Capricorn 25° (January 15)
Today I will do a major dump run and much in the way of cooking including egg drop soup. This evening we will chat with Monique and Mark. Flounder and fingerlings and brussel sprouts for diner.
The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of Blagues, nos. 1446-1450. I am reading through all of my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, by the time I get to my seventh, I will have journeyed through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize. Year seven, I’ll only have to read through year six, once a day.
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
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.
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.
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.
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 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! Copyright 2020 Wheel Atelier Inc. All Rights Reserved. Get your HAUTE ASTROLOGY 2020 Weekly Horoscope ebooks by Starsky + Cox.
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