Aries 7° (March 27)

 

I started getting squirrely yesterday. I was up so early—3:33. By the time nine o’clock rolled around I was already obsessing over social media and I could feel that edgy, old, procrastinative behavior begin to creep in. Happily, today, I will get out of the house and do some shopping after our conference call with the TV folk. Looking forward to all of it, actually. Got a cute card in the mail from a friend, just a heart that read Love More on one side and More Love on the other. I put on one of my favorite records of all time by Brian Eno and David Byrne and just soldiered on, ignoring the old urges to cushion my brain against all that’s happening lest I spend the day needing to be hospitalized for panic—no ER working in the world wants to see someone thinking they’re dying when they have simply given themselves an extreme anxiety attack. None of this is a joke. I have a friend who is a famous cartoonist for a conservative publication and I cringe every day I see his latest offering, which are posted on Instagram. I actually commented on one of them last week and thought, crap, I hope this doesn’t in any way cramp our friendship, which I would never want to happen. Still, I’ve never been one to hold my tongue, virtual or otherwise. And I just don’t think there is any room for levity in any of this. The first thing one learns in comedy school is that diseases aren’t funny…ever. I’ve seen comedians go there and it never works, except with the mean-spirited people of the world. Those who would have filled stadiums to see Andrew Dice Clay back in the late eighties. Enough said. Even the present Andrew Dice Clay, I believe, wouldn’t go to one of the past Andrew Dice Clay’s show. And yet, I see so many of our mutual friends (of mine and my cartoonist friend) posting heart-likes. I do not get it. At all. I know that this friend is rather indebted to the publication where he has been working for the past thirty years, but we are beyond just living in polarized times. We are in a place where the evil rich like those who own things like his newspaper would rather see people die than any slippage to their bottom lines, let alone their yearly bonuses. It’s all dirty money. Everywhere. That is what is being exposed. That and the fact that Mother Nature if fucking pissed. As well she should be. We are killing her indiscriminately so who are we to wonder why she is picking us off in the same manner. The world you get you deserve.

More than wanting to be spared, myself—because let’s face it, I’m not all that young anymore and I don’t have kids nor any real family to speak of and not that many people will be that upset—I just want to live in a world where this sort of thing cannot happen because we are already unified, as a humanity, against common enemies like viruses, natural disasters and hurtling asteroids (because you know that’s next). I will wake up today feeling a bit worse for wear but will steel myself and go shopping once again. This time I don’t believe I need to go out again for the next two weeks. I feel iffy but I’m ignoring it. We have a big meeting today for the TV project and it turns out we are quite sympatico with the show writer which is very good news indeed. She has a queer bent and that is right up my so-called alley. I continue to reach out to friends. S. is in constant touch with J and N. I don’t know what to do about my feelings regarding P. and her unabashed needs. The posturing is beginning to wear on me but I’m sure I’ll get over it. The good thing about having self-absorbed friends is that there is no worry of their reading your Blague. And hopefully they will get over themselves in due time. I was surprised that some of the nutsy boltsy stuff needed immediate attention but that’s fine. Not much has really been done up until this point so I’m not terribly worried about the outcome. Would be great if this came to fruition and I for one want to do everything in my power to insure that it does. I have made some good strides today so I’m not going to worry about the rest of it. Tomorrow is another day and I plan on ruling the school so long as I am well enough to do so.

 

The following blocks of texs are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 36-40.  I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

 

Looking at my schedule today, it is the day that I must begin contracting all the seventeen artists I have slated to perform this year’s Afterglow Festival in Provincetown. And I must also reach out to sponsors and donors to fund this yearly project. I’ve been trying to build other bridges with other venues, as well, to produce the great artists with whom I’ve the privilege to work, but it has been a total slog. Not returning emails. How do people get away with this? It’s part of a larger question which is: why do people who operate so shoddily in the world, with no regard to formality or the social fabric, succeed at all? We seem all to often to reward those who are self-serving, ineffective and second-rate; while individuals of quality and character have to spend their time bumping up against these, let us call them, void-ers. I’ve resolved, at various times in my career (which has entailed the wearing of many hats) to be more cutthroat and other c-words, but I only ever end up being compassionate, even for these void-ers, which partly pisses me off, but, for which, I am largely grateful. I’m not after that pot of gold after all. I’m interested in experience. But, man oh man, you would not believe the people who have reached out to contact us this year, friends at ad agencies that want to help us spread our word, even so-called good friends with production studios and branding companies wanting to help realize our vision. And then (what is it like to live in these people’s heads) they completely disappear. You called us, remember? This is not true connection. This isn’t building a cantilever bridge. This is the opposite. Honestly I think some people must wake and bake and think they’re having an epiphany about us and what we’re doing and gain the momentary bravado to phone and promise the moon. But again, it’s just fairy favors. That pot of gold.

The only way you build a bridge together, whether professionally or personally, is to start building it. Before we ever charged clients or even called what we did a consultancy we offered our services up for free. We don’t get paid to do the Afterglow Festival, we just do it to fill a void and prevent a further chasm in Provincetown’s birthright as the birthplace of the modern American stage. I do this by holding out my beggar’s bowl and asking those whom I believe have a stake in Provincetown’s stage heritage remaining intact to give what they can, whether it be ten dollars or ten thousand. I can ask for money because it goes solely toward building that cantilever bridge. It has nothing to do with me personally, but for the pleasure and satisfaction I derive from pulling this project off each year. As it’s become increasingly successful, mercenary minds want something from it. Those who gave to us now see us as a way for them to profit and it makes me queasy. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve taken the gloves off this week with the blog. I’m on a bit of a Norma Rae soap box; but I am a Libra after all, and any form of injustice makes me break out in a rash of righteous swords.

Today’s symbol really is about making one’s individual life better by recognizing a chasm that needs to be bridged and working with others toward doing just that. Certain things cannot be done on our own. And those of us who recognize where there is lack or have understood deprivation in any sense of the word (like that widow yesterday) are more equipped than others to make some positive changes, buidling bridges in this world. This gives the individual life substance and purpose. I’ve quoted her before but as Uta Hagen would say: Obstacles only make your objectives stronger. So if the hotel that usually gives our artists discount rooms during the Afterglow Festival suddenly wants to profit on us this might inspire me to reach out to a bunch of hotels and inns and ask them to house our artists individually, and gratis to boot. It’s way more work for me, but it’s good work. As I write this I realize that Greed is one of the biggest voids that exists in this world. Look at the polarization of the haves and have nots. The gulf between them has become vast because the greedy find a way to buy politicians and otherwise find loopholes around paying taxes while raising prices on everything their corporations manufacture, including food that makes people sick so that they have to spend their hard earned money on drugs created to cure illnesses these same corporations, in effect, created. I wish this was exaggeration but it isn’t.

It is indeed more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; which is why I’m most in awe of my richest friends who spend their money in truly philanthropic ways. There are those who have given to my non-profit since year one whom I know strive to give as much as they can. Wealth and fame do not make people happy, that is a fact. And there is something about the making of a lot of money that corrupts people and causes them to horde it. I think this can happen to most folks. So I find it so rare and refreshing when I encounter those of means who give so much without thought to it just being a good write off or buying some kind of recognition. One of our most faithful patrons insists on being anonymous and is truly caring. And there of course is Ms. Rowling who singlehandedly pays for the entire operation of her Lumos foundation, so that if I person makes a donation to it, that whole amount goes toward the cause, never toward expenses. People of means do have a great power to do good in this world and so few of them do, ironically. It’s so inspiring when they dedicate their life to building bridges over gaping voids they see in our human society. I know many rich people give money to causes, but so few care about them.

Okay hopping off my soapbox. What I am realizing from this oracle is that I can’t do something that can be metaphorically expressed as bridge-building alone. True progress is a collective endeavor and must include the ideas and skills of more than one person. A cantilever bridge is only fixed at one end. That is to say we don’t know where the other end might lead; we must be flexible in regard to where our efforts might “land.” This is why those hit and run contacts from people pretending (to themselves) that they want to “help” doesn’t work—because the fact is they are leading with their agenda, they know exactly where they want the so-called collaborative effort to land: in their own pocket books or with an individual feather in their cap. This is why they cannot follow through. Because they were never prepared to devote to the process of filling a void, that was a pretense for their own reward. So, if you’re one of those people who reach out to others under the guise of collectively wanting to make some corner of the world a better place, when really you are only fishing for projects via which you might profit, you should take this oracle to heart today. Because you not only don’t gain a foothold with that future aim, you lose any ground you’ve gained in the relationship you sought to parlay into your half-wake-and-baked vision.

————————

Surrounded as I am by golden calves who are endlessly being worshipped, invited, raised high, painted, photographed, and otherwise blown, many of whom worship, invite, name drop, paint, photograph, us-y and otherwise rim all the other golden calves in one big gilt bovine cluster fuck, year after year, amassing a deep well of mutual, group ancestral sychophancy, I (have decided to) emerge as an avatar of a new order. Yep, that’s right folks, I’m busting out as the new messiah and I’m really only most interested in revealing my truth, disclosing my true nature, to other people like myself who don’t give a shit about where everyone is going, what they’re wearing, whom their with and how many shows of validation they are receiving on Facebook for whatever gumball of an opinion or a snark remark has fallen from their overindulged, egocentric noggins. While most fatuous folks we know are lost in their orgy of pseudofame and delusions of power and influence, pretending to some pedigree and treating everyone like they’re some lucky servant whose role it is to dote on them, I’ll be at the well, if not the bar, hanging with a new tribe of goils who are not above fetching their own refreshment, thank you very much.

Like both the Samarian doll and my main man JC, I tend not to fit in with the prevailing tribe. Once upon a time, that might have bothered me; but now I’m so effing grateful. There really isn’t much in it, spiritually that is. Sure, you might have some fragile sense of belonging, but it takes up a lot of time and energy, all that worshiping and being worshipped. It’s truly dullsville. While being on the fringe has a sharpening effect on your psyche, such that one day you can wake up and enjoy the revelation and declaration that you are in fact gods’ gift to humanity, but you were just too humble all this time to go around advertising the fact. Except when you meet someone who is as unimpressed as you are by the heirarchies of worship in your midst, and all the middle men, so many middle men. And so many yes men. Meh, who needs it. Not me. I have nobody to impress. Who has time? What with all the money lenders needing ridding from the temples and all those in pain in need of healing, seriously I’m lucky I have time to stop and share three simple words with my lady pal over a ladle of some cool fresh H20.

————————

 In the 1973 season the character of Georgina is introduced, shades of Sybil for you “Downright Abject” fans. Georgina is played by the lovely Lesley-Anne Down and during the Great War she is swept up by compassion and becomes a Red Cross nurse, despite the fact that she comes from Upstairs. For, really, it’s far more difficult for the Upstairs set to leave their drawing-room fear-based lives of losing what they have than it is for those who’ve nothing material to squander and whose lives are already all about service. But off Georgina goes even though she is the most celebrated bright young thing of her generation, the century-old version of a dreaded Kardashian only with an I.Q. and taste. I think of the people I know sometimes and ask myself are they Up or Down. Those who were Up in modern America are often so because they were born into Down circumstances. Many of those who are Down are vehemently so, having contempt for anything Up. I think of our summer place Provincetown where the great culture war is increasingly being played out. I like to think of myself as somewhere on the staircase employing my wit. I am an equal opportunity shade magnet. The Downs can find me uppity and suspect I have some kind of trust fund. Wrong. I’m a quasi-well-traveled autodidact whose busted my ass so to work for myself. The Ups seem to worry about me and tend not to visit but rather invite me, considering their surroundings so much nicer. Meanwhile the smokey tattooed former set is typically Bennington educated and more well-heeled and cared for by parents affording their stylish love of poverty, whilst the lockjaw latter crowd with their chihuahua accessories and editorial mudrooms were my busboy a New York minute ago and have zero references beyond Lulu Guinness and “Glee”.

But let’s get metaphysical. Cancer, the sole cardinal-water sign, is associated with The Flood; just as Gemini, mutable-air is associated, in its shadow aspect, with overthinking, duality, consciousness of opposites that characterizes The Fall. In Gemini, we are subject to dualistic thinking—its ruler Mercury is named for the god of tricksters, liars, merchants, jugglers, thieves, basically a whole bunch of carnies—and so we see how yesterday’s symbol might leave one torn. Do we stay cozied up against the harsh outside world in our glittering world of gifts, or do we go beyond our immediate surrounds to help wash others’ cares away. In the Greek flood myth, it is the goddess Themis who saves humanity after the destruction of Zeus. She is the mother source of repair. And we take on her mantle, as did UpDown’s Georgina, when we leave the comfy world of personal attachemnt with its trumped up petty dramas, and selflessly and impersonally participate in the care of all. We become the light to the hurt and despondent and the reparation of humanity.

I do things for social and creative causes; but I have never expressed volunteerism on this most consecrated of levels. Seemingly, neither has anyone famous born on this day. So much for that theory being born out. Seriously, go look at a list of famous people born this Taurus day. There are some lovely people, but mainly its those who’ve cultivated a specific talent with nary a saint or nurse or would-be savior among them. Oh well. And anyway, for the occultists in my midst, the Red Cross mightn’t be all it’s cracked up to be. And there have been more than just conspiracy theory crackpots (who me?) who have drawn the connection between the Red Cross and the Rosy Cross or Rosicrucians, many of whom have a very sinister take on the organization, from its very origins, especially when it comes to things like blood-banking. My arms go weak just typing that. Ugh. Anyway, everything has it’s shadow side and so I offer up this wild and crazy  read by Dr. Len Horovitz which might put a spooky and cynical spin on Upstairs’ Georgina’s role in those field hospitals. “She done already done had herses.”

 

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree pointof the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. 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 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

 

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox