Capricorn 3° (December 24)
Tonight is defined as a pique nique. I’ve been snapping some photos of myself. I have nothing more to say.
The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of Blagues, nos. 1336-1340. 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.
Stella’s Birthday Day! I feel as if I’ve slept a thousand hours. One of our LA cum NYC cum New England clients will come to visit this morning which will be fun. And then Stella will work her way down Charles Street and T it to Cambridge where I will meet her in Central Square. Another day of catching up on this writing and slowly emerging into new material as I continue to post some ancien materiel. Working on Brian, it was rather a bust again today. Just one sort of nothing contact. Sometimes I feel these directors are just giving lip service. Anyway, I will go to Cornish Pasty and have a delicious potato leek soup with stilton cheese. I am rather in love with this place I must say. And I will walk Mass Ave over the bridge, breathing deeply, meet Stella and we will walk further on to Harvard Square and have a drink at the bar at Alden & Harlow before heading across the Cambridge Common for our reservation at Guiglia. I expected more from this place, frankly, given the hype. We had pasta because they make it fresh. I ordered a boar ragut type deal to erase the boar ragu pasta I had at that nightmare “resort” in Connecticut last week. So there is that. We had fun actually. And we Ubered back to the Eliot and had a dessert at Uni, all in all a perfect night. Here to satisfy your (and my) need for quantity, another re-run of the original swipe at Blagues past:
Lo and behold today’s Sabian Symbol, for 7° Aries is: A Man Successfully Expressing Himself In Two Realms At Once. For starters, seven is a number near and dear to my heart as it is the Libra number, one of Light, Order and Music, seven rainbow rays of in a lightbeam, seven notes to “The Scales”, and many more Apollonian connections. And ways in which any of us lead double lives not withstanding, when I think of two realms I immediately think of the material and on material realms. Yesterday we explored A Square, With One Of Its Sides Brightly Illumined whereby we were drawn toward that illuminated side where we might break on through to the proverbial other side. (I neglected to mention that the square, or the cross, symbolizes matter and the material realm.) Today, we look at life from both sides now: We have broken through to discover that the other realm or dimension might be immaterial but it is in now way unreal. This is always a real a present reality, whether or not we are engineered or inclined to perceive it, while it would also be empowering to imagine that this dynamic is esepcially available to us on this particular day. I’ll be curious to peruse a list of people born on this day to see if they personify this dynamic in any way.
There is precious little written online about these symbols. But I stumbled upon an interpretation of 7° Aries being labelled “Integrity Light”, all the Aries degrees being “Integrity something”, tomorrows, according to this site is “Integrity Regeneration”, regeneration being the keynote of Scorpio which follows the sign of Libra which is (cardinal-air) Light—so I’ve just stumbled onto some validation that these symbol degrees may indeed be following the zodiac’s pattern of twelve, thirty times, circles within circles, equaling the 360° cycle of the calendar year. So, you see, sometimes (read: always) leading with our intuitive sense with result in concrete proof in the pudding. Anyway, in this description, this symbol is characterized as “the one who keeps his lamp alight whatever the price”. We have moved into the light (cue that little person’s voice from the film Poltergeist) and now we are holding that lamplight aloft, or indeed we are the light, that shines in two directions at once. I think of the children in C.S. Lewis’ Chronicles of Narnia, entering that realm for the first time—Lucy (meaning light) first encounters a lampost, which marks the point between the so-called real and imagined worlds.
