Libra 21° (October 13)

“If have lost confidence in myself I have the world against me,” is an apt Ralph Waldo Emerson for the day. Slept fairly well and hit the ground running readying for a meeting with the Mandabach crew which they cancelled last minute which is annoying but whatever. We have that much clearer an idea of our position on the subject and we will surely. Alan Poul’s people wrote today so I took the opportunity to reach out to him and say hi. His show is called The Eddy and Jack Thorne is involved as well. Needless to say the work at hand is the book and I really want to feel the magic on that score. I feel that I have the chance to make some magic starting today. I have the hearings of Amy Coney Barrett on I the background. Looking at her it truly is hard to imagine she is evil and yet she probably is, otherwise she would not be Drumpf’s nominee. With Kavanaugh, his debts were miraculously paid off. I wonder what they have on this nominee, it will be something, or else she wouldn’t be here. After lunch today I will have to write five pages. The house is already cold and I’m under covers writing this right now. The evil fuckface has written an abusive response, no surprise there. We have arranged to speak with our lawyer and we will have him run defense because I cannot be on the front lines with this anymore. And we will let him do the work for us. I would rather he have the extra money than this horrible farmer. I shouldn’t have to pay anything at all, but I will be going after the other case which was clearly a negligence case. I have the opportunity to let this experience motivate me forward and that is exactly what I need to do; and in the process but professionals in place to protect us. I will have to be very confident and let this motivate me in as positive a manner as possible.

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 981-985. 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.


Virgo with a V: In our book Sextrology the she-Virgo chapter begins “And God created woman.” Drawing on her mutable-earthy Pandora archetype, Virgo woman seems designed to the specifications of someone seeking a lady stacked with feminine assets. In mythology, the cuckolded potter-god Hephaestus/Vulcan (married to Aphrodite/Venus who was getting busy with Ares/Mars while carrying a torch for Adonis) bakes up his own little sex-dolly out of clay, Pandora, with her infamous box. (It was actually a jar, a vessel). And we titled the Virgo woman chapter The Vessel because, like the sign’s Virgin holding that sheaf of grain, intent on separating the wheat (virtue) from chaff (vice), Pandora’s jar was filled with an equal mix of the same stuff. From a patriarchal standpoint, and a misogynist one, woman has been viewed as both a source of pleasure to be penetrated and one of the worlds ills. Mary Magdalene is sinner and saint. She too is the vessel. Especially if one thinks on her as the literal wife of Jesus and potential mother to his children. Blasphemy. She was a sacred harlot, like the Vestal virgins, sex and spirituality going hand in hand (or something in something) as it should. And so, without getting too into it, the Virgo woman personifies the feminine as such: An undulating object of lust who could be ones undoing. The Virgo motto is “I serve” which is misread as submissive or subservient (she can be if it serves her). But like any good master-slave inversion, one typically finds oneself so dependent on the Virgo woman, whether for her love, devotion or mad skills in the sack, that she typically ends up holding all the power. Makes you rethink the image of the Virgin clutching that phallic sheaf in her tight, tender grip. And, blow me down, just look at these brick houses. Claudia Schiffer, Raquel Welch, Naomie Harris, Jaqueline Bisset, Pink, Beyoncé Knowles, Sophia Loren, Salma Hayek, Whitney Cummings, Joey Heatherton, Jennifer Hudson, Ingrid Bergman, Lauren Bacall, Yvonne DeCarlo, Padma Lakshmi, Peggy Lipton, Rachel Ward, Jennifer Tilly, Foxy Brown, Rebecca DeMornay, Jennifer Coolidge, Tuesday Weld, Shannon Elizabeth, Lea Michele, Cameron Diaz, Barbara Bach, Cassandra Peterson, Valerie Perrine, Fay Wray, Frances Farmer, Alotta Fagina (We imagine).

