By Ohara Koson – https://www.pinterest.de/pin/312578030374561409/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59268836

We’ll have to adjust today–to ourselves. Our most unique and original inclinations surface, along with enough optimism to float several boats (and to tackle issues too long denied or ignored), and that means we can make spectacular leaps forward, especially in areas requiring confidence, understanding, and creativity. The innovative thought occurs–jot it down and save it for after Merc direction–and serendipities abound. What’s not working so well? What haunts us has an exaggerated presence–it hangs like a pall–so may needlessly blanket situations and our outlook. There’s also potential to be mentally erratic, to deny our creative urge, or to miss the way our ambitions can accommodate our high standards, and vice versa. Think in terms of modifications that preserve our integrity, core values, and our most treasured goals, while being responsive to the changing scene around us.

Today’s word image is a car winding endlessly around an ascending spiral ramp. On those kind of facilities you only see the floors where you can exit and park at one point on the spiral; the rest of the time, it just looks like you’re following a contained road to nowhere. I hate to get all philosophical on you, but life is a lot like that. We only periodically see where our ‘road’ is really taking us, and often it seems like there’s no way off, no other choice. I think the image counsels patience, a willingness to continue to move forward even when we are unsure what to expect ahead, and reassures us that, eventually, ‘where we’re at’ will be revealed.

Have a wonderful day! And a song ‘for the road’—

By Albert Guillaume – Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36888758

Our beliefs, our social lives, our creativity, our fantasies, will all be measured against those things that are most important to us, and we engage in this exercise for three reasons: we want to know what to do, which way to go, as we move into the future; we want to ferret out those hidden influences that may be stopping up the flow of Love or Money; and we want to get ourselves in perfect alignment with what really matters to us–and we have the smarts to realize we can only do that if we know what may be exerting an influence from the unconscious, or from our own denial of something. It’s a time when we intensely scrutinize how and where we dedicate our energies, with a better than even chance that we will define things in such a way that our ‘next step’ becomes unavoidably clear.

Though our wish to flee isn’t as dramatic as this Biblical scene, we do have the urge to just ‘get out of town’, one way or another. ‘The Flight of Lot and His Family from Sodom’ by Peter Paul Rubens c1614 {{PD}}

Today’s word image is really just an urge: the desire to escape. Pressures seem to be building for everyone–so much for the eclipses dissipating ambient energies–and even when things are going well, there seems to be a weight hanging over everything. Focus helps, by narrowing our field of vision in such a way that matters are more easily addressed, one at a time, and also helpful is reminding ourselves that stress over what might happen is counter-productive–live in the moment, for best results.

Thank you, and have a wonderful weekend-eve!

‘Miss Auras’ by John Lavery c1900 {{PD}}

Somehow we just know the powerful idea or thought that expresses both the essence of our authority and that supports our highest values or most important commitments. It’s as if we’re handed the answer of exactly how to, in making our statement to the world–and it just so happens to fulfill our ambitions or desires, as well. An odd sort of day, where things go remarkably smoothly, and we should take advantage of this, as the 31st comes along tomorrow (who knew?) and (mostly) puts the brakes on, hard. If you’re running into upsets, then it’s straight up because you are in some way denying your values.

‘Pigs’ by Franz Marc 1912 {{PD}}

Today’s word image is an archetype, ‘The Attention Hog’. This can come in many forms–we’re usually primed to think of someone loud, trumpeting their accomplishments or ‘virtues’, someone who sucks all the air out of the room–but today it takes a very particular shape: the person who, like a dripping faucet, demands little bites of your attention. It may be through the making of repeated, irrelevant or obvious comments, the offering unasked of little bits of ‘advice’, through mysterious and vague remarks meant to elicit questions in the listener, or through small, jabbing ‘challenges’ to those they see as holding some sort of power or authority. See this for what it is, a screaming demand for attention that is underlined by a kind of magnificent arrogance and entitled rage. This person doesn’t even realize that you don’t owe them anything–they would never face their own neediness by asking directly for your energy–and your job today may be to refuse to hand over that piece of yourself they think they deserve.

Read  —  Donate  —  Enjoy your day!

‘Spanish Dancer’ John Singer Sargent 1879 {{PD}}

What’s the big story today? The queen of the gods, Juno, conjoins Hygeia, indicator of what’s healthy, and we get–healthy Self-assertion? An unhealthy inclination toward vengeance? Or possibly something more subtle in-between. Here our current power and empowerment position (our status, our ability to reach out and get others to comply with our wishes and goals, and our sense of respect given and received within relationship) meets up with a gold standard of ‘what’s healthy’, and our position and choices are judged by us from there–and not necessarily accurately. There are difficulties with seeing through the fog, with sorting real from imagined, with perhaps a little too much hope that something is ideal, in spite of the reality behind it. Listening to instinct will help; deep inside we know how things really are. It’s just a matter of seeing that reality, and accepting it–easier said than done, but possible, nonetheless.

Mars as Seen from Deimos by Howard Russell Butler {{PD}}

Today’s word image is a pair of things observed in real life: a bright green billboard that reads, ‘It’s time to show off’, and then a man wearing a t-shirt with one word on it: Mars. Seen in quick succession, I took these to suggest we need to assert ourselves, to put some part of our essence ‘out there’, particularly something that at one time or another we may have been chided for, told that nice boys and girls don’t ‘Show off’–but behind the showing off was really a need, to express an innate talent or ability. Today, express that thing you do very, very well. You’re not showing off, you’re offering what you’ve got, and that’s the way it’s meant to be.