Whether we are speaking of the world of our imagination, or some spiritual, energetic realm that we can “psychically” visit if not fully inhabit, we are on about the same thing. Back in the late 1980s, right before I had an extraordinary “event” happened to me whereby I was triggered into an altered state—I will try to write about this for you at a later date—although Stella and I have told this story a number of times, live on stage: I had a dream. The dream centered on this giant black book from which I was privileged read; the book was titled, in giant silver letters: I Magi Nation. Now of course it spells imagination; but it also points to the notion that perhaps I was a Magi and that I wasn’t alone, but part of a larger body, community, nation of them. Within days after this dream this weird event occured—it may’ve been triggered by a stranger slipping something into my drink—I will never know—but it resulted in my being endowed for a night with super human thought and strength that involved my “seeing the math in my head in blueprint form” for successfully dive-rolling out of a car going 40 miles an hour, landing on my feet and then sprinting faster than a gazelle as well as my “seing the math” to launch myself in the air and scale an eight-foot fence without touching it; “seeing the math” as well to “find the sweet-spot” in a chain-link gate, embedded in cement, where I could hit it with my vintage Columbia bicycle so that the fence/gate would be knocked over, out of its cement foundation, allowing me to ride my bike over that fence without so much as taking my feet off the pedals—I remember that was important to me—to stay balanced on my bike without putting a foot down. This and more all actually happened on the eve of the Harmonic Convergence, August 16, 1987. I won’t bore you with the rest of this story now; but the upshot was that I learned the hard way, and in a manner I did not invite, that I was capable of perceiving (an) other realm(s) that had heretofore been closed to me. It was violent and forced upon me and at the time I did not see any good in this having happened. In time, though, I’ve come to understand that, whether welcomed or not, this event provided a breakthrough.
Needless to say, I strongly relate to today’s symbol, but just because I readily imagine my particular two realms to be that of a solid world and that of an impressionistic one, doesn’t mean the duality begins and ends there. I do find it funny that my partcular first “psychic break” with “reality” had “physics” overtones; as someone who hated math and science growing up, I suppose the joke was on me that my being endowed with extrasensory powers for one evening back in 1987, manifested as a combined superhuman strength powered by sudden flashes of mathematical, physicist genius. What springs to mind as the two realms you inhabit might be drastically different from my set. And yes there are terrestrial dualities that might be portrayed by phrases like “leading a double life” or “juggling two worlds at once” or even “bringing home the bacon and frying it upon in the pan.”
Still, I am inclined to see the Sabian symbol of A Man Successfully Expressing Himself In Two Realms At Once as being pinioned to the material/non-material world dichotomy. I think that we are, all of of us, expressing ourselves in these two realms simultaneously, but I don’t believe that we are all doing it successfully. Even those of us who might be conscious of doing it at all might fall short. I consider myself a auto-didactical metaphysician—metaphysics itself can be defined as “the science of the immaterial”. Indeed, “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy (Hamlet 1.5 167-8). Increasingly, I am made aware of this and, hopefully, becoming more succesful at said expression. And, having looked at life from both sides, now, what I’ve gleaned from my understanding of the unseen world has only inspired me to live more simply, healthfully and sanely, in the seen one. I am conscious of the fact that the expressions of our thoughts and actions don’t just manifest in the here and now, they make an impression on the “other side” as well—call it the spiritual realm, or that of infinite or eternal or, plainly, the energetic—where elements of our being, thoughts and actions are duly noted. Perhaps there is an Akashic record, I don’t know. But when I consider the possibility I immedately flash to my dream of I Magi Nation and the very real experience of realms of possibilty that seemed to defy my own natural laws or even those of physics, which I had encountered in the days that followed.
A footnote: When we embarked a decade later on writing what became Sextrology, our publishers assumed we would write a popular, splashy, sex-sells sort of book. We, however, sensed it was an opportunity to write a book that you really couldn’t judge by its title let alone its cover. Delving the immaterial but very real world of archetypes and energies as we did in the writing of it, Sextrology itself is a successful expression in two realms. It is at once very real and funny, bawdy and poppy, academic and as logical as an astrology book can be and yet it is also suffused with an “off the page” element, an admittedly slight tapping into esoteric knowledge, a knowingness and mystery that speaks to readers on a more purely energetic level. And, without getting too specific, I will venture to say that we’ve had indication that it has indeed been well received in realms beyond Horatio’s grasp.