The virgin of Virgo is Kore, the maiden form of Earth mother-goddess Demeter, from whose name the word core is derived, a nod to the planet’s molten, shifting center, its fiery furnace. While Virgo man draws on the archetype of Hephaestus, god of that sizzling forge, Virgo woman personifies, yes, his little dolly, Pandora, meaning “all given”, whom the god gave the best features of all the goddesses, baking her out of clay in his divine kiln—Virgo is the mutable-earth sign, highlighting tangible change. But Demeter herself was also called Pandora, here meaning “all giver.” Virgo woman acts as caretaker, little sister, especially to objects of her desire, playing den mother, a Wendy, to any number of lost, Peter Pan-complexed boys or domineering Peppermint Patties. She leans, learns and models herself on significant others, having her fun, and ultimately forging her own future. On the shadow side, she borrows too directly from others, appropriating their moves to the point of inappropriateness. She tends to secure a mature mate who’ll cherish her and to whose power and protection she is drawn, and from whom she pulls strength to grow and develop her own unique talents, skills and character, which she often then focuses on helping others in turn. Enter Peggy Guggenheim, Mary Shelley, Kitty Carlisle, Agatha Christie, Mother Theresa, Mother Seton, Cass Eliot, Margaret Sanger, Sylvia Fine, Geraldine Ferraro, Nan Goldin, Salma Hayek, Emmy Rossum, Melissa McCarthy, Amy Poehler, Blake Lively, Rosie Perez, Queen Noor, Queen Rania, Sonia Sanchez, Paula Jones, Ségolène Royal, Lea Michele, Joan Jett, Chrissie Hynde, Fionna Apple, Pink.

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If you’re a reader of our work, you’ve no doubt heard us make mention that Apollo, god of light, is the main male Libra archetype. The Scales is the only inanimate symbol in the zodiac and the sole cardinal-air sign, which translates to light. Apollo isn’t the warmest, fuzziest god—though he tries to be. The thing is, he rules the etheric realm, that of abstracts and intangibles—order, music, poetry, prophecy, oracles, oration, reason, truth, all things which characterize the uplifting of conscious minds and spirits. Gnostic Lucifer, meaning “light bringer”, often conflated with the devil, Satan, was cast out of heaven because he sought to bring said enlightenment to man. Just as Apollo, who tried to overthrow Zeus, was, for a time, cast from Olympus. Likewise, Luke Skywalker with his light saber is cast down by his father who is ultimately raised high by him. (Apollo has a twin sister, Artemis, so does Luke have Leia—Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher are, incidentally, both Libras. Artemis, whom Homer calls “a lioness amongst women”, archetypally rules the female sign of Leo, not Libra—but that’s another story.) No lion of a god, Apollo’s prime animal totem is the wolf, related, no surprise, to his rule of light. A wolf sees in the dark, his vision actually illuminates. And there is an etymological link here: He is Apollo Lyceus and Apollo Lycegenes, respectively, from the Greek, Lukeios (light) and Lukegenes (wolf-born). Some wolfy looking Libra guys, often with signature Siberian husky eyes are Wolverines Hugh Jackman and Liev Shreiber, Matt Damon, Sting, Viggo Mortensen, Will Smith, Seann William Scott, Guy Pearce, Zac Efron, Josh Hutcherson, Matt Bomer, Ryan Reynolds, Christopher Waltz, Charlton Heston, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jim Caviezel, Stephen Moyer, Ben Whishaw, Dan Stevens, Luke Perry, Steve Coogan, Tate Donovan, Eric Stoltz, Jeremy Davies and Peter Coyote, but of course.

The Scales, being the only inanimate sign, Libra men, personifying that abstract cosmic Libra energy, create characters for themselves, often changing their names: Sting, Meatloaf, Eminem, Usher, Le Corbusier, e.e. cummings, Flea et al. Another symptom of this inanimate assignation is: Libra man not seeming “real” to other people, which is compounded by the fact that Libra is a renaissance man, like his archetypal Apollo, who can read as a dilettante. Ruled by Venus on the astral plane (it rules Taurus on the earth plane), Libra experiences Venus’s pleasure principles of beauty, love and grace not as physical but as ideological attributes. It’s seventh-house mottos are: “I balance” and “We are”, which both point to that house’s rule of relationships, especially a karmic one, between individuals. Little wonder that the sign of the Scales—Justice for all—is one that espouses beautiful ideas of democracy, equality, as well as aesthetics and certain enlightenment. Old Father Saturn is exalted in Libra; and, indeed, over time, Libra man’s tendency to seem all over the place, with hands in many pots, coalesces into a number of solid talents, typically, in creative pursuits as well as socially active ones. And one added thing: The original meaning of the word oaf, deriving from pagan Nordic belief, is that of an imposter child put in the place of a real one stolen by elves, witches or fairies. And as any Libra man will tell you, he feels he must have been switched at birth, not belonging to his family of origin nor identifying with his birth-self (Aries’ first house) thus developing his character and personality (Libra’s seventh house) becoming the person he was born to be through careful cultivation. Some creative, socially active and rather oafish looking Libra men: Tim Robbins, Chris O’Dowd, John Lithgow, Michael McKean, Will Smith, Andrew Dice Clay, Zach Galifianakis, Sacha Baron Cohen, Simon Cowell, Clive Owen, Jon Favreau, David Morse, Michael Gambon, Chevy Chase, Roger Moore, Randy Quaid, Christopher Lloyd, Peter Boyle, Jeffery Jones, Walter Matthau, Bernie Mac, Phil Hartman, Kevin Sorbo, Jeff Goldblum.

