Capricorn 9° (December 30)

Even though it’s just two days ago I’m supposed to remember what happened on this day and I don’t. Not because I’m some kind of drug addict or anything just because the times are so strange and so filled with same same meanness on one side and on the other with this constant barrage of monkey wrenches and fires to be put out . So I’m doing a bit of catching up here and I am working a numbers game when it comes to words even in the writing of the book draft. It’s the ******** up at all. The writing the linear thing forward that’s supposed to be new and different and the opening up the space and time for droplets of guidance and synchronicity too not only sweetened the pot but be the mainstay of actually what this text will ultimately become. I’m not sure I could have typed that sentence better than speaking it so for the first time I’m maybe understanding that if I’m in the right frame of mind this dictation jazz will be exactly what I need. Tomorrow is New Year’s Eve i’m going check the menu and see what we ate … we ate salmon … apparently which is A mainstay of my diet that was a joke we had salmon way too much. The point is is that bland menu discovery gives me nothing to go on in terms of what actually happened on that particular day so I’m going to assume that I organized I cooked I bathed I try to write. All those things would have happened. I think we also maybe did we go to the shops I think we did this is terribly boring doesn’t matter there’s plenty below to entertain you. 

The following blocks of text are exceprts from my first year of  Blagues, nos. 1366-1370. 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.

Strange that Taurus is the premier feminine sign but it’s symbol is the masculine Bull; after much consideration of that cunundrum it occured to us that Taurus’ symbol itself might be purposefuly ironic and speak to the subjectivity, the power of passivity, of this sign: The Bull symbolically represents that which the sign of Taurus seeks to attract not its own character at all. The Bull fertilizes (the feminine), in more ways than one; in the garden analogy. Also, the upshot of the Io myth, which ends with her being chased by a stinging gladfly across the Bosphoros straights—the “cow ford”—whereupon she emerged from heifer form, appearing, now, a goddess queen, herself, , (Isis), on par with Hera/Juno is, the upshot is, the upshot is: the myth of  Europa, the response in the call and response of Io and her descendent (by Zeus), Europa, who now travels back across the Bosphoros on the back of Zeus, her lover in most beautiful Bull form, transfiguring the narrative, Zeus, yoked in floral garlands, taking the burden of bovine form, once Io’s shame,transmuting it into Europa’s honor.

Remember we said Taurus rules the senses and appetites, thus, we might say, all of the earthly pleasures, which Taurus people may indulge, but more to the point: Taurus plays on the senses and appetites of others, that oomphy Venus energy, seeking union, weilding its power of attraction, Taurus people being most pleasing. They offer endless delight, exhibiting myriad talents in infinite milieus, eyes an ears attuned to audience reaction, making endless corrections to their work, art or enterprise to achieve their one goal: to appeal. Just as we move from the first sign of Aries to the second of Taurus, we swing from the Aries from Ram, the shepherd on the hill in the Christmas story to the nativity scene, the stable, the manger, or cow trough, being the center seat of the adoration scene, from the french, manger, to eat. We could just gobble him up, and we will later. Taurus energy not only seeks favor, to be prized and cherished, you might say it also wants to be consumed, possessed. Feminine Taurus  stands counter to masculine Aries which seeks to conquer and perhaps consume in the process, though it isn’t the usual goal.

One of the things to admire most about a Taurean is their ability to hang a high price tag on themselves. They will do the work, cultivating themselves and their talents like a master gardner, playing nice, being pleasing, if not somewhat fauning and sycophantic which is always an inside-out expression of certain narcissism. The mirror is a recurring theme in the art, music, film and literature of Taurus creatives, and the natives tend to be very exacting in their appearance, cultivating a strong look that communicates not only their sensibilties but their intentions. They are, on this score, in a word, deliberate. This, along with practical and methodical and determined and focused are Taurus watchwords, being as myopic as real bulls are, metahporically speaking, of distractions or detractors, and also of their own artistic delusions.

