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Uptime is the hottest micro-learning app that exploded during COVID lockdown. It’s got 11 million users—no kidding—and keeps winning awards. It offers bite-size summaries from experts in diverse fields—truly an aberration in the anti-time-sucking community. I’m so happy to be part of the creative team and I hope you’ll check out its offerings!
Turns out, junk mail is not so much a dark place where rejected senders go to die, but a treasure chest where awards are waiting to be discovered years later!
My 2020 novel, The Ascender, was awarded the sole finalist spot in a sci-fi category. So, a very belated thank you to the American Fiction Awards people who are now sending me my fancy award certificate and golden digital stickers 4 years later.
Just goes to show some tasty treats don’t expire and it can be a really fun trip to travel back to the past.
I’m currently working on the sequel and this feel-good reverse pat-on-the-back has nudged my inspiration forward.
If ya feel like checking out The Ascender 1, here’s a nice link that will send you back in time to 2020–minus the COVID https://www.amazon.com/Ascender-Tracey-L-Pacelli-ebook/dp/B085STYGMH
There’s a lot going on in the US—thank you Pluto return! July has ushered in the 2nd hit of Pluto’s return on the US Sibly chart, the natal astrology chart for the US based on the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Delivering on the Pluto promise, we’re certainly getting lessons in right use of power and transformation/change to structures that we once took for granted as solid. Deep, intense, below surface Karmas and desires are being unearthed, revealed, examined, destroyed and created. Much is being demolished so that another structure can take its place. It’s up to us what the new US will look like when Pluto is finished transforming us. There are important, powerful decisions to make, and with every decision worlds are created.
That brings me to the multiverse and a movie I’d recently viewed that gave new feels to my feelings. “Everything Everywhere All at Once” was like an Olympic event I can scarcely describe, but I’ll give it the old college try.
This movie dances in the multiverse and feels like an acid trip fueled by bizarre scenarios from the most imaginative cinematic minds. And yet, it reveals so simply and clearly what’s fundamental about life. Many events happen to us of which we have no control (Fate), but there are also many things that happen to us that we can control through our free will, through our decision making process. Every choice the lead character, Evelynn (Michelle Yeoh), has made has given her a different life in another universe.
Evelynn is a worn-out, disappointed Chinese immigrant who runs a laundromat with her highly dysfunctional family that includes: a grumpy, narrow-minded grandfather, a geeky but highly lovable husband (Ke Huy Quan), and a distant, rebellious daughter who desperately desires her mom’s support in coming out to her grandfather. Add to this, the financial ruin that is just around the corner when they can’t pay their IRS taxes.
Just when Evelynn’s world is about to collapse, the multiverse steps in to make her an antihero of incredulous proportions. Who’d ever think that downtrodden Evelyn could be “the one” to save the multiverse from ruin? A way cooler, Kung Fu fighting husband from another universe pops into the milk toast body of her husband and places the heavy mantle of saving the world on her shoulders. Evelyn basically replies she’s nobody, nothing. She can’t be the “Neo” of this realm. To my utter delight he responds, “You’re capable of everything because you’re so bad at everything.”
Evelynn is thrust into a martial arts journey defeating villains, while glimpsing other universes that appear enviable to her. She’s an opera singer, a glamorous movie star, a chef with a raccoon, and in one universe she has hot dogs for hands! I warned you it’s an acid trip.
“You’re capable of everything because you’re so bad at everything.”
Every decision shapes a different world, all of them supplying Evelyn with a larger perspective about what’s really important in life—her family. These glimpses allow her to appreciate and fight for the drab little life she’s already in with Waymond–“Short Round” from “Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom.” He’s no less adorable now, by the way. And then there’s her invisible made powerfully visible daughter, Joy, who turns out to be Evelyn’s greatest gift of all.
Here’s my takeaway: Like Evelynn, we may think we’re small, flawed, not the one, but each of us is a powerful creative force fashioning worlds through the choices we make. If you so choose, see “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” The way you see life will change forever. Or… you’ll at least have a good laugh and enjoy some awesome Kung Fu.
Mercury is going direct, finally, on June 3rd and not a moment too soon! If I can help it, I try to avoid signing new leases, having a carpenter come over to begin a new project, having a contractor pave our streets, or a daughter begin rehearsals on a very important one woman show she’s performing in NYC this summer.
You’d think having a resident astrologer on board would prevent all calamities from occurring…NOT!!! That’s because I’m the town crier 3-4 times per year when mercury retrograde takes to its sickbed. I was yelling through the streets urging all to thoroughly research, plan, to look before leaping, and expect delays, setbacks and re-dos of whatever it is you’ve haphazardly done before. Allow me to introduce myself: I’m the astrologer who cries wolf to a legion of fans who roll eyes at me. “No not this retrograde thingie again!… I’ve heard that before… and before… and before.”
And, you’ll hear it again because mercury retrograde is one of those red flags that wave in your face and cause you to trip on a crack that needs fixing. It’s a backwards trickster this mercury retrograde and you’d best pay heed.
First case in point: My husband had my brother-in-law pop by for a sleepover yesterday with ulterior motives to utilize his unparalleled carpentry skills to beautify our wall. “All you gotta do is slap on a simple rock board before we add the stone—nothing to it for a master carpenter like you… come on over for dinner, movies, and don’t forget your saw and tool kit!”
