Author: Not Adahn

 

The boot stomping on a human face forever stomps a little less vigorously, though it still stomps.  The Stars do have something significant to tell us this week.  The Sun and Mars are in alignment with Mercury and Saturn.  Now if Venus had been in opposition, this would have indicated an end to war, but we’re not that lucky.  Instead there will be a historically important battlefield death this week.  Those of you not on battlefields and/or not historically important can relax a bit.

Backstabbery and team drama continues as Mars hacks its way through Gemini.  Ordinarily we could count on Venus to offset that a bit, but she’s off consorting with Mercury in Pisces, resulting in a general decrease in libidos.  Aries gets its theme music.  And Jupiter retrograde in Sagittarius continues to be a right dick.  Did you ever know anyone who was covered in karma teflon?  I had a fraternity brother like that whom I will refer to as Edgar.  Edgar would constantly do stupid and/or criminal stuff and have the results of his actions land on someone else standing nearby.  He would do things like walk out of a place without paying, and the owners/security would converge on the people who came in with him (the fucker still owes me for that, btw) but the best example I can think of is one night when several of us drunk bastards were being driven home by our sober-driver brother.  Edgar rolled down the passenger-side window and whipped out the beer bottle he had just emptied… directly impacting the windshield of a parked (and occupied) police cruiser.  The sober driver got hauled off to jail, Edgar stumbled away unscathed and unrecorded.  Jupiter retrograde in Sagittarius is like that.  The only real thing working for us in the sky is the moon in Virgo, and while it does give us some protection, it’s most beneficial for women (so of course less useful for us).  It’s very good luck for any pentagram-wearing Wiccan lesbians who might be lurking.

This week’s draw looks remarkably good.  We have two cards that are exactly the same in meaning as Jupiter retrograde; but in this case in context, it might actually mean less “overzealous prosecution” and more like “cop was too interested in donut to notice you speeding.”  Literally only three number cards were drawn, so it’s going to be a big week and active at the end.

Aries:  5 of Coins – Love and lovers, concordance, affinities, material difficulties

Taurus:  Queen of Cups – Success, pleasure, happiness, wisdom, virtue.  This is probably the best possible draw for women.

Gemini:  Judgment, reversed – deliberation, simplicity, weakness

Cancer:  Ace of Wands – Creation, invention, enterprise, beginning, birth

Leo:  The Empress, reversed – Vacillation, light, truth, the unravelling of involved matters, public rejoicing

Virgo:  King of Cups, reversed – Injustice, vice, scandal, dishonest man.

Libra:  Justice, reversed – Law, bigotry, bias, excessive severity

Scorpio:  The Sun – Contentment, happy marriage, material happiness

Sagittarius:  10 of Swords, reversed  – Advantage, profit, success, favor, power, authority — but all of these things will only be short-lived

Capricorn:  7 of Coins – money, business, barter, ingenuity, purgation, quarrel, innocence

Aquarius:  Knight of Coins – Utility, responsibility, interest, rectitude

Pisces:  Knight of Wands – Departure, absence, flight, emigration, change of residence

 

The new feature in the sky is Jupiter going retrograde.  So government is going to be even worse — more incompetent and more abusive — than usual.  Of course this is only temporary until *traces line with finger holds up ruler* Holy fuck, August 11?  Well shit.  This is another reason why less government is a good idea; it minimizes the effects of Jupiter Retrograde.

Jupiter Retrograde plays a part in this week’s alignments, being aligned with the Earth and the Moon yielding a nominal value of “disruptive misrule at home.”  Unfortunately, this is also in a lunar resonance with a second alignment with Mercury and Venus.  That secondary one ordinarily would mean a good chance for a random hookup, but in this case indicates that you are going to do something stupid and nookie will be withheld as a result.  I hope your couch is comfortable.