I am noticing a shift on my behavior toward a hyperfunctionality that I find somewhat disturbing. I wrote this sentence a couple of days ago and I almost feel completely opposite now.The point is that I am a creature, as we all are, of highs and lows; and there comes a time when one really has to come to terms with Mr. Inbetween. I’ve never liked him but I’m thinking now that he might be the perfect entity to befriend at this juncture. Something about being alone on the weekend kind of shocked me into a certain realization of myself: I am the prime cause of any unhappiness I suffer. Not to say that people haven’t done me wrong because they have, but the truth is I am really ready to let go of all that now in a way I haven’t before. I must take responsibility for befriending people whom, upon meeting them, the word run was flashing across the screen of my mind. But I’ve been a glutton all my life for stones from which I can’t get blood because that was the relationship dynamic I had growing up in my household. But I’m now in my advancing years and I can’t afford this anymore. I have learned over the last five years especially how to be alone; and that has been helpful but not the entirety of the equation necessary now to lead a good life. I will admit that I am not at my best upon writing this but the happy paradox of that is what feels like a new unyielding desire to be the best I can be. This shall require baby steps because as good as I can be to myself, I too have mimicked the behavior of others in my early life and have undervalued myself in a way that is no longer tenable.

I was writing some thoughts on the signs’ “experience” these last few days but I need to take a bit of a break from that because the whole point of it was to killt two birds with the same stone: to make some new ideological inroads about the signs while remaining true to this daily Blague with information you might want to read. As if I have readers. Although I realize I might be surprised. And anyway that is all about to change because I will be changing it. There is so much bubbling beneath the surface right now and I feel as if my only job is to let it and participate in that bubbling. I don’t want to overachieve in the least right now; and I’m not going to push anybody to move the needle either, despite there being so, so many needles right now. I’ve learned my lesson about rushing other people; it only ever backfires. I will wait until next week to start putting feelers out on that score. I am determined to prove to myself that I can hit my marks; but I am not going to work myself into exhaustion ever again. And I need to devote myself to the well-being of others too. That is the best part of doing client work. I can make myself completely available to other people’s happiness and fulfillment. It makes a huge difference in ones life to be fortunate enough to do that; I think I/we would do it even if it weren’t an aspect of our livelihood. In fact I know I would. It’s just how I’m built; and honestly, it is the role I played with my parents—mediator—in our earliest life together. I was psychologist to them before I was five years old, sitting them down on either side of me on our tiny sofa in our Jersey City apartment, urging them to find middle ground. This must have seemed so odd to them, now that I think about it. But when I think of myself, I almost remember feeling shocked at the time by having the wherewithall, as if I were an old soul of sorts, although I never considered myself a very, very old one.

I have gone through so many phases in my spiritual development, and I’ve entertained some pretty kooky belief systems along my path. I think I always vacilated between a certain sexual abandon and a need to find some semblance of god, in turns, during my teens and early twenties. There is nothing wrong with sowing wild oats but I seem to have been doing it in these two directions, getting as many spiritual ya yas out as I did lusty ones. Now I think it may have been the same energy flowing in not necessarily opposite but often parallel directions. I wanted some sense of the transcendent and also of comfortable oblivion and they both promised some taste I guess. Now of course I’ve spent a lifetime opening cosmic, spiritual channels. I didn’t know then, for instance, that I could be as psychic as I have exhibited over the years. Although, of late, I feel a bit dulled in regard to that faculty. But, like with the whole ball of wax I’m attempting to tackle here, I know the best course of action for better tapping into it. It’s about being clear (not to be confused with going clear). It’s about lifestyle, too, and making more rooms for passions of the more quotidien variety. This I can do.

I am hardpressed to write today, mainly because I have so many chores on my plate that includes some food prep, house cleaning and dump running. When one does everything for themselves, as we do when we are not living in cities, one must dedicate certain days to all the d.i.y. that comes with it. Don’t get the wrong idea: I actually love doing myself much of what is necessary to lead a functional domestic existence. I’m basically an old-fashioned whistle-while-you-work kind of character who is eternally grateful that he has never had to punch a clock in his adult life but has managed to live off his wits—I have also not had to make the kinds of compromises I’ve seen others make in order to have a surplus of riches which strikes me as more of a stress for these so-called fortunate friends who have in this way or that sold their souls to large enterprises from whom they (whether they let themselves believe it or not) take money laundered money, which has become the most prolific variety in recent decades. The Russians are coming? No they are already here (in our Western world) and have been for decades. I’ve felt this for years living in New York city in the 1990s and early aughts…or is it oughts?…oh well it doesn’t matter. You’re not even reading this. And that’s fine.

