Gemini 18° (June 7)

I got to skip a day of writing yesterday. There may be 365 days a year but there are only 360° in the circle of the Zodiac. I also know I needn’t write much typically now on any given day because there is a plethora of material that I will be cutting and pasting as indicated below. Suffice to say that yesterday was a positive turning point. It was my father’s birthday and that doesn’t mean as much to me as it might other people. That is just a fact. I precooked a bunch of meals. I cleaned out the basement with a shop vac. I cleaned the entire house in fact. Washed sheets made beds. Reworked my book writing schedule and otherwise shifted all the energy. We had one dinner or planned and prepped then suddenly I felt like making linguine with clam sauce so we did. We sat outside, a little dressed up. We listened to some avant garde-y music by way of France Musique. I have been awake since 3 am and it is nearly 11. The plan os to continue weaving my way through Sextrology for myriad reasons—to flag any corrections needing making, to inventory ideas so as not to repeat them, to safeguard interests of both old and new publisher, and to inspire jumping off points, literal evolutions of ideas on the page (and to also flag things we no longer believe to be true. Anyway, the next twenty-four days spread out before me must be an opportunity to get a great deal of work accomplished and to break some old habits. Cue the track.

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 381-385 I am reading through all my Blagues, five per day, and posting some samples here. Now, in my sixth year of writing this Blague, but the time I get to my seventh, I will have through all the daily Blagues of my first five years. If that’s confusing I apologize:

 Originally posted April 5, 2016

As I walked around this frigid Spring day, after so mild a winter and the early appearance of pretty pink and white tree blossoms, now dead with frost, it reminded me of my aborted start to this year’s daily Blague in which I am behind by about ten days. And I thought perhaps it wasn’t just a modern human failing to start something and then immediately exhibit no follow through—or perhaps to start something prematurely, not determined to finish or not gauging the “climate” of one’s own life correctly. In other words, those dead blossoms on frozen tree limbs reminded me of my own failed attempt at a new Spring ritual, similar to, but not the same as, last year’s.

Ironic (said word’s coincidental kinship to the element or iron, ruled by Aries planet Mars, not withstanding) that Aries is the sign of ignition, impetus, impulse, new beginnings, befitting the sign’s own start with the first moment of Spring, each year, on the equinox; because, the fact is, it doesn’t always have stamina to follow through; or it might be so rash that it leaps before it looks and then must take two steps back for its one. This is what is read by the cosmic energy, personified in the war god Mars, brashly running onto battlefields wherein he gets wounded and sent off howling. And yet we need his sense of iniative and his hussle; we just need to harness it, as does his war-goddess, sister, Athena, who is always playing the end game, and to win. She invented the harnass and the bridle both, symbolic of an ability to sustain and steer and strategize, as she does, with here steely eyes and demeanor. She is also the goddess of crafts and all things artisinal—things that require a design and determination—to be steely is to be undistracted, eye on the prize or finished product. But again, there are extenuating circumstances, if not for Athena, then for the rest of us and those poor frozen blossoms.

The image of an early blossom, warmed by promise, burned by the cold, dead on the vine, to me, is like the opposite of withering on one. When we say one is whithering on the vine that is a metaphor for the fact that they mightn’t have made a love match and are now past the usual age, their bloom of youth has gone, they have failed to bear fruit, etc. This being the opposite, an early bloom, blasted by a freeze, rashly venturing forward to be burned by frost would thus carry the opposite metaphoric meaning: One who might have entered into love or lust too early and have paid the price of some form of damage for doing so. As someone who has never withered anywhere, the latter metaphor is more up my alley, so to speak. Rash moves in life are more the more ruinous when we not only haven’t thought them through but we don’t have the wherewithall to do so. If the god Mars/Aries is the spark interpretation of cardinal-fire, then he isn’t much concerned with the follow through—though Aries men might be sexually specific I don’t think they have the staying power of some other signs, although their refractory periods can be almost instantaneous. Lest we forget that Warren Beatty scheduled multiple lovers in one night, this surely wasn’t a recipe for any one of them, perhaps, experiencing multiple orgasms. Unlike sparky Mars, his sister Athena more embodies the metaphoric personification of a polite light, another interpretation of cardinal-fire. It’s there, but you might not see it behind the steely exterior of the stove or one’s eyes. But it’s all the while burning and ready to fuel this or that.

