Aries 9° (March 29)

Desperate for haircut. Also have to go to the storage space to get a clearer vision of what’s what. That last bit won’t happen. I visit Brad and the bank and try to get my dent pulled to no avail. Mushroom-onion pizza from Red Barn. I will be so full it’s beyond. I bolt back in time to speak to S. which goes really badly. I cannot win and I have to realize that this cutting off communication is going to continue happening. It just comes at such a bad time as I prepare to go to Boston this week. These bouts of embargo are really wearing on me hard and they plunge me into deep darkness and despair. 

I was born William Leone in Jersey City, which I now think lends me street cred, and I grew up in the suburb of Wyckoff, NJ. I graduated from Boston University with a double BA in French and English, with a Certificat des Langues et Lettres from L’Université de Grenoble, France, where I spent my junior year and first met my longtime partner with whom I shared a serious interest in astrology. I moved to Paris to join the staff of Passion magazine, then to New York City, where I worked as an assistant editor at Avenue, co-editor of DV8, and managing editor of The New York Social Calendarmagazines, collectively working with many top and up-and-coming journalists of the time. 

Simultaneously, I studied acting with Uta Hagen and was a member of both the Renegade Theater Company in Hoboken and Synchronicity Space in SoHo. I acted in a string of plays, including two on Broadway with the National Actors Theater, one in which I had no lines and one where I had a single one. I also appeared briefly in Ang Lee’s first film, Pushing Hands. Going where the love and, at least, some money was, I focused back on writing for publications, although it would ironically be my career as an astrologer which would see a repeated return to the stage and far fewer appearances on the small screen.

 Meanwhile, I contributed mainly fashion, entertainment and celebrity features to such newspapers as The New York Times (“Styles” section), The New York Observer, The Boston Globe (Arts section) the South China Morning Post, and magazines like InStyle, YM, Cosmopolitan, Paper, Stop, Detour, as contributing editor, and, ultimately, as executive editor at Wallpaper* in London where I spent the early aughts.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2022 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Aries 8° (March 28)

Will try to see if I can get dent out of car, otherwise I’ll call some body shops and arrange for tomorrow. I will let bookkeeper know I have more stuff and questions. Paying car insurance and credit cards. (I know this is boring stuff but these small survival things are best written down and this is good a place as any. Besides you’re not reading this.)

In effect, for the first time in my career as a humanistic astrologer, it is my intention to bottle and provide the many readers of my work, worldwide, some semblance of the care and guidance I have been able to impart to my clients in private consultation. Before we further explore the structure and content of Nextrology, let me offer some backstory, in biography form, opening onto what continues to constitute a successful press, promotion and marketing strategy and platform, with which I have uniquely positioned my brand status and appeal to date, as well as projects I currently have in the pipeline and plans I have for growing my audience as a solo author at this milestone moment in the creative development of my chosen craft and career.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2022 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Aries 7° (March 27)

Didn’t sleep much but happy that I’m just getting in bed early and hoping for it to happen. Very productive day of shopping, cleaning, cooking, chores. I noticed a dent in the new car. It might have happened in the supermarket parking lot. These things send me into an obsessive tail spin, but whatever. I am continuing on with the lawyer stuff. Finished watching House of Gucci, what a bunch of crap. Stopped in for a few small things at East End Market today too and spoke to Fran. The tradition of comedians hosting the Oscars, where they poke fun at these so-called “mini-gods” is the part of the antidote to the “vapid adoration”. The problem lies in a celebrities like the Smiths not being able to roll with it. Now, yes, some people knew of Pinkett-Smith’s condition, especially women who are more likely to have seen The View or other platforms where she has held forth about it, but I seriously doubt that Rock had any idea. He is someone who laughs at himself and his own shortcomings as a hallmark of his comedic craft. He is not the pompous ass that Smith is. He saw a woman in a bright khaki green rucked gown with a shaved head—the joke was visibly there. Jesters were set before the court with impunity to verbally cut their rulers to the quick. That is what comedians are paid to do at celebrity roasts and at the Oscars. That is their role. If Jada’s look was one of choice and not related to her medical condition, which isn’t in any way physically harmful to her well-being (though it may be emotionally or psychologically), there would be no issue. I trust Rock knew nothing of it. And even so, even so, Will Smith has no right to assault another human being in private or before millions of viewers. He could have waited and released a statement to the press, or rather Jada, who can stand up for herself, could have done so. And then Rock could have explained and likewise issued an apology for being ignorant of her situation, therefore insensitive and contrite. Instead they conducted themselves, well Will did, as someone above the law. So I say “mini-gods” status and “vapid adoration” begins at home.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2022 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Aries 6° (March 26)

Finally dug into the new agreement and had a phoner with S which was great, pinpointing exactly what needs to be done and when.

