In the Libra man chapter of our book Sextrology we speak of the sign as being the only one to bear an abstract symbol, the Scales, rather than that of an organic being; and you’ve heard me go on, probably, about Apollo, the god of abstracts—law, order, reason, music, poetry, light, aesthetics, and, most importantly, prophesy—being Libra’s classic male archetype from which we draw a line to such literary figures as Pip from Great Expectations; a pip being synonymous with a seed. Aries and Libra, both, being along the same axis, represent a certain seed-energy. Fiery Aries does so in quite real, spirited way, its antler-sprouting Ram symbol and its ruler Mars’ male-erectile sigil each suggesting a certain lusty proliferation; whilst Libra, being an air sign, propagates on the abstract, if not the astral plane. The sign disseminates ideas, thought forms. So, in a twelve-fold sequence, where Libra rules this Sabian symbol at 19° Gemini A Large Archaic Volume Reveals Traditional Wisdom, I’m tickled to see that Dane Rudhyar says today’s oracle is all about “seed knowledge.” He tags its keynote: Contacting the all-human planetary Mind underlying any cultural and personal mentality. And as a Libra I can dig it:

There is a connective consciousness that underscores the noise and confusion of the living of our lives on such surface levels. It’s like a membrane of light in my own mind’s eye. It’s really above the noise and confusion, but in consideration of this astral plane, there is no up or down. Metaphorically, we look upon this oracular plane as, like Apollo’s sacred Delphi, something of a chasm fixed on a sacred well or spring. Rudyar puts it thus: “Occult tradition tells us that all cyclic manifestations of the human mind have had a primordial revelatory Source,” which he upper-cases. He goes on to site “ancient books made of especially treated papyrus leaves and conveying through symbols the archetypal processes at the root of all earthly existence.” Hello? In other words, we’re seeing a deconstruction, almost, of the process of prophesy, the technique at work in it, if not the mechanics of some matrix; “through symbols.” As if to say that all that we perceive as real is really an abstract, math perhaps, an equation, a word akin to equality and equipoise, all of which evoke a balanced image of our Scales.

Seed-knowledge here refers to something already written in the book. Such that “coming up” with new seed-ideas and thought-forms, as we all, but especially we Libra, do is really just a matter of reading from that ancient text. That there are no new ideas, just those which have never been surfaced and flung out there, disseminated. Perhaps all prophesy is self-fulfilling or already self-fulfilled. New Thought leader (Libra) Florence Scovell Shinn said: your “word is your wand;” (Leo) Kate Bush said: “just saying it could even make it happen.” And consider the collective of human consciousness. Don’t we find that the realities we are currently living had their seed-ideas in the past when they were first introduced into the zeitgeist, flown to the wind, a floating notion with few proponents before slowly taking root over Time? Just as Aries people might undertake many tasks with zeal, exhibiting little follow through for most, Libra folk have way more ideas than they could ever pursue let alone realize. In truth, coming up with new ideas is realizing them, though they may remain largely in the abstract realm of thought, floating yet another notion: that thoughts are real if not, in a sense, alive. The inorganic nature of the Scales doesn’t necessarily suggest that which is inanimate, but rather the ability to animate that which is (perceived as) abstraction.

Rudhyar would have us read Madame Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine, “such volumes, said to remain in the possession of certain Adepts, constitute the “exteriorization” of archetypal knowledge and wisdom. They contain the ‘seed-ideas’ from which the human mind grows…what might be called ‘seed-knowledge’, the knowledge of the structure of cyclic and cosmic manifestations of life on this planet.” I say we go with that.

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I know I haven’t been writing very long posts recently . I suppose I’ve been channeling energy  elsewhere recently as Stella and I have penned a great new show called STARRING that will premier at Joe’s Pub at the Public Theater on the Solstice, June 21. I know Starsky + Cox fans are going to love it. Okay on to the image for today at 18° Gemini, oy: Two Chinese Men Converse In Their Native Tongue In An American City.