I really would rather lead a modest existence, financially, so long as it afforded me increased freedom and the ability to express my creativity. The well of creativity, though, is not fathomless and it needs refilling; and in order to do that one has to back off and get plenty of what is good for a person—rest, water, exercise being the simple chief things among them. I’m definitely in an existential mode. I won’t say crisis because, honestly, I feel more emotionally and mentally stable than probably ever in my life, a result of understanding how much strain I have been under in my doing all I can to fight my way out of the hole that was the end of the Bush era. As cliché as it might sound, I feel we were on the front lines of that economic downswing only because so much of our existence was based on freelance writing at that time—we weren’t focused as we are now on the consultancy which is far more rewarding a career direction in the end. I love working directly with people; and the publishing world, in the end, was almost the worst of all the industries I’ve worked in, including media and fashion and that is saying something in itself. Anway I’d like to get back into talking about these “sign experiences” I started and to see where that might take me.

Taurus people might be prone to overindulge their own appetites, at least that is the dime-story converntional wisdom on the subject. Moreso, they create hunger in others for themselves. This happens in positive ways, making people hanker for their skills and talents, but also finding ways to addict others to them. That didn’t make much sense but I think I am driving at something here. Taurus people collect other people, and they will prize certain and target others. Oh wow I really ran out of steam on that one. I will have to revisit this idea for sure as it needs fleshing out. Let’s move onto the Gemini experience…Ah! wait I have another Taurus thought:

The thing about fixed signs is they are not the originators, typically, of ideas, waves or movements in their creative work that are the cardinal signs that precede them. Cardinal signs struggle with follow through and sustenance, a Taurus word if we ever heard one. All fixed signs drill down and are all kinds of things that one might associate with being fixed. In Taurus’ case we say the sign energy can be stubborn, obstinate, determined and deliverate, grounded, etc, terms that one might apply to the Bull itself.  Taurus people don’t like complication, they naturally keep things simple, which manifests, most poignantly, in their going long and deep into specific interests, instead of being renaissance wo/men in any sense of the word. The are niche dwellers, narrowling focused, leaving no stones unturned in the cultivation of their uniquely pinpointed talents/skills with which they continually wish to flourish (flower!).

I’ve decided that I miss glamour, or rather my life is missing it; no I think I meant the first thing I said more than the second. I think that’s one of the beauties of our taking this new direction—I do see that as much as we give to it, it will give to us, which is right. Part of my glamour aesthetic might be described as downtown east village, but really that is just part of the equation because I have always been less down and dirty than the glamazons who emerged from the club and drag worlds. I have never had that sort of drama or severity in me to bust out. I never stuck with any one thing, being the Libra that I am.

Anyway I’m going to really forge ahead again on writing these new thoughts on the signs experiences today which are part and parcel of my planning the next series of books. Let’s now move onto the Gemini experience:

The twelve signs of the Zodiac are unique combinations of the four elements (fire, earth, air, water) and the qualities (cardinal, fixed, mutable) respectively. As the third sign, Gemini is thus themutable-air sign. Now if we think about what all that implies, air signs being the domain of the mind and social experience, we might say mutable-air translates to thought itself, a swirl of information, what is in the air or ether and consciousness itself. Gemini people are abuzz. The sign’s planetary ruler Mercury, named for the heady, mercurial, eternally youthful god of communication, orbits, like a moth to a flame, closest to the sign. The planet symbol, with its antennae’d circle “head” on a crossed staff, depicts the winged-capped god himself, but also birds and bees and all kinds of angels and insects and the beguiling fairies. The horned Puck is Oberon’s messenger as Mercury is Zeus.

Quicksilver Mercury speaks to our speed of thought. Gemini’s sign motto is I Think. Mercury (again that small orbit) is all about immediacy, not only in time but also in space. Mercury and Puck can be here or there in an instant. Mercury is the Psychopomp, the only entity who can travel from heaven (Olympus) to hell (the Hades realm) and back again, as the “conductor of souls,” the dual god of the crossroads, coming and going, and the characters one finds there—merchants and theives, magicians, dealers, barkers, buskers, and every assortment of savvy streetwise folk, a way, if only metaphorically speaking, to describe the fast-talking, clever Gemini people, the Zodiac’s true operators. Mercury’s female counterpart is the likewise winged Eris, goddess of discord, whose main myth bring’s us to the Gemini characters of Castor and Pollux, the mortal and divine Twins (Quadruplets, really) of the sign.