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Off to St. Lucia! Once again!

Libra Woman

The female archetype of the Libran woman is no cinch to pin down. Not just because this is an etheric sign—the symbol Scales being the only inanimate one in the zodiac—there’s just something esoteric about Libra. The male archetype is embodied in the god Apollo, a famous deity but an abstract one. He rules an inanimate estate that includes light, order, reason, music, prophecy and other intangibles. The female archetype of Libra points to the paradox particular to this abstract sign, which is that of an unseen, intangible but nonetheless animating force. Let’s call it en-light-enment, for lack of a better term. For, we are not looking at the initial divine spark of life that animates the body, associated with Libra’s so-called opposite (cardinal-fire) sign of Aries and the advent of birth, but rather the cardinal-air force that animates the soul, quickening its karmic evolution. Esoteric, see. In Sextrology we speak of the Libra woman as being typified by the oracular High Priestess (counterpart to Apollo) and etheric goddesses like Sophia, emblemized by a dove, and other astral Venuses like Astraea or Psyche all of whom are seen as the holy-spirited feminine agent of the universe with whom one becomes suffused, characterizing their individual (re-)connection with the divine. Little wonder that Libran women seem to personify all goodness and light with high expectations that are not always so easy to meet. She is the white goddess of daylight, not a dark femme fatale. She seeks to elevate people, not drag them down. A bevy of Libran belles du jour includes: Catherine Deneuve, Kate Winslet, Julie Andrews, Olivia Newton John, Kelly Ripa, Angela Lansbury, Glynnis Johns, Susan Sarandon, Hillary Duff, Kelly Preston, Gwen Stefani, Naomi Watts, Avril Lavigne, Heather Locklear, Carol Lombard, Joan Fontaine, June Allyson, Deborah Kerr, Helen Hayes, Lilian Gish, Neve Campbell, Maria Osmond, Nancy Kerrigan, Pam Dawber, Gwyneth Paltrow. Goop indeed.

Whereas Libra man, regardless of sexual preference, tends to place women on pedestals, tending to play the role of Pip, in his heterosexual bonds, to any number of unattainable Estelles—the god Apollo chasing Daphne into a petrified personification of perfect laurels—the Libra woman can’t help plopping herself onto that pedestal, podium, pulpit or portable soap box, providing herself a platform, playing her own archetypal role of High Priestess, offering up her edicts, advice, decrees and, yes, judgments lest we forget she is the lady of The Scales, dame Justice incarnate. High and mighty, her principles will be known. Beyond being all goopy goodness and light, Libra women can righteously activist with decided ideas on how society, if only their intimate variety, should operate. (Tap, tap…) Is this thing on? Let’s hear it for the outspoken, decorous, exacting and emotionally judicious, if not detachedly judgy, democratically loving Libra woman: Eleanor Roosevelt, Mira Sorvino, Susan Sarandon, Janeane Garofalo, Nana Mouskouri, Ani DiFranco, PJ Harvey, Alicia Silverstone, Judge Judy, Kate Walsh, Barbara Walters, Linda McCartney, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Emily Post, Margaret Thatcher, Mata Amritanandamayi, Sharon Osborne, Toni Braxton, Cherie Blair, Michelle Bachelet, Joy Behar, Teresa Heinz Kerry, Catharine MacKinnon, Jody Williams.

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First full day on the boat. We headed from St. Lucia to St. Vincent which was a bit of a rocky trip but I didn’t bother taking any drugs. I spent the morning sunning (or would have if my no. 50 sunscreen hadn’t been so effectual. I did finally start reading Slouching Toward Bethlehem which (I get it) is quite well written. I do love the dry style. It reminds me a bit of Salinger and Hemingway but with a dryer, more journalistic albeit feminine feel. The style is unsentimental and yet one gets the feeling that the writer is purposely checking hers.

