Scorpio 26° (November 18)
That would be today, five weeks until some tests I need having done. Let’s see what results that will bring. In the meantime, it isn’t a perfect situation around here of course but it is, proverbially, what it is. Woke up to a note from row-man to which we immediately responded. Today absolutely must result in results, and, to that end, I will attack the FOB section of the book and get that into some kind of fun draft, with a light touch. I’m trying to get the indoor shower to work better than it has. Lefty chowder for lunch and chicken and boy choy for din. I have an appointment at four and have to rack three hours of work before that. I must read in the wee hours of the morning the four chapters that I already have in works, making notes in the Virgo margins, and then there will be another client in the afternoon. Things will be cooking and that’s all that needs happening at this time. Still no word back today about the domestic dealings but I have to find the strength every day to persevere. We have protection of the terrestrial and spiritual kind on our side; I just need to meet this challenge half way and, as I get cooking, hopefully carve out enough late-afternoon hours to go through things and throw them away. Dump runs are to be my favorite outing it would seem, little by little, getting things up and out.
The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of Blagues, nos. 1156-1160 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.
Leo Woman
If, for Leo man, life is a game, for Leo woman it is a hunt. She is the most ferociously ambitious of all the gender-signs of the Zodiac. Wearing her signature predator’s smile, she prowls this life, on the scent of the particular successes for she hungers. If Leo woman is the Zodiac’s legendary king Arthur, Leo woman is the mythological Artemis, whom Homer called “Lioness amongst women,” a feral, untameable shrew (read: aggressively assertive). Typically left to her own devices, to fend for herself, from early childhood, the Leo woman doesn’t have much of one. She grows up sooner than she perhaps should, and yet, fortunately, not being a vulnerable personality, she isn’t as a rule victimized by circumstance in youth. Rather, she aligns herself, making friends, with adults, whether they be teachers or mentors within her family or community. She is an overachiever of the first order; and not so much a sore loser as one metaphysically disinclined to failure, whether it be in the pursuit of her marks, leading roles or positions, or awards. All for her is a contest, and she aims to outshine the competition, though she rarely recognizes others as such. If she should fall short of her high self-expectations she can be as fiercely self-condemning as she is, typically, -aggrandizing. Which explains why she can be so hard on those around her—it’s the same kind of expectant tough-love she bestows on herself.
Leo woman plays god in close company, doing for others as much to help others as to ensnare them, keeping them bound by the favor(s) she bestow(s). In the best light, she gets a charge from being responsible for contributing to the fortunes of those she loves; while surely solidifying bonds with those who owe her a debt of gratitude, giving her the upper hand in relationships. And demonstrating her sway and scope, in this way, is akin to a cat stretching, flexing her muscles and showing her teeth, keeping them sharp and giving playful expression to her natural aggression. What is play in nature but preparation for the battle of life?—or, more specificially, for the lion, the hunt. And so when not occupied with pouncing her larger life goals, she plays cat and mouse with people, drawing them in only to give them a few whacks; love taps, she might call them. She is canny and she is cunning and she will cut a bitch. Think of Artemis, giving chase, flanked by her faithful handmaidens and hounds; on some level, that’s as much status as Leo’s cronies might be afforded. We are all, to some extent, her bitches. From her perspective, you should be so lucky as to call her friend. Though she requires untold loyalty from others, she can be fickle and you can find yourself on the outs at a moments notice…only to be back in again before ere long.
Whereas Leo Man is on high alert for phoniness, Leo woman is know to adopt a persona or two or several, all rather lofty ones, over the course of her lifetime. She isn’t so much a social climber as she is someone who, no matter her origins, feels she belongs to some upper echelon or other. And when she “arrives” she is far more comfortable in her skin, like a deposed royal being reinstated, or one abducted in her infanthood, restored to her proper station. There is no irony in the way that she will assimilate with the so-called upper classes. Many people make bank, but not all of them require all the traditional trappings that go along with it. Think Madonna in full equestrian kit muttering in her ersatz British accent. While cardinal signs are the initiators of the Zodiac, the fixed signs that follow them, like Leo, are imitators, honers, and perfectors. What Leo might lack in originality, she more than makes up for in execution, a word which carries a funny double-entendre, especially in light of one of Leo woman’s archetypes, the Red Queen, whose famous expression is “off with her head.” Most anything you can do she can do better; and if she feels out-matched she might find other ways to eliminate the competition.