Aries continues to be in the lead.  The natural order is maintained, but nothing terribly special

Pisces, on the other hand, is having a surge rebound from the shitty month they had in March, with a particularly auspicious arrangement of Mercury and Venus.  Yes, that same one as above, but in this context is leaning very heavily in the “short term interactions yield good results” direction.

Mars in Gemini continues the internecine strife.

The moon in Leo is not a terribly good sign.  I mean it’s not bad, but there’s the whole fire/water conflict and whatnot.  I think in this case, since it’s occurring during a time of Jupiter retrograde, it indicates a further undermining of leadership/authority.

If you’re a good person, this is bad; if you’re a bad person, this is good:  Jupiter going retrograde in Sagittarius indicates that karma is going to miss its target.  It also portends badly for my trip to the range.

 

This week’s card draw lead off with one with zodiacal symbols on it, indicating a particular accuracy for this week.  Which is unfortunate.

Aries:  9 of Swords – Despair, grief, mourning.

Taurus:  7 of Coins, reversed – Anxiety about money

Gemini:  4 of Coins, reversed – Suspense, delay, opposition

Leo:  Strength – Booya!

Virgo:  King of Coins – Valor, realizing intelligence, success in mathematical and intellectual endeavors

Libra:  8 or Wands, reversed – Jealousy, quarrels, stingings of conscience.

Scorpio:  The Hermit – Prudence, roguery, corruption, treason

Sagittarius:  9 of Coins, reversed – Roguery, deception, voided project, bad faith

Capricorn:  The Moon – Hidden enemies, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, error

Aquarius:  5 of Swords – Degradation, dishonor, loss, infamy, destruction

Pisces:  2 of Wands, reversed – Surprise, emotion, fear, trouble

 

P.S. Cancer: Knight of Wands – Departure, absence, flight. A dark young man. Change of residence.

 

Alignments:  Two (2) As follows–

     Venus-Mercury-Luna: “News of changing love.”  Does not apply to lesbians.  Does apply doubly to Pisces.  May or may not apply to lesbian Pisces.  Indications of additional male partners likely.

     Jupiter-Mercury-Sol: Significant political happenings.  Not an assassination.  Not a war.  Not peace talks.  Possibly a sporting event.  If a sporting event, most likely basketball or buzkashi.  Or maybe bass fishing.

Planetary visitations: Six (6) of which two (2) are the same as they have been for months.  Of the four (4) that are neither Jupiter in Sagittarius or Saturn in Capricorn–

     The Sun in Aries –  This means you get theme music this week.

     The moon in Taurus – a contradiction as the moon is a change sign and Taurus is stability.  Also not a contradiction, as the moon in nits crescent shape resembles the horns of a bull.  Being a contradiction and not a contradiction is contradictory.  Expect contradictions and horny bulls.

     Mars is Pisces – Brother fighting brother.  Turmoil in family life.

     Mercury and Venus in Pisces – Young love, new life, first fruits.

As for the cards, this week it looks like it’s all going to be at 6’s and 7’s.  Financial reversals (literally, all the coin cards were drawn reversed).  Otherwise, big things will be happening with three Kings drawn consecutively, and it will close out on a satisfactory note with the perfect/complete 10’s flanking The Magician (which is classically used as a stand-in for the querent) indicating that you will be in control at the end.

• Aries:  6 of Wands – Triumph, celebration, good news, parades
• Taurus:  6 of Cups, reversed – spoilage, events occurring ahead of schedule
• Gemini:  King of Coins, reversed – Vice, weakness, ugliness, perversity, corruption, peril
• Cancer:  King of Wands – Friendly dark man, an honest and conscientious person, a father
• Leo:  King of Cups – Friendly fair man, member of the professions, a responsible person
• Virgo:  7 of Swords – Quarreling, annoyance, a plan that may fail, hope, confidence
• Libra:  Knight of Coins, reversed – Idleness, inertia, stagnation, carelessness, discouragement
• Scorpio:  2 of Cups, reversed – false love, folly, misunderstanding, misdiagnosis
• Sagittarius:  Justice, reversed – Conformity, bigotry, bias, excessive severity
• Capricorn:  10 of Cups – Contentment, successful completion
• Aquarius:  The Magician, reversed – Physician, mental illness, disgrace, disquiet
• Pisces:  10 of Coins, reversed – chance, loss, robbery, dowry, games of hazard

 

 

Just a brief departure from the usual format. First I’ll go over the signs, then show how I applied this SCIENCE! to ensure that I had the best day at the range yet.