Another morning at the Eliot and another client over the holidays which was nice. It struck me today that we seem to live in a number of places at once, not least of which is this hotel. Although I think we have sworn off this particular suite as it no longer seems quiet—early morning mechanical and/or dumpster noises every day; it’s also in some disrepair—and there was the shower/Draino incident; and it always seems to have smokers in it right before we take up residence. So we are moving, next time, to a different “line” in the hotel. We shall see if that doesn’t make things better. I know this might make me sound somewhat spoiled but not really. I mean nothing is cheap in this world and we are regular clients, and hopefully valued ones. The rain is out of control today and my back is completely out once again, so I will take the passenger seat to the Cape; well for the beginning bit in any case. We needed gas and food so we stopped in Hingham and I sat in the car in the torrential rain while S. shopped and then we switched and I drove the rest of the way. We had a little wine and some lovely cheese and it was bliss to sleep in our own bed once again after so much to’ing and fro’ing. We thought the tree might surely be a tinder box but it has barely lost any needles and is still subtle to the touch who knew. Anywig, I continue my rerunning of old Blagues as my holiday, I’d like to say continues but, let’s face it, it is just about to start.
I started writing the Cosmic Blague a week ago and in some ways I feel like Lucy and Ethel at the chocolate factory, needing to get into a rhythm, not letting the process get away from me. Also I haven’t done much in the way of outreach to let people know about this new project—not to say I’m writing anything so earth-shattering that people are missing out on something monumental. But I think I might do a bit of promotion today so that people get wind of it. Today’s Sabian Symbol for 8° Aries, A Large Woman’s Hat With Streamers Blown By The East Wind, seems to fit the mood —mine, anyway. I want to be a bit breezy today, I don’t want to get too heavy into it; as I write this I hear in the back of my brain the following phrase: Famous last words.
What strikes me most about today’s symbol is the fact that it’s a hat, belonging to a large woman, but the woman herself is not necessarily in the picture. It seems like an image from a dream sequence in a film, or one you’d have just falling for a brief moment in the middle of the day. There is something cool, calming and Spring-like about it. And, I can’t not equate the image with an Easter bonnet. This date and degree of Aries is surely one on which Easter has fallen. And so we must consider the energy of rebirth and regeneration. I mentioned yesterday that this random site I found online—fatmountain.org.es—lists all the Sabian symbols, labeling them with titles, all of which, in Aries, begin with the word Integrity. Yesterday was labelled: Integrity Light; today is tagged Integrity Regeneration. The description goes on to say that “the main quality of this person”—I’m assuming “person” refers to someone who has a planet in their birth chart pinioned to 8° Aries—”is his spaciousness of outlook.” I like that.
The fact the image is a hat belonging to a large woman suggests that the energy of the day is “feminine” in the sense that it is an energy of receptivity, those streamers reading something like antennae, picking up messages and vibrations. The largesse of the woman would suggest that the capacity for receptivity is vast, that today we might be of an expansive mind and attitude. We can also be open to have our minds blown on some level. But safely so. The hat is a symbol of protection from the elements, specifically the “masculine” Sky elements of Sun (fire) and wind (air)—fire and air signs, in astrology are masculine, whilst water and earth are feminine. An east wind symbolizes new beginnings and also spiritualizing forces. The streamers are there to sense and signal direction, like a weather vane. The hat is receiving the revitalizing forces. The message here is not to blow like the wind but to be open and flexible to new ideas and even sweeping change. Streamers are designed to catch the wind, they suggest a certain rejoicing in doing so. Today we celebrate our ability to go where the winds of change are taking us; doing so could very well characterize our own rebirth or regeneration. We let undeniably strong unseen forces, symbolized by the wind, move us. Interestingly, in biblical symbolism, the East Wind is one that disperses falsities and evil.
Think about the false notions others might have about you. To be great (or large like the owner of the hat) is indeed to be misunderstood; but instead of fighting falsity or evil mendacity we let them blow over us. The east wind destroys destruction. The good among us have nothing to fear from it, but for the baddies, it’s a bit of g/God’s wrath or judgement. So long as your side of the street is clean, you can welcome today as a wind that will wipe away the unrighteous and leave a renewed sense of innocence in its wake. Irrefutable truth is written in the wind—the answer, my friends—and we need only let it blow. We have no responsibility or cause to impose our truths on others. Our higher mind, the hat pointing to our crown chakra, knows the true nature of everything—I think of J.K. Rowling’s sorting hat—we can huff and we can puff but we can’t blow anyone’s house down, nor they ours. It is not for us to do. We must trust the larger forces at play to do such righteous work for us. The winds may gust and blow, but the weather within us need never change.