Creatively, intellectually working within well-worn genres, there maybe be more Leo women superstars, celebrated queens of whatever her chosen field, creative outlet or her intellectual arena might be. This is due, in large part, to…(we may never know
Virgo Man
Virgo man enters doubting; all having to be proven to him before he can decide whether or not to sanction. More than just a defense, this is a default expectation of a literal dis-appoint-ment. Which symbolically makes perfect sense in that it speaks to the shift from the sign of Leo (divine King) to that of Virgo (the Everyman). The Virgo is beyond some naive notion of innate nobility, which, for the Virgo, smack of delusions of grandeur. Virgo is coming from a different place, metaphysically—that is to say: emotionally, mentally, spiritually (all of which effect his physcal nature and body language). He is of the mind that life is what you make of it; that none of us are singled out for any predestined purpose; rather that you create your own existence, and any import thereof, everyday, block by block, over time. Likewise people, places and the things of circumstance must prove themselves to him over multiple interactons, if not a lifetime.
Virgo is especially dubious of others enthusiasm, and those who take too optimistic a view of life. Healthy skepticism is his superpower, allowing him to critique and diagnose situations, circumstances, environments, and other people. He is the alchemist of the Zodiac, seeking to root out the baser elements he encounters and to transmute that which he encounters to a more purified state. He cannot abide dysfunction (as he perceives it), the irony of course being that he has more than his fair share of flaws. And he will own that. Nothing and nobody is perfect, he will concede; but there must be a concerted effort toward betterment, amelioration. After the roaring pride of the sign of Leo, Virgo operates on humility, at least, as a jumping off point. He isn’t born thinking he’s god’s gift to the universe. Virgo is not shot through with bold-faced confidence or bravado; rather, he supplements any lack he perceives in himself via lifelong processes of honing expertise, in this area or that, which can lend him an erudite air, in the end, and, yes, a certain sophisticated superiority.
Fancying himself a connoisseur of this, that or the other, Virgo can be quite the culture vulture, though a selective one. While some say the sign is ruled by disabled Chiron, once a planet that was pummeled by asterioids, or the as yet undiscovered Vulcan, but the traditional ruler of the sign is Mercury, named for the winged god, which rules Gemini also. In that air sign all manner of breeze born birds and insect have emblematic impact; while in the earth sign of Virgo, we are symbolically grounded in the more terrestrial species, the gangly strutting storks and cranes, and the flightless emus, ostriches and other such big birds. Flightlessness in birds isn’t actually a disability, but a mark of evolution. It signifies filling a niche in an environment where there is no danger from predators. We are telling you this because, metaphorically, this is very telling about the Virgo male. He isn’t one to compete, in fact competition makes him anxious in the extreme. He opts instead to carve out an existence for himself where he isn’t open to comparison or censure. (As a Virgo once said: “comparison is violence”). Virgo isn’t comfortable under others’ authority. He is an isolationist and thrives, most, in that regard, both professionally and privately.