Just a couple of alignments to look at this week.  First, Saturn-Venus-Sol can translate literally into “Happy Ending” and also good luck for women named Electra.  Outdoor grilling will benefit.  Jupiter-Luna-Terra indicates a shift in your baseline level of happiness.  While this is bad news if you’re currently doing pretty OK, there are some mitigating aspects indicating a general increase in prosperity with this — so a “mo’ problems, mo’ money” kind of situation.

Happy goating to all the Aries out there.  It’s not going to be all peachy though, as someone is going to be jealous of your success.  Feel free to tell them to suck it.  You’ll want to because Taurus still has Mars trying to aggravate it into doing something stupid; but this should be the last week for that, leading to next week being significantly more chill.  Jumping across that huge gap of empty sky, we find Jupiter still in Sagittarius, which is pretty boring when finding something to say about it, but is still a really benevolent arrangement.  One sign over, we have the equally boring (but this time non-benevolent) Saturn in Capricorn.  Finally, Mercury is going forward again and joins Venus in Pisces.  Great for those looking for random hookups.

Now, how did I apply this knowledge?  Well, first of all Mercury has gone to direct motion so random errors were minimized.  Mars in Taurus encourages  patience and consistency in martial endeavors, so I spent some time every day figuring out where my errors were in pulling the trigger on my M9.  Jupiter (rulership, control, law) in Sagittarius (marksmanship) told me to dry-fire practice daily and to do things “by the book.”  Saturn in Capricorn told me not to overthink things and focus on the (curved, like Chronus’ sickle) trigger.  The end result? A perfect 100/100 with my CZ and an improvement from 22/100 to 93/100 with the Beretta.  See?  SCIENCE!

As to what’s in the cards,

Aries:  9 of Coins – Prudence, safety, success, accomplishment

Taurus:  The Hermit, reversed – Concealment, policy, fear

Gemini:  The Chariot, reversed – Car trouble, riot, dispute, litigation

Cancer:  7 of Wands – Courage, success by strategy

Leo:  8 of Swords, reversed – Disquiet, accident, difficulty, treachery, the unforeseen.

Virgo:  Temperance – Frugality, moderation, economy.

Libra:  Knight of Swords – Skill, bravery, destruction, war, ruin, wrath, defense, resistance

Scorpio: 2 of Swords, reversed – Falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty

Sagittarius:  The Emperor, reversed – Benevolence, immaturity, confusion to enemies, credit

Capricorn:  Page of Swords – vigilance, spying, detective work, a weasely bastard on your side.

Aquarius:  7 of Cups – “Fairy favors,” imagination, sentiment, transitory success, significant choice to be made

Pisces:  6 of Wands – Hope realized, good news, victory

 

In honor of this week’s alignments, I will be relating no anecdotes.  None.  Which, not coincidentally, is the number of alignments in the sky this week.  To celebrate, get a book in a language you don’t read and use it as a pillow while you listen to 4’33” by John Cage.

Which isn’t to say the sky is empty.  MERCURY RETROGRADE is still fucking around up there (yes I’m still bitter about last weekend) but this is the last week we’ll have to deal with that little bastard.  Sorry Pisces, but it just wasn’t your year.

Very high likelihood of fishing accidents.

It’s Aries turn in the sun, though this week (undoubtedly due to MERCURY RETROGRADE’s influence) you don’t get the double or tripling luck effects typical if it being your turn.  Actually, I was “reading ahead” to see when Mercury direct and Venus would be blessing you, and frankly you got hosed, solar-conjunctionwise.

