Taurus 1° (April 21)

It’s Easter and we are in the sign of Taurus. I have the return of my positional vertigo, on the left side only. I forgot about it until I drove today to the fam. We only stayed a few hours and after another attempt we got off in Boston and I switched places with S.. I’ve got to get to the bottom of this which I’m determined to do. It really is starting to freak me out a bit and so I have to do all I can to keep whatever weirdness might ensue at bay as best I can which is to say not causing it. Sometimes not everything is meant to be understood. You dig. So I’ve told you before I think that the voice in my head is a black woman. I think that’s a really good sign.

The move from Libra to Scorpio is like a long day’s journey into night. Just as the first uber masculine energized first sign Aries is followed by its opposite uber feminine powered Taurus, here, on the other side of the Zodiac, Libra, the sign of high consciousness, is followed by Scorpio, the deep dark recesses of the subconscious. The only sign with co-rule planets, Pluto and Mars, the former being very much the underworld version of the latter: Pluto, or the Greek Hades, with his eponymous subterranean abode is the embodiment, as is his female counter part, Persephone, of not only our own subconscious but that which is still universally so: as yet unearthed truths, mysteries, discoveries, cures and clues as to the nature of our universe.  And whether in their own mysterious interior, or in that of those in their lives, or people, society, in general Scorpio people are determined to get to the bottom of what’s making everyone and everything tick. Thus, they are the first to tune into theticks of people, places and things, seeing their way into that which others might be (consciously or subconsciously) hiding and that which is kept hidden, secret, taboo culturally and sociologically.

Scorpio is the fixed-water signs–fixed signs being the second in a trio of signs—cardinal, fixed, mutable—that make up each of the astrological quadrants. Scorpio is the middle sign in the third quadrant, that which correlates to the intellectual and experiential realm of life, how one relates to other individuals and groups. One of Libra, which kicks off this quandrant, is We are (opposing the sign of Aries, I am); while Scorpio’s mottos are We have(opposing the sign of Taurus, I have) and I desire. Fixed-signs, fortify, intensify, concentrate and distill. Fixed-water translates to ice, minerals, crystals and, by extension, gems wrought by subterranean heat and pressure. Macrocosmically, gems, jewels are a metaphor for the as yet hidden meanings and wisdom and other such discoveries which effect us all, collectively, as well as repressed bits of ourselves awaiting to be mined. Scorpio people tend to be probling of others but rather sphynxlike themselves, guarded. The sign has many totems—the scorpion, the spider, the serpent, the lizard, the dragon, all of which lie in wait—the phoenix too which rises and falls, like the eliptical path of planet Pluto. Rising from the ashes is a metaphor for regeneration, which is the partcular power associated with this sign and it’s transformative planet. The eight house rules sex, death, sleep, all mechanisms of rejection; yes astrology includes death in this, creation/destruction being part of the same ceaseless cycle of rebirth. The symbol 8 is the lemniscate, the symbol of infinity.

Pluto and Persphone are chtonian deities, inhabiting the underworld; as archetypes for those born under the sign, it speaks to Scorpio people’s severe penchant for privacy, default suspicious demeanor, their relatively goth perspective that sees them recoil from scenesters, showoffs, socialites or the like who seek outside approval, something Scorpio people rarely do, and sometimes to a fault. Pluto is also god or riches (why rule by the rich is called Plutocracy). Pluto’s jeweled palace is heavily guarded. IN medieval myth, this theme carries through: Precious gems are guarded most fiercely by the dragon, just as our own demons of fear, shame and repression might surround those of our own wisdom and desire and which must ultimately be slayed. Scorpio people are the most in touch with their secrets, even as they keep them guarded, and they can seem wrapped up in themselves for the very reason that they are dealing with their interior world, first and foremost. Externals are all secondary. They are also more aware of what their personal demons might be—whether or not they succeed at eridcating them, they certainly don’t avoid them; that said, they are loath to share their private struggles with others. Sometimes they revel in their hidden truths, leading secret lives invisible to would-be prying eyes. The god Pluto wore the original cloak of invisibility, and, metaphorically speaking, Scorpio people tend to rock that article of concealment.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Taurus 0° (April 20)

We were supposed to shop together today but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it so S. went off on her own and I met her for lunch at our local seafood lunch spot. We had a client in the afternoon and thought we mightn’t want to do the restaurant thing again so we bought some picnic items at Eataly, prepared foods, which turned out to be terrible. So-called roasted sweet potatoes that were absolutely raw. We watched High School Quix Show (my favorite local Massachusetts program) and Beat the Press with Emily Rooney and Antiques Roadshow and an American Masters on Garry Winogrand. I was so tired I fell soon after it began only to awake with a start around two o’clock. So I watched, on mute, a program on flightless birds (which I always associate with the sign of Virgo). It was hosted by David Attenborough. They showed footage of him when he was in his twenties studying them and o.m.g. what a total babe he was—it’s sad to gay crush on an old man when he was a twink but wow he was so hot. I got to thinking: Someone should make a fictionalized bio-program about the Attenboroughs. It would be fascinating. And I’m not doing it. Anyway my mind goes to Libra thoughts today.

The sign of Libra is distinguished by being the only sign in the Zodiac that has an inanimate symbol—all other signs are represented as humans or animals or a combination of both. The word Zodiac means “circle of animals” sharing etymology with the word zoo. There are some straight-forward inferences in regard to Libra’s inanimate symbol Scales and some twisty turny ones as well. For starters, Libra people can be conceptual and they are motivated and edified by their principles. Planet Venus, which rules Taurus on the Earth plane, here rules Libra, the cardinal-air sign. Air symbolizes the invisible world of ideas and also social experience, as e’er the twain shall meet. Names for the goddess of love and beauty, Greek Aphrodite, the planet endows natives of this sign with and aesthetically driven mind and a love a beautiful, starry notions. Cardinal (initiatory, directive) -air translates to light, itself a word that has many conceptual meanings. In Greek mythology, Apollo is the god of light and a slew of abstractions including law, reason, order, harmony, balance, music, poetry, prophesy, all of which are very Libran in nature. All things being equal, the Scales speak to order and justice, of course; they also refer to music, there being seven notes to the scales. Libra is sign number seven—light itself is made up of seven colors—and the day sacred to Apollo  is October 7, which falls into the sign of Libra. In the previous sign of Virgo we emphasized function and the increase of purity, as symbolized by the virgin; now we are focused more fully on design, especially a design for living…and doing so in harmony.  The symbol of the Scales also recalls a horizon line with sun setting or rising, hours when the evening star Venus is visible, although setting is more fitting. Libra begins at the Autumnal Equinox, when the there is equal day and night; but the equinox also signals a midway point where the nights will be getting longer, the sunset, if you will, of the year.