When this symbol was divined those two old Chinese men would have been immigrants, I imagine, in some corner of New York or San Francisco, struggling to survive. My, how things have changed. The original intention of this symbol was to portray the independence of ones mind in a foreign environment, which, now, let’s face it, is everywhere. All you need to do is wake up and walk out the door these days to be barraged by one-sided conversations, people talking into their phones or headsets, alienating us with their voices and insulated actions. We are all foreigners now, even, in our native lands. We mightn’t even interact with the barista but instead telegraph the fact that s/he is interrupting our call or disabling our ability to listen to the mystery person on the other end of the line. So many mystery persons. The voices in our head. I think I preferred a simpler time when only those experiencing a break with reality heard said voices. Now everyone is forcibly experiencing breaks with reality. We are affecting the behavior and attitude of psychotics.

Surely this is not what the mystics meant when they prescribed “being in the world but not of it”: All of us isolated from one another, tuning into whatever noise is coming through our gadgetry. Ah, that trickster god Mercury, the messenger and communicator, strikes again. He has waved his Caduceus wand over us and we are now all in a trance of noise and distraction. This is the new tower of Babel. We are not finding true solace in conversing one on one, face to face, with someone who speaks our language, the “old” Chinese language here signifying ancient knowledge and wisdom in contrast to the onslaught of random information that we experience nowadays. These men are finding a true connection, an oasis of familiarity and solace in desert of foreign superficiality. Of course, in 2015, if we were to see two Chinese men conversing in their old language they would probably be twenty-somethings, from a rich province, sanctioned to travel here, on a mission to purchase real estate—an image of conquest rather than survival. In some ways, we have become the ancient culture, steeped in our ways, and they are the surface dwellers of a new culture that has emerged from their socially capitalist, though still humanistically communist, regime. The worst of both worlds.

Cynical am I? Probably. And I will confess to a certain xenophobia as well, of which I’m not particularly proud. But it’s not based on any race or nationality, it’s not cultural—it’s political. And while we are all plugged in to our own distractions, things might be happening around us that are more determinant than meets the eye. History is replete with examples of quiet takeovers of lands and nations through the compounded purchase of real estate. Yes, folks, realtors are the real enemy, always. I jest. But Mercury is a jester. He provides what is meant to be amusing distraction while he is, with his slight of hand, sticking it to you. I’m not saying that we are going to be a conquered nation and Century 21 will be to blame. I’m just saying that in another twenty years, perhaps, this particular Sabian symbol is going to read a lot differently than it does even today. And we might be so caught up in our own sinister need to be engaged electronically around the clock to even notice.

In a twelve-fold sequence, this image would be associated with Virgo, which, like Gemini is traditionally ruled by planet Mercury. I say traditionally becuase there are those of us who feel that Virgo is really ruled by the as yet undiscovered planet Vulcan or the once-planet, Chiron, that was pummeled by asteroids. Doubt and disability, two key elements of the sign of Virgo. Doubt is akin to cynicism, which the skeptical Virgo energy uses to discern right from wrong, wheat from chaff, that Virgo virgin holding a sheaf of seeded grain. Decision making, reticence, being at a crossroads—the provenance of Mercury. Well I’m here to say that we are collectively at a crossroads and that this symbol, today might remind us of that. We see the clash of two cultures and it can breed integration or segregation. We are all now segregationists on an individual level. We only seek to connect with those who support our own culture of insanity. So long as you click Like or Join you’re part of my tribe. Don’t and who needs you. Wheat from chaff, wheat from chaff. Right and wrong is no longer a universal moral crux, its a personal assessment of worship. You like me so we’re good. You don’t like me so I will turn off your notifications or outright erase you.

