In the Virgo-ruled oracle of Libra 18°, Two Men Placed Under Arrest, we explore the “breakdown in the constructive relationship between the individual and society and the expectable result.” Now, society has it’s own existing order based on a series of laws; and the individual has his own order determined by his own conscience. The criminal conscious may feel no remorse and therefore clash with the rule of law; but just as often the laws in place are unjust ones and the arrest of the individual is a sacrificial act in service of seeing true justice prevail. The two men in this oracle might be the gruesome murderers in Truman Capote’s account In Cold Blood; or they might have been caught in some kind of harmless, intimate act which laws built on hatred persecute. I make this specific comparison on purpose to float the notion that unjust laws put on the individual might actually inspire a sort of psychosis that drives the individual to actual unthinkable acts that psychological stem from repression and revenge upon the society that doesn’t accept him or her.

The British, for instance used to send criminals to Australia, literally alienating them in an external, actual prison island. But this also serves as a metaphor for the inner prison (in addition to the ultimate real one) that someone like an Oscar Wilde might have been put into. Nelson Mandala was probably more drastically imprisoned on the metaphorical level than he was during his actual incarceration which resulted from the expression of both his personal and universal calls to liberty. The retired sea Captian of the previous oracle was in synch with the order he observed because he was at least a co-creator in it; he was retired and was probably witnessing an order that took him much pains, over Time, to institute. But what of the young wo/man who has yet to achieve this level of sympathy between his inner and outer worlds. The two men in this image might easily have been those who simply sought to marry not too long in our society, or still are in way too many places in our small but violently repressed world. Now, in America for instance, the two men in the image can observe the way the retired sea captain, does, the positive, calm, serene results of their having fought for the inner order to be reflected outwardly, at large.

We want to face the consequences in the way the sea captain did, not in the negative context in which that phrase typically echoes. Joan of Arc was punished for her unacceptable actions by the very society she served and saved, really and spiritually. In terrestrial terms she never made it to the other shore, and though sainthood debatably transcends that sad failure, I doubt she preferred it to just be given a pass—she simply couldn’t compromise, personally, for the sake of the power she ultimately wielded for her fellow man. The sea captain of the next oracle didn’t have to make that ultimate sacrifice because the stakes (no pun intended) weren’t as high; he made it to the other shore and saw what even radical changes he instituted become part of the new order. But as I said yesterday, this state of retired contemplation might only be in preparation for a new struggle, because, universally, it always is. Enter the two men in this image. We see them being arrested, but their ultimate consequence is unwritten here. There is a good possibility that their arrest and incarceration, like that of Mandela’s, might be the vehicle to their ultimate victory and leadership.

The onus is thus on societal order to more readily absorb, expand and change their own structures, laws of order to include the good struggles that individuals champion. The fact that there are two men here might merely suggest that this is not a struggle in which one is alone. American society has mainly evolved in the right directions via the women’s movement, the civil rights movement, the LGBT efforts, despite the blow back. We do have healthcare after so long without it. Gun laws and the prison system should be next. The educational system too. The laws must move in a direction to champion the oppressed who are only so-called because the world is lousy with oppressors. There will always be new struggles, but so long as the laws serve the oppressors than this dialogue remains no newer than that put forth by Rousseau or Locke, centuries ago. All ages should be those of enlightenment and the formula is really simple—it’s called the Golden Rule. It is fitting that today’s oracle is ruled by Virgo because that sign is hinged on human conscience. The Leo oracle of the sea captain expresses more that rule of the King who, happily, created a little slice of ordered heaven, a haven, his camelot; but he could have easily been a tyrant, a pirate viewing his pillage. The shift from Leo to Virgo is like the shift from the feudal system to that of guilds, a time characterized in literature by morality plays like Everyman—Virgo is the Everyman of the Zodiac—as we humans are the battleground in the fight between virtue and vice, our conscience being at the front, where we must dig our trenches. Law and order (the resulting Balance between these seven virtues and vices, which, in their full weight, are measured by the next seventh sign of Libra) should be written in the ink of our very human collective conscience which, the goodness of which, tips the Scales over the the petty evil.

