Sunday's Gemini Solar Eclipse panned out nicely with this story.  Gemini rules little kids, neighbors, communications, cars, trucks and trikes.  A 3-year old decided to hop on his tricycle and ride through a busy intersection in a North Eastern City in China on Monday afternoon.  (May 23, 2012).  The video shows him making it all the way through before a police officer rescued him. 

This Eclipse was in conjunction with Jupiter (Luck) and Mercury (Trikes and busy intersections). This doubles the Mercury and Jupiter energy.

A 3-year old has just completed cycles of all his inner planets (Moon, Mercury, Sun, Venus, Mars) and is going through the first square of Transiting Jupiter to his natal Jupiter.  This is a time of rapid increase of vocabulary and breaking through boundaries, adventure seeking, and testing one's lucky stars. I wonder how Jupiter is placed in this kid's natal chart.  He could star in his own Pink Panther movies.

My Ruler

NASA's published photos taken of Mercury.

My mirror image.

Gorgeous, of course.

http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/First-photos-Mercury-orbit/ss/events/sc/033011mercury#photoViewer=/110311/480/urn_publicid_ap_org_b1b292855c6447d39be0a4341964fd5d

Earth to Mercury

NASA's Messenger spacecraft has entered Mercury's orbit where it will spin around the planet 730 times over the next year. The mission has been 15 years in the making. The spacecraft had to spin around Earth's orbit once, Venus' orbit twice, and Mercury's orbit three times in order to gain enough momentum to make it into the atmosphere. According to the article listed below Mercury is very dense, is constantly shrinking, and has a gravitational pull (unlike Venus and Mars).

Messenger's 14 minute burn into Mercury's atmosphere:

Mar. 18 0045 GMT

How the chart looks from earth:

Sun 28 Pisces; Moon 3 Virgo; ASC 9 Sagittarius; MC 8 Libra; NN 29 Sagittarius Rx

Mercury from our viewpoint is at 15 Aries conjunct Jupiter in the 5th House and opposing Saturn 16 Libra in the 11th House.

The cusp of the 3d house is 30 Aquarius. The Moon-Neptune (30 Aquarius) opposition is in layered over the H3-H9 cusps. Guess that's pretty awesome for a spacecraft making contact with Mercury.

Boccaccio's Decameron

Back in College I read some of the stories from Boccaccio's Decameron in a class and recently can't seem to get one particular story out of my head.

The Decameron is a set of 100 tales probably of folk origin which are set into a backdrop story about a group of people who are isolating themselves from the Black Plague in Europe. They stay together for 10 days over the Summer in 1348 and keep each other entertained by telling 10 stories a day.

The story which has stuck with me is the 1st one, a story about an evil guy who dies in a strange town and from his death bed tells the Priest all kinds of lies about the good deeds he has done during his lifetime. The Priest has to believe him, and after his death has him canonized. It's genius for its insight into people and for its satire of the Catholic Church. This set of stories is compared with Chaucer's Canterbury Tales which sort of do the same thing, but from an English perspective.

Summaries for all the Decameron stories are on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summary_of_Decameron_tales.

The Decameron Story Tellers are hiding out from the Plague for 10 days during the Summer of 1348 in isolation with each other. I looked back at the date which is given, just for curiosity's sake. Summer 1348. Ha Ha! What a great Summer to entertain each other with stories. Mercury was conjunct the North Node at the beginning of Leo. Because it went Retrograde this transit basically lasted from the end of June to the beginning of August. What better story telling opportunity than an aspect like this?

I doubt there's any correspondence to what really happened in real life. There seems to be no known birth date for Boccaccio even, but after looking at this I certainly wonder how much might be based on reality.

The Other Planets from this Summer helped, of course. Venus and Mars had a conjunction in Libra in August, if you've ever read some of the stories from the Decameron you know what that's about.

The Outer Planets were helping as well. Jupiter was in Gemini and Uranus was squaring the Nodal Axis all Summer as well. Funny how that can be read as great for spreading communicable diseases as well as for story telling. Saturn was in Pisces which explains the extreme grief that was going on all around and the need for isolation.

Pluto was in Aries which explains "Death by Inflammation." I guess the disease was spread by Rats. Not sure what rules the poor critters. The next year, of course, Saturn moved into Aries and there was a conjunction of Saturn to Pluto. That's probably when the Plague got its name "Black Death;" Saturn and Pluto relating to the color Black.

