Sacred Space Astrology

Centrality

2012-01-06T21:19:00.000-05:00

Given my readings of late into the Hermes archetype, the archetype of non-centrality, I have been thinking about how centrality operates as distinct from the movement between and among centers. A particular passage from Raphael Lopez-Pedraza informs these thoughts, for he says in his Hermes and His Children that,

Hermes' borderline aspect favours his friendliness, or, to put it in more archetypal terms: he is the friendliest to the other Gods. He does not fight the other Gods and Goddesses when they are seemingly busy fighting among each other for their centers, their central attributes. Hermes has no need to fight for his center; he does not have one. (8)

Hermes as a perspective seems to be the perspective of moving among perspectives. His "center," if it can be thought of as such, is that of mobility and movement. It is a paradox, encompassing a center that is non-central. In the alchemical tradition, the Hermes-quicksilver is always in flux. Lacking a fixative, Hermes is a constant state of shifting and is therefore the principle of transformation and mutability. He does not coagulate into a solid and thus lacks a center. To qualify this statement: he lacks a center from a coagulation perspective: to the earthy, condensed, solid eye, Hermes has no center, but from perspective of the eye that always moves, centers are not seen in the same way. I wonder if centers are seen at all to this fluctuating eye. They may be something to ward off, a stagnation to be avoided when inhabiting this archetype.

I have been attempting to inhabit Hermes lately as my research into the archetype was contributory to my study of adaptation in storytelling. I made the claim that Hermes was the archetype of adaptation, the God at the center of the theory and practice of adaptation. That got jettisoned as it was too broad a concept to fit into the coagulated, narrow confines of a thesis, but it is still ripe in my mind and eager for exploration. The Hermes archetype seems rather challenging because of its lack of centrality, despite the fact that myth reveals to us the central attributes of the God. Aphrodite, in truth, is no easier to grasp (I have a book on the courtesan's arts that I hope will illuminate her and locate her in my body), nor is the Saturnine senex. Archetypes/Gods are never easy to grasp, in my opinion, owing to their super-personal status. Nonetheless, I try to grasp the formal causes that they are, in an Aristotelean sense.

The point of my ramblings here is that the non-centrality of Hermes got me thinking: do we come to know something by its central attributes? Hermes is challenging to me because he asks me to live in between to centers; to live in the flux; in the opportunities among the fall, to borrow from James Hillman's chapter on opportunism in Puer and Senex. This line of questioning opened me up to an epistemological concern: how do we come to know something?

A quick glance through the Wikipedia page on epistemology opened up a can of worms. This branch of philosophy extends into deep, uncharted (to me) waters, and the waters are complicated. How we know something seems to have been a central (no pun intended) concern of philosophers since the ancients, and the debate continues. What is true? What is knowledge? What is wisdom? What is justifiable? All of these are questions that fall within the study of epistemology, and I believe they have relevance to what I understand to be "centers."

I feel like knowing the central attributes of something are how we know it, period. Even describing Hermes, the God whose center is no center, there are key features, focal points that describe him. A quick etymology of "describe" revealed less than I thought it would, for it means simply "to write down." But wrapped in that word I feel is a gathering of information graspable by the senses.

I think I am stumbling into another deep pool here by using the phrase "graspable by the senses," for that opens up the philosophical debate of whether something is grasped by physis or psyche, by the senses or by the thing we call soul/mind/heart. I suppose Plato would move to the faculty of reason in order to describe how something is known, reason being the faculty through which formal causes or essences are perceived. I am truly not sure which is the "right" answer, and I am also not sure how divorced from the physical the psychical truly is. Jung spent a great deal of time blurring that boundary, his theory of synchronicity being an example. Having recently read in James Hillman's Kinds of Power a description of Aristotelean causes, I am reluctant to divorce any one cause from the other. The four causes of formal, material, efficient, and final operate in a complicated relationship, merged with each other. Any overemphasis at one at the expense of the other is disastrous, and Hillman cites the Nazi concentration camps as such a disastrous instance (those were an overemphasis on the efficient cause that rendered people blind to the other three causes).

But, to return to the epistemological question of knowing, are centers necessary to knowing something? Do we know via centers? To contrast centers with Hermes, the movement among centers, seems to set up a situation where centers are fixed, solid, and enduring, whereas Hermes is changeable, liquid, and unstable. Granted, it is pointed out in the literature on Hermes that even he requires centers, for he needs something to move in between and among. Without the other side of the coin, Hermes loses his definition and become chaos. Sheer movement, unfettered and constant is chaotic, schizophrenic. This probably doesn't sound so bad to the puer personality, of which Hermes is, because the solidity and centrality of the senex aspect of things seems like entrapment and entropy. Hermes viewed from the senex perspective, on the other hand, is chaos and confusion.

So, I really have no answers here. I'm trying to live in between the center and non-center viewpoints, as Hermes would ask me to, and I'm not sure yet what that looks or feels like. I feel like I need to know something by central attributes, and I feel this is a key concept for epistemological understanding. This leaves me unsure of what to do with the Hermes archetype, and maybe this is because the "center approach" is senex in its nature. It is the opposite of Hermes, and therein lies my struggle to understand it. I'm not understanding Hermes from within Hermes but looking at it from across the room at a distance. The "idea" approach, to borrow from Hillman who describes the Greek root of the word "idea" as both a way of seeing and that which is seen, is a complicated paradox. Welcome to Hermes land.

For now, I'm leaving it on the burner to mull and simmer. If philosophers haven't solved the question of how we know things in the last thousand years, chances are I'm not going to figure it out in the next few week. But I'll keep the idea in mind and continue to contemplate, ponder, and notice. My soul just needs to turn it over and continue the conversation. Next: what's the meaning of life.

The Spoon

2011-07-18T03:28:00.002-04:00

I was told a story by a friend of mine. I would consider him an open channel, based on the work he does, and he told me there was a time in his life where he came to formulate a way of seeing/being in order to cope with the multiplicity of realities he encountered. Here's how it goes:

Imagine you're holding a spoon in your hand. Look at it in front of you. Examine the spoon, take in its facets, its shape. Now, imagine looking at the spoon from another angle, let's say from the side. How does it look now? Look at the spoon from the opposite side. Now how does it look? Continue the exercise: look at the spoon from behind, from up above, from below, from any angle you can imagine. Now: try to imagine seeing the spoon from all of those perspective at the same time. What does that do to the spoon's functionality? What does seeing all of those ways of seeing do to the spoon itself? My friend ends the story with this: while I can see all of those different perspectives, I remind myself that it's my job to do this with the spoon (he makes a gesture of using the spoon to eat, it's appointed function in life.)

Now, when I imagine seeing that spoon from all perspectives at the same time, my eyes go crossed and my head blanks out. My mind cannot fathom it. Everything goes white, there is nothing. The spoon ceases to be; it is unknowable. There is a mystery here that is crucial, I think. I also think this mystery has something to do with Hermes.

Let me bring in Raphael Lopez-Pedraza here, because a passage from his book Hermes and His Children made me think of the spoon story. The passage is in reference to Hermes in his borderline aspect and his status as friendliest of the gods to men (and towards other gods):

Though Olympian, Hermes is different from the other Olympian deities. We have discussed his borderline aspect, a characteristic which in itself makes him different from the other Gods, who would seem to be the center of the specific aspects of life to which they give their imprint. Whereas Hermes permeates the whole world because of his possibility of making connections, his commerce with, and constellation of the other Gods from his borderline. He is the connection-maker and he is the Messenger of the Gods.

Herme's borderline aspect favours his friendliness, or, to put it in more archetypal terms: he is the friendliest to the other Gods. He does not fight the other Gods and Goddesses when they are seemingly busy fighting among each other for their centers, their central attributes. Hermes has no need to fight for his center; he does not have one.

Hermes has no center. This seems to me what happens when all of those perspectives are imagined at the same time. The center drops out, disappears, becomes unknowable, at least in human perception. Hermes is the multiplicity of perspective, all of the many roads and crossroads. I would see the various perspectives looking at the spoon as a different God or Goddess. Apollo sees the spoon from one angle, Aphrodite from another. Hera looks on differently, and still Artemis is another way of seeing. Gods and Goddesses are ways of seeing, each with its own depth and richness. But no one way of seeing is the whole story. No one way of seeing is the spoon. Even if we're really good at Aphrodite (which a birth chart may yield; we could be Aphrodite's child via symbolic parentage), we're not seeing the spoon. But, the whole point is, one can never know the spoon! Can we....?

I think Hermes is the act of perceiving itself, the very seeing. Hermes is the multiplicity, the many. He has no center, and can therefore move freely among different perspectives: he is all of the perspectives together.

Now, what is interesting is where that spoon goes once it drops out. It opens up some big questions for me, chief among which is whether or not we can know anything at all. Hermes would seem to say that there are many ways of approaching a thing, but that you can never know it essentially. This, I think is the basis for the Platonic Ideas and their various incarnations....there are many instances of Beauty, but Beauty itself is not graspable by the faculties of our minds. I mean, we can pool together all of those different things we find Beautiful, but still, how would we describe Beauty? Equally, Love? Death? All of those big words we like to capitalize?

I have an inkling that this void involves the Hades perspective, that place where Hermes takes all souls. If all images are down there (read Hillman's Dream and the Underworld), there must be some connection here I am not seeing or have fleshed out yet. Ha, I suppose the point would be to remove all the flesh and make all things shades, would it not?

The more multiple instances, the more it seems things become unknowable. I feel like I have to go the path of Socrates and admit that I know nothing at all. I certainly feel like it. If the gods are in all things, and each god is a way of seeing a thing (and there are many), how do I know a thing? This is, again, part of that Hermes way of living I was writing about earlier. It's part of crossroads mentality. It actually feels a bit of a relief to be thrown into one perspective fully, to be all Aphrodite for a moment, all Dionysos. This reminds me of something I remember reading in Marie Louise von Franz. She was talking about being crucified, pulled between two polarities that you have to balance. I think this it doesn't have to be just two: it is the many polarities I'm pulled between. But she mentioned how good it feels to be all one thing, to be royally angry and mad as hell because you feel complete that way! There's a unity in that, a oneness that is comforting, almost, because you're not crucified anymore. You're not responsible for the balance (I mean, you always are responsible, but you get my point).

Maybe the point is simply fluidity. Hermes is so "meta"; he's all things, all the time. No center, just everywhere. Isn't that what "meta" is? He's always moving here and there, between this and that, being the very plurality and poly- that he is. I suppose it works to both redefine the central attributes of a particular way of seeing by comparing them to another, equally deep and nuanced way of seeing. But then it relativizes, too.

My head hurts. I have to stop now. What I do know is that, for some things in life, I have to throw myself into a perspective and inhabit it, with the knowledge that at any time, something else may come along and ask for my being. As I am a child of Hermes, I'm ok with that. Still....staring off into space. Zoning. Must yield.

At the Crossroads

2011-07-12T23:32:00.006-04:00

Building on a previous post on the notion of dual perception of time, sacred and profane, I've been thinking of the places where these two intersect. Eliade's writing indicates that these two streams of time run parallel to each other, or perhaps one layer runs underneath the other. At any time, one can "slip down" into mythic time from the profane. This got me to thinking: what is the point of intersection where these two streams meet? What becomes of the combination, and what does it look like to be in the world, to perceive the world, at this point of collapse?

One place this thinking took me was to the crossroads. This is a concept I'm a bit obsessed with lately. It is connected to Hermes, the god who ruled over this point of meeting. Not only was Hermes a deity whose patronage presided over the literal places where roads meet, but also the metaphorical crossroads, that liminal space that could be defined as all existence.

I think Hermes is implicated here when sacred and profane time cross, as he is when anything crosses. I might also venture further to say that, as the crossroads is a threshold zone, Saturn is also implicated. However, I haven't put as much thought into the relationship between this puer Hermes and senex Saturn, though two faces of a coin they be.

I think, too, that what Jung called synchronicity is this collapse of sacred and profane time. Ordinary events that occur suddenly carry mythic meaning and proportions. A seemingly random event occurs that can be anything but random, in terms of its meaning to the receiver of the event. The mythic rises up and grasps the profane, imbuing it with eternality and significance. I feel like this is when those kids cross into Narnia: they walk into the wardrobe playing a game and suddenly, there they are in a new place. Doesn't this same thing happen, though, when in a reverie I slip away to "somewhere else" and some imaginal realm takes over? And what is the threshold of consciousness anyway where profane time and sacred meet and I fall into dream? Here comes Hermes, who puts men to sleep as much as he wakes them up (threshold again) transporting me. At the moment of contact between asleep and awake, there I am at the crossroads.

What really gets me going is: how do I determine meaning at the crossroads? What does it all mean when I "bump into" something there? Is there a crossroads logic by which I can understand the happenings there, and how is that different than some other sort of logic like the Apollonian or the Aphroditic? What is the intelligent way of understanding the crossroads, and by extension, Hermes?

One aspect of this logic seems to by mystery and an acceptance of mystery and unknowability. When I "accidentally" bump into something or simply fall away into another place via an archetypal realm on collision course with my own, it puts me in contact with something bigger than myself. I think what that bigger thing is we call fate. There is a sense of a bigger power, a knowing mover that is at work on some level beyond what I can grasp. Perhaps this is a byproduct of being put in touch with mythic time: it is ineffable and unknowable, and infinite things can be said of it. That is the ontology of the mythic, and the synchronous moment collapses that infinite time-scale with my own perception of individual time (which, I might add, is not mutually exclusive with the infinite). The synchronicity always makes me ask, though: what does it mean? I never have answers. My default solution is to think that I am where I am supposed to be: I'm on the right path. The crossroads meeting is an affirmation that I'm in the right place at the right time. The objective psyche, as the Jungians would have called it, is sending me a message. But then, if no synchronous events occur, does that mean I'm on the wrong path? How do you change course to produce synchronous events if they, by their nature, cannot be forced by the will of man?

Perhaps they can be seen as a theft of some sort if synchronicity and crossroads meetings are under the patronage of Hermes. The ordinary sense of progressive, linear time is taken from me by the god throwing something in my face that baffles and startles me into attention. That is one aspect of the synchronicity: regard. It gets my focus. I stare at it, grasp it, turn it over in my hands like Hermes trying to see through the turtle to the lyre. Maybe that's what Hermes is saying with the crossroads meeting: see through this. Learn how to.

Also, there's the slippage. Senex time (profane) is slipped through in the crossroads meeting with the open door of the opportunity that the puer (mythic/eternal) escapes through. The word opportunity, in its etymology, carries the sense of an opening to be grasped at the moment for it will not linger and will soon be gone. The door opens a crack and through it one must rush before it's shut. But synchronous meetings on the path do not seem to be something I willfully engage with. They happen to me rather than being caused by me, unless of course there is some agency within me that is equally unconscious and unknowable moving the gears. I believe the Jungians, again, called this the objective unconscious, or the objective psyche, something like that. Somewhere in the unconscious was a complex/being/entity who knew. BUT, that thing is as hard to contact as whatever the fateful mover is that's pulling all the strings in the first place is!

Perhaps part of the conundrum here occurs because, in trying to determine what the crossroads meaning is, I need to ask: what entity is trying to decipher the meaning, and for what purpose? I like that word there, decipher: I think the crossroads logic allows ciphers and unknowables. I suddenly see there that what I'm doing is trying to determine meaning for some sort of ego, and I need to establish what kind of ego I'm working with here. Am I trying to determine meaning for a heroic ego or an imaginal ego? Hermes is not Apollo, and Hermes is not a son of Hera. I suspect that looking at a crossroads phenomenon again from a Dionysian perspective would render different results. The Dionysian perspective would welcome the ambiguity, the blend and blur, labile and fluid as it is. I must recall: Hermes is not a hero. He is a messenger who brings messages to heroes, but he is not the hero trying to determine anything. So, to enter into a crossroads logic, I have to abandon the pursuit of determining.

I just looked up the definition of the word determine and its etymology. It means to ascertain or establish exactly, and archaically, to bring to an end. Its etymology is from the Latin to terminate, fix completely. This doesn't sound very much like Hermes to me who revels in ambiguity and duality, multiple meanings and interpretations. Hermes opens out into a thousand possibilities and flies hither and yon. He is not the stable focus of Hestia, his companion, but the entire world's network of webbed crossings and opportunities. So, if I am to embody a Hermes, crossroads logic, I must abandon the desire to determine anything. That's a different god (probably the senex/Saturn, the lord of death and limits). It seems I must accept the multiple possibilities for meaning in a synchronous meeting at the crossroads. Hermes would rather open out to questions rather than put the period at the end of the sentence (note, too, how "sentence" has a linkage to the "fate" and "limit", all part of the senex/Saturn world).

So: to sum up for the moment. Crossroads logic does not determine anything. It is a potential place of collapse where mythic time and sacred time can meet at a point, but this is only one kind of meeting. Many things can meet at the crossroads, but I think what we understand as synchronicity has something to do with mythic time and sacred time collapsing into a unity. Again, I will say that time and space are not separate as I am describing them, so the spatial, embodied aspect for me isn't different than the temporal. The crossroads is, in space, everywhere, just as the mythic in time is everywhere. I've been there the entire time I've been writing this. Truth to tell, I've been staring into my kitchen at the refrigerator and the cupboards but seeing something very different with my mind's eye. So far, I've been trying to get the feeling into my body of living at the crossroads where anything can happen, where an opportunity may open up for me to slip through, where meaning happens which opens me outward into more questions in an indeterminate way, and where my perception of the cosmos is altered: brought into sharper relief or nuanced and revealed.

Senex and Hestia: Self-Definition

2011-07-12T00:38:00.004-04:00

There are two gods that I think play in the notion of self-defeinition: Saturn and Hestia. The experiences around these two patterns are important in my current journey of self-fashioning. Let me tell you my story.

My life is a process, an unfoldment. I have said of late that I want to be the best that I can be, the best realization of whatever it is I'm supposed to be. Now, in that statement there are two phrases that carry loads of baggage: best realization and what I'm supposed to be. What do those two phrases mean?

Let me preface this by saying that I've so far been applying these ideas to my physical reformation. I did a production of A Chorus Line a little over a year ago, and this is a physically demanding show. Truthfully, I knew I'd have to be on stage in front of many people wearing skin tight clothing, and there was no way in hell I was going to look fat. Never underestimate the power of low self-esteem. I worked the hell out of myself, not only to acquire the stamina required to perform the show, but to also acquire the fitness required to simply look good. But again, what does that mean?

I'm aware the our perceptions of ourselves are often skewed. Body image is crucial, and that word image is important: how do we see ourselves? What does the image of my body look like, and how does that image compare to the tangible, physical body I inhabit?

I just thought of a cruelly funny line from the TV show American Dad where the gay characters Tim and Greg (the anchor-partners) talk to Francine: I don't know which says it, but the brown-haired guy refers to himself as "straight-thin but gay-fat." I totally identify.

At any rate, the first year of grad school destroyed the fitness I attained to perform A Chorus Line. I had lost about 25 pounds and was the thinnest I'd ever been. Needless to say, I bought a new wardrobe to outfit myself. However, after some sort of slippage where I thought I was apparently invincible and could eat whatever the hell I wanted in tandem with getting severely less sleep than my body requires, I gained all of it back.

Well, this summer I have endeavored to undo that damage, and so far, I have. I've lost the 20 pounds again and have returned to a weight that I feel good with. Furthermore, I've been at the gym and lifting weights as well as doing cardio, and my body is the best it's ever looked. And that feels great, too.

But here's the kicker: what have I done to get there? To go back to my initial question: what is the nature of my idea of the best that I can be? How do I reach that idea of best? Where does it come from?

To answer: I don't know. Some of it is surely informed by media, a hegemonic structure that tells me what I, as a man, am supposed to look like. I am flooded by images in the media of the male standard of beauty. Furthermore, add the layer of the homosexual male body image onto that: this goes back to the American Dad joke. The gay factor makes it even more particular, as there is not only a male standard of beauty but an additional gay male standard of beauty, which I would argue is more severe and exacting.

My point is, there is a fantasy at work in the media which is pushed onto me. The big question: is there another fantasy at work in me, an image that operates independent of what the media tells me I should look like?

This is where I think the Saturn/senex archetype may come into play. One of the aspects of this archeytpe is the formation of boundaries, and this links up to the idea of incarnation into a physical body. The body itself carries with it limitation, as does all embodiment itself. To incarnate means to be limited: a body stops at a definite point, delineating what is interior and "me" and exterior and "not me". One can see the logos component here, the intelligence which discriminates and works on the threshold, separating the wheat from the chaff.

One of the tasks of Saturn is to determine the self, the individual body and psyche that exist in this incarnation. Along with the Sun, Saturn is the backbone of the individual. The Sun determines individuality in terms of one's highest value, that which is most noble and desirable, as well as a sense of individual destiny and purpose. Saturn is the structure of the individual, the defining body and literal, concrete vessel of the individual. Saturn is the vessel that holds the fire of purpose and destiny. Both Solar and Saturnine principles are principles of development: neither is given as fully developed but must be worked toward. It is a paradox, for sure, as they are both given at the time of embodiment: birth. But they are seeds to be sown, tended, and nurtured.

So, I've been in development. I've been quite literal (as Saturn is wont to be) and working on my physical structure, my body. Working on the body requires Saturn, an attention to the physical structure of things. But further: Saturn requires knowledge of boundaries, of the liminal space of the threshold. Important here is the knowledge of what is me and what is not me. Oddly enough, this is problematic. It seems every pattern/archetype/god/planet comes with a sort of fuck-up. Even though Saturn is all about boundaries and knowing where I begin and where I end, Saturn is also the place where we take on too much and totally screw up our personal boundaries.

One of the ways I've seen this operate is that Saturn is the place where we take on more than what we should. We get the overload of Saturn and become so bogged down with responsibility that we cannot say No. We feel the insecurity of the incipient development and take on all the burdens of the world because of some inner feeling of should and ought.

This is a problem though. Saturn is about defining the individual, of reinforcing the structure of the seed, the unfoldment of the plant. This means as much saying no as saying yes. For as much as Saturn is about developing the self, that notion of self can get totally lost. Perhaps this is because Saturn exists on an interface between self and other: the Lord of the Threshold is himself on a threshold.

How does all of this tie in to my journey of self-definition? Well, part of my reformation of my body has involved the senex capacity of boundary-setting. This is especially true of how I form my life. A re-formation depends on a knowledge of form itself. Obviously the shape of my life has reflected itself in my body in a way that I don't like. Saturn is easy in some ways: it's concrete. I've always had an easier time re-shaping my physical body than in changing some other intangibles like work-habits. I have a much easier time working on my body than learning how to manifest my ideas into form. Why is one easier than the other? I don't know.

The senex/Saturn aspect of boundary is not the only pattern at work here, though. There's a Hestia component, too, especially as she is the principle of focus. The etymology of her name from Latin translates to this, to focus. As she is the hearth, she is the center of the house, the focal point around which life revolves. For me, my physical transformation has become the focus of my life, that which gains my attention. Here lies the nice combination of attention and embodiment: what gets my attention becomes what I am. Another way of saying this: we are what we practice. There is a mysterious connection between Hestia's focus and embodiment/manifestation/performance/practice. There's an earthy component to this goddess, just as there is to Saturn. Both seem to involve ways of being in the world. These gods are about how you live in the world, how you give form to your life. Every moment is included: there isn't some far-off "someday" where you'll eventually get it. Now I feel like I'm crossing over into Tolle's The Power of Now! But don't all of those self-help and meditational techniques exist to focus our attention on the present? Yet another connection: focus, embodiment, form, present.

For my hearth, I have put these goal in the center of my home. Importantly, my home is not only physical but metaphorical as well. My physical home holds the image of my home. Amazingly, the physical shape and form of my home has changed in accordance with my changed image of my home. The food I keep here looks very different. It aligns itself with the focus of my life. On a side note, if I were ever to build my own house (meaning, have it designed and built according to my wishes), I would have the entire house revolve around a central hearth/kitchen: Hestia's place.

So, both Hestia (focus) and Saturn (boundaries, form) have informed the shape of my life these days. And my body reflects it. My body has reshaped itself according to an image I have, and this is a powerful thing. Do I still know that that ideal body looks like? No. But I do know I'm more pleased now with what I look like than ever before. Perhaps the key lies in the Nike motto: just do it. Don't think, do. But again, I come back to that notion: we are what we practice. Every single moment is key: let each moment be a vessel for something. Important in this is noticing when I let moments slip by, when I let things go unacknowledged. But Saturn thus far has put the power to shape my own life into my hands: I have begun to acknowledge the boundary and say, this is my life. This is what I am. It's a very mysterious interface, this liminal space that is the body we inhabit. I revert again to the genius of John O'Donohue's words: The poignancy of the human being is that we are the point at which the invisible becomes visible and expressive in some way. I pray to the Lord of the Threshold, let me be aware and let me honor you in form. Let me welcome you into the heart of my home, and may my form be a vessel for Apollo's fire: the best that I can be.

The Right Moment

2011-07-11T14:44:00.003-04:00

Having been exposed to new ideas and traveling down different paths, I haven't really been much into astrology lately. In some ways I still am, since I don't think the realm of archetypal psychology is exclusive to a world-view that nurtures astrological thinking. Still, I don't read exclusively astrological things, per se, although I was delighted to see it pop up in Noel Cobb's book on archetypal psychology in regards to the works of Robert Schumann: there is was, his birth chart reproduced in the text! It was a delightful homecoming, I must say.

Today, however, I was reading some blogs on astrology and thinking about it a bit more. I've also been asked by friends about it, as they feel they are going through some rough patches, and that usually elicits some "What's going on??!" So, thoughts have been brewing, and naturally combining with the other thoughts I've had simmering on the burner into a tasty idea-stew.

My thoughtful inspirations have to do with time. Astrology is about time. Not only is there emphasis on the moment of embodiment in terms of when a person (or thing) is born, but in prognostic techniques there's the question of when something will happen. Ever present is the question of exactly when an event happens and by what criteria that is determined. More on that to come.

The other aspect of time I've looked into recently involved Mircea Eliade's ideas of sacred and profane time. In looking at the history of religions, he discusses the perception of time in terms the 'primitive' man and the modern man, a distinction unfortunate yet popular among early 20th century thinkers. Jung is included in this, and Eliade is frequently linked to Jung, for he uses Jung's notion of archetypes heavily. Eliade does bypass any discussion of what an archetype is, so I guess it's assumed that we have to go read Jung for ourselves (or deduce it from Eliade's writing).

Eliade also uses some terms interchangeably when talking about sacred time: it's also called mythic time and hierophantic time. But what is the quality of this kind of time? I would call it 'archetypal', but then I'm back in the same boat when I used the term in regards to psychology, too. So, what's archetypal/mythic time?

I'm reminded here of some of Jankelevitch's words (there should be accents over that name but I can't figure out how to do that here): "And the ineffable cannot be expressed because there are infinite and interminable things to be said of it." I agree that interminable things can be said about the archetypal, but in order to bring some logos to the picture, I think there is a way to speak intelligently about such things as the eternal, the ineffable, the unknowable. Isn't that the thing to talk about, anyway? We probably must turn to the poets, for they seem to know how to speak in this way. Again, I'm reminded here of Fatemeh Keshavarz's conversation on Rumi with Krista Tippett. The Iranian scholar speaks of the connection between the sacred and the profane:

The imagery is very often almost identical with profane, you know, mundane love poetry. By this, I don't mean to give any negative connotation to it, but love that is purely sensual and emotional, and human love. To me, I think it's a statement by poets like Rumi and others like him that there isn't really a boundary between the two. It's the same thing. It's the same human experience. And, you know, there is another medieval Sufi, actually, a bit later than Rumi, who says that you can't look at the sun directly, but you can look at its reflection in the water. Now, our humanly experience of live is that reflection in the water of our senses. And it's God's way of teaching us and guiding us from this to the actual looking at the sun when you have gained the ability.

This, to me, is part of the key of speaking intelligently about the eternal. It's about being ok with looking at the reflection for a while, of experiencing with the senses and allowing that to be the gateway. I also like here that the sacred and profane are not different. I have a hard time with the abstraction of the Ideal to somewhere "other," and I think that causes trouble. Namely, debasement of the body and disconnection from the present. Importantly, it seems this poetic logic is the key. I'm not sure that the answer is to look directly at the sun (is it possible?) but to enjoy the reflection in the water. It must be acceptable to do so, and in the realm of the literalist scientific fantasy (Apollo) that obsesses the Western mind, finding such acceptability may feel quite difficult.

I have diverged a bit, but I think this is part of the time question, for in issues regarding timing, I've brought in these ideas of the sacred and the profane, and I'm now pointing to their collapsed unity. This collapsed status is important, and it's an idea that comes back to me again and again, for it is a way of understanding that is both discriminating and unifying, in a word, psychological.

Profane time seems to be a way of looking at time that is literalist, concrete. This viewpoint strips an event of "otherness", of meaning (the meaning component being the characteristic of mythic time). An event is "just", it is nothing more than the basic sensory input. But even this is not necessary, for if the imagination is the vehicle by which we perceive the mythic and the meaningful, than the senses are the way in which we do this. Take David Abram:

From the magician's, or the phenomenologist's, perspective, that which we call imagination is from the first an attribute of the senses themselves; imagination is not a separate mental faculty (as we often assume) but is rather the way the senses themselves have of throwing themselves beyond what is immediately given, in order to make tentative contact with the other sides of things that we do not sense directly, with the hidden or invisible aspects of the sensible.

This is one of the most marvelous passages of writing I have ever read. It combines the mythic (imaginal) and profane (the immediately given) via the mediating entities of the senses. It again points to this idea of unified, collapsed perception: there is the given object as well as what lies beyond the object, both universal unknown and knowable particular. It's like looking at a bird in a tree. From my perspective, I can see only part of the bird. The side facing away from me is unknown, but, having seen a bird from multiple perspectives, I can fill in the missing parts of the bird with my imagination, using my prior sensory experience. I know it's there, but I can't see it. I think this is along the same lines when dealing with the mythic/profane aspects of time. What is interesting, too, is that I have to have openly experienced a bird before and really paid attention to it: the bird must have my focus. It has to enter me, not glance off of me in disregard. Going back to Keshavarz, my senses provide that reflection in the water; now all that's left to do is look up.

As I gaze into the sky (which, incidentally, I'm not even doing: I'm looking at a program of a horoscope generated by a computer, so I'm really looking into a metaphorical sky, the image of constellations and planetary movement), what of the moment? I'm looking with the faculty of my imagination, sending myself into a zone of mythic time and space, for, importantly, I'm not dividing time from space. To enter mythic time means also to enter mythic space, so there is definitely an embodied, incarnate quality to this way of being. I have to divest my world-view of something like absolute time, a time that exists outside of my perception of it. The same is true of my use of the word psyche, for I'm not separating out body from that. So that moment: I'm looking with my senses, with my imagination, gazing both inside of me into the imaginal sky and outside of me into the physical sky and defining my existence in that moment by how those two things are coming together.

So with astrology: I need to know the physical moment based on observance of planetary movement. I also have to know the archetypal pattern behind those physical objects and track that movement along with the physical body, for the two are not separated. As the body moves, the soul through which the body moves shifts, too. There seems to be a great emphasis on the right moment: when will the event happen? What is the nature of this moment? Eliade says that any moment can become mythic (through the proper perspective or ritual). Astrology says that moments are mythic, too, but there seems to be more clockwork involved. Perhaps I can venture to say that certain times will be more archetypal than others? Pluto is going to be different when it crosses the Ascendant than when it's moving through the second house. But can't any moment be Plutonian? Or does the god have to be invoked? If this is the case, where the hell are the gods when they're not invoked? Where are the archetypes when they're not "activated" through embodiment? And, further, what of that word, embodiment? If there's not some physical manifestation does it mean that the archetype/god isn't present? Is it ever possible, being what we are, to not be embodied in some way? If the body is in the psyche, and the psyche if the field of archetypes, I have to wonder. This is something we run into when trying to determine on what "level" an event happens: is it physical, emotional, mental? Does it happen only within me or does it come at me from the outside, and is that even really different? According to the psychoid nature of the world, as Jung would have said, no, those two things aren't different. Hence the principle of synchronicity, another time-based entity.

Time to wrap up. Ha, pun intended. That one slipped right by me. Anyway, key ideas: the collapse of time and space, of mythic and profane, of body and psyche. The logos involved here, while a discriminating entity to tell this from that, is one that must be flexible enough to contain a system that is made up of blending and blurring. I think this logic of discriminating and separating things in order to know them is valuable: Apollo has a place in the pantheon along with Dionysos. But, perhaps I have been sucked into a worldview that has been favoring Apollo at the expense of the other perspectives and I need to learn to put things back together after I've taken them apart. Apollo alone is without moderation. The things I've been discussing here have been along the Dionysos track, along the Psyche track.

Regarding time, this issue of the right moment brings in the perception of time, and as the body is the vehicle for perception, ideas of the senses and phenomenology have entered into the conversation. As usual I've answered none of my questions, and I'm not sure I've spoken intelligently about this mystery of archetypes and their embodiment in time and space. But hey, it was good practice. And, to end on a note of embodiment, we are what we practice.

Denial

2011-05-25T00:42:00.003-04:00

Well, I had big plans for the entrance of the Sun into my 7th house. I figured, hey, the Sun is crossing the Descendant. Big stuff, right? I mean, something HAS to happen.

Wrong.

Instead of me getting hooked up, my potential hook up himself got hooked up. Makes sense, right? Instead of getting, I was shut out. Crap. Best laid plans....

It was another of those moments when the universe says to me, "Ha ha. Joke's on you." God slash Universe has a sense of humor.

It makes me think of those times when some sort of archetype/god is defined as much by what is given as by what is taken away. There seems to be some sort of ebb and flow...You wanna know what love is? Well, I can teach you by both giving it and withholding it. You'll know it by its absence as much as by its abundance.

Saturn is a teacher. A hard teacher. Sometimes, a jerk.

It's also a continuous smack in the face when others around me seem to be hooking up and falling in love and having wonderful fantasies of continued future bliss in my presence. Great, y'all. I'm not happy for you. I will admit here I'm a total bitch when it comes to others having what I want. All's fair in love and war, right? Well, when you get it and I'm denied it, I'm not going to be nice to you. It's scary...Aphrodite's laws are cruel.

BUT. Speaking of. I have to wonder which goddess is at work here. I've read some stuff about Hera recently and have had a rude awakening. Maybe I've been in Hera mode more than I realize. I've given her a bit of the short stick, based on her institutional, Saturn-like aspects. But, reading more of the Hillman text (when hasn't he changed my life?), I realize that Hera, the godess behind that desire to couple, may by more at work than I realize.

I'm not sure what I'm after here....I really have to ask myself some serious questions when it comes to the big ol' "What do you want???"

Do I want Aphrodite (what is she?) or Hera (what is she?), some combo of both?

I think the answer is both, as it always is. There's the human dilemma: Contain us both. I dare you.

In the meantime, I will be unhappy that the Sun's transit into my 7th house or PARTNERSHIP has not yielded any goodies. But, fuck it, the hope for goodies is both human and silly. I certainly am learning, via denial. No free lunches here, nothing bountiful offered up. Oh well.

Yes, But Is It Real?

2011-04-04T22:56:00.002-04:00

The things I've been reading have made me think. As they should. I don't want to say I've moved away from an astrological perspective, because archetypal psychology is not contradictory to it. They both deal in multiplicity, plurality, a psychological approach, etc. But sometimes the imaginal perspective challenges the literal side of astrology. Hillman makes remarks that challenge the old view, as he should. That's what he's good at. The Senex chapter of his book, Puer and Senex, is basically told from the astrological point of view. It's all about Saturn. In that chapter he even talks about astrology as the senex talking about the senex. That's awesome.

But, the imaginal runs counter to the literal. There are parts of astrology that are literal. Those bodies of rock and gas moving around in the sky? Literal. Even though the senex aspects of astrology (Saturn rules astrology) have their ways of becoming fixed and concrete. Although, I hesitate to say Saturn is "more" concrete/literal than other archetypes/perspectives. But there is the coagulating element in Saturn. Perhaps that's the blind spot. It's harder to "see through" that lead than other elements. Just like when I was reading today in the Athene/Necessity chapter of Mythic Figures, the acceptance of "normal" as something external and not a fantasy is the blind spot of that perspective.

What's interesting is the question of what to do with astrology. I want to ask, is it real? But what's behind that question? What is the fantasy behind "real"? If astrology is a symbolic system, why do we even get into the debate as to whether or not it's real? Why does it matter whether or not those rocks and spheres of gasses out in space do something to us? What is the difference between something being concretely real and imaginally/symbolically real?

We run into this question in astrology in terms of prediction and events. When does an event "happen"? On what level? It's been said that astrology is symbolically predictive, not concretely predictive. But then, what about that psychoid happening called synchronicity when something external happens coincident with something internal? And do those words "external" and "internal" even mean anything anymore when we see through these eyes? Is there a difference to the psyche/soul? No, I don't think so. So, why are we caught up in these distinctions: internal-external, real-not real, concrete-imaginal? Isn't the point of it all that the answer is both? Astrology is both a symbolic system and a literal/concrete one? Doesn't an even "happen" to us internally and externally at the same time?

I feel like I was touching on this earlier today when I was writing about Dionysos, a perspective that erases boundaries. Black and white merge, conscious and unconscious merge, inner and outer merge. Yes, they still retain their own properties. It's not as if black goes away altogether and white disappears. There is still a level on which black is black and white is white, but there is also a level on which they are merged into gray. I think the symbol of the yin-yang is especially deep in this way and speaks volumes. Who knew?

Isn't synchronicity the point at which such distinctions fall apart? That's what's so glorious about it, and so baffling at the same time. To what do we turn when we ask the question: What does it mean?? When a planet moves and we feel it, when the pieces match suddenly, when the thought in your head suddenly comes to meet you from the outside, what does it mean? Who answers that question? Is this again the property of soul to answer? Does something inside/outside of us know the answer? Are there no definite answers but only those constructed in the moment with what's given, a Hermes-theft of slipping through an opening at the right time and the right place and therein lies the meaning?

Dionysian Organ-Consciousness and Theatre

2011-04-04T13:57:00.004-04:00

It is always a delight to sit on a rainy day (with Damien Rice playing) and read some wonderful archetypal psychology by James Hillman. Talk about sustaining! And the smell of the rain after a long winter- welcome back petrichore- is equally as sustaining. But I digress. I've been reading more this afternoon, and some thoughts were just bursting to get out, so here we go.

In reading archetypal psychology, we're often looking at mythic gods and goddesses as perspectives, as ways of seeing. Each seems to "govern" something, the particular embodiment of that way of seeing. Athene governs the polis, the normative consciousness of civilized life. Aphrodite governs cosmos and the resultant order that is Beauty, as well as the soft-core suggestions that inspire. What is of interest to me at this moment is Dionysos, that god who is the governor of theatre.

In particular, the concept of organ-consciousness is in my mind. Dionysos, through his dismemberment and his association with zoe, speaks to the divinity of the parts. He is the way of seeing that sees things in pieces, with each piece having its own vital life force, its own god contained therein. There is penis consciousness, hand consciousness, head consciousness, liver consciousness. He is also the perspective of seeing any body zone as amenable to a perspective, I think. As with so many things, body parts/zones are inhabitable: Freud's concept of anality comes to mind. The anus becomes that of constriction and will-power, the ability to withhold and say NO. It has the ring of senex/Saturn and perhaps Ares, too. But it can also be a zone of pleasure and joy (Aphrodite and sexuality), the process of digestion and flow, or the body's generative work (Demeter), naughty shit jokes (puer/Hermes, again the senex/Saturn), and so forth. The hands work that way, too. They are puer with their fingers of inspiration, Hermetic in their dexterity and "sticky fingers" of theft and opportunity, but equally sensual when Aphrodite gets a hold of them. They are the grace of dance and movement, as well as the fist of Ares force.

So, I think Dionysos is involved in seeing a god in the organ. I'm not going to make the claim that all of the organs function like this: I myself am hard-pressed to figure out how the eyes work or the pancreas. But the perspective is that we are many parts, dismembered, each part its own thing comprising a whole. The perspective here is not on the wholeness, the Jungian Self of integration, the circle. No, we are part-focused. Multiple. Fragmentary. Dismembered.

What's all of that got to do with theatre? Well, on the one hand, theatre is certainly a conglomeration of parts. From actors to set crew to director to house management, there is certainly a specific task and perspective of each of those members. They do not necessarily talk to each other, either: the various organs do not have consciousness of each other. This reminds me of the Saturnian aspect to all things: domains have their boundaries. Just as the gods do not interfere in each others' realms, so the actors do not become house managers and directors. And of course as soon as I say that, there are exceptions. Practicality demands otherwise sometimes.

But look, too, at the training of the actor. It involves a recognition of multiplicity, or at least it can. It did for me. The actor is asked to know himself, to recognize what his patterns are so that he may manipulate them (back again to the hands!). He comes to realize that he has many selves inside of that whole self he thought he was. He must learn to move between them, to shift around from one part to the next as part of his craft. Now the heart, next the head, and soon the hands. First Aphrodite, then Apollo, then Hermes. All through a Dionysian lens, the theatre.

I would venture to say that the director is probably most concerned with that thing called wholeness. The director stands outside, attempting to make the pieces all come together in this thing called the play/musical/opera. The opus. I have been told as an actor that, first, the director probably knows your character better than you do. But by the end of the rehearsal process, the should reverse. You should know your character better than the director. You get to know your own organ. You have a knowledge that the other parts do not. To each his own duty, his own function. The heart pumps, the pancreas makes insulin, the lungs breathe. Again, boundaries that are not usurped.

The zoe of the body, the life force of each part, is clear when you begin any work with the body. When one exercises one starts to see this. Legs is doing this. There's tension in the hip: address it. What is the spine doing? Tension in the lower back. Lift out. Check the neck: are you lifting across the back of it and not compressing, but equally not pulling down in the front to alleviate the muscles holding at the base of the skull? It's a marvelously complex dance, and just spending half an hour on the elliptical machine puts you in touch with all of it. Dance does, too. I cannot think of a bodily discipline that does not put me in touch with the movement throughout each of the parts. Of course when I do not hold them in mind they revert back to their habits, and herein lies the necessity of the mind to keep attentive. There's this dynamic of consciousness-unconsciousness involved here, again perfectly Dionysian, as he is the blurring of boundaries. Its as if there is a constant awareness of the whole as a sum of parts, and then forgetting each part and having to go find them again. We zone out, fall into unconsciousness, only to get snapped back to attention by pain (the pathology of the organ).

Acting is a mental and a physical activity. It's artificial to create a boundary between the two anyway. Dionysos would say there is none. It's what he is to make them all one thing. But, ironically, it seems that it is also what he is to remind us that within each part dwells its own force/perspective. Remember-Forget. Dance between the two, he says. Theatre makes it rather easy: you're a part. You're not the whole opus. A performance is a coagulation of many little opuses creating one big opus. Talk about a metaphor for life.

Perfume and Theatre: Embodying Aphroditic Essences

2011-03-28T16:13:00.007-04:00

Smelling the scent of lilies wafting up from my chest today (and loving it- it's Malle's Lys Mediterranee), I'm presented with several things. Chief among them is the gender idea, as lilies smell pretty darn "floral," and you can't get much more feminine than that in our social codes of the day. This then leads me to the transgression inherent in wearing such a scent, and it also leads me to those ways in which we construct ourselves. I like to call this perfuming/performing, as in the act of perfuming myself I am performing myself. So it is with all aspects of fashion, a word which means "to make" in its verb form. Finally, it leads me to the Aphroditic perspective and the seeming ephemeral nature of her realm.

I'm coming off a production of A Little Night Music, a show that Sondheim himself described as smelling of musk. That of course got me thinking and smelling. Here again is a notion of the interchangeability (?) of perfuming and performing. I think that both theatre and perfume deal in essences. As actors we are dealing with a character that may be embodied or adapted in different ways, yet there is this sort of core that each embodiment revolves around. Maybe there is some "essential Othello," for example, or to be on topic, an "essential Desiree," and we get her/him by seeing/reading the play over and over. I think we'd be hard-pressed to put our finger on exactly "who" this person is, but we'd know it if we saw it. We're probably able to judge, based on the text and its embodiment, how close to that essential character the particular embodiment is. I like to use the solar system model. Some embodiments are Mercury, pretty close to that solar/essential center, and some are Plutos, way out there, but, yes, still in the ball park. And then some are just so wrong that they don't even belong in the system, an aberrant comet passing through.

Likewise with perfumery. Smells are known as essences. In the distillation process, you end up with an essence. When all those rose petals are steam-distilled, what's left is the essence of rose. Likewise when all of that orris butter is macerated for three years, what emerges is the iris essence (root, not flower). Even with smell there is this idea of a central "Idea" around which these smells constellate. In one instance a rose perfume may smell too far out there to be considered "rose", but in another creation the smell in the bottle mirrors very closely what you'd smell when you plunge your nose into the layers of petals on the stem out in the garden.

None of this seems very new. Plato had it down a long time ago. There is that ultimately unknowable exemplar of something, and we have our little measuring sticks to determine what is right, true, correct or wrong and false. Where these measuring sticks come from has been discussed elsewhere! But, we run into this in any sense of artistic creation when we try to make/fashion something. When we embody or put into form, we run into this. Does it carry authority (if authority is based on proximity to the Idea), is it authentic (again, proximity)?

So, if we're perfuming performers, like I wanted to do for A Little Night Music, which creation to use? Musk itself has many forms, depending on how perfumer X, Y, and Z made it. Certainly there's no "pure" musk out there, no matter what. Unless of course you've murdered the deer and done it yourself. And, if we're choosing Charlotte, what kind of embodiment of that character? Which embodiment of this musk best suits which embodiment of this Charlotte? And is there an essential that matches both? Maybe musk isn't even the right thing for Charlotte. I've always thought of her as more of a chypre anyway. Maybe we need musky chypres? Who knows. Maybe precision isn't the right goal, anyway. I think a soulful/psychological approach would delight in the juxtaposition and the metaphor of the two unexpecteds making a third new thing.

Then there's the problem of ephemerality. Aphrodite's world is not built to endure, it would seem (even the word "built" seems wrong...should it be "crafted"?). Perfume is an excellent example of it. It evaporates, fades, or the juice itself goes bad in the bottle. It's a momentary pleasure, as are all delicate things. We are in a world of decay, and flowers, those brilliantly Aphroditic odor-factories, turn and rot. Death is there. Hades and Aphrodite. There's a mysterious chain linking soul, love, and death. Many perfumes are built around the rotting aspect of flowers, notes of over-ripe fruits and flowers pervade. In the Yeats poem, "Never Give All the Heart," he says: "For everything that's lovely is but a brief, dreamy kind delight." Or a stinky one.

Even in the theatre we are faced with death. Moments are slipping out of us, rushing past us constantly. Theatre itself is full of death. The final curtain, the final performance. Even a single performance is not like the one before it: we cannot recreate with exactitude, nor perhaps should we. Witness the crushing depression when faced with that final performance of "Send in the Clowns": I will never hear this again. I will never have this moment again. I will never hear the orchestra play this from the wings one more time. Maybe if I'm lucky I'll get it again in my lifetime, but there's no guarantee of that. Again, here I am faced with death and how to live life with it shadowing all things. Aphrodite brings us the pain of the singular. Desire hurts as much as it pleasures.

Perfume is no exception. Smells fade, flowers rot. The roses pump out the fragrance constantly, but we get only a few hours, and even then, who can smell it? The person a foot away? Five feet away? How do you scent a character and let that guide your embodiment of it when the smell is so fleeting? I only got whiffs of the musk intermittently, and at no time on stage can I remember smelling it. Backstage, yes, but I'd have to load it on to really be presented with it all the time. Even then my nose would probably get tired and stop registering it. There are limits here.

Perhaps constancy is not something Aphrodite wants at all. Constancy is boring. You stop registering something, the senses dull. Aphrodite does not want dull senses. She wants senses tingling, ready, engaged, open and ready to receive. When we talk of embodiment, must we not talk of Aphrodite? We can talk about Dionysus, too, but if we are present and in the senses, particularly taking pleasure in them, we are with her. I suppose it boils down to how we open ourselves to pleasure in things and let that dictate our embodiment, the ways in which we use our body and inhabit whatever this existence/reality is (onstage or off, if that distinction is even valid!). I have yet to try it with scent in the theatre, but it's something I'd like to give a shot. How does it affect me outside the theatre, anyway? Isn't that the question to be asking? Embodiment is not something that happens when you try to put a thing onto the stage in artifice. It's happening every single decaying, delightful moment.

Send in the Clowns

2011-03-23T02:28:00.004-04:00

I've been reading a lot about soul lately. I suppose I'm trying to figure out what that is, although "figuring it out" seems to be contrary to this thing we call soul. The point is to not look at it directly, but to simply let it be there by your side, a thing you glance sideways at every now and then. However, there are moments when it seems like your soul is looking you directly in the face.

Many of these moments happen in the theatre for me. I'm a theatre artist, I do theatre, I put on shows, I participate in creating other realities. For me, music is a favorite doorway into soul, into psyche, this beautiful lady who I call my soul. This is exemplified by the times in a rehearsal for a show when either we have a sitzprobe (the rehearsals where the cast members sing the show with the orchestra) or when we have the orchestra down there in the pit for the first time for a dress rehearsal. Depending on the production and the location, this can be a real event or it can be a let down. In a university theatre setting such as I am in, it's a real event because it means we can draw from a talent pool and the orchestra members are, to put it bluntly, good.

This is especially true with a Sondheim show, and even more true with A Little Night Music, which is the production I'm working on right now. I'm always fascinated by theatre in general and it's backstage vantage point. I as an actor have a perspective that is never seen by an audience member, and it's a rare one. I get to look out at a world being woven right there before me. Inches away, just where I'm standing, we're in the "real world". But cross that threshold and we're in the play, the world of the show. It's really breathtaking.

Tonight was the first time we had orchestra for A Little Night Music, and of course, it was breathtaking. My favorite numbers simply radiated with glory, those being "Liasons" and "Every Day a Little Death." But the real "soul" moment came with "Send in the Clowns," the seminal number from the show and the definite stand-alone. Now, with the orchestra, I understand why. While those other numbers I named are moving and heart-pullingly beautiful with the orchestration, "Send in the Clowns" rends my heart in two.

I sat there in the floor, mere feet away from the orchestra, and even closer to Desiree herself who sang the song, my soul leaping forth from me in terrifying heartache when that clarinet solo finishes and the rest of the orchestra joins in on that melancholy, albeit major key, underscore. What an honor and a privilege to be able to sing that in one's lifetime, backed by a full orchestra- two harps and all.

So close to everything, yet hidden, my imagination began it's weaving work, spinning scenarios and taking my heart right along with it. How would I sing the song were I to play that part? How that song speaks to us all! How it calls to us, we with the broken hearts, the missed entrance, the chance not taken, the attempt only too late. There we all are, hearts broken, let down, wrong timing. The soul cries.

I sit there, listening to those mellow clarinets, the English horn, the oboe, the cellos, all of the sorrowful instruments of the orchestra, and my soul gets wings. It flies out of me faster than I can even stand, pulling me out against any attempt at control. My will is useless. Soul is primary. My imagination becomes that Lady of Shallott, putting my story into Desiree's words, remembering those times when I wanted love so badly, but somehow I screwed it up and ended up heartbroken.

These are the precious moments of theatre, when you are able to sit inches away from someone else's story, unseen by a millimeter-thick piece of material and weave your own story into what you're hearing before you. No one knows you're there. No one knows you're doing some soul-work, but it is happening. And, ironically, I think it's happening all over the place backstage- individual stories are colliding all over the place, none of us aware that each is going through some heart-wrenching journey. All focus is on that sound, on that woman singing. It's probably the same out in the audience, too, but they don't know that the actors and set-changers are all backstage just out of sight doing the very same thing. I hope we're doing the very same thing.

This is the power of art. This is why we do it. If no one else knows, so what. I know. I know it's happening, and that my soul has taken hold of this and taken flight. It has taken flight and gone deeper, both outward into heaven and downward into me. It's one of the reasons I do theatre at all. We have to talk about magic and God when moments like this happen, and, for the love of God, it's why we live.

Keeping Things In Mind

2010-12-23T22:54:00.003-05:00

Thinking as I do these days on things like memory and, well, thinking, I am lead again to question what this thing is that we call mind. Words like "mind" fall in with others, like love, soul, spirit, and God, that we don't really understand but need words for anyway. But aren't those the really interesting things to talk about? And yet they defy language. Convenient.

Listening to the latest podcast from Being, the one on Rumi which I love, something came up about keeping things in mind. This concept of the power of mind to shape one's life is pretty crucial, but it's mysterious, too. It follows the line of memory and remembrance crossing the threshold out into action and environment rather than keeping things solely cognitive (if that is at all possible). But where is this mind that we keep things? For that matter, where is the soul? Is the mind the same thing as the soul? And why have we confined it just to the head? I've heard it said that the body is in the soul, not the other way around.

It seems that how we construct our worlds and realities depends very much on what we "keep in mind," and by extension, what we remember. If remembering means to put back together, then on what does putting our life together entail? What balance of directed thinking and the lowering of consciousness is required? How much do we have to manage desire and exercise inhibitory function?

I have a theory. I think that what we surround ourselves with, of what we remind ourselves is key. If you want to keep God close by, then surround yourself with God. If you want to keep your soul close by, then surround yourself with your soul. I think we are only able to focus on and deal with what is right in front of us.

I came to this conclusion based on my friends. I don't see all of my friends all of the time. There are only some of them with whom I interact at any given time, and because I am here at school, it is mainly these people at school with me that get the bulk of my attention. But several of my friends are back "home," too. However, I don't talk to these people as much. And, they don't talk to me, either. Sometimes I get grief because I don't call, but they don't call me, either. The phone works both ways, but why isn't it ringing?

I think this is because, again, we're just focused on what's right in front of us. We don't extend beyond the present and immediate. The everyday routine of our lives dominates our focus and attention. We keep this everyday world in mind, not what's out of the realm of immediate sensate experience. The phone doesn't ring.

So then, what do we keep in mind? What's right in front of us? How do we keep something in mind to alter our behavior when that thing is abstract and far away, or if that thing is deep in memory? How do we remember our souls if we don't know where they are or haven't taken the time to find them and, further, keep them immediate and present? How do we let God enter our lives, the most abstract and unknowable thing of all? How do we reduce the far away into something immediate?

Wow, I think that's what Virgo is about...reducing the far-away abstract into something tangible, sensate, and immediate. This is why I think Virgo is so awesome and important. Virgo is about those everyday, mundane tasks and routines that prepare the vessel. Maybe it is very appropriate that Mercury rules Virgo- a perceptive planet in an earth sign.

Well speaking of Mercury, maybe this little planet/archetype/god is what is meant by mind. Further, is Mercury on the horoscope describing what is kept in mind, or is it how something is kept in mind? Or is it both?

Well, when I figure this out, I guess I'll have learned something important. I can't keep things in mind at all times. There is an ebb and flow to this thing. The directed thinking goes somewhere else. Consciousness lowers. Oblivion and forgetting are as much a part of the picture as remembering.

So, all of the great things in the Rumi podcast...how do I keep that in mind? How do I live life built with that, and how do I get it back when I forget it, as I will? What do I place in my world to remind me?

Beyond Gender

2010-12-12T13:57:00.001-05:00

I had a eureka moment yesterday while writing my paper about postmodern, post-Jungian gender. I decided I should include some sort of generic individuation process; it should be described so that I could relate it to theatrical practices that play with gender. I hadn't really thought of the whole gender issue in relation to Jungian individuation before, but in taking a few sentences to describe the process, I realize it comes into play more than I thought.

I tackled the description thusly: first the ego recognizes that it's not the only "thing" in the psyche; it's not lord of the house. Hey! There's an unconscious there that's doing things too! Then that unconscious "other" is figured by the shadow. The shadow is kind of like first contact with the unconscious- it's the gatekeeper. Importantly, it's a same-sex figure. Then, the next step on the journey is anima/animus, the unconscious that is figured as the opposite gender. Finally, there's the Self, the Other that has no gender at all. It moves beyond (I'm wary of the word "transcend") gender, and is often not figured in human form at all. It's that alchemical hermaphrodite that is both male and female, and also something else entirely. Binary opposition is out of the picture.

That's pretty generic, and I'm sure Jung would have hated the discrimination and division inherent in a theoretical description like that. Everything "not-ego" is contaminated anyway; all of those categories blur and drip into each other so that the shadow has touches of the anima, the shadow has touches of the Self, the anima has a Self component, etc. But, the logos-eye needs to break things apart to understand them, and so it is.

So, I was thinking about that Self archetype that is beyond gender. I hadn't really thought of it in that respect before, and honestly this idea of gender as construction has given me trouble. I haven't read into Judith Butler and all of that good ol' postmodern gender theory, but from what I've heard of it, I'm often left with that squinty-eyed look and my head tilted to one side.

Then comes the eureka moment.

I realized I've been conceptualizing the self without gender for quite some time now and I didn't even know it! Let me explain. In all my astrology stuff, which I think in itself is rather postmodern as it deals with a fragmentation of the psyche into multiplicity and plurality, I've known that there are many aspects to the self, many perspectives. Each planet/sign is a complex, an archetype, a persona, a sub-personality, etc. In that circle, we can move around to any point on it through experience. In the words of Whitman, we contain multitudes. The psychic map that a horoscope is leaves something out, though: the individual. A map is not the destination. Horoscopes exist for everything, inanimate objects, etc. There's nothing that says, this guy named Jared will be a piano player, he'll be into theatre, he'll like Family Guy, and he'll bat for the blue team. Nope, not there. That's an X-factor. Whatever we are as individuals, we bring something else to the table, and you can call it consciousness, spirit, soul, whatever. I think we have to use weird and abstract names for it because it's numinous and beyond language. But here's the kicker: That X-factor? Not gendered. On the deepest level, what I understand to be "myself" doesn't have a gender. It's neither male or female. That "thing" that moves between the planets and houses and aspects of the horoscope? Not gendered. I can't even put a visual conception to it. It's something that is not embodied. It has no form. Bodies are gendered (or do I have to say sexed?), but this "thing" is not.

So, woah. Dare I say, my essential self has no gender? If that X-factor, that thing called individuality has no gender, then where does gender come into play? Surely it does matter because my body is male, and that is the way in which I receive my world. Consciousness doesn't exist without a body (yes, I know, there are spiritual arguments to this but on this plane of existence something happens to us when the body stops working) so that body is really important. It's kind of a weird paradox: my biology is not my identity, but on the other hand, it is. There's something beyond body, beyond gender, beyond sex, but we only know it as embodied. This makes me want to be nicer to my body. I guess I shouldn't have just eaten that 3/4 of a bag of chips.

This leads down a tricky road. Embodiment is hard. I feel like I'm back to that logos thing where I need to understand so I want to split things up and tell the pieces apart, but there's no way to do that! I mean, we try, but body, mind, spirit, soul, all that stuff is connected! Just like other aspects of the psyche: shadow, anima, animus, self, body, archetype- all that stuff is connected, too. We're back to the idea of cosmos where everything in existence is part of everything else. Blurg. How am I to shift my understanding so I can figure this out? How do I not go so far into logos that I miss the point? But how do I then satisfy logos, too? How do I think in a directed, discriminating way so that I can tell this from that and be active about my psyche and its embodiment while still honoring the side of me that calls for the opposite? Opposites suck. And that's what we are: a bundle of oppositions. Or are we?? Am I kidding myself here? If Self is what we are, if that archetypal complex (aka, God) is where we need to center consciousness, then maybe we aren't oppositional chaos at all.

Funny how when I attempt to go beyond gender subjectivity, I start getting into that same metaphysical space where language doesn't help anymore. Maybe that's what language is: an act of separation that serves a logos-centered consciousness. Hell, consciousness itself probably is logos-centered. But an attempt to go beyond always leaves me without words. Words fail. All the biggies are so difficult to do anything with: love, soul, spirit, God, death, sex. The semiotic doesn't bridge the gap into the phenomenological experience. Language really does seem to doubly remove us from the experience. But we have to talk about it somehow, right? It makes me wonder if logos speaks and soul is mute. Or does the soul have its own language?

I need to stop. I have papers to edit and write. I am a labyrinth. I can get lost so easily. That's why I chose the image for this blog. But if I find David Bowie in a codpiece down there, I'm going to need some help.

Memory

2010-12-10T15:20:00.004-05:00

Memory is a topic I've been reading a lot about lately. When I was doing some reading for my project on Doctor Faustus, I came across a book by Sullivan that examines memory and forgetting in English Renaissance drama. It's really fascinating, and it has inspired some interesting further reading and thinking. Hillman uses the term memoria in his writing, and Sullivan uses it, too, albeit in a different way. Sullivan doesn't expand on it too much, leaving it as the location of thoughts. It's basically a storage facility. Hillman expands on it as a crucial entity in the psyche, a sort of seat of the imagination that figures so prominently in archetypal psychology. I feel like Hillman completes and adds to Sullivan in a nice way. What I've taken from Sullivan is his definition of memory as something embodied.

Here we are back to embodiment, where is where I left off last time. Memory is something that crosses the threshold; it doesn't stay internal and cognitive in Sullivan's conception. I would take issue with my use of the word cognitive there anyway, because as Rhonda Blair has been pointing out, even something we usually think of as "just cognitive" is really bodily expressed. It would seem we really need to abandon this notion that things happen only "in the head." This is again a result of our Enlightenment inheritance. Hillman points out in his essay on psychological language that the psyche used to be imagined as in the body- somewhere around the mid-section of gut. It then got moved to the head and has been steadily leaving the body since. But even if it's in the brain, that's still in the body. Verticality gives us such issues, doesn't it?

This idea of memory involving praxis was initially confusing to me. I wasn't sure what he meant by this, but he provides an example of Elizabeth I's coronation where someone in the crowd shouted out, "Remember King Henry VIII." She smiled, showing some response to that memory. But importantly, we don't know what was going on in her head. We don't know her cognition, her subjective thought process, etc. What this imperative means is for the memory to guide Elizabeth to emulate Henry's rule. She was to behave in a certain way as a result of keeping Henry in mind.

Behavior is action. Something interior gets acted out through the body. We see tangible, physical results. This is exactly what acting in the theatrical sense is. When we perform we take something internal and make it external through action. Sense memory and method get us to behave in a certain way. Yes, it can stay internal, as Sullivan says, but what is internal is precisely the memoria and recollection parts of the triad (the other leg being remembering). The cognitive retrieval of a memory is internal, yes. But once we get to remembering, the body must become involved. It gets translated into some action. Granted, that may be remarkably subtle. Perhaps we only get a result of a quickened heartbeat, more perspiration, and there are instruments that can and have measured this. But as theatre practitioners, are job is to "remember," to turn something internal into something external.

Even the word perform is linked to remembering as action. To perform originally meant to literally bring something into form, to render. It's like the word perfume, which means through smoke. Perform means through form. To perform is to embody. To remember is to embody. When we remember, or re-member, we're putting pieces together. Think of the word dismember, which has the connotation of a body being pulled apart. I'm not sure what the root mem means, but it's crucial here. A quick look in the dictionary shows the Latin membrum as meaning "limb." How interesting: remembering and memory are linked right back to the body through this Latin root. Another interesting thing is our word remember itself, which implies a putting back together. Something that was once whole has been broken apart, and we engage in a process of putting the pieces back together. That, I think, says something about our human condition. We are fragmented, or some part of our condition means we are dismembered and, thus, forgetting.

Sullivan brings this up in his book, too, pointing out the philosophical perspectives, Plato's especially, that link incarnation to an act of forgetting. The Greeks have it, too, with the river of Lethe being one of the bodies of water in the underworld. We have to cross it to get to Hades, and I imagine we cross it when we come back out of wherever that "beyond" world is and come back into this plane of existence. Forgetting is part of who we are. One of the riddles of our existence may be imagined in the act of remembering: Why are we here? To remember.

This makes me wonder if these is some place inside of us, some locus of the soul, that does remember. Is there somewhere in us that has never forgotten? Is that where God lives? Is that where what is best and most good about us lives? Is that what soul is, the place that is connected to memoria? Perhaps, as soul is concerned with how to die, soul is an important part of all of this. I wonder about soul's ability to "put back together," about its mediating and connective focus. Soul, to me, seems to be one of those things that brings together in a meaningful way (and maybe in a meaningless way, too, I don't know). The human being may be totally experiences as a mediating principle, a liminal space that is constantly on the threshold of becoming something new. I think memory/remembering can be liminal, too. When the pieces cross that "threshold" into the place of our remembering, they are put back together into something new and realized, thrown out into form through the human being, through all that we are, body included.

In this way, we are the point where the invisible becomes visible and expressive. To remember is to make the invisible visible. How do we participate in this? How do we engage with memory to shape our world, to shape ourselves? Maybe this is the way in which rationality/reason/intellect/spirit participates with memory/soul/feeling/immanence. Reason and rationality (logos) combine with psyche/soul to direct the remembering human. Reason can help direct us to what we remember, and in so doing shape the way we live. Reality is shaped by reason/cognition as it participates with its partner, soul and its connection to death, forgetting, beyond, embodiment. It's a psyche + logos, a psychology. Here I begin to see a coniunctio, a sacred marriage.

I know I haven't defined these term. Logos is always kind of tricky for me, as is soul. This is the point where words cease to be helpful, if they ever are. I should give them credit- they do reach out over the gap. But drawing from semiotics and phenomenology, there is that gap: the actual experience is distant from the methods we use to talk about it. Words fail. But logos to me seems to have to do with directed thinking. It is discriminatory and dividing: it holds this in mind, not that. Maybe logos talks about experience, soul experiences? And we need both? I don't know. But, with logos as directed thinking, the light that sheds specificity and breaks apart, we do that in a psychology where we engage in "directed thinking about the soul, attempting to break it apart to understand it." Both are ways of knowing: distance yourself from something or merge with it. Perhaps through the modern era we've privileged the logos to the detriment of psyche. I think a balance is ideal: a sacred marriage. Let's do that! That's what I want my life to be. A remembering life, putting together psyche and logos, not forgetting that with soul comes love (Eros and Psyche) and expressing that.

Archetypal and Individual

2010-12-10T14:15:00.005-05:00

So many things to write about, owing to the millions of things I've been thinking about. I feel so much freer to be creative here as opposed to the big papers I've got due at the end of the weekend, so I'm hoping this will be a primer for more intellectual artistry.

Today I was in a class (Acting Songs and Arias) and a few things struck me. One of the masters students was discussing performing the early Baroque operas by Monteverdi, specifically the laments of particular female characters. Apparently, the lament is present in all of them (and she said they go on for 15 minutes- shoot me now.) Laments exist in a sort of template form: first you sing about how you've been abandoned, then you sing to the gods, asking how this could have happened and why haven't you punished him, etc. Finally you sing about how you want to die. It's always females, too, which brings me back to this idea of the female characters in plays always ending up committing suicide. Note to self: order Suicide and the Soul!

The point of the lament is that it's pretty general. It follows the same format in no matter what composition you find it. It's, in a way, archetypal. This brings me back to the age old question of finding the specific in the general. How do we give individual voice to something universal? It's an exciting and dynamic interaction, this archetypal and individual. I suppose that there are moments where you live in the middle of the spectrum and times when you occupy either polarity. Too much archetypal and there's no such thing as "me." Too little and everything is relative and free-floating, meaningless. This seems to be to be the dynamic we experience between the modern and the postmodern as well. Maybe we've swung the other way and right now are inhabiting the postmodern/individual end of the polarity so everything unitary, generalizing, and archetypal is anathema.

So, especially in the realm of acting where the goal is to be as specific as possible in your choices and tactics, archetypal perspectives can be tricky. Maybe they're something that you have to identify and then forget and live in the specifics. Archetypal patterns do lend themselves to abstraction rather well, something that doesn't serve an actor. I wonder how it serves an individual in everyday life, too?

I think that I'm heading towards the concept of embodiment. This is something I've been reading about a little bit, and something that I am going to focus on more in the coming weeks. Rhonda Blair talks about some aspects of cognitive science and cognitive neuroscience in her book on acting and points out that the brain is part of the body. There is no consciousness without a body. I like the way this brings it home: we are embodied creatures. So much of the last few centuries of our existence has worked to get rid of the body for various reasons. Our theological and ideological constructions have justified that, but clearly it's caused some problems, least of which is the treatment of the feminine, our own bodies, and the earth. But I think connection to the body can be one of those points where the individual meets the archetypal. I am suddenly reminded of John O'Donohue's words in hist interview with Krista Tippett: a human being is the point at which the invisible becomes visible and expressive in some way. Oh John, I love you.

And this leads me to ANOTHER thought, but it's going be a long one, so I think I'm just going to start a fresh blog for it. I'm going to use John's idea there as a starting point because it ties in a lot of what I've been reading and thinking about. And it really speaks to acting and theatre as an arena of expressiveness. More to come....

Thesis!

2010-11-11T23:36:00.002-05:00

Well I think I've figured out a thesis idea.

So I found this book on Jung and postmodernism, and let me tell you, it is amazing. I have been looking for a way to bring Jung into this dialogue in critical theory, and someone has done it! I've been despairing for some time now for a few reasons. One, I get told over and over again that psychoanalysis is out of fashion, passe. Another, it seems that as postmodernism is defined to me, depth psychology has no place in that. Well apparently both counts are not correct. Yesterday I checked out a bunch of books from the library because I wanted to get some points of view that criticized depth psychology, for if I am going to write a prospectus on what I'm going to do, I feel I should have voices that both support and oppose depth psychology. Well, I found this book on postmodern Jung and it has changed everything. Scholars have been working away all this time bringing a post-Jungian perspective into dialogue with critical theory. The book argues that Jung himself is what we would call postmodern, so it obviously has a place in postmodern dialogue.

Postmodernism has been defined to me in certain ways, and it turns out these ways were not helpful in grasping the full vista of the point of view. I think it's just been defined badly to me. Hence I thought that all the things I had to contribute creatively were unworkable and would result in professional failure. However, with this book, the whole time I've been participating in the postmodern condition! As Jung has been postmodern, so have I been! Well, it is arguable as to whether or not anyone could be anything but postmodern, since that is where we are. But, in my classes, it felt like I was some weird outsider. It was heartening to read otherwise today.