Like the Chinese men in the image we find ourselves isolated and alone and alight on someone just like us with whom we can find connection. That’s not diversity. These are the seeds of a new homogeny. Their speaking with one another isn’t much different from anybody speaking into their headset. It’s further isolating, frankly. They might reach out and stumble over their words to speak to someone who isn’t just like them. That might be literally refreshing. But we are stagnating here. And that mutable-earth sign of Virgo has it’s own message for us: things are indeed changing on a monumental level but it might appear as slow as the moving of a mountain so you might scarcely know it. Every major political or cultural overthrow historically happened to a people who didn’t heed the signs. The signs right now are all those people you pass on the street or sit next to in cafés completely up their own electronic asses. At least in the past being oblivious to what’s happening around us wasn’t fueled by devices. Devices. You gotta love the multiple meanings of that word in this context. Oh, Mercury, you do have your devices.

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At 17° Gemini, The Head Of A Robust Youth Changes Into That Of A Mature Thinker, is the Sabian Symbol du jour. It’s really interesting to note that Dane Rudhyar, who doesn’t purport to subscribe to a twelve-fold sequence, likens yesterday’s image “the woman way” of expressing, and today’s to “the man way,” as yesterday’s symbol was ruled, in my twelve-fold view, by Cancer, governed by the Moon (the mother principle) and today’s oracle is thus ruled by Leo, under the power of the Sun (the father principle). The legends of the Leo male archetype are all hinged on boy becoming man, whether it be the robust youth of King David, King Arthur or even Tom Sawyer, the lion’s mane being a symbol of full-fledged masculinity. I get it: Women are emotional and men are more mental. And my name is Walt Cleaver.

We are meant to see this image as “the transformation of physical vitality into the power to build concepts and intellectual formulations through which knowledge can be transferred.” You know: mens’ work. Rudhyar sees this as the transformation of emotion into mind, of instincts into thought. But my medation on this, given the Cancer-Leo pass of the baton is rather free flowing emotion into a honed burning passion—akin to the cardinal-water sign of Cancer to the fixed-fire sign of Leo. Ironically I don’t find this image particularly thought-provoking; or perhaps it’s a matter of having a plethora of things on my own mature (read: ancient) mind.

It’s funny today I was in a quandry about whether to stay at my computer chipping away,writing and producing my myriad self-imposed assignments, all of which I love to undertake—although I would prefer they didn’t happen all in clumps—or get my fast becoming a wee bit too robust self out for some exercise. I am a big believer in staying physically active and I do find that it does indeed transmute into great thought. Some of my best ideas come while sweating my tush off; although it’s always a challenge to remember the thoughts as they arise as one can’t always stop to jot thoughts down while in the middle of certain exercise that requires something of a meditative countenance. And I truly believe that one has to be of a certain physical vitality to fuel ones passions; otherwise they will constitutue a drain, one end of that doubly burning candle. Personally I can only burn one end at a time though I prefer not torching either.

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Only the sign of Cancer could rule this symbol for Gemini 16°: A Woman Activist In An Emotional Speech Dramatizing Her Cause, what with the words emotional and dramatizing. Such a passionate need for expression is what’s called for to put something over to those who are still unaware of the cause at hand. The public is a necessary component in today’s equation. I feel like this every time I promote a show or a benefit for the Afterglow Festival, both of which I’m doing simultaneously today. It’s not enough sometimes to put things across intellectually, or to exchange ideas just amongst your peers; often it is necessary to get on a soap box and start speaking from the heart or gut in this case. Expression. It’s a very Cancerian word, something we will talk about in our show at Joe’s Pub on the Solstice on the day we enter that sign. Like this “Blague” our shows are about shared experience, talking about the energy of the time of year—month, week, in this case day—and extracting the universal nuggets of truth and guidance, as well as laughing along with the cosmic jokes at our expense.

We have to be impassioned to sway the people just as we have to be funny enough to slay them. Rudhyar points to this day and Zodiac degree as that of the proselytizing mind, something I feel I employ a great deal of the time, more than most. I suppose things might be easier if I focused solely on for-profit endeavors that were just about me and isolating rather that always having to convince others of something of value that might help them and the community at large. I’m not wired for that, (un)fortunately. And there are more important things, surely, than what I’m often on a soapbox about. But we all have to do our part in our small ways and we must do that which moves us. Raising consciousness and lifting spirits are the things that move me personally. And these aren’t things I can do in isolation. They require my proselytizing. So just when I think all I’m doing is falling on deaf ears a symbol like this comes along to inspire me. So watch out folks because I’m going to be pulling out all stops starting today trying to get word out on all the things I feel emotionally driven to express.

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I believe that when these Sabian sybmols were divined, post WWI, that Holland was distinguished, as it still is in large part, as a freethinking place, such that today’s oracle, Two Dutch Children Talking To Each Other, Exchanging Their Knowledge would carried and extra liberal, open energy, added to the fact that we are focused on the unjaded minds of children. Making them Dutch is like a cherry on top. I’m not clear how we have evolved from speaking telepathically, as we did yesterday, to children sharing knowledge in a more conventional manner, but not every image in this symbol system speaks to me every day. We are under Gemini rule in a twelve-fold sequence; here at 14° Gemini in any case. So two individuals again does seem fitting. Dane Rudhyar points out that this is about like-mindedness. I would say it is the formation of like-mindedness.

We all know how important it is to have free interchange with someone we find shares our views and to forge an intellectual bond, especially, early in life is something elemental. I’d like to imagine that these Dutch children became lifelong friends and as older people still sat together to meld their minds. It’s something so surely missing in our modern world with its narcissistic and technological disconnects. And it’s not something endemic to my experience; but something I surely welcome. Time spent conferring with peers can be priceless. There is an objectivity that is available in sharing thoughts on this simple level. We all need sounding boards and validation for our subjective notions. One can see the two children as the different sides of one brain because our own minds are dual by nature—we hash things out, we inner dialogue, with ourselves, weight pros and cons of any thought or action. What this image lacks in earth-shattering realizations it makes up for in confirmation of the natural workings of our mental mechanisms.

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Bridging Physical Space and Social Distinctions, Two Men Communicate Telepathically is the symbol for 14° Gemini, which would be ruled by Taurus in a twelve-fold sequence. I know we’ve sort of been on an evolutionary trip lately but this symbol might jump the shark a bit. Here we are seeking to transcend limits of physical existence, trying to communicate mind to mind; and I’m not sure how to interpret this. Two things come to my own mind. The first is that it is my personal belief that we might be developing this extra sensory perception—Taurus rules the physical senses—and I can tell you, as someone who actually exercises this brain-ability that doing so does result in increased “psychic reads”; the other thing that comes to mind is that, oftentimes in life, we are communicating in this manner, sending and receiving unspoken messages, saying one thing but telegraphing another. In some cases people will say one thing to your face while the message you are receiving from them is quite the opposite of what’s being said. This would carry a more obvious two-faced interpretation of this particular symbol.

Maybe if more occurs to me later I will revisit this.

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When we achieve what was prescribed in yesterday’s reading, ridding ourself of the past and making ourselves new to new experience, we experience individual fullfilment and become an inspiration to others. Such is the meaning of today’s symbol for 13° Gemini, A Famous Pianist Giving A Concert Performance. We evolve into something a bit more superhuman than we were before. Of course today’s symbol is ruled by Aries in a twelve-fold sequence, that sign being all about the upper case Self. Self in Eastern philosophy is not akin with the ego as it is here in the West. The Self we were born as represents a new degree of human evolution as, surely, the human race evolves, on the whole, ever so slightly, from one generation to the next, as if you needed another reason to feel superior to your parents. While metaphorically speaking, we can evolve (ourselves) during our own lifetimes by going through certain passages which, for me, are endlessly embodied in the roll out of the wheel of the zodiac as each sign and its corresponding house has endless attributes and lessons to impart.