Why, if most Americans don’t want guns, does a relatively tiny lobbyist group of wielders win out. Greed (a vice). And the greedy are way more organized than the rest of us. But what if they weren’t. What if we stood outside gun shops the way pro-lifers hassle abortion clinics. Is it because hatred and greed are stronger organizing agents than goodness? Or are we struggling with our own vices of say, sloth or even gluttony—so long as we have all we need why fight, right? Well that’s for your own conscience to decide I suppose.

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And now A Retired Sea Captain Watches Ships Entering And Leaving The Harbor providing us the energetic “capacity to gain an objective and calm understanding of human in experiences in which one was once deeply involved” at Libra 17°, ruled by Leo in a twelve-fold zodiacal sequence.

The shift from the previous image to this one is a certain mastery over emotions. We have weathered storms and rebuilt our landings and now we see ships sailing in and out. This is how we must view external experience, as well as our own thoughts and associative feelings: objectively; they come in and they go out, and we can simply observe them. There is a distance here, which the fixed-sign energy of Leo provides, and certain authority, which is always endemic to that sign. The captain, being old, symbolizes the sagacity that is tantamount to knowing calm. It is over calm seas (of our own inner life) which our ships sail in. Those who get what (they think) they want when in a period of tumult in their life usually fail to appreciate these boons or ultimately suffer the loss of them. We cannot remain in the storm, nor even in the recovery, we must perch ourselves on solid land with a full view of what is occuring. Oftentimes I see people who, recovering from a life of addiction, say, remaining too much in the experience of recovery so that it becomes the new addiction. We must remove ourselves, even, from that mode and become our own authority and beacons of inner strength and, in short, get over ourselves and the troubles. Too often we want to live in the troubles of our past feeling that so long as we keep talking about them we won’t fall back into the whirlpool. But it’s not enough to talk—we must own the authority of our having been at sea and the perspective it’s provided us, now, not to direct the current action but to observe the present conditions of our past actions. The retired captain was probably instrumental in systemizing the current activities now playing out before him in said harbor.

Wisdom and serenity are the outcroppings of inner conflict and personal struggle. It is our responsibility to see ourselves as having achieved the right to embody them, not just for ourselves, but for others. That captain is indeed a beacon. He’s been there and done it. He has sailed his ships through both troubled and smooth waters—the polarities of his consciousness—and he’s been battered by gales, risking mutiny by his ego-nature. Others are now following the courses he likely laid out. How can we see this as metaphor for the patterns and occurances in our own lives. Can we retire our egos and let them just observe? Or are we still acting out or in constant need of others to fuel our own recovery, either of which is worse than the other. After all, this contemplation that we achieve isn’t passive, in might be preparation for future voyages into more dangerously uncharted seas. Stella often reminds us of the anonymous adage, attributed to the Buddha, that: Pain is inevitable, but Suffering is a choice. It is my observance that even those who have made it through the troubled waters of their own emotion troubles still prefer to remain a wreck in their recovery, voicing these same troubles of the past, ad infinitum, without ever finding the silent calm that should be the natural next step. In this way, the simply relive their tribulations, continually casting others in the existing roles that make up the cast of their crisis living. It’s that type of typecasting that we must eschew at all cost.

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Of course today’s symbol is ruled by Cancer in a twelve-fold sequence. At Libra 16° we have this: After A Storm A Boat Landing Stands In Need Of Reconstruction. I don’t need to go into the cardinal-water sign of Cancer being associated with flood myths, right? You’ve heard me say it all before.

What we are dealing with here is the connection between human ego consciousness and the mast unconscious, the lower case self with that of archetypal energies. Connecting with these forces will certainly at first have a destructive effect. Boats symbolize the link, the ability to travel or connect, between these two levels of conscious being. In effect we open ourselves to certain “psychic storms”. I have described some of my own experience with this but it’s sort of a well worn theme: When you expose yourself to vaster realms of consciousness it will blow your mind, and there is a certain need for reconstruction as the psyche copes with this sort of rewiring.