So I was thinking of my musical theater world that I live in. I had this notion that individuation and individual psychology is part of the goal of Jungian psychology. It is not a theory of universals- it is a theory that says there's no such thing as a universal- what else could there be in a psychology that champions individuation? That got me to thinking about how we create ourselves, how we write our own stories. Also, it got me thinking about how theatrical practice can support that. In theater, are we not learning about ourselves? As actors, do we not discover the roles we play, the subpersonalities that are operative and how those find embodiment in characters? I thought specifically about our "types," and the cannons of songs and/or monologues we create based on that. If I am an ingenue, for example, I'm going to gather around me songs that support that and give embodiment to that in performance. If I am a comedic sidekick, likewise. So, in building a cannon for ourselves based on material that's out there already, I'm writing my story. In a postmodern way, I'm gathering material and out of that constructing identity based on multiplicity. I think this practice links individuation/Jung and postmodernism and theater.

But what happens if the songs I gather don't seem to reflect me? By this I mean, what happens when the songs that are "supposed" to be my and my type don't feel authentic, don't speak to me? What happens when we have to branch out and find other materials of another gender or another type to build my cannon? This won't really work so well when we're auditioning in situations that depend on meeting a "type" in order to be hired. The process of individuation doesn't really find support here. However, the genre of the cabaret supports this more. Cabarets can be tailored to fit the individual in a more authentic way. There is freedom to do material that "feels like me." In this way it can be more supportive of an individuation process in the postmodern sense. In cabarets, we can write out own narratives in a polyvalent way, picking and choosing from material as we see fit. Just like making a playlist on an ipod, we make a playlist that is "us." In this way, we perform ourselves and bring ourselves into being.

That's what I want to write on!!! I'm really excited!

God is Dead in the Academy

2010-11-09T16:04:00.002-05:00

Being in masters program studying theater, we've been in theory land. My brain is now filled to capacity so that I don't even care anymore. I can only be stuffed so much with various theoretical frameworks. But, we had to do more today, which nearly resulted in a breakdown, but I pulled through. What gets me, and this is the place I'm in right now, is how God is dead. We hear that phrase over and over with. God is dead. Really?

I mean, people still seem to believe in God. Churches haven't shut down, the discussion isn't over. So, maybe we need to modify this and say that God is dead in the Academy. I guess it just annoys me because we can't talk of matters of being, spirit, soul, God, purpose, meaning. We have to result to totally dead language, language devoid of art, beauty, passion. Theory is so damn dry. We have to apparently turn to the arts for our beauty and heart-moving, but the theory we use to talk about that art is so dry!

To be fair there are some really interesting things going on. I like talking about phenomenology. I like the psychoanalysis, to the extent that you can handle Freud because that's all that anyone ever talks about. The minute you pull it into the 1970s you turn into Lacan when things become all about semiotics and understanding the unconscious as a language. It becomes signs.

Soul never enters in anywhere. I am bemoaning the loss of soul even in psychology. I mean the word means study of soul. Where did the soul go? Is this why we can't talk about psychology anymore? Well, we apparently can't talk about psychoanalysis anymore because that's just laughable, ahistorical, and it just "doesn't work." But why? Why can't we pull psychology forward, and why does it move farther and farther away from soul? Does it not belong in the Academy anymore as the Academy is structured? If no soul is allowed in the Academy, then certainly psychology itself doesn't belong.

It seems that psychology itself has continued to move farther away from soul, the exceptions being the "spiritual" Jungian and archetypal disciplines with in it, which are always renegade and marginalized. How telling that issues of "soul" are marginalized in a "study of soul." There are historical and value-based reasons for this, which Hillman talks about. But nowadays we speak in cognition and behavior, drug therapy, the biological. It's all about neurotransmitters and thinking. Issues of soul do not seem to enter in. They certainly do not enter into the Academy. Mention Plato and God forbid. Plato is dead in a postmodern world, too.

Ok that's enough. I will just have to dance around this little issue, and I just had a discussion with some other grad students and I'm not alone. So yay.

Origin Stories

2010-10-10T19:23:00.003-04:00

I swear I should have a tape recorder handy in the shower or just sitting outside of it, because as I've said before, most of my insights happen there.

We've been talking a lot about history. I should clarify further and say the writing of history. I feel like when we write a history we want to know where we came from. We need something to remember from whence we sprang forth. But how do we remember this? Where is the originator, in that dark, secret space of memory? The Bible tells it to us nicely. It's written down there in Genesis. But how do I personally connect to my origins? How do I know it? How do I find it? What is my own personal history?

This is, I think, getting close to the meaning of the 4th house (and perhaps by extension, the sign of Cancer). I've read in Greene that she attributes the 10th house to the mother because the mother's body is the world. This relationship then gets turned into how we relate to the world at large later in life. But the father and his engendering spirit is unknown. It is mysterious, other. We are from our mother's body. We can readily touch the substance of which we are. But Father is different. This part of our origination is something we have to seek, to search for, to quest for.

This concept is primed in my mind thanks to reading Hillman's The Myth of Analysis where he looks for the patronage of psychology itself. But the same thing is happening when I'm studying the history of theater, and history in general. I think the quest for understanding the history of a culture, a people, an institution runs up against this same mysterious quality that visits us when we seek our own personal origins. The microcosm as reflection of macrocosm.

In history we run into the problem of evidence. Who wrote it down? Who was present to see? What sensual information (since that is how we know) was left behind to tell us? Sometimes there is plenty. Sometimes there are mere fragments. And let us not forget that the present informs the past, making us see differently. In terms of my personal history, I have my parents here, in the same room with me. I can see them, talk to them, touch them. Problem solved. But is there more? Yes, my mother and father are here now, but what of my Mother and Father? Are these parents more than mere humans? Furthermore, who is the Mother and Father of history? Of mankind?

History to me always seems to spiral itself back into the darkness. It always leads back to something unknowable, just as memory does. Where does a memory go when you're not thinking of it right this very moment? What form does it take? What are the components of a memory? A chain seems unending. My mother had a mother, and she had a mother, and she had a mother, stretching all the way back to the beginning of life itself. When we study history, then, how far back do we go? Should we go all the way back, and is it possible to do so? What happens to the soul as it attempts to comprehend its own origins? Do we lead back to God? Is that where it all begins? I see that happening an awful lot these days in my studies on art. The numinous always is creeping in there, and as a side note, I was listening to poetry of Rilke and wondering, why has this not entered into my studies? Why am I not honoring this part of myself in which Rilke lives and bringing it into all the other aspects of my scientia? Does this way of knowing not also belong in the Academy, too?

So, all of these things seem to be wrapped up in this concept of 4th house, the place of midnight, the Sun at its nadir. Very mysterious. I certainly don't have an answer, but trying to figure it all out is rather baffling simply because there are things we just can't know. We run up against these blockages, these gaps in knowledge. How do we fill them in? Personally and as a species? Is there a better way of knowing? Can we do it with amplification and confusion as opposed to definition? Are there simply levels of psyche that are Mystery? And can we be ok with that? Maybe, as one of the scholars interviewed by Krista Tippet on Being said (not an exact quote here), a discipline that doesn't incorporate mystery isn't a very good discipline?

Perhaps origin is always mystery. There are simply some things we cannot know. But how do we then honor that and keep on going? Live both the light and the dark, noon and midnight?

Where Am I Now: Hillman and Eliot

2010-09-18T01:15:00.002-04:00

Well it's been forever. Things have gotten a little hectic. My head feels crammed full of a hundred things all competing for attention, and I'm continuing to stuff it even more. But, I wanted to find time to sit and write something just to keep in the practice of writing things. It turns out writing is a skill that you improve upon with practice. Who knew.

So, something about Greek satyr plays interested me, thanks to their wearing of phalluses. No, it's not just that. I had read in Hillman's Puer and Senex an article that dealt with the theme of erection and the notion of verticality. That yielded some more interesting puer issues, especially in terms of breaking down the symbol of the erect penis. Now I've turned to Hillman's other work, Pan and the Nightmare to see if I could get a better grasp of this character of half goat, half man. I guess now they say satyrs are half horse? I don't know. Details details. At any rate, I've read this already and upon having a go for a second time, it's still great. There are some fascinating concepts here, like the notion of Greece as an "inscape," a psychic landscape that we go back to rather than the literal country on the Mediterranean. Sprinkled all throughout are Hillman's insights on archetypal psychology, which I feel might take Jung a step further. I haven't read Re-Visioning Psychology, but it's in the stack yet to be read. I feel I want to advance this Jungian paradigm a little further and see what Hillman has to say. I want to familiarize myself with his whole cannon.

So, I'm sitting here thinking about what I've been reading, but as I zoom out, I think I can safely say that archetypes are confusing. The Gods are confusing. I suppose that word is appropriate, too: to merge with, to fuse with. They all blend into each other, yet have these minor differences. Pan and the Moon go together, which makes me think of the ways in which the Moon throws you back into the realm of instinct, which is also Pan. People who get too airy/puer get the madness of the Moon thrown onto them, reduced to animals. The body becomes terror, there's the worry that it'll be the death, succumb to disease, etc. But then here's Pan with his own Hermes-origin, and in the train of Dyonisos, who is the enemy of Hera. Or rather, Hera isn't fond of him. But Eros is also in Dionysos' train, but those two aren't compatible, either.

At any rate, one God brings along many, which is tricky for a discriminating mind. It makes me think how, in a dream, one figure can turn into another or be switched out. You're going along and one person is your "mother," but then a completely different person becomes your "mother," even though the dream has just continued right on. One archetype links up to another, becomes something else, transforms into its opposite which is really the same as itself. I complain about this all the time. I know I've done so in other posts.

I'm not sure I'm any closer to figuring out why these guys wore erect penises when they performed this play, only in that the God himself was said to be phallic, erect, and sexual. Maybe it's because Pan is something that is outside of order and structure in society, and this element has something to do with comedy. Even the later Greek comedies that weren't satyr plays worked in the dick jokes. They were pretty dirty. (I'm not complaining.) So, maybe comedy in some way belongs to Pan. I have a hunch that it also belongs to Hermes. But, there is something taboo-breaking in comedy, something that takes us out into the anti-social and wild, something phallic. It makes me want to do some linking up to Capricorn and the notion of the ruling Senex with his jester by his side. Those two form a pair, usually, and that must mean something. It's like we need comedy (puer/Pan) to balance out tragedy (senex).

Further mysteries of the world I'll solve someday. Speaking of the ineffable, I've been in T.S. Eliot land this past week and oh my Lord there's some great stuff there. Four Quartets is blowing my mind, and of course "The Moments of Happiness" from Cats comes from that. I should have guessed. So, it turns out this quote that defines my life comes from this work, which I'm loving. What's really fascinating me, too, about Eliot is this notion of universal time. He has a 12th house Sun. Like me. Go figure. He definitely taps into that realm where time starts to become relative and fold in on itself. I might venture to say there is no such thing as time there. Four Quartets is full of that, and I think modernism itself may be full of it. I have to read up on it more, but bucking against that notion of progress that prevailed in the previous century, linear time and progress itself seemed to be questioned. I would say that this contact with the Eternal has always been present in humanity, but these guys around the turn of the century really got into it. What I love is that Albert Einstein was re-visioning time from the science angle, and Eliot, his contemporary, was doing it from the literary. Brilliant.

Well that's me for now. More to come. Dionysos is coming down the pike, as I just got a multitude of books on him. Also, how we know things in general and the seeming relativity of everything is coming, too. That's seriously messing with my head. EVERYTHING is messing with my head, even the things I love! But I suppose that's good. I appreciate that kind of continuous investigation. We wind in the labyrinth.

Feeling Lack and Judgement, But A Touch of Mercy, Too

2010-07-28T02:19:00.005-04:00

The times of crisis in one's life are so frenzied. So much shifting and intensity begins to accumulate, like gravity getting stronger and stronger as one gets closer to a black hole until one collapses under its weight and pressure. I remember my time in Australia when I was dying, when my world was falling apart. Isn't that what any change is? A death? Some are more painful than others, but all of them are little deaths, thresholds. Anyway, my dream life then was the most vivid it has ever been. My psyche was in a totally aroused state, and I still remember those dreams, almost ten years later. They were so powerful, so archetypal, symbolic. I also had a dream back in January that I remember, a herald of something profound coming, a shift.

Life appears different from these places, those that are touched by death. I am reading about it in Kitchen Table Wisdom as I finish the book; the whole book is about the perspective of life when you're on the edge of it. Suddenly I'm reminded of John O'Donohue's Anam Cara where he talks much about thresholds. I'll need to revisit it again. Perhaps it will bring some solace.

I say solace because I'm feeling some turmoil over this ending and beginning. New chapters are starting, and as I look back, I see a lot of mistakes, places where I acted from a space that doesn't feel good to be in, even as I revisit those places in my imagination. Reading currently, so much of this book seems to honor humanity and the places within us that are true, that really reflect who and what we are. It seems to take crisis and death to put us in touch with what is really valuable, what we really are. We get close to God in each of us. As I look back on the last five years of my life, perhaps even the last two, I see some of the choices I made and feel very alienated from that God within. I think I have touches on this recently in some of my posts on this Saturn-Pluto square.

I'm really questioning the space from which I've made many decisions in my life, even the most mundane daily choices. I feel lack. There's a hunger within, something I have a hard time putting my finger on, but it has to do with love. There's a dynamic of self-love and the love of an Other that has driven me, and the lack of this love has guided many of my choices. Rachel Naomi Remen talks of this place of grace inside of us, where God touched us way back when, and I somehow have lost that place. I feel that if I were to be living from that place, I'd be living a life with more integrity, with more self-love and regard, with better care towards others. If I had been seeing the God in myself, I would have been able to see it in others and respond to it. I don't think I have. This saddens me. I feel I've let myself down, that I haven't lived up to the best I could be, that I haven't honored myself.

These are the hard things that are shifting about right now inside. I think this has to do with my Saturn return, which is still active. There is a lot of appraisal and judgement going on, a lot of things coming home to roost and having to deal with consequences. This is no doubt echoed by Pluto's movement into Capricorn, for we all as a species are dealing with that now.

It takes some good hard examination to discover why I don't have that inner sense of foundation, the solid, safe place from which to operate in life. Something pulls me outward, something hungry, something filled with desire. Desire lives on the threshold, yes? Always hungry, always needing fulfillment only to have it blossom once more into a need. A combination of strong desires and a mysterious pushing away of emotion and others seems to have driven my choices up to now.

I don't really blame myself for this, for how could I have known otherwise? And is it not what I am to begin with? I'll always have a Moon-Pluto conjunction, and on some level I'll always feel a stranger to myself, to others, to humanity. A lone wolf wandering the jungle. But there are probably other levels to it, other life experiences which will temper that and form it into slightly different perspectives, present new opportunities to see a different facet. Life will ask things of me, and there's an organic growth process I know is there. I like the analogy of a plant that Remen used in her book: plants don't break. You don't "fix" them. You tend them, work with them, care for them, assist them in their becoming what they are. You help them fulfill their pattern. I know that's what I'm doing, too, and it involves some fuck-ups along the way. There have been fuck-ups. But perhaps the best thing to go with judgement is mercy. What does Shakespeare say in The Merchant of Venice:

The quality of mercy is not strain'd,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath: it is twice blest;
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes:
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest: it becomes
The throned monarch better than his crown;
His sceptre shows the force of temporal power,
The attribute to awe and majesty,
Wherein doth sit the dread and fear of kings;
But mercy is above this sceptred sway;
It is enthroned in the hearts of kings,
It is an attribute to God himself;
And earthly power doth then show likest God's
When mercy seasons justice. Therefore, Jew,
Though justice be thy plea, consider this,
That, in the course of justice, none of us
Should see salvation: we do pray for mercy;
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render
The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much
To mitigate the justice of thy plea;
Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice
Must needs give sentence 'gainst the merchant there.

It is an attribute of God himself...yes, when we touch the God within us, that sacred space where we are as yet unharmed, where we remember what we are and what we are supposed to grow into, we are merciful. We show ourselves compassion, and we are ready to show it to others, too. That is the journey of this time: to remember, to be gentle and merciful with myself in this time of change and crisis, during the dying of one thing and the birth of another. It reminds me that death and life are so intimately connected that one cannot be discerned from the other. In such a face of constant death, we would do well to simply be gentle with ourselves and let Saturn's face not be that of strict unmerciful justice, but simply the unfoldment in form of the plan set out from beginning, the flowering of the seed. Surrender to serenity. (that's a phrase that needs much meditation: surrender to serenity; sounds way too new age-y!)

More Lunar Transits and Enemy Action (and Cooling)

2010-07-23T19:38:00.003-04:00

Well this is just uncanny. As I mentioned in yesterday's post, the Moon is conjunct Pluto right now, and who should walk into my line of sight today but Mr. Moon-Pluto himself. Every time the Moon and Pluto meet, here he comes. Should I start to get alarmed? What does Liz Greene quote, "Once is chance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action?"

Not only did he walk into my life, but a big storm blew over, so I got to relive my destruction through seeing him complete with dramatic sudden storm and blackened skies in tandem with him. Call me a drama queen, but I like it when life obliges my inner workings like that.

So yeah, this guy shows up at the right time, and has done so for the past few years. I know there are probably times when I've encountered him and the Moon has been nowhere near Pluto (although I didn't check, so maybe it was), so I can't make that attribution of meaning. Still, I really seem to register it that way. And maybe that's all that's required? I've heard the critiques of stochasticity and meaningful chance, but just look at how it feels to the individual. I suppose that's the level we have to deal on, because it's part of my narrative, my story. Sure it may seem delusional to some people, the outsiders, but isn't that ok? How far is too far with this kind of thing?

Mr. Moon-Pluto will always be Mr. Moon-Pluto (provided he reliably shows up on time), but even if he doesn't appear at the appropriate conjunction or alignment, it's still my own Moon-Pltuo that will catch a whiff of him and interpret him in that way. He'll always be my destruction because on some level I'm always undergoing destruction. He's just the external link. Now, why that specific guy should have come into my life to tie into that is a rather mind-boggling question. Why him? Why not someone else? Why hasn't Shane come back to haunt me? I don't know. I wish I could see more clearly the threading in the tapestry that weaves us together. Maybe there is no more thread left in this particular pairing and the shears have come out to cut. That may be, but my Moon-Pluto will always be there, and there's at least a little comfort in knowing that it's mine, it belongs to me. It's part of my story, my myth, my happily ever after, and that's healing and empowering. The Sun shines on it to pull it all together, and it is He who breaks curses, yes? Order. Design Balance. Harmony. (cue Sunday in the Park with George)

Speaking of always in destruction, this song is always playing somewhere in my soul. It came out again today after seeing him:

Lunar Transits and the Saturn-Pluto Square

2010-07-23T01:59:00.003-04:00

I've started to put some credence into the Moon's swift motion. Now and then I'll catch myself in a particular mood, usually one more Pluto or Saturn related, since those painful friends are more likely to elicit notice, and I'll go check out the transits and sure enough, the Moon is sitting on top of the planet. Sometimes when it floats over Neptune I get a whiff of that sea-monster, but usually that gets me quite amorous since Venus is there, too. Of course the Moon moves so quickly it hardly gets notice in terms of profound life-altering workings, hence more attention to its progressions than its transits. But I suppose if I want to know what a particular day is going to feel like, I'll look to the Moon and see where it is.

Today's little lunar adventure over the current Saturn-Pluto square has brought me into that territory. If nothing else, it's given me a reminder as to what that combination is all about via my own internal emotional climate. It's not pretty. It's obsessive, paranoid, and fearful of retribution. I have the feeling of living during the Cold War, which is apt since the Cold War was a product of Saturn and Pluto meeting. The threat of annihilation looms. I've had that feeling all night, like perched in a constant state of anxiety, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It's pretty hard to be carefree and breezy with that kind of fear hovering at your back. It just sucks the joy right out of life, and obviously so, since this is not Jupiter we're dealing with.

Oddly I've just surrendered myself into financial bondage today in the guise of signing bank loans, as Saturn moves into Libra again, finally, and gravitates ever closer to exactness in its square to Pluto. Talk about putting yourself into prison. There is also the signing of my new apartment lease, yet another binding I'll be stepping into. It seems Pluto is really amping up the Saturn chains for me lately. Can you see why I'm just waiting to get the death sentence? All of this bondage is really getting me nervous.

The Moon will pass over it's conjunction to Pluto here quickly enough, but tonight still gives me the opportunity to feel out this alignment. I had the thought of how such an alignment operates in the psyches of different types of people. I'm thinking specifically here of puer types versus senex types. This Saturn-Pluto square we'll be dealing with is just loaded with senex types of experiences, and if you're a puer type, it's got to feel just awful. I can see the puers running for the hills now (or into the Jupiter-Uranus conjunction that's part of this Cardinal Cross), loading up any number of escapist activities to counter all the anxiety. I can hear the call to defy death in any way. That is, if the puers among us can even shake it off enough to get out of bed and bother at all under this heavy weight. All of the Saturnine feelings about have to be amplified with Pluto in Saturn's own sign of Capricorn for the next decade and then some. I hope I sucked it up while I had the chance with Pluto in Sagittarius.

I wonder why I'm not feeling more of the Pluto squaring Jupiter-Uranus? That little conjunction is nearly exactly squaring my Ascendant at the moment, so I wonder where that's hiding? It's all Saturn all the time these days. What's the deal? I wonder if the senex types are freaking out of Pluto squaring that conjunction and the puer types are freaking out over Pluto squaring Saturn. All the same, it points out to me the relativity of aspects depending on the orientation of one's psyche. Also, it probably highlights the inherent split in my own psyche as it is, say the Moon-Pluto/angular Saturn side of me in contrast to the fiery stuff. Wheee.

The Moon will pass, but Saturn-Pluto will be around for a long time. It's gonna be rough. The Anxiety remains. I guess it's time to learn how to live under the Cold War. I suppose we really get to learn Pluto's lessons, which I know thanks to my own allotment, but they're still not easy. Saturn's presence will most likely incarnate Pluto in some solid ways. I hope I can stay positive about it (Jupiter, please, hang around!). Still, I'm fearful of that nuclear missile colliding.

On a lighter note, here's something that popped into my head related to my feelings tonight:

A Few Musings on the 60s

2010-07-20T16:38:00.004-04:00

I just returned from seeing an exhibit of 1960s rock posters at the Toledo Museum of Art. I couldn't help but think how timely it was, since we're now in the first quadrature alignment of Uranus and Pluto since their conjunction in the 60s. Kind of cool! And of course Saturn is hanging around now, too, as it was for a brief period then when Vietnam kicked up. Time to revisit some themes, yes?

To be immersed in that time is always a moving experience. I can't help but feel that violent surge of raw creativity, the impulse to revolt and upheave. It was great that the museum had footage of various performances playing on a big screen that you could watch while you perused the posters. I stood transfixed watching Janis Joplin, singing at the Monterey Pops Festival, become this maenad and channel the Dionysus-Prometheus energy through those raw vocal chords. I remember attending a lecture with Richard Tarnas where he discussed music as a container for archetypal energies; things that were composed during Saturn-Neptune transits were emblematic of that energy, and so forth with the Uranus-Pluto alignment. Watching this performance of Janis: yup. Uranus-Pluto. All of that distortion, electric shock, screaming, rawness. This is not the music of Motown or the 50s anymore. Look how it's changed!

I love Mama Cass' reaction to the performance there at the end, too!

I am no expert on the mass movements of the times, and seeing this exhibit today, reading other blogs on the oil spill, and recalling Tarnas' book, I am prodded to do more study in that direction. We've had our Vietnam, which still continues, in the form of the war in the Middle East (inaugurated during the Saturn-Pluto opposition of Sept. 11th, the seeds of which no doubt go back further), but I feel like this oil spill in the Gulf has been another version of our current Vietnam. Uranus is again opposite Saturn, just as it was then, and this time Pluto squares them both. It makes me wonder what we've learned. The repeal of "don't ask don't tell" recently makes me think the same themes of liberation and civil rights are again getting a working over, which makes me hopeful.

At any rate, I expect this period of the 60s to be revived now and through next year, as the planets are lined up and already in progress. It makes me want to do Hair somewhere. Note to self: rent the movie of Woodstock. Let's see what we can soak out of the comparison of these two times while the doorway is open!

Yup, More Saturn. And a Poem.

2010-07-19T04:22:00.002-04:00

As the Saturn theme continues, I find facets of my life drained of their meaning. Things become hollow shells of what they were, mere vessels with nobody home. This is not the usual mode for me, who regularly farms out spirit into various objects. Perhaps that's one of the reasons it's so hard for me to get rid of anything. Each object carries a perceived piece of my own soul and meaning, so to lose it would be awful. That, and I'm terribly possessive and stingy as it is.

Well, under this latest influence of the senex, most things just don't have "it" anymore. It leads to a sort of "why bother" attitude. I know earthy living is a life of forms, but to fiery living, forms are forgone in place of direction and meaning. The form is more of a hindrance in such a case. This time is very focused on forms; the meaning has left the building. Again, it's a depressive state. Is this what it feels like to be a Capricorn? Good Lord.

Let me share this little poem by Hafiz called "Cast All Your Votes for Dancing":

I know the voice of depression

Still calls to you.

I know those habits that can ruin your life

Still send their invitations.

But you are with the Friend now

And look so much stronger.

You can stay that way

And even bloom!

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From your prayers and work and music

And from your companions' beautiful laughter.

Keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From the sacred hands and glance of your Beloved

And, my dear,

From the most insignificant movements

Of your own holy body.

Learn to recognize the counterfeit coins

That may buy you just a moment of pleasure,

But then drag you for days

Like a broken man

Behind a farting camel.

You are with the Friends now.

Learn what actions of yours delight Him,

What actions of your bring freedom

And Love.

Whenever you say God's name, dear pilgrim,

My ears with my head was missing

So they could finally kiss each other

And applaud all your nourishing wisdom!

O keep squeezing drops of the Sun

From your prayers and work and music

And from your companions' beautiful laughter

And from the most insignificant movements

Of your own holy body.

Now, sweet one,

Be wise.

Cast all your votes for Dancing!

Pretty great, huh? I meant to talk about that poem in a different context, one of ecstatic joy and happiness upon finding it. However, I'm not in the same place. I have felt most alienated from the Friend lately, not in His presence at all. Many references to imprisonment come to my mind, feelings of being very far removed. This must be what Lucifer feels like, so far from the Friend's presence.

However, just writing that poem again, I can't help but feel filled up with light again. The words are that great. Reading that poem brings me back, over and over, to the Friend. I especially love those opening lines. Is there a way I can be both in this place of the prima matera, the shit and filth, as well as the Gold? Maybe it's wiser to have a little of both and not be too far gone into one or the other. Wiser, maybe, but Lord it sure feels rough and depressing to even have to acknowledge that sludge and shit whatsoever. Maybe this is the new perspective the birth in my dream was referring to. It sure is hard to be wise and conscious. Whoever says it's not work is full of it.

I was about to question the teleology of such melancholic states of soul, but I just answered myself. It's the Gold, of course. It's the Sun, the Philosopher's Stone, the new way of being. The Friend. I think, though, that this time around, it's a more real understanding of the Saturn world. I haven't really thought of this incorporation of the depressive stance along with the riding-high of Icarus' touching the divine. It's more of a both rather than or. That's a life's work, but I think that may be what this phase of the Saturn return is teaching me. That work will continue, too, with the advent of my graduate work, itself a challenge in marrying my idealistic tendencies with material and concrete results. Well, opus time.

Is the Friend ever really out of things, or is it just our perspective under the senex? Saturn teaches us things by denying us. If it touches Venus, we learn about love through its denial and limits. If it's Mars, we learn about our desire by being thwarted, by having to push even harder. It's not that the principle disappears when Saturn is around. Maybe the meaning gets sucked out of the form in order for us to focus simply on the container of things. Maybe the container needs attending, and to do that, we can't be all distracted by where the container is going and where it came from. I suppose there are cracks that need mending at times, and now must be one of them. Saturn always seems to teach through pain and suffering, too, depending on your type. As I've stated, the fiery person probably suffers more under such times. But, yes, perhaps we need to keep our eye on the vessel now and then, so getting all of that meaning removed might be a good thing after all....how very humbling for me. Imagine how seeing where you've made cracks in the vessel knocks you off your pedestal of specialness. Egg on the face!

You know, the funny thing is, when my Saturn return was exact, none of this was going on. It was kind of a tough time with the application to grad school, but the attendant feelings of being trapped, humiliated, and depressed were not there. Now they are. This seems to reaffirm what I've read: orbs are important. Even five degrees past exact, a big transit still makes plenty of waves.

Sitting in the Shit: Some Alchemy in Unhappy Times

2010-07-18T02:59:00.004-04:00

It's been a rough few days for this fiery type. Having recently read about the four types of personality based on the elements in astrology, those words are ringing in my head loud and clear. If there were ever doubt about my type, which there is not, it should all be cleared up by now. I'm so fiery I'm surprised I'm not leaving scorch marks on the desk. The reason for the roughness lies in the fact that I am having to deal with some very earthy issues. Not happy.

The last few days especially have the feel of a puer entering the senex realm: depressing, fearful, confined, heavy. It's coming at me from all angles, and I feel the leaden birds coming home to roost. A lot of complex feelings have been tossed up over the last few days, many of which can be summed up under a symbolic crashing back to earth. All of the illusions and self-mythologizing I engage in suddenly rings false, like I've been living a great big lie all this time. Suddenly the curtain gets pulled away and there you stand: nothing.

I don't think this is quite the Plutonic dragging through the seven gates (God forbid), but more a fiery individual's encounter with the earthy realm, complete with biased perspective. I can imagine what it must be like from the other way around, although that is a leap since I certainly can't understand the fear of the senex's glance into the puer. It's hard to value the senex realm from this emotional state, but I struggle to.

I have been working with active imagination the last two days with some interesting results. Themes revolve around being underground, going very deep into the earth, sometimes feeling immense weight and pressure with the accompanying claustrophobia. Yesterday's session brought the feeling of being in the alchemic calcinatio: intense heat, burning, and pressure in an underground cavern, as if I were standing on the earth's core under immense weight, trying to hold up the rock above while simultaneously burning away in the heat. Today's followed a similar underground theme, but this time shifting to the nigredo: sitting in the blackness and dark, surrounded by waste, shit, disease, sickness, muck, sludge, death, and decay.

Trying to just be in that place, to sit in it and ride it out, was my only goal. Obviously staying in that psychic space isn't easy, and part of active imagination involves simply letting it happen and not letting the ego direct what it's receiving. At the very least, I allowed those subterranean spaces to just be in my soul, to feel that space within me and let it do its work. These extreme feeling states that brought on the work in the first place seem to break the ego anyway and force one to let something else within take control. Usually it's too painful to be ego-centered at the time, so it's almost a relief to lower the threshold of consciousness. I mean, I already know that there are other things beyond my own consciousness calling the shots, be they Self or addictions that masquerade as other things.

Knowing what I know about alchemy, I feel like these things that have come up to me from the deeper levels herald something new. A dream has already pointed me in that direction. The new thing isn't quite ready yet; it's still clumsy and unable to communicate or act under its own accord. I know you have to go through the shit to get the gold, but at the least, this is the time to just sit and wallow in the shit for a while. It's interesting to allow that into my being, to realize that there is a place where condemning serves a purpose, to contact that space within that is dirty and disgusting, the part that is dying and decaying, old and ugly. It's humbling and scary all at once. This is the shadow stuff I've been talking about in previous writings; it is certainly the stuff of my puer-ego's shadow. I think this nigredo business must be bound up with the psychological shadow no matter what the contact. And, just like the nigredo contains the gold, the shadow contains the seeds of wholeness. Witness the shadow figures in fairy tales who help the hero get his treasure.

I believe this state is what would have been understood as melancholy.

I would look to Saturn transits to reflect things like this, and when I took a peek at my own chart, I noticed the Moon conjunct Saturn when these feelings really started kicking up. Truthfully, I'm still under my Saturn return- it's five degrees past natal, but that's still well within orb. I suppose a lot of the events of my life lately can fall under this major transit in terms of meaning, and this is no different. It's just surprising because lately it seems quite intense. Lots of senex for this little puer.

Shadow Play

2010-07-07T06:55:00.002-04:00

First of all, it's always surprising to find out when someone actually reads this stuff I write, and it makes me feel I need to get it together and not treat this like my journal from when I was 14.

Now on to the business. Of course all of my profound moments happen at work when I have neither the time nor the resources to write them down in depth (usually around 5AM consistently; figure that one out), but I'll give it a whirl. So, I've been reading Liz Greene's book "Relating: An Astrological Guide to Living With Others on a Small Planet", and like anything else the woman has ever written, it's phenomenal. This ties in with all the things I was saying about getting back to basics, because the book covers astrological basics in a manner digestible for non-astrologers. I am just a huge fan of talking about things in the "Dummies" format; treat me like I know nothing and get me in on the ground floor. That's one of the benchmarks of good communication, and also one of the reasons why I hate scientific writing so much. The most basic layperson should be able to understand it, and if anyone's ever read anything for a research methods class, you'll know what I'm saying.

Anyway, I've moved through the chapters on the basics of what the planets symbolize, the chapter on types (more to come there), and now I've come to the chapter that discusses the Shadow. Don't we all just love the shadow? Honestly, who doesn't enjoy reading about it and seeing everyone else's shadow bits take over, to their horror? In a sick way it's funny, and I read somewhere that people with no sense of humor are the worst when it comes to their own shadow; the closer you are to it, the more you have a sense of humor. Interesting theory, for during a discussion at dinner last night, I said that a sense of humor involves finding the line, crossing it, and then going back again (or not, depending). It's like you cross into that shadow territory of taboo and the inappropriate for a little while, and then you come back to normal. You make friends with your shadow for a bit! Perfect! By the way, this is what the joke "The Aristocrats" and its accompanying documentary was all about. If you have severely repressed your own shadow, watching it will probably give you a coronary.

That, I feel, is probably the best we have to hope for with the shadow: humor. But I've been living in some situations where it is most definitely not funny. In fact, it's quite painful. Most of the discomfort has to do with my earthy shadow. Reading the discussion on types again makes me reaffirm that I'm flagrantly a fire type. Yes, all the Scorpio/Plutonic stuff is there, too, and that's probably an auxiliary function that operates quite freely, but good Lord am I fiery. Naturally this means that my inferior function is the earthy, sensate side of life, which is made all the more dreamy by my 10th house Virgo Saturn. Hi there, angular Saturn! Way to demand entry into my life! All of those earthy things like money and my body sure give me hell, and they continue to do so to this day. Money and resources are the prime movers presently, thanks to my need of them in opening this new chapter of my life, especially when, oops, I don't have them! Try telling that to my fiery self that just thinks I'm special and should have everything I ever wanted at the drop of the hat because, yes, I am just that damn special. If I am honest, I'm not kidding here: if I probe into that part of me, I do have that much of a God complex. Or, maybe I should say, Child of God complex.