The literal take on evening is not lost on us here, given Libra’s democratic energy. The sign’s two mottos are I Balance (myself with others) and We Are, both pointing to certain equality, just one of related beautiful principles associated with the en-light-en-ing sign of Libra. People born under the sign have delicate sensibilities and they eschew any so-called ugliness in their lives, which can make them activists for change on the one hand or avoidists who remain in ivory towers on the other. We have cited the character Amelie from the French film of the same name as being a modern Libran archetype as she works as an agent of karma, in a sense, the effect of the cause, retibution, as justice would dictate. Libra is all about leveling the playing field and elevating the social discourse and hopefully the conditions in which we all live. The beautiful notion of democracy derives from the energy of the sign, Apollonian order bringing to mind gleaming column-lined temples or the neo-classic halls of justice which emblemize Western civilization. Apollo is no nature god; like Athena, he is an urban deity, but an even more precious one than she. Many a Apollo myth, like that of he and Daphne or Cassandra, end in him being rejected by the objects of his affection. It would seem that his lofty expectations are too much for the earthy nymphs and even the more rarefied goddesses who still like to get down and dirty, something Apollo doesn’t seem capable of doing. Dickens’ Great Expectations is a retelling of the Apollo myth; Pip forever pining for Estelle to return his affections. Rejection and disappointment are major themes in the life lessons of the Libra man, in particular; while all Libra’s grapple with frustration of experience not being up to snuff or second-rate. For the Libra, who often needs a perfectly clean, ordered environment to work in or who will change hotel rooms or restaurant tables until the vibe or feng shui is just right, there is always the sense that things could be that much better.

For the Libra, who often needs a perfectly clean, ordered environment to work in or who will change hotel rooms or restaurant tables until the vibe or feng shui is just right, there is always the sense that things could be that much more soignée, conceptually, beautifully balanced. For these children of lyric Apollo—the very invention of the word stems from the god’s playing of the lyre—all must be poetry as much as it can be. Deterining whether it is or isn’t is a conceptual exercise, art being a battle of opinions waged against would-be abstract absolutes. Art hangs us in the balance, puts us on the Libra scales. And like works of art themselves, Libra people may divide public opinion. For all their understated elegance, Libras, being defacto personifications of principle, come on strong. On the other hand they can suffer from insecurity and tend to take situations, circumstance experience more personally than others. They can be intense in close relationship in that they were born to partner and naturally bond very deeply, synergy being the subconscious goal, to the point that the relationships itself will take on its own, third-party entity. And we’re back to the myth of Daphne and the other of Apollo’s love objects, male and female, who rebuked him whereupon he turned them into trees. He cursed his priestess Cassandra by giving her a certain gift prophecy, an aspect of his divine domain, which, paradoxically, nobody would heed or believe.

In the history of the pantheon, Apollo is not an early arrival. Scholars note that much of his artsy estate originally belonged to Aphrodite/Venus, namesake of the sign’s planet ruler. The second half of the Zodiac begins rather ironically. The so-called opposite sign of Aries (self) to Libra (other), Aries is a masculine sign fittingly ruled by Mars, followed by feminine Taurus ruled by female Venus. The second half of the Zodiac begins with Libra a masculine sign ruled by Venus, followed by Scorpio, a feminine sign ruled by Mars and Pluto. And so these feminine attributes of beauty, grace, love are conceptualized via the masculine, mental air sign of Libra into sexless starry notions. Apollo is not warm and cozy, and, despite his gleaming perfections, he is not his father Zeus’ inheritor—in fact Zeus fears Apollo will overthrow him. Thus Apollo is akin to another light bringer, Lucifer or Luke Skywalker (a rather parapetic interpretation of the cardinal-air insignation of the sign!). Apollo’s introduction to the pantheon coincided, too, with the ideal (a very Libran word) of the love between males being a higher form of love than the heterosexual variety in keeping with a cultural shift that now favored patriarchy, particularly in Athens, as opposed to feminist Sparta, where women had far fewer rights.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aries 29° (April 19)

Had a chill morning and met S. for a pho lunch. Then we had a meeting with some branding folks we know to see if we are a professional match on our projects. Then we took a long walk down Commonwealth Avenue, through the Commons, over to Charles Street and up Beacon Hill. We did a little jewelry shopping and then headed up the hill on Chestnut and worked our way over. A old man approached us—he didn’t give his name—but he did name drop his wife, Pamela, who cautions him about stopping to talk to people and delaying whatever errand he is on for them. He was dress all in black—shoes, slacks and a very fine knit turtleneck sweater that looked quite expensive but, I imagine, dates back to the 1970s if that’s possible. He spoke about how they bought a house on the backside of Beacon Hill in the 1960s for nothing. Can you imagine? This occured after they returned from living in Calcutta for years. Funny because we were thinking of having Indian food that night. It was something of a sign. The day has been all signs actually. I had an “episode” earlier today that involved a sneeze and my shoulder getting stuck up around my ear, and I’ve been rather sore all day. We strolled some more—checking out some mewses that (I want to call him Charles or Edward) told us to peruse; and then ended up walking back through the Commons where we saw a white squirrel that wasn’t albino. We had a refreshment at Bar du Midi and then strolled back to the hotel and had our supper at Uni. It was a fun day all in all with lots of food for thought (and just food in general).

Whereas Leo is fueled by pride, which is an imporant positive energy until it isn’t, Virgo’s superpower is humility which, by logic of the upward spiral that is the dynamic (not static flat circle) upward spiral of the Zodiac, is stronger than pride. We’ve said it before but the planetary ruler of Virgo is somewhat in dispute; traditionally it falls under Mercury’s rule, which also governs the sign of Gemini; while others believe it is ruled by Chiron, once a planet which was pummeled by asteroids and “disabled”; and others still believe there is a planet Vulcan out there…or rather inthere, orbiting between Mercury and the Sun, and therefore near impossible to detect. Wigned Mercury, the trickster, messenger god, is a perfect match for the mutable-air sign of Gemini; and it’s fitting for the mutable-earth sign of Virgo too, in a sense: Mercury embodies the two forms of magic—the tricky sleight of hand brand that matches Gemini’s mercurial and prankish nature, but also the more substantial form of alchemy which is the primary watchword of the sign of Virgo.

Alchemy is akin to medicine, in both cases ridding the substance/body of baser elements; and Mercury’s staff, the Caduceus, is, to this day, the symbol for the medical profession. Mercury was called Hermes by the Greeks and we speak of hermits (alchemists working in secrecy) and all things hermetic, meaning: relating to an ancient occult tradition that encompasses alchemy, astrology (hello!) and theosophy. Chiron, too, the wisest of the centaurs who alone among them rose above his beastly nature was taught by Apollo the art of medicine and herbs and is credited with the discovery of botany and pharmacy…….

He was in fact unrelated to all other centaurs, sometimes depicted with human front legs. He is mainly an abomination, at least according to his mother who, at birth rejected him and left him to die. He is akin to Ganesh, the original elephant-man god whose festival coincides with Vulcanalia, which is the first day of Virgo, August 23. Vulcan is the Roman name for Greek Hephaestus who wasn’t born lame but made so by his dismissive father Zeus who, enraged at his son siding with his mother, Hera, in an argument—flung him around the world which he circled endless times before landing and henceforth living without the use of his legs.

