Wishing Astrology Didn't Work

4.17.07


I awoke this morning ready to tackle the day.

It's a New Moon (trine Pluto, no less), a great occasion for initiating a new stab at life… and considering that my most recent life-stabs have yielded a dot-matrix of self-inflicted, ouch-laden puncture wounds, I welcomed the chance to start over again.

Needless to say, a computer crash wasn't what I had in mind.

And yet, there I was, trying to boot up for the morning's email check and celeb-gossip review… and the Windows startup screen just kept spinning and spinning. I freaked out, complete with grief-filled wails of panic and the repetitive mantra of, 'Please, no. Please, no. Please, no.'

This was my first major computer mishap in nearly four years. Back in June 2003, I experienced a particularly gnarly crash—I'd sat down to begin my day's work, only to find the operating system wouldn't load up. The system had been fine the previous night when I'd gone to bed, but by the time I'd awakened, it was toast. Worse still, the data was totally unrecoverable, and I lost some of my prized photos and writings.

At the time of the last crash, I'd chalked it up to a power surge. Stupidly, I'd left the computer plugged in and on… an invitation for just such an unfortunate occurrence to occur. In checking out the astrology of the time, though, it made sense: Mars was applying toward a conjunction with Uranus in Pisces, and if ever there were a planetary mix that begged for electrical malfunctions, that was it.

So you can imagine how dumfounded I was this morning to realize… well, duh, Mars is once again in Pisces, and once again approaching a Uranus conjunction (exact on Sat Apr 28). Shouldn't I, as a professional astrologer, be more closely attuned to such planetary omens? Shouldn't I have seen this coming and properly shut down before sleepy-time? Have I not learned anything?

Well, luckily, I have learned a few things since '03—particularly when it comes to backing up files, networking computers together, and restoring crashed operating systems. And unlike my last bad crash, it appears (so far, at least) that I will be able to rescue my data… though, in the end, I'll also have to reformat and reinstall and spend the rest of my week on this crap. So much for finally 'catching up' (or, dare I even dream, 'getting ahead') with all my work.

Mars + Uranus = sudden disruptions, on a physical level.

The only way to prepare is: Be prepared for anything. As for computers: Back up your data, back up your data, back up your data…