Right about now my shadow is knocking on my door, Mr. Earthy himself, the Old Man Senex bringing those birds home to roost. All of those places where I crossed the line are haunting me, and I fear greatly that I'm going to get a great big smack from life to prove that I'm not so special after all and have to play by the rules, that I am another sheep in the high density feed lot. I feel like I'm getting knocked down a few pegs. Is it good for me? Yes, and like all things bitter, it's medicine. Or a good Manhattan, which I have yet to have. Where are the bitters, people?! I should be tasting more than pine-soaked whiskey! What's kind of funny about my own little piece of the heavens (aka, my horoscope) is that I am so loaded with fire but with a strong Saturn to boot, I get to be one of those lucky ones to have the problem right on my doorstep. It requires dealing with at all times. It's a dilemma that, most of the time, is quite conscious, and which will play itself out in a rather concrete way. Whee! I wonder what it's like to be fiery and without an angular Saturn, or to have Capricorn rising with a Virgo Moon but not an angular Sun-Jupiter conjunction. Yay, fate.

I am rehashing some earlier experiences, too, that carried a high emotional charge, one of the signs that a complex has taken over. It may not be the shadow, which is just really a set of complexes that are rejected and thus form their own unconscious autonomy, but certainly a god or goddess entered the room. The cleanup from that has kind of happened, via my last post, where a slice of life knocked on my door that demanded some dealing with. Usually there is the attendant guilt and shame involved after the complex has left the building, and so it was again recently. It was like that, too, after theater camp when my inner tyrant departed, leaving me shame-ridden at my martial/senex meanness. I suppose I could delineate a few complexes at work in my life over the past few months thanks to the two guilty-shameful feelings in response, which can be helpful. But darn it, even knowing what they are, I still find myself acting the same way! It's like consciousness alone doesn't change the complex! Or does it??? Here's the real question: if you have more consciousness, how long does it take before things start to shift? Or can they shift at all? In theory I have to say yes: that's why I do what I do, why I write on this blog, why I study astrology and psychology. But I get the sense that it takes a lot more work and effort than I have put in. Uh oh.

Well, this has gone on long enough, and I have to talk about my discovery of Hafiz and the poem of his I'm obsessed with of late, as well as the concept of playing, so stay tuned. More to come on those.

Distance

2010-07-05T01:46:00.002-04:00

I was thinking more on why this guy has my emotions all up in a knot. Why all the confusion? Why all the mess? This doesn't happen all the time, so what's going on here?

I've come to realize there's a factor of distance involved. The problem in my current state is that there's too little of it. "Out of sight, out of mind" works so brilliantly. I'm really a fan of it. It's when the fellas get close that things really start to get messy.

Part of the problem with this triangle that occurred during the last musical I was in involved a lack of distance. Things are too close. These guys are part of my world, they're part of my everyday life, they're part of what I like to do. In other situations that are removed from my passions, it's easier. Even the situation with Phil (aka, Mr. Rejection) have been a total disaster due to my complete lack of distance from him. My heart gets involved, the feelings kick in, and there's merging. Goodbye distance.

I was just talking last night with a guy about the hook-up phenomenon, that weird relationship that takes place between bodies yet somehow manages to keep feelings closed off. What a strange thing, yet here we go doing it. Were feelings to get involved, the whole thing would probably blow up in our faces and we'd have to find someone new. Is this what it's come down to? Are we so inept at managing our feelings?

I know I've avoided sheerly because my feelings get easily hurt. It happened once and destroyed me, so can you blame me for wanting to keep it held back a bit? I don't want to go through that again, yet it has not always protected me. Sometimes I can't help but let my desire run the show, and when it does, I get the Phil situation: rejected and destroyed, not to mention royally angry. Who wants to deal with all that hurt?

Are we really living if we're keeping things at a distance? Does that really benefit us? Here I am, Mr. Scorpio, all-or-nothing, talking about holding back. I know what it's like to be totally immersed. I also know what it's like to burn and freeze because it's all you, no feelings returned. Feelings complicate. The get tight, claustrophobic. Part of me really dislikes that, witness my airy Libra Moon. Yet, as much as I dislike it, here I come like a ton of bricks on some people. When the ol' desire gets activated, welcome to obsession. All or nothing. No distance.

I almost feel like it's safer to keep the distance. People don't like you as much when you float like a cannonball, to quote Damien Rice. Yet, I don't feel like I'm alive if I don't have a bit of intensity. Where's the balance? Again, can't I just have what I want and be all one thing?!? Here are the two sides of me, the airy and the watery: one likes distance, one doesn't. Which is it going to be? Does the watery side of me fly up into the air to avoid hurt? Does the airy side descend into the ocean in order to feel connected to anything?

I guess it comes down to a trust in myself that some part of me, my Self, is in a sense of control and knows what I need. I have to have faith in that. There needs to be some anchor. In other language it would be faith in God. Now is one of those times where I need that, and need to meet It halfway, too. That's the tricky part: you can never just rely on God to get it done for you. You always have to meet It halfway and put forth your own effort, your own free will, in order for the fate to work out.

How do I learn to not be distant with myself?

Reversal

2010-07-05T01:12:00.003-04:00

I suppose when something comes into your life repeatedly, it demands your attention. If I think with a symbolic mind frame, and I do, I see that something is knocking on my door. That happened over the last day. For some reason, this generally seems to happen when the Moon makes a transit to its own place, be it square, opposition, or conjunction. Somehow the theme is emotional confrontation, something intense must be dealt with, and so it was again.

I will say that, through all of this, the theme of maturity is reinforced. By this I mean that it's harder to see both sides of an argument, to be two things at once rather than all one thing. It's easier to just be righteously angry than to see both what you're feeling and what the other guy is feeling. It makes me long for the times when I can just be flat out pissed as opposed to being angry myself as well as seeing how I've made the other person feel. Likewise, it's easier to be in love full-on rather than just being in love yourself and having to contend with a guy who doesn't love you back. Where have the days gone where I can be just one thing instead of crucified between two polarities? Why all the duality? I feel like this must be the Libran dilemma.

Is there some level on which we can descend and just be One? Is all of this contradiction and duality something that lives on the surface, and if we trick life, we can slip underneath and just live in a state of merged one-ness? I feel like if you're going to be an independent person, you have to learn how to navigate the waters of split perspectives. If I'm going to be Neptune about it all, I'm going to try to escape that and slip into merged behavior. Maybe being lunar will offer this kind of perspective, too, where all cats are gray at night. I've never read anywhere that being independent isn't work.

Right about now I'm listening to Tori Amos, my beloved, and Sister Janet is ringing in my ears: All the angels, all the wizards black and white are joining hands before my eyes. I realize what a monumental task that is. Here I sit trying not to hate the guy that got in between me and what I wanted, trying to join black and white. I had avowed to punish him and to hate him, but then he shows up at this little juncture of Moon opposite its own place, and now I must deal with these feelings. I am reminded again of the hurtful things I said at the time when I was in a great deal of pain. When in such a state, all is fair game. You come out swinging. I recognize this behavior in my mother, too. It has this Plutonian mark to it, where because you've been wronged, anything you do is justified. That's very hard to deal with. Even thinking back to those feelings and how I felt (because it hurt a lot, I can remember it), I'm not sorry. When he tells me it hurt his feelings when I said to him what I did, it makes me a bit sad and sorry. Such is the nature of revenge and forgiveness. All a person has to do is ask for it, and it's generally given, if you're human.

Well, that little vengeful diversion aside, I don't know how tonight's alterations will bear fruit in the future. I don't know what I'll feel. I have said a million times that friendship and desire don't mix, and do I desire this guy a bit? Yes, I do. And, I am not in the mood to be rejected yet again (bear witness to my previous post), so is it worth putting my feelings out there in any way? And Scorpio that I am, it's just not worth doing it at all if I'm not going to go full-out. I like what Liz Greene quoted, though in reference to Pluto:

Only that which can destroy itself is truly alive.

God, it hurts to be alive.

More on Basics

2010-06-29T02:14:00.002-04:00

I was thinking more on this concept of basics. I've been looking at the basics and core principles for a particular system, namely my interest in astrology. But what about personal basics? What are the basics of an individual?

Since revisiting the principles that form the foundation for a system of thought has brought me some enjoyment and further grounds for insight, I have to wonder if coming back to my own basics might not prove fruitful as well. But, then, I run into the question: What are my basics, anyway? Sure I may have them, but what are they???

I would venture to say that my basics are the things that make me feel most "me". I wonder if these are not, too, the paths of least resistance for me? Are they the things I just do naturally that require little thought and energy, but which describe my life in its current state?

I can immediately see the problem in this if I think psychologically. The things which are paths of least resistance may not in fact be the most "me" at all. The things that are most me may be locked in shadow, potentials I am yet unconscious of. For example, I'm lazy. I spend a great deal of time wasting it, so I'm not sure that this is a basic principle I should revisit. Maybe I shouldn't say lazy and instead focus on it as undirected energy, but I'm sure to any outsiders who took a peek, lazy would come to their lips.

But hey, let's think about this. How much do people change? The people I've worked with have maintained the same behaviors for the last five years without altering, much to my maddening. And didn't Freud say the personality was set by about age nine? I suppose we're back to the very question of how much people can become conscious of who they are, how much they can do the work of making shadow bits conscious (if they can ever fully be), how much they can change, how much they can embrace the totality of the horoscope and make room for everything there. (Liz Greene used that phrase, "make room", and I really like that.) Is not this process of identifying your basics the very work of a life, to become who you are?

I suppose there are some basics that I already know. I need the piano. I need to have access to it so that I can play, sing, spend time creating in that way. I need to go for walks in the park, in the forest. I need to be close to nature so that I can live in it and think. These are the two things that have been consistent for me in the last five years, and others will say there are more. When I'm working creatively in the theater, I've been told I come alive, I'm energized, more myself than ever before. Maybe this is a basic I need, too, but which has not been expressed. It certainly felt good to return to working in theater a few weeks back. I know because I felt the deadening crush when I returned to my job which holds no passion for me. Is passion a key to basics, too? Is the sense of glowing, of an open and excited heart a sign?

I have the urge to define astrologically what the principle of basics might be, what planet may represent it. I don't know that there is such a thing. The totality of the horoscope should probably be the basics. Giving expression to all that you are is getting in touch with what makes you, what defines you, what you must make room for and include. I want to talk about the Moon right away, since this describes some core needs, but doesn't every planet "need" something? The Moon's needs are simply specific. They're important, but specific. Venus needs things too, like contact with others, exposure to beauty, etc. Saturn needs solidity and direction, it needs to exercise mastery and control. Suddenly this concept of going back to basics has become no easy exercise. It seems to mean giving expression to everything you are. No problem, right!

Back to Basics

2010-06-28T17:18:00.003-04:00

Spending an early evening laying on a blanket under the oak tree, I brought along one of my astrology books, Liz Greene's book on relating, to be precise. The first few chapters are dedicated to some basic principles, written so nice and clear for the foreigner to astrology. What I marveled at is how wonderful it was to read again these basic components and principles.

I am finding there is something renewing about going back to basics, back to the core principles behind what you do. The core principles behind astrology are themselves so symbolic and rich that one could meditate on them for hours or days. Something so simple as the meaning of the astrological Sun is the stuff of religions, a bread to knead for hours. We can get so caught up in analysis and interpretation that things can become confused. It can be easy to forget. I am loving going back to re-member: What is the Sun? What is the 10th house? What is a square?

I'm not sure if going back to basics applies across a wide spectrum of activities, but I sense it does. It may be helpful to go back and just the question, put oneself back in touch with the foundations. In cooking it may be something as simple as revisiting the ratios of sugar, flour, and water, or for what butter and eggs are used. Stir fries are hot and fast, whereas the art of roasting, with breakdown and merging of flavor, is totally different. Such things may not be as psychically profound, but I find the process refreshing, a sort of ordering principle that puts everything in its place. Perhaps revisiting in this way may reveal some imperfections in the system that could be purified, or if not imperfection in the system itself, one's own relation to the system that could be improved.

So, I'm going to continue reading and enjoying this return to basics, and hopefully that will offer clarity and even more springboards for understanding.

Wade in the Water

2010-06-21T03:36:00.004-04:00

While I'm sitting here stewing in my post-rejection anger and rage, I am reminded of how the river Styx in Greek means "hate". Gods took oaths by the Styx. There's something very ego-building, very self-oriented about hate. I can feel it in me now. It is there to promote the individual. Let me tell you, I'm boiling over with it, and I sure am not feeling woe-is-me self-pity. No, there's no longer any "need". All of those parts that are concerned with being loved and feeling like nothing if I'm not loved are gone and replaced by strong dose of go-to-hell hatred. So much for neediness. Now I understand some of what Mars does and how he supports individualism. Would that I had felt this a few years back when I got rejected by Mr. Right Now originally. Looking back, that's all he's ever done, so I've gone and taken a bath in the River Styx.

Patterns of Rejection

2010-06-21T02:47:00.002-04:00

Rejection. It's so fundamental to life, yet it's one of those things, like mosquitoes, that make you wonder why the hell it's here in the first place if all it seems to do is make you miserable. Although, I can formulate a few reasons for its being more readily than I can that of mosquitoes.

I wrote on my facebook status that when rejection starts to become the pattern, it's time to start asking some serious questions. For me, it's a pattern, which means it's question time. Pain usually makes us start asking why, because blind, senseless pain is probably the worst possibility ever. Please just put it in a context, give it a meaning!

Well, rejection has been happening frequently to me, and I'm mainly speaking on the romantic level. It's making me wonder, am I choosing incorrectly? Am I just making bad choices here? But it's not as if I'm consciously choosing. I am simply attracted, most of the time beyond any sense of control. There have been times when I know, with my head, that this guy or that guy is simply wrong and that I should move along. Yet, I don't. What is going on here? And when such choosing leads to rejection and pain, what's the point?

I suppose, in all things romantic, we're in Venus' realm, and one of the things I recall reading about this goddess is that she teaches us about competition. Venus demands a thick skin. In her sphere, you have to be able to both put it out there and attract your mate and deal with rejection. Problems with this planet probably lead to hardship in both of those aspects, too: it's hard to put yourself out there, and it's hard to deal with the rejection. Do people have easier times of it, where they are freely able to be confident and expressive and not suffer too badly when they are rejected? If that's the case, then, sorry, but those people suck. Me being highly competitive, passionate, and rather driven when it comes to what I want, I do not take kindly to being thwarted. But hey, at least I haven't jotted down an address and tossed a baseball bat in my car.

Still, I have to start taking a look here, because when I glance back over the last ten years, things have not gone all that well. Tonight's little foray into rejection is just the latest in a pattern. I've been single for most of the last decade, and I don't really take a stand and throw my feelings outward in hopes that someone will catch them. I tend to be rather guarded, sometimes bordering on stingy, with emotions. And then when I do let them show, they're not really met well (at least not from my perspective).

Oddly, it's been said to me, Why are you single? You're smart, you're funny, you're talented, you have a good body, you have good taste in music! And then just this past weekend, I get the same thing: you're so talented, it's not fair! What can't you do? People seem to be blinded by some sense of talent, though with my modesty and secret (or maybe not so secret) low self-esteem, I often don't agree with them. It's hard to accept praise like that, which means I have a pretty strong inner critic. And that critic is augmented and validated by the rejection.

Perhaps this inner critic is at work when it comes to all things romantic. If I were Freudian, I would talk about repetition compulsion here. The original rejection (I'm assuming this is parental since we're talking about psychoanalysis) is recreated over and over until the problem is resolved. But, there's sense to that. Maybe I'm unconsciously choosing situations in which guys are unavailable or closed off, thus guaranteeing the rejection. I know the latest bachelor certainly was. I can't think of a more recent situation that was more one-sided emotionally. Upon reflection, it seems downright stupid of me to have not gotten the clue.

But, that's just the problem. In my head, I knew darn well that this was a dead end. Worse, something I should have downright avoided. But, as we know, it's not the head that makes the decisions in these situations. Love is governed by things below the neck. So what's calling the shots here? Why the hell am I ending up in these situations? Is it an epidemic I need to pay serious heed to, or is it just my thin skin feeling hurt at garden variety rejection?

I suppose I feel too intensely when it comes to these situations. The answer is probably inclusive here, as answers always seem to be when we're dealing with the psyche. Strong Saturn and Pluto combinations to Moon, Venus, and Neptune are probably not the easiest. I suppose I have a mixture of super-sensitive and needy with highly guarded. It does come back to Venus trouble, and even that Neptune causes trouble. It's not just the typical Saturn-bashing session. Something inside often says, "You're not good enough", and that creates all sorts of very difficult patterns. Before I limit it to romantic entanglements, that self-esteem complex rears its ugly head in vocational paths, too.

So, what's the problem here? Patterns of rejection: are they caused by low self esteem (a Venus having a hard time), or is low self esteem the result of one rejection too many? To be astrological, I guess we would have to say that I came into this world expecting it: a Saturn square Neptune-Venus. Well, and let's not forget the Moon-Pluto. Is it a wonder I don't put myself out there much? Yet come on, throw me a bone! When you are looking for rejection everywhere, the iron-solid self-fulfilling prophecy says you're going to get it. But damn, how in the world am I supposed to turn into some foolish optimist, or some confident to the point of oblivious go-getter? It's all well and good to say, hey, you have to love yourself first, but look, people. I'm not going to marry myself.

Uh oh. Maybe I've just missed the point on Venus, here. Maybe I really am supposed to marry myself. Venus is a single goddess (usually). She doesn't need anyone. The whole reason she couples is to validate herself. Crap. This is not good. I can already feel my needy self crying out and getting hungry. And if that part of me isn't Venus, then who in the hell is it? Maybe I've been lunar this whole time and I didn't know it! Which is this, a lunar problem or a Venus problem? Or both?

Oh boy. This is going to take a while.

Strangers

2010-05-28T17:02:00.003-04:00

I was just driving home from the gym and I passed a car that looked very similar to the one my brother used to drive. I say used to because he hit a patch of ice on the highway late one night, lost control of the car, rolled it a few times, and wrecked it. Needless to say this was very traumatic.

When I saw this vehicle today, I imagined him going through that accident, and frankly, I had a hard time doing so. Partly this was because I resisted such a thing; to think of my brother experiencing this was hard to do, and it hurt. I didn't want such a thing to happen, so even trying to imagine it, I shut it down. Also, how can one imagine such a thing? It's so sudden, terrifying, and shocking that the imagination struggles to find a vocabulary for it.

Having a hard time relating to this, I began to think of what happens to people when they undergo a crisis like this: one becomes a stranger. The experience is so far outside the realm of what we know and experience, we cannot relate. The one who is struck by such an event cannot communicate it. He is an outsider. As if the trauma itself weren't bad enough, suddenly one becomes the stranger, the foreign Other.

This recalls things I've read about Pluto, particularly in Darby Costello's book about the Moon. I believe that she said when Pluto aspects the Moon, one doesn't belong anywhere at all, one is a total stranger. This rings true when the Moon aspects any outer planet; one becomes different than the tribe, but Pluto renders one the most different of all.

Since Pluto and Scorpio rule the 8th house, the place where we realize we no longer have power over our own lives, that something else, something Other, runs the show, I think what I'm talking about here today fits into this realm. Pluto and Scorpio are those places where we undergo trauma and crisis, and are thus rendered strangers. Not only strangers to other people, but strangers to ourselves as well perhaps. Maybe we become strangers to ourselves when the crisis has impetus from within, from somewhere deep in the soul that rises up to say that the current structure is untenable, thus initiating a breakdown state. No doubt crisis and trauma of any kind work on both an inner and outer level, so the differentiation is probably unnecessary.

Still, I feel sad that I cannot relate to my brother in this way, that I cannot possibly understand what he went through that winter night. It's scary to think of him rolling in a vehicle, not knowing whether he will survive, unsure that his life will be intact in a manner of seconds.

Yes, where Pluto touches us, we are strangers.

Breath

2010-05-27T08:22:00.003-04:00

Over the weekend at work, someone used the phrase, "save your breath." My ears perked up at that because for one, I hadn't heard the phrase in a long time, but upon hearing it now, it made me think. If there's a concept of saving one's breath, then there must also be a concept of wasting it. What is it that we put out there on our breath? What leaves us in the form of spirit to go out into the world? Are we polluting with poison, with harsh words and acid thoughts, or are we sending honor out there? Are we reflecting ourselves truly on our breath, or are we sending out something false? And, are we putting things out there on our breath that are more true of us than we think of ourselves? Maybe the breath doesn't lie, maybe it takes no regard of intentions and instead leaves our bodies representing us as we truly are.

Breath leaves us, it's what sends our soul outward to meet another, as much as that can possibly be done. If all we want is to be truly known by another, how precious this thing called breath is! It is our mechanism for meeting. It scares me a little because I know that what leaves me on my breath is sometimes not very nice. There's a lot of anger on my breath, especially at work when my will is thwarted all the time. I'm basically a smoke stack at work, or, acid rain. That's what it feels like, at least. In other places this isn't true, thank God.

In meditation, they tell you to focus on your breath. That's what relaxes you, brings you down, brings you inward. Maybe through the next few weeks I need to focus on my breath and what's taking a ride on it, what little pieces of soul are being sent out (or escaping!). It makes me think of the power of words, those little navigators of the space between us. I hear myself saying, be careful what you put out there. Does it honor you? Does it honor others? Does it represent what you believe to be the highest good, the best possible thing you can be? I think it should. I know it hasn't in the past, but I think it should.

Who Do You Love?

2010-05-24T03:42:00.002-04:00

Here's an interesting little thought that occurred to me. I was playing in my imagination and somehow I asked myself (in the guise of a coworker) what kind of guys I was attracted to. My response, which came quite quickly to my surprise, was that I was attracted to guys who were what I most wanted to be. In other words, I am attracted to guys who embody the qualities I want most for myself.

Now, this is a little bit unsettling. However, to backtrack a little bit, I don't think this is too far fetched, either. When we're in the realm of attraction, we're in Venus' domain, and Venus is that which we find most valuable, most worthy, and therefore, things we want to embody and bring into ourselves. These are the things that make us feel worthwhile and good. Why should we not be attracted to such things? Furthermore, how can we not be? Venus is the best of what life can offer, and to go for that means that I'm good, that I deserve the best because I myself am innately beautiful and good.

Venus' sign and aspects will describe one's own personal slice of the Good, True, and Beautiful. But, what comes to mind for me as most desirable is not necessarily described by my Venus sign. It's physical appearance. Why I go there first as opposed to character traits is somewhat of a mystery to me, but then again, should it be? I mean, Venus is all about physical beauty. The first thing that pulls us in is physical beauty, and that's then the gateway to other forms of attraction. Seeing a pretty face in a crowd is what really does it, let's be honest (or a nice ass or pair of bouncing lovely breasts- so I hear). Taurus first, then Libra.

So, I suppose what I am attracted to primarily is the ideal form of physical beauty I wish to achieve for myself. Now, whether or not that's possible is open to debate. My bone structure will only allow me to do so much. But, the fact that I'm getting a bit closer to that ideal makes me feel better (and consequently, more worthy of love).

Ooo, what did I just say? Worthy of love? Here we are back to the conditional again: Saturn and Venus. "You will only receive love if you meet a certain standard." Or, "You are only worth something if you meet this criteria." Says who? How did I absorb this? Am I prone to it because of the Saturn influence? And hey, Saturn is supposed to work for the individual, isn't it? It makes you what you innately are? I don't know about this...Saturn opens us up to some things that are beyond the individual. Super egos need to come from somewhere, don't they? Alright, if we're getting archetypal, no, they don't, since it would then be an inherent pattern. But, I digress.

Let's get back to this business of wanting what I most want for myself. I think implicit in this is that I am attracted to something I don't possess myself, or at least have not achieved yet. Built into this attitude is a sense of lack. It sets up a situation of measurement against an ideal of perfection, an ideal against which I will always come up short. This doesn't lead to very positive situations in love.

I can speak from experience, since my last partner was, in my eyes, pretty damn near gorgeous. Physically, he was everything I wanted to be and was not. Needless to say, this bred a considerable degree of envy side by side with attraction. It also led to a sense of mistrust, that he would be taken away because I wasn't good enough. I can imagine it would also lead to many tests of affection, since my self-esteem was so low in comparison to his radiant beauty, I would need proof that his affections for this mule were true. Of course, he could never be trusted.

Here lies Neptune's curse. Well, Neptune's and Saturn's. Since my Venus links up with the combination of those two planets, the realm of love is tangled up with the struggle of the ideal versus the actual, the perfect versus the limited. Guess who was who in my last relationship? I have one foot planets firmly in both camps, and this is not easy. Even if it were just Neptune, I'd still have that ideal of perfect love to contend with. Maybe it wouldn't be physical so much with Saturn's absence, but still, there would be Perfection. When your measurement is Neptune, you always fall short.

My pattern lately has been one of non-commitment. I haven't even really put myself out there to play the game, as I fear rejection so much. It's funny, because even when the guys I go for aren't perfect or all I want to be myself, I make them into that. I put on the rose colored glasses of Neptune and place my projections on them anyway. Then I can play out the pattern I know so well.

What I am beginning to get the glimpse of and move toward is the sense of loving people for who they are, not for who I wish I was. Wow, there's a line for you! Loving them for who they are instead of who I wish I was! When you don't love yourself, you really can't believe anyone else will. If someone doesn't love you back, it's the old "I knew it, no matter what I do, I really am unlovable." But, the rub is that you have to be enough for you. Venus isn't working if you don't come first and cut yourself a break. Saturn can be so terribly hard on other people, but it is also terribly hard on oneself. I know I can be a real hardass. I'm critical, cold, and sometimes, downright mean. But, that's how I am with myself, too. That makes me sad. See, here we are again: I thought Saturn was supposed to work for the individual, not crush him? If your own Saturn is crushing you, then something's not right. I mean, the structure and support of the building is not supposed to be it's downfall! The structure is there to support and be a frame for growth.

Maybe this rejection I've felt lately is a good wakeup call. It points to the places where I'm not supporting myself. Instead of loving guys for who I want to be, for finding those qualities in them that I most want for myself, I need to love them for who I already am, for the ways in which they support the individual I am now and am in the process of blooming into.

It's always going to be a bit of a struggle, because that Saturn-Neptune/Venus square isn't ever going to go away. I'll probably always be susceptible to the ideal and feel the hurt when it doesn't come true. But, I still think I can get a better deal out of it all. I've taken positive steps toward greater physical health and gotten myself to a place where I can be happy with how I look. I'll always measure against a standard, but at least I've grown more into an idea of loving myself as I am and as I will be that can stand side by side to balance out an idealist-perfectionist attraction principle. There's both present, not just one, which is better than it was before!

I'm so thankful for the words of Liz Greene. I was reading about this Saturn-Venus principle in her book on Uranus the other day and I had a real breakthrough moment. My recent rejection got some perspective, and I was able to move on a bit. I'm glad she put it out there and does what she does.

It's funny. In saying all of this, I feel a bit more human, and I'm realizing what super-human beings I'm expecting some guys to be for me. Perfect love. Again, they never are. They reject, and they act like assholes (or so I think since they don't return my affection, which is, I suppose their right). But boy are my expectations high. If I get to be human, so do they. That has a bit of a bitter taste, but it seems being a balanced adult is more bitter than sweet. Well, here's to finding a way to make Saturn and Neptune talk to each other in love! A feat of a lifetime, and beyond.

Damage

2010-05-20T08:22:00.003-04:00

The last guy I confessed affection to responded by saying he was damaged. That was his response. Not, oh, I like you too! Or, yeah, let's explore that and see where it leads! Nope. Damaged.

Now, I have no tolerance for shit like this. Please, we are all damaged! Show me someone who life hasn't fucked up in some way and I'll eat this computer right now. Someone's parents were alcoholic, or they were emotionally stunted to the point of brutal uncaring, and that's going to get passed on. We all have that to deal with. Someone ruins us and breaks our hearts because we're so freakin' vulnerable that sometimes we can barely stand it. Yeah, I get it! I am damaged, too! I have scars. An Australian destroyed me when I moved across the world to be with him and he told me he didn't love me anymore. Big fucking deal.

So, imagine my delight when I get "damaged" as a response to love. Either that was his way of saying he wasn't interested (and he was clearly interested in the 21 year old piece of ass that he chose over me- no problems flirting and being affectionate there), or it was a total cop out. Either scenario is fucked in my book, and my vengeance could not be severe enough. Oh in a perfect world...

But I digress. My point is that I don't care about damage. Love transcends it. Or, perhaps I should say "includes" it. I know people are scared of getting hurt again, and hell, so am I. I've been single now for nearly ten years, and the clock's ticking. I'm not getting any younger! Although, thanks to my diet and workout regime, I have gotten prettier. If two people are interested in each other, take the damn risk! Easy for me to say, sure. But, I guess I just take it as a given that people have their demons and are damaged in some way. Please, we all have Saturn and Pluto in the chart, not to mention Neptune and Uranus demanding perfection.

I've been feeling a lot of anger and hate lately due to said rejection, and it makes me think of how the gods swore oaths on the Styx, which, coincidentally, means "hate". Something about hate builds the ego. I believe Hillman said something about that; I must go search it out once more. And while we're on the topic of damage, I feel like inflicting some myself on two people.

My other friend only chooses guys that are unavailable because he knows nothing will ever come of it. He'll never have to open himself up to vulnerability and the threat of more damage. He's been so hurt in the past that now he won't even put himself on the line. I suspect he does anyway. You can't escape that on some level. But how sad is that? Close yourself off to love so you won't get hurt. From a survival perspective, it makes perfect sense. Once burned, twice shy. But, you have to wonder what kind of life it is. What this all really comes down to is being human. Being human means being hurt and vulnerable, it means being afraid. Were I to walk into my ex in a bar I think I would probably fall down on the floor in the fetal position going into convulsions. It scares the hell out of me. Thank God he's on another continent where he belongs. I was just rejected again last week. It hurts. It really really hurts. And am I scared of that happening again? Hell yeah I am. But don't give me "damage" as an excuse. We're all damaged, my friend. We're all ugly, lame, and neurotic.

Maybe when you find that person who sees your damage and doesn't care, you've got something really special. And hey, if a person sees your damage, doesn't care, and brings you in anyways, at least give it a shot! Go for it! How often are you going to come upon a person who doesn't judge? Maybe I'm wishing someone would truly see my soul, a feat that would be monumental. Can we ever really see into another? At what junctures of time and space is that possible? Maybe it's the cry for someone to simply "know me". It makes me think of The Who's Tommy singing "See me, feel me, touch me, heal me." Isn't that what we're all really after? For someone to see us and know us and not turn us away?

Some Fun with Complexes; Or, Being in Love

2010-05-19T20:16:00.004-04:00

Let me just say that doing shows (and by this I mean theater) is an absolute mess. I think there's something built into the process by which you end up falling in love with the people around you. This is, of course, a sweeping generalization and it's completely my own problem, but still, it's vexing. I'm not the only one I observed in my latest little foray into thespian arts, as the other gay men in the show were just rotating through one another. And, of course, I lost out, but that's another terribly dark story.

What is fascinating lately is the degree to which I am reminded of what an insane romantic I am. I mean, I can fall into an imaginal love world in two shakes of a lamb's tail. I'm off an running in no time, imagining all of the possibilities and wonderful things that could be! Thank you, my darling Venus-Neptune. I wonder if it would be any easier were it not placed in Oh-the-Places-You'll-Go Sagittarius. This morning, I had the love songs on and I was imagining weddings for God's sake. It's like all you have to do is get into my immediate proximity and I can fall in love! What's really painful is that all of these fantasies, which in themselves are true, turn out to be false in real life. The heart flies so high only to fall even harder when it all comes crashing down. Can you blame me for preferring being alone most of the time? I haven't had this much (potential) romantic contact in a long time, and it's pulled me through the ringer, let me tell you.

So there's that, but then there's also the strange thing of chemistry when people get together. This is nothing new, and it's always a fascinating topic for me, this concept of what is elicited from people when they contact. I had this happen to me when I spent a weekend with a fellow cast member with whom I had previously had very limited interaction. All of a sudden there we were, thrown together, and some interesting things popped up.

Now, this guy hasn't had it very easy. I've known through the rehearsal process that there was some personal history that was rough, or at the very least, history that he had a rough time processing. "Damaged" is a bit too harsh of a word, but we all saw him struggle at times when it came to emotional things. Early on, I felt the need to take care of him, to protect and nurture. This is not usually my mode of operation. I am not "caring parent". Granted, given my Scorpionic/Plutonian nature, I am somewhat drawn to people in crisis. I didn't know anything astrologically about him at the time, but I always felt this sense of something very unstable, ready to break apart at any time. Thus, I felt the need to be a protective container for him.

I did finally get some astrological info (as I usually do), and my suspicion of a prominent Neptune proved correct. Sun-Moon-Neptune-Mercury conjunction in Capricorn. I told him that I felt the need to take care of him, and furthermore, I asked him if this happened a lot. He said it did. My theory is that the Neptune-Capricorn conflict, mixed with what seems like a lack of a solid parental container growing up, has lead to some tough things. Chatting with him, there was this side by side need to be strong and capable on his own, as well as the feeling of things being "too much", coming unglued, undermined. This individual has no home, no bank account, no car. He indeed lives the kind of lifestyle of being dependent on others, which, given the Neptunian element, is no surprise. Something in him radiates "victim", which I think pushes anyone's buttons who has a strong Neptune themselves. The compassion factor goes through the roof. Thus, my own complexes got highly activated, and there I found myself wanting to heal this guy, to be his rock, to take him in an protect him.

Were he to read this, I'm sure his Capricorn side would be infuriated, since that part of him pushes so hard to be independent and on his own. But, I have to pay heed to the feelings coming up in me. It's all the more confused because I am attracted to him romantically, which may not be so far-fetched as I think because my own Venus-Neptune conjunction plays into romance with the element of redemption. Do I not naturally seek to be redeemed or redeem others through love?

What was also very interesting was that my imagination took hold and I started telling him all of these things that I felt would make it all better. I was giving loads of advice when I suddenly realized that a) I was talking to a part of myself and b) this was all advice I needed to listen to! I mean, in my imagination and active fantasy life I was creating that container, that safe space of knowledge, the nurturing and reinforcement I felt he never got, when I had the eureka moment and realized this was all stuff that applied to me, too. Funny how that works, eh? I believe this is what happens in transference in therapy. Here are my own complexes getting activated, and I have to know why. I have to be aware of what's going on. This kind of thing truly is a hall of mirrors!

After all is said and done, this little romantic foray may be just that: another flight into my imagination that will leave me in the same Neptunian pattern of love. It will not work out in reality, as it didn't for another guy in the cast I had very strong feelings for. (Needless to say my Scorpio side has taken over there and I am wishing for the most awful vengeance possible. May I get to see it come true. On that note, I realize what blackness and darkness I have inside me. These things aren't pretty. They're real, but they're not pretty. Life isn't pretty.) My button may have been pushed, but who knows if it'll ever happen. I can hope, but that's generally what I have in abundance: hope and dreams. The longer they stay in there that way, the harder it is when they don't come true. Maybe I just need to keep a little psychic shelf where all of those hopes and dreams are stored, kept safe, and remembered. That's all they may have ever been, but on some level, that's ok. On the Neptune level, what's real? The dream, or what actually happened? Both? Was it ever to come to the ground, or was it to stay in the sea?

More Deep Thoughts. And Confusion.

2010-05-09T01:41:00.004-04:00

I'm not done thinking yet. This requires another post.

So I've been reading these books concerned with religion and spirituality. They're all books I've learned of from Speaking of Faith interviews. I've read through Speaking of Faith itself, and am working through Kitchen Table Wisdom and Beauty, but some things concern me. Basically, I don't feel I'm a very good person!