What the mythical Mercury, Chiron and Vulcan share is that they are all, like Ganesh,  healers. Hephaestus-Vulcan is a potter god, a smithy, an alchemist as befits Virgo’s malleable mutable-earth sign. Despite infirmiry he doesn’t wallow but channels his disability into invention, spending all waking time at his forge, in his workshop, making all sorts of nifty tools, weapons and devices for the betterment of men and gods alike. Virgo’s sign mottos are I work and I serve. Like Prometheus who elevated mankind by gifting them with sacred fire stolen from Olympus—this mirrors the move from the fixed-fire sign of the Leo god-kings (and some fierce queens) to Virgo with its everyman assignation, mutable-earth speaking to the evolutionary effect the stolen fire is meant to have on man. As part of the punishment Zeus doled out for this theft, he had Hephaestus make, out of clay, Pandora who with her infamous box brought all vice, first disguised by virtue, into the world.

Hephaestus is an ironic god of the human condition. He understands humanity and knows loss and humility, rare in a god. He knows that one’s reactions to loss can go either way, from victimization to victory, from self-pity or -destruction, from dysfunction to contribution,  to making lemonade from lemons. His crippling becomes the nature of his godhead, his superpowers deriving from being parapalegic if only a metaphor for being cut at the knees. This is true alchemy, the undergoing of personal change on the most human of levels. What is alchemy but getting the lead out? And, both metaphorically and metaphysically, Virgo is about undergoing such internal alteration, not sitting there like a lump of clay but making yourself useful, purifying oneself, removing our baser elements, obstacles, in the crucible of one’s own conscience. Hephaestus is more acurately the god of the human conscience and he is, like Ganesh, a remover of obstacles. The sign of Virgo rules the digestion which is also a metaphor for said conscience—munching on experience it metes out the nutrients in our life from the detritus. In the sculpting of Pandora, Hepaestus utilizes the best features of each of the goddesses, making her a composite of these. Pandora means “all given.” We see the archetypal roots here of the Virgo male character which can lean toward the Svengali, being (a sometime male-chauvinist) Pygmalion, the Henry Higgins molding his Eliza Doolittle; and we see, too, the roots of the Virgo woman being something of a borrower herself—of all the women in the Zodiac she is most likely to cherry pick elements of style and even personality from other women she admires. It came come as a shock to her friends to see her morphing into them before their eyes. Slowly though she will morph out of being a collection of traits into a unique composition of influences, which is true of all of us to some extent. She will also let herself be Svengali’d (if we can make that a verb) doing little to stop it. Get it?

The Virgo virgin, however, is not that Pandora but rather the goddess Kore (who will become Persephone once Hades-Pluto abducts and drags her into his underworld), the “daughter” and thus the maiden-form of Demeter, the goddess of the harvest, coinciding to Virgo’s late-August-early-September time frame which ends the first half of the astrological year, at the Autumnual Equinox that began at Vernal Equinox. Demeter is also called Pandora, but here it means “all giving.” She giveth and she taketh away. That is the power of the Virgo woman, in particular, who makes herself useful in the lives of others but, if unappreciated, she will remove herself, leaving those who’ve come to rely on her lacking. Virgo’s mutable-earth status speaks to substantial change which doesn’t happen in a flash. Virgo reminds us that we are all works in progress and their brand of spirituality is devotional at its core.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aries 28° (April 18)

Headed into Boston this morning and felt relatively calm. Dropped S in Cambridge and checked into hotel. Spoke to J and worked out some stuff. We have our final show tonight of the series’ season and we will do our usual and have a litte something first at Waypoint and then head over just in time. It totally forgot to cancel a hotel reservation, but thankfully there was no repercussion for doing so. I’m going to put something together for the festival this year in such a way where I can do it in my sleep. I have got to start making things easier. Putting more Leo thoughts to “paper” today:

The cardinal-water sign of Cancer, with its associative flood myths (symbolic of recovery), is followed by the fixed-fire sign of Leo, which is about the re-establishment, or restoration, and self-creation, metaphorically and metaphysically speaking. The fire element symbolizes spirit and the fixed quality speaks to a concentrated, stationary, magnetic quality. Fittingly, the ruler of Leo is the Sun which is the fiery center of our planetary system whose creative energy is life giving. The Sun symbol, a dot within a sphere, speaks to a sense of wholeness and being centered. One body part ruled by Leo is the heart, which is the center of our being, and it’s etymologically linked hearth is that which offers warmth and protection, gathering others to it. The heart does likewise, metpahorically speaking. The sign of Leo is a cosmic snapshot of this energy and Leo people themselves are personifications of it. Where Cancerian emotion (that sign’s motto is I feel) moves us toward change, promise and deliverance, the sign of Leo is the promise delivered, fulfilled—Leo’s motto is I will. The inspiring emotion of cardinal-water now gives way to fixed-fire, which is strong and steady burning passion, the eternal flame that burns within all of us. If Cancer is feeling Leo is passion, which is a sustained fire, requiring tending. Cancer is the want for doing while Leo is the will to do so. Leo is the creation, the building upon, the edification of our self-perceived purpose fueled by our will. Our willingness to bring about its full 360° realization. Another body part ruled by Leo is the spine, thus our backbone, our might of will. Not surprising, the Strength card in the Tarot features the lion, king of beasts.

Leo people are pillars of self will, which is always an inner battle that builds a personally moral strength. Leo people are the least likely to allow others or any obstacles to stand in the way of their creative or passion projects. And so they can seem, generally, guarded, so focused on the edification of their inner castles, that they seem an impenetrable fortress, exhibiting retiscence. We think of DeNiro or Madonna or, even, back in the day, Lucille Ball on Dick Cavett. One might suspect more warmth and simple affability from the Leo character until we remember we are dealing with some superior, near monarchical, sometimes tyrranical comsic energy. Leo does comprise our ability to rule the lesser, more beastly attributes of our nature which begs the quesiton: Are Leo people guarded against others or their own self-identified weaknesses, thus themselves. It symbolizes the divine right of kings (and some pretty fierce queens) that burns within all of us. To further delve the meaning of the rulership over the spine: Leo is about standing to your fullest height, embodying the energy of pride, a word that also comprises a group of lions. Leo is where our nobility lies, and as embodiments of that fact, Leo people never let their own majestic compartment slip. We liken cardinal-fire Aries to big-bang creation; and fixed-earth Taurus to the garden, Edenic bliss; Gemini, mutable-air, is the heady consciousness that charcterizes, the fall; and we said Cancer is the flood and also Exodus, the parting of the waters. Leo, it follows, is the age of miracles, the biblical book of Kings like young and gleaming David (who slay the giant, i.e. his own beastlly or monstrouus nature) and Queens, too, like Bathsheba, associated with feline energy, Sheba, like Cleo, being a de rigeurname for your pet kitty. Cleopatra, another Leo archetype, incidentally, means: Glory of the Father. And, whereas the Moon (Cancer) “the source” is the Mother Principle, in contrast the Sun (Leo) is the Father Principle, “the force”, representing opposite views of the universe, existence, as feminine or masculine, repsectively, goddess or god directed. Mother Moon is nurture and Leo son is authority.