“But it’s mercury retrograde,” I whispered to my husband. “It’s just a simple job,” he replied. “Really… what could go wrong?”
Fast forward 3 hours. My hilariously funny and talented brother-in-law already hard at work on the task, sharing humorous family anecdotes, most of them involving his mom. We were all having a pretty good time, his job nearly complete—just one final screw… A funny look came over him. “Well… that didn’t feel right.”
He ordered my husband to quickly run upstairs and flush the toilet, and as the whoosh sounded, another whoosh echoed downstairs as water trickled through a brand new hole in our pipe! A trip to Home Depot and the gaping problem was soon fixed. If only my husband heeded my warning.
Second case in point: My daughter’s friend needed a place to sublet for a month. She knew the area she wanted and jumped at the very first place she saw. “But it’s mercury retrograde, I whispered to my daughter. Tell her to research carefully, know all there is to know before signing.” But it was already too late. My daughter’s friend handed over $1,000 to a property manager who refused to show her the place—not even a virtual tour! She later had a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, unrelated to the taco dinner she’d just eaten. You know… that rancid knowing you’ve just been robbed eating away at your lower intestines. She tracked down the manager of the building and was told this property manager had nothing to do with their apartment building. In fact, the apartment she paid for was already rented and people had been living there for several months already. Snookered by the winged messenger. But my daughter, a sweet natured gal, invited her to stay with her till she got back on her feet.
Final case in point: My development was due for a new pavement, contractors were hired and ready to start work immediately. “But it’s Mercury retrograde,” I whispered to the president of the board, who looked at me like she was ready to burn me at the stake! The pavers came and not once, but twice, they hit the main water line and we lost our water, which always makes one extra thirsty and affects the speaking voice (a mercury thing), which brings me to my daughter completely losing her voice during a crucial time of play rehearsals. Speaking of my daughter, she lost power at work as smoke filled the building when a rat gnawed through something electrical and imploded!
And on that dramatic note, I’m going to pull down the shades and crawl into bed till mercury goes direct on June 3rd. I suggest you do the same!—lol. But seriously, keep doing deals, contract workers, buy new things, just do so very carefully. The extra caution plus a good exterminator can prevent a potential rodent from imploding in your building.
Dream interpretation, using the tool of astrology, is a wonderful gift many may know very little about. My clients understand they can come to me with any dream that ruffles their feather quilts, and I can help them sleep on smooth sheets again.
Of course, before you seek counsel, I’d advise to first begin a practice of strengthening your dream recall. It’s handy to keep a notebook by the bed and record what feels like a potent sleep adventure at any time it may present itself. Distilling the important dreams from the common ones is an art that does take a bit of practice for many. But in time, you’ll know when a dream has value, as opposed to what my teacher, Nina Gryphon, would label “a spicy pizza dream,” which is like a passing movie reel that has more to do with what you ate the night before than a dream that has the potential to manifest in your life.
In the ancient past, there used to be dream incubation temples that required the patient to first fast and purify themselves before a God or an Avatar would show up to interpret their dream. Now, all that is required is an astrological chart, either an event chart of the moment you actually experienced the dream, or you can use a horary chart, the easier approach to astro dream interpretation, deriving from the moment you feel compelled to pose your dream question to a skilled astrologer.
All dreams traditionally arrive from two gates: The Clear Gate of Horn, those dreams that stem from a divine source, and from The Opaque Gate of Ivory, those muddled transmissions we can never translate, otherwise known as, “spicy pizza dreams.”
The horn dreams are the more important, because when you work horn thin, it becomes like a material that turns to glass, clear and easy to see, whereas ivory is a material when worked on, it becomes milky and represents dreams that are like allegorical riddles that may, in fact, never be solved.
So, for our purposes here, you get the horn without messing with the bull, and we’ll leave the ivory at home, for now. As your friendly neighborhood skilled astrologer, there are methods at my disposal to separate the horn from the ivory. Just by looking at the chart, and particularly the 9th house, where dreams are contained, I’ll check to see where the ruler of that house is located and any planets in that house, for further description. If the dream lord resides in the 9th or 10th house, we’ve really got a good one on the line, a fish that can supply you with a nutritious meal for the future. But if the dream significator is in the 6th, 8th, or 12th house, not so much here folks but wasted calories. The advice would then be to lay off the spicy pizza!
But if we do have the horn as opposed to the ivory, I’ll analyze the planets in their signs and houses to elaborate on the flavor and mood of your dream, we’ll observe the modes of the planets to ascertain the feel of your dream, and I’ll determine how helpful or harmful the dream may be through that dream significator (9th house ruler) and its aspects. You’ll be told where to find assistance or rescue through the benefic planets of Venus and Jupiter, and where there may be danger or harm through the malefic planets of Mars and Jupiter.
I’ll also checkout the moon’s sign to determine the affect the dream has on your life. A helpful understanding of all the planets and their meanings, including the outers of Pluto, Neptune and Saturn, and even the nodes, which are not actually bodies but points that may lend very specific meanings to the dream. Mercury would be a message or movement of some sort, children or a dream’s reliability; mars may indicate a violent dream or a warning; venus, enjoyment or pleasure; Jupiter could indicate wealth or a prophecy…and so on.
The horn of plenty yields untold gifts that a trained dream astrologer can offer a client. So, in the immortal words of Aerosmith, Dream On and consult the stars for your answers!