Let me qualify. A lot of the principles addressed in this book speak to the highest good, the most human we can possibly be, in the sense that being human is being like God. This is a concept I'm discovering in Sex God, another book sexuality and spirituality written by a man of God. Well, needless to say, these are lofty concepts that demand a certain level of commitment, intelligence, and consciousness to be lived out. When I read these books I feel a bit of a failure.

A lot of what is discussed here involves opening yourself, being connected. It seems through this connection we come close to what it is we call God, or, Good. Many of the religions of the world advocate this sense of community and togetherness, love and compassion. The "me first" mentality doesn't fly. But this leaves me with questions. If I'm going to be astrological about this, then I ask, what the hell do we do with Mars?!

All of those things I mentioned don't have much to do with Mars. Mars is not about togetherness, he's not about compassion, he's not about relationship, he's not about beauty. Can he be good? Yes, I believe so, when fighting for a cause that helps others. Ah, but there's that word. Fighting. It seems you can't get away from it when you're in the realm of the warrior.

I'm having a hard time reconciling the things I'm reading with the war god, who I will say is alive and well in all of us. It seems religion as a whole is here to help deal with him. But, I don't feel he has a place in any of these religions. They aren't honoring him so much as trying to lock him up. Am I wrong?

I think partly I am in that statement, for when I think of Kitchen Table Wisdom, a book about what happens to your life when you're on the edge of it, looking over into the realm of death, much of what the fabulous author says hinges on the fact that you need to fight to stay alive. There is something in us that actively seeks life. That's Mars! Here's the warrior! You want to beat cancer? Fight! You want to stay alive and not slink back into the grave? Fight! We're told this when we're sick and dying, when the man of survival himself, Mars, is most activated. But what to do when we're not on death's door?

I'm no expert on religious doctrine, but even the Pisces-tinged Jesus doesn't seem to be dripping with Mars. Turn the other cheek? I can feel my own Mars getting riled up at that. I mean, let's really think about that. Someone rapes your mother, your child. Turn the other cheek? Really? Someone steals away your lover. Just do nothing? Where does that murderous rage go?

Maybe I have these issues because they are a core dilemma in my life. As one under the guidance of Scorpio, these issues of power, conflict, and personal will and desire are my story. I remember Liz Greene writing that Pluto/Scorpio doesn't make a very good Christian. Maybe it doesn't fit well in any religion. Maybe that's not true; in some of the more polytheistic realms, there may be a place for it that this facet of the Creator can find some honor.

As I read these books, I feel myself closed off. I feel myself wary at the connection with other human beings. I can feel the voice pop up and say, why should I do that? I'm not going to do that with just anybody! I have to trust them. Ah, there's the rub. Trust. I may be innately mistrustful here. I wouldn't be surprised. Lack of trust certainly closes you off from others and life itself. One isn't very inclined to be compassionate.

Is lack of trust the only thing? A highly-tuned sense of me-first probably isn't going to foster increased connection. If you're Martial by nature, you're not the relationship type. You're not worried about the other guy, you're worried about yourself.

Well, let's boil this down even further. Masculine planets or archetypes themselves aren't really about relationship. Uranus isn't about feelings. While it does seem to be about community in the sense that it is an outer planet and concerned with groups of people, it's not about the emotional bonds that tie people. I suppose beauty can come into play here because Uranus is cosmic and is engaged in catching the glimpse of the entire system and the laws by which it operates. The cosmos itself is a thing of beauty, but I still question whether Uranus is about merging in any sense, or for that matter, whether beauty is about merging. Venus doesn't lose herself; she attracts, but she doesn't necessarily merge.

Maybe here is where we can get that sense of retaining the individual, which would make Mars happy, through this Venus sense of merging. While beauty attracts and pulls you into it so that you can become exalted, you don't lose yourself in the Neptunian sense of no-boundaries. Maybe we need to think about this Libran side of Venus, a relationship-oriented quality that is still masculine in nature. Attached, yet still individual.

Well, I know that I have these qualities which aren't geared toward an easy flow of compassionate relating. Do I strive to be Good? To be joyful and engage with life? Yes, I can say that I do. I can also say I don't trust life, either. I feel its destructive capacity. I cant' rest easily. I guess this is ambivalence. It forces some resolutions, and it's not comfortable. I suppose I have to face facts and know that I'm not going to fit nicely into a pattern of compassion and selflessness. (I realize in my depiction of these religious values that I am massively generalizing and have not yet put the thought into defining these concepts.) I remember that the gods bestow gifts as well as hardships. Mars, Pluto, and Uranus might not be friendly bedfellows, but they also have their up sides.

Still, these books talk about things that are Good, that are Beautiful. Can we not help but strive for them, embrace them? Something in them rings true, pulls us to be better people. They pull us to exalt ourselves, and when that drive encounters resistance, I have to question it. Why is there resistance? Why am I not living my life like this? These are hard questions I have to think about. Part of it, I feel, will be in relinquishing my mistrust, as well as learning to honor Mars and all he stands for. Finding positive roles for both seems key. I have the Jupiter/Venus thing down pretty well, I think. Neptune, too. But making all of these deities talk to each other. That's the task. And is that not the task? Isn't that what the whole purpose of being alive is? To build the bridge of the ego among all of these forces, to hold them in balance, to help God get it right? To maybe do what God couldn't? Big task for a puny little ego of a single human, but isn't that it? If it can't be done in the smallest of creatures, can it be done at all?

Questions questions questions. I'm not sure I even answered anything at all! And he turns another corner in the labyrinth.

Random Thoughts, Mostly Mars

2010-05-09T00:58:00.003-04:00

What to report? I've been writing so much for other people and about other people that I haven't put much focus on myself. It has been helpful, though, explaining these principles of astrology to other people. Teaching others always seems to solidify your own knowledge.

I suppose the little moments of awareness have come during my process of the show I'm doing, and these follow the theme of Mars. Doing A Chorus Line is basically a Mars event for me. I still go around on whether or not I actually like the show. Most of it is a stamina test, a battle against myself to see if I can actually do it. There's always pushing going on, and this is no bad thing. I feel that when you work with the body, it's so dynamic and active that you're always pushing against something. Posture seeks to revert to a previous stance of non-alignment, gravity pulls you down. Even just standing in a line is a constant check-in process, revealing those times when, oops, you've yet again started to compress that spine and roll the shoulders in.

The sense of the challenge is what's most exciting about doing this show. It's not that it really touches me on a heart level, because I've said before to numerous people that I don't like the music. Hate it. The story doesn't move me in a great way; certainly there are other shows which speak to my soul in its own language. This one just has the adrenaline rush, and once it's gone, I leave it behind. Although, I obsess about the choreography and doing it right when I lay down to try to sleep. Not a fan of that.

There have been several moments in rehearsals when my ebullient Mars shoots its mouth off and gets loud. These moments always make me recoil in embarrassment. It's generally with horror that I look back and think, oh God, you've made an idiot out of yourself. There is, very much, that part of me which is highly competitive, a part that has been at play often lately. It always seems to come out when do these group projects. Hell, it comes out whenever I do anything.

The horror seems to come from the sense that it's not ok to be loud, to be pushy, to be competitive, to make a show of being the best and right. Some part kicks in and says, Keep your mouth shut! I wonder if this is the Sun talking, since Mars and the Sun are square. Also, Mars being in Leo carries that notion of dignity. I hate having egg on my face, a quality I've grown to associate very much with Leo. It could also be the strong Saturn lording over things, telling me to keep in my place. All the same, I notice it. Mars bursts out, and then there's the shock after from the other fellas in the pantheon.

I've also noticed myself getting very fiery in the face of my director, who is also herself one of the most Martial people I've ever met. Naturally, Mars' nature is to fight back, so when hers gets unleashed, mine does, too. I suppose it's a good lesson, as I don't like to be yelled at, and when I do it only makes me get indignant and get all the more resistant, but I know that when I've been in similar power positions, I get tyrannical. It's so hard not to fall into the tyrant role. That's something else I carry shame about. In the moment, it's all do as I say damn it, and then later, I say to myself, God, what an asshole I was. What is going on when these complexes take over like that? It's like they just rush out and push everyone else out of the way!

My Venus side is probably also rather horrified when my Mars starts knocking around. That Libra Moon and my angular Venus probably don't like being seen as a loud-mouthed cocky jerk. We're all supposed to be nice to each other and not yell, right? It's all about tact and diplomacy. Even as I write that I'm getting flack from my Mars, saying, to hell with that, I'm right and that's how it is. Ah, internal conflict.

So, there's been a lot of Mars going on lately. I'm in super high competitive mode, with myself and with others. This should come as no surprise, since, I've come to realize, I'm really Mars. The more I accept that the more I can work creatively and constructively with it. It makes me wonder who's really in charge, because while I think I'm being all Venus-y here, I'm really pretty selfish, I don't think of others, I'm pushy. That's Mars running the show.

Maybe I need to realize, too, hey, I'm a Scorpio. That is a Mars-ruled sign, boy! Mars and Pluto are all over my psychic space. Pluto links up to the Moon and Venus, Mars to the Sun, Mercury, and Jupiter. I must be such a peach!

It was interesting, too, that when we went around in a circle today to talk about why we were each doing the show, when it came to me, there was a lot of Mars coming out of my mouth. I suppose that's honest, but I had to laugh at the fact that I was pounding the floor so much with my fist as well as shaking it in the air.

What also makes me curious is the fact that so many of the girls in the show are so close to tears. They just turn them on! I haven't been around women like that in some time. Part of me is looking around wondering, why the hell are all of you crying? Then I think of those times when I'm sitting around in my car crying at Speaking of Faith podcasts, and here comes yet another pair of gods: Saturn and Uranus. I think the Sun-Uranus conjunction really looks down at those displays of emotion, perhaps more in an attempt to understand objectively what's going on there. Saturn, on the other hand, I can feel saying, Well that's just not necessary. Rope it in, people. Our director seems to enjoy making people dig up all of this stuff and make them cry, which somehow pushes a button in me that, again, says, Now is that necessary? My Scorpio features are well aware of such emotional currents and understand getting dragged through things, but perhaps equally they like to do it in private and avoid displays. This must be the Saturn-Scorpio aspects talking. I can be so delightfully secretive and closed-lipped. On some level, yes, strong emotions in others make me uncomfortable.

Now here's another little something: one of my cast members is apparently going through hell by being part of this show. He's got some demons to manage, and I don't envy him that. He seems to be having a really hard time, and my heart does go out to him. Opening up as an actor is required to do in order to give an honest and moving performance is coming very hard for him, for it seems that to open up in that way will cause a total breakdown. It's like he's just barely holding it together, and sometimes it scares me that he's being asked to untie all that. Here's again a time where I wonder if people in the theater arts need some serious counseling training, but at the same time, such personal work seems necessary if you're to get a good performance. Let's face it, it's why I don't pay to see theater around here anymore: it all sucks because no one knows how to act properly. But, despite all this, I don't feel I can go to him and start engaging and getting all deep on him, as I often do. I want to give him some empathy, but where to begin? I've never spoken to him in the two months we've been working on this show. Start now? And on such subject matter? Maybe you just have to start in small ways and let him know that I recognize his humanity, as I've been reading in Rachel Naomi Remen's book (Kitchen Table Wisdom). Clearly I'm massively intellectual, or else I would just instinctively know what to do instead of hashing all this out. Lunar I am not.

So, there are my thoughts.

What is Beauty, anyway?

2010-04-20T16:58:00.003-04:00

Let me just say now that the four books I have in my bag right now are some of the most delightful and anticipated reading I've done in a while. Two of Krista Tippett's books, Speaking of Faith and Einstein's God, as well as Rachel Naomi Remen's Kitchen Table Wisdom and my beloved John O'Donohue's Beauty. My soul will be radiating for some time to come.

Yesterday I was walking through Wildwood, my favorite park, meandering through the trails in the forest like the labyrinth it is. This was the first time I'd been there in many months, and the first since spring has taken hold. It was glorious. I was sitting on a bench amidst a sea of tiny purple-white flowers amongst the trees, watching a doe in the wood before me nibbling on the fresh green shoots poking their way through the forest floor. And, I was reading Beauty. Quite perfect.

But, as I was walking, and I might add, having a multitude of conversations with myself (I think my brain was starved for this so it was really on overdrive), I got to thinking about the beauty around me, and knowing the subject matter I would soon be reading, began musing on what beauty is in the first place. Beauty is one of those words that we use all the time, yet I think because it's so commonplace, we don't question it anymore. We may have forgotten what it is. I certainly have. I'm aware of its presence in my life, and if you've read this blog at all you'll know I'm one of Aphrodite's children, but I started trying to define beauty for myself, demanding that I know it deeply.

The contrast between the Moon and Venus, lunar mentality and Venusian mentality, is somewhat fascinating to me. The antipathy between these two goddesses is intriguing, and I often think about why it is. Both are relationship planets, both are feminine in quality, both seek to draw things toward themselves. However, the motives behind their drawing in and, I suppose, the methods for doing so, are different.

I was thinking about this heavily recently when doing some chart analysis for my brother, who has Taurus rising, and as such, is under the guidance of Venus. I often get the Libra side of Venus, perhaps because of my Libra Moon and the many Librans in my life, but I often forget about the Taurus side of the equation. For some reason it's a sign I pay little heed to, so in trying to explain it to someone else, I was forced to ask some questions of my own.

Value is a word that is big with Taurus explanations, and when trying to grasp beauty, I think one may have to grasp value, too. Interestingly, the word value has that Latin origin of valere, to be strong, to be well, be worth. How interesting that this kind of puts us back in the Mars camp; it seems Mars and Venus can't get enough of each other. That opens up a whole new set of questions, as the two desire planets seem to be so wildly different: how do Beauty and the war god complement each other??

Anyway, I suppose that when we find something beautiful, we have to notice what we're doing when we value it. Beauty to me has a sense of elevation, it makes more of what's there. This sense of elevation must be linked in some way with wanting to bring something into yourself. I remember that Venus does not do this out of need, out of emptiness or hunger. That's what the Moon does (rightfully so; that's not to trash the Moon). Venus does this because she is complete already; the bringing in is to exalt the creation. That's something I think Beauty does: it exalts. Again, as the definition of exalt is to hold something or someone in high regard (the Latin ex- means "out" and -altus means "upward"), we're back to the Venusian notion of worth, value, esteem, and regard.

Hmm, that phrase: exalt the creation. It makes me think of the Sun and the solar capacity one has to create, to mirror the original Creation. It reminds me that both Apollo and Aphrodite are golden. And, they are never far from each other. Morning Star and Sun stay near (why was Lucifer called the Morning Star? Because he's the light bringer and heralds the Sun?) I wonder on this relationship of Beauty to Creativity. I sense both Venus and the Sun are pointing in the same direction to a mystery...

I also think of beauty as a gateway. Beauty beckons, it pulls you in to an ecstatic state (this may be my Venus-Neptune talking!), it takes you in and elevates you, but you might not have had that elevation were it not for the initial come-hither. This is part of the problem of art that I feel gets too intellectualized (and if my brother is reading this, he's probably going to go nuts). Yes, I know art always has to have a context, but I have a hard time with art that is not beautiful. Well, let me correct that. I have a hard time with anything at all that is not beautiful (let's not talk about my highly critical body-image, ok?). It's as if I'm always looking for the hook, the gateway, the threshold that will attract me and pull me into an exalted state. It's as if I want life and experience to be more, and Beauty is that key to unlock such a door.

I think if something is not beautiful, the message doesn't get transmitted. You lose the opportunity. Without that sense of value and esteem, something that says, "Ah yes, you are more, you are golden: remember how you are golden and beautiful?" we'll pass right by. I suppose this is hilariously biased, and even as I'm writing this I'm laughing to myself, because who else would say such things, wanting for all things in life to come in beautiful packages, than a person with strong Venus overtones? I may do well to remember: beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Well, I'm no closer to a fast definition, but as usual, these gods defy definition. They are perhaps best glanced from the side, and they are always complicated. John O'Donohue's book will continue to hold revelations, and James Hillman's book on Aphrodite is priceless. They have done a great service of contribution, but the best I can do is to hold on to this "notion", this "sense" of the connection of exaltation, esteem, beauty, and value. I feel it in there, a locus around which these terms and sensations are orbiting, but She may be ever elusive and keep her secrets. She smiles.

Waiting for the Rug to be Pulled Out

2010-04-10T02:42:00.002-04:00

Well here's something dark and delightful. Isn't it always with me?

I've made some progress in life recently. Things are opening up. I just lost 23 pounds, putting me back to a fantastically skinny self that I love. Of course, I want to shave a couple more off the top, just to be on the safe side. Gotta have some wiggle room. And, I've also been lifting more consistently, so I'm probably in the best shape I've ever been. Of course I'm not done, but it's good to see some progress. It helps that I'll be in a production of A Chorus Line in a month, wearing some very tight clothing. Motivation? Indeed.

Furthermore, I've been accepted to a graduate program, and I'll be studying what I love and writing about it. I get to express myself intellectually and creatively. I get to start down the path that my life will take, a path I've wanted for a while now. Instead of just working at "a job", I'm on the road to doing something that is more a vocation, a reflection of myself in my contribution to the world.

So, why don't I feel good?

Well, let's not be hasty, I do feel good. I am proud of myself. But, I also am not sitting comfortably, and this is what is bothering me. Why don't I feel better about all of this?

To be honest, here's the problem: I'm waiting for something to go terribly wrong and have it all taken away from me. I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, for the rug to be pulled out from under me. I have such a hard time believing it's actually real, that it's happening. Truthfully, I've been used to being quite miserable for a long time.

The really interesting bit is: why have I gotten used to feeling miserable? What has allowed me to be unhappy, and why do I feel such trepidation when I take positive steps? To be sure, I did decide to make some changes, and I carried them out, so I wasn't so far gone as to wallow in a mire for the rest of my life. Something inside me said, "Damn it, get moving!"

Furthermore, a lot of the changes that I've made seem to have moved on automatic pilot. I have not allowed myself to "think" about them or question them. I haven't been seduced into analytical mode; I just did it. I'm not sure if I discussed the quite powerful dream I had back in January, but it was a whopper. A pure symbol of the Self there, indicating a direction in which I was to move, and move I did. That dream pointed to a profound psychic shift, and I think I'm seeing the fruits of that now. In fact, it would do me well to remember that dream as I waver in states of fear and doubt.

So, about those states of fear and doubt. They're real, and they do demand some attention. They are psychic components as much as that expression of the Self was. A few things come to mind, regarding my chart and some of the psychology I've read in tandem with it. Most of what I'm experiencing has its roots in my own psychic structure, the stuff of which I'm made. Some of it, I have to wonder, may be based in some family dynamics. But again, one's psyche is based out of the innate structure and the experiences that put the flesh on the bones; we see our environments around us based on our own subjective building blocks (planets, archetypes, etc.) and what we see is what we get, so I'm not assigning blame here.

I've gone on at length in this blog both about my Moon-Pluto conjunction and my Saturn-Venus square. Indeed, they give me some grief. Richness, yes, depth, strength, and self-sufficiency, but hey, they hurt, too. These are the big guns which I feel are kicking around in my psyche in the wake of these changes in my life.

The Moon-Pluto part of me generally expects the worst anyway. I mean, talk about a container that can crack at any moment. Nothing ever feels safe there, and it says that life is going to come and take a big bite out of your ass when you least expect it. And let's be honest, it hasn't been that bad for me. Sure there was that terrible breakup nine years ago that still haunts me, but mostly there's just a sense of terribly sensitivity and vulnerability that generally has me keeping people at arm's length. But, I feel it. There is a layer of negativity around that complex, even at the best of times. I've encountered it in active imagination, and I've encountered it in half-awake, half-asleep states. There is something in that Moon-Pluto that is deeply, deeply aggrieved that resists any movement. It will not be redeemed. I don't believe it's mine personally, but that I am a conduit for something that goes farther back in my family line.

So, anyway, one can see where, with these Scorpionic elements, there is a constant energy of looking over one's shoulder. Even when things are going well, that Plutonian vibe is not at rest. Now, as I'm starting to emerge, I can feel this energy of the Dark Mother that doesn't permit one to get to far out of the womb. It's as if she's saying, "Don't start getting to individual. You belong to me." Interestingly, I was just reading Liz Greene's book on psychopathology, particularly the section on madness. There, the gods are discussed with their particular breed of madness they may inflict and the psychological ramifications, and the section on Hera struck very close to me.

Hera's madness is lunar, and it has to do with just that feeling of not getting too far out of one's bounds. I believe anxiety and paranoia were her tools of choice, and that's exactly what's going on for me. These are the weapons used against the puer, of which Zeus is prime, when the individualizing, creative aspect of the personally starts to really fly high. Lunar psychology is not individual; it's tribal, of the species. It is opposite that of the Sun. I'm stepping into the Sun now (and it should be noted that I am 30 and my progressed Sun is making its first aspect to itself, so this is big!), and I can feel that lunar side of me retaliate. Of course, it's not just a lunar side for me, it's a lunar-Plutonian side, but the message is clear.

The Saturn-Venus side of me also comes into play here. This one has always been rough for me, giving me the ol' "you're not good enough" haunting. The exercise has helped for the self-esteem, but still, my critical eye picks out just about every flaw. There's always a sense of, this or that could be better. And, Venus-Saturn tends to recoil from open, easy displays of affection and warm feelings anyway, believing that good things in life are limited and to not expect any handouts (ps, this aspect tends to make me rather mean sometimes, I think, but I'm not aware I'm being cold usually).

I think Saturn has something to do with punishment anyway, Forgetting the self-worth Venus component, Saturn itself is pretty much centered around right and wrong. It's about, here's the line, and here's where you are. You are not up to par. Granted this can keep one working hard and determined, but there's also a worry about breaking rules where Saturn is concerned. When you step out of bounds, you will be punished. So, I think there's a worry somewhere in me that I've crossed a line somewhere, that, again, I'm going to be punished. Saturn generally expects the worst, I think, at least in its fearful, shadowy state. Positively it's serene and accepting of limitation, but when things get dark, it, like Pluto, is rather paranoid. I just don't exhibit the earthy response of massive control over my environment. I tend to retreat more into inaction, locking myself away because I don't feel good enough or deserving on some level.

Most of this isn't conscious (as in my constant state of feeling), but I've been plumbing the depths and trying to shed some insight on this stuff. I don't feel like this all the time, but I'm talking about it because I know it's there, and it demands some attention. I certainly don't want feelings like this floating around under their own volition.

I can see where some Oedipal dynamics could flesh these things out. If Oedipal struggles go bad, there's always the sense of being punished. If dad beats down the child too badly in his attempt to win mom, then the child ends up constantly fearing reprisal for even trying. Not good. I can't say that's exactly how it went with me; if anything the reverse was true and I got what I wanted too easily, but maybe on some level, it did happen. I mean, here I am feeling guilty and afraid of reprisal. Perhaps this is a case where the 10th house does represent the father after all (my Saturn is there). I think either way it damages the self worth, since Oedipal stuff is all Mars/Venus, the desire planets, and I have to wonder how Oedipal dynamics, be they getting what you want too easily or being beaten down too aggressively, eventually blend on some level and turn into one another anyway. But if anything, I can see where the hit to my Venus has really been the damaged spot; I do more out of lack of self-worth than I do out of aggrandizement, despite my rampant puer-ism.

Well, on that note, my Mars has certainly taken a hit (do we need to get into a Sun-Uranus square Mars?). Right now that's another planet that's getting to flex its muscles that usually doesn't. That also feels good. The physical discharge of energy is pretty good, and that helps contribute to a better body which makes generally everything in me feel better. Plus, I'm less of a bitch (except at work; I still don't take kindly to a thwarted will), and my overall energy level is increased.

I suppose it comes down to a blend of many elements. I have puer tendencies, so right off the bat I'm going to feel that fear coming from the lunar world (that of the body especially). I'm always going to have that problem with the Great Mother drawing me back into the womb/tomb. I'm always going to have a problem with the Senex aspects judging me harshly, crippling my self-esteem and value. I'm expressing both my own creative drive and a contact with reality at the same time, which is kind of big and scary. The gods always fight with each other; one can never get them to be perfectly happy, so one must mediate. That's my task now. My time these days is necessarily solar and martial, and that's how it should be. Naturally, some of the other gods that have always been calling the shots are getting a little antsy and bent out of shape, but that's how it's going to have to be. It's the job of the ego to build the bridge, to mediate and help these gods come up with solutions. I think creativity is one way of doing that, which is the solar face of the ego. Perhaps being more accepting of what you are is the Saturn-face of the ego, being healthy (and the key word is healthy) about limits and containment. I also see Saturn as holding it all together with iron strength, a most positive image that says, I will not break, no matter how much pressure you put on me (yes, Uranus, I know that you like to break things!). So, I suppose that's my task now: remember my dream with its symbol of Self, and find creative ways to make everyone happy. No small task, eh?

Oh, and in closing, in the wake of feeling all of these dark fears and anxieties, worrying that everything will be taken away from me and that I really wasn't good enough or didn't deserve it in the first place, here's the Rumi poem for today (April 9) in my daily Rumi book:

Let Yourself Be Drawn

You miss the garden,

because you want a small fig from a random tree.

You do not meet the beautiful woman.

You are joking with an old crone.

It makes me cry how she detains you,

stinking-mouthed with a hundred talons,

putting her head over the roof edge to call down,

tasteless fig, fold over fold, empty

as a dry-rotten garlic.

She has you tight by the belt,

even though there is no flower

and no milk inside her body.

Death will open your eyes

to what her face is: leather spine

of a black lizard. No more advice.

Let yourself be silently drawn

by the stronger pull of what you really love.

Now how amazing is that? I could just cry, so beautiful. (The amazing thing is I haven't picked up that Rumi book since back in November, and I was compelled to open it today and turn to see what awaited me there.)

Ravel

2010-03-21T16:11:00.004-04:00

I've been working on Ravel's "Jeux D'Eau" for some time now, and let me tell you, it's not easy. I prefer to think of this piece as acrobatics for the fingers. It's a testament to Ravel's ability that after I play through this a few times, other pieces come out much easier and seem relatively flawless compared to Jeux D'Eau. No doubt Ravel was technically brilliant.

Anyway, I'm just about there with the piece. The finish line is in sight. It's mostly due to the speed of the piece that I get hung up. But, I must say, I am lightly familiar with some of Ravel's other works. I've had Bolero on the ipod for some time, though I never listen to that one. What I do listen to is "Daphnis et Chloe", and the opening of that piece is simply Elysian. It's what I imagine the sound of entering into Paradise to be. (Also, it just has to be done with a choir. I've heard it without, and it's not the same.) I recently purchased a greatest hits sort of album, and Ravel's "String Quartet in F Major" is a fast favorite. All of that pizzicato is brilliant!

Anyway, my point in all of this is that Ravel and Debussy have always composed "water music" to me. They came at a time when Impressionism entered into music. In fact, I see their music as Impressionist paintings made sound. Edges are blurred together, and there is often a shimmer to the music due to the close intervals between notes and chords. Contrast this to the sharply Uranian Baroque period of the Enlightenment and you'll see what I mean. Bach has huge spaces between notes so that Light, Truth, and Clarity shine through. That kind of music is all about precision and machinery to me, like silvery gears working in methodical, ordered harmony, fine pieces intricate and radiant.

Of course, the discovery of Neptune and its entrance into mass consciousness happened just before Debussy and Ravel began composing. Technically I think it coincides with the Romantic period, which is a different set of composers altogether, but still these two cross into that I think. Needless to say, Debussy and Ravel have been my favorite composers, along with a few other late romantics like Holst. Surprise surprise, my favorites coincide with the Neptune entrance. I am a water baby.

What's beautiful about all this is that Ravel was a Pisces, with a Sun-Moon conjunction in the sign. He has lots of water in the chart with a Scorpio Ascendant, too. Moreover, that Sun-Moon conjunction falls in the 5th house. Talk about a creative output. I would like to get my hands on a biography at some point, because his chart seems quite turbulent with an exact Pluto-Saturn square as well as a Saturn-Uranus opposition. A T-cross is there, too, involving Jupiter on the Ascendant opposite Neptune, both square Venus. Look at all of those benefics and spiritual planets in relation! And it's a fixed T-cross, too. Seems to me that, through his art, he was able to make that arrangement work. His sad degradation into what is believe to be an early-onset Alzheimer's and a tragic end seems to be the Saturn-Pluto square speaking. With all of this radiant water in the chart, there seems to have been some very heavy and intense elements sitting side by side. I don't know his music well enough in terms of overall output, but those Scorpionic/Saturn elements don't seem to be present. I could be wrong, but they seem to have manifested in other areas of his life. A fixed Uranus-Pluto-Saturn T-cross? Yikes.

Debussy was a Leo, by the way, with the Sun conjunct the Ascendant in the 1st house. Talk about self-mythologizing! (I don't mean that in a bad way.) I wonder what he was like to be around! Dynamic and forceful to say the least. But again there's the Jupiter-Neptune opposition that Ravel had, as they were born not to far apart (about a decade). Pluto it conjunct the Midheaven in the 10th, so again there's an angular Pluto. Different themes at work here, but interesting to think about.

Mars!

2010-03-20T19:12:00.002-04:00

I've been thinking about Mars quite a bit lately. For one, I've started to manifest it quite literally in my life in the form of markedly increased gym time and physical activity. Two, I've been re-reading The Mars Quartet, always fantastic. And finally, given my adoration of Speaking of Faith on NPR, I've been thinking about Mars in terms of a religious context.

Now, let one thing be clear. I have always suffered from a rather subverted Mars. My path of least resistance has generally been expression of the Venus principle, having a 1st house Venus-Neptune conjunction and a Moon in Libra. My early life found me developing musical ability, so artistry and expression became the prime mover. Even then, I didn't really have to "fight" for things, as a sense of entitlement and specialness dominated. I haven't had to work for anything in my life up until now. I blame my Sagittarian luck and Uranian brains.

Well, things have obviously changed, since my Saturn return has taken place, at which time I was kindly reminded that time is ticking away and that I haven't done anything with my life. Well, at least nothing that resembles the Saturn structures of a career or contribution in form. I also blame a progressed Sun sitting on Neptune for the last few years, but I digress.

All of this is leading up to the fact that I've always hankered after physical attractiveness, a body that was fit and in good shape. This brings us squarely into Mars' territory. Sure, my Venus-Neptune finds such things pleasurable and is quite a demanding mistress, and my Sun-Uranus yearns for perfection in all things (a burden which can keep one very sorely inactive), but without Mars, I've never been able to get there. I attained it once pretty well back when I did Weight Watchers and dropped 30 pounds about five years ago, but surprise surprise, I ballooned back out to where I was when I started that. (Jupiter square the Ascendant and Venus. Indulgence! More! Eat, Papa, eat!)

This winter, utterly disgusted with myself and spurred on by the fact that someone I have an obsessive desire for was moving back to town, I decided it was time to look hot and fantastic, if nothing else than to show him that I was clearly hot stuff and worthy of desire. It also helped that I was cast in a production of A Chorus Line, which means I'd be in some tight clothing, not least the copious amounts of physical activity and stamina the show requires.

Long story short (too late), here I am now, about 18 pounds less, looking pretty damn good (it's great to fit into these Rock & Republic jeans again!) and well on my way to achieving my goal. Only four pounds to go. Who do I have to thank? Well, probably Saturn, for one, since the old master of discipline is an absolute necessity in matters like these. But, Mars needs some applause, too, since that's who's active when I'm sweating like a pig (although pigs don't sweat I hear) on the treadmill and lifting.

Oddly, I really do enjoy my time at the gym, since things there are quite simple. I mean, getting there requires some witch-slaying (see Marie Louise Von Franz's book on the Mother archetype), but once I'm there, things are pretty conflict-free. No psychological battles, just turn off the mind and go on auto-pilot. I love that. Being a Scorpio with a Moon-Pluto conjunction, my life is generally riddled with death threats (metaphorical) and second guessing. At the gym? Not so. It's all Mars there, and let's face it, Mars can be gloriously simple. It's not about being concerned with other people, it's just, "this is what I have to do, and I'm going to do it."

Interestingly, I met up with a girl I went to high school with last night, a beautiful creature who is charming and polite. It turns out she does tae kwan do (spelling?) regularly, in fact, she's done it so long consistently that she now teaches others. Going to the gym so regularly now, I am beginning to see the allure in the martial arts. I can't quite formulate it in words yet, as this is a new feeling for me, but it does have something to do with the goodness in using the body, of setting a goal and achieving it, of working with your own body. I should also point out that I really want to get into yoga, too. I can feel my body yearning that with a magnetism all its own. But, this pseudo-random encounter with my high school friend last night was yet another Mars message coming to meet me. She mentioned that doing the martial art had other effects in her life, positive organizational aspects, and overall effect of discipline or achievement. In short, that energy keeps on going- exercise has its benefits that are mental as well as physical. I've noticed this myself, particularly in that hungry relationship sphere. Not so hungry anymore! I have, over the past years, been quite hung up about the loneliness problem. Doing all of this Mars work (which reinforces the Sun I feel) tips the scales a bit in the separateness direction, the more autonomous, independent feeling that I don't need to be so worried about other people. It's ok to be just me, on my own. There's a lot of self-work going on here, which may be helped along by the fact that I'm 30 now and my Sun is making its first progressed aspect to itself. I sense all of these psychic movements are part of a large pattern, but when don't I think that?

This increased Mars activity has not changed things in the work sphere, though. I am still a powder keg waiting to blow, a constant boiling pot that is hissing steam out in little vents all over the place. I am learning that I am quite Martial, encapsulated in a comment I made to my mom a year or so back that stated that I was essentially quite selfish. The fact that she immediately agreed was not quite so pleasant, but it's true all the same. I have a Scorpio Sun-Uranus conjunction that squares Mars in Leo. Yup, that's Martial, not to mention quite explosive with that Uranian element. I feel like it's a mad bull being constantly jolted by a cattle prod. But, it does underscore the fact that I have a powerful will, a will that needs exercising. My workplace (a hospital pharmacy) is a situation in which that will is constantly thwarted by nursing stupidity (sorry nurse readers, but I've been abused) or co-worker stupidity. I am very regimented and precise at work (Saturn's in Virgo in my 10th by the way), and I maintain control and order. However, there are many situations I cannot control, and let me tell you, I think my coworkers are generally afraid of me because I can be a real asshole, constantly fuming and dropping f-bombs all over when people are screwing up my routine and making me do my job over again. Let's be clear: I do it right the first time and get it done so I can have my time to myself and relax. Then people come in and lose things, make mistakes, and bother me. Infuriating! It's become commonly used in phrase that "Jared will destroy so-and-so". It's done in humor, but underneath, there is no joking. If we lived in a different time, I would be whipping people. I'm a tyrant.

The moral of the story? When you have a Mars as strong as mine, too much suppression leads to some high frustration and a lot of caustic energy to be released. I have the worst attitude at work. Now, the whole exercise situation feels completely different. There I seem to be coming from my Mars-Neptune trine, which is physical yet meditative at the same time. This is why I think yoga would be perfect. Physicality and Mars energy is the gateway to a religious experience, or put another way, my spirituality includes a physical element to it. Does it surprise you that if I could be anything, I would be a dancer? Mars-Neptune.

