Libra 15° (October 7)

Quite weird because yesterday I awoke after a dream of “sexual reassignment” and I was really, really freaked out and remorseful that my morsels were missing. I feel as if I did the surgery along with someone else—maybe we got a two-fer or something. Anyway yesterday was kind of a bust, even though I got an early start. I felt as if things weren’t clicking and that I was being negative and same samey and I needed to step away. So I got some other stuff done, reworked my closets more for the season, did some toilette, got my bag ready for Thursday and then settled back in for another couple of hours just to see if I could make a little magic. If not the hope is I’ll be able to spend hours on hours today really making some magic. That is the hope anyway. Tomrrow I will get up and just prep for two days so that I’m completely up to speed to be back at it on Saturday. I simply have to get into a 4-5 day rhythm and if I can do that with some success I should be in quite good shape for the second round of all of this. That is surely the hope. I’m not going to look upon the last day as disappointment myself. Rather, I am still here and still open and still available to what might come my way. I’m looking forward to eliminating all that can be eliminated in this environment and getting myself to a new place, emotionally and physically. The rest is sort of beside the point.

Maybe we say something about being the most magnetic of creatures. That might be a good starting point. In any case. I will likely rejig my calendar a bit to accommodate this quick trip to Cambridge we are making. I honestly cannot remember the last time I was off the Cape. I do think it is important to make a little room moving forward. Had a very spicy carrot-ginger soupl last night and I’m starting to see the effects of liquid dinners (that aren’t ninety percent wine) and my viscera already feels much better. I always have anxiety going to the doctor but this week will be the first time in my history that my doctor will be younger than me. Hasn’t happened with a president yet but I suspect it will with Kamala in the next four to eight years. My doctor who was like a Norman Rockwell character retired; and seriously I hope Biden lives to be one hundred and ten. I cannot wait for this monster to be out of office needless to say. I put up this leading post yesterday about a friend who talks behind my back and suddenly that individual is heart-ing all my posts. I suppose. The local news is good regarding the virus but I am on high alert going up to Boston tomorrow. Anyway, I woke up feeling somewhat more optimistic—we shall see what the day brings. The chicken noise is out of control and since farmer fuckwad build a little tiered experience for them one psycho chicken just screams all day long out of the window facing our kitche. I’m going to get one of those loud megahorns and I will blow it in their direction everytime they make a noise. That is my fantasy plan in any case. Okay bring on the dancing girls…..

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 951-955. 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’m hard pressed to make a reckoning of what all might have happened since we created that range of jewelry way back when. We had the notion you see to create a range of jewelry, based on the symbology, and even original designs thereof we had made up to illustrate our books, into a collection of charm necklaces by sign. Jewelers we knew with their own collection called Ten Thousand Things said they wanted to do it. So we created twelve charm necklaces for women, with five specific charms of our own divining. These are what got the major press in magazines. And there was another line of more unisex necklaces in an i-d pendant style. They were a big hit commercially, which was perhaps unexpected. Anyway, it was a beautiful experiment but our collaborators were focused on their own brand. As were we. We kept the name, but it was lodged in the backs of our brains that we would some day soon pick up that ball and run with it. And over the years we began to design the concept for what AsterCast should be: The most beautiful and truly empowering fully customizable collection of potent charms, amulets and precious stones that the customer can arrange in powerful combinations.

I must make it so I need the sense of creating demonitized dynasty. Since last incarnation we published a second major book as well as launched a series of yearly astrology books. One of us got a master’s degree in psychology, we hosted a successful radio show and guested regularly on top-rated cable shows, we contributed columns to, among others, Allure, Vogue Paris and German Glamour magazines and to The Daily Beast. As fashion and design experts of note, we contriuted numerous features to Neimann Marcus’ The Book as well as collaborating with, creating content for: Chandelier, MAC, Kyle Minogue, Selfridges, Harvey Nichols, Marc Jacobs, Colette, Nokia.

We formed a festival, in its 8th year and 3rd year series at American Repertory Theater . Stella is creator of American Baroness, a TK and Quinn is creator of the Cosmic Blague, a daily reckoning of a life careening through space at TK MPH on an orb with a circumference of X and a diameter of Y. Peformed a Starsky + Cox musical show.

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In the decade plus years since the publishing of Sextrology, our seminal work, we have continued to develop our theories and notions about what it means to be the star-sign you are, and what resources for self-empowerment does your symbolically rich star-sign provide. The “estate” of each sign is comprised of so many archetypally charged symbols, numbers, planets, myths, elements, metaphysics, animal and plant totems, and objects of power. But the forces of the Zodiac aren’t static but infinitely DYNAMIC, round and round on what astrology would hope for you is an upwardly spiral staircase.