We have bemused the fact that Virgo can perform a disappearance act, suddenly dropping out of touch with friends and family, often for years, and sometimes permanently. As personally as one is wont to take this, it is always about him and not about you. Of all men, Virgo man doesn’t want to be known because he doesn’t feel it truly possible; he believes the human condition is indeed hinged on solitude, being alone and dying alone, and, on some level, that the in between time shouldn’t be any different. In the Tarot, the Hermit card is associated with Virgo. And in astrology, the sign has native rule of the sixth astrological house of habits, work, duty, behavior and the daily experience. If we deepen the routine of mere existence it becomes ritual; and life therefore becomes in itself a devotion. Virgo’s mottos are I work and I serve. To the Virgo mind: You are what you do. And a worthwhile life should be a dedicated life; and others, by and large, can be a distraction from whatever form of consecration Virgo’s life takes on. He is designed to be functional and to contribute to the common good, the paradox being that he can best do this by solitary means.
Virgo Woman
You’re not what you appear to be and in oh, so many ways. You’re seemingly unassuming, presenting as an affable creature, laughing readily, and game to realize fun plans and notions. You exude a childlike aura, and yet one suspects you of possessing serious countenance, a truly complex and layered you beneath any guileless surface gloss. We have likened Virgo to a cameo, you know like the jewelry or the framed kind, a delicately drawn, dimensional profile of a person, old-fashioned, human, and not to be forgotten, and of great value, especially, personally. This is how you appeal and how you self-protect. Because as inviting as you can be, something about you says you’re not to be trifled with. (And sometimes you might want to be, at least just a little.)
You can be something of a people pleaser but that’s just half that story. We come to learn that you’re meanwhile exacting an agenda al you’re own—your sign motto isn’t “I work” for nothing—getting what you require from every situation and relationship. You thereby put together the pieces of your own successes. A lender you may never be, but a borrower you are for certain. Virgo woman is a collage in fact of every influence—people, places and things—she encounters. These three p’s comprise the happenstance of life, which speaks to Virgo as the ruler of the astrologicial 6th house, that of daily experience and quotidien existence. In mythology it is Pandora, made out of clay by the god smithy and potter god, Hephaestus, whose every physical feature is modeled on, borrowed, picked and chosen from the best attributes of all the divine goddesses in total. Pandora means all-given (it also means all-giver—we’ll get to that fact). It is one thing to be an amalgam of all our experiences and influences, it’s quite another to mold it all into something completely unique in personality and style. Which is something you do nine times out of ten.
As the sole mutable-earth sign in the zodiac….
You are the zodiac’s mama’s girl. It is indeed coded into your astrological DNA. The virgin of the Virgo is called Kore, she is the mythical daughter and, really, the maiden form of the mother earth goddess (of the harvest) Demeter, who was legendarily attached to her daughter who was snatched by Pluto and turned into Persephone (archeypes of Scorpio). You’ll notice your sign symbol and Scorpio’s both have an M emblem, yours that folds in, hymen-like on itself, and Scorpio’s which jutts out with an arrow head, that symbolic scorpion sting. M is for Mater, Mother. Demeter and Pluto struck a bargain, ultimately (there were pomegranates involved, it’s a long story), and Persephone became Kore again for half the (springtime, summer) year. Demeter grieved the other, plunging us into fall and winter. So if you wonder why the bond with mom is loaded, it’s cuz it carries the archetypal weight of this mother-daughter myth. There is paradoxical power to be mined and pifalls to negotiate in consideration of what inheritances you share with your own mater. Your superpower to diagnose and set things aright, healing situations, making them functional where they were not in some way stems from this relationship, for better or worse. So too does any arrested development.
Libra Man
Mention the sign of Libra and most people say how much they love it or that it’s their favorite. Mention Libra man and you might hear crickets. Maybe the most misunderstood of all signs, Libra man can read as a lightweight who nonetheless asserts a heavy agenda. The truth is Libra has a great many talents. Typically, though, it is challenging for the Libra man to go deep into any one of them to the exclusion of others. This is one of the factors in the that give rise to Libras being labelled indecisive, which isn’t really an appropriate mark. The Scales man is born to weigh his options; and it is in his nature to want to do a plethora of things creatively. This is part of the reason Libra can feel others don’t take him seriously. Also, the Libra personality tends to the bright side, often to a fault, making light of life; and though this is one of the sign’s sincerest personality traits, others can find it put-on, phony, too good to be true—espcially the more brooding of the signs. The fact is, Libra tries tokeep dark thoughts and moods to himself because they seem to him a private affair that others shouldn’t be bothered with; likewsie he doesn’t wish to be burdened with other people’s problems—Libra’s not the greatest in an emergency—which to him, more times than not, just seem boring and beside the point. Get over it can be a Libra creed; but the fact is that some issues, challenges, facts of life do need sorting through. Libra’s default, rose-colored optimism can be, sometimes inappropriately, too much—unrealistic, avoidist and indicative of a lack in coping skills— just as his expectations of others to likewise rise above and roll with the punches can be too great.
