, including all forms of spiritual education and empowerment, (b) practical business, including career growth, bill-paying, and accumulation of wealth for future endeavors, (c) romance, including all relationships, fleeting and enduring, in which two or more people share a communion qualitatively different than friendship or family, (d) friendship, (e) family, (f) fun, (g) all inanimate objects not qualifying as either directly related to self-improvement or practical business or considered to be romantic partners, friends or family, despite the obvious unilateral alignment of such person-object relations, and not necessarily purely for fun, or (h) none of the above, which includes a diverse range of components, abstractions, emotions, moments, and algebraic formulae. Please file Form H-924 with the authorities to apply for additional categories in which to file concepts.

III. The Sun opposes Neptune

Unknown factors emerge briefly from the outside, reminding us of our lack of control and the futility of sense. I would have used the word 'materialize' but then you might have wanted to touch and your finger would have sunk right through the cloud. These words are a cloud in this category, and we can only do what we can do with what we have, if we have it. Reality isn't exactly as it would be, if we actually had the kind of power to effect outcomes our preferred direction as we imagine we do. Only those who aren't afraid to admit we don't know what we're seeing will be able to see what we don't know but which is there. The rest imagine inaccurate simplicity, and in the wrong language.

IV. Financial workers defiant despite threat

The car parked outside the building is allegedly jammed with explosives. We still report to the office. We're still expected to work. Gruff undertrained uniform-wearers search every cavity to ensure we continue at our desks, making calls and answering emails. We will not be prevented from enjoying our lives and exercising our freedoms. Waiting in the long line to be assumed guilty, we contemplate what the rebels are rebelling against and what power the powerful seek to retain. We can't button up and be what we're not. Children need parents, while iconic economic targets are at the heart of interest. Explain to them what economics are.

V. Mercury in Virgo, approaching next week's retrograde

The files are stacked on the desk in order. Leave them put, for you cannot carry around all that excess data. Even as you tromp about town, you fear what you know to be true: A week from now, you will have left the office window open and the breeze will have come and you'll be dreading the return to disarray. The papers will all still be there, except perhaps one or two, and your trusted advisor will recommend not spending all day trying to locate the missing items with all the other work to be done. The classifications will necessarily change since, despite your attention to detail, careful records of the records were not kept. In the end, you will have restored reason to the mess—but not before realizing exact replication is futile. What seem to be repetitive tasks contain subtle changes. Categories are looser, more workable. Sense makes a little more livable sense.

VI. Jupiter squares Pluto

This rather big guy squeaks in under the radar. 'Is he the saintly shaman or a smug seducer?' everybody wonders, sure of one thing, which is his immense power. 'Have we given it to him, or has he taken it from us without our noticing?' This moment of questioning, of subtle recognition, is a crisis point in the cycle. Last we noticed, back in '00, polarization caused a war for domination. Now, everyone's taking a moment to decide how those results will effect a change in thinking—reversal or recommitment?—toward the concentration of mighty might by the end of '07. The symbols say a bunch of us will be cooperatively caravanning in cars toward the Promised Land, but certain traditionalist others are in the process of chipping away at the resource stocks to save something for later. ('For whom?' we ponder.) These two activities are somewhat at odds. I hate to do this to you, but you could be forced to choose.

VII. How the one that matters will matter

Everyone says this November's election is a decisive one, but what will we decide? Our 'we' these days is an unholy alliance. We might know ourselves well enough, but we might not know each other as well as we might think. 'Might' holds a lot of might. This one will come right down to the wire, so we might as well reserve our reflective energies for later and/or for other. How easily can any spiritual being absorb that whatever happens, even in this context, is 'as it should be' (though still we must express ourselves by voting)? One election begets another, with a whole host of surprises known as the flow of events in between.

VIII. Venus into Cancer

[insert a quietly reassuring breath of relief, with little explanatory text, here. after four incessant months of venus-in-gemini patter and prattle, it's finally okay to snag some silence and longingly love the romance of indescribability. ask for what you want in waves not words. if its intent involves caring and goodness, the deliverables appear at just the right time. cuddling in safety. the taste overwhelms the need to list adjectives. awash.]

IX. The Moon wanes, the poem closes

When the days are no longer as bright as these, your seasonally affected head will search for remembrances. Make it easier for yourself, and grab a piece of material now to store. Go on living your experiences, investing just a tiny bit in a vessel you may uncork in colder months. Later, pull out that rock you grabbed from the beach, the photo of your time together, a scrap of paper ripped off the menu of that special dinner. Call it continuity. Let these symbolic crumbs suffice, and you needn't hold so tightly to the rest.

Tune in next week, when we return to our regularly scheduled programming.