Originally posted April 6, 2016

We were recently interviewed by British Vogue for a forthcoming article. I received a follow-up question today by email— It is my sense that astrology itself goes in cycles of fashion. I think we could identify a high interest point in the 1920s, perhaps? (I think of Madame Arcati and Carl Jung and the dissemination of newspaper horoscopes). And perhaps also in the ‘New Age’ late-1960s. And maybe also – now?

 It inspired more than a sentence worth of response:

Madame Arcati is a character in Blithe Spirit not a real person. And that play debuted in 1941. I think you mean Madame Blavatsky the Theosophist? And that is the spiritualist movement.

Popular astrology (in the form of newspaper horoscopes) began with the birth of Princess Margaret in 1930. And astrology may have become more a thing in the late 1960s but it was during the me-generational 1970s that it really had mainstream popularity in the form of Linda Goodman’s Love Signs, the biggest selling astrology book author until we came along. In the 1970s casting individual birthcharts was as artisinal as it was since the middle ages, where charts were done by hand.

Look, you’re talking different forms of astrology. Real and faddish. The point is that it might have been faddish at various times in the 20th century where astrology enjoyed popularity. But if you’re making a case for it being more popular in those terms now then you have to justify the fact that Vogue and Vanity Fair and other popular magazines, with a certain sophistication, got rid of their astrology columns thinking they were no longer relevant. That would disprove your point.

What the point is is: Astrology is no longer a faddish thing. You have to remember the Quadrivium, curriculum of medieval university systems in which astronomy was one and the same as astrology. All major cathedrals have some Zodiac pattern or reference BECAUSE astrology was seen as evidence of God’s plan and Divine Order.

Back to the future: As Eastern philosophies and religions infiltrate Western thought, they bring their astrologies with them. Yogananda (Autobiography of a Yogi) and the Indian culture he grew out of all espouse astrological systems. What this did was inspire Westerners to look to their own existing astrology and Zodiac (which differs very little from any other Zodiac on the planet). The so-called New Age grew out of a combination of Eastern influences and New Thought philosophies and teachings here in the West, taking hold in the 1980s when Nancy Reagan had an astrologer in the White House. All major leaders through the centuries consulted astrologers, most notably Elizabeth I consulting John Dee; or the Romanovs with their Rasputin.

Carl Jung’s work with archetype is key. Joseph Campbell died with plans to write an astrology book next. People have come to realize that these high minded archetypes that come to us from the world of comparative religion and modern psychology are one and the same with the archetypal principles encoded into the Zodiac. We (and people) are coming to realize, wait a minute: This circular pictograph I’ve been staring at all my life was not just fodder for Peter Maxx drawings and songs in the musical Hair—the Zodiac as we know it dates back to the ancient Chaldeans who might have known a thing or two about a thing or two. So why have we been underestimating this thing and making it a parlor game for the past couple of centuries (which is a short amount of time for it to have been underestimated) in the scheme of its nearly 4000 year-old existence.

So the upshot? We don’t think astrology is experiencing another fad-period of popularity. We think that it is being permanently cemented into modern thought, philosophy, spirituality and culture. We see it as playing an increasingly larger role. We see more psychologists using it working with their patients just as we combine both previously separate schools of practice. People worship god ubiquitously without any proof of the existence of a divine being or beings. While, even from a (pseudo-) scientific perspective, the predictability of the movement of the stars, a documentable cosmic order is not only reassuring to people but it provides a logical basis for trusting the effects of the movements of the celestial bodies. From a scientific standpoint: People understand that the Moon effects not only the tides and women’s menstrual (moon-stral) cycles and that surgeons avoid cutting on full moons because bleeding is increased; so if that tiny orb has an effect on us why wouldn’t giant Jupiter or Venus or Saturn since we are in a SYSTEM with them.

Again science: we know (something the Zodiac seems to have known all along) that physical matter is something of an illusion, that all is energy in various forms of density. As we delve microcosmically we understand that all existence is actually non-material (the message of the all inclusive 12th house of the Zodiac); and so what does that say? It says that we are energy, not to mention that every atom of our being originated in stars. We are stardust IN FACT. We are made up of the same material/energy. And just like I can’t tell you if there is a heaven or a devil or angels or gods or any of that. I can tell you that we have assigned archetypes and personages to express and describe cosmic energies. This is why each of the symbols of the zodiac are packed with myriad myth which are no less allegorical for spiritual and human principles than those spouted by Jesus or other prophets. The entire Jesus myth, which millions of people buy into, all started with three savvy astrologists following the movement of a single star.

I think the trend in culture which is more permanent than a passing fad or fancy is that people, the younger millennials especially, have a more wholistic view of the world in general. They grew up into a world of quantum physics and the internet and fictitious wizarding worlds that intrinsically ring true. They live in a world of unseen forces (which most/all are). And the work of New Thought leaders and Eastern philosophers and gurus and psychologists and spiritualists and yes, astrologers  like us, specifically us, (we have hundreds of thousands of readers with our books in 16 translations worldwide) makes more sense to them than a single religious story and black and white rules of right and wrong. So we make the prediction that astrology is here to stay and will only increase in popularity and meet with unquestionable acceptance because (as you know from reading even our books on general sun-sign astrology) it rings TRUE!

Originally posted April 7, 2016

As mentioned, the Aries governing planet Mars rules the blood which is the most essential part of ourselves. This befits the sign’s native association with the first astrological house of Self. I think of Aries first house as our nature, before any nurture; what it is in our blood to be and do. In our work with clients this is an essential element of the process: to help people connect to that which they pinpoint as their original purpose, before life’s influences and influencers creeped in. “Starsky and Cox, changing the world, one creep at a time.” The first house rules our first impressions, a notion that has many intricate meanings. Primarily I like to interpret this as what impression we feel we are foremost meant to make on the world. We come into the world head first—or we should do—and Aries rules the head, hit home by the headlong Ram, with its might antlers, as the sign’s symbol. The antlers are both for offense as well as defense, but let’s look at the former: What are we impelled to do in this life if we had to say? If we could do but one thing, without anyone preventing us, what would it be? And how much determination do we need to accomplish that or break through the years of barriers opposed on us. For, trust me, embodying purpose is what Aries and the first house is all about. It is our initiation that is most important in so far as it regards our initiative.

We tell clients that it is never to late to be what you are. The motto of this sig is I am, after all. You are what? If you had to say. Before we start rattling off a list of things. I will use myself as an example. I am an actor. That’s the essential part of myself. I work as an astrologer, a counselor, a writer, a producer—I’ve been a journalist, a pr, a sales person, a waiter, an editor, a tv personality, on and on. But I really am an actor and a very good one although I don’t work at it. And I should. So, in that spirit I make a pledge to myself, proof in the putting, practicing what I preach, to pursue that study and career moving forward. One what cannot do is think about results when it comes to the first cosmic energy—cardinal-fire—associated with Aries and the first house. The being is all that matters. The putting of first things first. Expressing one’s truest nature. As a Libra (the opposite sign of Aries), the sign’s motto(s) being a counterpoint to the I am—We are or I balance, both of which point to the being or doing of a number of things, if we read the “We” as a royal one. Meaning Librans, the men especially, tend to be of the Renaissance variety, doing a number of things over the course of their lives, often simultaneously, risking being a jack of all trade and a master of none, a dilletante; while over time (father Time, Saturn is exalted in Libra) they might meet with myriad mastery like the archetype of the sign, Apollo, who is the god of a variety of arts and abstract doings. I say all this to illustrate that, more than any other sign, perhaps, we Librans are challenged when it comes to first-house energies, so unlike Aries people, who are simply the best representations—living illustrations—of that sign’s energy, incarnate. Look to your Aries friends: they are pretty well focused on being one thing, regardless of so-called success or trappings. They tend to develop mastery in one area, seemingly and seamlessly obsessed and driven in a specific direction. And unapologetically so. They are not waiting around for anyone’s approval. And when it comes to the I am, for all of us, we must all take a page from their book.

So what’s in your blood?

 

To view the original Sabian Symbol themed 2015 Cosmic Blague corresponding to this day: Flashback! The degree point of the Sabian Symbol may at times be one degree higher than the one listed here. The Blague portrays the starting degree of for this day ( 0°,  for instance), as I typically post in the morning, while the Sabian number corresponds to the end point (1°) of that same 0°-1° period. There are 360  degrees spread over 365/6 days per year—so they nearly, but not exactly, correlate.

Typos happen. I don’t have a proofreader. And I like to just write, post and go!
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