We don’t usually have a client on Saturdays but we made an exception for one of our loyal ones today. Otherwise I am promoting our new books as I do the Holiday Market we will volunteer our time for tomorrow. It really is pretty cool. This couple Loic and Rob own The Canteen restuarant in Provincetown which is absolutely delicious and one of the newer positive additions to the town’s dining landscape. Anyway, they have this entire beach front as they are right on the harbor and Loic, an Aries, is a really talented framer among many other talents (including being an ex ballet dancer) and they built this tiny little market city extending out from the back of The Canteen onto the beach with various local vendors and such. Anyway they are really giving folks and so it is a joy to dedicate some free time to setting up our famed Cosmic Clinics for folks to get brief readings from us, gratis. Hopefully we will draw something of a crowd we shall see. So we will have one more night out which will be fantastic. And a local hotel has been so kind as to donate a room to us for donating our time to the market. So we’ll get to have some Ptown fun. And as this is still my holiday, I am adding another re-run of the original weeks of Cosmic Blagues dating back nearly four years. Enjoy:
The Sabian Symbol for 9° Aries is A Seer Gazes With Concetration Into A Crystal Sphere. The correlation of this to the 9th sign of Sagittarius, the motto of which is “I see”, and the sign’s association with the third-eye, is fairly evident. It is written that the crystal sphere represents wholeness, I would suggest that it is the third-eye itself, activated by insight. The third eye, tertiary perception, is that which sees beyond duality and embodies the notion that there are three sides to every story, a fully rounded view. The crystal ball is all-seeing, not only in the sense that it sees everything, but that it sees all sides of any one thing. This is the opposite of navel gazing, which is synonymous with a myopic self-obsession. Here, we don’t know at what we’re looking when first we gaze—our eyes and our understanding are open to every and all possibility. What slowly comes into focus is the sum total of possibility so that we might act from a vantage of considering all factors—this crystal (clarity) is a sphere, suggesting full 360° circumspection. We can be assured of what we see, and we also must accept whatever that might be, for better or worse or both
In this symbol we see the merging of our intellect with our intuition, and we must use the former, in this case to serve the latter, creating a power line between the two. This constitutes “seeing situations as a whole”; intuiton and intellect on their own might each tell part of the story. There is the Seer and there is the Sphere, the Seen. It is the Concentration, which, like concentric, etymologically points to “bringing to a center” that unites them. Concentration isn’t projection of will, but a circling in on a larger truth.There is a marriage needing taking place between text and subtext, between conscious and subconscious motivations, between surface actions and underlying intentions. We are seeking to awake the supraconscious. For me the takeaway of today’s symbol is there being more at play than the naked eye can see. We mustn’t take situations at face value, we must consult the oracle of our own intuition—our emotional intelligence—and let our brain develop a cinemascopic picture of a situation based on its understanding, as difficult to articulate it as it might be. We must employ that spacious mind of yesterday, symolized by the Large Woman’s Hat. We can’t have prejudice and we can’t read into situations to serve the smaller aspects of our mind.
Funnily enough I’ve owned a crystal ball. And the story surrounding it does touch on the shadow side of gazing into it, for real, or metaphorically speaking. It was given to me by someone who, it just so happens, was a master of subtext and subterfuge, which can characterize the shadow side of a Scorpio personality. The sign’s ruler Pluto is named for the god of the underworld, a metaphor for a deeply profound personality who is miner for meaning and hearts of gold, on the positive side; while expressing an undermining nature on the negative. We see this in fearful, insecure and unevolved people of the sign. There were always two conversations going on simultaneously with this individual in question. The one he had with people —in person, by phone or by text—and the one he had about them, via, shall we say, subtext. With people of a character such as this, one is naturally leary, and should never get too close until they hopefully develop out of this behavior, which most shadowy Scorpios actually do. Meanwhile, ironically, it is the sense that people don’t want to warm up to them that fuels their detrimental scheming below the surface. Although this person’s put downs of others were barely subliminal, I assumed them to be isolated and petty, and didn’t give them any power. Until I saw the subtextual web this individual was capable of weaving. The scorpion is an arachnid lest we forget; and the kiss-kiss of some spiders, man or woman, as well as their idle surface chatter, can be designed to mask—Pluto wore a helm of invisibility—the stealthy time-released character assasinations they make against those they target.
