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Third Tower of the week. Fine. FINE. I'll call the landlord about the bathroom ceiling.

Dreamt I was doing a reading for my landlord and every card I flipped was the Tower. Woke up, checked my email: the radiator guy can't come until Thursday. The cards were right.

Mercury goes retrograde today. Put down the pitchfork.

Mercury stations retrograde in Scorpio today and runs backward until mid-November. Before the group chat blames it for every dropped call, here's what I actually do with these three weeks: Back up your phone. (You should anyway. Mercury is just the reminder.) Re-read texts before sending, especially anything written after 11pm. Lean into the re- words: review, revise, reconnect. Old friends tend to resurface. Let them. Bonus: Venus has been retrograde since early October, so it's a lovely season for an honest conversation and a terrible one for an impulse tattoo. Not that I'd know anything about that.

Horary chart vs. my car keys

Lost my keys this morning. Did what any reasonable data analyst would do: cast a horary chart for the exact minute I asked 'where are my keys?' The significator was in a water sign, in an angular house, near the cusp of the fourth. Traditional reading: somewhere low, damp, inside the home, close to where I started looking. They were in the bathroom. In the laundry basket. In the pocket of yesterday's jeans. Low, damp-adjacent, home, and about two meters from where I first panicked. I know, I know. Confirmation bias, n=1. I'm logging it in the spreadsheet anyway. 14 hits, 3 misses this year.

Electional chart for a job application

Picked an electional window to send my application today: Moon applying to a trine with Jupiter, nothing lurking in the 12th, and Mercury stationing retrograde any minute now, so it was today or never (pitchforks down, I'm being thorough). Lit an orange jar candle on my desk where I could see it, wrote the job title on a bay leaf, and hit send at 10:42 exactly. Is this an elaborate way to stop procrastinating? Yes. Did I finally send it? Also yes.

Scorpio season, Thoth edition: its three decans map to the 5, 6 and 7 of Cups, titled Disappointment, Pleasure and Debauch. In that order. Most accurate forecast I've ever read.

Tucked the Eight of Wands into my phone case before calling the landlord about the radiator. Swift action, clear communication. Will update.

My 'just tell me what happens' spread

Half my clients sit down and say 'just tell me what's going to happen.' I don't do that, but I do have a spread for it. Three cards: 1. What you're holding onto. 2. What you're afraid to pick up. 3. What happens if you put the first one down. That third card does all the work. It turns a prediction into a decision. Yesterday a client pulled the Eight of Cups in position three, went very quiet, then said, 'Oh. I already know, don't I.' She did. They almost always do. Steal it, tweak it, tell me how it goes.

The thrift-store deck had notes in it

Found a well-loved oracle deck at the thrift shop for $3. When I got it home I realized the previous owner had written tiny pencil notes on the backs of some cards. 'Called Mom.' 'Got the apartment!!' 'Not yet.' One just says 'Breathe, D.' I almost erased them. Then I decided the deck had come to me as a conversation, not a blank slate. First pull, before I'd even cleansed it: the card with 'Breathe, D.' on the back. My name doesn't start with D. I breathed anyway. Whoever you are, D, I hope you got the apartment and that things are good now.

The botanica owner who said 'not this one, mija'

Went into a botanica last week for candles and picked up a beaded necklace I thought was beautiful. The owner, a woman in her seventies, gently took it out of my hand. 'Not this one, mija. This one you receive, you don't buy.' Then she walked me over to the saint candles and the herbs and showed me what was there for anyone. I could have felt embarrassed. Instead I felt taught. Eclectic doesn't mean everything is mine. Some practices are open, some are closed, and plenty sit in between, held by communities who get to decide. My job is to ask, listen, and admire from the doorway when the answer is no. I've also started asking my dad's sisters about the old Igbo stories. Some aunties laugh, some change the subject. One sent me a voice note that is forty minutes long. I'm on minute twelve.

Found a green pillar candle at Goodwill for 99 cents, so obviously it's now a money candle. Carved my rent amount into the side with a bobby pin (very traditional), dusted it with cinnamon from the spice drawer and brushed off the extra so it wouldn't flare, then lit it on a saucer in the sink while I updated my resume. Never left it alone, snuffed it when I was done. I've been reading a lot this year about which practices are open to me and which aren't mine to borrow. Candle magic with things from my own kitchen feels like home. It's humble, it's mine, and I can afford it.

A dream pillow from an orphaned sock

Lost the matching sock months ago, so the survivor has been promoted. Inside: a handful of dried lavender, some chamomile, and rose petals saved from the bouquet my sister brought for my birthday, all wrapped in a scrap of muslin first so nothing sheds. Tied off with garden twine. It lives under my pillowcase, not inside it, because I learned the hard way that lavender in your ear is not restful. Have I had prophetic dreams? No. Have I had gentler ones and fallen asleep faster? Honestly, yes. I'll take it. If you're sensitive to any of these, swap in whatever smells like comfort to you.

Inventory of my crystal collection

Three river rocks my nephew gave me, one amethyst point, a chunk of something the label called 'aura quartz' that I now have questions about, and a blue glass marble. The marble is staying. It has seniority.

Saturn return, second pass: a field report

Quick context for anyone new: about every 29 years Saturn comes back to the spot it held when you were born. Mine is in early Aries, and Saturn has been crossing it this year in three passes: once in the spring, once now on the retrograde, and once more early next year. I used to roll my eyes at this. I'm a data analyst; I like things I can graph. But I've kept notes since March, and here's what the pattern looks like so far. Pass one was the eviction notice. Not literal (well, a little literal; my landlord sold the building). Everything that had been 'fine for now' stopped being fine. Pass two, this one, is the audit. Saturn doesn't punish, it reconciles the books. I've had more honest conversations in six weeks than in the previous five years. I told my dad I was proud of him. I quit the volunteer committee I'd been quietly resenting since 2023. I started therapy, which I had been 'about to start' for three years. What I didn't expect: it isn't all heavy. There's a strange relief in finally doing the thing you knew you had to do. Like setting down a box you forgot you were carrying. If you're 28 to 30 and everything feels stress-tested, you're not failing. You're being asked what's load-bearing. Keep what is. Thank the rest and let it go. I'll report back after pass three.

A paperweight for my Saturn return

New desk accessory: a piece of smoky quartz. Not because a chart told me to. I checked four different 'zodiac stone' lists and they disagreed on literally every sign, which as a data analyst I find very funny. I bought it because it's heavy, dark, and a bit cloudy in the middle, which is an accurate summary of being twenty-nine. It sits next to my transit calendar. When I get dramatic about Saturn, I pick it up and remember: Saturn isn't punishing anyone. It's asking what you're building and whether it will hold weight. So does a paperweight, really.