As the cardinal-air sign, Libra energy translates to Light. The male arechetype of the sign is Apollo, the god of light (not to be confused with the Sun god, Helios) who is also god of a slew of abstracts—reason, order, music (harmony), law, poetry, art, prophesy and other such conceptuals—and you will note that the Scales are the only inanimate symbol in the Zodiac, all the rest are human or other animal. In truth Libra man can seem the least animalistic of all men, while he doesn’t subscribe to being all too human either. Apollo isn’t a rough and tumble god. He’s masculine but in a rather ethereal way. We see him cloaked in white, fair haired, walking through ordered, columned halls. Vanilla is likely his favorite flavor. He’s the golden boy. And yet his myths all hinge on rejection, most notably, his love for the nymph Daphne, who fled from his affections—was too much expectation?—as she would rather turn herself into a laurel tree than couple with him. Thus Apollow wears a laurel crown, his godhead symbolized by being shot down. He’s not in with the other male gods. They likely think him a little precious, perfectionistic, a bit too challenging, cerebral, none to chill and laidback. Is any of this sounding familiar?
To others, Libra man can feel like a hard lesson you’re learning. He’s like that teacher you had that was tough and formal and perhaps a bit mean but from whom you learned everything you’ll never forget. The paradox (within paradox) of Libra is that he tends only to realize his full self and potential, in one-on-one relationships; and yet his need to be in so terrific a twosome can feel so loaded to a potential partner that they…just…can’t. The seventh astrological house that falls under Libran rule is that of one-on-one relationships, partnerships and marriage, but as with all things associated with the sign, its primary resonance is an abstract one. Libra likes to marry—ideas into revelatory aha! principles, individuals with connections (other people or situations) that spell success, and, especially conflicting opposities into powerful alliances. And he definitely seeks all of the above for himself. As the opposite sign of Aries, ruled by Mars, named for the god of war—symbolizing the spearheading of individual goals, sole concquest and survival, Libra, alternatively, is ruled by Venus, the power of attraction, union, and shared goals and experience, equality, democratic co-existence, and, thus, peace, specifically of the mind. The sign’s two mottos are I balance and We are.
Embodying the notion that we can’t live in isolation, Libra is often, paradoxically, something of a lone wolf (the animal totem associated with Apollo). He isn’t as naturally embraced by guy peers, especially, as are other male signs. He tends not to be a chip off the old block, embodying an opposing vision of masculinity from his father and other men in his family. And you would never call him earthy. He can live very much in his mind and reality often falls short of his idealized vision. He is anything but laid back, and struggles to live life on life’s terms. His rosey outlook is thus his greatest superpower and fatal flaw. The trick for him is to understand that things can never live up to his pink-bubble expectations but that he should maintain them nonetheless. The world may not be singing in perfect harmony, but that is no reason not to want to keep teaching it to do so.
