Backtracking to that endless retrograde station of Mars in Gemini on my Saturn for a moment, I need a soapbox here because that particular transit had me wrestling with immovable questions, but also answered them. My clients began voicing a piece of me – the maternal side of me “take care of me, make it all better, promise!” Which in reality came out of their mouths like this, “answer this question. Make up my mind for me…and what will I, should I do?” and resulted in this post – a real defining moment. Straddling the fear of being wrong or right all the time really takes the spunk out of a girl. So I pulled my courage, examined what I could and could not promise, and realized I don’t like making predictions – at all. I can make a “best guess” but that’s about all. Basically, because at best they’re a crapshoot and I’m no gambler. And I don’t like being wrong. So beautifully, magically, when a client yesterday said at the end of her session, unprompted, “maybe with astrology, the exploration is the destination…” I couldn’t help but feel Mars had had his way with my Saturn.

But it’s hard to retire the beloved prediction, as evidenced by the way the community at large wants to hold astrologers accountable for what does or does not “come true” in their lives. Curiously, it seems horoscope writers (read: entertainment) get the worst of it.

As for me and my Mars-Saturn transit, I only vaguely wondered about it ahead of time, which really heated up once I was “in it.” “Maybe I’ll start speaking to my dad again (or not). At the very least issues of self-assertion and courage will come up, my limits will be tested. Maybe I’ll be asked to take a stand on principle (this all happened in the 9th house).” But how would it all go down, really now? My guess was as good as yours. At least I’d be awake to the moment of discovery, it’s time frame, and eventual incorporation of its expression into myself – and send it off with a “Buh-bye!”

So here’s the bad news and the good news: I no longer make predictions. I am in the business of offering help – a little moonlight. I’ll give you possibilities. And likely, hope. Or at least some ideas to (as someone said) re-imagine your current predicament into a better reality.

But today is a new day, and a new toothache. I was sitting at the dinner table last night when the sensations of hot and cold shot from tooth to brain and in a millisecond flash I realized why my dear Dentist, who shares his birthday with mine, had been making recurring appearances in my thoughts. And with Mars closing in on an opposition to Pluto, exact on March 4, reflecting my natally exact t-square to my Cancer Sun within a few degrees, my thoughts jumped: is a meltdown ahead for me (and my dentist)? Will I arm wrestle a looming, dark figure and emerge victorious? Will I assume a cardinal role in the epic story of my life? Should I go meditate in a cave? Will I make a courageous stand, and morph into Xena, warrior princess, or better yet, La Femme Nikita my alter ego?

Hey I’m no fortune teller, I’m an astrologer. I look at the stars to water my soul, to integrate the errant parts of me – to grow. I look up and I look within. There is no answer “out there” that isn’t already there waiting inside me. It’s a question of ripening. By and large, astrology’s most fruitful use is in the now. Tori Amos sang, I’m “calling for my soul at the corners of the world…I know she’s playing poker with the rest of the stragglers….” I see divine timing as those ripe moments, when the soul is called home -in the form of circumstances, people, lessons, stragglers. Often a piece of our very self resembles a fugitive running from the law – hungry for a warm meal and fire. My commitment to me (and to you) is to attempt to greet them, welcome them home, those stragglers that appear to have survived on bread and water in the wilderness too long. Because I figure if I open my door and entertain their desires and needs, eventually they’ll tell me what they like to eat. Then I’ll make them a nice meal and we’ll all get along beautifully.