The (Uranus-Inspired) Ups and Downs of astrobarry

6.16.03


Everyone who runs a computer-based business can relate to what I'm about to write. It's not what I had intended to write—well, properly, what I had already written—but, sometimes, spur-of-the-moment situations (i.e., desperate measures) require changes of heart. Which is sort of apropos, considering this week's article was already all about change and its various manifestations.

I awoke early this Monday morning, as I do most Monday mornings, to complete my work on this week's article and horoscopes and then to post them on the Web. Imagine my shock when, for no apparent reason whatsoever, my laptop was suddenly missing its operating system (i.e., Windows). "Where'd you go, Windows?" I tried to reason with this plastic box of fancy-shmancy chips-and-wires, all the while, that nervous tingling in my stomach beginning to drop out, as the roller-coaster ride apparently had already begun. Magically, I was no longer tired, instead wide awake in that now-familiar modern nightmare of: My computer crashed.

Now, I must admit, it's a wonder I'm able to produce any sort of writing right now at all, since I'm really feeling quite bummed out and am not sure how I'm going to get all the important information (such as all of my readers' email addresses, some of my most recent creative writing, etc.) off this good-for-nothing piece of malfunctioning equipment. But the entire computer-crashed scenario seemed so well to fit the current state of astrological affairs, I felt I had to address it with you, my fair readers. (Well, if I didn't address it, you were going to end up reading some pitiable excuse for why I hadn't posted my site this week, so why not go an extra couple yards…right?)

This week, and for the next several, the most notable astrological aspect is the power-surging conjunction of Mars and Uranus (and I use the term "power-surging" because I have to believe that's what happened—so folks, do not leave your computer plugged in and on). Uranus, as I detailed so completely in the article that exists no more, is the planet that brings change on the level of big shocking surprises, a specific sort of change energy, different than that of change produced by careful strategy and patient toiling or change that occurs slowly and deeply such that we are hardly aware of it until after the fact when we notice how far we've come from where we are.

No, the Uranus brand of change happens in an instant, is total, and we're damn aware it's happening. It's all that succeeding time after the fact (such as today, which will be spent begging computer-geek geniuses to recover my system without losing all my data) that requires us to make sense of the ensuing chaos, and to find a way to regain some solid footing after the storm.

You can imagine that, with Mars entering the picture and joining forces with Uranus, there is a potential for such unforeseen events of seeming cataclysm as, for instance, a sudden surge in electricity creating, for instance, a crashed computer system. Mars is all about physical energy, our drive to go out and get things in our lives, and our ability to defend ourselves and fight for what we need in real or imagined conflict. When Mars contacts Uranus, we can actually experience this type of power-surge in our physical bodies, as well. This phenomenon includes an amping-up of our nervous systems, such that we could feel a bit uneasy, anxiety-prone, restless, unable to sleep, etc.

Last week, I urged you to remember, in light of any discomfort you might feel related to this, to do your best to interpret the sensation less as anxiety and more as nervous excitement, to take on the viewpoint of life as really being fun. Well, I must have forgotten my own advice as, later in the week, I found myself in a conversation, explaining the feeling of anxiety unattached to any specific incident in my life, which was wreaking havoc on my normally-more-calm physical body. The woman I spoke to reminded me of that fine line between anxiety and excitement. It was her belief that I was merely excited—in fact, she told me I seemed "more alive" than ever—and it was my own interpretative habit to negatively deem the sensation "anxiety".

Well, now that my computer has crashed and I'm facing the loss of some of my most important creative work of the past few months (and all my business contact emails), I'd say that this excitement has indeed turned to anxiety, to be sure. And yet, there is some spark of creativity that is still allowing me to sit at the desktop (the other computer—and thank God for the other computer!) and type out a message to you.

In the missing article, I even dared to mention that Mars-Uranus contacts are infamous for increasing people's proneness to accidents and, though I hesitated to put that thought out there and perhaps amplify the actual situation by creating more nervousness, now I see that it's important news to share. Because of the intensified electrical charge in our bodies during a Mars-Uranus contact, we must take care in our actions so that we move as consciously as possible, counteracting the potential for big surprises that could potentially be hazardous. Such as computer crashes.

One last thing: Mars and Uranus come together in the first couple degrees of Pisces, that sign of the cloudy misty collective unconscious in which we swim without sight for a combination of divine inspiration and major confusion. Confusion—that word which keeps creeping into my astro-writings, but which is so key these days, since, even though I've said the confusion is starting to lift, it's only lifting off the events of the recent past and not off those in the present. In other words, the Pisces influence (and that of its ruler Neptune, which trines both Venus and Mercury this week) continues to exert its disorienting fog over our lives.

The only thing to do in cases like this, when, for instance, your computer crashes and you don't know how you'll be able to go on living as an astrologer and an artist if all that data is really lost, is to have faith. And, God, please give me the faith to finish up this writing and get my ass to the computer repair place and for them to have the faith to fix the mofo and recover my missing words. In the meantime, watch for crazy drivers, shocking revelations, crooked sidewalks, momentary flashes of chaotic genius, and, oh yeah, power surges.