Libra Woman
Wherever Libra woman is, that’s the place to be. At least that’s her storyline and she’s sticking to it. She is the craftiest of the Zodiacal characters, in every meaning of the word. An individualist of the first order, and someting of an eccentric, she carves out her own space in life, taking a rather d.i.y. approach to living, and keeping her human interest light, lively, and moving. She is one to play by her own rules, which often necessitates working alone or in tandem with a loved one, and more often than not, in an aesthetic field or one hinged on lovely ideals. The air sign of Libra, ruled by Venus, is all about gorgeous notions, whether of the conceptual or knick-knack variety. While Venus’s rule over the earth sign of Taurus emphasizes physical beauty, in Libra, it translates to conceptual splendor and the amelioration of the world, or at least her corner of it, through the living of life on an idealized plane (which, again, is much easier to do in some form of isolation). As a rule, Libra is a liberal if not an activist of her own design, her relationships with others being more sweeping and abstract and less cozy and personal—and, besides, it’s easier to carry around a soapbox designed solely for one.
As Apollo, god of light and prophecy, is the archetype of the Libra man, it follows that his counterpart(s), is the High Priestess, oracle of Delphi through whom Apollo would, ultimately, speak. Originally the oracle belonged to his grandmother Phoebe, meaning “shining” (Apollo bears the prefix Phoebus) and, in later mythology, Pythia, meaning “rotting” whose oracles are inspired by the fumes of the rotting Python, whom Apollo slay (he is also Apollopython). Taken all together: To shine and to rot point to an infinitive, inherent paradox in the Libra woman whose tradmark adult role as an enlightener (of others) stems from signature destructions in her early life, symptomatic of her own recovery therefrom—more often than not Libra women come from broken homes where they are made to feel divided, pulled in opposite directions; having to be the balance, the mediator, here come the judge—the proverbial Lady of the Scales. The High Priestess sits upon a three-legged pedestal. As does Libra woman, by virtue of her own edification, others’ idealized vision of her, or some combination of both. For all Libra’s goodness and light, one senses they derive from times in dark places. The white witch with certain knowledge of the dark.
Where Libra man tries as he might to eschew darkness, remaining in his pink-bubble of optimism, which oft leads to disappointment; Libra woman works that bubble, riding it, like Glinda, to try to shed said light in dark places, to elevate consciousness on a democratic scale, to illumine a world of possibility. Due to upbringing, however, she may try to be too many things to too many people, losing sight of herself and her needs in the process. She is most often so agreeable, that when she does take a strong stand, she can be accused of being contrary for its own sake. It’s just one of the levels on which Libra can be misunderstood. The High Priestess spoke in gibberish, which was up to others to interpret. Likewise, Libra can keep people guessing by offering a plethora of possible answers to any one question and a salad of would-be solutions to any single problem. Glinda, you will note, didn’t just say “click your heels” as an instant remedy; rather she said follow that road which would inevitably split into a spray of would be paths. Though you wouldn’t accuse her of being indecisive, per se, as you might the the Libran male, Libra woman can inspire a kind of vacillation in others. And she does jump around, taking on different paths, herself, on a fairly steady basis. She doesn’t seem a dilletante like Libra man, who wears too many hats at once; rather she reinvents fairly constantly, committing for a time, completely, to the one path she’s set upon; while her loved ones learn not to be surprised if, they next time they speak, she’s on a completely different trip.
The one constant, and the one word that best defines the Libra woman, in a word, is style. Not a follower of fashion or other design trends, Libra exudes a personal aesthetic sensibility that inimitable. If strolling through a crowded fleamarket, say, she has a natural eye for spotting hidden, often quirky treasures, that might otherwise go unnoticed. Likewise, she assembles a wardrobe without breaking any banks but nontheless enables her to dress to kill on a daily basis. Seemingly superficial, these talents add up to something resonant: She is forever in the process of endowing herself and her environment with tangible representation of her surpassing taste, which has a powerful effect on her psyche, her confidence, and her sense of identity and well-being. Her ability to visibly and vividly design herself, her surroundings and indeed her lifestyle is a spiritual expression of auto-validation. She can see her tastes and principles reflected in everything she touches, making very real her concepts for living. It’s a slow motion process of waving a wand, snapping her finger, or wriggling her nose to make manifest that which she desires. TK
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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