Take Joan of Arc (who was actually a Capricorn, the higher septave of Cancer, but her name does link her to this boat imagery and the flood myths): People were like girl is cray cray. And I’m sure she struggled with fear of psychosis, before the term existed, wondering herself if she was completely mad and not actually making connection to the archetypal energies personified by two saints and an arch angel. But she flowed with it. It didn’t end well for her on the personal ego level. I mean, not at all. But a teenage girl suffused with higher archetypal power actually saved France from a conquering oppressor and pretty much single handedly drove them out. So you tell me if that was madness or divine connection. I’m going with the latter.

The boat landing then is the actual pathways, the wiring of our own minds, when confronted with these archetypal influences; but it’s also the cultural collective, the group consciousness that must some how get their brains around something like a Joan of Arc and make sense of what just happened here. The point is there is no sense to be made. There is only faith and belief or the opposite thereof. We are dealing with some heavy divine forces here. And, in my view, sheer madness could not have accomplished what that wee French girl did. And so it inspires faith in such forces. And her story can’t help but serve as a metaphor for the rest of us. Few of us will ever be so whalloped with divine intervention and lead an entire nation to freedom from oppression. That’s just not an every day occurance. But most of us are given a bad wrap. We are all, at some point in our history, labelled crazy or evil by some small set of oppressors who fear our power, writing it off as madness instead of some form of genius. Genius remember is etymologically linked with genie, a personification of supernatural influence that can be a sticky wicket leading to the old adage: be careful what you wish for.

So the theme of today’s oracle is repair, as it is for any (Cancerian) flood/storm-myth symbol. It’s the specific repair of our minds which can be shown as feeble in the face of emotional and spiritual breakthroughs. It needs to get itself around what’s happening. And in order to do that it must expand along new pathways. We can’t illuminate with powerful new enlightenment via the circuitry of old, frayed wiring. We need to get our grid together, making it strong enough to commune with these great and powerful forces. That is tantamount to evolution, I believe, not just of the species but of our planetary consciousness. There is a star man waiting in the sky, he’d like to come and see us but he thinks he’d blow our minds. So prepare ye the way!

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Circular Paths is the image of the day at 15° Libra. We are coming to terms with the inevitability of establishing steady rhythms of social activity. This is ruled by Gemini in a twelve-fold sequence, the third sign of the zodiac, 3 points being necessary to form a circle. Not only does history repeat in a circular fashion but all that we do in our individual routines does likewise. This blague for instance can be seen as something of a circular path, or the weekly horoscopes we post. Or our appearing to perform live each Solstice as we do at Joe’s Pub. We want to change things from rut to rhythm, attuning ourselves to the circular natural movements of the celestial spheres on their circular paths. Seeing ourselves as functioning as they do, serenely, without stress but gentle ease. We want our circular actions to feel freeing not binding. So you will want to check that. This image is about moving from boredom to transpersonal peace.

It’s not always easy to know if you’re scaling an upward spiral or if you chasing your own tail. And in a world that is hell bent on comparisons—people have commited suicide due to feeling “less than” simply from too much Facebook surfing—we can be easily defeated by what seems to be everyone else’s success but our own OR we can be inspired by our man real and faux friends and let that move us. It’s always a choice. Personally, I like to imagine that, in my many circular paths, that I am doing the things I repeat that much better each time with a margin for a little backsliding on my otherwise upward trajectory. There should be an algorithim for that. But really, I know that the people who post selfies of themselves with C- or even A-list celebrities, or tout their many accomplishments or places of residence are no more or less happy than any of us. We have no way of judging this; our only goal is to be happy today than we were yesterday which is enough of a challenge. The only true answer is to simply love more. And especially yourselves. That is all.

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For the first time in like forever I woke up didn’t have coffee and lay down on the couch to perhaps fall back to sleep. The tall lady was like what? She was totes surprised. As I was because I usually wake and shake and start writing my blague. So here it is nearly eleven a.m. in Paris and I’m just taking a look at what the oracle is today: In The Heat Of The Noon Hour A Man Takes A Siesta. This 14° Libra symbol surely is spot on—I feel like I’m becoming one with these images. Today’s would be ruled by Taurus in a twelve-fold sequence and we know how languid people of that sign can be so it’s all lining up.