Working, once again, along binary lines, Nextrology is comprised of twenty-four chapters, one for each of so-called sex signs—Aries Man, Aries Woman, Taurus Man, Taurus Woman…and so on. As I’ve often been asked since the writing of Sextrology: how do I account for trans people and gender fluidity? The simple answer is that trans men are men and trans women are women, so it’s up the individual of a certain sign to decide with which “sex sign” they identify. And if a person is gender fluid, I recommend reading both the man and woman chapters of their sign—to be honest, I recommend everyone read both chapters of their sign in any case as gender is fluid for all of us to some degree, and there may be elements of self that ring true in the chapter pertaining to one’s so-called opposite sex sign. Which brings us to the larger question: how to read this book? 

In the case of Sextrology, readers of course beeline to their own chapter because, let’s face it, there is an inherent narcissism to popular astrology wherein one can indulge their desire for self-discovery and revelation, not least so on the subject of one’s own sexuality. Secondly, Sextrology has voyeuristic appeal, inviting deep dives into the psyches of partners, would-be love interests and even friends, who might read bits from the book aloud to one another, say as fodder for cheeky dinner-party fun. Similarly, albeit more thoughtfully, the reader of Nextrology will read and re-read their chapter first, making real or mental notes of the prescriptive matter, especially, practicing any exercises and performing any experiments suggested in the text. Likewise, Nextrology then becomes a reference manual of sorts for sorting out other people in your life born under whichever sign, whether, too, just for giggles over dessert and digestifs or, taken more seriously, as a go-to guide for helping loved ones, as well as yourself, gain insight, from my original astrological perspective, into core strengths, motivations and senses of purpose requiring bolstering, as well as limiting thoughts, habits and recurring patterns needing perishing.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2022 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Aries 5° (March 25)

The day will end with a wee bite at Fanizzi. Mussels, mashed and Caesar sans croutons. Tried chatting with D+N but they are in Delhi and the WhatsApp wasn’t really working. Have a client in the late afternoon who is based in London so it will be evening her time. 

Funny that the zodiac has never dropped out of human consciousness. Even though astrology, which was bound together with astronomy and remained a serious subject of study dating from the founding of the first medieval universities through to the Enlightenment, was at that point discredited as “non-scientific”, still the zodiac found a new way, if a novelty one, to remain a feature in popular culture, continuing to draw our interest, beckoning us to decode its true purpose and potential meaning in our lives. You might say that, as a “living” mandala for existence, the zodiac, like some other fabled “ring of power” has a will of its own, wanting to be be found where it has remained for millennia, right under our noses.

Of course, there have always been small circles of esotericists, to coin a term, who explored the more arcane reasons for the zodiac’s persistent presence and purpose in our lives, but never in modern times has the zodiac been employed as a practicable mainstream system for self-improvement or personal fulfillment, but for one exception: Friends, clients and audience members have heard me joke for some years, now, that: The zodiac, with its twelve signs and astrological houses, is in fact “the original twelve-step program”. But, in all seriousness, I encourage you to compare AA’s twelve steps with that of the energies and attributes of each of the corresponding twelve signs and the myriad aspects of their astrological houses, I think you’ll discover their similarities to be in no way specious or mere coincidence, specific notions of  “higher power” notwithstanding. One suspects the architects of AA borrowed rather directly from the zodiacal system and based its program in large part upon it.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2022 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Aries 4° (March 24)

Chat with D.C. today and that will be fun. Stopped by the laundromat just to eyeball it in case I get desperate in the near future. I realize I somehow lost my hat and restaurant doesn’t have it. I know for a fact that I didn’t even wear it inside and I didn’t stop anywhere so it is a total mystery. Things things do tend to drive me crazy.

IWith Nextrology, however, I will be evolving the subject of astrology along deeper, more personally psychological and spiritual lines, ushering astrology into the personal-development space, activating astrology into a system for self-help and -actualization. At risk of sounding grandiose but, to be perfectly honest, what I realized at some point over the long years working with clients in private practice, leading up to a renewed fire to write this new book, Nextrology, I frankly believe that the true purpose of the zodiac, that symbolically intricate spiral mandala, was actually, originally designed and meant to be used as a system for self-empowerment, success and sustainable happiness. Friends, clients and audience members have heard me joke for years, now, that: The zodiac, with its twelve signs and astrological houses, is in fact the original twelve-step program. (Go ahead and compare AA’s twelve steps with that of the energy and attributes of the twelve signs and houses, and you’ll discover this is no specious notion.)