Authority is a primary watchword of the sign, which goes beyond its face-value meaning of simply being in charge. It is more precisely about authorship—Arthur being a medieval echoing of the young king David, both being divinely appointed—which links to Leo’s astrological fifth house of creation, or more precisely “co-creation with god.” Arthur’s round table is the Sun symbol once again, often called the table of Hestia, who tended the fire in the center of the palace hall of Olympus, where the other twelve gods were in a circle enthroned, like the twelve signs of the Zodiac the Sun passes through in a calendar year. In Greek mythology, Helios is the Sun god-king; and as exalted as that might sound it’s a heavy responsibility, which comes with great Leo power. The moral navigation of being a ruler, like David or Arthur, weighed heavily on them. And like his sister Moon, Selene, does every night, Helios must drive his fiery horse-drawn chariot every night, maintaining a steady course, bridled with heavy responsibility. So is the life of a truly good monarch, the paradox being that they are at once the pinacle ruler but in complete devoted service to their subjects. This helps us understand the default frame of mind of Leo people in the main. They are divinely endowed with a healthy ego and yet they rely upon others loyalty and very audience to maintain it. Where the first fixed sign, Taurus, needs to garner an audience, Leo rather grants them.

Leo people are best at giving themselves license, authority, here, adding up to a simple green light. Leo’s have pride in themselves because their main objective is to make themselves proud. If that Cancerian flood myth spells promise (ark, in both senses of the word) then Leo is the keeping of it, the fulfillment of the compact, a word one associates with the rules, say, of a new settlement, which is the perfect metaphor for the Leo experience. The fifth astrological house is that of legacy, and Leo people more readily set upon building their “keep” as it is a signature pledge they make to themselves. Whereve they fix their fire, their passion, they will then build their world around it, seeing that it will provide, too for others on whom they in turn rely to help build their castles, lest they rest on sand.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aries 27° (April 17)

It actually just might be easier to continue to improvise than it would to come up with some major plan. But the weirdest thing is: I just don’t have all that much rattling around my brain. I am ever slightly challenged in starting my fundraising but also in casting the festival this year. But that always ends up coming together so I’m really not going to worry about that right now. The important thing to do is to move the needle or as we say the spoon. Anyway it does feel good to make some progress and get all the proverbial ducks in a row. I have started an inventory for the various subjects I am covering per sign. I don’t know if you know this but we actually have a proposal in works for a great new book which I am actually quite excited about. So here some thoughts on the sign of Cancer..

If the first (cardinal-fire) sign of Aries is big-bang creation and (fixed-earth) Taurus is the garden, Eden, and the (mutable-air) sign of Gemini is a snapshot of  munching on that apple of sudden consciousness, the Fall, then Cancer (cardinal-water) is the Flood to wash it all—cares and sins— away, to re-create and recover. Flood myths promise passage, deliverance, a simple, cool change, and promise itself. Moon-ruled Cancer is the energy of hope without which there can be no possibility. Someone wise said that. Water symbolizes emotion and intuition. The process of recovery is indeed an emotional one—the Cancer motto is I Feel—one that involves getting to the source of our human emotional being, which is where we tap into our higher power (represented by Cancer’s so-called opposite sign of Capricorn, not actually opposite at all but a higher septave, the relationship between the two providing mountains of metaphorical and metaphysical wisdom to be mined. Cancer is the source, the most vivid interpretation of cardinal- (originating) water; while Capricorn is re-source the mountain lake or reservoir. Cancer people are gushing and Capricorns reserved. Cancer is Hope and Capricorn is Faith.

And they say hope floats; and we venture to guess that whoever they are, they unknowingly tapped into a certain zodiacal understanding; Back to recovery: something we are all in all the time: Cancer people personifying this concept—Noah was a drunk, so he understands the notion of the Fall on a personal level. His personality is hinged on the transition from Gemini to Cancer. If the Fall is about experiencing life as a sudden split—Geminis are the most, and mostly benignly, split-personalities—then the Flood is about immediately moving toward the repair of said split. The whole thing about putting animals together, two by two, onto an airk is about re-pairing. And what is an ark if not a promise, one which we mainly hope we can keep to ourselves. The Cancer symbol can be interpreted as a crab, but also as two peas or seeds in a single pod, in either case floating along, not determining the direction, going with the proverbial flow. All of this, too, being a metaphor, to use a recovery phrase, for living life on life’s terms.

Life, to the Cancerian ideal, is in toto a process of recovery and rehabilitation, repairing any faulty infrastructure in our upbringing, especially, but also any family history pre-birth.  We all decide what we want to retain, and indeed recover, about ourselves, and that which we wish to be washed away, typically elements of self that block or undermine that which we are determined to take on our journey. The fourth astrological house of Cancer is a mysterious one because it rules both the home you come from and  the one you create for yourself; it is, in this way, a verb, a sign of action and movement as befits its cardinal status. Cancer people, as a snapshot of the sign’s energy, are on a journey from birth to mete out that which they want to leave behind from that which they want to characterize their future promise, their early conditioning from their own self-providence. On a less personal level the Cancerian experience is what we collectively pass on—customs, mores, folkways—which is no way divorced from the notions of putting things to rights, securing cultural identity and stability— and also real and metaphoric inheritances from family traits to heirlooms and property, actual real estate. In the Greek flood myth, where the pairing of Deucalion and his wife Pyrra, alone, withstand the entire wiping out of humanity, it is the goddess Themis who appears to them, having made it to the other shore, at the point of recovery, to instruct them on what to do next.

The fact that the authority figure here is female is fitting. Cancer is ruled by the Moon, the symbol of which is a crescent, a nod to the waxing and waning, which controls the ebb and flow of tides and all earthly liquids. The crescent also speaks to passage and a state of becoming, and therefore of potential and, again, the magic word, here, promise. Cancer via its ruler Moon are all about natural laws and rhythms, which emerge as feminine in cosmic thought. Unlike Venus, the other feminine planet in astrology, which stands for the power of attraction and ironic passivity, the Moon actively receptive, as oxymoronic as that sounds (all signs having their own brand of paradox. As a cardinal sign, Cancer puts out, but what it puts out are feelers which are, by nature receptive. And this is what Cancerian people of all genders do to varying degrees and in different phases of their psycho-spiritual development. The world of emotion and intuition, both forms of feelers one can put out, are the domain of mother Moon.

Themis, herself, is a mysterious Titan goddess whose name literally means “to put in place.” She is the incarnation of the will of the gods, the divine law and order of things, and what must be put in place, in our human experience, to adhere to this mandate. All flood myths are hinged on humanity displeasing (the) god(s), after all; so it follows that those who (have been chosen to) survive are ones who will live in compact with this divine will. Themis knows the future—she created the Oracle at Delphi and was its first oracular diety. After the duplicity of Gemini, Themis separates fiction from fact, demanding open honesty, something even the ancient gods thought made the best policy. Themis is a Titanesss, belonging to a pantheon older than the Olympian gods, with Zeus/Jupiter as their king. Zeus’s Titan father Cronos/Saturn ruled the golden age when there was no vice of any kind and perfect bounty and humans remained youthful, living hundreds of years. Zeus was her only consort—and remember it was he who ordered the flood—and among their children are the Horae, meaning: the right moment, embodying the correctness of order unfolding in time. And Cancerian people do seem to ultimately flow with the go more than the rest of us, though they may perhaps at first, in early life, more than most of us to let go and float on the great, ever-unfolding. Cancerian typically experience a sense of being held hostage by their childhoods emerging with a sort of Stockholm syndrome brand of affection for their parents whos lifestyle tends to run counter to the Cancerian’s natural order of things.