I'm also really enjoying the concept of "arete" Darby Costello brought forth in her essay on Mars in the book. I like this concept of Mars as excellence. There is something about winning in Mars, always, and I find that achieving excellence is the ultimate victory in whatever you do. I am a perfectionist, to be sure, and perfection carries a heavy price. It hurts. But working with Mars as I am now, in terms of my physicality, is rewarding. Do I look perfect? No. And that's a comparative statement anyway, because what does perfect look like? I can point to a few guys I see at the gym and define perfection, but I am not there yet. But, that's ok. I'm working at it. And, still, I examine myself and seek out all the flaws, but then I also remind myself that this is me, this is the only me I have, this is the only body I have, and this is what I have to work with this time through. It's ok. Don't be so down on yourself. Why trash the temple? (It should be pointed out that I imaginatively view my body and soul as a beautiful temple, the seat of something very special. That should help the metaphor make sense!)

Well, this has gone on long enough. That was all about me, but then again, most things are when it comes to me. I'll talk more about the religious inspirations and thoughts I have about Mars next time.

Another Tidbit of Connection on Aphrodite

2010-02-14T02:59:00.004-05:00

Here's something fun that I read in Tarnas (Cosmos and Psyche) that relates nicely back to what I was musing on about Aphrodite earlier after reading Hillman (Aphrodite's Justice):

"Nor, perhaps, can the search for the true and the good be ultimately separated from our search for beauty. The modern world view recognizes cosmic beauty as only an accident, an arbitrary coincidence of subjective human perception and superficial local appearance. Yet, that beauty secretly inspires all cosmologists, even in their attempts to explain the entire cosmos with an abstract 'theory of everything' that falls so conspicuously short of the world's rich complexity, mystery, and interior depths. A fundamental yet virtually unexamined issue in cosmology today is the question of whether all beauty in the universe is merely a random product of blind evolution and subjective circumstance or whether that beauty is in some sense significant and intentional, an expression of something more ensouled, more profound, intelligently rational, mysterious.

'Perhaps it seems surprising that physicists seek beauty,' Jeanette Winterson has written, 'but in fact they have no choice. As yet there has not been an exception to the rule that the demonstrable solution to any problem will turn out to be an aesthetic solution.' "

He goes on, but I think that sums up Aphrodite without saying the word. What I would understand a simply "Venus", he tries to explain in a less jargon-induced way. Any astrologer would say of course beauty is intentional. It's Venus, fools. She's part of the pantheon. Hello! I assume Tarnas has read Hillman, so no doubt he knows. But, I think Hillman's essay would fit in nicely there.

I also love the word link-up between "cosmos" and "cosmetic". Gaia over at The Non-Blonde quotes Issac Asimov on the matter, and that was a real smack to the head moment for me not recognizing the connection before.

I'd say Aphrodite would be pretty pissed off for us not including her in the cosmos, since it appears it is she who governs it. Or, put another way, beauty is an integral part of the plan, and we must use our faculties of beauty (emotion, imagination, joy, pleasure) when approaching the cosmos. I like what Hillman says, too, somewhere in his essay, that anything written without beauty will not be received by the audience. "Mere words" do not impact. We won't listen. That's exactly my problem with "scientific" writing. Reading research for my class in research methods back in the day was horrific. It was barely written in English (it was, but none of the words made sense in their strings of sentences). You had to translate it to even understand. There you have the crux of the problem. None of that writing had any art or beauty about it. It was worthless. That's one thing: if I get accepted to this masters program and have to do thesis writing, you'd better believe it'll be a work of art and not blank and dead "scientific" writing.

Now, here's what's been on my mind, and which is the direction I need to go next: If this notion of cosmos is related to Venus, the Good, True, and Beautiful, with all of the ethical and moral behavior that implies, then what the hell is Mars? I know what Mars is, but how does it fit into this concept of cosmos, how does it relate to its partner, Venus? If Venus is the Good, True, and Beautiful, then is Mars (the opposite of Venus) all Bad and Ugly? I need to ponder this and attempt some redefinition and figure out how exactly Mars fits into the cosmos, because let me tell you, my experience with Mars has been that of fighting, conflict, pushiness, bitchiness, selfishness, and discord (I'm implicating myself in that, too, because I have a Sun-Mars square. I am a Mars-ruled Scorpio, too!). Well, Venus has a shadow side, so Mars must have a sunny side! More to come.

The Olympics Opening Ceremonies: My Soul Reflected Back to Me

2010-02-14T01:55:00.005-05:00

There are few moments in this life of mine where I've had my soul reflected back to me. Most of them can be found in the objects that are most dear and precious to me, things I feel I would have to scramble to take with me in multiple trips if the house were burning down. Mainly, these are my books, probably a Liz Green spectrum of writings. More intangible are the pieces of music. However, yesterday morning after I got home from work, I experiences another one.

This revelation comes as an interesting bit of synchronicity. Last night at work I was finishing up Tarnas' book, Cosmos and Psyche, reading the later sections which he briefly devotes to the Saturn-Neptune cycle. I wish there was an entire chapter devoted to this, since it's the one that I partake in most heavily, me being born with the square.

When thinking of this particular combination of archetypal energies, I am always taken back to Joni Mitchell, a favorite artists of mine who was also born with the square. Like me, she was also born with Venus in conjunction to Neptune, both in square to Saturn. Tarnas cites Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" as particularly emblematic of this complex in manifestation, and I couldn't agree more. It is one of my favorite songs, and one I can point to as, yes, a reflection of my own soul. It's also terribly painful in that melancholic sort of way that makes you look off into the distance in a yearning manner with nothing but questions, a hope for something. So, while I was reading this last section last night, I was playing Joni Mitchell's music and living in that world.

I got home and watched the opening ceremonies to the Olympics which had aired that night, always a lover of these festivities. I should point out that I'm a sucker for the Olympics, particularly the opening ceremonies. It sets of something in me that is very patriotic and nationalistic, something that touches my spirit of the warrior that strives for transcendence. I attribute this to my Mars-Neptune trine, and often that Martial sense of breaking boundaries and fighting for something better, grander, "more" (Jupiter conjuncts my Mars, too) makes me highly emotional. Usually, I cry. It's not necessarily a sad bout of tears, but that striving for transcendence moves me unlike anything else. Respighi's "The Pines of Rome" (especially as depicted in Disney's "Fantasia 2000") reduces me to tears, and Copeland's "Fanfare for the Common Man" can do the same. The Olympics and the spirit it represents does the same. Opening ceremonies, often see me crying. I can't help it.

Well, I was watching yesterday, and yes, teary. I particularly liked the section where Sarah McLachlan sang and the dancers moved through the forests of the Canadian wilderness, again, reflecting something of my own spirit.

Then it came. A scene opened up with a lone boy standing on a plain, grass blowing all around him. I can't remember the poem spoken over this image, but it was achingly beautiful, something about a boy feeling the wind blow through the grass around him, all reminding him that he was mortal. And then, Joni Mitchell's "Both Sides Now" starts playing, because she is, of course Canadian. It's not the rendition off of her original album, Blue, but the one recorded much later off her jazzy album, Both Sides Now. She is much older here (it came out around 2000), and her voice considerably deepened. The arrangement is a full orchestra instead of just Joni and her guitar.

Not being immediately familiar with this recording (I didn't own it), I didn't know what song was playing over this scene, this boy as he began to run faster and faster over the vast open plains. Then, she started singing. I can't ever recall myself giving such a sharp intake of breath when I realized what I was hearing. Instantly, I started to cry, being moved to a point beyond words. We're not talking a few tears just trickling down my cheeks. This is some serious crying! The scene played out as the boy began to lift from the floor and fly through the air, a spirit soaring over the grasslands, lyrically floating and alighting on new patches of grass that magically appeared beneath his feet, only to take off again in flight.

I couldn't believe I was hearing this, since Joni was consuming my thoughts for the previous few hours, and the Saturn-Neptune dynamic itself moving me while reading about it. But there it was. Joni, "Both Sides Now", this boy running faster and faster and flying through the wide open spaces of the earth (something I've emulated myself in the summertime feeling the Sagittarian vastness of the planet). There it was- my soul in form, reflected back to me in this stunning convergence of art and beauty.

I will keep that performance with me for the rest of my days. In true religious experience, it defies description and the feeling cannot ever be accurately communicated, but suffice it to say that it's probably one of the most moving things that has ever happened to me. It was the right place, the right time, the right soul. It truly is a gift, and I am thankful for every being that made it happen.

Just as an aside, I've noticed something interesting about these experiences that move me so. In going back and thinking about them, trying to form a mental catalogue of these soul reflections, many of them seem to involve flying. This most recent experience from the Olympics, Disney's visual depiction and story of "The Pines of Rome", and even recently on the Grammy's when I was mesmerized by Pink's performance of "Glitter in the Air". All of these have the imagery of taking flight. No doubt the Puer is at play here, but it is intensely spiritual. I'll leave the symbolism of flight and transcendence for another time, but it's cropping up. Also, Mars and Venus are implicated in many of these soul-moving experiences, which makes sense, since Neptune touches both- Venus by conjunction, Mars by trine.

Oh, and another fun coincidence- the Moon was conjunct Neptune when this all went down this morning. Synchronicity pileup! Love it. (And pileup in Aquarius- Sun, Neptune, Chiron, and Moon all sitting there within two degrees of each other!)

Massive Attack's Heligoland

2010-02-10T05:15:00.004-05:00

Massive Attack's new album, Heligoland, was finally released in the US today. I've said before the group's music makes my Scorpio heart sing, and believe me, my heart is happy that some new music is available. It's so nice to come back to this.

Massive Attack has always had a Plutonian component to me. Songs like "Man Next Door", "Dissolved Girl", and "Inertia Creeps" have that darkness and intensity to them that is just brilliant. What's just beautiful is that as the album is released today, the Moon is conjunct Pluto in Capricorn. Hello? Could that be any more apt? I doubt it was planned, since "new music Tuesday" applies to everyone, but I'm going to maintain the synchronicity.

Also, that album cover is just creepy.

Aphrodite's Justice: A Confrontation with Ethics

2010-02-09T20:38:00.003-05:00

Having just read James Hillman's lecture on Aphrodite, "Aphrodite's Justice", I'm confronted with the concept of ethics and ethical behavior. Hillman elaborates on the goddess and points to her association with the concept of cosmos, the universe working in orderly harmony, and that this sense of order was the very definition of beauty. I think this starts to get close to what we know of as the Sun, and indeed Venus is never far away from it. It also starts pushing into the territory occupied by Virgo for me, the "a place for everything and everything in its place" concept, which, I'm starting to notice, has as much to to with Libra as it does Virgo.

I would have a hard time describing what aesthetics is, but, I would wager that it is, in a Platonic sense, an evaluation of how much the Form of Beauty is in something. And, as Hillman has pointed out, beauty lies in how something participates in the order of the cosmos, how well it fulfills its function. This brings me back to the concept of health, which is, essentially, balance. Again, Libra and Venus. I wonder why the Sun finds its fall (or is it detriment?) in the sign of Libra, since they both seem to be concerned with harmony. Isn't Aries and Mars more involved with "me" and discord than the Sun is? Another topic, so I digress.

What struck me is the sense of participation in an ethical, and thus beautiful, cosmos. Specifically, I felt the concept of conscience. I feel that when you learn of a piece of information, you are presented with a choice. You can either act on the new information, or you can ignore it and carry on as before. And now here comes the fun part: one choice is good, the other is evil. Now we get to define evil.

The arena I've been getting involved in this is the green movement, the environmental. Let's just take global warming. Generally what people use to convince others that this is a problem is data. I haven't seen "An Inconvenient Truth", but I gather it's a whole lot of data. Data is not biased or opinionated (although one could argue that data could be interpreted as one sees fit, so one must have some good validity to the means of experimentation). So, there you have it. You are presented with data that shows that the earth is warming up, and that it's your own actions that are causing it. Because you now know this information, you now have the choice. Do you change your behavior and honor the knowledge you have just gained, or do you forget about it and go on as before, pretending that this doesn't concern you?

I think, ethically, once you know something, you are changed. Knowledge changes you. It ruins innocence. I should be careful in equating innocence with ignorance, but both are bliss. To attempt to return to the state of ignorance seems to be part of the definition of evil. This kind of behavior shuns knowledge, it shuns the forward momentum of progress. It prevents participation in the cosmos. Or, should I say, it doesn't beautify the cosmos? It doesn't serve the Good. And, is not God the highest Good?

But what stops us from turning to the Good? What stops us from acting on the crucial knowledge? Why do we refuse what we've just been handed (provided what we have been handed is true. Another tricky issue.)?

Maybe this has to do with Saturn. We have our boundaries, and Saturn maintains them. It's not the most ready to change, although change it can. Slowly. And, perhaps, grudgingly. But, the Senex does resist the message-bearing Puer (be he Uranus or Neptune). How do we work with our Saturns so that we don't turn away? So that we don't commit acts of evil? Saturn is the very seat of morality, or incarnating all of those loft Jupiterian ethics, so what's the big deal? I think they key lies in responsibility, a most Saturnine concept. Responsibility is a burden (again, Saturn), and knowledge is, in some ways, a burden. You are faced with the burden of choice and action. It hurts, because every choice forces us to give up the innocence we want to return to. And here, I think, is where Neptune becomes problematic, because when we are acting from Neptune we can be very evil in that we just want to go home, so we don't look. We just dissolve back. We put the food in our mouths, we take a drink, we consume to ease the pain of separation. Uranus has too much progress in mind, but little patience. I could see it hiding out in the lofty realm of the abstract and ideal, not wanting to get its hands dirty with the human process of choosing and the painful births it entails.

Saturn's exaltation in Libra is beautiful in itself, as all exaltations are. Exaltations are so revealing, and as I read in Darby Costello's book on the Moon, the Jupiter exaltation in Cancer never ceased to move me. I think here is where Saturn is at its best because it lends it's willingness to accept the burden of responsibility and action to Aphrodite's ordered and beautiful cosmos. Here, one does not turn away. One serves, and one beautifies, even in the old Senex's ugliness and calcification. It's the very process of alchemy where the shit and lead is turned to gold.

I hope I can find the willingness and ability to accept my burdens when they come to me and act on them, as well as maintaining the Neptunian temple to the world I left behind, the little place of honor and weeping that I keep in my soul. And, may I find the Sun so that I may hold onto it all, all kept in health, harmony, and balance.

Vertigo

2010-02-07T23:39:00.004-05:00

First of all, I love that word. Vertigo. Second, I purchased an Alfred Hitchcock movie collection around Christmas, and today I decided to open it up and start working my way through it. The first one I chose? You guessed it.

My how times have changed. The film was released in 1958, and boy does it show. The fact that James Stewart could have been a romantic possibility is, by today's standards, humorous. I mean, he looks in his 50s even then! Not that people in their 50s can't find love, but he had two women falling for him. Really?

And then there's Kim Novak and her painted-on eyebrows, which I just couldn't stop staring at. We're talking an inch thick. Yikes. So much makeup (in contrast to her plain-Jane counterpart who's also in love with Stewart). Those 50s fashion conventions are like train wrecks: you look on in a combination of fascination and horror. Not only the fashion, but some of the social norms, too.

One of the things that gets me the most is the dynamic between Stewart and Novak's characters. Eventually, "Scottie" finds "Madeline", although Madeline is really Judy (name? I think that's her name). She's been faking her persona all along, but Scottie finds her and attempt to transform her into Madeline again. And the killer is, she lets him! It's a little drama about how we change ourselves and sacrifice who we are in order to be loved.

Today's standards are all about "be yourself". To watch someone be so "weak" and give in to a man's callous attempts to erase who this woman is borders on brutal. She asks him again and again to just love her for who she is, but he will have none of it. He will transform her into another woman, a false persona, no matter what. And as I said, she lets it happen.

I suppose Women's Liberation is still a good decade or so down the road from Vertigo. So is the Sexual Revolution. That Pluto-Uranus conjunction hasn't quite come along to break up those rigid gender roles. I mean, look, we have a Senex as a model of attractiveness in this film for God's sake. That's got to tell you right there something's wrong.

Perhaps me and my Uranian tendencies find this so baffling, but really, it begs the question of how much we do attempt to modify ourselves in order to be loved. Since I was so shocked by it, I'll wager I do it all the time. I have a healthy complex that says: You're not good enough unless you're thin and fit. We all have those little pockets. I wonder if that's a side of Venus or of the Moon. Venus is proud enough to say "I love me for me and the rest of you can be damned if you don't like it." The Moon is needier and doesn't want to be left, so I have to wonder. Venus does need people around, but it's in a different way. I can't picture Samantha from Sex and the City, that embodiment of proud Aphrodite, changing herself to be loved. The minute that starts to creep in, the relationship breaks up. That's basically her plot line in the movie.

Maybe Venus got liberated during the 60s and 70s. The goddess' realm certainly extends to women and sexuality, or should I say, the woman in all men, too. Clearly, it hasn't happened yet in this film.

Aphrodite vs. Hera

2010-01-31T23:55:00.003-05:00

I was at work two nights ago, and as is typical of me, I have a small fragrance selection in my bag with me at all times. Hey, I need options! Options equal freedom. Typically, I've been applying a bit of Chanel's Sycomore before I head up in the morning because, frankly, it's stunning and I'm in love with it. When I go up to the floors with the drugs for the day, I have a lot of time where I don't have to put my hands in rubber gloves, so it's ideal to dab on a little perfume and let it accompany me on the last leg of my journey. It beautifies my time. Basically, I get baptized by Aphrodite.

Now, let's be clear. The hospital is not a place where Aphrodite lives comfortably. Bodies, most of them elderly, are laying around in various states of disrepair and sickness. Ugliness is most evident. I see a hospital as more of a lunar establishment, since issues of comfort, nursing, and health revolve more around the Moon and its pursuits. Nurses are, basically, mothers of a sort, tending to the needs of their "children", and the most skilled nurses, I think, are those that can access Mother most readily. Well, in terms of the emotional interaction with their patients. Most of the nurses I work with couldn't keep track of a medication if it was biting them in the ass, so we need a hell of a lot more Virgo going on. But I digress.

So, there I am delivering meds, intermittently smelling the intoxicatingly beautiful Sycomore when I look right at this nurse sitting at a desk in front of me. It's a jarring experience. She looks old beyond her years (probably due to the smoking), hair white, bags under the eyes, heavy set and probably overweight. She's a nice enough lady, but I was struck by the very, very sharp contrast between this glory of Aphrodite in liquid form on my hand and this woman sitting in front of me, most clearly in absence of the goddess.

What I thought then and there was how much Aphrodite and Hera do not get along. There is an antipathy between these two, these aspects of the Feminine. Put astrologically, the Moon and Venus are not friends. Yes, both are feminine and as such share some qualities, but they are two sides of a coin.

Interestingly, the phenomenon of the cougar seems to want to unite these two principles, which is itself amusing. Maybe that's why we can't stop talking about it because it's so novel to see these two goddesses smashed together in one place. Here's a woman, quite possibly with children already so she's a mother, being promoted as a sex symbol. Weird things happen when "mommy" becomes an erotic being. Paging Dr. Freud.

Looking at the woman in front of me, though, was striking. All I saw was "Moon/Hera". Now, is that fair? Hera can be beautiful and attractive in her own right, can't she? I've never seen the goddess myself, but I'm assuming she's not downright ugly. Mothers can be pretty, right? Or are we crossing into Aphrodite's territory when we start talking about things like pretty and beautiful? I would assume so, since that's her function. But has one fully given up when Aphrodite is nowhere to be found? I can't speak for this woman's home life, for her house may be beautiful as the area where she exercises her own Aphrodite, but in terms of the physical form I saw before me the goddess was nowhere to be seen.

Clearly I've got Aphrodite going in full swing. Look at me. It's almost a parody. I've got Chanel in my bag right now for God's sake, and yes, I'm wearing Caron's Pour un Homme (Sycomore and Muscs Kublai Khan are in the bag). She's alive and well in me, probably to the detriment of my Mars, but I'm working on that. Most people in my life have Aphrodite going on. Most are either gay men or young women, so go figure. I probably surround myself with them because like attracts like (or do the magnets have it right?). But total lack of it? Come on lady, pull yourself together! Have some self-respect! We don't have to be models, but you can't just let it go and resign yourself to a life without beauty.

I suppose this says as much about me as it does about this nurse, who was matronly by all counts (is there a word more horrifying than matronly as an adjective?). She had crossed full fledged over to Hera-ville and apparently was not looking back. It was upsetting to this Aphrodite-villager.

I am tempted to throw Saturn into the mix here, since old age is also one of the enemies of beauty, but I don't fully believe that's true. Come to think of it, I don't think lunar life is the enemy of beauty either because you have to be able to live it all. But, in terms of strict archetypes, neither the Moon or Saturn are probably great friends of Aphrodite. Though she is ever-young and golden, Aphrodite is a quality of soul, and even if you are old, brittle, and all the body parts are starting to sag and break down, I believe that the goddess of beauty is still there to be had and lived. When we contact her, we are always ever-young. And damn it, it says that "I'm still worth it!" You have to have enough respect for the object to decorate it and put it out there and ask people to come hither and look at it. And if we lose that, then God help us.

A Moment of Silence

2010-01-30T07:27:00.002-05:00

On my way into the house this morning, I paused. It was just close to 730am, in that twilight space on the threshold between night and dawn. What stopped me in my tracks, key in the lock waiting to be turned, was the extraordinary stillness. It has been bitterly cold these last few days, temperatures barely exceeding 10 degrees Fahrenheit, if at all, but this morning it was at least bearable since there was no wind to bite and cut down.

I paused in this morning silence and stillness, and I felt, with a body-knowing that arises from the pit of the stomach, that many beings had died this night. A cold like tonight's is a killing cold. Anything weak or teetering on the edge of life will be pushed over, taken. I am overcome with sadness for these beings, whatever they are, for this is winter unforgiving. It is hard out there, a hardship I barely dream of, for I only step out into nature for mere transitions, mostly aided by fuel-burning heat and man made amenities. But they who exist out there in the world, I pray they are stronger than I.

In the silence this morning, I remember those who didn't make it tonight, and I feel that winter cold where I am most vital reminding me of how fragile life is. It frightens me.

Healing and Illness

2010-01-16T11:33:00.002-05:00

I spent two weeks writing a paper about healing. It was nice timing that as soon as I finished it, I got sicker than I've been in years with a massive stomach flu.

A friend of mine said that, when you're in pain, you cannot imagine what it's like to be without that pain. The same works of the reverse: when you're well, you can't imagine what it's like to have a body riddled with pain. Having spent the majority of a night on the bathroom floor in convulsions, I'm tempted to agree with that theory.

My recent experiences bring in to sharp contrast the line between body and mind. My paper centered on the concept of healing the mind, the soul. Well, it focused on healing in general, which applies to both body and soul, but I think it drove more at the soul aspect. However, being sick like I was, that throws you so far into the body that there seems like nothing else. I think that's what pain does.

Pain is hard to define. I mean, in terms of the body, it's glaringly simple. As always, I'm interested in what psychic pain feels like. Do we know what that is? Maybe we don't realize we're in pain, and that's why we're making the decisions we are, the decisions that lead us to leave less than exemplary lives. Such decisions prevent us from being our best, those decisions made from a place of pain we don't know we have.

Pain is the great awakener. It is Saturn as teacher. It focuses things very succinctly and sharply. There is nothing else but the pain, for you can't think of anything else. Maybe pain focuses us on the direction we need to be facing, the thing we need to be examining. I'm not sure why pain exists, but figuring it out is like figuring out why Saturn exists. I think no matter what it brings you back to mortality, the frailty and susceptibility of the body. The body is mortal, it is vulnerable, and that sure is Saturn.

I suppose pain also strips away any illusions. I am thinking a lot lately on the human capacity for self-deception. In a tricky way, we use that self-deception to mask pain and escape it. We are running away from Saturn. But, it seems like the pain has to get so intense, so bad, that one can no longer deceive. That was how this flu was. It's like something in me said, damn it, you're going to start turning around your diet and how you feed yourself, and if you won't listen, then here: learn what it's like to eat nothing and have a destroyed GI system.

You know, Saturn, and pain, would probably be a lot easier to deal with if we had the courage to face it. But inbuilt to that system seems to be the urge to run away from it. Ah how two-faced Saturn is. Pain is the teacher that pushes us away from it. I really hope for the courage to cut through deception and the ability to act on that.

Lenses of the Present

2009-12-21T15:44:00.003-05:00

I was having a conversation this afternoon, and I think it was a true conversation because it allowed something to come out of my mouth that completely took me by surprise. It was one of those things I didn't know I knew, yet there it was passing my lips! Or fingertips, as it were, since I was typing the conversation.

This particular conversation was with a former lover that I feel, shall we say, some ambivalent feelings towards. We didn't leave on great terms, although it's probably quite one-sided since he was quite oblivious in that sort of clueless-guy sort of way. It was yet another chapter of unrequited love in my life.

So today I'm talking with him, and he uses the phrase "fond memories". After that, I say that it's "easy to look back on the past and see fond memories when you're living in a time of abundance. The present colors the past."

Woah! This guy now has his own boyfriend who he's so happy with (keeping in mind that when I professed my feelings for him, he said he had "neither the time nor disposition for a relationship." My, how quickly things change.), and his life is basically pretty damn good. So, he has what he wants. Of course he can look back and see how fond and pleasant things were.

Me, however, I see things differently. When I look back, all I see is the lack, not the abundance. When it comes to this guy, I always see the lack. That core of unreturned feelings is there, and while I don't think about it on a day to day basis, hardly at all, it's there. Suddenly when this guy shows up in my present, my present becomes the feeling of lack and refusal. Forgive me if I don't look back happily.

This brings up some fascinating dynamics. First, what is the lens we're looking through in the present? Which archetype is it? When it comes to my relationships, there is a repeating pattern, and it's not a pretty one. It's generally either Pluto or Saturn. And hey, lo and behold, those are the two planets that are aspecting my Moon and Venus! Yeah, yeah, ok, Neptune is in there, too. That probably explains my highly romantic nature. But, lots of times, it's the denial of Saturn mixed with the burning rage and desire of Pluto.

Today's lesson made me realize I'm looking through Saturn's lens a helluva lot! Yes, one can see my fiery propensities, too, which mark very nicely some escapist tendencies. But, keep in mind that archetypes come in pairs, never alone, and that when senex comes, so does puer.

I would guess that powerful planets, either by aspect or by position, determine the lens with which we view the present. Probably those on angles will be pivotal (I'm really big on angles lately). I see my own propensity to look at relationship through particular lenses, but then again, the Saturn-Venus square is angular, so I'm probably bound to a) look at life through the lens of relationship because of Venus and b) look at those relationships in terms of their limitation and lack due to Saturn's influence. Nothing gets me going more than seeing someone in a happy couple, even if I am in a relationship myself. And let's keep in mind that right now Saturn is playing football with my current relationship, so I'm not exactly jumping into the cornucopia here.

So, I love how I'm back to the workbench theory of memory. Memory is constructed in the present! Memory is subjective, and we may not remember what really happened, based on what's going on right now. If we're being Saturn presently, we're going to look back into the past and see where things were depressing, limited, and poverty-stricken, even if they were full of ease and plenty! We'll pick out the 2.5 seconds when things got tough. Likewise, if we're being Jupiter right now, we'll look back and see the plenty, the good fortune and optimism, even if it was the Great Depression.

Now, why am I being Saturn all the time! I'd better take a better look at what Saturn is and how to live him properly and release his potential rather than being so damn hard on myself all the time. I have to keep remembering: You don't have to stay anywhere forever!

Resistance

2009-12-19T19:11:00.002-05:00

As a companion piece to my last entry, Intention, I write this on resistance, for what is one without the other? I have noticed of late that, as I have certain intentions that are trying to promote movement in my psyche and in my life, I have equal parts of resistance cropping up that avoid such movement, instead keeping things static. This feeling of being "stuck" is the result.

I have noticed that in myself, often this feeling of resistance is that of backward movement. It is the grave reaching up to swallow any newborn life back to whence it came. The womb that gives birth equally becomes the tomb. The nature of the intention is irrelevant. Usually, though, attempts at individuality and order in my life get the axe. Such things devolve back into a moody chaos. It's as if some part of me strives toward achievement, but another part yearns equally for non-existence.

For me, this is a perfect embodiment of my Saturn-Neptune square that crosses my first and tenth house. It's angular, so it makes sense that this square is a defining manifestation of my existence. It really is so archetypal and starkly clear, I can't believe I haven't noticed it more before.

Neptune seeks fusion and non-birth. It is the realm to which we belong before life and after death, and as such, life touched by Neptune is a life spent in contact with this anti-here realm and the many roads back to such a place. It's very tricky to live incarnated with such a guiding deity. Any attempts at incarnation (and those that strive for individual, separate existence) are thwarted in the typical Neptunian way: diffusion, moods, confusion, vagueness, etc.

Saturn, on the other hand, strives for incarnation. It is all about the world of form, this earthy and mortal realm in which things are brought into being. It is what we call reality, the world of the senses. For Saturn, if something cannot be grasped with the senses, it isn't real. This sensate world does not deal in potentials and imaginal possibilities.

Both of these planets have intentions. Even Neptune has intention, although its direction is not toward incarnation. Here we are met with two gods with opposite intentions. Their directions move antithetical to each other, so one possessed by both will find oneself crucified, held taught by two equally opposing forced. I might wager that the opposition is in fact not equal, for Neptune would be stronger due to its impersonal nature. Saturn is manageable because it is an inner planet and thus belongs to the ego. Neptune, however, belongs to the collective unconscious, and as such is out of the realm of ego control.

This may explain why, for me, Neptune always wins. Every endeavor for me has gone the way of Neptune. It surfaces for a little while, but then returns to the watery depths from whence it came. This is also the nature of my current resistance. I have shone some honest light on what it is that prevents me from doing what must be done. What I find is a persistent, strong, and very tenacious drive to not incarnate. It is as if a small child is holding on very tightly to something, refusing to grow up and leave mother. There is a part of me that is eternally this child. Small wonder that I had terrible separation anxiety. My friend is in therapy right now and has had the insight that many things stem back to the parental relationship. In many ways, we have not grown psychically beyond a certain age, despite our bodies having matured. Some of us are stuck at age four, even though we are 32. Here is an excellent example: I would guess that, if one has some strong Neptune around, one is perpetually an infant.

This is the resistance for me. Saturn is saying, "You must grow up. You must contribute things to society and find your place. You must be an adult, self-sufficient and separate. It is time to grow up." Neptune, on the other hand, is saying, "I don't want to be alone. I just want to go home. I never wanted to be here in the first place. I just want to stay with you and be one. Please don't leave me." Neptune wants to stay in the Garden of Eden, and Saturn points out the fact that we are in the wasteland and must learn to live there.

So, here I sit, in between these two gods. I have taken some Saturn steps, but believe me, they are slow going, for I have great resistance to them. Maybe this is part of what my sacred marriage dream means? I'm not sure yet, but let me tell you, it feels miserable. This same dilemma has emerged time and time again throughout my entire life, and I may venture to say that it defines me. Yes, there are the Scorpionic/Plutonian parts of me, too, but this may be the big one.

The only way through, I'm feeling right now, is just to trust my Self and keep an ear to the ground. I have to trust that some objective psyche in me knows the way and is guiding me. I believe this is what is referred to as faith.

Intentions

2009-12-15T17:06:00.003-05:00

A few things.

First of all, I've been noticing some synchronous phenomena a lot lately. It seems like a lot of my inner self is meeting me on the outside, which is kind of cool. Although I would prefer some different circumstances, that's how it's been going, which on some level is at least reassuring. It's like something is communicating with me, and I like that. It bestows that sense of meaning, purpose, teleology. I wonder if this has anything to do with my progressed Moon being one degree from conjunction with my natal Uranus? I've read that Uranus is the planet concerned with synchronicity, so hey, makes sense. Why should Uranus be concerned with synchronicity? I mean, that's a property of the unconscious anyway, really no one planet should have a monopoly on it. But, Uranus does have to do with sudden knowledge and insight, and synchronous phenomena are rather surprising and insightful. Well at the very least, it has alerted me to pay more attention and to look at life more in terms of inner and outer being united. I often have been looking at outer events as if they were part of my inner psychic life, which is quite rewarding. It does have that sense of connecting me to something more profound, more purposeful.

So, the second point is that of intention. I was discussing this with Michael on Sunday and it struck a chord. One thing I remember reading is that thought precedes action. Every action begins with a thought, or, one could say, an intention. I think, too, Alice Bailey ascribed Mercury as the esoteric ruler of Aries. Looked at as thought combined with action, it makes sense. I also was thinking of Mars and how, when one is disconnected from it, one has no drive and goes nowhere. If you don't know what you want, your life has no direction. It's just a diffused floating around on an ocean, drifting here, there, and everywhere. Also, life seems to have no meaning. I mean, Mars is the fighting arm of the Sun, that which drives meaning onward and actualizes it in a desire and goal. Michael said something to me that really made me come into focus: Our lives are defined by the intentions we do follow. There may be many intentions floating around up there in the head, but the ones we do actually follow define who we are.

To a Saturnian sense, yeah, that's true. Whatever becomes actualized and hits ground is what defines us. Now to a Neptunian on the other hand, that may not be true! Who you are is defined by the intentions themselves probably, those that are floating around up there, even if they never do hit ground. On what level is reality for someone with a foot in the world beyond this one? I never did understand that phrase, "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." But, at least, many things Neptunian happen on the level of the imagination, so that may be as far as they go if we're dealing with this creature.

Still, the thought of intention is intriguing, especially in terms of the potential and the actual. I would see planets in the horoscope as a bundle of intentions. Each has a drive and an intention. The Moon intends nourishment and relation. The Sun intends destiny and purpose. Saturn intends incarnation and restraint. Now, which of them finds fruition? Which get followed? Fascinating. Depending on the balance, some get cancelled out. Here I guess we are back to the chart balance, the emphasis, who is friends with whom, which drives are more powerful. This is basic technique. Angular planets get more weight; their intentions are followed. What's interesting is when you have an angular square, like my Saturn/Neptune-Venus square. That's angular, so it gets the weight and emphasis, yet it's totally contradictory. Who wins? It's so crucial!

Perhaps the unconscious dictates which intentions are to be followed. Is there an objective guide in there? I mean, there are a bunch of intentions clamoring around, and not all of them positive. I'm thinking of the regressive pull of the death drive, that dark feminine who pulls life back into the womb/grave from whence it came. Such fairy tale witches need to be resisted forcefully at all costs (from the point of view of the hero). I suppose at this point I have to default to the Self and the objective psyche and see where my inner genius guides me. One always must keep an ear open for that. And here we are, back to the opening of my post today! I've come full circle, and that seems a good place to stop. So, here's to listening to Self and following the intentions appropriate for the time!

Perfectionism

2009-12-12T14:51:00.003-05:00

Perfection. One of the many demons that can plague a human soul. It sits in the pantheon along with compulsion and its friend, obsession, melancholy and depression, and escapism. AKA, Pluto, Saturn, and Neptune. I suppose I could have thrown Jupiter and rampant indulgence in there, too. Forgive me for being a little negative, but I don't think any of these big guys come with an easy ride and a free lunch. I just can't be totally positive about them, and while I see the potentials, I've had enough experience to know that these guys cause problems, too. Or should I say, there's something about us that has a hard time incorporating these gods into our lives without feeling totally overwhelmed by them. And I have the best of all of them, so let's talk about it.