Scorpio Man 

In our book Sextrology, the Scorpio Man chapter is titled The Stranger. Like his archetypal god Pluto, namesake of the planet ruler of the sign, Scorpio men choose not to live on some bright, shining Olympus as part of any pantheon of other joiners, but rather inhabit their own dominion—Pluto’s underworld symbolizes ones inner life and the realm of the subconscious. Scorpio man finds fatuous the world of appearances—rose-colored glasses aren’t endemic to his fashion sense. He is a born outsider, an anti-hero, and he delves the depths of experience that are typically hidden from view, whether they be taboo aspects of life or the murmurings of our own repressed psychology. Scorpio is deep. And he can be dark if only to bring the unknown and unexplored to light—just as those alternatively attempting to keep things light tend to cast a long shadow of repression. Scorpio man can get under our skin in an attempt to root out our secrets; he acts on subconscious instinct to cure what ails us as, the saying goes, for individuals or society as a whole: We are only as sick as said secrets. So bid enter the brooding, seemingly pessimistic, subversive miner for meaning and hearts of gold: Albert Camus, Pablo Picasso, Neil Young, Johnny Carson, Dick Cavett, Charles Bronson, Robert Mapplethorpe, Seth MacFarlane, Roberto Benigni, Richard Burton, Christopher Columbus, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Joachim Phoenix, Auguste Rodin, Bram Stoker, Dylan Thomas, Kurt Vonnegut, Jonathan Winters, Leon Trotsky, Gordon Ramsay, Lyle Lovett, John Keats, Neil Gaiman, Matt Drudge, Rodney Dangerfield, Claude Rains, Voltaire.

As each sign is associated with a different set of body parts, Scorpio rules our tender bits and pieces. We’ve had a lot of fun writing about this and in our live shows too, when we’ve gone through the entire zodiac talking about the various personality types per sign vis à vis its anatomical rule. For Scorpio man is, by nature rather rigid—being a fixed sign—with a, shall we say, stiff countenance—he tends to turn his whole upper body, not just his head, to look this way or that. (Think of Johnny Carson.) The sign of Scorpio boasts multiple totems including the lizard, the snake, the serpent, the dragon, the phoenix and, you might say that the male of the sign is, on the whole, fairly reptilian looking. Okay fine—no beating around the bush (ha, ha) he can look like a penis: with his signature sinewy physique, veiny extremities, hooded hairline, if he has hair at all—Scorpio does bald quite readily—never mind his penchant for turtlenecks. And the metaphor extends to his personality which is best described as probing if not intrusive, insistent if not unrelenting and, yes, often, truly deep. Nobody invests more interest and concern in, or is it control over?, those he loves; and nobody can be a bigger prick when crossed. Take a look at this list of Scorpios and you tell us if it’s all phallus-y or not: Adam Driver, David Schwimmer, Damon Wayans, Seth MacFarlane, Owen Wilson, Matthew McConaughey, Dolph Lundgren, Ted Turner, Howard Dean, Dylan McDermott, Dermot Mulroney, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joachim Phoenix, Ryan Gosling, Sam Rockwell, Gerard Butler, Johnny Lee Miller, Ethan Hawke, Mads Mikkelson, Ben Foster, Chris Noth, F. Murray Abraham, Wallace Shawn, Sam Shepherd, Romany Malco, Bob Hoskins, Ed Asner and B.D. Wong.

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So here we are today floating in the harbor at Mustique, anticipating a big party on the island tonight. Should be a lot of fun. And not as crazy as last time we did this (two years ago) as we will have kids in tow this evening. The theme is Bacchanal and there were plenty of costumes to go around—the other folks on the boat brought extras which is great since S. and I prepared nothing.