Speaking of being rhythmically attued: The Moon of course rules Cancer and it represents the mother principle in astrology and myraid other esoteric disciplines. Mother is the source of life, deliverance and nurture; Cancer’s cosmic energy of cardinal-water (cardinal is initiatory and forward moving) echoing that gurgling fountain, spring, source of the rivers running to the sea. Likewise the Moon rules the tides, natural, ordered, ebb and flow, oe’r the estuaries of our existence, the same natural unfolding and right order that Themis and her progeny prescribe. And Cancer people are the most capable of sinking into those natural or cosmic rhythms, as they are one with the same, synching with the process of life and the expectation of its right unfolding. Where the mental sign of Gemini might employ the power of positive thinking or other such tricks as befits its clever and mischievous Mercury rule—manipulate, bargain, wheel and deal, if not pull a few fast ones—to ensure certain successes, Cancer people picture that farther shore, the culmination of goals and fulfillment, meanwhile digging in, in Crablike fashion, keeping their head down, letting time and tide take them to the next correct moment along their journey, content to let it be a cumulative one.

Ironically, as much as the Cancer digs downinto his tasks at hand, in the here and now, the rate at which a Cancerian’s outer circumstance changes, in the main for the better, tends to outstrip other sign’s trajectories. To boot, the Cancerian might do the exact same job for eons, their usual routine altering little for decades, success finding them in their own, often very private process of making their dreams come true, seemingly on their own terms. One might argue, the Cancerian themself, that it’s much the opposite—that they live life on life’s terms, taking what it gives them, day to day, making hay while the Sun shines, and lemonade out of any lemons. They rarely chase success, nor do they overthink or strategize—they plot a simple course and patiently tack their way, becoming a font and fairly verbal gusher, of wisdom, knowledge, creativity.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aries 26° (April 16)

I really can be quite a handful sometimes. I’m very reactive at certain moments and in certain circumstances, any internal logic to it being something that has eluded me. In truth it always comes down to feeling unloved or rejected. Add to which, being duped/extorted for money by some theater honey great pretender, are you getting my drift? You know the type. Charming. Princely. Never seems to do anything wrong in peoples eyes. (An accident just occured where I found myself writing about a person of a sign that I was originally planning to write about today and yet here, literally I am delving this character, and I feel I might be illumining the character of the sign, most universally, while just venting about this particular pill of a person in my estimation right now.) Anyway, I went over the top reading him the riot act. I seem to keep on doing that. Blowing things up. But I will justify it. Ooh. Libra. Justice. Justify. I get it. I do. I am the Law of Recompense. When people fuck with me and then I forgive them and then they block me out that bugs me. I get it. If you think through being a douche-bag who gets called out by a righteous Libra for said doucebagery,  who then also forgives you, you don’t want to see that person. I wouldn’t want to see me. Libra takes that Taurus mirror of vanity and shines on you—take a look, beatch.

And for the first time I truly don’t effing care. Why should I have to sugarcoat to save other people’s skin when those people could give a flying woo-woo about anything me. Since the world is going crazy, anyway, too, I’m thinking what the fuck. I want to take up all my righteous Libran space. I want to be a better diplomat (Libra domaint). This shit is going to be cut and pasted, for real. I dreamt of my aunt’s house in Lyndhurst, I went around to the back and looked in and it was sliding glass doors and empty I think and so I went around to the front and I think entered through the garage? or up the stairs? not sure. I think because my cousin Joseph and David Verm I pretty much had the composite “big brother” that I wanted, frankly. Now David has disappeared off the face of the earth (not for real I hope); he got sober and I think very Jesusy. Leading up to his going to whatever rehab scenario, he would be drunk on the phone hiding from his wife and kids. And I remember him post and positive about life. And then I don’t know what the fuck happened. I vaguely remember talking about Bob not giving Jim a certain promotion and how that caused tension between our family camps. David’s a Capricorn. Joseph is a Taurus. I am a Libra. That combination is a recurring theme in my life. That and Virgos. Every best male friend I ever had has been a Virgo, I’ve had like twenty some-od Virgo best friends.

I get out of my own way everyday. That is something I wanted to say. There is certain amount of Gertrude Stein I cannot live without, everyday. Coffee. Frivolous morning time, “I Love Lucy” on Amazon Prime. The Poetry. It’s a Moo Moo. All the Headlines. We are sinking deeper and deeper into the miasma and we have to hold hands and find our footing to pull ourselves out and it off. Under attack. Overshooting in the cause of freedom will never be enough. Life. That’s what I say. Do what you wanna do. Stop in the name of love. If you leave me now…baby I was born to…da-doo-ron-ron-ron, da-doo-ron-ron.

Back to the second beginning of maturity. It all makes sense. This is already enough. Why push it? There is nothing to be had from ushering along any directive. By the same token it does yield spare, most poignant, how would you call it? Things? We are that stupid. No. We are that stupid. I told you, I told you, I told you all those years ago. I told you in the back seat of the overly air-conditioned Cadillac in the summer of 1969, I told you, going over the Polansky Skyway something you would now never be able to do. And so callous

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aries 25° (April 15)

The twelve signs of the Zodiac are unique combinations of the four elements (fire, earth, air, water) and the qualities (cardinal, fixed, mutable) respectively. As the third sign, Gemini is thus themutable-air sign. Now if we think about what all that implies, air signs being the domain of the mind and social experience, we might say mutable-air translates to thought itself, a swirl of information, what is in the air or ether and consciousness itself. Gemini people are abuzz. The sign’s planetary ruler Mercury, named for the heady, mercurial, eternally youthful god of communication, orbits, like a moth to a flame, closest to the Sun. The planet symbol, with its antennae’d circle “head” on a crossed staff, depicts the winged-capped god himself, but also birds and bees and all kinds of dual angels and insects and the beguiling fairies. The horned Puck is Oberon’s messenger as Mercury is Zeus’s.

Quicksilver Mercury speaks to the speed of thought. Gemini’s sign motto is I Think. Mercury (again that small orbit) is all about immediacy, not only in time but also in space. Mercury and Puck can be here or there in an instant. Mercury is the Psychopomp, “conductor of souls,” the only entity who can travel from heaven (Olympus) to hell (the Hades realm) and back again. He is the dual(istic) god of the crossroads, the dealmaker, forever coming and going, and he rules the characters one finds there—merchants and theives, magicians, , barkers, buskers, and every assortment of savvy streetwise folk. All such characters collectively add up to, if only metaphorically speaking, describing the fast-talking, clever Gemini people, the Zodiac’s truest operators. Mercury’s female counterpart is the likewise winged Eris, goddess of discord, whose main myth bring’s us to the Gemini characters of Castor and Pollux, the mortal and divine Twins (Quadruplets, really) of the sign.