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2022 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Aries 3° (March 23)

I will pay off my credit cards. I will vacuum (while living in one) I will correspond on the subject of insisting on being cc’d. I will input the necessary number of entries into this Blague. I will arrange a meeting with Gene and Len (vacuum, Cable, outside water? Paint? Wifi code). I will write a sample for A-Scapes. Post office and bank and Sirius and Mapfre and A-glow Petty. Categories from eating out on Wheel: Working dinner/Writing content, Outreach for Astrology, Astro planning, CMP work. Stopped by yet another new dispensary just to poke around and see what’s what. Will take myself for oysters and a raw-tuna and mango “martini” (comes with chips to scoop it all up). Took some shishito peppers home to use in an omelet.

It’s an inside-out job to the metaphysically inclined mind, as our astrological signs go to the core of who we are, in both cosmic and consequential terms, as e’er the twain shall meet.  And Nextrology will take readers by the hand in pulling the myriad threads of their personalities through toward divining desired life paths, so to spiral onward and upward. The word Next itself is primarily an imperative, a call-to-action for new choices and possibilities. On that basic level, Nextrology is the astrology of positive momentum, of getting and keeping things moving in the right direction. Nextin the title also makes a nod to what’s simply next from me, as an author who has “gone dark” for some time since writing a book, Sextrology in particular—I fantasize that, like so many fans of Willy Wonka who long shuttered his works, my own followers will be chomping at the bit for some sweet and starry, gobsmacking new goods as only I can deliver. Moreover, Next in the title speaks to dynamism, activism and agency being encoded into the astrological signs, which are not an end in themselves but means for becoming ever-better iterations of Self. Just as people have deeply recognized themselves, and experienced some a-ha revelations on that score, from reading my words and works to date, so too will they relate to new realizations I have to relate in special regard to guiding them toward and along what the reader will regard as their desired road as yet untaken which, all true things being paradoxical, can also be the path of least resistance.I like to think the first syllable of Nextrology also speaks to the fact that, in writing this book, I am evolving the subject of astrology itself. You might say this was true of Sextrology at the time, as that book dragged the subject out of the occult aisle and plopped it smack dab in the center of the zeitgeist, not to mention designer display windows—the book launched at major fashion bastions aren’t the world; Sextrology made astrology chic, stylish and sexy for the first time.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2022 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Aries 1-2° (March 22)

Been a shut in these past two days. Watched “A Very English Scandal” (again). Prepared to speak with S., postponed from yesterday’s date which slipped her mind. I am feeling quite productive, dealt with AAA and banking and lots of billing and then had a fairly good talk about biz with S. It is slow going through the “minutes” but we are getting there. We discussed what to do with the jewelry and also how to move forward on things. I still don’t have anything in hand from lawyers but I’m hoping there won’t be any big surprises. Cooked up a storm—chowder, oatcake batter, chicory salad (with caramelized walnuts, bleu cheese and pear)—bent on very little kitchen waste. The stress level is through the roof and I have an uneasy feeling about life in general right now. I feel wholly discarded and not only by the usual suspects. Since having a wider view of the situation, in light of social media and so forth, I have been made aware of a great many folks who fall on the other side of the aisle, which is disheartening to say the least. I watched a fascinating JT Leroy documentary. I made a giant list of things to do while I lay in bed. I am dreading going to Boston on the one hand. I will be focusing my efforts moving forward on making sure I start generating more abundance. This is going to be crucial to my mental health among other things. Anyway I have to write a few pages today.

That is to say, whatever sign you are, you are not locked in to a static, two-dimensional experience of that sign. There is agency involved, and yet just as we can pinpoint a great many static specifics about what it means to be a Virgo man or a Gemini woman, for example, we can also delineate and define such dynamics associated with any given sign by which an individual native of that sign might set and stay upon their own upward spiral toward success, fulfillment and self-actualization. This is exactly what Nextrology is determined to do.

As thoroughly detailed and “eerily accurate” (credit publication) as the book is—a major, unique selling point that has contributed to its success—Sextrology is comprised of twenty-four static snapshots, albeit intricate portraits, of the sex-signs. It answers the question: who am I? from an astrological perspective. Nextrology not only offers that much more insight into the who-am-I?, benefiting from twenty-years more of accumulated empirical knowledge since I wrote that first book, but Nextrology also answers the more burning question: what am I going to do about it? Thus Nextrology bridges into personal development activating our astrological assignations into a primary source of empowerment, offering precise guidance and prescriptions to help each of the individual twenty-four signs optimize their life-experience. Readers of Sextrology sang the book’s praises for seeing more deeply into their personalities, psyches and souls than any other astrology book ever had before—still, hitting the nail on the head for readers meant they were already aware of these things I was hammering home to them. Although the power of validation should never be underrated, I wasn’t really telling them anything about themselves they didn’t already know on some level. What they have never been told before, and what Nextrology is uniquely positioned to do, is where their natural abilities and challenges, their motivations and obstacles, their strengths and weaknesses, and positive and negative patterns stem from and how they can accentuate all the former positives and mitigate any latter negatives.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2022 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Aries 0° (March 21)

Today is an absolute fog. I didn’t sleep very well and woke up feeling rather grim and nervous, reasons for which I cannot put my finger on. And then my morning chat with S. was aborted. She ended up making a doctor’s appointment which is fine. I am just going to binge on television. I really didn’t end up wathing anything good except I did find a new so-so show called Minx. I also ended up watching a bad documentary about the Bad Vegan. There was some news sprinkled in. I tried to watch a few other things but couldn’t. Turned to the news and then the Gilded Age followed by the best of the night, my Brilliant Friend. More chicken chili.

We think of the zodiac as this static circle, a pie with twelve slices, if we think of it at all. It is the height of irony to me is that people take what is a mighty mandala for granted, some people even pooh-poohing it, unaware of the great power—call it cosmic or metaphysical divine or what have you—encoded in this symbolically rich system. People mainly associate it with horoscopes they find hokey or new-age mumbo jumbo, when practically every ancient culture on the planet had its own zodiac—Chinese, Celtic, Egyptian, Hindu, various Native American, and our western one, to name a few—all of which arguably derive from that of the Babylonian zodiac dating back over three millennia. There are also four score plus schools or branches of astrology. As mentioned, I am a humanistic astrologer whose life study has been dedicated to understanding the psychology of individuals born, generally, under the signs (and more specifically, in private practice, in terms of every detail found in a client’s natal chart); and, yet, even through the lens of general sun-sign astrology, I found there is such a wealth of information and inspiration to, well, write whole volumes of books on the subject, which bumps up against metaphysical studies such as in Theosophy, as well as Jungian psychology, in particular.We see the zodiac as this static circle and yet that is just a sort of cross section we can slide under the microscope of our rational minds, when in fact the zodiac is, like so many patterns in nature, a dynamic spiral—imagine a stretched out piece of DNA with twelve main points of interconnection—a living thing, a moving thing, it, too, both the essence of, and a vehicle for, human and, more practicably, personal evolution. 

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2022 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Pisces 29° (March 20)

I will have a bit of a morning after. I will head for a late bite to Bayside Betsy’s which is apparently under new management and have a nice chat with T.J; but I only have a little guacamole and tortilla before heading to Mac’s for a dozen oysters. I am making it an early night. Frankly I’m exhausted. I did give Gene a ring and turns out he wasn’t feeling well which might explain things fairly well. Conversation with Nick and also Joe who mentions that Bayside is being managed by Tracey.

The book was a hit with adults of all ages and proved wrong any foreboding skeptics who warned that younger audiences wouldn’t appreciate or absorb the headier, more academic and archetypal material. Indeed, the twenty-four characters I divined in Sextrology profoundly resonated with younger readers, especially; and next, again under the dual byline, I wrote Cosmic Coupling: The Sextrology of Relationships (Random House 2010), which characterized in chapter form all of the possible gay and straight relationships, three hundred in all. (Sadly, the gay chapters were given only one page each while the straight chapters received two—a sign of the times.) Neither book has ever been out of print and Sextrology, especially, still sells briskly. Since then, but for yearly horoscope ebooks I wrote and published under my own steam, I shied away from undertaking a book project of Sextrology’s magnitude;  and, as a humanistic astrologer, instead focused fully on consulting clients in private practice, which ultimately led me back to writing this proposal for this new book which I see as being even more innovative and groundbreaking than its predecessor: will be unlike any astrology book to ever hit the market for a number of reasons, the main one being that it bridges into personal development, providing the reader an original platform by which to grow not only into their sign but via their sign. My nearly three decades experience working with private clients, and especially over the last fifteen years, provided what became field research in exploring the many nooks and crannies of the various signs and their associative archetypes, myths and symbology to exactly identify and isolate the specific perks and pitfalls to each and every one of the twelve astrological personalities, and to extract the inherent wisdom encoded in the zodiac’s signs to diagnose the slice of basic human condition that each of the signs represents, to help the reader gain fuller understanding of natural abilities and talents (their sign’s superpowers), which so often go ignored, while pointing out their inevitable challenges, character defects and negative patterning, of which we are all often to aware (yet keep repeating) and then to prescribe changes in perspective and behavior that will send them along their desired astrological path. 

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go! Copyright 2022 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.