Perfectionism isn't something that confronts me on a daily basis, and I don't really give it credit unless I'm being crushed under it actively. However, I think it's a much bigger problem for me than I realize, and recently it's hit me over the head in a big way. I used to think perfectionism was a Saturn problem, and while I knew in my head that it was more related to Uranus (based on books I'd read), I still had a hard time taking it away from Saturn.

Saturn, after all, can be so defensive. It sets a standard and points out what you must achieve. It makes you aware of the top of that mountain and then says, You're not there yet. Get to work. It often is looking at what is lacking, what is missing, as opposed to what's bountiful. It looks at a banquet and sees that there are no dinner rolls, where Jupiter can't get enough of the cake, the fillet, the wine, etc. So, in this way, I think I've had in my mind that Saturn demands a standard of perfection. But is this really the case?

I think there may be a difference between perfection and setting standards. Saturn is, after all, and earthy planet, and therefore is ok with flaw. Saturn knows that nothing is perfect, and that in fact, life may be quite ugly. Saturn can have an acceptance of what is. It sees reality and gets on with it. And if you don't like it? Well, work hard and change it, he says, but realize that you may only be able to so far. Saturn carries an aspect of Fate, and before Pluto, was the god who said: This far and no further. But still, Saturn asks us to make it real, to incarnate it. Things must be carried out of Eden and onto this plane. You must learn to live in the wasteland. So, in this sense, no, Saturn is not about perfection. It is about what you give to the world in concrete form, how you do things. I think Judaism embodies Saturn so much more than Christianity in that Judaism is action-oriented. Christianity is about believing. You must have the belief, and whether or not you do anything about it is second hand. As long as you believe, you are saved. But I think that with Judaism, belief is not as important. It's how you live, what you give back to your community of people. It's so much more about incarnating the fire.

Now, here's where I think Uranus steps in. Uranus is anti-incarnation. Uranus is connected to the Mind of God, the realm of the archetypal where the Forms live in their most form-y. This is where things are truly perfect. And you know, as I write that, I realize that I can't even grasp what that would be like. As a Saturn-incarnated human, I don't even know what perfect is. It's like negative theology: we define ourselves by suffering (Saturn), and that if all things were "perfect", we wouldn't know what to do with ourselves. I think it would literally blow our minds. I am buffeted and crushed under perfectionism, but I don't even know what perfect would be like! How ridiculous is that?!

All the same, I am driven by perfect. I have Sun conjunct Uranus. This is part of my story and my destiny. Where I run into Uranus the most is in trying to bring something from the archetypal realm into this one. I recently did a horoscope reading for a friend and afterwards felt like a complete failure. This happens often. I feel like I have not accurately portrayed or communicated what's in my head, what I'm grasping, my vision. I feel like I'm trying to get someone to understand what's in my head, but that in fact I'm not doing it at all. The other person doesn't "get it". They aren't changed, they aren't burned by Promethean fire. I've failed. I haven't passed my torch.

This plagues me. I ran into this same feeling when I was trying to write a thesis. It was AWFUL, one of the worst experiences of my life. I had an idea in my head but just couldn't get it out properly. Every time I tried I just couldn't do it. Nothing I would write or incarnate in any way was acceptable. This was part of a tapestry of Plutonian depression and death, too, so it was not a good time in my life. But I remember how devastating and frustrating that Uranian pressure for perfection was. I am not looking forward to trying it again, but that I must.

I am seeing Uranian perfection in many areas of my life. Relationships, self-esteem, work. The demand is always there, and with it, an accompanying sense of my rampant flaws. I always strive for it, but when I do finally encounter it, I feel awful because I feel like an ugly piece of crap. Messed up, huh? Why would I pursue such a thing? Because I am touched by a god. I have to concede with that fate and try to manage.

What I am struck by, though, is the combination of factors. See, I have a very strong Saturn (he's right at the top in the 10th conjunct the MC) as well as a very strong Uranus (conjunct the Sun). This is one reason why I've perhaps felt the confusion of the two archetypes. More so, I think these two combine so that you get the defensive standard-imposing of Saturn mixed with the perfectionism of Uranus. Then you're just screwed. These two (Saturn and Uranus) are always battling it out, but I suppose there are ways in which they gang up on you together. They say, Work harder! Be perfect! Show me results! And they'd better be the closest thing to God ever made!

This is the art of the horoscope, seeing the combinations of things. I suppose a strong Uranus in a mainly airy chart wouldn't feel the same as Uranus with a big shot of earth to contend with. It's in the chemistry, the composition of the archetypal array that is a soul. But, we all have a Saturn somewhere, so at some point we run into the problem I'm having. The balance is important, though. I have the two planets in sextile, so perhaps there is some way to make them talk to each other, to resolve this and help them work as a united front.

Still, I have the Perfectionism. I will suffer under it. But I will also try and implement it, to burn with Promethean fire. I should remember that Prometheus suffered, and he suffered a lot. You pay a price for that, and yes, I'm paying it. It hits me on an emotional level (my Uranus is in Scorpio, so...?). It hits me in inactivity. It freezes me, and it hurts. It kills the self-love. I've shed tears for this before. It's not my parents, although since Uranus conjuncts the Sun and is also in the 12th, it suggests something passed down to me, but not just by my personal parents. Even if it was my dad, I am just as demanding of him as he may be of me. It is through him that I learn what perfect is, and also what it is not. I think that through Uranus you learn what flaw is. You need the opposite, so I may wager that through our Uranus we learn what Saturn is, and what it's like to live Saturn. Counterpoint awareness.

Ok, that's as far as she goes today. The fire has exhausted itself for the moment and shall be rekindled later.

Thoughts on Pluto (I know, that's all I ever talk about.)

2009-12-03T17:13:00.002-05:00

My it has been a while. It makes me wonder what I've been doing all this time. Speaking of time, the present is filled with a Plutonian energy. I have been pondering this over the past day, wondering why this should be so. In conclusion, I have to say that since my life is always filled with Plutonian energy (Scorpio Sun, Moon-Pluto conjunction), this is not a new development. The current Saturn-Pluto square makes me think that perhaps the transit is having an effect, but this particular transit doesn't touch off anything in me natally, so that can't be to blame, can it?

I have also started re-reading Liz Greene's "The Astrology of Fate", which is one great essay in Pluto. In my typical mercurial fashion, whatever I'm reading at the time, or holding in my attention, is what I become. The act of reading a text is like a role playing game where, for that time, I truly become the subject of the text. Very protean. I suspect Neptune is at play in this, too, knowing what I know about the Neptunian's capacity for mirroring. Are Pisces people like this? But then, I have that 1st house Neptune, so I get to be like that, too.

So, that's another level on which Pluto is lurking in my psyche. Reading that text again, I'm beginning to suspect that this Plutonian side to me may be terribly more important than I realize in terms of the arc of my life. I already have written here in length on my Moon-Pluto conjunction and how that dictates various social interactions, casual and romantic (if romantic is even the right word- I don't think there's anything "romantic" in the fiery sense about Pluto encounters- they are, as is Hades' mode, more typical of dominance and rape.) But as I re-read the Hillman-inspired words of Greene, I'm starting to feel some of the other faces of the planet.

What captures me is the sense of Pluto's drawing a subject down into the underworld. I suppose on some level I have been aware of Pluto's isolating capacity and that characteristic "back off" stance of Scorpio. But now I'm beginning to see why that is. I am thinking here of the process of death, of what happens when a loved one dies. That death forces a new relationship with the beloved, for you no longer have the physical presence there to relate to anymore. I believe in the clinical terminology, this process is called decathexis, the process by which energy is withdrawn from the object. I suppose a Freudian would call it a redirecting of the libido. I think this is what Pluto is asking of us. We have the yearning to seek out objects in the external world and put our energy into them. Pieces of ourselves get farmed out into various things, but Pluto prevents that by removal of those things. We are then forced to bring that libido or energy back home. This seems like such a painful process because it is part of our nature to want to relate externally and engage with the world "out there". After all, we all have Mars and Venus, desire planets which are externalizing and seek either relationship (Venus) or impact (Mars) with or on the world.

But something in the Plutonian individual says otherwise. These people seem to embody this sense of inwardness, a loss of the outer object and a forced return to the interior. It says, take your energy out of that object and bring it back home. But I have to now wonder, what does one do with that energy once it comes back home? What's the point? When the Fates say, This far and no further, then what?

I still haven't formulated this, but the only thing I can answer with is a feeling, a sense that life is simply lived in a different way. The word "deepened" comes to me, but then that really doesn't describe it. Words fail, as they often do (sorry, Mercury). We are dealing with Pluto here, after all, so I probably shouldn't be surprised that the response I get when I query is a mute silence. Pluto keeps it secrets. Hades is full of shades, not vital flesh and blood. I think all you get is a continuing spiral downward. Maybe eventually you land in the lap of Necessity, but even then I don't think we as humans could comprehend what that would even be like, or what she would have to say if we could hear her speak.

In the meantime, my soul feels in tremendous chaos. It feels as though the whole system will crack and breakdown sometimes. This is the feeling of the form changing, or wanting to change, but meeting resistance. I think the line from The Dark Knight, a story of that wonderfully Scorpionic character Batman, spoken by the Joker says it best, and this quote isn't exact, but: "This is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object." What a perfect Plutonian sentiment. That is part of the chaos and "breakdown" that threatens. There is great need for something transformational, yet it meets great resistance. I don't think Pluto lies in the outcome of such a thing. Pluto doesn't lie in the new life that follows the death. Pluto lies in the transition, in the dying. It lies in that space where the conflict is, where death is pulling at life and life pulls back. Eventually, perhaps the phoenix burns and the struggle is spent. Perhaps that's what a breakdown looks like? A phoenix combusting? Not having had one in the clinical sense, I wouldn't know.

I said to a friend last night that one cannot gain the perspective during a Plutonian experience to say that, yes, I would endure that and not change anything; that is what made me what I am. It's impossible. When you're in that black space, you cannot speak of transformation or other euphemisms. It seems that, only having once gone through it, can one look back with reflection and see that such a titanic process made the human that stands today. But does not the story of Orpheus and Eurydice teach us to not look back? And what if the Plutonian experience lasts an entire lifetime, as it will when Pluto is your guide in the soul???

Burnout: I'm Sick of the Puer

2009-10-03T08:26:00.003-04:00

I find myself turning away from so much in the media, so much that is "out there", from television to merchandise. A lot of it seems to be mass produced quickly and with little substance. I wonder if this is what happens as one matures?

Much of the media and merchandise world out there today seems to be geared toward the puer. It has a "Look at me! Look at me!" quality to it that is very tiresome. While it beckons your attention, its substance is so gossamer and fleeting that as soon as you pay attention to it, it gets bored with you and moves on to something new. As soon as you pay attention to "Look at Me Version A", there's "Look at Me Version B" around the corner shouting at you to come over and take a gander.

Why this "more but with less quality"? Maybe I'm wrong, but as I am in the midst of a Saturn revolution and much in my psyche is shifting around, I am feeling a little resentful of such puer tactics. It's as if so much of the marketplace was aimed at the young, luring them in with the transience that youth is all about. Unfortunately, the young rarely have the means to purchase of consume all of that stuff. It's the saturnine that have the means, yet I can feel them looking in disdain at such pursuits.

I see the pockets in my psyche where I get mystified by the puer and his promises. I own more than a few pairs of expensive jeans, but I will admit that while their image and status symbolism caught me, they have a radiance of quality about them. The denim itself feels different than cheaper jeans; I can feel the threads of the material itself like none before. Also, they fit differently and make me look better in terms of fit and accentuation of, ahem, "the goods".

In another area, I am able to drop that credit card like a very skilled don't-think-about-tomorrow puer. Just look at my instant gratification in terms of perfume purchase. However, I blame the Internet and progress for that, since the concept of money has undergone a massive revolution in the past decade or so. Paper money barely exists any more, as does the concept that you're actually handing something over in terms of real objects.

So, to sum up, I endeavor to focus more on true quality and substance. Yes, mistakes have been made. I have some failures on the wall of shame. Sure, be the puer and live in the moment, for tomorrow never comes. But, whatever you're going to do right now, make sure Saturn says it's worth it.

Dark Waters: More Immersion in My Moon-Pluto

2009-09-28T00:48:00.003-04:00

I just finished reading an excellent article on the Moon by Dana Gerhardt over at Astrodienst. I love the way she writes about various topics and am always pleased to read her words in issues of The New Mountain Astrologer. The Moon is always something I enjoy reading about. For some reason the emotional tides and relationships they inspire are fascinating to me, as well as scary. I am well aware of the vulnerabilities they bring, perhaps because of my oft-mentioned Moon-Pluto conjunction, but the Scorpio Sun reinforces that. So, while the fluctuations and intimacies are mysterious, they are painful, too.

The concept of ebb and flow is emphasized in the article, as it also finds voice in Darby Costello's book. I feel especially sensitive to that, and for some reason the ebb bothers me. Well, I shouldn't say "for some reason" because I know why. Pluto. Things cut deeply. I suppose I should include the Plutonian ambivalence of toward and away that is so tricky, a theme illuminated brilliantly by James Hillman in his book Pan and the Nightmare. With Pluto, there is both intense desire that inspires the "toward" simultaneous with one's demise and destruction, the resultant fear of which inspires the "away". So it is with emotions, feelings, and relationships when such a complex gets paired with the Moon.

Do I feel that explicitly in my day to day activities the Moon governs? Not so much. There are little pockets in the psyche where that is true, though, all the time. Moon is about memory, and with Pluto attached to it, I'd say that memory is pretty unyielding. I remember talking to two friends at the UAC (astrology conference held a few years back) about my relationship that went horribly wrong, and as I discussed the trauma they asked when it happened. My response surprised them, because the way I was speaking about it, they thought it had happened recently, not nine years ago. But on some level, the Moon-Pluto memory field of constant destruction and death, it's always happening. I am reminded of a phrase oft used by people when discussing the loss of a loved one: "We never get over them. We just learn to live without them."

So, that doesn't hit me every day. Although, I should be careful when I say that because, yes, often, I do walk through that burning ground, if not in a fleeting passing memory daily. I meet it, look at it, and then turn away to continue on with my day.

I say this because the ebb and flow of the Moon's emotional tides is so intense. I often think I try to escape that intensity by medicating it in some way, which my strong Neptune is very good at. That powerful Neptune carries its own pain, and let's not forget that Scorpio Sun in the 12th house. These are tangled themes, each with their own brand of pain, intensity, and longing the gods bring. Each with their bliss, too. Agony and ecstasy, the twins.

The article mentions the Moon-Pluto conjunction, probably popular with astrologers because it's so intense and prone to the dark side (always more interesting the sinners are than the saints). What must your mother have been like! Yeah, I didn't go the Charles Manson route (he also has the conjunction). I could, because with the planets anything is possible. Let's be honest. Liz Greene's Dark of the Soul is very easily about me with all of my outer planet goodness.

But I digress. My mom relationship wasn't all Plutonian darkness. It was, and is, however, Plutonian intensity, perhaps moreso on my part than hers. Actually, the threat of loss was always there. My mom remembers that, when I was born, she had this premonition that she was going to lose me. There is was, Pluto, right at the beginning. (I should add, too, that when I was born, the Moon and Pluto were conjunct, but in my mom's progressed chart, there was a Moon-Pluto opposition.) The feeling was going both ways. She felt she'd lose me, and I dreaded her absence, for it cut so deeply and felt like death. There is always that sense of "I hate you for leaving me and making me feel this way but I can't hate you because then you don't come back and I'll die." What terrible ambivalence.

Even now, I feel that sense of looming disaster and loss. I have always dreaded the day when my mom will die, and even as I write that, I attack the thought with the fervor and cruelty of a lethal animal. How dare you think that- don't you know that if you even think it it will come true?! But even to this day, I fear her loss. I can't express it to her, but that pattern will forever be ingrained in me. Mom will go away, and you'll die. In addition, I fear the pain of that loss, since the emotional intensity is so amped up. I fear that the loss will destroy me, that I won't come back from it. No matter what, feelings, emotions, and Mom are the vehicle for Plutonic destruction. I'm legitimately scared. Can you have looked such a thing in the face, dark eyes staring back out at you from the abyss, and blame me?

So, my Moon experience is at once symbolic, psychic event, and actual mother relationship, flowing outward from me to her, and flowing inward from her to me. It's colored by its conjunction to Pluto, and the two are forever entwined. Everything "Moon" is deepened and made more intense, thus ebb and flow, expression and shut-down, yield as well as isolation for renewal, are intensified. Writing this, I look back on some of the ways I've opened up and made myself vulnerable and I think: what have you done? How could you be so stupid? You know how that's gong to destroy you. Oddly enough, it's the same complex that impels me outward, throwing me into the very darkness of desire and destruction so that I may experience it and fulfil my destiny. You get the whole spectrum. This is what I get as the terms of my incarnation in this life. I suppose if anyone is strong enough, it's a Plutonic individual. Deep down, we know better.

Sing Out, Louise! But Not Too Out.

2009-09-27T03:56:00.002-04:00

I used to be very big into theater. I say "used to be" because lately I can't get into it as much anymore. Well, I should clarify further. I liked musicals. I mean, I still do, but nothing that's come out on Broadway in nearly ten years as spiked my interest. If a musical comes out that has been a movie previously, I won't even give it the time of day. I think that's creative bullshit. I want an original story, an original concept. Yes, yes, I realize that taking something already existing and making a new use for it is indeed creative and original, but there's just something about doing that with a Broadway musical that bothers me. Maybe it's because it's a shameless attempt at catering to tourism and the average middle-American, corn-fed and wandering about Times Square and sitting in those abominations of bleachers now obstructing any traffic flow in the iconic thoroughfare. I make no apologies for my outsider-stance. It's just what I am. In most areas, I am a snob. It's true of perfumery, it's true of art and culture. But, as is true of most snobbery, it masks crippling and soul-crushing self-loathing. Hey, at least I can laugh about it.

So back to the point. Why don't I like musicals anymore? Maybe it fits into my sense of Saturn-based economy. Richard Tarnas has used the word "economy" in connection with Saturn, and I like that. (Hey, with a 10th house Saturn in Virgo, why wouldn't I like that?) Maybe nowadays I'm falling into the less-is-more category. Oddly, I'm simultaneously falling into the extravagant spending category, so figure that one out (I'm guessing it's because my Saturn links up to a Venus/Neptune conjunction in Sagittarius). But this sense of economy has probably always been present. Now I just feel it more, probably due to Saturn-return time. Musical seem to be just "too much" to me. They've never been the most realistic of art forms, but my taste for it has changed. Even the vocal techniques used in musicals are becoming unlistenable. They're not even pretty anymore. The placement of the voice is so far forward, belted, and nasal that I can't stand to listen. Can I get a little more mix, please?

Maybe Saturn's economy doesn't have much of a place in the larger-than-life theater. I was thinking that film would be the more ideal medium for economy since you can be very intimate with the camera. But surely there is a way to please one's Saturnine sense with the theater. Plays probably are more economical, but everything has the capability of being "too much". I just see it even in going to community productions. There's the sense of not-real in terms of the acting because no one has been trained properly and thus they facilitate and come across as false. Saturn like realism, too. If you're not going to do it right, don't do it at all, I say. (Now there's a Saturn phrase for you!) I have the sense of stripping down a show to just actors on a blank stage and seeing how minimal you can go to get the message across.

What I do like about the theater is that it's a playground for archetypes, and getting involved with it puts you in contact with such a great reserve of psychic and life energy. I have a very Plutonic investment in the art of acting and drama with its transformative potential. This combination of psychology and the arts is why I still hope to study in that area. But, whatever I do with it, I'm stressing the economy.

Rising Signs Ruled by Benefics

2009-09-27T03:26:00.004-04:00

I was thinking about rising signs today, those significators of one's outlook on life. I had this little fantasy that those born with the benefics on the Ascendant would lead a more charmed life, a life more prone to success, happiness, optimism, etc. In other words, people with Sagittarius, Libra, or Taurus rising would have happier lives. Silly, huh?

I suppose it merits some thought, though, since Venus or Jupiter would be the chart ruler in those cases, and surely they'd bring some sense of pleasure and success to one's life. Think of them being in charge as opposed to Mars or Saturn. But, it's foolish to think such a generality could be true. Just because Libra is rising doesn't mean you're going to avoid being a total bitch. Or does it?

Maybe in terms of potential it does, but what of the actual? I would think that, if your outlook on life is colored by Venus or Jupiter, that's going to be vastly different than if your outlook is led by Mars or Saturn. Maybe we can't help but make that potential into an actuality. Even if bad things happen, there's still that guiding sense of benevolent meaning and purpose Sagittarius offers or the sense that life is beautiful and pleasureful that Taurus offers. I mean, if you have those signs rising, you are an embodiment of what they represent, no?

Perhaps part of the problem is that no one is just one thing, and that while this one set of archetypes may be guiding one's interaction with the world and one's world-view, there are other things in the psyche that counter that. Sure, Sagittarius may be rising, but what of that Sun-Saturn conjunction? How about that problematic Mars-Chiron conjunction square Uranus?

Furthermore, how much do environments factor in? Does the benefic rising sign harvest good things from the home life and in turn influence interactions with their charm and exuberance, or does it not help at all? It's so hard to generalize and say for certain, since life seems to be about multiplicity and throwing up as many individual possibilities as can be (but hey, maybe that's my mutable rising sign talking?).

Well, I think my working stance is going to be that, yes, benefic rising signs do bestow their gifts. They're important for a reason, so I'm going to give them the credit. My generalizing mind wants to believe that if you're lucky enough to be guided by the benefics, you'll have that charmed life. Maybe on some level it's true.

Defining Humanity with Bloodless Vampires, and Other Returns to Normalcy

2009-09-22T02:04:00.003-04:00

I had another thought on the topic of new media entering the scene. I was watching yet another installment of vampire fiction in the CW's new show, The Vampire Diaries. Since it was the CW I was watching, I wasn't expecting very much in the way of interest; something cliche and formulaic was probably on the menu. So it was. The Vampire Diaries offers nothing new, and it's gorgeous twenty-somethings playing high school teenagers are the only thing preserving any interest. Although, now that I write that, I have to wonder how the series would fare if all of the actors were normal or downright ugly. That would be novel, wouldn't it! Maybe that would keep me interested after all. But let's not be hasty: I'm still going to watch it because I'm a sucker for the supernatural and a pretty face.

But, I have noticed a trend that puzzles me and is a little frustrating. Vampires have exploded onto the scene since the success of Twilight, and Anne Rice is probably pissed off since she thought of it first about twenty years ago. But, these new vampire works are not the same as Rice's. Rice set the tone for the vampire as erotic creature, ushering a transformation of the symbol from monster to object of dangerous desire. With Rice's lusty overtones (thanks to her work as a writer of erotic fiction no doubt), vampires had that sense of desire that could kill you. I may be projecting this into her work because it's been more than ten years since I read Interview with a Vampire. Vampires entered consciousness as an object of desire that could kill you. Need I draw the parallels to sex in the era of AIDS? I suppose sex always has had that ability to kill, as STDs are not new. But, I have to wonder when Interview was written, for it couldn't have been long after AIDS became a widespread issue.

So, vampires are erotic. Great. But now, vampires have lost their blood. Now vampires abstain. Maybe this is another reaction to dangerous desires? Vampires all either abstain altogether or put condoms on, so to speak. If a vampire actually does what he's supposed to do and drinks human blood, he's the bad guy. The vampire emerges as a hero now, something noble that wrestles with what he is and the urges of his body. He doesn't kill people, because that's wrong. He suffers. See Twilight, The Vampire Diaries, the BBC's Being Human (which I just finished watching). What's going on here?

All things go through fads, but why do we have this character who doesn't accept what he is, doesn't give in to his nature? What kind of commentary are we making here? Is it so bad to fall into your body's needs and be what you are? Or, does what you are lie in the struggle? Does that sense of self emerge as a conflict between good and evil, abstinence or immersion?

These vampire characters are created by humans who are making commentary on what it is to be human. They're describing the human condition from an outsider's perspective. We've always been doing this, describing the normal by using a counterpoint of the abnormal. It's very Libra: I find myself by looking at the Other and seeing what I am not. It's Me versus Not-Me. I feel all of the air signs have this sense of dialogue about them. I'm sure this has been going on a lot longer than my little existence, but I've always been a fan of things supernatural. The X-files has been showing us the rare and abnormal since back in the 90s, and now we even have a show called Fringe that shows us what normal is by showing us the things that happen on the fringe.

Why are we so obsessed with that which lives on the fringe? It's always the exotic, the different, the freakish, the taboo that we tell stories about. Those things hold our interest, not the minutiae and mundane details that occupy our daily existence (aka, Virgo- but that's only on the surface, as I've articulated elsewhere). Take Desperate Housewives in its obsession with the counterpoint between normal and not-normal. The everyday acceptable of Wisteria Lane is ripe with a seedy underbelly of murder, sex, betrayal, and exploitation. We can't have just normal. We have to throw in the freakish to lend things any interest.

When I studied statistics, I learned about standard deviation. You had the mean, the average, and then you had your standard deviation that explained mathematically how much a given data point deviated from that mean. You could go one standard deviation away, two, or even (god forbid) three standard deviations away, at which time that data point would probably be thrown out because it wasn't representative of the sample. In math and statistics, those are the points that are not wanted. But when it comes to entertainment, those are the exact points we want! Those are the points we tell stories about! All of the X-files lie three or more standard deviations away from the mean! Those are the points that are interesting. For some reason, we are invested in those points, for they give our lives excitement and drama. They offer vitality, be they pain or pleasure (which makes me wonder if we are not all sadists or masochists on some level).

So, those are the two things on my mind: the seeming obsession with the abnormal (which probably isn't new, but we do have Heroes, Fringe, the Vampire Diaries, Ghost Whisperer, LOST, just to name a few on television right now), and the use of the abnormal to make a statement about what it means to be either human or normal. But apparently, we don't want to be normal, because all we focus on is the different and strange. It begs the question: is anybody normal? And what is normal? This opens up another level of discussion I traveled down when I started my abnormal psychology class.

This dialogue between the conventional and the radical is echoed in two places. One, it smacks of the coming Age of the Aquarius and our shift in consciousness, because this dialogue between the conventional and the radical is exactly what Aquarius is all about with its two rulers, Saturn and Uranus. Second, Saturn and Uranus are in opposition right now and have been for some time. The theme is repeated.

I don't have any answers for this, and I wonder what it says about me when I want a vampire to just be a freakin' vampire and drink blood. I'm a little sick of the "noble vampire" as a cultural symbol, and I wonder what that says about us as a society. I suppose we can keep being inventive and telling stories about the weird and fantastical as it runs head on into "normal". I think we tell stories about the unique, strange, different, and special because, hey, it's the Sun! All of those words are what the Sun is about. And is it not the Sun's job to tell stories and be creative? Maybe we're just looking into our own navels and being narcissistic. Oh well. What else should we expect from a culture obsessed with the Sun? And how interesting that we have this focus on the unique and strange being used to describe normal when the Sun rules the sign opposite Aquarius. We move into the Age of Aquarius and the mode shifts and we are engaged in this dialogue that emphasizes normality (group consciousness perhaps?) and we are looking directly at the Sun, the concept totally opposite. Maybe there a handshake going on under the table as the two opposites talk to each other above...

Television Metaphors

2009-09-21T19:30:00.003-04:00

It's time for the new television season to begin. Old shows are coming back this week and new ones begin shortly, or have already begun. Heroes starts tonight, a show which I loved in its first season but which has also proven disappointing in its subsequent chapters. It fell into the same trap in which all new shows seem to fall: the second story sees fragmentation of plot and characters. First seasons of tv shows are unified. There's an overarching theme or mystery to be solved that binds the characters. Indeed, we are often introduced to characters in ways that link them together, forming a nice unit of people in our minds and hearts. We see them relate, we see them love, we see them work together and share in the effort to find out why Mary Alice killed herself or to save the cheerleader and save the world.

Thus, we have fallen in love with a show. However, season two begins and things are different. As we watch, what we knew is no longer there. Without the unifying theme of season one, the shows become less interesting. They fall apart, they disappoint. For some reason, writers take characters off in different directions, no longer heeding the sense of unity and relationship founded in the first installment. This inevitably leads to disaster. Why?

I don't know what it is about the fragmentation that is so bad for television series. I've head that True Blood did the same thing, and yet again I lamented. But humans are built around fragmentation. We have the multiplicity of the planets within us, so why should this be a bad thing? We can hop from Venus to the Sun to the Moon, stepping into different compartments and aspects of ourselves as the situation requires. Is this not like entering into season two of a tv series?

Surely the characters in our souls are not always talking to each other, going about their different agendas in their own ways. If the planets in the chart aspect each other, then they have little choice but to interact. Yeah, I suppose you can try to get them to sever the tie, but it probably doesn't turn out well. Things get pathological when that happens, and when the unfavored planet gets repressed or goes unconscious in some way, it ends up taking control despite conscious effort. So, that's that. Aspect ties are binding.

But then there's little clusters of characters in the soul that perhaps don't talk as much. That Saturn Venus square doesn't really talk to the Sun Uranus square very much. The Moon has little to do with Mars in my chart. All well and good, I suppose. But still, is there not an underlying sense of unity? What is it that unites all of the disparate aspects and planets in a soul to create the sense of a single human being? What harmonizes and creates integrity?

Perhaps a tv series in its fragmenting second season is like a person with no access to the Sun. Even saying that, I question the Sun's role in this unifying capacity because the Sun is yet another planet, another archetype, a character of its own with personalized agenda and goals. But, the Sun does have that overarching combining sense to it, doesn't it? That's what ties it all together in a single human destiny and sense of meaning and purpose for a given life. Despite a Saturn Venus square, a trine from Mars to Neptune, a Moon in Libra, the Sun has to bring it all together with its sense of individuality, destiny, and purpose. All of it has to eventually get channelled through the Sun.

That "Sun sense" is probably what we're introduced to in the first season of a show. That first season is saying, this is who I am, this is what I do, this is what I bring in my own special way. Why we deviate from that, I'm not sure. It's still there, ok, I'll admit. The tv show still has the same characters and the same title, mostly the same locations. But why doesn't it work anymore when they fragment? I'm all for exploring deeper into one aspect or another, but maybe they just don't remind us enough of the original unity. Maybe they're not coming back to the Sun enough. It makes me wonder though...can you ever really get away?

Reading into the Saturn-Pluto Cycle

2009-09-17T04:19:00.003-04:00

Sunday as I was traveling home from Traverse City I was continuing in my reading of Cosmos and Psyche. I was on the section devoted to the Saturn-Pluto cycle, and my goal was to finish that section, which I did. But let me tell you, it was no easy task. I found it very emotionally taxing, and many times I was on the verge of stopping for not being able to stand it any longer. Perhaps I am a creature of lighter, more uplifted fabric, despite my frequent wanderings in melancholy, but reading about the depressive, dark, violent, and just plain terrible manifestations of Saturn-Pluto combinations was a prison of torment and despair. Appropriate, yes? It seems like all of the worst that mankind has to offer is served up under these two iron giants. I had my ipod on, listening to music while reading, and I was pulled toward classical music that reflected what I was reading. One of these selections was Barber's Adagio for Strings, which was first premiered under a Saturn-Pluto trine. I had guessed, given the tone of this piece and knowing that Barber wrote music in the early half of the 20th century, that the piece would fall under Saturn and Pluto. I was expecting one of the harder aspects, but I guess a trine works, too. It was performed on its own (not as part of a larger symphony) in 1938, a year before the second world war began in Europe with the invasion of Poland. Listening to the piece in my reading context brought forth the utter despair and anguish. At the climax of the piece, it sounds like the strings are actually screaming, and I thought at the time that this is what it must sound like when angels are crying out in heartbreaking pain and sorrow. The piece was played at the happening of September 11th, too, later on in another Saturn-Pluto cycle. I believe I was reading the poem, September 1, 1939, at the time. It was truly eerie.

Another piece I listened to while reading that section was Bernstein's Chichester Psalms. Again, the music was perfectly fitted. The piece premiered in 1965 when Saturn and Pluto were square (with Saturn squaring the Uranus-Pluto conjunction). The second movement, with its juxtaposition of the beautiful Psalm 23 and the strife-ridden, haunting Psalm 2, was most apt. The music speaks far more than just the words could with its heartbreakingly beautiful opening that sounds like a choir of angles eventually layered over the barking, cacophony of war demons. It made me truly sad, for it seemed like war and strife were inevitable. Saturn and Pluto would always get together and humanity would be plunged into conflict and terrorism. The profound questions of Why? echoed in my heart, and it echoed because there was no answer, only empty questioning and inevitability.

It makes me fear for next year when the cardinal grand cross hits. Once again, Saturn, Pluto, and Uranus will join. After having read the section on Saturn and Pluto in this book, I am not hopeful.

That same night I went to see the movie 9, a "fairy tale" story about nine little creatures created by a scientist, the last surviving human. Mankind had destroyed itself with technology, and these little dolls were left to live in a robotic apocalypse. What was striking was how the story took place in a simulation of the World War eras and the following Cold War. The movie was not set in a particular time, but the look, architecture, fashion, and technology was all very much late 30s/early 40s. Soldier uniforms were practically copies of Nazis. This is the time when Saturn and Pluto were in hard aspect, and it seems our psyche returns to this time when apocalypse was imminent when we tell stories about destruction. It's like we search the databanks of the soul to find times that are archetypally resonant for what we need. Equally I suppose the story could have taken place in the early 80s when Saturn and Pluto were conjunct, but that time period belongs to another movie that was shocking to me in its nihilism and imminent apocalypse: Watchmen. Instead 9 jumps further back in the cycle.

Interestingly, 9 really highlights the current Saturn-Uranus opposition with its conflict between maintaining order and fighting for liberation. The hero of the story, the last and ninth creation, embodies that which breaks through boundaries for humanitarian causes, and he is always in conflict with the oldest and most Saturnine of the creations, number one. One seeks to maintain, preserve, and conserve, for in doing this they will survive. But Nine cares not and is always putting the little group in danger by breaking the rules and going off to save his fellow creations in a brother's keeper sort of way. How timely, Uranus vs. Saturn.

So, there you have it. Sunday's theme was Saturn-Pluto, in terms of reading, music, and film. Heavy stuff.

My Saturn Return is Here!

2009-09-17T03:50:00.002-04:00

First things first: it's official! My Saturn return is here! Saturn's transit through Virgo has reached 24 degrees, it's place at my birth. And the Sun is also at 24 Virgo today, so the focus is really heightened! I feel a real sense of excitement, despite the dreaded reputation of the Saturn return. This is a special time in my life, and though it may be lined with hardships and some serious gravity, it is also a very rare event that deserves a bit of celebration! This is the next chapter of my life, a door opening through which I shall pass and not be the same again. The first thirty years (almost!) of my life have gone by, and I stand on this new threshold. I feel as if all that has gone before was another life, a place of the past. What happened there needs to be realized as part of the past. I think especially here of my relationship with Shane, my ex, which has been such a scar and deforming factor thus far. I look back and see that I was a mere 21 year old, still young and idealistic. We were both young. My psyche was in motion, ready for both the most amazingly happy experience of my life, as well as the most devastating and soul-crushing. Pluto was moving over my natal Venus-Neptune conjunction while Saturn was opposing that. (September 11th was to happen merely a few months later upon my return to the US). While I realize there was a hand of fate and a development at work there, things touch and scar deeply and have a very long life in me (with a Moon-Pluto conjunction, what do you expect?).