Eris was the only goddess not invited to this one glam party on Olympus. She got even by causing a war which began with chucking in an apple on which she scribbled “for the fairest among you”—Hera , Athena and Aphrodite naturally thought it was for them. Jump-cut to the Judgment of Paris (prince of Troy) who over Hera (who offered power) and Athena (wisdom) as bribes for choosing them, he picked Aphrodite who offered him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, who, along with her sister, Clytemnestra, were the other two quadruplets to the Gemini Twins. Helen was married, Paris abducted her, and the rest is tragedy. Mercury and Eris are master manipulators; their Disney counterparts being Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, among the modern archetypes of the Gemini people.

But let’s back up. The duality that is expressed by Castor and Pollux is that of mortality and immortality or divinity. In the bible myth, one is expelled from the garden (the fixed-earth Taurus) by biting into yet another apple which results, in what? Concsiousness! Which is characterized as duality and knowledge of opposities, good and evil and, yes, mortality and immortality. In fact, being booted from the garden, one is no longer granted everlasting life, let alone youth. Gemini personifies the duality of the human experience we all share. They vividly express various extremes, all of which come under the heading of that mortal/divine dichotomy. Gemini people seem to most easily occupy either end of the spectrum at once, like Mercury, god of the crossroads, the streets, the gutter, who can nonetheless ascend to the stars. Those crossroads symbolize our thoughts, or more accurately our choices. And Gemini people can more easily hold two opposing thoughts at once. They can be the most failingly human (embodiment of the fall energy) and the most soaringly “divine” in the expression of their soul, whether exhibited through their intellect or talent, the latter always seemingly fueled by the former. And sometimes they seem to express such divine talent as seems to be too much for their body to bear. Especially the women of the sign who push themselves beyond their limits, again, like a moth to a flame.

Whereas Aries is objectiveand Taurus is subjectiveenergy, Gemini combines the two, we have an energetic two-way street, input output, transmission. The energy of Gemini is literally electric and, moving our way down from the  Aries-ruled head and Taurus ruled throat and neck, Gemini rules the lungs, and also the arms (wings) while Mercury rules the nerves which you might say is the electrical system of the body, along with the wiring, those neurons firing into synapes, in the brain. Gemini people are surely nervy and they most easily get pushed to the exhaustion point on that score. Like Mercury, the mind is a trickster and it is literally formed by whatever thoughts are prevailing in our immediate enviroment as we are growing up—the third astrological house of Gemini rules early childhood conditiong as well as our sibling and sibling-like relationships that of our boon companions, such associations forming us the most during these formative years when, if we have the proper rearing, we might have the right choices made for us.

Peter Pan who eschews the word of grown-ups, needing both the company of other lost boys, his mini mob or gang, to reinforce his position as mercurial ring leader and, by the same token, he needs to infiltrate the minds of these other individuals, manipulating and forming their frames of mind to match his own hinged, as it is, on not wanting to grow up, living in a place that won’t recognize the passing of time, the ticking of that clock (inside the croc), forever wrestling with his shadow side which is determined to get away. Perhaps the shadow side of this dual figure is his repressed desire to face aging, death, morality, determined as he consciously is to keep on whistling in the graveyard; perhaps this is the only way he can fly, soar in his ambitions, via the power of positive thought, which can ill afford the entertaining of any limits, even inevitably natural ones. Geminis prefer to live by their wits and can be something of a rogue, a word that combines the good and the bad, into something hopefully benevolently badass. And it can get a little ugly, just as it might hit the heights of beatific experience. The individual who wrote the poetry of Walt Whitman or the person who sang the songs Judy Garland did might possess such divine insights or gifts that are beyond their human ability to bear them.

You’ve know doubt heard of Kubler Ross’s five stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance; well, the whole of Gemini’s life is number three: something of a bargain (as it is for all of us but, again, Gemini people personify this point along with other Gemini experiential points) which needs negotiating, both two sides of the bargaining table comprising the Gemini personality. Gemini is forever making deals with themselves—rationalizing, letting the ends justify the means, allowing for a little hell, some guttersniping, so to reach intended heavenly stars. As such, Gemini’s are the most immersed of all people in the happenstance of human existence with it’s endless interpersonal interaction, details, to-do lists, dealmaking and minutae; and embracing this street-level, well, level of life (instead of struggling with, or feeling dogged by it, like many of us do) they actually elevate the experience of so-called quotidien existence to a more exalted state-of-being. Which begs the question: why do we label these certain aspects of life to be that of mere or banal existence? Compared to what? Why aren’t the workaday elements of life viewed as something sublime if not spiritual; for that matter why do we not view the entireties of our lives as spiritual existence. How did we get the idea that the workings of this world are happening on some solely physical plan devoid of the divine? Well, the answer is simple: The messaging stems from the Judeo-Christian story of that fall from grace, that boot from Eden, (and associative myths world-wide) which the sign of Gemini represents as a metaphysical and metaphorical snap-shot.  The point is we only know this life, we cannot be sure that another one awaits us, so why not approach even the most prosaic elements of it from the perspective that it is all part of the divine choreography we are dancing? The classic gods, with their super human characteristics, lied and cheated and raged and fell into depressions just as we do, chief among these being Mercury, a god of petty mischief and pranks, and yet a divine being all the same. Gemini’s apple doesn’t fall very far from that tree.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aries 24° (April 14)

In near direct contrast to Aries, which precedes it on the cosmic wheel, Taurus, the fixed-earth sign, is ruled by Venus, representing the metaphysical Feminine Principle in the cosmos and astrology. Fixed-earth is likened to a fertile garden replete with flowers, and points to the power of attraction. Planet Venus energy is thus centrifugal, working in the opposite fashion from centripetal Mars, whose symbol recalls a shield and spear or the male genitalia—the Venus’s symbol, a circle over a crosed staff, conversely depicts the female reproductive system, specifically, the passage to the womb and intact hymen, symboloizing innocence. Innocence, and the loss thereof, is the main theme of any garden myth, particularly, as it leads to certain temptation, again that power of attraction. The gods (read: human archetypes) associated with Taurus are the earthy nubile, pastoral nymphs and youthful male flower gods. The premier nymph myth is that of Io, who was turned into a snow-white heifer by Zeus to hide his affair with her from his wife Hera who knew what was what and only pretended to assume Zeus was giving the pretty cow to her as a gift. Hera was going to teach Io a lesson (mainly about men). The fairy tale of Snow White is a retelling of it all, with the beautiful but jealous queen her thakes the form of a wicked crone bearing poison apples. This is a direct lifting of Hera doing just that in Greek myth. It is notable that the Venus womb symbol also recalls a hand-mirror, vanity being one of the sign of Taurus’ primary pitfalls—the sign’s color green itself has a shadow side to its fresh and earthy garden variety.

The power of attraction is one that appeals, foremost, to the senses—sight, touch, taste and smell—and, thus, the appetites, assignations of the sign of Taurus which rules the throat, the gullet, as well as the voice, symbolizing talents (song apealing to the aural sense) another attribute of the sign. Taurus people make up the most sonorous vocalists on the planet. The second house of Taurus, whose motto is I have, encompasses value(s), talents, assets, both real and metaphoric, along with real possessions, money and all kinds of quality stuff. Whether refering to our own talents, our collectibles, or investment portfolio, it is all a matter of cultivation, tending to that which we hold most dear and at which we are most gifted, that which comes most naturally. The nymphs and flowergods toil not, nor do they spin, the bucolic sign of Taurus advocating for a passive, come hither, approach to even their own ambition. Their energy goes into drawing interest and audiences to them rather than doggedly chasing some quixotic dream.