As soon as we put pencils down on Sextrology we began to fill notebooks for what could come next. And it turned out what comes next is what comes next. We’re going to bridge the genres of astrology and personal development here, for the first time, to employ the Zodiac, in this volume, to determine DIRECTION for each of the signs

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This will be a putting together of Acknowledgements. I’d like to acknowledge William Blake and William James. And Webern and Schoenberg and Mondrian and Kandinsky. I’d like to thank Grace Jones, Bryan Ferry, and the lady I saw in a one-breasted gold lamé gown dancing at Castel in 1985.

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Hello. Thanks for coming. We are Starsky + Cox and we are Humanistic Astrologers for the most part. That is to say the astrology of the person and personality, tying the practice of astrology with that of psychology. Stella is a Mindful Meditation practitioner and soon to be practicing Positive Psychologist. We are both Metaphysicians and sometime Psychics. Quinn is especially so. We both are. Something we chalk up to our Celtic Blood Lines.

We both descend from families with certain mystical leanings—lots of witches—white witches—and we met here in Boston in the 80s at Logan Airport where we embarked on a junior year study abroad program from BU.

Besides the usual attraction—I like short men—and, me, classic beauty. We were was once in Nantucket visiting the Stillers, you know Jerry Stiller, Anne Meara, Ben’s parents. And I was walking behind Quinn and…on our way out for drinks and Anne Meara says to me. Don’t you just love short men?And I do. And we have been called, even by their own children, the Stiller and Meara of astrology. And the Nichols and May. And the Sonny and Cher. And the Shields and Yarnel.

Anyway…what was I saying, oh yes….apart from the usual attraction, what drew us together was the discover of our shared interest in astrology. And particularly in the notion that males and females of the same sign actually seemed to be very different. Ultimately this became the premise of our book Sextrology, which you’re all being “gifted” with your ticket price here tonight. Which is a great deal because it’s basically what the book costs at retail. So this part, the semi-seminar if you will is really just the sugar on top. But we will enlighten you for sure. And don’t worry if you’re not getting it all up here. Because you’re getting it on some level. It’s something of a transmission. So just let it wash over you. And anyway, it won’t last long. We want to save time for questions if you have any and also sign your books.

So, yes, Sextrology. Sextrology divides the zodiac into 24 signs, males and females being very much their own characters, drawing on different archetypes. And what is an archetype. Well at its core its an energy—isn’t everything?—but you might call it a living energy. Thus these archetypes were “personified” as gods by the ancients in every culture around the world—comparitive religion will point out how this Greek god is the same as that Indian god or Norse god or South Pacific god because, no matter what you name these energies, these archetypes, they remain the same. From the gods to the characters in fairy tales and in fiction, drama, art, dance, film, TV, even comic books and video games, we see the same basic set of prime and ancillary archetypes again and again and again. And each of the signs, each of the 24 signs, has main and ancillary archetypes associated with it. You each have your own set of archetypes on which you draw.

The psychologist Carl Jung, who was heavy into astrology, really brought the notion of archetypes into the mass consciousness and our brand of Humanistic Astrology, founded by someone called Dane Rudhyar, was in turn inspired in large part by the work of Jung. As a point of interest, you might like to know, that at last count there were actually 84 different branches of Astrology which speaks to the multi-purpose and multi-application of the Zodiac itself and how it serves as a metaphor and a mandala for everything. This is probably one of those bits that you’re not getting here, again just let it wash over you, and we’ll try to make it a bit clearer.

First, who here has had their chart read by an astrologer? Okay so you know when you see an astrologer they prepare a chart for you. It’s a wheel, looks like this. (Show Chart) It’s the wheel of the Zodiac, the full Zodiac. And what makes each of our charts unique—New York, unique, New York—is the particular pattern which, when one factors in all the planets and asteroids, is as individual as a finger print. Even twins born minutes apart will have different birth charts, natal charts. And anyway, twins tend to gravitate toward different ends of the spectrum of chart interpretation but that’s another subject.

So you can pass that around. And what we look at, as astrologers, is the placement of the planets in the various twelve signs in the various twelve houses, and the connections between these planets. That tells us the basic story of your life, your strengths and weaknesses, your potentials and pitfalls, your purposes and challenges to overcome. In our private practice with clients it is the first thing we look at. We will use other charts, too, to tell us where you might be in any given time in your life journey but we always relate those back to the original natal chart.

We read the chart counter clockwise from 3’oclock. And the houses are numbered 1-12 all the way around. Now in “Carlo”‘s chart the first house is ruled by the sign of TK, the second by TK and so forth all the way around. But in the Natural Zodiac the first sign is Aries, second Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo all the way around to the twelfth sign of Pisces. These signs are the Natural Rulers of the Houses of their same number. So no matter what sign rules Carlo’s first house or your first house, the first house itself is always associated with the sign of Aries and its ruling planet Mars and all the innumerable qualities and assignations that go along with the sign of Aries.

