Interior Conjunction, then Mercury direct

Mercury retrograde ends with a bang on Aug. 11. This is premium subscriber content. If you appreciate my work and read/listen regularly, please get a paid subscription somewhere. Thank you.

Nobody got hurt. No airbag deployment. Photo by Eric Francis.

Dear Friend and Subscriber:

Greetings from a deliciously dark, rainy day in the Catskills. It’s been a hot, dry summer and the trees and critters need a drink. Tonight at 7:41 pm EDT, Mercury and the Sun align for their interior conjunction, which is the basic meaning of Mercury retrograde. More on that in a moment. First, some local color.

Last night on the way home from the farmer’s market, I happened upon the scene depicted above. It was maybe a minute or two old. I was the second car behind the accident. The driver, a young guy, was pacing around, saying he didn’t understand how such a thing was possible, it was the last thing he needed, and how he had swerved to avoid a deer.

All understandable enough, but there are deer everywhere especially as dusk approaches, and clearly he was going way too fast for a little local road. Too fast to avoid the deer, and so fast he took out the utility pole like a bowling pin. He was not quite grasping how lucky he was to be alive.

I expected my power to be out when I got home, and it was. I was able to do an orderly shutdown on two of my three iMacs — but backup power had run out on the one with the midyear reading drafts and horoscopes written out to September. Oops. I need a better power backup on that machine, and in the back of my mind, I was concerned about my horoscope copy — I’d put in two solid creative days of new writing.

Coming home to a dark, silent house, I was reminded of how the environment is invisible until it changes. In this case, the electrical environment that I write so much about was suddenly more apparent for its absence than for the hum of ACs a couple of hours earlier.

I started my laptop, toggled an internet connection from my phone and informed various people of my status. I had no idea when the power would come back on and envisioned myself working from a motel today.

What are these skinny little cows? Photo by Eric Francis

Field Reporting Adventures

Then I decided to do some field reporting and find out the status of the project, so I drove a mile or so to where a deputy had the road blocked. He estimated about an hour. Then we had a classic bullshit session that included me learning about a special local police detail associated with the United States Marshal Service.

Specially-trained deputies and local cops are on hand to assist with fugitive searches. I gave him one of my Kingston Police challenge coins and headed home. Sign of the times: cops are more interesting than hippies.

Hanging out at home in the dark got boring, so I got in my car and drove back, looking for a better time estimate. The police roadblock had been replaced by a power company flagger much closer to the scene. There were two bucket trucks and about 10 guys working. It was a mess.

I parked off to the side and hung out with the flagger; he had to turn back just two or three cars — it’s a quiet road. What followed was an even better bullshitting session wherein I learned that he was a master electrician who had served the railroads, and now working as a meter reader, had been called in to work to stand there with a traffic cone and turn cars away.

He was also a retired U.S. Marine. I asked what rank did you retire at (I always do); he said captain. He resigned his commission because the armed services were getting a little too weird for him. I will leave out the details of that for now.

Meeting My Second Professional Tuba Player of the Year

“Captain? Oh really, what was your job?”

“I was a tuba player.” That was the last thing I was expecting him to say.

“Really? In the Marine Band?”

Exactly. This was the second professional tuba player I’ve met this year — the other was a client who works in Hollywood and gave me a glimpse into that world.

“Do you also play Sousaphone?” That’s the marching version of the tuba.

“Yep.”

“Can you call out all the notes in ‘Hail to the Chief’?”

He growled. He had played that more times than Bruce Springsteen has played “Born to Run.” I was then treated to stories of how he ended up playing tuba (in elementary school, recruited by his tuba-playing music teacher).

Comment: This is why celebrity news is so ridiculous. Oh boy! Justin Trudeau made a public appearance with Katy Perry! Just so we can all imagine two illuminati whores getting it on for the good of mankind. Hail to the Chief indeed.

Still standing — McDonald’s in Kyiv. Photo via N.Y. Times

Eating McDonald’s Cheeseburgers in Ukraine with a General

Then from my new friend, I heard many things that a senior officer musician can tell you about his travels around the world, the people he’d met, and tooling around with the general whose hobby was to sample McDonald’s cheeseburgers all around the globe (such as in Kyiv).

We agreed Brussels was our favorite city in Europe.

Then we talked about the power grid, how electrical lines work (three phases and the return line), and the PCB (very toxic) transformer problem that still exists along railways (and which I’ve covered starting in the 1990s).

That led to a discussion about the rapidly deteriorating infrastructure of the country: the failing roads and bridges and electrical equipment that is not being correctly maintained. We agreed how disgusting it is that countless billions of dollars of taxes and taxpayer debt are being spent bombing other countries when our own country is falling apart.

This is how you know that American politicians don’t give a toss about you, your life, your city or town, or anything meekly productive. All they do with taxes and debt is kill people. Worse, most of us accept this as normal. He was also upset about the outsourcing of thought that is being called A.I.

I hung out with him till about 1 am when power was restored — just six hours after the accident. This included linemen drilling a new pole, hitting rock, drilling through the rock, and mounting a new transformer (a South Korean model made by EL Powertech).

Six hours! In the middle of nowhere! In the middle of the night! This makes me feel better about paying my electric bill. My computer restarted and the new horoscopes have been submitted to the copy team.

Photo by Eric Francis.

Mercury Retrograde Peaks Tonight, And then Comes Mercury Direct

Tonight at about 7:41 pm EDT, Mercury passes between the Earth and the Sun. This is called the interior conjunction (formerly the “inferior” conjunction, but Melanie Reinhart and I took a vote and changed the name to something more accurate).

This is going to be a very unusual end to Mercury retrograde. The fun begins when Mars exits Virgo and enters Libra on Wednesday, Aug. 6 — less than a week from now. We will have Mars on the Aries Point system via the first degree of Libra, which by itself is significant of a collective event — or it used to be, back when there was such a thing as an “event.”

Taking place with Mercury in the last degrees of the retrograde, the energy of the sky is like a slingshot pulled all the way back. Then when Mercury stations direct, Mars simultaneously is opposite Saturn, Neptune and Borasisi in Aries; it’s trine Uranus and Sedna in Gemini; and it’s trine Pluto and two centaurs in Aquarius.

Mars aligned with the magnifying and involving Aries Point is in aspect to ALL the new astrology. And let’s not forget the cosmic trigger is Mercury direct in Leo. This happens exactly — exactly — conjunct the special nonphysical point Vulcanus at 5 degrees Leo, which is about “all that is mighty and powerful. Strength. Intensity,” in a degree associated by Sabian symbol with elemental forces of nature.

That’s the moment of revelation, when we find out what is going on behind the scenes of we don’t know what. As the world burns and “environmentalists” sail around in 250-foot yachts, and all of history is being consumed by artificial thought, artificial God, and artificial you, most people are staring into the headlights like a hypnotized white-tail deer.

Remember: my job is not to make sure you wake up. My job is to stay awake no matter who is sleeping, or who requires three doses of spiritual Narcan.

With love,

Your faithful astrologer,

Abandoned barn associated with the 1890 Harshaw House as seen at daybreak Tuesday. Supposedly a horse barn, that would negate the need for silos. It may have originally been used for cattle, then later used for horses. The loft is like a metropolitan airport for barn swallows, who are fantastic stunt aviators. Photo by Eric Francis.