Supposedly Boccaccio really did start writing the stories around this time. From what I remember from my College Class, the stories were thought to be a collection of folk tales that were compiled by Boccaccio. It took ten years for him to complete the Decameron. I bet it only really took 9 years: that's a Lilith Return Cycle, tee hee.

Today's Mercury and Me and Ben Bernanke and His Competition

Too many NPR Driveway Moments these days as I try to avoid confronting absolutely everything in my life. Mercury is right on my North Node in Libra and Pluto is squaring it while sitting on my 7th House Saturn.

First Mercury was squaring Mars and opposing Pluto. Next week Mercury goes Retro. Right now Mercury's in a Thor's Hammer configuration with Mars and Jupiter. Don't know really what Thor's Hammer means. The interpretations for Thors Hammers are all pretty vague just like interpretations for all the other vague planet formations (except for Yods which Karen Hamaker Zondag cleared up nicely in her book). Mercury-Mars-Jupiter working together in a difficult way could certainly indicate an overload of stress, competition, shouting matches. They are linking up the signs of Cancer, Libra and Aquarius. Mars is probably most prominent because he's in his Fall, throwing tantrums and neither Mercury nor Jupiter is going to know what to do with all this excess emotional baggage. Mercury and Jupiter aren't exactly the most caring planets in the world so they will just be making Mars' situation all that much worse.

Thor's Hammer is the aspect that's a bigger, meaner triangle thingee than a Yod. A Yod at least has a sextile. One of the aspects a Thor's Hammer contains is a square between two planets. These planets are both linked to a third planet by sesquisquares or 3 half squares or 3 tri-octiles (135 degree aspect, whatever it's called). Whatever you want to call them, they belong to the same family as the square, just more subtle. The interpretation that I did read which I liked (can't remember the source, crap) said that this can present a turning point of some kind caused by an inability to make a decision or choice. Either the planets in the square are relying on the 3d planet for a resolve, or things come to a head to a point where one is pushed down the fork in the road in whatever direction. Remember a long time ago, I said that both Hillary Clinton and what's his name, the guy with the shiny hair, John Edwards, have the natal Thor's Hammers. Either way, count on things not really going your way. And right now that certainly would apply to me as well as I eagerly panick over which fork in the road I will have to take.

So, Thor is hammering away in the sky. Thank God these minor aspects have small orbs so the transits don't last long. Jupiter is bouncing around over my Midheaven and I'm pretty sure I've burned more bridges than the state has rivers at this point. I don't have positive Jupiter transits pretty much without exception. This one is just making me want to eat a lot and get fat and I can't sleep and there's brown goo coming out of the bathroom faucets that smells sometimes like cookies and sometimes like barbeque and sometimes like Sweet and Sour Pork. I am hungry all the time which means blood sugar issues.

So, what was this going to be about? Oh yeah. NPR Driveway moment. The damn idiots on NPR were babbling about the financial markets again and were sort of getting catty about my Magic Federal Reserve Chairman Boyfriend Ben Bernanke's reappointment to the Chair of said Reserve. They said that Obama's pick, Lawrence Sumners, was more qualified than My Boyfriend for the Post but he (Lawrence) has a bad personality and upsets people so Ben was better for the job (even though he's a Republican and owns Philip Morris).

Ben has a soothing personality. Boy, does he ever. (Remember the days of weirdo Alan? Market goes up. Market goes down. Market goes up. Market goes down. I hated Disneyland when I was a kid and I don't like Disneyland now.)

So, they (NPR) said that Lawrence is a better pick because he saw it coming. Ben didn't. How could Ben not have seen it coming? He's been studying the Great Depression all of his adult life.

Anyway, I wanted to compare Larry's chart with Ben's chart to see what's the difference between a good personality and a bad personality. I figured Lar was going to get all Saturn-Pluto on us.

Lawrence Sumners
b. Nov. 30, 1954 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (not sure about the place)

Sun 8 Sagittarius; Moon Capricorn or Aquairus; NN 8 Capricorn

Ben Bernanke
b. Dec. 13, 1953 Augusta, Georgia

So, Sagittarrians born at opposite ends of the year of each other. Same North Node in Capricorn, same Saturn in Scorpio. Seriously serious stuff. (Remember Alan? He was fun. He was all into Ayn Rand, those were the days when people bought that shit.).

So what we have here is Cute Sadge v. BlabberHead Sadge. Actually, Sumners is butt-ugly but he likely has Moon in Capricorn and I've been told by some nasty astrologer that we don't age well. (Think Cindy Sheehan).