Eris was the only goddess not invited to this one glam party on Olympus. She got even by causing a war which began with chucking in an apple on which she scribbled “for the fairest among you”—Hera , Athena and Aphrodite naturally thought it was for them. Jump-cut to the Judgment of Paris (prince of Troy) who over Hera (who offered power) and Athena (wisdom) as bribes for choosing them, he picked Aphrodite who offered him the most beautiful woman in the world, Helen, also, along with her sister, Clytemnestra, were the other two quadruplets to the Gemini Twins. Helen was married, Paris abducted her, and the rest is tragedy. Mercury and Eris are master manipulators; their Disney counterparts being Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, amont the modern archetypes of the Gemini people.

But let’s back up. The duality that is expressed by Castor and Pollux is that of mortality and divinity, or immortality. In the bible myth, one is expelled from the garden (the fixed-earth Taurus) by biting into yet another apple which results, in what? Concsiousness! Which is characterized as duality and knowledge of opposities, good and evil and mortality and immortality. In fact, being booted from the garden, one is no longer granted everlasting life, let alone youth.

Finally made contact today with Pete Nelson the tree house designer whom I went to middle and part of high school with before he set off to Deerfield, I think, in his sophomore year. My friend Barbara Bestor put something on Facebook looking for a tree house designer and Pete has become pretty famous. Anyway, I don’t think he quite places me but we had a nice chat for sure. Brought back some old memories and some pangs too in the process. I will attribute an exacerbation of that fact to my not being very social, if anything I’ve been rather anti- these past couple of years. My life, you see, is peopled with clients, a few family, the artists I impressario, the venues, the sponsors I hound, and the general populations of New York, Boston and Provincetown with whom I come in contact. I have an Aquarian Moon; and though I have been loath to admit it, I do prefer the comfort of aquaintances (does it share an etymology with the sign name?) if not outright strangers. By the same token, ironically, I am oversensitve when snubbed by people I tend to keep at arm’s length anyway. Oh well, that’s me I suppose. I have shared the most intense if not intimate conversations with people I’ve only limitedly interacted.

I’ve never been in therapy which might surprise people for two reasons—one, because I might seem so sane to people; and second, because I might seem to be completely nuts. I can assure you it is neither. I think I just understood the term saudadefor the first time, because I do long for that which I have never experienced. It comes in waves and glimpses. I long to live like F. Scott Fitzgerald; I long to live in some small Italian coastal village; I long for to live in an open-plan dark wood mid-century home on Iceland only ever listening to atonal music. Those aren’t what I long for but vague representations of it, emo-conceptual post-it notes slapped on a deeper feeling I can’t quite ever fathom. Meanwhile the simplest things can feel like molehillish mountains. I know that if I just did what was most humpish, most choreish, most likely to speed my schedule along—so I didn’t have to constantly cross out entries and re-write them on later days in my planner—the very first thing in the morning, than I might lead a more stress free day. It’s good to even try and trick yourself (like writing this Blague a day ahead so that if I slightly slip behind I don’t really), keeping momentum in bite-sized chunks, life might feel more flow. Or as I directed a client this past year: flow with the go. I don’t think that last sentence was grammatically correct.

My procrastination is typically akin to chasing those waves and glimpses. It can send me down internet rabbit holes looking at Sardinian real estate or exploring the retail viability of frozen custard. I could be the frozen custard king of the cote d’azur…see now we are blending with my F. Scott fantasy. On the riviera in the early 1980s things still looked enough a way like the footage of To Catch a Thief.It was ghost-townish, remnants of a glamorus former hotel-restaurant world still functioning in a deliciously threadbare way. A surplus of space and anonymity along the sea. This is an experience for which I also long but it isn’t one I haven’t experienced. Right now I feel it is about pressing pause. And I do look forward to the process of mass elimination, starting with the most obvious and working our way to the most potentially heartwrenching, in the process, getting our collective life into a few dozen boxes. Anway I should get back to some diatribing about Gemini….I don’t know why it feels so hard to focus on some new musings on these signs but here goes:

Gemini personifies the duality of the human experience we all share. They vividly express various extremes, all of which come under the heading of that mortal/divine dichotomy. Gemini people seem to most easily occupy either end of the spectrum at once, like Mercury, god of the crossroads, the streets (gutter), who can nonetheless ascend to the stars. Those crossroads symbolize our thoughts, or more accurately our choices. And Gemini people can more easily hold two opposing thoughts at once. They can be the most failingly human (embodiment of the fall energy) and the most soaringly “divine” in the expression of their soul, whether exhibited through their intellect or talent, the latter always seemingly fueled by the former. And sometimes they seem to express such divine talent as seems to be too much for their body to bear. Especially the women of the sign who push themselves beyond their limits, again, that moth to a flame.

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.