I have felt these last few days that this time is in my past. I have moved far away from it now, and while it does still live on and shape my present, I realize that I must move forward. It is no longer a time to remain stuck in the feelings of despair and hurt. This is a theme for many things. I hear the voice of Saturn within say that it is time to move forward. No longer can I blame that which happened in the past. I am who I am now, a man that rests on the foundation of all that came before. It's time to gather all of that up, harvest it, and let it yield its fruit. All things come and go in their time, and I hear the whisper that says it is time to let some things go so that new fruit may grow in the coming half of my life. In this there is a profound self love that seems contrary to the hard and stony hand of Saturn. But Saturn can also be the bucolic, the lord of the field and flower. I can feel a protective encircling of the soul here, a unity that breeds serenity. Saturn is also the Lord of Fate, Destiny of Neil Gaiman's Sandman series, who reads the story of my unfolding life in his great book. The feeling of all things in their time and all things for a reason moves through me like a warm wind. I feel all the various gods and goddesses that form the fabric of my soul look toward a center being, a bright light that stands in the center of them all and beckons them to look inward as one and yield a true sense of self. This is my guiding genius (in the Roman sense of the word), my daimon perhaps, the one who sits at the very seat of my soul. Saturn looks, too, and in the times when I can access this genius, it is profoundly moving and beautiful. It is quite amazing to see the fragments (the gods, goddesses, planets) look in unison and be called toward this genius. All derisiveness and separation becomes unified, brought together in the structure of my very being that Lord Saturn rules. I am left wondering why I fight against myself so often. I know that there are various parts that do not get along, but why so? If I may look towards my genius, can I not more readily bring these parts of me together? To look so is to look into God within man.

This is the best of what I believe the Saturn return has to offer. Well, I should say Saturn all the time, not just during the return, but since the time is right, Saturn gets rightful attention. I had the sense of this unifying genius this morning as I lay in that foggy land between asleep and awake. I am going to try and hold this theme within my heart as I move through this time of re-evaluation. It is both a beginning and an ending, and I know it will be challenging. I feel the fear of that challenge in the pit of me, but as I recall a friend saying, fear is about the past or the future, not the present. I know Saturn is about the past and that which endures through time, but I think Saturn is about reality and the present, too. I shall also try to be with him in the present and build the place of serenity now that may be carried into the future. I have to wonder if Saturn holds the key to timelessness...the past is always becoming the present, which is in turn always becoming the future. The lines really begin to blur.

So, welcome. I celebrate me today and an old past, a unified and serene present, and a new future that waits.

My Trip to New York: A Different Me, a Different City

2009-09-09T04:08:00.004-04:00

This weekend I traveled to the east coast with Jessica. She lives in Connecticut, and on two days we took the train into New York City to spend the day.

I've been to New York City several times, having gone when I was in high school to see a string of Broadway shows in a few days over the Thanksgiving holiday. Those trips were generally fun, and I saw some great shows. That was back when Broadway carried some magic for me. Since then, they seem to just be making musicals out of movies, which in my mind is an absolute tragedy. I am snobbish at my best when I won't even give those works the time of day.

My most recent trip to New York City before this was back in 2002 (not counting the 12 hours I spent there to see Wicked. FYI, don't ever, ever go to the city and not book a hotel room, even if you're only going to be there less than a day). I was with my ex (he was my partner at the time, though), and on this trip something clicked in me that said, "I hate New York". It just felt hectic, intense, crowded, dirty, and dismal. The "vibe" was all wrong. I hated the urban setting, and being there was simply not harmonizing with me. So, verdict settled. New York is awful.

Well, here's a testament to how people change. This weekend was loads of fun. I very much enjoyed both of my trips to the city. Why? Here's what I think.

First of all, my Saturn return seems to have awakened in me a huge sense of materialism. Not surprising, eh? Something has triggered in me, and I think that something is my Saturn square Venus-Neptune. It seems the fashion and luxury aspect of Venus-Neptune is getting a really good concrete expression. Ever since Saturn got within orb of Venus (she's first, at 15 degrees Sagittarius, with Neptune at 20), I've opened up to the world of clothing and perfume. My perfumery obsession exploded out a year ago when Saturn got to Venus. My sense of fashion is slowly getting an overhaul, too. Witness my wardrobe now full of designer jeans. My "look" has changed very much. I suddenly pay more attention to how I present myself.

What's this got to do with my weekend in New York City? Well, obviously New York is the fashion capital of the country. It's a treasure trove of luxuries! All of my perfumes are there- the Frederic Malles, the L'Artisans, the Le Labos, even the uber-niche brands over at Aedes (which I sadly didn't make it to). All of the luxuries I covet are in that city, so of course it's going to be different now! I was in full Venus-Neptune force! I think even Saturn is happy because it seems that (Venus-Neptune) is what must be incarnated at this time. (Saturn is also there reminding me of the bill to be paid.) I didn't even go into the theater district this time- it was all the shopping district.

I even had a great food luxury experience, dining in Little Italy with Jessica at a great restaurant. Now I'm ordering wine with dinner where I never used to before. Hell, this time we had not one but two bottles of wine! It seemed this trip was full of sensual pleasure, which contrasts so much to my last seemingly disastrous visit. I suppose it helps, too, that the person I was with is one of my best friends, not my partner with whom I was arguing all the time. Company counts. (It makes me sad that my partner, who was supposed to make me happy, was such a source of contention that trip.)

So, hey, people change! Planets move, and different parts of you come out to play. I wouldn't have thought a Venus-Neptune pairing would have been so accented, but that's where I've been this last year, and so it is! This trip to the city was able to be a part of that, and it felt good! It even felt good walking through Central Park with all the people of the city relaxing and enjoying the recreation of the public holiday. So, I suppose I get to redefine New York City as an urban source of pleasure, thanks to the gods of my being! Now, I'm a little afraid as to what the gods of my credit card will have to say...

My Air Travel Companions: Saturn and Pluto

2009-09-09T03:35:00.002-04:00

You'd think that with a Sagittarius Ascendant the concept of travel would be something I'd fit into nicely. Wrong. I'm thinking specifically of air travel here, which is basically a terror all around. I don't think I'm alone here, but the total absence of control as a passenger on an airplane makes for more adrenaline than blood flowing through my veins. I imagine my Moon-Pluto button is getting pushed like crazy, and the events of 9/11 did nothing to help that. It's so much worse now, and my imagination is flooded with possible scenarios of my impending death. And let's not ignore that classic Plutonian paranoia and suspicion running rampant in my psyche. So much for harmony and peace between the races. Paranoia and an all-bets-are-off brand of survival instinct are just fine with prejudice.

I brought along my copy of Darby Costello's The Astrological Moon to read in the airport and on the plane because it comforts me, appropriately enough. Both the subject matter and her presentation are profoundly appeasing, and I am able to enter that Moon-space through her words. I owe her a great debt. However, it did make me think about the status of my own Moon, which for those unfamiliar with my chart (aka, everyone), is conjunct Pluto straddling the 10th/11th house cusp. I'm interpreting the conjunction as going back and forth between the 10th and 11th houses, as if one partner is in one room holding hands across the threshold with the other partner in the next room. I can be rather uncomfortable in large crowds. The 11th house aspect of "society" and "groups" plays out in this respect. With the Moon-Pluto in the 11th, there is that specter of death and destruction linked up to large groups of people. I am generally eyeing the exits and developing my strategy for when things eventually blow up. I can recall being in restaurants and letting my imagination run on this theme, wondering what would happen when that Plutonian terrorist bursts through the door and starts shooting up the place. I can also remember attending a rally or demonstration of some sort when in Australia at a public location and it was one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my life. To me, the crowd en masse is threatening. The advent of public terrorism in the wake of 9/11 in this country has exacerbated this already innate instinct.

So, there's that aspect of air travel: death and destruction. Fun stuff, eh? Well, the other aspect is much less threatening yet ceaselessly annoying because it pushes another of my buttons: the Saturn button. I think I've written about this somewhere on here before, but nothing gets my Saturn going more than a trip on an airplane. Suddenly I become very aware of proper conduct and rule-following. And why not? Otherwise it would be chaos. We need those rules. Yet, there are always those that push against those rules and attempt to break them. Or, they see just how far they can go and walk right up to that limit. I'm thinking of the woman who got up to use the lavatory, despite the seat belt sign being on. This of course means "don't get out of your seat," as was explained numerous times by the flight attendants. So what does she do? She gets up. "But I have to use the restroom" she says. Well you know what? Tough shit, lady. We're landing soon and the sign is lit up. Do you think you are the lone exception and that rules don't apply to you?

Then there's the guy who's cell phone rings while we're taking off. Fucking hell, we're all going to die, I think. I mean, come on. Haven't we all been on planes enough to know that you turn off all cell phones and electronic devices until they tell you it's safe to use them? I remembered this the instant I sat down in my seat. Yet here we are, speeding up and practically taking off when the guy proceeds to have a conversation on his cell phone. I could have turned around and smacked the guy senseless. Where the hell do people get off thinking they don't have to follow these rules? The more people you have in one place, the more crucial rules become. I can hear my inner Saturn screaming at these rule-breakers and going berserk at their stupidity.

Now the really fun part is that, in other aspects of my life, I feel myself to be totally exempt from rules and flaunt them actively. I do have a Sun-Uranus conjunction, after all, and my Promethian thief will be damned if I have to follow some of those rules. Did I mention that this conjunction squares Mars? It does. So, flash to me in the airport being a good Saturn boy and The Enforcer of Rules, but cut to me, say, at work being the willful Sun-Mars-Uranus, Fuck You I'm Not Doing That, guy. (I also have Saturn in the 10th so my workplace persona is a combo of these two.)

So, there you have it. I can't be a total hypocrite. But damn it, I know how to behave on an airplane! Incidentally, this is the same complex that kept me, as a child, from being the little terror that runs and screams all over restaurants. I don't care if you are a little boy and have "extra energy" (as opposed to a docile girl). I fear for my potential child when it crosses my Saturn parent and my lightning quick retaliation. However, I can imagine myself at my Mercurial best when I had picked up the word "fuck" and repeated it loudly at a restaurant around age 2.

My Response to the Clock Ticking

2009-09-03T07:29:00.002-04:00

I wanted to respond to my last post while my thoughts were still fresh!

My immediate response was: gratitude. I felt in that sense of finite time and the fear of "just one more day" the need to step into that space of gratitude where I take in my surroundings, soak it up, and be thankful for it. I felt, (and feel) the need to recognize those things I love in my life and which make me happy and contact them: know them, appreciate them, be thankful for them. Isn't that funny? The answer to Saturn was Jupiter.

I also felt the need to be virtuous, to embody those things we've defined as virtues. I can't even list them off right now, but I am taken back again to that Speaking of Faith interview, "Biology of the Spirit" where virtues were discussed. The point was that, what makes us feel good the most is living a virtuous life. There's the old adage that I suppose sums it up best: Virtue is its own reward. There's something about making others feel good that makes you feel good yourself. To be moral, to be supportive and in service to Life naturally, for some reason, feels good. This is what also came to me when pressed by the fear of mortality and time. Care of other people came to me.

I was already imagining scenarios telling the people I love in my life that I do in fact love them. I believe I've expressed this sentiment somewhere in blogging here before: that I don't tell the people in my life what they mean to me. I started my Eulogy Now project just for that reason. It seems that feeling has surfaced yet again and begs to be fleshed out and created more.

So, astrologically, what came to me when Saturn came to my door reminding me that time is finite and that you'd best not be wasting it? Jupiter and Venus. In response to the Great Malefic, the two Benefics answered. I think there's a great gift in that. It seems a sad thing that only through the painful do we recognize and really take note of the lovely and blessed. Perhaps they need each other after all.

I suppose I shouldn't leave Mars out of the picture, since it is he who has bearing on what is virtuous. To expand on that I'll have to go back to those Mars lectures I have because I am only getting the association of Mars to virtue and nothing else as to why.

The clock ticking seems to bring out what's best in you, doesn't it? Interesting how that works.

If Heaven Can Wait, Talk to Fate. Give Me One More Day.

2009-09-03T04:51:00.002-04:00

I'm sitting here at work listening to Patricia Barber's song, "The Hours" off her album Mythologies. It's fantastic. So perfect for those late night hours, which adds to my theory that jazz is best listened to at about 3am and later.

But, the song is brilliant. It's about time and mortality. The chorus goes: If heaven can wait, talk to fate. Give me just one more day.

I suddenly had a crisis of existence hearing that. As I sit here doing menial work that means nothing to me and is, basically, a waste of time, I thought to myself...Oh my God...this is my life. I suddenly felt with all force and impact the sense of waste and nothingness. I thought, what if I die tomorrow? Or right now? This will have been how I spent my existence. This is what defines my life.

Then, I think, how do I fill this meaningless crap with some sense of purpose? How do I connect with something that makes this matter in some way shape or form? So far, the most purposeful thing have been to listen to this song, for it connects me to something greater. Is that what life is about? Connecting to something greater?

At any rate, I feel, as I have felt many times here, "I have to get out of here."

Can it be possible, to change my world in such a drastic swipe? I need money. I have bills to pay. I have to put up with this meaningless nothing so I can do that. But how do I not get stuck in it, not get comfortable, so I can have my vision fixed on something else? I don't even have a sense of vision fixing on anything- that so far has not been something that I'm good at. Well, not even good at. It hasn't defined me in any way.

It really makes me think- we take existence for granted so much. But this sense of the menial, of the waste, is pervasive. It's dangerous, too, because these are the little things that make the clock tick, make the world run. Somebody has to do them. But they feel awful! This, my existence as it is, feels awful! How do I change that? How do I make every day, even if it is filled with this, matter? How do I make it feel like I've done something, connected to something?

Making every day matter makes one have to answer the question: what does life mean? That's heavy. Somehow, in the every day, we have to find the meaning to it all. (Is that reflective of my Jupiter being in Virgo?)

Tomorrow Belongs to Me...But What About Today?

2009-09-03T03:03:00.004-04:00

Two things inform today's post. First is the interview on Speaking of Faith I listened to entitled "Biology of the Spirit", and second is Richard Tarnas' "Cosmos and Psyche".

Something at the end of the radio interview (S of F) got me thinking. The guest, a doctor whose experience in medical practice helped create his sense of spirituality, said something about the changing field of the human mind. He mentioned that when the existence of DNA came to be known around the 1950s, nobody was talking about it. It had not entered mass consciousness. Nowadays, everyone knows what DNA is. There is that sharp contrast between the just-emerging item breaking into the flow versus the item well-entrenched and swimming with the current, just another fish among millions. This applies to many concepts, of course, but it speaks to the constantly changing field of human consciousness.

Tarnas' book talks about cycles of outer planets, again, mirroring the constantly changing field of human consciousness. The outer planets seem to be those large movements of collective consciousness, the things which are emerging and making alterations, transforming us. Notice, too, how these are slow moving mechanisms.

Linking these two sources together, I am confronted with those moments when humanity jumps ahead in leaps and bounds, or when the impulse is shot forward that will leave irrevocable change in its wake. But more importantly, I am left with the question: what about now?

It's all well and good to look at the great changes that are in the making, but those take time. Yes, the collective, as well as the individual that is part of that collective, is altered, but there is the level of individual life that runs up against humanity as a species. I'm thinking more here of Tarnas' book where he talks about great cycles of epochal revolution, such as the Uranus-Pluto cycle that brought about, say, the French Revolution. Sure, such a cycle changed humanity, ushering in the spirit of liberation, advances in human rights, etc. But, what if you were an individual trying to make it through that bloody revolution alive? Liberty and fraternity don't mean shit when it's your head on the guillotine.

Think, too, of the advances we're making in medical research. Sure, there are breakthroughs happening and new things learned that will bring about great changes, but those changes are far down the road. That is little comfort when you're looking death in the face. The entire group hasn't caught up yet, and the new knowledge hasn't become firmly entrenched. You're still going to die.

This is the dance I think Saturn and Uranus are doing, or also Saturn and Jupiter to an extent. I suppose it's the dance that Saturn and all of the outer planets are doing, but I suppose I've been focused a bit on scientific and technological advance, which is more Uranus' realm. I see Uranus as that sudden bolt of insight, that breakthrough and eureka moment. That is instantaneous. It enters into humanity in perhaps an individual, or many individuals at once as the time is right (think of the theory of evolution engendered in two different men independent of each other at the same time in history). Saturn, however, is the principle of time, and once that idea becomes incarnated (Saturn), it starts to move much more slowly. It's like Uranus throws it down in lightning speed and form, but then Saturn's hands catch it and slow it down drastically and put it through the molasses of age and form-building. What an unpleasant adjustment! It's no wonder people have such trouble with it.

I think this key to "what do we do right now?" lies with Saturn in some way. Change is happening, but it hasn't yet reached us. Or, let's look at that conversely- change is happening powerfully because the revolution is on your doorstep- what do you do now? How do you survive? It's hard because you have to be solid enough and structured so that you can live in the now and not commit suicide because it feels so damn bad or waste away through the bottle or the needle (insert other addiction here). Yet, you also have to be fluid enough to be open when the collective does change and that Neptunian or Uranian idea starts to flow through the whole group, altering the pattern and reworking what humanity is at any given time. Hmm, that makes me think...I bet all of the outer planets exist outside what we know as time, don't they? They exist outside of Saturn's boundary, so....

So, I think you have to be able to "pull it together", a Saturn phrase if there ever was one. The change shatters, but we still have to be good at pulling it all together. I'm thinking of how hard that must be when you're an individual under the influence of one (or all) of the outer planets. Look at me: I have a Sun-Uranus conjunction in the 12th, a Moon-Pluto conjunction, and a Neptune-Venus conjunction in the 1st. Yet I also have Saturn in Virgo in the 10th. What a war I get to play out...so many things say "Break it apart!" yet Saturn still says "Pull it together!".

I am suddenly reminded of a phrase from that same radio interview: Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.

The change feels like a kind of death. The great cycles impede on your life, shatter what you know of as reality, and drag you kicking and screaming into a new world. So, it seems like you have to be really good at accepting death (Saturn). Who's good at that? When does that EVER feel good? Geez, don't ever discount Venus. Without her, I fear for my life.

Thoughts Striking While Reading "Cosmos and Psyche"

2009-08-31T03:38:00.003-04:00

While reading "Cosmos and Psyche" again, these thoughts came to mind. Particularly, I was reading the Uranus-Pluto section. In a very Uranian way, these thoughts struck and had to be channeled. This reminds me to read with a pen and paper handy!

Ok, here's what I wrote:

There are times when the gods speak through us, when we as vessels become inhabited by the divine. But what are we when they're not speaking through us, not using us? Are we more human or less human at that point? And are they speaking constantly anyway without our noticing? Can they ever not speak through us? In our mediumistic existence, what does it mean to be alive and human? Are we here so they can speak through us, which is basically like speaking to each other (gods speaking to other gods)? Or is there something that we, as human vessels, can bring to the equation that they cannot? Do the gods, like Aphrodite needed mortal Psyche, need soul?

Questions, questions, questions! I also have been obsessed with the new Imogen Heap album since it came out on Tuesday last week, and the song "Wait It Out" is now among my top 10 songs ever. Well, at the very least the top 20! But the central chorus/theme of the song resonated with these thoughts and questions I had. Here's the chorus:

"Everybody says time heals everything, but what of the wretched hollow, the endless in between? Are we just going to wait it out?"

I think that endless in between is what it means to be human. That's what it means to exist in this reality, this plane of being. When you're on either end, so to speak, you've fallen into an archetype. You're possessed by it. A complex is running the show. Or, you're one point of the chart, say your Venus-Mars conjunction. Or, just Mars or just Venus within the aspect itself. But when you're in between, that's the place where soul lives. That's standing in the middle and containing both sides of a square or opposition, or all points and planets of the chart period. That is the obsession and task of this next chapter of my life, learning what that space in between feels like and how to live there.

I remember Marie Louise von Franz writing something like, when you're possessed by a complex it feels great because it's all one thing. To be in a blind rage feels great because that's all you are: rage. But to step out of it is more difficult because then you have to mediate and be other things, too. You're crucified between many points. That's painful. That's what being human means. Hmm, that's not very pleasant is it? Being human means experiencing the pain of crucifixion? Well, let's hope soul, as guide to spaces between, feels a little better!

A Bit of Confusing Synchronicity

2009-08-31T03:02:00.003-04:00

A few things.

First, I love synchronous phenomena. I've heard from various studies or opinions of psychologically minded individuals that the meaningful chance happenings are much less chancey than I think they are. Still, it sure doesn't feel like it. Just in the last week alone I've had it happen to me twice. Once I had a powerful emotional experience centered around a song my best friend turned me on to, at which point I was thinking of her strongly and had the inclination to text her about it (it was Lullaby For My Favorite Insomniac by the Ahn Trio). At that moment she texted me.

Second, I had a dream that was very powerful and profoundly sad. It was one of those where the emotional charge was so great it woke me up and broke into consciousness. A mere minute after I woke up I got a text from a friend (from whom I never receive texts) using a name from the dream. Freaky. I couldn't go back to sleep because whenever I would get close to unconscious the same themes from the dream would leak up- death, loss, crushing fear that someone I loved was going to die, etc. I walked over to check out transits for that moment, and lo and behold, the Moon was conjunct Pluto.

Now, that last one kind of contained three levels of synchronicity. There was the dream and its content, the transit, and the text, all "hitting" on the same theme. All three things were happening at the same time and were all related. So, why?

How the hell should I know? It's always baffling, a meaningful chance event that leaves you knowing that there is some meaning there, but as to what that meaning is, how do we figure it out? It seems like the meaning is always elusive and unknown. That leads me to believe that it's unconscious in content, just like the Jungian concept of a symbol: an expression that contains an unconscious component that cannot be known. I think Freud had some similar concept that I'm thinking used the term "navel", but where a piece of the symbol led down, down, and down deep into the unconscious and was ultimately unknowable.

I suppose the meaning lies in that my own unconscious is telling me something, that there is another level of life at work within me that is connected to all things in the cosmos. Maybe it's just saying "Trust me." My mercurial consciousness just says, "Ooooo, cool! How'd that happen?! What's that mean?!" Dazzling.

I have to wonder, though, if transits that mirror something in the natal chart are more highly "conductive" than other configurations? For example, I have the natal Moon-Pluto conjunction, and it seems like when that happens in transit, I'm prone to its effect. Perhaps I'm ascribing an effect here that isn't actual, but the synchronicity of late makes me wonder. I mean, if you have a Sun-Saturn conjunction natally, do you feel that more profoundly when it happens in the sky above by transit? Even if it doesn't land on a planet in your natal chart?

It's kind of confusing, too, because it could just be something innate expressing itself. I have the Moon-Pluto thing going on anyway, so why wouldn't I be feeling the specter of death lurking at all times? That's part of who I am, part of my building blocks, so maybe the dream and all that is just something natural to me expressing itself. OR, maybe I'm taking notice of it more because it's reinforced by the transit? I suppose I should take note, too, that the transit was part of the Saturn-Pluto square that's sitting on top of my natal Saturn (it's Saturn return time!), so why wouldn't the themes of decay and mortality be active?

Yikes, it's getting so convoluted. All because I'm trying to find out why all that synchronicity happened! See what happens when you try to walk the labyrinth of the psyche? You get twisted and turned. Where's Ariadne's thread when you need it?

Towards a State of Gentleness

2009-08-16T07:37:00.002-04:00

First of all, I'm wearing two creations by Bertrand Duchaufour, "Kyoto" and "Timbuktu". They are both simply stunning meditations of wood and incense and I can't wait to have more. They are expanding my mind just by their insinuations of spirituality and spaciousness. I am already mindful of sacred space.

Next, while driving to work last night I was thinking more on the theme of gentleness and my current state of soul that asks me to be mindful of this virtue. As I said before, it's not in my inclination to be gentle with myself. I reflected on this and found that, as I am not gentle with myself, I am not gentle with others. It's pretty much common sense, but it all comes back to that old sentiment that says the way you treat yourself is the way you treat others. Perhaps I could expand this to say that what you want most for yourself you want from others. But, that's another discussion.

I know I'm quite stingy with the emotional output. It appears that Saturnine frugality is well in place, as is the Plutonian threat-level warning system. I'm thinking of times when it's appropriate to say, "I love you," or show a bit of care and concern, at which point I usually drop the ball and close off, saying nothing. Sadly, my loved ones go off not knowing that I do in fact love them and wish they wouldn't leave. What a nasty little trick nature has played! What I want most from people I'm too afraid or closed off to express to them.

But does this extend to my being gentle with myself? I think so. It's just a skill that I have to build. If I can imagine myself comforting that part of me which is hurting, perhaps then I can put that outward and be more emotionally mindful of those around me. I don't think it'll ever be something that just happens naturally because nature has not indicated that I be that way. I have a strong Saturn and Pluto. Let's face it, people, it's just not going to flow freely! I suppose, though, that in those moments of great intensity, the depth of feeling is communicated. Maybe I'm better at those junctures than in the quick-passing hints of emotion. Maybe I don't know how to be emotional unless it's that life-or-death emission of love, where a death of some sort has to be present for me to spit it out. Yikes. I can see it now: Everything is falling apart, things are ending, and the irrevocable stands ready to change everything for good. Say it now! I suppose Pluto is nothing if not dramatic in a way, conflict and intensity being the nature of drama.

I'd like to include a blessing by John O'Donohue here called "For Belonging" that I feel indicated the direction I'd like to go. It gives my soul comfort and reassurance.

May you listen to your longing to be free.

May the frames of your belonging be generous enough for your dreams.

May you arise each day with a voice of blessing whispering in your heart.

May you find a harmony between your soul and your life.

May the sanctuary of your soul never become haunted.

May you know the eternal longing that lives at the heart of time.

May there be kindness in your gaze when you look within.

May you never place walls between the light and yourself.

May you allow the wild beauty of the invisible world to gather you, mind you, and embrace you in belonging.

Aliens and Mars: Two Stories Force an Unsettling Look at the God of War

2009-08-15T03:30:00.005-04:00

I've been in alien land lately. Well, just this week. And not the kind that are horrible and terrifying. This week I was exposed to two works of fiction that centered around the theme of aliens interacting with humanity. The first was the book "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer, the second was the movie, District 9, which opened yesterday.

It seems as though the vehicle of aliens provide that outsider, objective reflection of what we are as humans. They stand in counterpoint to us, and in their opinions of us, or our treatment of them, they reveal to us what we're really made of. What is it that makes us human? Ask the aliens.

Neither sources of entertainment had very good things to say. In Meyer's book, humans seemed to be defined by their barbarity and violence toward one another. Not only this, humans had the capacity to lie and deceive whereas the aliens were altruistic and honest. (Though, altruism through destruction of a species raises many moral issues.)

District 9 was just a plain horror of violence and abuse. Humans kept aliens in a slum of shacks and trash, keeping them prisoner on a foreign planet while attempting to exploit their weaponry and all the while using them as medical guinea pigs and target practice. It was a hostile, brutal portrayal of humanity. It makes me cringe and shudder in a deep seated discomfort just thinking about it.

Both stories really gave Mars a good thrashing. It seems like this planet is the lone repository for what defines humans. Perhaps that's as it should be. Mars is the planet that stands up and says, "Hey, this is who I am! This is what I want!" Without Mars there would be no individuals. There would be a colony of "us's". But, clearly, in the reflective lens of our own storytelling, humanity has a problem dealing with Mars.

Isn't that the case, though? Wars plague our planet, we are indeed vicious and violent with each other. Even in the workplace, that violence takes a passive aggressive form in gossip and subtle undercuts. We are doomed to fight. Mars rolls through the household and leaves domestic violence in its wake, and even on the international scale, the weaker are taken advantage of and bullied, forced to part with resources and kept in states of near impoverishment.

In Meyer's book, there's a sense of hope (and indeed the book ends happily, as I suspect all of Meyer's stories will). The human sense of compassion and empathy balance out the violence, and even a sense of fairness and justice permeate. There are rules and they are generally followed, thanks to a benevolent (if not law-enforcing) patriarch. Indeed, love is a great motivator in Meyer's story, though even love forces some tricky moral situations. That's one thing I like about Meyer's book- the characters have to find a way through the middle, they must live in an "and" state rather than "either/or". It breeds soul in that way. District 9 on the other hand doesn't look in that direction so much. Human rights groups (or alien rights groups) are mentioned, but we don't see that aspect. We see power and corruption, violence, racism, and exploitation. We do see some heroism in the form of the main character, but even he starts out the story working for the "bad guys" until he gets exposed to a substance that begins to turn him into the alien species. Then he's on the receiving end of the deal- he has to live in that in-between state (quite literally as his body is between species!) that forces some choices. District 9 doesn't end happily, nor does it end sadly. It just sort of ends, and we are left to wonder what will happen next. No answers are given.

We have Mars in the pantheon. We just have to deal with it. Wishing it away will do no good. I always say that you have to meet Mars on its own terms. Can you balance it out with Venus? Can you wash it away in Neptunian compassion? Can you sublimate it with Jupiter? Can you simply despise it with Uranus? If I had the answers on how to deal with Mars I could probably stop the worlds wars. But what does meeting Mars on its own terms mean? I suppose it has something to do with healthy aggression. Mars can also be the self-sacrificing hero, protector of the weak, the knight on the white horse, the champion of the little ones. In both stories we have exhibited the best and worst of Mars: the hero and the blood-thirsty brute. How do we nurture a hero? I guess we just have to be smart about it. By that I mean we have to be self-aware. You can't change something you despise or won't look at directly. It must be acknowledged and brought out into the open. Even then I think it's hard to work on because Mars is so explosive. Maybe I'm being biased because in my chart he's having a hard time, but by nature he is about conflict. I'll have to pick up my book on Mars by the CPA people. Maybe we have to deal with Mars on Mars' terms: be up front and acknowledge that there are good things to this planet but there are very bad things too. I shouldn't be so judgemental- that can be said about every planet.

I suppose it'd be good to remind myself here that planets are planets. They're not good or bad, they simply are. There is no morality in the archetype itself. It's how we respond to these energies that decide. Is Venus the creature of love, joy, and sensuality or is she a catty, backstabbing bitch? Is Uranus a genius breaking through boundaries and uniting us as a common humanity or is he the ice man, ignoring compassion and the element of human feeling that keeps him human? I just wonder why we seem to have such a problem with Mars lately. Maybe it has to do with a giant zeitgeist, a spirit operating through the people in the mode of the Age of Pisces and the Age of Aquarius (neither well-suited to Mars' individualist energies).

Maybe all I can say for now is that it starts at home. The important battles take place in the soul, the taming of the beast happens in the heart. After all, you can't change another person but you can change yourself, right? (But Mars would try- he'd say, "We're doing this my way!")

Gentleness in the Wasteland

2009-08-15T01:45:00.002-04:00

As I was working here tonight, I was thinking of how bad I felt yesterday. A little of that returned to visit me, and I have to do a bit of work to keep from going back there. It just plain hurts. Oh wait, I know what it was. I was listening to the most recent album of The Wailin' Jennys, a group that has by a vast margin become a favorite. The song was "Calling All Angels". The sentiment that sort of cry for help in tough times.

I was reminded of something I read in John O'Donohue's "Anam Cara" about times of emotional duress and damage. He makes analogy to emotional climates and that at times we need to be able to bend like the reed and weather these rough storms. He says that we need to be gentle with ourselves while the clouds cover, while we wait for the little deaths to pass (and I'm not talking of the orgasms!). I really like this notion of being gentle with oneself in such times, but one thing comes to mind in a rather upsetting way: I am not gentle with myself.

My finger points immediately to Saturn, that proponent of barren, hard terrain. Imagine how he stands in stark contrast to his opposite, the Moon. I remember how, in ancient texts, the Moon was described as warm and wet where Saturn was cold and dry. The Moon ushers life in, nourishes it, where Saturn cuts it down and leads it out through the gates of death so that something new can grow in its place. Think of those warm, moist climates that are the gentle places of the soul: the tropical oases lush with greenery and relaxed muscles, a supple sway in the hips as one walks along the sandy shore. Think of Saturn's rocky mountain sides, barely hints of scrub growing in between arid stones. The muscles contract in tension against the cold air. With the Moon the body grows soft and languid. Saturn calcifies and hardens the tissue, making things brittle.

I think of the ways in which I am not gentle with myself. My strong Saturn calls out tones of failure, admonishing and berating, leaving a stark absence of the Moon's gentle reassurance. The old man says, "It's your fault." He looks down in judgement. He is anything but gentle. I have to work at gentleness perhaps more than others. I should learn to see the ability to be gentle as a strength rather than an admission of weakness.

My Moon isn't doing so hot in the gentle category itself. Conjunct Pluto, the message of "take it easy" doesn't resonate. The message is more of "Watch out!" The message is, "If you let your guard down, you will be betrayed and hurt." Where does one learn a lesson like that? Through experience? Yes, been there, done that. Through subtle messages? Through the inherent pattern of archetype?

For some reason, there is some rough terrain in my soul. Wild animals live by jungle law and tyrants rule without mercy. My poor Venus/Neptune conjunction may be one of my only bastions of sensitivity and gentleness. It may have much to teach my other selves. Even as I type that I can hear them cry out in protest, that to live from such an idealized and foolish place is sure to mean pain, betrayal, and stupid weakness.

So, can there be other options? Can there be a learned gentleness here, despite the hard and savage personae of Saturn and Pluto? Perhaps there is even more need for gentleness with such people around, an even more pressing and essential need to develop this capacity for self-love and nurturing. When such qualities are foreign in the wasteland or the jungle, what do you do? Develop a practical mindfulness that recognizes that gentleness is required- how come it's so easy to be blind to that when you're in the wasteland? Must be the way the creature is made.

There is much that is knife-like about Desire

2009-08-13T22:41:00.003-04:00

Some things don't change. I wonder if this is because, at some point, a person in your life becomes more than a person. He becomes a god. He becomes a complex. He goes into this place where things are eternal, where the building blocks of the soul live.

Every time I have encounter with this man, the same feelings are aroused. Unfortunately, things always end the same, with my being frustrated and heartbroken, like the same addict who goes back for more but always ends up going through some horrible pain when the drug wears off. Hell, I don't even get the bliss of the drug, so I don't know what that says about me. Such is the saga of unrequited love, gone on through the generations of humankind. What a sad story it is.

When you step back to look at love, what do you see? Do you see glorious sunrises with doves flying and rejoicing at the newfound capability of flight? The rosy pink light of promise and new things on the horizon? The breath passing between two sets of lips in an electric ecstasy of union?

Do you see the millions and millions of souls walking away from that in despair? In rejection? Curtains come down before the play has even begun? Color spectrum, and some beyond, changed to monochrome, vitality sapped out of life and turned into a walking path of meaninglessness? How about the rage when someone cries out, "When will it be my turn?" Or how about the terror one feels when one realizes that maybe one already had his turn and that there is a lot of life left to sit in the audience alone now that the play has ended. New people are ushered in, new actors and dancers turn and emote on the stage, only to leave with you still sitting there when they're all gone, a vacant house. Save one.

Venus is cruel. She is very cruel. How can such a golden, glorious goddess be so cruel? Don't doubt it. She is.