Symptomatically, this individual in question was a paranoid, as one might have to be to cut so undercutting a figure. As people know I’m wont to do, I’ll post inspiring, uplifting, motivational messages on my Facebook page, from time to time. There was a spate a few years back when I did this daily. Then I noticed this individual had disappeared from Facebook; he hadn’t, actually; he blocked me. When I asked him about it, he said that he thought my posts, meant to universally empower all my cyber friends, were barbs pointed specifically at tearing him down. He was taking my new-agey or Eastern mystical, inspirational quotes personally…and as insults. Now that’s paranoid. The point I’m trying to make here is that sometimes we gaze into our metaphorical crystals with fear in our hearts and ill intent in our noggins, and that’s the picture that will come into focus. Self-fulfilling prophecy. If we go looking for problems, bent on reading ill intent into others’ conscious or subconscious motivations, we will always find them. Not to say we should gaze into our crystal wearing rose-colored glasses either. We must keep that supraconscious line between the subconcious and the conscious free of any imposition of will, hope or fear.
Incidentally, I never used that crystal ball that was sent to me. First of all it arrived with a broken pedestal, which I took as something of a sign; but also, probably because I’ve read too much Tolkien, I was concerned the object could read me on some level, so it was ultimately banned from view, put into a dark corner of a basement; perhaps, one day, it will be resurrected, cleared of negative energy, and employed for its intended purpose; but none too soon, I can assure you.
This is going to be a short one today folks. At least I hope so. I’m on day twenty-one of a thirty day Bikram Yoga challenge and, though I made it through a Boston winter without getting sick, with basically no heat in this impressive looking but ridiculous apartment in which I find myself, I now have some combo platter of Dickensian illnesses that would seem to combine consumption, rickets, pleurisy and gout. I jest (ish), but oucha-magaoucha do I feel like pooh warmed over; and Monday is a big client day and I must be sparklingly alert. Snap out of it.
We will be conducting our Cosmic Clinic today in Provincetown which should prove fun. Today also marks the start of my more comprehensive social media presence for the coming year. It still baffles me. And as I have multiple accounts and, well, businesses, I really do need to get a handle on all of that. With a move back in to a city it will be easier to get some intern action to handle much of it I realize; so I look forward to that as one new aspect of what we will do to accomplish what we need to. I am increasingly uncomfortable with certain silences—the fact that holidays and birthdays have come and gone without so much as a peep from certain quarters. But, without taking a hard stance, I have made a pact with myself that I’m not going to be the one constantly reaching out; too many relationships have become one sided due to people’s narcissism and I really can’t be a party to it any longer. I am ready to let so much go at this juncture. Someone recently made fun of the fact that some people write (blog) about their daily life; it was someone who is a successful writer of sorts and I couldn’t help thinking that he was throwing shade at me. But I thought, you know what: I am trying to get to universals via my personal experience. I can’t always hit the mark but there is much to be gained by the steady outpouring of my observations which I hope sometimes are humorous.
Such an irony that no sooner do I write this and head to our tithing station for the day at the lovely holiday market in Provincetown that we are confronted by the fact the friends whom we’d introduced and with whom (we thought) we still had mutual relations had their holdiay revelries planned without us; a truth I feel I have extracted from the ether today not only via today’s emission but via the affirmation I also put forth today regarding, well, basically releasing everyone from any kind of obligation to me or to any kind of past high or low, boon or difficulty, joy or obligation. The real point that needs being making now is that this collective situation is completely dead to me. There is nothing but snarky cliqueishness here. In short, actually, the lousy who have peopled my life can truly go fuck themselves. I say this fully now before the start of the new year because I want to truly get it out of my system. I think if I read the signs right here today I am being asked to completely close certain doors behind me and find a way to feel completely, mentally on board about that. I am fifteen minutes into a three-hour commitment and I intend to honor it, but in this next two hours and forty-five minutes I am going to let die any false hope or misunderstanding that I have harbored.