See, the problem with Sumners' personality (that I know about) is that he's the guy who spoke to a crowd at Harvard in 1995 and announced to the entire crowd that women aren't successful, truly guys, women are dumb, bottom line. Moon in Capricorns can be awful women haters, I know because I am. An engineering scholar and college dean and woman had to stand up in front of the crowd and chew him out. She was the Great and Wonderful Denise Denton of Oz (Virgo Sun). Probably all the other women in the room were cowering in the corner saying nothing because, after all, only ass-kissers can break the glass ceiling.

At any rate, the woman who stood up to the BlabberHead Sadge Sumners was Denise Denton. I wrote about her tragic death. She committed Suicide in 2006. She is the inspiration for my research on astrology of Children of Divorce so, needless to say, I like her very much and am not fond at all of BlabberHead Sadge Sumners. Plus, I have a major Federal Reserve Bank crush on Ben Bernanke. Who doesn't? How the hell else are we going to get through the next 10 years if we don't have a crush on the guy?

So what if Sumners saw the Crash coming? He sucks. Anyway, the entire astrological community saw it coming. The Bush administration saw it coming, that's why they picked Ben the Scholar Expert guy (well, it helped that he's a Republican). That's why they post-poned notifying NPR and other media about the crash until a year after it was already in the works.

So, let's look at Ben's Moon. It's in Pisces. It might be the handle of a Bucket chart, don't know because don't have a birth time. But Moon in Pisces, yeah, he may not have seen it coming, but then again, he probably doesn't see it lasting for as long as it probably will last. That means he's an optimist. Basically, he's a Happy Go Lucky Sadge with Sun opposing Jupiter and he makes other people feel happy go lucky as well. And Mercury and Venus are in conjunction in Sagittarius so he's all, man, he's bad with money, holes in his pockets. Have you seen how much the country is in the hole? Anyway, we couldn't care less. We've got Ben and Ben has pizazz. Mars conjunct Neptune in Libra that trines Jupiter in Gemini. Just don't have a heart attack Ben or we'll be stuck with Larry and Larry, well, Larry hates women. (I don't like women either, most of them at any rate).

Interesting to see the Innie/Outie combinations between the two. Larry the Sadge has Mercury & Venus conjunct Saturn in Scorpio. And Ben the Sadge has Mars conjunct Saturn from Libra to Scorpio. Both have that amazing Mercury-Venus conjunction in their charts that indicates is often associated with big Stock Market losses.

So, this post has pretty much gone nowhere. How many people have I insulted? I'll never make good of my Libra North Node at this rate.

Swear Words

I've found a cure for nagging bronchial coughs that won't go away!

Cussing and swearing.

Maybe it's only my Gemini Rising but most of the posts I've written this week I haven't published due to the extreme vocabulary that I was enjoying. Either the Irish owe me a dual citizenship at this point or I've got a serious case of Tourette's. All I can tell you is that the pruning of the posts is going to take a long time.

At any rate, every time I wrote a nasty my chest relaxed and the cough that I've had for 5 weeks now is pretty much gone. The last Mercury Retrograde passed over my Ascendant 3 times and hit me in the Bronchials the way it always does. So I got the cough which just wouldn't leave. Had no clue what the necessary cure was until now.

I had bronchial asthma when I was a kid and I would go through phases of swearing really badly at times. I wonder if I was just "self-medicating." Either way it really does relax the lungs to cuss like a Sailor.

Learning to Knit

I'm trying to teach myself how to knit and so far I'm doing it with the same level of psychotic spasicity that I type with.

Here's a really good video of a woman teaching the Continental Style which overall may in the end work better for myself, too soon to tell really. They say this is a better style for left-handers like myself. I had a problem with the tension after I learned the English style.

http://blog.craftzine.com/archive/2007/02/craftsanity_continental_knitti.html

She makes it look so easy. In reality, the yarn is falling out of your hands, the needles magically remove themselves from the loops and your fingers are cringing like you've got really bad arthritis. And down there 3 rows below something went really wrong. I don't know, it looks like I spaced out really badly for a while. There's a hole and I drove the needle straight through the middle of the yarn and the loops are backwards.

Anyway, I watched a different video where the teacher says "If you're not a good ripper, you're not a good knitter." That's Pluto. It takes a strong Pluto to knit, I'll tell ya. I don't know if this is going to work for me. Crochet is for the Mercurial types. Too bad all you can really make with crochet is doilies. I don't want any doilies.