The first house is that of Self, among other things. And, I don’t know if any of you are Aries or know someone that is, they tend to be pretty Self-y if not ish. And there is a reason for that. Well a “reason”. It harkens back to those energies those archetypes. Just as they’ve been personified as gods and characters in literature and so forth, they also live in us and we are personifications of them. Over your head it’s okay don’t worry about it. It’s sinking in some where.

We can take Carlo’s chart back. Okay so that is a person’s individual birth chart. Separate from but of course related to the Zodiac itself. That gorgeous circle with its twelve signs depicted by these beautiful mythical creatures and “fantastic beasts” (to answer the proverbial question: this is where to find them). The Zodiac means circle of animals. It shares the same root word as Zoo. And indeed eleven of the twelve signs are depicted by animals if you count humans as animals since Virgo and Aquarius both have human

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We doubled up on our intial rehearsal today and got much done. We had a light soup of watercress and cauliflower for lunch so I didn’t get too slowed down, and had salmon with avocado,rice, salad for dinner

the following is a transcript from our lecture series. all rights reserved:

…figures and Libra the only inanimate symbol in the Zodiac in The Scales. I don’t know if anyone here is a Libra or knows someone who is but Libras do tend to be in a word abstract.

Okay, so yeah. The zodiac. I know what the zodiac is. First of all you don’t second of all have you ever stopped to ask yourself what this thing truly is. Or why it has not only survived down through the ages but it factors in to our lives on a pretty regular basis. You can’t pass a newstand or go online without some mention of astrology or the zodiac. It has somehow survived for eons, appealing to us on some level, keeping itself alive in our lives and imagination. But few people have ever really taken the time to examine the zodiac. To meditate on it as a mandala. We have of course. We’ve spent our life doing so. And over the years it has spoken to us. Not just in terms of reading our clients. But just on its own.

This thing. This thing. What is it. It’s meant to depict the circle of constellations in the sky. But have you ever seen the constellations? Do they really look like a Ram or a Bull or a SeaGoat? Not really. And it’s not important. The constellations were really just like ancient post-it notes that reminded the ancient peoples that, at this certain time of year or that, the energy “feels” rather Ram-like or Bullish or SeaGoaty??? Yes because these animals and humans and the scales are all symbols. They’re all metaphors for a set of ideas and feelings and directives, all of which are coded in this thing called the Zodiac. This thing we’re so used to seeing we ignore it. Well we don’t and neither should you.

Because we believe that the Zodiac itself is far more than the sum of its individual parts, signs and houses. It is, as a whole, something powerful. Just as it depicts our Solar System from our earthly perspective, IT IS A SYSTEM we believe. An ancient system for…ready…drumroll…for self-actualization. It’s an ancient self-help manual. It’s the original twelve-step program. And don’t think for one minute that our modern twelve-step programs aren’t based on the design of this twelve-step system. That’s the T.

We would be here for months if we were to provide you every in and out of why we know this to be true. Because every sign has associated with it innumerable attibutes and assignations. We are going to just stick to a few to illustrate each of the signs, the twelve steps, in quick succession. It’s just an overview but it will illustrate the logic of the zodiac as a system for ordering your life. You’ve heard of living a full-life? A whole life? A 365° experience of life. Well this little baby (the zodiac) has the answers and asks you the right questions. We even have a little questionnaire for you which we’ll send you away with to answer at your own leisure how about that?

So we’re going to focus on a few things. We’re going to focus on each of the sign’s mottos. We’re going to look at the element and what’s called the quality of each sign, in combination, and we might explore the symbol of the sign itself as well as the planetary rulership or each sign and perhaps touch on its body rulership or that of its age span or its associative myth. But that’s really it and we’re going to do it fast, because…(looks at watch) we want to leave plenty of time to sign your books and so forth before we all head off to our dinners. We’re meeting friends for Chinese food and we’re psyched.

Twelve. It’s the number of cosmic order. Three, a magic number associated with the divine (the trinity) times Four, a number or earthly existence, the elements and four corners of the world. Four elements—fire, earth, air, water—times three qualities—cardinal, fixed and mutable—make up the particular element-quality combination specific to each of the signs. Over your head don’t worry about it it’s fine.

In this reading of the zodiac. Let’s call it the 85th as yet unnamed branch of Astrology, let us remember the zodiac is a metaphor for you and you’re own journey. The zodiac’s twelve signs and houses really illustrate the different aspects of You, in turn, with encoded wisdom on how to fire on all these twelve cosmic cylinders if you will. In this philosophy, we look at people born any particular sun sign as just another attribute of it. They are simply the best, examples, literally personifications, of that sign’s particular energy. To help us understand it. Again, don’t worry you’re getting it.

Here we go. Wanna time it and see how fast we can do it?

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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