hummingwolf | For my own amusement

Some things from actual astrology sites (as opposed to the beloved MegaHAL), placed here because they might remind me to post actual content at some later date.

From Free Will Astrology:

Leo (my rising sign & moon sign): Of course I want to do everything I can to help you make your dreams come true. But right now there's a more pressing concern. You've got to dream bigger and hotter and wilder. You need to demand more from your imagination and conjure up more daring fantasies. Here, then, is a prescription from your soul doctor: In the coming week, spend at least ten minutes a day brainstorming at the outskirts of your understanding.

Libra (sun sign & some other planets): "Every act of conscious learning requires the willingness to suffer an injury to one’s self-esteem," wrote psychiatrist Thomas Szasz. "That is why young children, before they are aware of their own self-importance, learn so easily; and why older persons, especially if vain or important, cannot learn at all." I hope this observation is a sufficiently gentle preparation for your assignment, Libra. Are you ready to make the entire world your classroom, to expand your capacity to be taught, and to master a slew of new tricks? I hope so. To pull it off, you must be willing to let your ego die.

The fun part here is that, unlike my horoscopes the vast majority of the time, both of these this week echo things I've been telling myself lately.

From astro.com, my personalized 'scope for the day is:

Weak, transient effect: This influence can have many different effects, some of which you should be quite careful of. To begin with, it encourages compulsive behavior; your emotions acquire so much momentum that it is difficult not to give in to sudden urges and impulses that may not be good for you in the long run, particularly if you have been trying to suppress your feelings. This influence is least difficult if you deal with your feelings honestly and do not try to hide them from yourself. On the plus side, however, this influence allows you to go inside yourself and find out what you really want in any situation. Emotional self-analysis is very effective now, as long as you are willing to be honest. Encounters with others may also force an emotional self- confrontation which is useful, even though possibly unpleasant.

Free horoscopes from Thursday:

Fun and joy
Valid during several weeks: During this time, you feel most free to express yourself and to be yourself. Your primary drive is to do what you want and as much as possible to set your own priorities. You are not especially interested in dominating others, although you may be capable of it at this time, but you will vigorously oppose anyone who tries to prevent you from doing what you want to do. Your attitude toward your relationships is much lighter at this time, almost as if you saw your relationships as a stage upon which you can perform. At any rate, you favor more than usual the relationships that are fun. This is the time to be yourself, but it also is the time to become conscious of who you are. It is one thing to be yourself; it is another to know yourself. You can use this time for both.

The interpretation above is for your transit selected for today:
Sun in the 5th House 5 exact at 04:52
activity period from 1 December 2005 until beginning of January 2006.

Well, that sounds like a good one to have through the holiday season, doesn't it?

Long-term influences:

Real knowledge
Valid during several weeks: This influence arouses your love of mystery and gives you a desire to solve difficult puzzles. This is a reflection of the deeper purpose of this influence , which is to penetrate below the surface layer of reality to the core of truth where all real knowledge is to be found. Therefore this is a good time to study subjects pertaining to deeper knowledge. In your everyday world you will use this energy to examine, scrutinize and probe everything that comes your way. It is not that you are suspicious but that you want to get at the total truth. If someone makes a proposal, you will investigate and ask searching questions until you know exactly what the proposal entails. Under this influence it would be very difficult for someone to swindle or mislead you.

Transit selected for today (by user):
Mercury Sextile Pluto
activity period from end of October 2005 until 9 December 2005.

How the universe works
Valid during many months: This influence can affect you in several ways, but in any case it will make you feel optimistic and hopeful about the future. You will feel that everything is going to be all right, and that is not a delusion, because during this time you will gain insights that can make your life much better.
You will feel very idealistic but also very concerned about understanding, so your idealism will not get in the way of perceiving the truth. In fact truth is very important in your life now not so much facts, but understanding how the universe works. Just be careful not to make truth into such an abstract consideration that you cannot experience it in everyday life. However, given that warning, you do have the opportunity to gain insights through the study of philosophy, metaphysics and the occult.