The rest of the sky hasn’t changed much.  Mars is still in Taurus, Venus is still in Aquarius, Saturn is still in Capricorn ,and Jupiter is still in Sagittarius.  For those of you who don’t remember from last week, that’s bad, good, bad, and conditionally good.

The moon is in Scorpio, which will be amplifying the effects of Venus in Aquarius, so that is good if you are either 1) female or 2) having sex with a female.  It’s not bad news for anyone.

This weeks card draws:

Aries:  4 of Wands – Rest, relaxation, peace

Taurus:  King of Wands – Friendly dark man, countryman, conscientious person

Gemini:  Knight of Swords – Courage, competence, resistance, wrath, destruction

Cancer:  King of Swords, reversed – Cruelty, evil intentions, barbarity, perversion

Leo:  The Hanged Man, reversed – Selfishness, crowds, voters

Virgo:  4 of Swords, reversed – Wise administration, economy, caution, testimony

Libra:  THIS CARD IS BLANK – I am not shitting you.  I drew a card with nothing on the face.  What does this mean?  Should I count the deck?  Do I have 79 cards, or am I missing one?  I don’t think it can be a coincidence that this happened on a week with no alignments.  Notice that the scales of Libra are also empty.  Sky, sign, deck – nothing, nothing, nothing.  This may be the only week in your life that you are completely beyond influence.  Tell us next week how you enjoyed freedom.

Scorpio:  10 of Cups – Perfect fulfillment and contentment

Sagittarius:  2 of Wands, reversed – Surprise, wonder, trouble, fear

Capricorn:  The Magician, reversed – A physician, mental illness, disgrace

Aquarius:  The Tower – Misery, ruin, catastrophe, indigence, adversity, disgrace, deception

Pisces:  2 of Coins, reversed – Simulated enjoyment, enforced celebration, handwriting, correspondence, composition

 

 

I ain’t gonna lie:  these next two columns might not be the best divinations I’ve ever generated.  Insomnia has been kicking my ass, then between this one and the next I’ll be dealing with the horrors of air travel.  On the plus side, I’ll get to spend time with family, friends, lovers (one of whom just got dumped by her boyfriend this week!) and their respective dogs, so that’s pretty awesome.

Also, let me apologize for never actually including the music for Pisces. There you go.

Lots of alignments this week.  Terra-Luna-Jupiter = A change in home rulership/ownership.  Maybe political, maybe personal, as there is also Saturn-Venus-Luna = “ending of a relationship.”  There will be a woman involved.  And with Mercury-Saturn-Sol = “news of an ending,” if this DOES portend your relationship splitting up and someone moving out, then rest assured, EVERYONE is going to know about it.  Immediately.  The last alignment is good luck for fighting folk as Jupiter is aligned with the Sun and Mars.  Yes, “Jupiter aligned with Mars” is most assuredly NOT sign of peace, love, and hippiness.

This is a pretty cisgendernormative week.  Mars is in Taurus, so we have masculine-masculine and on the other side, we have the moon and Venus in Aquarius, so triple feminine.    In addition, we have Saturn in Capricorn which is literally “bad luck to sea-goats” which naturally extends to any sort of Tiresias-esque hybrid thingies.  This is further solidified by Sagittarius in Jupiter benefitting those people who are doing what they are “supposed” to do.  So get with those society-mandated gender roles, people!  NOTE:  This is an excellent week to verify how good I am.  If the ratings drop for drag shows with these celestial arrangements, it will be proof positive that astrology is a SCIENCE! The only really new thing is Mercury joining the Sun in Pisces, so extra good luck for Pisces, and for the rest of us, your luck will be extremely unstable, don’t count on it.

Now the cards:

Pisces:  Queen of Swords, reversed – Malice, bigotry, prudery, deceit.

Aries:  The Star – Loss, theft, Privation, hope for the future

Taurus:  9 of Cups – Concord, satisfaction with your surroundings

Gemini:  King of Swords – Power, authority

Cancer:  10 of Cups – Contentment, perfection, loyal subordinate

Leo:  6 of Coins, reversed – Desire, envy, jealousy, illusion

Virgo:  The Chariot – Succor, providence, war, triumph, trouble

Libra:  The Empress, reversed – Light, truth, unraveling of complexity

Scorpio:  King of Cups – Fair man, professional, professor, someone in your debt

Sagittarius:  2 of Wands – “No marriage possible,”  ambivalence, success not bringing fulfillment, ambition

Capricorn:  Ace of Wands, reversed – Fall, decadence, ruin.  You also get this one next week. Sorry.

Aquarius:  Death – Usually readers will tell you “death” means “change.”  Which is kind of does since death is a change from being alive.  But yeah, it means Death, ruin, destruction.  I mean look at it!  It’s a goddamned black-armored skull-headed knight riding a pale horse!  But sure it can also just mean “ending.”  It also means “politicians are evil,” as the figure is prominently displaying a Tudor rose.

 

 

When this goes live, I should be in Austin, or Houston, or maybe somewhere between them.  Since I’m not flying Delta, it is unlikely I will be stuck in Atlanta.  However, I might be because…

It’s that time again boys and girls:

MERCURY RETROGRADE

So batten down the hatches, check your supplies of food, water, gold, silver ammunition, yarn, knitting needles and crochet hooks, etc.

For this week, there are only two alignments, one good and one bad.  On the good side, we have Jupiter and Venus aligned with the Sun, bringing peace, love, justice, health and all sorts of good stuff woo.  On the bad side, we have the death of a woman foretold by Saturn doing what Saturn does in conjunction with the moon and Venus.

I feel sorry for Pisces.  You only get one month out of the year for really good luck and this year you are spending part of it hosting MERCURY RETROOGRADE.  Sucks to be you. For everyone else, do not go fishing; It will not turn out well.  Last weeks intensely polarized state has backed down quite a bit with the moon moving from Aquarius into Aries.  However, Aries isn’t exactly the sign of stability, tossing the entropy-bringing moon in there when we’re already in a state of MERCURY RETROGRADE… yikes!  If I don’t make it back, It was nice knowing everyone and I left the combination under the base of my 1983 ICO World Championship trophy.

Pisces:  The Devil, reversed – Violence, force, extraordinary efforts, predestination

Aries:  Page of Wands – Dark young man, faithful lover, postman, envoy

Taurus:  8 of Coins – Work, skill, craftsmanship

Gemini:  3 of Cups – Successful completion, celebration, happiness

Cancer:  6 of cups, reversed – Renewal, the future

Leo: 6 of Swords – journey by water

Virgo:  Strength – Strength

Libra:  The World – Assured success, flight, emigration

Scorpio:  Page of Cups, reversed – Inclination, taste, attachment, seduction, deception

Sagittarius:  8 of Cups – desertion, abandonment

Capricorn:  Ace of Wands, reversed – Fall, decadence, ruin

Aquarius:  2 of Wands, reversed – Surprise, wonder, enchantment, fear

 

I am a liar.

My relationship with the Truth has waxed and waned.  I was a liar from a very young age, particularly after I learned that lying could help me get away with things and contra to what my parents told me, telling the truth didn’t make things better (nor was I believed when I told the truth.)  At some point, my moral development kicked in, and I began valuing Truth for its own sake, culminating in college, where I joined a fraternity that had “Truth” as one of its cardinal principles, got a degree in the hard sciences, and began work in an analytical chemistry law-enforcement lab.  Then I became involved with a beautiful woman who believed that the value of Truth was in its utility, and had extremely persuasive arguments for that point of view (and by very persuasive arguments I mean “but dat ass doe.”)

