The oldest trick in the narcissist's playbook is manipulation through fear. Smart sociopaths know that the fear of fear itself is far worse than the facts, which rarely get in the way of a good story. They will fuel your panic and then tell you to calm down, leaving you drowning in a sea of dread and woefully stricken.

You don't have to do it alone, darklings. Just ask Stell and that big smile, the one borne of patient encouragement and unconditional belief. I know she can swim. I know you can too.

With all this unprecedented disaster and catastrophe and serious change, it is easy for anxiety and despair to sink their talons in. And that's before you add whatever thafuck is enacting a similar impact for you personally. We knew this revolution would be televised but nobody said there'd be days like this, to quote the sages.

This is both leadership and grace personified, New Zealand's PM Jacinda Ardern mourning the tragic events in Christchurch. Our hearts breaking with hers in the shocking face of violence and terror.

Every year in a row Pisces season schools us in the art of illusion. Its deep waters distort our senses and pool our assumptions. The whirlpool of our emotions, particularly those feelings that will not submit to sense or reason, breach the surface of our lives and we find ourselves all at sea.

Fool's gold glistens and seduces us because we want so badly to believe it is real. It speaks to the true nature of our desires. Most dreadfully, to our willingness to be duped in our ardent pursuit of them. Under pressure, its true nature is revealed. It never passes any real test and will fail as many times as you let it.

Righto everyone, back in your corner of Meltdown City. Time out of the cray. Take a moment to stop, sigh deeply and sit the fuq down. Yes the current astrofuquery / soup de jour is loaded. Brimming with the hairy potential to make us go off like a packet of crackers.

“I’m not like other men”

Tweet of the year or maybe just the best bellylaugh so far.

This is an official Astrofuckery Alert. Further to my last post exhorting us all to do nothing under this lunar peak may I introduce today's cautionary tale.

If you have found yourself feeling more than a little blue or indeed crying buckets over the last little while, you can thank almost all our major planetary players in water signs. Oh my giddy aunt there is a lot of emotion coursing about us and through us right now. Hand me the bloody tissues. No, just give me the whole box please.

As fond of words as I am, there are a few that niggle. Closure is such a beast, cloaked in false promise and with an alarming propensity to hold us stuck or frozen.

In much the same way that life and death have their roots embedded in each other, our endings and beginnings are forever intertwined.

Musing on catastrophe as a giant swathe of Australia today sweltered through a heatwave that induced catastrophic conditions. After our last fatal firestorm the top tier was upped, in order to avoid a repeat of that heartbreaking natural disaster.

Musing on crucifixion and our unholy willingness to martyr ourselves on a cross that is often only ours to bear. Post eclipse mayhem seems to be hitting hard this cloudy day or have all the bunny chocolates and long weekenders gone straight to our heads?

Family and friends gather in sombre silence to observe the final ritual of life. Gerberas explode in a dazzling array of colour atop a gleaming coffin in whose cushioned folds lies only the body that once bore life; hands that worked & loved, crafted and created whose gentle gestures are already missed.

In the mapping of our lives as we navigate this magnificent journey, we spend an extraordinary amount of time with our head in aspirational clouds. We get busy magnetising our bright future, ensuring that what we seek is too scurrying towards us as we press on in our relentless quest to arrive.

Valentines Day is the ultimate wolf in sheep's clothing.