You go to the garden it doesn’t come to you. And here we see the link to the vanity: Narcissus, Hyancinth, Adonis all being among those male flower gods. Unlike objectiveAries, the natives of which are focused outward, perhaps the least self-conscious of individuals, the navel (or mirror) gazing Taurus takes a subjectiveapproach to self, inclined to see themself from the outside in, forever making adjustments based on audience appeal so to cultivate that which is most valuable to the Taurus: adulation, if not outright adoration. Cows, calfs, bulls are totems of worship and idolatry. It may strike one as strange that Taurus is the premier feminine sign but it’s symbol is the masculine Bull; after much consideration of that cunundrum it occured to us that Taurus’ symbol itself might be purposefuly ironic and speak to the subjectivity, the power of passivity, of this sign: The Bull symbolically represents that which the sign of Taurus seeks to attract not its own character at all. The Bull fertilizes (the feminine), in more ways than one; in the garden analogy. Also, the upshot of the Io myth, which ends with her being chased by a stinging gladfly across the Bosphoros straights—the “cow ford”—whereupon she emerged from heifer form, appearing, as goddess queen, herself, , (Isis), now on par with Hera/Juno isultimate empowerment, characterized the myth of  Europa. The Io and Europa myths are like call the response, signaling a reversal. Io’s descendent (by Zeus), Europa, returns to Europe, back across the Bosphoros, on the back of Zeus, her lover in most beautiful Bull form, transfiguring the narrative, where the female is no longer the silly cow. Instead Zeus takes on that bovine mantle, yoked in floral garlands, transmuting Io’s shame into into Europa’s honor. In the biblical myth we have the same reversal: Where the femile inhabitant of the garden, Eva (Eve) sees her own original sins be revered by Ave (Maria), the glory of womanhood and innocence, if not virginity, restored.

Remember we said Taurus rules the senses and appetites, thus, we might say, all of the earthly pleasures, in which Taurus people may indulge, but more to the point: Taurus plays on the senses and appetites of others, that oomphy Venus energy, seeking union, weilding its power of attraction, Taurus people being most the most, often purposefully (people-) pleasing population on the planet. They offer endless delight, exhibiting myriad talents in multifold forms, their eyes and ears attuned to audience reaction, making endless corrections to their work, art or enterprise to achieve their one goal: to appeal, gain favor and make bank. Just as we move from the first sign of Aries to the second of Taurus, we swing from the Aries from Ram, the shepherd on the hill in the Christmas story to the nativity scene, the stable, the manger, or cow trough, being the center seat of the adoration scene, from the french, manger, to eat. We could just gobble him up, and we will later. Taurus energy not only seeks favor, to be prized and cherished, you might say it also wants to be consumed, possessed. Feminine Taurus stands counter to masculine Aries which seeks to conquer and perhaps consume in the process, though it isn’t the usual goal.

One of the things to admire most about a Taurean is their ability to hang a high price tag on themselves. They will do the work, cultivating themselves and their talents like a master gardner, playing nice, being pleasing, if not somewhat fauning and sycophantic which is always an inside-out expression of certain narcissism. The mirror is a recurring theme in the art, music, film and literature of Taurus creatives, and the natives tend to be very exacting in their appearance, cultivating a strong look that communicates not only their sensibilties but their intentions. They are, on this score, in a word, deliberate. This, along with practical and methodical and determined and focused are Taurus watchwords, being as myopic as real bulls are, metahporically speaking, of distractions or detractors, and also of their own artistic delusions.

Taurus people might be prone to overindulge their own appetites, at least that is the dime-story converntional wisdom on the subject. Moreso, they create hunger in others for themselves. This happens in positive ways, making people hanker for their skills and talents, but also finding ways to addict others to them. That didn’t make much sense but I think I am driving at something here. Taurus people collect other people, and they will prize certain and target others. Oh wow I really ran out of steam on that one. I will have to revisit this idea for sure as it needs fleshing out. Let’s move onto the Gemini experience…Ah! wait I have another Taurus thought:

The thing about fixed signs is they are not the originators, typically, of ideas, waves or movements in their creative work that are the cardinal signs that precede them. Cardinal signs struggle with follow through and sustenance, a Taurus word if we ever heard one. All fixed signs drill down and are all kinds of things that one might associate with being fixed. In Taurus’ case we say the sign energy can be stubborn, obstinate, determined and deliverate, grounded, etc, terms that one might apply to the Bull itself.  Taurus people don’t like complication, they naturally keep things simple, which manifests, most poignantly, in their going long and deep into specific interests, instead of being renaissance wo/men in any sense of the word. The are niche dwellers, narrowling focused, leaving no stones unturned in the cultivation of their uniquely pinpointed talents/skills with which they continually wish to flourish (flower!).

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aries 23° (April 13)

Edith is born today as is Samuel Beckett it’s a good day and an unusual Aries day. I look forward to feeling all caught up on here so that I can start to channel what I’m feeling on any given day. Five days until Tori Scott returns to Oberon. I’m looking forward. Here some Aries thoughts

Aries rules the human ages of birth to seven years, that which is defined by adjectives like “terrible” and nouns like “tantrum”, at once the most helpless and most shriekingly selfish and demanding, others be damned. There is a lot to unpack here. The cardinal-fire sign, which translates to a spark (of life), our ignition and animation, also purpose, the Aries personality can be impulsive and reactionary and unbridled—think Jack Jack in The Incredibles. Mars signifies pure energy, that fight, spearheading goals and otherwise taking life by storm, but it also translates to the other adrenalin effect, flight. Athena mainly stays above the fray, employing strategy and diplomacy and prudence to support her aims. And so it is no surprise that the most singularly directed of sign-energies in the Zodiac, that Aries people are themselves singular, self-motivated, me-me-me, every wo/man for themself. They typically have pinpointed campaigns and quests they’re determined to go on and they do so, unapologetically, with a certain vigiliance. It’s as if they can’t separate what might appear to us to be selfish-from a self-originating sense of duty toward the fulfillment of their objectives. Aries feel they were bornto do whatever they aim for—that it is in their blood— endowed (and sometimes burdened) with an outsized mantle of import such that the pull of said goals feels heightened to that of a spiritually calling. Or maybe it’s vice versa—that Aries people, by virtue of their ardor, lend their pursuits this exaggerated sense. The point is singular Aries doesn’t second guess it.

