Single Shot Espresso
The year ahead
Mercury is Retrograde 2/17-3/9/2020, then Venus is Retrograde 5/13-6/25/2020, then Mercury is retrograde 6/18-7/12/2020, Mars is Retrograde 9/10-11/13/2020, with Mercury Retrograde 10/14-11/3/2020
- Lunar New Year is Saturday
- Friday 13th, March (SXSW)
- Cinco de Mayo is a Taco Tuesday
- July 4th is a Saturday
- Halloween is on Saturday
- Friday 13th, November
- Xmas is Friday
- New Years is Friday
All astrological data is deemed accurate but not necessarily reliable.(1)
- Lunar New Year is Saturday
New Moon (Aquarius) square Uranus, Saturn/Pluto + Jupiter in Cap.
- Friday 13th, March (SXSW)
Mars Jupiter Pluto( Cap) Saturn at 29 Cap.
- Cinco de Mayo is a Taco Tuesday
Previously alluded to? The great Taurus conjunction in 5/4-3/2000? Included Saturn/Jupiter in Taurus?
- July 4th is a Saturday
Jupiter/Pluto exact, plus Cap/Can eclipse. Captures the essence of the Venus Retrograde with an eclipse that slam dunks the essence of the mercurial cycle.
- Halloween is on Saturday
Takes the Mars and Mercury Retrogrades and puts them in perspective.
- Friday 13th, November
While Friday the 13th is merely a societal construct about being unlucky, this one marks the end of the two concurrent retrogrades, Mars and Mercury, seeing those wrap up and facing off towards the new year.
- Xmas is Friday
- New Years is Friday
Because I moved from a trailer park in South Austin to San Antonio, in the last decade, and more recently, since I begin a residency at the rock shop, I had a chance to listen to all of Shakespeare’s plays — read aloud. Three times, now.
Recently, I’ve added a couple of Shakespeare Podcasts to back-up what I’ve heard with those dramatic play readings.
I’m not a Shakespeare scholar, something more akin to fan boy; but Shakespeare is large part of why I got interested in studying astrology.
I wrote my first “horoscope” in 1987, in a drafty student barrio apartment while I was a student at Arizona State University.
The podcast I was just listening to, as I started to work on the transits for 2020? It mentioned Ceres, with academic citations, from a passage in Henry 6th, Part 2. Act 1, I think.
Little academic guy droned on about Ceres being the Roman God of Harvest. In the middle of that podcast, I realized there was a good way to encapsulate recent events and what this year holds, in terms of major transits and transition.
The symbolism, as I interpret it right now?
Capricorn: it’s about harvest.
A lot of what I work with is Saturn. I got serious about astrology on a first Saturn Return, and I wrote the bulk of my original online materials almost thirty years ago. Early on, I found a passage in the old Greek/Roman texts, about Saturn being easiest to predict with, just predict bad stuff. I’m obviously paraphrasing.
That connection between Capricorn and Saturn is palpable.
I live in central and south Texas. For me, Sagittarius leads to Capricorn’s harvest.
As a person sows, so shall that person reap?
Look at the way the first few degrees of “fixed” is hard hit with Saturn in Aquarius and then Saturn and Jupiter? Plus the omnipresent Uranus in Taurus, again, early fixed.
Saturn — in old fashioned astrology — “ruled” (2) Capricorn and Aquarius. With Saturn in Aquarius, and Saturn loosely square the other Aquarius “ruler.”
Conventional and unconventional. Status quo meet “not-so status quo”?
Circle back to previous statements, prognostications, and similes I’ve employed over the years.
When delineating transits for an upcoming year, one of the trends I like to watch is is how certain sectors of the sky are affected. Like, first few degrees of “fixed.” Let’s look at almost any planet in natal chart, somewhere in those first half-dozen degrees of fixed, to some? The first decant of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, Aquarius. Uranus started its pass a year ago, in earnest. Mars tripped it, as did the new moon, in recent memory, then, as we course through 2020? We’re headed towards Saturn and Jupiter conjunct in Aquarius, early degree.
Looking forward, I’m hoping for a time when cooler minds prevail, when there is less of an emotional reaction to a given crisis, and more of a straightforward analysis from a variety of data points. That would answer the Jupiter and Saturn in Aquarius sense.
Going back to that Jupiter/Saturn conjunction and its pattern over the last decades, or over the last centuries, points to pattern of new intellectualism.
The pattern is quite clear.
This year is about reaping what was sown.
The year ahead
One of the most common elements in a typical astrology chart reading, I’ll look at a chart and ask about what happened during a certain period. Looking back to look forward?
Knowing where we’ve been so we can accurately plot a course forward?
These are poised, posed, as questions rather than answers to give clues to directions. I don’t know how other astrologers work. I do know that individuals face the same transit with different evolutionary approaches, and it depends on a number of factors.
With that in mind, how any two people will face what’s up and coming with the Capricorn flavors, influences? That’s going to vary. The questions remain.
That kind of “where have we been” data is even more important with the onset of the new year. It’s that notion of Saturn and how it affects the individual chart, and for that matter, where a person’s soul is in his or her evolutionary journey.
The year ahead
This year coming up is very much dependent upon where “we’ve been” — our past.
Our collective and individual past.
When I cast forwards, with a number of interlaced patterns, the Mercury Retrogrades, the Venus and Mars retrograde patterns, as those tend to play out as personal planets, what I’m seeing, as trends go?
There’s a lot of personal upheaval, played out against a larger backdrop.
If we subscribe to the mantra-like expression, “As above so below,” then what 2020 offers, in possibly painful detail, is an example of the greater zeitgeist, the cosmically connected consciences with all our petty intrigues, played out as a reflection in the more mundane aspects.
(1) cf. the fineprint.
(2) see also BareFootAstrology.com
Do Not Remove From Wall
Looking Back
Old Jimmy Buffet song, usually in his rotation at all shows?
“I took off for a weekend last month
Just to try and recall the whole year.”
- Changes In Latitudes,
Changes In Attitudes
(Jimmy Buffett)
Professionally, I passed the six-year mark at the rock shop in Austin, having toyed with the idea of other venues, but that one, with its consistency? Been the best for me. Enjoy my time there.
My tenure allowed me a chance to hone and refine the way I work. I still get the occasional “No, not interested in astrology, how about a card reading” walk-in customers. Keeps me on my toes, and keeps me in touch with my roots. Then, too, the place itself is thoroughly enjoyable.
It’s settled into an even pace of 1st & 3rd, then after coordinator replacement, 2nd & 4th Tuesdays.
Always did have a fondness for Tuesday in Austin, cf., Two-Meat Tuesday.
So it will be alternate astrology on alternate Tuesdays, still. In Austin.
Time spent in “hospital” waiting rooms? Escorting friends and family then waiting on procedures and therapies, that’s dropped off for a bit, was quite busy as the designated driver for the last few years, especially for the first half of this last year. About done with that, I hope. Not me, just being a supportive friend.
“Kramer, you’re a true friend. If you ever need stool softener — I will return the favor!”
If it’s not fun and entertaining, then I’m not interested, nor, do I feel like I should be required to participate.
Now that neighbor? Anything for him — he’s fun.
New mantra, “This is my last year for putting up with this BS.”
Looking Back
Last summer was the Scottish play, Comedy of Errors, and… Richard 2. Spurious, idle studies beforehand yielded some new material, and a love of wordplay, yet again, but also turned a new favorite spot to stay, in a shipping container ‘house,’ such as it is. Stay awesome. That is an experience I would recommend, again and again.
Looking Back
New premise, born out the last year’s dabbling with Shakespeare in print and on stage? It’s not the words, but the spaces between them. Not original, but an idea. Discuss.
An old Sagittarius buddy, long ago, observed he liked my daily dribbling. “It’s not what you say, but what’s left unsaid.”
That came back around, end of the year pause and reflect.
Looking Back
A single post that sums up much, professionally, personally, and with some unstated goals?
Looking Back
There was one outstanding fishing trip. Two? Three? The Texas Gulf Coast, the Devil’s Elbow? The hurricane two years ago seemed to upset the fishing pattern, but it’s back, and fishing was as good as always. Looking forward to more trips this coming season.
Looking Back
The perfect game? Watching Millennials “OK Boomer” — my peeps. Perfect Gen X game.
astrofish.net/travel
Two-Meat Tuesday – Kramer Wetzel
Two-Meat Tuesday: Astrofish.Net/Xenon
#HashTagsSuck
#2019
At the Shop
Anno Mirabilis 3
“Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio, a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.”
Hamlet (V.i.88)
One of the essential concepts I try and deliver? Astrology is nothing more than language, like poetical language, highly charged with meaning. Watch real aficionados when they talk about a shared topic. Look around, at a gathering of astrologers, there will be heated and animated discussions with a special shorthand code, “Then I had Pluto square that, and you know how that goes!”
People outside our circles don’t understand.
I wanted to title this talk, “Generations in generations and the year ahead,” but that’s a little unwieldily.
Anno Mirabilis 3
Generations in generations.
Each “generation in a generation” is merely a subset of larger whole. But the two generations that are largely Capricorn subsets? 1959-1961 (ish) and the Harmonic Convergence Millennials 1987-1993 (ish)? With those two specific subsets, that’s where there’s a concentration of Capricorn. Capricorn and Saturn.
As noted before?
“Tangible results from practical effort.”
(cf. Jupiter in Capricorn)
Anno Mirabilis 3
Let’s discuss “All things Capricorn for a moment. Its planet is Saturn, and Saturn is roughly on a 28 year cycle. For the sake brevity, let’s just assume it’s that 28-year cycle. 1960 to 1988? Part of that “Saturn Cycle.”
How Capricorn tends to present? It’s an energy that tries to find real-world connections, practical uses, productive outcomes for regular action. To some, Capricorn favors the mundane and routine. While all generalizations are false, part of the heart of Capricorn is about finding practical application to toil and travail.
An early, integral part of my education included the book, The Tao of Pooh, as both a philosophical and metaphysical ideology. It also re-introduced me to Eyore, the sad, saturnine donkey.
So here are three versions of my understanding of the Capricorn energy. That poor donkey, “No good will come out of this, alas.” The industrious, “We need to make money with this,” type, and finally, the harvesting individual, that original archetype of the new year.
Saturn’s glyph? Know what that is? It’s, I’ve been told, the Scythe of Cronus. That’s inserted into the greater subconscious as the old man at the end of the year, presaging the baby of the new year.
A more modern version? Because I spent a fair amount of time in border towns, I found the cult of the dead, a figure of a hooded death’s head, usually with a Yorick-like skull in skeletal hand, and the scythe. Grim Reaper?
Specifically, in the border towns with the allegedly criminal element, the “Cult of the Dead” is popular. Smugglers consider it a patron saint; although, we’re hard pressed to find it in the current pantheon of Judeo-Christian mythos.
The coming year presents two very distinct flavors of energy.
Anno Mirabilis 3
One of my buddies has a perfect bumper sticker for the saturnine donkey version of this coming year, and like a true Capricorn, she’s always off on a new rant, watching the news and yelling at the TV. But the sticker reads, “If you are not completely appalled, you haven’t been paying attention.” That’s the Eyore version. “No good will ever come of this.”
Flip it around, and the Cult of the Dead, with its iconic Grim Reaper(ish) figure and figurine, featured on candles and in iconography? It’s about reaping what was sown.
The symbolism is frightfully clear, about cutting away what doesn’t work.
Maybe the Stoics were right.
Anno Mirabilis 1 | Anno Mirabilis 2 | Anno Mirabilis 3
BareFootAstrology.com – Kramer Wetzel
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