Anyway, this puts me in good company, since lying is not only a tradition or social norm among arcanists, but is part of the very education process.  Sometimes, (such as now) people are quite overt about it.  For example, when you are building up your Thelemic library you will encounter The Book of Lies.  Which was titled as such because ol’ A.C. was becoming more arrogant and thought that his students/useful idiots needed to be explicitly told that all of his works were full of lies.  The ones that refused to have their faith in him shaken were then excellent sources of funds and substitute/short term Scarlet Women.

All occult texts suffer from internal contradictions of purpose.  They need to record the author’s discoveries, but prevent them from being stolen.  They must educate the worthy apprentice, but confound the doofus.  Sometimes key words were omitted (a practice the remains today in writings of Masonic and Masonic-derived rituals,) sometimes parts of the text are encoded, and sometimes lies are inserted, or truths misstated.  The idea being, those who had wisdom would be able to tell which parts were traps (and through their discernment of the truth would prove their worthiness to receive the secrets) while those unready would gain a flawed, useless, and harmless understanding.  Then when these false initiates would spread their error, true practitioners would be able to recognize the impostors.  This still happens today.  In my fraternity, there were bogus rituals and signs that were used specifically for situations such as your girlfriend demanding that you tell her secrets to prove you trusted her or whatever and a few times in college I had someone purporting to be a member of a different chapter slip me that faux handshake.  It was always very amusing to see the lengths people go to in order to cadge a free beer.

I mention this because I will be discussing the role of Tarot occasionally, and I want you to know why there is so much contradictory information out there.  For example, I refer to the suit of “coins,” not “pentacles.”  If you read the literature contemporary with the creation of the Waite deck, the official name is “pentacles.”  That’s one of those lies.  People who call it pentacles are either dilettantes who don’t really know what they are doing, or people who don’t respect their clients to speak to them directly.  Either way, kick them to the curb and find a different reader.  another fun fact about the Waite deck, Artie Waite switched the order of two of the cards.  This is a classic bit of misdirection.  Now the debate is, was A.E.W. correcting an earlier trap, or adding one of his own?  The consensus answer is yes, though there are multiple arguments, fat too tedious and really not worth your while to go into here.  Instead, let’s see what the heavens have in store:

This week, there is only one alignment:  Jupiter-Sol-Mercury-Mars.  This is indicative of discordant entities coming together but in a way that results in a positive outcome.  It’s good news for chefs and chemists, but bad news for sculptors and welders.

This is the first week with the sun in Pisces, so let’s get them some theme music.  Also joining the party is Mercury, so it should be a great week for all the little fishies out there.  A waning gibbous moon in Scorpio is not such good news, indicating bad moods and crankiness, particularly to the detriment of your love life.  This might be related to Saturn and Venus being in Capricorn, which predicts that you’re going to say something rather stupid to a romantic partner.  Jupiter in Sagittarius is typically a good sign as we’ve mentioned before, but it is an aggressive pairing, which is important since Mars in Taurus is also such.  So we’ve got two indications of aggression, one of crankiness, and one warning about shooting your mouth off.  Probably a good week to practice whatever relaxation techniques work well for you.

That’s what’s in the stars; here’s what’s in the cards:

Pisces:  5 of Coins, reversed – Disorder, chaos, ruin, profligacy

Aries:  8 of Cups, reversed – Great joy, feasting

Taurus:  7 of Cups, reversed – Desire, will, determination

Gemini:  6 of Wands – Victory, great news

Cancer:  King of Swords – Skill, courage, destruction, wrath, ruin

Leo:  King of Wands, reversed – Division, interruption, discord

Virgo:  2 of Coins – Parties, recreation, news in writing, agitation

Libra:  2 of Wands, reversed – Surprise, wonder, trouble, fear

Scorpio:  Ace of Wands, reversed – Fall, decadence, perdition

Sagittarius:  The Hermit, reversed – Concealment, disguise, fear

Capricorn:  3 of Coins – skilled labor, artistry, glory, renown

Aquarius:  Temperance – Economy, moderation, frugality, wise management