Horrors of my horoscope better to remain unknown

Had I read my stars a decade ago, it would have been a horrorscope. Among the surprises ahead? Deafness, heart trouble, cancer. I could add more but you get the picture.

Astrological zodiac signs inside of horoscope circle on universe background - astrology and horoscopes concept

Astronomers guesstimate that there are 200 billion trillion stars in the observable universe. Astrologers ignore the maths and focus on about a dozen star signs, assigning to them magical powers to influence our daily lives. Voilà, your horoscope! Think of its predictions as a weather forecast for your personal future.

Experience suggests these forecasts are not quite as reliable as those provided by the Bureau of Meteorology. Which is why I tend to ignore horoscopes published in newspapers andmagazines. Nor am I in the habit of messing with the entrails of owls. Truth is I’ve never wanted to peek into my future. On past experience it wouldn’t be too fancy. Better not to know.

Had I read my horoscope a decade or so ago, it would have been a horrorscope.

Among the nasty surprises that lay ahead? 1) Deafness. 2) Macular degeneration – needing surgery and monthly eye jabs. 3) Multiple starring appearances in operating theatres for removals and replacements – including artificial hips. 4) Heart troubles requiring the implanting of pacemakers. 5) The Near-Death Experience of cancer. 6) A few painful encounters with gravity. And 7) Like so many of us, the vicissitudes of Covid. I could add numbers 8-11 but you get the picture.

This brings me to another horrorscope – involving life and death on the farm. Plagues galore. A Biblical infestation of locusts was the least of our troubles. Far more destructive were mice and rats – the latter munching the wiring in cars and 4WDs. A hurricane ripped off roofs and crushed vehicles. Varroa mites attacked our beloved hives. We lost six much-loved dogs to snakebites. And a continuing onslaught of feral pigs makes the rabbits seem benign.

Then there are disasters of a larger scale – the long-predicted impacts of climate change. Vast droughts, then floods of unprecedented frequency and scale. Bushfires that killed everything from cattle to crops – including the giant, century-old trees that once sheltered the Elmswood homestead. Heart-breaking. As I write these words of woe and worry, another drought has commenced. If it’s not one damn thing it’s another.

And climate change is happening everywhere to everyone. Wars are raging across the planet, and the threat of nuclear weapons has the Doomsday Clock just seconds from midnight. But the climate catastrophe, this self-inflicted war on our planet, makes a Third World War look trivial.

God knows what other plagues and epidemics will emerge, too. Certainly there’ll be wars over water as there were once wars over oil. Not merely waves but tsunamis of refugees will soon dwarf any in human history. You don’t need an astrologer to tell you that; ask the insurance actuaries or statisticians.

Christian fundamentalists believe we’re living in the End Times. The Final Judgement looms, with Pentecostalists rapturous about the rapture. And this old atheist? He feels almost fortunate to be heading for the exit.

Yep, the Final Judgement on our human stewardship of this dilapidated planet looms. And it looks like we’ll all be found guilty – and given the death sentence.

Hence my reluctance to reads the horrors of the horoscope. Have a nice day.