Scorpio Woman

As we move from the world of appearances and Light and heights of the Conscious Mind of Libra to the hidden dark, underworld Subconscious Mind of Scorpio, we embrace the Chthonian (subterranean) archetypes (personified as Scorpio people). Ladies first: We explore the Queen of the Underworld, the original femme fatale, Persephone, who sat frozen, entranced on her throne, the proverbial maker whom you’d may be loath to meet. In mythology, Persephone is Kore (the Virgo Virgin) in her underground aspect. Kore turned to Persephone when she was raped/captured/dragged down to the underworld by its god, Pluto, namesake for Scorpio’s planetary ruler. And like Persephone, who is akin to Kali, Scorpio woman is a snapshot of the goddess in her destroyer aspect, which is worse than it sounds. First, as far as astrology goes, there is no death—only regeneration, something, which, along with all forms of deep transformation, is endemic to this sign. Scorpio has many totems, all of a piece—scorpion, spider, serpent, lizard, dragon, eagle, phoenix and so forth. Planet Pluto’s orbit, is elliptical, following a pattern like that of the phoenix rising and falling and rising again—regeneration, transformation, reincarnation, reinvention. Up from the ashes come the roses…Scorpio archetype Scarlett O’Hara will “never be hungry again”, she vows, chomping on a subterranean root vegetable excavated from the destruction of her former life (Tara: read terra, Earth, that former Kore-Virgo incarnation). No. She will spin a web and all will be caught in it. That is the way of the Scorpio woman. She chases nothing and nobody. The fixed-water sign (read: ice) lies in wait and entrances (read: paralyzes) others into doing her bidding. And we thank her for it, grateful to be tenderly trapped by her Spiderwoman’s kiss and to see her feast on what we bring to the table to please her. She is like some lady spy whom we know is only telling us half the story, hiding much behind her wry Mona Lisa smile—what does she know that we don’t know? For one thing: to make no apologies for herself and to live life on her own terms, which includes your happily playing the role she assigns you. Should you go against whatever fate the zodiac’s Persephone has in store for you, then, quicker than you can say Demi Moore, you will feel the full wrath of this dragon lady. Some fiery-icy Scorpio femme fatales who’ve made their way onto the silver screen are Vivian Leigh, Hedy Lamarr, Grace Kelly, Gene Tierney, Anne Hathaway, Veronica Lake, Dorothy Dandridge, Louise Brooks, Joanna Moore, Jean Seberg, Lauren Hutton, Tabu, Anna Wintour, Sally Field, Gabriel Union, Jodie Foster, Winona Ryder, Holly Hunter, Tilda Swinton, Demi Moore, Julia Roberts, Emma Stone, Ciara, Rachel McAdams, Sean Young, Björk, Goldie Hawn,

The sign of Scorpio rules the genitalia, something we’ve had fun exploring in view of people of the sign personifying its energy. Maybe because we have so long lived in a Lizard King patriarchy, it’s Scorpio lady’s unabashed embracing of her potent womanhood that’s spurred the notion that she’s the most infamous of females. Yes, she is the zodiac’s unapologetic Scarlett O’Hara who is also voted most likely to be slapped with a scarlet letter. Imagine Georgia O’Keeffe opening a gallery in 17th century Salem? Sex and death and regeneration are all associated with Scorpio’s astrological 8th house. The abyss inhabited by the sign’s planetary namesake god of the underworld, Pluto, and his female counterpart Persephone, symbolizes the subconscious, the subversive, all that is hidden, a mystery, as death (mort) and sex (petit mort) are; and if Scorpio man is, like his totem serpent/dragon/snake, a probing, investigative if not prickly character, then Scorpio woman personifies—Persephonizes—the dark interior itself. Earth’s crystalized cave interior matches Scorpio’s assignation as the fixed-water (ice, crystals) sign. Scorpio woman is the unseen, enigma incarnate. And, if Scorpio guy can be something of a dick, then we will let you finish this sentence yourself. The point is that Scorpio woman is well aware of the power she wields and how threatening, diminishing, if not castrating her vagina-dentata character might make her. She knows it automatically weeds out the faint of heart, the phonies, the wannabes and the sycophants, as she demands the company of strong figures and, when it comes to male lovers, those virile enough to match her concentrated, potent femininity. Otherwise she might flash that Mona Lisa smile or outright laugh in your face while pointing lower. Persephone, akin to Kali, is the goddess in her destroyer aspect and it is on this archetype that Scorpio woman draws. Persephone is the proverbial maker you meet upon entering her own dark, moist underworld where she decides your fate based on your earthly deeds. Go ask Alice or any of these Scorpio female inhabitants of W-underland what’s what: Grace Slick, Joni Mitchell, Helen Reddy, Mary Travers, Shere Hite, Roseanne, Kathy Griffin, Whoopi Goldberg, Hillary Clinton, Kate Clinton, Condoleezza Rice, Jenny McCarthy, Ann Sexton, George Elliot, Marie Curie, Sylvia Path, Ethel Waters, Marie Antoinette, Indira Ghandi, k.d. lang, Margaret Mitchell, Georgia O’Keeffe.

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.
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