The point is that we cannot sustain constant activity, emotionally or culturall. There must be breaks. I don’t withdraw into my own sphere of selfhood enough, probably. And I have of late been burning the candle at both ends, giddy to be in the city of light and delighting my senses. Even though Paris beckons I must rest today before being absorbed into the delicious swirl. My batteries need recharging, yes, but also my imagination needs something of a reset. I have a bunch of creative projects coming up and I need to be rested to allow them to bubble up. As it is I’ve just come off producing a festival which was exhausting and I moved house which was/is always traumatizing and then we came on this big trip. Boom, boom, boom. And it’s been superfun, but super fatiguing. Both body and psyche need a time out to catch up. And to be rid of toxins i.e. certain people, places and things.

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Children Blowing Soap Bubbles, the image at Libra 13°, serves as a sort of off-sight think tank. This oracle is where we dream up perfect scenarios, letting the ideas come and casting them into the ether. Ruled by Aries in a twelve-fold sequence, we have exited the dream womb of Pisces and are ready to have these reveries take form. The whole of my trip to Paris has felt like the above, Stella and I just letting new dreams materialize in a floating fashion. And last night, especially, was spent out in the company of good friends, English folk who have lived in Paris for nigh on twenty years. And whenever we get together with them time both flies and stands still; I know we none of us ever stop talking and yet I can never quite remember specific threads of conversation. And not because we’re over serving ourselves, but there is just this other dimensional quality to our evenings together and always has been. We are like four kids in a sandbox falling into imaginary thoughts and games. It truly is magical. And this came off picking up a little present of a book of poetry that another dear young friend of ours left for us at Shakespeare and Co. bookstore on the quai; we were there to attend a party for Gentlewoman magazine; the party was actually quite lame, but it was memory bliss for Stella, especially, as the late owner George who is no longer with us invited her and her family, I believe, up to his private lair for tea one afternoon in the early 1980s. It was such a famous place and he had amazing stories about the dreamlike world of Paris in the early part of the 20th century when so many American novelist expats lived here.

The keynote of today’s image is definitely Imaginative Play. And I’m ready for more of that today myself. I am shaking off the last vestiges of poison from some shady relationships of the past. And I’m going to ritualize my walk today—I’m hoping the Sun goes in and it rains on me because there is nothing like walking in Paris in a grey wet terrarium—and I’m going to fancy myself a multi-colored floating bubble, perfect and evanescent. Glinda, after all, is one of the female archetypes of Libra, the good witch high priestess dressed in her sparkling gown of fleshy pink (the color associated with Libra). I’m going to float in my bubble through the raindrops and dream of a better world for myself and everyone I know.

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Digging for knowledge is something that must be done, in part, as a collective, or at least we must see our personal searches for profound wisdom to be an experience we also share with others. Such is the meaning of the oracle at 12° Libra, Miners Are Surfacing From A Deep Coal Mine, which would be ruled by Pisces in a twelve-fold sequence. We must dig ever deeper to unearth the stuff that keeps our collective mind burning. The search for meaning, specifically the discovery of answers to our earthly questions, requires the determination of many minds. The pursuit of knowledge can be a hot, sweaty, pressurized and tense affair, and we can choke in the quest for intellectual aims.

As with everything Piscean, those opposite facing fish point to a two-way-street element in interpretation. This symbol can be read as a call to action for us to go down some rabbit hole and start our own dig for knowledge and meaning and what treasures, diamonds in the rough, might be found; or it might be a alarm telling us to surface and breath some fresh air of natural life and halt some intense pursuit that is engulfing us. As with many of these Libra symbols we are dealing with self-and-other(s), work for the sake of the collective. There is strain and sacrifice involved. Just as yesterday’s professor had some trouble with his eyes as a result of his academic vocation, today we risk asphyxiation in our more manual heavy lifting of bringing to the surface ancient material that was once actually live—metaphorically speaking, it is living thought and ideas embedded in the past.