And this is the real gift. I really knew the truth this whole time. The fact is I was right all along and now I don’t have to second guess or wallow in the gaslighting. I can know what I know and that can be the end of it. Good riddance is not an oxymoron. And so I offer up these simple phrases, on the Sabian Symbols from the origins of this Blague:
I’m not sure what it is in my newly emerging personality that is manifesting as daily challenges—the yoga, this Blague—plus the horoscopes and other writing, our priority consultancy, the production and direction of a new Afterglow Festival, for which I must now begin fundraising in earnest, not to mention a number of upcoming shows by Starsky + Cox, both separate and together. Believe me I’m not complaining, I’m going somewhere with this: Today’s Sabian Symbol for 10° Aries is A Teacher Gives New Symbolic Forms To Traditional Images and I immediately think of re-branding, changing the headline, and revigorating old modes with powerful new widgets.
So the above litany: That was the old me feigning to be dragged through the new normal. In truth, I’m not planning to stop daily yoga after just a thirty-day challenge—I hope to do it every day for the rest of my life. I’m not shying away from the Cosmic Blague, it requires at least a year of my attention and so I have to sit back and enjoy the ride; and, as has always been the plan, I’d like to die in the wings during a live performance where I’m, forviging the pun, killing it. So I’m giving over to these new forms, now, in my daily existence and letting myself, if not my brand, be changed by them, so I can meet the future more as I see myself. Gosh I hope that made sense.
Dane Rudhyar speaks of today, 10° Aries, as embodying a “revision of attitude at the beginning of a new cycle of experience”; the traditional images we have of ourself and our circumstance might be outmoded, and we need new forms that suggest a wider range of meaning. This isn’t personal. We needn’t have an emotional take on, or reaction to, what is our new design for living We’ve made decisions and we’re sticking to them. This is us now. And we need a new abstract form to mark this shift in our outlook. And it all begins with that ‘tude.
Short of pulling a Prince and branding ourselves with some kind of unpronouncable symbol, or taking on a Ziggy Startdust persona, or inventing a new pronoun to which others might refer to us—all valid moves that great artists and thinkers have done to mark their development—we should at least think about, today, what might emblemize us. What have we stood for? How has that changed? What do we mean (to ourselves and others), now? And what might be our logo. Did you know that the first ever logo to be trademarked was the Bass red triangle in 1876. Thank you Wikipedia.
The fact is that the meaning and interpretation behind any symbol are endless. Especially this symbol which is about new symbolic assignations being added to, or replacing, older “traditional” ones. And it’s awfully generous, isn’t it, for this teacher to be shedding new light on some old forms. Gosh, I wonder if I know anybody like that? Hmmm. The point is we are making progress. We are not static beings. We are not locked into our own traditions and so, every so often, we need new symbols for ourselves, even, to mark or growth in wisdom.
When I was twenty-one I toyed with calling myself Pan and moving to Paris to be an androgynous cabaret artist. Well I have never been that androgynous due to hairy Italian genes; and it took me another twenty years to attempt cabaret. But it didn’t not happen. I had the symbol, the form in my mind, way back when. And as most do, I took on a new name when I began working as a professional astrologer-metaphysician. Granted, we had invented the His & Her Horoscope column for Teen People and I didn’t want my New York Times editors to know that it was me writing it, but still there was a tradition of doing this. Alan Leo. Athena Starwoman. Linda Goodman. Dane Rudhyar. The name happened first and then I sort of grew into it. I think that’s how it works. We change our attitude and we mark it with some word or picture, if only in our mind, and then we grow in that direction. Esso just sounds so mid-twentieth century—but Exxon, now that’s a name that could travel into the new millenium.