In our book Sextrology, we likened the Aries woman to the female sheep—hey Ewe!—who keeps herself aloft, on her climb, watching male rivals vie for her below; mostly this speak’s the the Aries’ woman’s ability to raise herself above arguments in wise Athenian fashion, if not pit opponents against one another to elevate her own position. And though there is the usual overlap between the sexes of the same sign, you still might say with confidence that, as a rule, Aries man tends to be embody the warrior most often on the frontline, while Aries woman is cooly strategizing from her metaphoric war room. She may may adopt lambish air if only to pull the wool. Why sheep?, you may ask. Well, besides the warlike qualities of the Ram, in mythology, the war god Mars evolved from an agrarian shepherd god, really a male fertility figure. Athena, who may partly derive from the more ancient Minoan snake goddesses, armed as they are with serpents, and the bird goddesses like the wargoddess Inana, also Ishtar—Athena’s breastplate , the arguably sheepskin aegis, bears the venomous snake-haired head of the Gorgon; and she is associated with the owl, her wise totem, whose form she takes. Athena emerged as a defender goddess, among other attributes, a palace goddess, inextricably linked to Athens, although her Pallas pre-fix is more suggestive of a phallus, as she is appears, in full masculine garb, as male, and there we have those snakes again.

We likewise link Athena in the biblical line to Lilith, Adam’s first wife, predating Eve just as Aries precedes Taurus, whose own archetype isEve and other such “innocents.” Lilith and Adam split up because they both preferred the top position, and she too was winged with other serpentine qualities. Goddesses of feminism all. The symbols for Athena is a triangle or diamond shape set upon a cross—these portray yoni power above all. It is not a passive symbol of reception like the Venus glyph with it’s circular womb above a crossed staff (hymen), but, like Mars’ own genital “spear-and-shield ” symbol, it is one of definite action, even if on the defensive, blocking, a hard-knocks nod to the Ram, which, in nature, thus vividly defends its flock. The gender dialectic between men and women, cisgender or transgender, in this premier masculine sign (air and fire signs are masculine) of Aries, is  not one of masculine to feminine but a spectrum spanning from the purest objectifying masculine to the to most potent feminism, refusing objectification.

No surprise the sign of Aries rules the head—we enter the world head first, as a rule, and Aries people never abandon that trajectory. Mars and Athena wear brand plumed helmets, she having emerged fully formed from father Zeus’ head. This speaks to the Aries experience, suggesting they come into this world armed with their sense of purpose and ambition. Athena is the goddess of helmsmen and the Aries personality is pinioned on leadership. Mars starts wars, the first to charge into attack just as his more ancient shepherd status saw him likewise leading his charge, that is to say, the sheep in his keep. Leadership, initiation, action, ambition are all Aries’ strongest suits, coming on strong in situations, for better or worse.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox

Aries 22° (April 12)

Pisces is the final sign of the zodiac and, as its opposite facing Fish suggest, it is a sign of complete paradox. It is all and nothingness, the alpha omega, the womb tomb of existence. Pisces is the mutable-water sign, symbolized by mists, fog, foam, (French: écumefrom whence derives scum) and, thus, both potent life-giving primordial ooze and the miasma of dead and rotting matter. The twelfth astrological house has been called the dust bin of the Zodiac; but, we would add, with a focused imperative on recycling, as befits list last turn of the wheel that Pisces portrays. When Pisces George Harrison wrote and sang that life goes on within you and without you, he was expressing from an archetypally connected place. This misty mystical, mutable-water sign portrays non-material existence, something which we scientfically now know is the whole of all existence, so-called matter only truly being various densities of said energy. Ruled by planet Neptune, named for the god of the sea, portrays the cosmic energy of dissolution. In Pisces we are dissolving, seeing and venturing beyond the seven-hued veils of Salome, over Iris’ rainbow—both, among the archetypes of the previous sign of Aquarius—having now entered into a magical place, a lucid dream world, a blissed-out state of Nirvana, or some other such transcendent realm. Neptune and Pisces at once represent the estate of purest imgaination, and also delusion and hallucination. Lest we forget that magic and imagination share the same etymology as imagery, any sort of which is ruled by the twelfth astrological house, that of asylum or theasylum depending how you look at it.

In our book Sextrology, Pisces woman and man are called The Dreamand The Drifter, respectively, and, of all the individuals on the astrological block, they are best at giving in or over to life on life’s terms, dissolving into the here and now of their circumstance, if only sometimes treading water, seeking foremost to avoid struggle (all of which requires a great sacrificing of ego). At the same time, paradoxically, the are most able of people to sustain a belief in certain transcendence, whatever their particular brand of sublimity might be. No wonder the sign’s motto is I Believewhich is more than just a spriritual knowingness, it is a power, Pisces’s super power, that works it’s magic on reality, making it malleable. This is the true meaning of the mutable-water assignation, and of Neptune’s dissolving force: If all we perceive isn’t truly fixed, but fields of energy blending, one into another, than the so-called substance of being is determined by the energy we are, and that which we are putting out there via our belief. If we dissolve the impediments to them—circumstance and limiting thoughts—and we remove the notion of space and time (trusting in inevitability of the manifestion of our belief) that which we belief in, primarily our self, is already coming into being. We all have this power. For Pisces people it just happens to be frontloaded. They more readily give over to the plot of life as it is already happening, like a lucid dreamer must do if s/he would have the dream continue (any lucid dreamer will tell you that if you try to impose your will on the dream it will dissolve before your mind’s eye).

Pisces are the most accepting of what is and thus able to make the greatest changes toward what could be. Acceptance is the threshold to Love. Not the personal or romantic sort, but the truest, purest spiritual form of Love as the animating force in the Universe. The great primordial goddess of the sea, from which she emerged, is Aphrodite (Roman: Venus), later demoted to a lower-case love-and-beauty goddess when she enterered the patriarchal pantheon that struggled to place her. We also see her, in emanation, as the wife of Neptune, Amphitrite, his famed trident originally being her symbol as the triple goddess, as is the shamrock, the lily (Aphrodite’s sacred flower), the fleur de lis. Another name for Aphrodite is called Mari (the sea) and she is thus cognate to Mary, Stella Maris, the star of the sea. Both Aphrodite and Mary have sons, Eros and Jesus, who are embodiments with Love. Eros, which means love, like Jesus, is the eternal babe, yet he is also the oldest, most primordial of the creation gods, just as Jesus is one and the same with the father-creator. Aphrodite and Eros took fish form and we know all about the Jesus fish from certain people’s automobile decoration. All this to say that the philosophical concept of Pisces is thus: That if you were to remove all physical manifestation from the world (which isn’t physical but energetic or spiritual anyway) what is behind it all, the very backdrop of existence, is, essentially Love. And someone once supposedly said something like: blessed are those who believe without seeing.

Pisces rules feet which, metaphorically, speaks to Pisces people being parapetitic. Of all the signs, Pisces are the least moored to their origins, both in terms of their actual home and family rearing, but also in the assignations that go along with it. From birth, nearly, Pisces people move in a desired direction of character and bearing, most often fancying themself to be erudite, if not encyclopedic in their knowledge, with a certain lockjaw upper crustiness. They are indeed fancy. And we don’t use the word lightly. For Pisces people it is an actionable verb whereby they art-direct their own personality and, really, they’re very being. They always embody a departure from their roots and they will stay in motion (unless, paradoxically, they isolate and roam around an inner world of their own making instead). It is the belief that they can be anything they want to be and, to look at the feet, again: before we can walk on water we best believe that we can.

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol will be one degree higher than the one listed for today. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365 or 6 days per year—so they near but not exactly correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2019 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2019 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox