Gemini 22° (June 11)

 

Made various attempts yesterday to find some herbs to plant but didn’t have much luck I’m afraid. Still I did trug a bit and prepare area for some nice plantings, so we will hopefully experience some good results. More deliveries, more weird sensations. Dinner was a lovely roasted pepper soup, halibut and snap peas and then we watched the James Baldwin doc. Thankfully, in the course of the Blague writing leading up to this time next year, I don’t have to provide more of an intro than I just now have.

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 396-400 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:

 

The was originally posted April 16, 2016:

Some days you wake up and feel like getting back to basics. It’s a feeling that befits the sign of Aries I believe. Yes the world has changed, and not only for the better; and when you’re 21 and it’s the 1980s and having $2K in the bank feels like more than enough to live on, buy clothes, eat out and party like 1999 feels a long way away, ones being, starting with ones physical body feels very much at ease. I carried a hard agnès b. briefcase, bought a straw hat in Bologna, wrote in a travel diary, social smoked Stuveysant Bleus and didn’t expect, nor want, the world to change much from the F. Scott Fitzgerald vision I had for it. Computers were ugly, beige, with blippy green lighted letters on a darker green screen. And then came the permutations. The epidemic. The oversized neon t-shirts. The pleas to Be Happy. Some pretense of be New York Fashion. The windows on 42nd Street turned into galleries for a brief moment before Disneyfication. The closings. The cupcakes. The gaggles of SATC foursomes. Hotels. Smartphones. Worship culture. Comparison equaling spiritual death for all but those who had spent a lifetime already amassing worship for copying and pasting and grafting and cloning. Thinking ahead to the next wave to ride: Transportation. Hypocrisy—bemoaning mainstream culture and its refusal to accept you at the same time. Wanting everything you blame others for having. The pooh-poohing of people who don’t dress like Sean Young in Blade Runner. The sinister need for clicks. The inability to sit and talk anymore over dinner. The sobering up; the slipping into alcoholism. The throwing under the bus. The pleading for more. Knowing when enough is enough. Waking up, grateful, you don’t have too much. That all eyes aren’t on you. That authenticity, autonomy, anonymity is still possible. Choosing to go back to live under the radar. To reread the Upanishads, Vedas, Bible, Gita, Yogananda, Shakti Gawain. Needing nobody to know—anything—about what you’re doing. Taking a permanent break. Forgiving those who trespassed as you eat GF only most of the time. The cooking, the cleaning, the carrying, the chopping. The shopping for the t-shirts and underwear you really need. The bicycle, no watch, phones off, riding into the sunrise.

This was originally posted April 17, 2016

I woke up to this very vivid dream that I couldn’t much figure out. Stella and I were outside some fancy club late night. It felt like being in Portland Square in London and also uptown around Studio 54. It was like we were waiting to hail a cab but were in no rush. It was a warm night with a perfect breeze. We kept hearing voices of people behind us exiting the club. Stella asked, “is that Tony’s voice?” And I said “no”, dreamembering that “Tony Randall’s dead.” To which she replied “he is?” “Yes.”

Then suddenly near the curb where we were standing poured a couple, post club, arranging their clothes, he was refitting his white sports jacket to his frame. They were both very tanned; and I realized it was Sean Penn with a small round faced “date” who had thin blond hair piled on top and minimal make up and very down to earth looking like Kaley Cuoco. Stella sort of stage whispered to me who she was and how she came to be with Sean Penn, but apparently too loudly; because the date confronted us. “Yeah that’s right….that’s who I am and that’s how we met” confirming anything that Stella would have heard in the gossip columns or what not was true.

We apologized profusely and assured the twosome that we weren’t in for that sort of thing; that we weren’t mongers and didn’t care and we apologized for commenting on them too loudly. They immediately disarmed and the date connected with Stella, now apologizing to her for overreacting; at the same time Sean was now shaking my hand, which he would do periodically through out the dream, each time trying to get the grip more precise and make it more heart-felt it seemed. Anyway we were soon the best of friends and decided to go back into the club which was super snazzy and of the supper variety I now realized and we were ushered through to an outside space with tables and metal patio furniture and we sat at a table meant for about eight people, which was fine, because folks, other famous or at least fame-ish people kept popping by and plopping themselves down. Sean and I were locked in conversation as was Stella and the date who said she didn’t much feel like drinking but she wanted to smoke dope. Cue dream reality: Suddenly I’m like I have this bag of the best green and she grabs it and fills herself a bowl and smokes it as Sean grabs some weed to and is rolling a joint in what seems like nori, you know, for making sushi.

He explains that he lives up north with a nod. And I’m like where? The Hudson Valley. “Nah,” he replies. So I’m like…Woodstock? And he’s like “Nah.” And he makes a more precise movement of his head in what would be a diagonal across the Hudson River and I guess, “Where? Pompton Lakes?” and he says yes near there. So he passes me the nori joing which is as thick as a Cuban cigar and suddenly a waiter, a very professional crisply uniformed Asian waiter—all the staff are wearing dark green trousers with white shirts and sort of striped dark green, black and white vests and black bowties—and I’m thinking I have to hide the joint under the table while the waiter puts a huge bucket filled with two or three bottles of champagne on the table but sure he smells it but he doesn’t much seem to care; at least he doesn’t care on behalf of the establishment but I get the distinct sense he doesn’t much like the smell himself or the practice of smoking weed in general.

I explain to Sean that I come from that part of New Jersey and he says how much he likes it. And his date politely asks if I mind if she takes more weed because she really loves it and wants to fill another huge bowl which she does with the weed pouring over the top of her pipe and Stella, of course (even in dreams) isn’t smoking the pot but I suspect I should open the champagne, not just for her, but for those of us who are surely on the brink of having very dry mouths. And I want to say to Sean that I know Robin Wright (I don’t really, I’ve only sort of met her) which I do in the dreamreality, but I decide I better not drop her name just in case it triggers some emotional reaction because I am on tinderhooks knowing he’s got quite the temper. But right now he seems to be my best buddy and he’s kicking back with his black shirt open exposing his very bronzed smooth chest and I think he either blends the bronzer really well because there is no glitch between his face and his neck and he’s a bit glistening with sweat but still has on his white sportscoat. While across the table the date looks very comfortable and happy and as if the temperature is just perfect for her though she’s wearing a sort of think silk jumpsuit with some kind of jungle pattern, batik or bamboo or zebra printed but in a pale giraffe color scheme, and I don’t realize (until now) that this might be significant.

I’m awash with the feeling that I’m enjoying one of those rare moments in life where relating with a fellow, a decidedly straight, guy doesn’t feel like a lot of posturing and posing and heterosexual-male performance art of clipped speech and sideways relating out into space with zero eye contact. It instead feels—and I am aware how rare a feeling in the dream—like the easy kinds of male-to-male bonds guys enjoy nearly totally more readily as a boy or young man before the trappings of the world set in and separate us only to reunite us in approved settings such as golf courses and at dinner parties where we slip away to some billiards room. I feel at home with this guy. At home with him as I did with my dearest, and some dearly departed, friends I knew from childhood into my twenties, the ones who knew me like brothers or cousins would, and who would laugh at my comments or actions with a loving eye roll that would say “Oh man, that is so you,” preempting the end of a story with an expression that says “Oh man, I know where this is going.

And I’m happily aware that the date and Stella are likewise bonding and laughing and exchanging knowing expressions of soul-sisterhood and the dream goes on and on like that and i can feel the metal chair against my back and ass and have to keep shifting because it’s hurting my lower spine and I can hear the scrapes the chairs are making on the slate patio from all the tables and it’s a dark night with no moon, a new-moon night so we are relying on what are outdoor chandeliers—are they hanging from trees—and I’m so blissed out and so comfortable and so relaxed and so at ease and so pampered and still young and I’m not stoned or drunk but I’m a little bit of both, so everything is heightened, Sean’s orange tan against black shirt and white jacket, the black wrought orion mesh table with the dark green padded leather ice bucket with bottle green bottles and the waiters in their dark green and black and white. Green, black and white and crystal light from dull gold chandeliers and it’s London, New York and I have a beautiful wife and I’m looking and feeling my best and I have a new best cousin friend who is famous but I’m unaffected by that as the standout quality of the burgeoning bond is our seamless like-mindedness and I feel for the first time in a long time or ever that I’m not floating or waiting or hoping or expecting or biding or negotiating or debating or hedging or trying or watching myself in any way shape or form. I am. I have. And the night is going to last forever. It already has.

I awoke from this dream, for the day. And was happy. My whole body self was suffused with a blissful feeling of elan and acceptance. I was still (and still am) wrapped in the dark emerald green of the world which, I neglected to say, was appointed with lush greenery—trees and shrubs and ferns and bushes shaping and dotting the private patio—and also perfumed with various notes of wisteria and bearded iris and eucalyptus and other fragrant flowers, not to mention the primo weed; and it dawned on me, increasingly throughout the day, that this private gardened emerald city-club, lush and heady, luxe and overflowing with finest champagne, was a Taurus landscape wherein no self-consciousness could reside. That I had entered into my own version or vision of Eden which apparently includes a negligent chic form of formal seating and service. I scratched my head. So my ideal best friend is Sean Penn? And now I realize that Sean Penn reminds me of my first cousin Gary, some six years my senior, whom I never knew very well; but he has/had that same blotching irish, orange, bronze, loose leathering neck and upper chest as Sean Penn and, moreover, a surpassingly tough-guy persona—both my Irish mother and her sister married Italians and my uncle Gus (Cosmo) was not only my godfather he was, by all accounts, a godfather. He spoke, as his kids tended to, and certainly Gary did, with what we used to call a “dees, does and dem-y” accent. If you don’t know what that is too bad, I don’t feel like working that hard.

I could mine this dream forever; and I probabably will in my own time, but I’ll stop wasting yours here with my realizations. The only one you need really take in is the Taurus landscape of ease and acceptance with no second-guessing of any sort. I did ask Stella what she thought of the dream as we made coffee this morning; before she could answer I said, “you know, isn’t it ironic: because back in the eighties and nineties Madonna would factor into my dreams a lot in a similar manner where we were fast friends, no questions asked, seamlessly connected; and I always too those dreams a signal of ensuing or desired or some form of success, fame and acceptance on some world stage.” To which Stella replied, in a gossipy, on the q-t tone that, well, didn’t I know that supposedly Sean and Madonna are back together, that they’ve been seen together, and are probably dating. And I thought how weird. I mean, maybe the blond in the dream was some sort of reborn and decidedly rejuvenated Madonna who has finally “got it” and no longer needs all the flash to feel good about herself because she got what she wanted, what all the desperate need for attention was actually a subsitute for, the love of Sean Penn. That might be true. And despite the fact that, in life, the two of them are probably totally bonkers and are perfect for slash will end up killing each other, the Sean of my dream and his confident and friendly and unapologetic date were just the kind of good-time Sal and Sally that suited that Taurus environment. But then again, she was wearing something jungle print and Madonna, like Sean, with his big bad tawny-orange skin, is a Leo. And real-life Sean and Madge, should they be reunited, would spend a good decade being the King and Queen of this crazy global jungle in which we live; and like dream Sean, real Sean would surely prefer to hang out and buddy with me in the private garden patio of our favorite exclusive London, New York supper club than be barraged by paparazzi a string of whose lights, like those draped through the trees of my emerald dream, he would spend that decade, undoubtedly, punching out.

This was originally posted April 19 2016:

Stella and I are, for the most part humanistic astrologers, and there are about 80 documentable forms of astrology. We practice, we have a private practice whereby clients come to see us. That is our day job. And, as humanistic astrologers we treat the whole person, pointing out their patterns, their pitfalls and their superpowers as outlined by their natal charts. And we look at other charts to. Each individual’s chart is unique, and the way the planets in the various signs and houses operate and interact with each other is unique. Even identical twins with nearly the same chart will express vast difference based on the nuances and the polarizations they embody with each signature in their charts. The Sun is just one planet, we just all know in what sign the Sun lies in our charts, because it’s our Sun sign, determined by time of year. But we all have all the planets somewhere in our charts which are made up of the entire wheel of the Zodiac. We all have all the signs and astrological signs and houses in us. We are all made up of these twelve slices like a pie. People are pies.

But let’s get back to just our Sun signs for a second. When we write our books on astrology, Sextrology being our major work to date, we are dealing with Sun sign astrology which, though general, allowed for far more specificity than had ever been explored or recorded on the subject. For starters, Stella and I had always maintained that men and women of the same sign were actually different signs or sub signs—that they draw on different archetypes. This was something we bonded over when we first met. We both had astrologers and metaphysicians in our families, so when we met at nineteen, yes we met at nineteen, astrology was something we shared and it became first an ongoing conversation than a shared profession. And so we set about looking deeper into these gender signs, male and female, twenty-four instead of twelve, and that became the main thrust of Sextrology, sex as in gender, first and foremost, sexuality being a close and important second. And of course the archetypes further break down according to gay and straight and bi and trans, and the Zodiac, that pictograph of images inextricably linked to the profound richness and multiplicity of myth, led the way. The more we meditated on that mandala, the more it revealed and it continues to do so, and shall, we imagine, long after we’re gone, by others who would take up that baton.

Carl Jung of course was big into archetype and astrology and we are of course fascinated by the esoteric, not so much the occult, per se, that’s probably more the domain of other colleagues of ours. There is a school of astrology called Esoteric Astrology, one of those 80 brands, and it makes its way into our work. Whereas humanistic astrology treats the person here and now, in time and space; esoteric astrology treats the soul, on its journey, through many lifetimes; reincarnation being more accepted a phenomena than not on this planet. Even Joseph Campbell, the great scholar of myth and comparative religion who always reminded me of Snagglepuss, he had plans to tackle the subject of astrology, next, and then unfortunately, he died. Surely he would have legitimized the subject in a way others haven’t been able to do. We try of course. Okay so back to Sun sign astrology: The Sun placement in our charts really is of prime importance. So, although Sun sign astrology is general in the sense that a twelfth of the population, or thereabouts is born under your sign, it doesn’t take away from the fact that the Sun placement in your chart is most concerned with identity and, we say, the hero you’re becoming. Campbell’s famous book was called Hero With A Thousand Faces; well we know from astrology that there are at least twenty four main ones; and actually as man faces as there are or ever have been people alive in the history of life. But that’s a bit heady. The point our own Sun sign determines our primary archetype, the main cosmic energy that we embody. What is an archetype? It is most often an personification of an energy. That’s what the classic gods and goddesses, of which there are thousands, and all the saints and devis and angels and devils in all the world’s religions and spiritual systems really are. Personifications of energy. And guess what so are we. So are we. We are living-breathing representations of the universal cosmic energy, channeled through the Kaleidoscope lens of our own solar system, from our geo-centric, that is to say Earth-centric perspective right down to the country, the city, the town, the hospital, the bed, or back of the taxi, in which we were born. We are the end result of the stars projects down onto the planet in a spark of life. Not to mention the fact that we are physically made up of the exact same stuff as are those infinite stars. We literally are made of star-stuff. We are star dust. And we are golden. And, today, especially, we are going to get back to the garden—that Edenic metaphorical landscape which the sign of Taurus expresses.

This was originally posted April 21, 2016:

Beyond our individual work as humanistic astrologers and even the more generally specific Sun sign astrology, we are gathered here together understand and benefit from what we call Natural Cosmic astrology, that is to say what the Sun in each sign means for us during the 12 months of the year, each cycle of the Moon, which is where the word month—moonth—comes from, one moonth, corresponding to the Suns journey through each of the 12 signs and their natural houses of the zodiac. Funny and beautifully cosmic that our two luminaries, the Sun and Moon, seem to illustrate the same cosmic reality based on that most divine of numbers 12. It’s so much a no-brainer that we don’t even think about the fact that our own journey around the Sun takes twelve cycles of our moon; perhaps 12 is the key, the formula for life itself. Maybe other planets orbiting other stars have life too if that simple mathematically equation is in place. It just might be that simple. The zodiac is lousy with simple realizations like that which we take for granted. And, like the golden mean, the Zodiac with it’s 12 iterations, seems applicable to all aspects of existence. Not just the twelve months in a year, but the twelve hours on a clock, an individual hour made up of sixty minutes, a derivative of twelve, sixty seconds in a minute, not a mathematical system of 10, but a cosmic system of 12. The zodiac’s twelve signs and houses can apply to the individual span of a life, each house ruling a spate of 7 years, suggesting we should all live to an approximate age of 94, give or take; whilst it also expresses the span of all of existence, expressed in myth and biblical legend and through comparative religion, the world over. Let’s look at it through a biblical lens: Aries, cardinal-fire is the big bang, Genesis, creation; Taurus fixed-earth is the garden, Eden; Gemini mutable-air, is conscious, duality as characterizes the Fall, Cancer, cardinal-water is the Flood to wash it all away; Leo, fixed-fire, is the book of Kings and the Age of Miracles; Virgo, mutable-earth, is the human conscience, humility, Chronicles and Job; Libra, cardinal-air, the poetic Psalms; Scorpio, the meaningful Proverbs; Sagittarius, the philosophical Ecclesiastes, Capricorn, Prophets, Aquarius, the New Testament leading to Revelation of eternal life of damnation, the opposite-facing fish of Pisces with its new golden age of Peace, thirteen being the number of new order. There are only 12 thrones in Olympus just as there were 12 Titan thrones before that; and when Dionysus, the new-order god shows up at Olympus, one of the gods, Hestia, relinquishes her seat, and go sits and tends the hearth fire in the center, like the Sun through the twelve houses. Likewise, in the book of Revelation, the “Woman”, clothed by the Sun, with the Moon at her feet, has twelve stars circling her head. Also in the book of Revelation, the wall of the City has twelve foundations (one for each apostle).

There are twelve apostles; and even the original roundtable of Arthurian legend, that of his father Uther Pendragon, had twelve seats, with an additional left blank for Judas. There had to be twelve apostles, too, as Matthias replaced Judas, one of the original twelve..There are twelve tribes of Israel. Twelve sons of Jacob. Twelve stations of the cross. Twelve days of Christmas, ending with the feast of Epiphany, the new-order adoration by the Magi, the first to “recognize” Jesus as the new messiah. Twelve is a higher vibration of three, the trinity, taken to the four corners of the earth; and it numerologically reduces to 3 (1+2).

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of 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!
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