So, today, ask yourself: What’s your attitude? And how would you characterize it in a word or in an image. What emblemizes the new you? I think I’ll be a big blue ball. Interpret that to your hearts’ content.
Despite the hurt of yesterday, (I must be all grown up because) I managed to have an excellent time. We did the holiday market and met some grand folks and then we strolled back to the hotel. We opened a bottle of gorgeous wine and sat by the fire. The owners had donated this room to us almost apologetically as it is on the ground floor. But that only meant that our room opened onto the empty common area, a gorgeous living space with mod fireplace et al. I really loved it. And as we arrived back the fireworks were just beginning. We tried to stay and see them en place at The Canteen but it was mobbed and none too comfortable. We climbed the stairs of our imagined private lobby and looked out a glass door where we could see the entire works from the heated comfort of our own private interior. We just chilled until such time as we left to walk exactly a half a block to dinner at Strangers & Saints where our friend Raina has taken up a winter residency in the kitchen. Her own great Baie Bar + Resto isn’t heated, therefore seasonal, so she is collaborating at S & S and that is good news for all the town folk and neighbors. We ordered things we would never order like quahog dip and sliders and other fattening morsels—it was such fun. And, really, this was our New Year’s Eve night out for sure. Apres diner, we weren’t tired and needed to walk off the repast; so we strolled to the west end for a night cap at Joon Bar, another town favorite. We were immediately absorbed by familiar faces, and new, rather lit, ones at the bar. One fellow, who used to sponsor the festival, seemed drunkenly apologetic and when I complemented him on his hat (which was newly purchased from the holiday market) he gave it to me and, despite my endless protests, wouldn’t take no for an answer. Okay. Weirdly (I forgot) that one goal was to buy a hat at the market, a thought that went out of my head as a result of the shade so-called friends were purposefully throwing our way. Anyway, I was in such high spirits that none of that was bothering me now. It would too in coming days only to never bother me ever again. I’m continuing my holiday tradition of posting, now, some Cosmic (Sabian Symbol driven) reruns from the earliest Blague days:
Today we look at power, and worldly power at that. They symbol for 11° Aries is The Ruler of a Nation or The President of a Country. I think the original might be the former and yet the latter expresses the nature of the symbol. For we are not looking at the energy of a monarch or a dictator but the ruler of a democracy for the most part. A president presides, he has the power to execute the will of the collective, but he also has the responsibility to do so. I think of the energy of a president being very Libra, whereas that of a king is super Leo. Democracy and social order, balance of power, harmony among people, are hallmarks of the sign of Libra the mottos of which are “I balance” and “we are”. And being the 11°, one might equate it with the 11th sign of Aquarius in that sign’s Utopian vision. When one is the ruler or president most energy goes to keeping the peace, not just with other nations, but within the ranks of ones own, and among ones people. Where are you the ruler? In your family? At work? In some department? When you are in charge, mainly you deal with the censure of not doing things correctly. Or perhaps you are one who points out how those in charge are deficient; but if you were put in the lead role you would likewise be a target for criticism.
I was watching the documentary on Scientology, Going Clear. And besides the abuse of power by leaders of that “church” what struck me was how the IRS caved and gave Scientology tax-exempt status mainly because they were worn down by lawsuits. The IRS took the lazy route. And as a result that “church” has gotten away with murder, probably literally. The litany of abuses, the brainwashing, the blackmail is staggering. The documentary really left me angry at our powers that be, which allow this type of organization to proliferate. The billions of dollars Scientology pockets while those in its ranks suffer abuse is one thing; but the fact that “we” allow this organization to exist—which it can only do as a tax-free entity—is beyond me. My hope is that this documentary triggers some kind of upshot the way the documentary on Robert Durst brought about his arrest. I know it’s not as specific as the Durst situation—evidence coming to light—but seriously we have to crack down on this crazy cult. There was so much to the story that wasn’t in the documentary. The disappearance, for instance, of Shelly Miscavige, wife of the so-called religion’s leader David Miscavige—she hasn’t been seen in seven years.
