August 27, 2003

• Mañana… mañana…

  
  

  Is there anyone who doesn’t know the old song?  It goes, “Mañana is good enough for me.”  I think it’s spozed to be about putting things off, but it can also be about not borrowing trouble, I guess.  I woke this morning with “Mañana” singing in my head.  Tomorrow, Mercury goes retrograde, its station conjunct my natal Sun/Chiron conjunction.  As it was slowing down for the station, it was exactly conjunct my Sun and Chiron on Monday.  Its retrograde conjuction with that important nexus in my personal chart comes next Monday.
  

  I love Mondays.  Okay, I know that some of you wage slaves who read this may think I’m being sarcastic there, but for most of my working life in restaurants and bars and that year-long stint on the crisis hotline, weekends were times I had to work while everyone else played and got in trouble.  Monday was often a day off, and at least offered a break from the weekend rush.  Mondays have always been okay by me, and now that I set my own schedule they are great.
  

  The week we’re in right now, bookended for me by those two Mercury Mondays, is a time of inspired healing communication, as might be inferred from the combo of Sun/Chiron/Mercury.  Greyfox and I discussed and laid plans for a new joint healing project Monday and Tuesday before I came back up the Valley.  Later today, after some final phone discussions, we’ll finalize plans and make some commitments.
  

  Here are what two of my favorite astrologers say about the stations tomorrow, Mercury’s and Pluto’s:
  

  
  

  THU AUG 28 This is a kind of D-Day and Ground Zero all rolled into one. There are three principal times you must watch: Mercury stops and turns retrograde at 27 degrees of Virgo (6:42AM PDT) through September 20; Sun opposes Mars retrograde (11:00AM PDT); Pluto pauses and turns direct at 18 degrees of Sagittarius (8:34PM PDT) until March 24, 2004. Recall the old adage — if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen. This is celestial “hot stuff” and you need to be on red alert all day and into tomorrow. Mercury themes (relating to communications, travel, business, trade and education) and Pluto themes (death-rebirth, metamorphosis, transformation, underworlds, extremism, willpower, sexuality, eruptions from the unconscious) are emphasized. Signing legal agreements or making large purchases will backfire. Do everything you can to mellow out and let go of bottled-up anger and frustration without an explosion. Be a saint, healer and comforter when it comes to love ties and primary partnerships. Virgo Moon all day suggests cleaning up your home, backyard, business environment, and soul-mind-body alignment.

  
  

  [copied from Michael Lerner's The Great Bear at Welcome to Planet Earth.]

  
  

  And, as Rich Humbert expresses it in the Celestial Weather Report:

  
  

  
  

  First Mercury stands still and goes retrograde (more on this next week) at 6:42am/9:42am then Pluto stands still and resumes normal motion at 8:34pm/11:34pm.  Communications/computer snafus are likely as usual with Mercury changes.  Power struggles and shifts often accompany Pluto’s changes.  Something dies and passes away.  The Sun passes opposite Mars as well.  Put your body in motion and avoid tight quarters.

  
  

  The Pluto direct station in Sagittarius interests me, too.  For several years now, it has been playing approach/avoidance games with my Ascendant at 24°33′ Sag.  A few months from now, it comes to within orb of conjunction and from then through most of 2007 it will be going back and forth over my Ascendant.   I’m ready for some transformation, regeneration, or dying… whatever.

  
  

  As I said, I woke with “Mañana” playing in my mind.  When I felt the pain as I tried to get out of bed, the thought that replaced the song was, “I still have it.”  The “it” is ME/CFIDS:  myalgic encephalomyelitis or “fibromyalgia” and chronic fatigue.  As I made my way to the kitchen, another “it” came up:  asthma.  I had a blessed remission this summer, but as the chill and dampness set in, it is coming back.

  
  

  I thank God (as I know It) for relapsing/remitting diseases.  Okay, I can’t recall ever having uttered a prayer of thanksgiving for a relapse (I’m usually too busy just trying to deal with surviving), but every remission, all the way through each remission, my joyous and busy life becomes a prayer of thanksgiving 24/7.  Having never in my life been entirely well or fit, I appreciate the times of relative fitness all the more.  Even in relapse, I can always find things to be grateful for, even if not the relapse itself.

  
  

  Through this summer’s remission, as I have continued to thrive without sugar and other addictive/allergenic foods and the obesity has melted away (down to size 10 now, another size down since my last report, from size 20 last Halloween when I kicked the sugar habit), I had, for a while, thought I was “cured”.  That’s the kind of Pollyanna-optimist I am.  Every remission feels like a cure to me.  Reality’s reasserting itself after one of those “Hallelujah, I’m healed!” delusions used to bother me a lot.  I have, however, learned to welcome and appreciate disillusionment.  Without it, I’d be living in denial and I’d rather not do that, thank you very much.  I don’t have to look very far to see what that can do to a person.

  
  

  So, I’ve still got ME/CFIDS, still get short of breath when the weather is chilly and damp.  But my health is much improved over this time last year.  I’m taking not even a quarter of the meds I needed then.  Even in relapse, there is hope.  As I look back over the course of my life and map some of the most significant moments and see how they match  up to the astological transits then current, it gives me great hope for the next four years of Pluto’s transits back and forth across my Ascendant.  The Ascendant represents the physical body and personal image.  Pluto represents regeneration.  Either this body will regenerate or I’ll trade it in on a new one.  Hallelujah!

  
  

  

  • 2:34 pm
  • 6 Comments