The image of the concert pianist is one of the individual displaying transcendent human power, skill, talent to the collective. S/he is elevating the human experience further beyond the animal to that of supreme being. Music is something intangible which has been divined, the instrument of the piano having been built upon this divination, and the individual has made him- or herself one with it, employing both mind and emotion in the process of bringing the transcendence (of the music) to light. This is great human achievement that moves the body of the collective, through the emotional waves of the music, but also beyond the mediocre, showing the rest of us that we are capable of more than meets the eye. We can achieve the status of virtuoso, wunderkind, prodigy. These are extraordinary elements of human-being, but well within the realm of possibility. But think of what it might take to be a concert pianist: sacrifice and the removal of obstacles, which were the keynotes of yesterday’s reading, as well as practice and the sharpening of our skill. We can’t be vague. A virtuoso cannot wing it. We must strive for certain mastery, the kind that is in utter service to the vehicle of our own transcendence, not to the ego. The goal of the pianist is to be great, not to be applauded, which is only a byproduct. Successful pursuits, even those of a tandem or group nature, must be individual pursuits at their core. And we should never rest or plateau in our striving to achieve greater greatness. We must keep evolving as thinkers, as artists, as humans; and if every individual were to take responsibility, solely, for him- or herself than we would be, on the whole, a self-actualized species.

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It’s important to remember that the Sabian Symbols were first created/divined in 1925, especially when you wake to an oracle entitled A Negro Girl Fights For Her Independence In The City; while begging the question: how much have things really changed in the past ninety years. A lot, and then again, not enough. If yesterday was meant to open us up to new fields of experience, today we are hard pressed to explore this newness while eradicating or making peace with the “ghosts of the past”. This image is ruled by the sign of Pisces in a twelve-fold sequence, which is the mutable-water sign that translates to mists and fog and, ruled by Neptune, whose symbol is a trident; it is an emblem of the triple goddess, especially the triple goddess in triplicate, the nine muses whose mother is Mnemosyne, memory. Pisces and its astrological twelfth house are hinged on non-material existence and, as the hingepin of the zodiac, it is associated with the womb-tomb experience, the space between life and death, where we are assembled as the culmination of all that has come before, whether literally, or as an amalgam of past and karmic experience. Here, at 12° Gemini, we are seeking to liberate ourselves from the vestiges of the past, dissolving them away. Neptune, and Pisces’ mutable-water assignation, represent the energy of dissolution, certain relief, even sacrifice, resulting in spiritual liberation and soul asylum.

We all have ghosts in the form of collective karma, whether it be racial or societal or in regard to disabilities or addiction or sexuality or even our own physicality fitting some preconceived mold of beauty. In some ways we cling to the past because it offers security in the familiar. We want to take our ancestors with us, to hold onto as we enter uncharted territory. But we must dissolve our preconceptions and predjudices based on the past, we need to be as new to our field of experience as it is to us. We must allow ourselves not only to act differently, as I urged yesterday, but to be different. So let today be a womb-like experience, from whence a new you can truly emerge. Start with the past and seek to remove the ghosts of your own incarnations, that which you’ve embodied in this life time (and, sure, if you can remember past lives you might let those go too); you needn’t be the you you were yesterday. The flipside of memory is forgetting, letting dissolve into the mists of the past that which no longer serves. Pisces and Neptune promise a certain oblivion—its why Pisces people are so susceptible to anesthetizing agents—but it needn’t take the form that lands you in Hazelton. In lieu of medication, meditation or just plain old relaxing can set us in the right direction, if not completely take us there. We can transcend even the energetic holds that are put upon us, or we place on ourselves. So imagine with me today that all negativity is being released from your physical, astral and spiritual body. There is nothing you’re holding onto from the past. No fear, no social anxiety, no bracing for some proverbial other shoe to drop. It is all an illusion and, yeah, you don’t need it.

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