I think there are things into which I must dig deeper and things into which I’ve dug that have become ruts that have entrapped me. It’s almost easier to get into the former than it is to extricate myself from the latter. Some pursuits, which have come to define us, are hard habits to break even when they are suffocating us. That was my little gem for the day.

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11° Libra, ruled by Aquarius in a twelve-fold sequence, is A Professor Peering Over His Glasses At His Students, and it’s funny, but I kind of feel that perspective in my bones, today, universally. If one imagines they are doing likewise it indicates to simultaneous points of view: that close at hand requiring personal focus, if not introspection, and a certain checking up on the behavior of others. We keep finding images of the Master in these Libra symbols (though I’ve yet to bump into any immortal alchemists on the streets of Paris this past week, while I’m still hoping) and this one addresses the “problems attending the transmission of knowledge in a special cultural setup. Sure, sure.

There is something inately humorous if not sit-comy about this image, as if the old professor (played by Jim Broadbent in my mind) brings a wealth of mystical knowledge to the table while dealing with the comic antics of students who can’t yet grasp the wisdom but for a few Harrys, Rons and Hermoines in the bunch. Something like that. But I am trying to take this oracle seriously. The professor must look up from his books, the source of his own great wisdom, and observe the very human beings of his students who will not easily or readily absorb the information he’s transmitting. If not an image of kindly affection, it is surely one of patience. We can’t expect everyone to get what we’re putting out there. We must gauge their reactions and measure their absorbtionability. We must see over, even, our own great intelligence, rising above even our wisdom, to find compassion for those who are grappling and yet don’t possess the enlightenment we enjoy. The professor is only partly looking down his nose, he cannot be fully suffused with superiority or he would alienate those he is encouraging a long the path he has trodden. He is focused on instruction—the putting of knowledge into others—rather than their education—the drawing out of others elements of character—and so he is experiencing shifting limits and obstacles to that aim. I hear you professor, I hear you.

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Having Passed Safely Through Narrow Rapids, A Canoe Reaches Calm Waters, the keynote of which is the self-control and poise necessary to reach a steady state of inner stability, is the symbol of the day at Libra 10°. And anybody who’s anybody knows this is the key to living life, if not to life itself. Self-control is an important, shall we say, skill? to master. It is easier to ace this ability the less we are bombarded by the kind of need that comes from negative conditioning or trauma slash undue desire, not to be confused with the true brand. This symbol would be ruled by Capricorn in a twelve-fold sequence and the idea of finding a “haven” is endemic to that sign.

In Sextrology, we speak of one of the modern archetypes of the Capricorn (male) as being C.K. Dexter Haven, the character portrayed by (Capricorn) Cary Grant in the movie The Philadelphia Story. He is quintessential Cary in that he is the main hearthrob, but he’s been through it. He was a drunk, and he’s rehabilitated and remains so in the story. The out of control source of chaos (the narrow rapids) become the resource of calm—we cultivate calm not by controlling but accepting the so-called rapids of our life, seeing them as a natural rhythm. They either service us or they don’t. In other words, we are either capsized by them or we ride them until we can find a point of refuge. C.K., if you say it fast enough, is “seek”…so his name translates to: seek dexter haven; dexter meaning “right” as opposed to sinister which means “left” or “wrong”.

Whenever we see water it is safe to say we are dealing with emotions, the canoe being our vessel of emotional being that we’ve carved out for ourselves in coping with more volatile times and conditions. The source of the water (emotions) can be tumultous and we might find ourselves in tight and rocky situations, but this is how we develop our own resource. The so-called opposite signs of Cancer (cardinal water) and Capriocorn (cardinal earth) are symbolized by a source and by resource, Capricorns energy being that calm mountain lake—the emblem is a sea-goat which embodies the watery depths but is equipped to scale those mountains. A haven, like Shangri La, would be characterized as some lakeside resort in the mountains. Resort, retreat, relief, resource, reserve—these are all Capricorn words.

Can we see our troubled emotional times as having not only let out onto a calm retreat but have been the creator of it? Can we see our own inner resource as having been developed and preserved via the rushing emotionality of our past experience. Are we more self-preservational, reserved and even retreating as a result of having been in the rapid swim in our lives. I think the answer to these questions is found in your own reservoir of being, proving that navigating your own emotions is tantamount to developing your own spirituality.

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Three “Old Masters” Hanging On The Wall Of A Special Room In An Art Gallery is the image at Libra 9°. Is it me or are we talking a lot about “masters” lately? Also I’ve been spending tim in art galleries which I rarely do which is also fun. As I’m writing this I’m sitting in just any old cafe in France. I contacted just a handful of friends to let them know I was here. They both texted me within this hour to see if I could meet tonight; and as I was walking in one door of cafe, the third friend, who hadn’t contacted me, entered in through the other door. That’s right, just try not to see me. Savoir Faire Is Everywhere. He wasn’t trying not to see me but it’s been difficult. You may remember I mentioned just a few days ago, and a couple of times earlier in the year, that this longtime friend of mine and me had a partying of the ways because he’s a [censored] with the worst [censored] under the sun. Well I know this French friend I just bumped into through that [censored] as they were once boyfirends, and for quite a long time. It’s been a most synchronic, vibey last twenty-four hours as it is, Paris having reaffirmed my faith in the magic path. I haven’t for a very long time felt so acutely the sense that I am meant to be exactly where I am. Fittingly this oracle is ruled by Sagittarius in a twelve-fold sequence which always opens that third eye perspective—the number three being central to this image. I don’t think Stella will mind me telling you too, that she had this dream while here that she existed in three different dimensions, that there were indeed three of her embodied in one. I reassured her that she is a triple goddess.

So the scholarly interpretation of this image is: the need to return to source during a confused search for new value in a chaotic society. Source is just another word for Paris, right? Well right now it is for me. But this isn’t all about me (ahem). To wax universal, there are always moments in our lives that focus on re-grounding ourselves in great achievements of the masters—symbolized by the work of those masters. I like to consider Sextrology a masterwork of sorts. I’m always encouraged by the number of people who haven’t read it, not only because it means more potential sales for me—wee hee—but because we put a good six years of our lives into that book, sacrificing everything else, to truly evolve the genre and come up with something new. It has been a great success but at a great cost because the publishing industry, and our publishing house in particular, is made up of a lot of sick people. Remember, we were published by Harper Collins, which is ruled by Rupert Murdoch in an asshole-fold sequence. And it trickled down. So it was a bitter sweet experience and we alienated a lot of these tunnel visionaries by telling them what we were going to accomplish with that book. They laughed and snickered. They tried to fuck us over at every turn. They lied, they cheated, pretty much about everything. And don’t get me started on agents or as we call them: “people who lie for a living.”

Okay but back to today’s oracle…I was talking about the need to reground ourselves in the great achievements of the past and, in a narcissistic moment, I took this in an personal achievement direction, which I think is valid. So too is mining the past for the great works of our ancestors which, in my case, would be those who have sacrificed themselves to the Theatre and also to keeping the notion of Metaphysical practices alive in a world that is becoming increasing two-dimensional and kardasian. All the more reason for us to embrace our multidimensionality, something for which Stella’s subconscious is advocating. “Esoteric traditions speak of a three-fold soul, or of the fundemental rays—of power, love-wisdom and intelligence-in-action,” says Dane Rudhyar. “meditation, inits deepest sense, is a return to source—an attempt to re-identify oneself with one’s archetypal essence of being, which is triune in manifestation, after confused but challenging wanderings , to identify oneself consciously with this essence.” Boy, he’s good.

And yes the great moments by masters of the collective past do inspire us individually to be the greatest versions of ourselves specificially in the initiating of new beginnings. These new beginnings, though ideological, will be more sound than the tried and true routines via with which we have run ourselves into the ground. The energy of this Sabian Symbol is one of “Transfiguration”. In order to create, or rather be the seed of the future, one must invoke the past in the process. Moses and Elijah were invoked in Jesus’ transfiguration. We don’t live in a linear cosmos, folks; everything is cyclic, especially the continuity of spirit. “This is the notion behind apostolic succession or gurampara—an uninterrupted chain of gurus in the Indian tradition.”

So whom are you invoking in your embodiment of a new form of self?

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