So, I just realized I never actually posted an Imbolc post, and here we are, over a month later and hurdling toward Ostara, and there hasn’t been anything from me. Sorry.

The Death of a Jaguar

My Jaguar is dead. I hit some black ice, and then I hit a guard rail, and it was just enough damage to declare it a total loss because the parts are so expensive.

Yes – a little more than three months after my car was hit, I got into an accident on my own, and even though it was a minor accident, the cost of parts and repairs exceeded its resale value.

This white elephant that I inherited from Rick, that I have cared for and have made so many financial decisions around, has finally died. And I know he wanted this car very badly because he wanted one last toy before he died, and he didn’t care that he had to use my credit score and income to get it. And he had his one last toy for a little while, and then I was stuck with it. And he knew that he was dying when he told me it would be his for a few years and then he’d trade it in, and he knew he needed my credit and my income to get the stupid thing.

You cannot park a Jaguar XJ L on the street. Hell – you can’t park it most parking spaces because it’s too long. You can’t drive it in certain places. You can’t drive it in bad weather, and forget snow – maybe it’s fine on an obstacle course, but alleys and side streets? Forget it. The gas mileage was terrible. Is it a nice car to drive? Give the right conditions, absolutely. But it’s unreliable, and the repairs are very expensive and take a very long time. They’re expensive to insure. They are beautiful cars, but they are not for people who don’t have the means to throw money away. They were cars for people who liked to lease a new toy every few years, which is why they depreciate so rapidly, which is how I ended up owing more than the car was worth so quickly after Rick died, which was why I aggressively tried to pay it down, which is why I barely used the car so I could make sure it stayed in good shape, because there was a while when no one was willing to give me anything for the car, and the value hadn’t gone up much since. Jaguar ended the XJ series in 2019.

You may ask why I didn’t get rid of it sooner, and that was because 1) I wasn’t sure if I wanted to trade in the car, maybe break even on the loan, and then get another high car payment or deplete my savings to put a down payment on a car in an insecure economy, so I had to be very careful with this car to ensure I didn’t cause major damage to it…until one day I decided to drive it East and got stranded on a scary toll road at night hoping someone else’s car didn’t go careening into my own.

I am now the proud owner of a used late-model Japanese-made non-luxury SUV that I fell in love with at the dealership. It was the second time in my life that I ever tried to buy a car, and the first time I have bought a car that was just for me and what I wanted and what I needed. My first road trip went well, although I’m still getting used to the idea that I have a lot more room for things.

But it’s my car, just my car, that I picked out just me.

Astrology Services Are Not Back

It’s been a year now, and I have gotten some inquiries, but I’m not doing readings. I had to close up shop last year: between my career and this, I didn’t have any time for anything else. It was just being a lawyer and being an astrologer, and no space in between to rest. I was getting calls about astrology while I was in court. I also found that it was much more difficult to control my brand if I wasn’t taking the time to do the due diligence, and from where would I would pluck the time for it?

I had a side hustle for so many years that I wanted to try life without one, especially since I hit a place financially where I could live without one. And I tell you that it’s pretty nice to only have one job and to spend time doing other things, like self-improvement, or thinking about what you actually want out of life, or developing other skills and interests.

And I miss the clients though. You guys are awesome, and I’d love to stay in touch somehow but I just can’t take up a service side gig again and be a lawyer.

But I am working on a few things that are not service-based, and one of them is an astrology project that will be available to the public for 2024, so look out for that.

I Am Still An Astrologer Though

I still do astrology. I even read charts sometimes, largely if a friend or colleague asks for help. However, when there is no pressure to be correct, there’s room for experimentation and research, and I’ve been learning some things and rediscovering others. Like that maybe a spontaneous road trip isn’t a great idea when Mars just left its retrograde position in Gemini while it’s transiting your 3rd house and inconjunct to its ruler in Capricorn…or rather, relearning that astrology is often quite literal, as it is rooted in the ground and comes from the Earth, and that the “astro” part is the heavens we use as an alphabet and grammatical system to interpret the cycles of life on Earth. Or that if your seventh house overlays someone’s second house, either they’re benefiting financially from the relationship or you are…and if Uranus is there, in strange ways and freak accidents, which literally happened to me.

Because the ancients were not reading the signs in the heavens for spiritual enlightment or self-discovery, as this is the stuff of modern mankind, and yet still very rooted in our material needs.

And there’s nothing wrong with that. We have bodies for a reason. And this body needs to go to bed, as I have to drive into the office. I finally have a vehicle that can handle the snow, but it is gone, perhaps until the next winter, and we await the coming of spring.

Listen: I drove back west this weekend, into the sunset. It was back to Chicago, but it was toward the sunset, and by the time I got to Lake Shore Drive, it was fully night and all the twinkling lights of Chicago were on full display. It’s all manmade of course, but what a miracle to be driving from one state to another, to drive past a million lights on my way home, listening to class rock in my own car, to my own home! Perhaps this is the crescendo of an era, the precipice of decline, but for right now, I am not stuck in the middle of a national or international crisis. There are people whose lives are generally the same, who may tighten the belt or patiently wait things out, but if the thing is in the geographic location I’m in, it’s going to affect me personally, and right now, three years after the pandemic started, there’s a new woman in a new(ish) vehicle who is still alive, still thriving, and still figuring things out.

The light is coming back. It really is.