Tend To Your Crops

There is no escaping the fact that the harvest, whatever one has planted, feels particularly lean right now. Astrology this month gives us the embrace of Ceres (a preeminent earth goddess) by Saturn (the force of constriction…think rings), yielding an inescapable message of meager pickings. That this is happening in the astrological sixth house, closely identified with restaurants and the people who work in them, does nothing to aid the buoyancy of the observation.

Yet it should be pointed out that Saturn, although considered a harsh energy in traditional astrology, stands as much for the role of “time” as it does anything else. When Saturn comes in contact with another astronomical body or significant point in a horoscope, we get the message that something’s time has come. So another way to read the planetary symbolism in the first paragraph is that it is time to reap what one has sewn, and those who have been diligent, scrupulous and painstaking in tending to their ‘crops’ may well have bounty enough to last through a dry season.

The (astrological) truth this month, indicated via numerous planetary aspects in addition to the one mentioned above, is that the die has already been cast. This is a time of consummation, rather than of strategic adaptation or correction. A new cycle is about to begin, but truly new cycles bring a set of rules and conditions that aren’t always apparent until the old cycle has been dispatched.

One can make some educated guesses though. Waste, both of the spirit and the flesh, is going to be punished. Worthlessness is going to be exposed. Those who are in it only for the glory and the goods are going to be bested by the dedicated craftspeople who are in it to perfect themselves…and whose aim is to provide some honest joy and comfort for their fellow man via the provenance of appealing foods and beverages and in the fulfillment of the estimable art of service.

Can you do that? Have you been doing that? You’ll be fine.

Steven Mark Weiss is a career foodservice trade journalist, consultant and author with a confessed addiction to messing around with astrology. His astrologically-themed books include ‘Signs of Taste’ and ‘Signs of Success.’ He cosmically blogs on business matters at blog.stevenmarkweiss.com.