In a democracy, we can all be Ruler of the Nation, theoretically. Any organizations that exist within our democracy that disallow that same capability for self-empowerment should be shut down. How is it that Scientology is protected by the first ammendment but Edward Snowden isn’t? If I were ruler of the nation, if I could, I would throw the money lenders (lobbyists) out of the temple (halls of Congress); I would impose caps on campaign fundraising; I would create a new-deal type works program for repairing our infrastructure; I would pardon Snowden; I would revoke any cult’s tax exempt status; I would outlaw GMOs; I would break up big Agro; I would impose oversight on big Pharma; I would tax the one percent at the same rate Eisenhower did in the 1950s, I would do a lot of things…if I could. All impossible, you say? That’s the real issue. Why is doing right by the people impossible? Why are venal, oppressive maneuvers all highly possible? Why do bad people in power always seem to win out? The main answer is: That, for the most part, anybody who needs to be in a position of power probably has a screw loose somewhere anyway. They are driven by ego. I love me some Hillary Clinton but really why does she need to be president so pressingly? I don’t think the prime answer is: to do good. I’d like to say I love me some Obama, for the most part, and he has attempted some good things; but he has also kow-towed to some of the worst people and entities on the planet, like Monsanto. Why? Maybe not because he wants to. Maybe there are threats involved.
That’s be the way Scientology operates: on threats. They have a dossier on “church” members yay high, one that “church” members provide them, admitting all sorts of shit in their audits. The irony of religious participation taking on the form of a visit to the IRS not withstanding, “church” members give their power over, or they believe they do. They are no longer the Ruler of (their own) Nation. And when you’re a celebrity Scientologist, the “church” uses you for their own PR purposes, and you get major perks and payoffs. Would that we could all boycott any project made by these celebrity Scientologists, or better yet: If we could send memos to Tom Cruise and John Travolta and Elizabeth Moss and Beck and Laura Prepon and Greta Van Susteren and Giovanni Ribisi and Kristie Alley and all the other famous “church” members saying that we don’t care what sexual proclivities they might be repressing. This isn’t the 1950s actually; and some spicy tales from their boudoirs might actually make them more interesting because, at a glance, this isn’t the most exciting bunch ever to appear in the same sentence.
Seven years before Graydon Carter and Vanity Fair published the story on Scientology’s search for a wife for Tom Cruise, the magazine included us in their “L.A. Intelligence Report” in the Vanities section in the front of the book. To be fair, it is a tongue-in-cheek page that mixes fact with fiction. Although, in our case, it was mostly fiction. First of all we don’t live in Los Angeles. Anyway, we were deemed “Psychics to the Stars” and one category in the chart-format piece was “Skeleton in Closet”. They said that ours was “Scientology referral swaps”. This immediately made us uneasy. And then came the questions all on the theme of “is this true?”; and despite putting out a statement that none of it was, our business is built upon a real consultancy with real paying clients, most of whom would not be comfortable if we were actually in bed with that awful cult.
I wrote Graydon Carter a letter pointing out the problem. He refused to print any kind of apology or retraction which, to be honest, I didn’t expect. His editors were vaguely sorry, especially Matt Tyrnauer who actually availed himself of guidance from Starsky + Cox on a regular basis, and yet, as often happens in this situation, we seemed to be personae non grata for speaking up about it. As if we should be so lucky to have any mention at all by Vanity Fair. But I do think the magazine was concerned with the legality of the situation, printing something not only untrue but potentially damaging. I then received a letter from Graydon’s office barely apologizing for any distress this had caused and how they planned to make it up to us with the publishing of our next book, which they would champion. They never did. In fact, they pretty much cut off all communication with us. Scientology calls it: To Disconnect. As a Ruler of a Nation, in this case a sensational magazine which is indispensible on long flights, Graydon Carter is well aware of his power, but perhaps not the abuses thereof. When he raised the ire of Scientology, himself, I thought there was something karmic in it. The cult of celebrity vs. the cult to end all cults. If only.
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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