At another level, this influence works to increase your optimism and self-confidence to the point that you are willing to take risks you would not ordinarily take. This may happen through gambling or speculation, or it may happen through getting rid of the elements of your life that you have always depended on for security. You now recognize that they have also limited the expansion of your consciousness, and you want to be free to experience the world. You realize that some material considerations you have thought necessary in the past are now clearly expendable.

You may decide to travel, particularly by sea or by air. However, the main purpose of this travel will be learning, not recreation. It would be best to take a long trip and get to know the land and people without the structure of a guided tour. You need and want direct experience.

Your desire to help underdog elements of society is great at this time. You have a strong feeling of social justice, and you do not want people to get the short end of the stick. Justice, you feel, should be tempered with mercy and compassion.

Transit selected for today (by user):
Neptune Trine Jupiter
activity period from end of March 2004 until middle of January 2006.

A chance for change ***
Valid during many months: During this time you have the opportunity to make creative changes through a system. It can be any kind of system, such as your work, the government or other aspects of the social system, or it can be the "systems" you have created in your personal world with your friends, family and loved ones. At other times you may feel that the system you are involved with gets in the way of your individual freedom and self- expression. But now the rules of the game afford you the chance to make whatever changes are necessary for your own personal growth.
In your work, this is an extremely favorable time because your superiors will be impressed by your innovative ideas. You may be rewarded with a higher position in that particular system. Both at work and in your life generally you are unusually willing to learn new techniques, and you have the discipline to master them.

You will work for change in the organizations you deal with, but you will not be satisfied with airy schemes that have little practical value. Instead you will try to achieve a carefully thought-out, rigorously planned course of action. Others will have no doubt about how your plans are to work. Consequently there is potential for much solid achievement under this influence.

All structures in your life serve two purposes. First, they eliminate chaos from your perception of the world so that you can deal with it more easily. But these structures also present a constant challenge to grow and change within them. If you do not accept the challenge, the structures in your life can become extremely limiting and deadening. Eventually this results in a crisis situation in which you must either strike out or die psychologically, if not literally. But this influence gives you the chance to make creative changes under relatively favorable conditions so that structures in your life do not become stifling. You should use this opportunity to ensure that you can always work within the structures of your life.

Transit selected for today (by user):
Uranus Sextile Saturn
activity period from beginning of May 2004 until middle of January 2006.

For Saturday:

Cause and effect ***
Valid during many months: This quality of time will help you to develop a deeper understanding of those psychological areas that are connected with the experience of pain, suffering and rejection. Often these experiences took place in the distant past, in early childhood or at the onset of puberty. Being put down or rejected during these especially sensitive periods of our lives leaves wounds and scars behind, which adults - mostly without realizing it - feel as anxiety about their own body, feelings of inadequacy, or even worse, their own inferiority. Such sensitivities can have a very bad effect on our feelings about life and our interpersonal relationships. They can cause us to avoid deep emotional experiences for fear of new pain, and can at worst even lead to us badly hurting other people by "hitting them below the belt".
This influence is especially well suited to so deepening the understanding of these interrelations, that the first inklings of how to carry out a healing can be perceived. The injury itself can become a symbol of what is necessary in order to carry out a healing. During this phase it is important to talk to other people who are interested in this theme. See yourself in others and others in yourself - this fosters a direct understanding more than any discussion.

This time is well suited to penetrating the complicated connections and dependencies between human behavior, the psyche and such early injuries - to differentiating between cause and effect. However, you should not be satisfied with plain diagnosis, rather you should use your knowledge to try to outline possible methods of and routes to healing - whether for yourself or for someone who has confided in you.

The interpretation above is for your transit selected for today:
Chiron Trine Mercury
activity period from middle of February 2005 until end of December 2005.

Hopefully later I can think of something to do with all this nonsense. Now it's about time to find out if there's something useful I can do this afternoon.