All Hands

Mercury is all hands, whether manually dexterrosing those pliers around the Water Heater as it explodes water all over the Carpet or while kicking down the Door of a Public Restroom to exit without handling the scabbous, pussy door handle like a germophobic Virgo. A while ago, I read through one of those list type internet articles about this subject. This particular list claimed to disclose 12 of the germiest places in the Country, but it was sort of a trick catch line; the article only actually listed 10 places and they weren't really places in the country at all, mostly places in your home. (No link to the article either). I do remember that the #1 armpit of the Nation was your kitchen sink. They said that the average Kitchen Sink in America has more germs than the average toilet in America. I know that we Americans think that our shyte doesn't stink but this is ridiculous. Isn't It???? What we put into our mouths is dirtier than poo. Boy, that was a weird article but I believe every word of it, they actually provided Germ Counts for each filthy thing they listed and you can't argue with the numbers.

But, now I'm confused. Was my Mother washing my Mouth out with soap when I was a kid because of what I said or because of what I ate? cruddy joke but just can't help myself, heheh.

What I'm trying to say here is that the article said that about 80 percent of the germs that you pick up are transmitted from off your hands. (Germs are ruled by Pluto, by the way, according to Bills) I think there's something to this. I mean, I can't put a percentage point to the cases but, man, the things we grab with our hands. The hands go everywhere, like rabid bats screeching through the night. The feet don't have to do that kind of probing. The article compared amounts of germs found on door knobs and toilet seats and sinks.

So, here comes, this is really dumb: hands are ruled by Gemini which is ruled by Mercury. And Hygiene is ruled by Virgo which is ruled by Mercury. Mercury is doing its own self in here.

And here's a solution. And it's really far-out. Maybe if we rearranged the signs of the Zodiac so that Gemini and Virgo trine each other in the Horoscope rather than square each other we could eradicate Communicable Diseases from the World by 80 percent. They say that what you think is what you are, after all, so we should fix these problems within the general circle of things.

You Didn't Hear This From Me...

I'm just now reading the story about the four women in Hookset, New Hamphsire who were fired for gossiping about their boss; something where they thought he was having an affair with another employee who was receiving better benefits than they were. The part of me that has worked in offices feels both compassion for the women and an utter sense of relief and revenge that finally some real office shrews got what was coming to them. Usually the wrong ones get caught in these cases, the snakes manage to slither away. But these are the ones who got blamed and got the axe. One is 61 years old and is maybe losing some retirement benefits so maybe the guy they were gossiping about had ulterior motives. He's an accountant and everybody knows they're never up to anything good.

Anyway, I have no birth info. Jessica Skorupski and Joanne Drewniak were fighting the firing on all kinds of grounds that sound totally justified to me, but they lost their appeal. There were 2 other women. I don't have their birth dates so who cares about their names? The Town Administrator who took over in July, 2005 is the guy they were gossiping about. I guess he's super sensitive about his marital status. I'm sure they were making the other woman's life a living hell. Gawd, years working at some dead end government job, they were probably bringing everyone down. I wonder how much it cost to hire the attorney who interviewed them, that's what I wonder? And, then, so, why did they offer any information to him? Mum's the word, ladies. Everyone knows that lawyers are scum, worse than accountants even.

Oh, am I talking gossip or am I talking astrology? No difference. Believe me, if you ever went to an astrologer's convention you'd know what catty, meddlesome, petty, lie-producing sons of guns astrologers are...

ahem!

Well, Mercury rules Gossip. (That doesn't mean that only Mercury types gossip because trust me the whole damn wheel is pretty much guilty on this one.) On April 11, 2007, the day the ladies were fired, Mercury was right on the Aries Point at 0 Aries. The AP explains how the matter comes before national attention. Aries might rule Axes. What's that asteroid that's planted at the end of Taurus that rules Loosing One's Head? And that guy, David Jodoin, who didn't have the affair and didn't give favors to the new chick who is no doubt a blond with long skinny legs? Here's the thing about David Jodoin. David Jodoin doesn't drink coffee. That's so-ooo-ooo suspicious. He drinks Mountain Dew. How weird is that? I didn't even know they still make that stuff. How can he possibly enjoy the wonders of what a good cup of Joe can bring out of the warped human mind that's trapped in a boring 8 to 5 job all day? He's sitting in his office by himself drinking his Mountain Dew...weird, very weird.