Forecast for Friday 7 August 2009

Friday 7 August 2009

~Mutual Responsibility Leading to Contentment~

We begin the much-dreaded ||retreat third of the week (previously known as the "difficult third") at 8:41a PT | 11:41a ET | 3:41p UT. Yes, it is time to retreat! You will sense what this means in your own case. It lasts this time through the weekend until Monday at 3:30a PT | 6:30a ET | 10:30a UT.

The Mars square Saturn aspect, gaining on us daily, is a tightening of karma. Robert De Luce says, "If (the individual) is honest, let him be rigidly so, without the least compromise. . . . Let him practice charity to all, refrain from harsh judgments and be meticulous in the discharge of all obligations. In this way he may pass through the time with a minimum of evil consequences." It is wise not to stir up strife with a friend or even anyone who seems to have wronged you. Let the scales of justice straighten things out in their own good time. Meanwhile, when you are strict in accounting for your own duties you will be earning better luck for yourself.

The above applies in most situations, although if you decide instead to prosecute someone you could succeed with detective-like acumen. The question is whether this is worth while or will merely delay your real happiness. You could find contentment in a private space, at home or with someone close to you, trusting humility and kindness to succeed beyond your dreams.

It is hard to feel continuous pressure toward the ideal, and so there is temptation to "flake off" by chasing childish pastimes or amusements. It's a matter of balance, but the retreat third of the week is generally better for quiet lonely pursuits you believe in than for pleasure-seeking.

You may see into the character of those in power situations, not to their advantage. Are they pompous but lacking in substance? Do they imagine themselves good critics of others while lacking real competence themselves? They may hold the purse-strings, but dabble the purse so that everything falls out.

Fortunately there is mental skill to be developed further and used tellingly, with Mercury in Virgo (the sign of its exaltation) in good aspect to Venus and Pluto while opposed by the moon. The problem could be that you devote too much energy to some who meander here and there, wasting your skill in overzealous attention to things which hardly matter in the long haul. If you were to study something which thrills you you would gain more.

Individuals you have trusted in the past may be at odds with one another, and you get pulled into the tug of war. Ideas and plans clash. Taking both sides may be easier, that is, mediating in one way or another.

Not only is Mars square Saturn, but trine Jupiter, so there are ways of capitalizing on conflict or disagreement as it moves toward eventual reconciliation. But before you get there things seem perilous. Have friends really abandoned or even betrayed you? Is loyalty illusion and affection caprice? People are troubled; if you make allowance for that you may feel better about them and their troubled unreliability.

Contentment and humility are admirable virtues and handsome paymasters.

{Friday} ~Mutual Responsibility Leading to Contentment~

Cosmic Piper