the rix mix

Bringer of Old Age, Ruler of Capricorn.

Charles MacKerras was one of my favorite conductors & he knew how to bring this wonderful music from gloom & struggle to serenity (shift occurs at 6:20).

In some astrological interpretations, Capricorns are older souls, having passed through 9 signs previously. So they tend to be cautious, conservative, efficient,  serious,  perhaps frugal  (they'll spend but not on crap), seeking security. But there are two more signs ahead: adventurous, incautious Aquarius, one more burst of newness;  & finally dreamy Neptunian Pisces, the fish who sense that the entire cosmos seen & unseen is their ocean, & they are not limited by human dimensions of time & space or the influence of planets & stars, & can transcend the cycle of rebirth.

Labels: astrology, music, video

(on her birthday)

Do you have any spare armor?
May I have a bite of your donut?
Why are forsythia yellow?
When are we coming back?
Where is the forest you can't see for the trees?
What is the secret of synchronous kisses?
Would you please remove that salamander from your hair?
Have you ever considered becoming a Mormon?
How long until we get there?
Does the motel on Neptune have a heart-shaped hot tub?
Who should we call if we're swallowed by a whale?
Am I embarrassing myself when I dance?
Are you sure that poem isn't a haiku?
Will you be angry if I finish first?
 

***
Wrote this in 2005. Today is not her birthday. Could have kept inventing questions but fourteen lines seemed a good place to stop, a kind of fake sonnet. Only the sixth question strikes me as especially Piscean.  A certain type of Pisces - the dedicatee - would not consider these questions rhetorical. Some people, even some poets, don't believe lists can be poems. I've published a number of lists as poems without complaint, & many very good poems are thinly disguised lists if you examine them with that in mind.

Labels: astrology, poem

 The Christmas story is constructed to make the birth/appearance of Jesus a fulfilment of Jewish prophecy & connected to ancient  Near East myths.  I'm not hung up on "believing" in the details. Truth doesn't require fact. Fact often obfuscates truth.

In the Advent season, I relate to the Magi. We know hardly anything about them, even their number (three gifts), so they became fanciful projections.  Presumably, they are astrologers, & presumably they are now already  on their journey, not certain of the destination or of what they will find there. But something in the stars so captured their attention & imagination that they undertook an arduous & expensive  trip, likely setting out in advance of Joseph & Mary's own journey.  It turns out that they are men of honor, & remarkably open-minded.

If they are astrologers, then their charts show something very strange & disturbing about what happens to this "king," something difficult to interpret concretely. He will not live a long life, & yet, the charts must be  ambiguous on the matter. They bring this knowledge with them, but they do not reveal it to anyone. What's more, they endanger themselves by concealing what they know from Herod. Their story is better left for Epiphany, but I think of them often during Advent, wondering where they are & what they are discussing along the way.

The Journey of the Magi (fragment), ca. 1435
Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni)
at The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Labels: astrology, holidays

I still don't feel well, but I have good reason to feel blessed today.

 Nice thing about Facebook, lots of birthday greetings.  Carrie Cann sends me a lovely Jacquie Lawson animated e card I watch three or four times because subtle things happen in the background or off to the side.

I'm not a religious believer in astrology. Rather, it's like what an artist friend says about standing by the ocean: She knows where she is. In Jersey, there's the ocean, the land, beach stretching off north & south, & the Sun rises unobstructed  exactly where & when it's supposed to. The great mountains of the far west unsettled me until I reached the Pacific. Then I knew where I was, & I was comfortable from Oregon all the way to San Diego.

Astrology is a place to stand. You have your Sun Sign, your birth place & time, & all the myth & symbolism of the planets arranges itself exactly for you to interpret. You could probably pick a date at random & still learn something about yourself. When someone tells you their Sun Sign, they're giving you a certain view of them that's usually helpful if you give them plenty of wiggle room, because Sun Sign is broadest, most generalized of astrological personalities.

Much of what makes me seem "Scorpio" is probably attributable to this season in this part of the Northern hemisphere. It's the beginning of a 5th season here, Fall fading, less sunlight, many years it gives way in early December to damp, cold, drizzling days. So if your birthday is now, you look back at summer & won't see farther ahead than Christmas, which gradually brightens up the season as we approach it (if you like Christmas). Additionally, I was born on Veterans/Armistice Day, Martinmas (after St. Martin), so war - specifically the aftermath of war, affects my birthday as something America ponders on this day, though not with the depth of Memorial Day. It's a minor holiday, but important enough to close schools.

My Scorpio "taste" for vengence is more likely from being the youngest of four siblings.  Revenge usually had to wait, had to be schemed, & indeed it often tasted best "served cold." The moodiness was inherited from mom, the temper from dad. It adds up to Scorpio.

Scorpio was ruled by mighty Mars. Pluto was assigned to us after it was discovered, puny ball of ice.   Maybe we're Mars again now that Pluto is no longer a "planet."

Scorpios are represented by a stinging Scorpion (as the lower less evolved  order of the sign) &  soaring Eagle (as the higher).   I choose to be represented by the Horseshoe Crab, an inoffensive living fossil that scours the bottoms of our bays, moves to deeper water in Winter, then, in May, comes ashore by the many thousands for a week-long orgy of fornicating & egg-laying.  The most desirable females are big, old, & encrusted with barnacles. Birds time their migrations to be in Jersey at Horseshoe Crab time, there are so many tiny eggs to be consumed.   Many Crabs don't survive, more killed by the sun than by birds, who don't find them very tasty, maybe it's the blue blood & that they're mostly shell, not much meat. Then the Crabs return to the water & you don't see them again for another year, only molted shells & the occasional casualty of tide or age.  They aren't even crabs, but are distant relations of spiders. Horseshoe Crabs are not what they seem to be. The "stinger" tails are not stingers but tools for levering themselves off their backs when waves turn them over. They might pinch you by accident. Blue Claw Crabs do it to hurt you;  I've seen people jump out of boats to get away from pugnacious Blues. I go nuts when I see beach strollers mistreat Horseshoe Crabs.

Labels: astrology, holidays

which I wrote for myself.

Dear Scorpio: Someone who holds you in contempt desires - consciously or unconsciously - for you to acknowledge you know who they are. Of course, you've known the identity of this person for many years, & the contempt is why you stay away from the person. Make the acknowledgement & get on with your activities. .

Labels: astrology

Part of today's Scorpio Sun sign horoscope:

You're trying to get someone to see how wise it is to give in and fall completely and totally in love with you. It will definitely work, of course -- who could possibly resist you?

I'm doing no such thing, unless posting the excerpt indicates that I'm trying it, in which case I don't know who or why. Later, I'm visiting some cats. They'll be cat happy to see me because they know I open the cans.

In the meantime, though, a little ambiance to go along with that dinner invitation couldn't hurt. Say, a couple of candles, some flowers and maybe some mood music. You know what to do.

Yeah, open the cans fast, dump them on the plates, get out of the kitchen.

Labels: astrology, cats

I dislike dreams where I'm trying to go somewhere in Jersey. Last night, I was with some people - who they were probably wasn't so significant - & we needed to catch a NJ Transit local train to get to a town to pick up a car to take a boat to the Jersey shore. After we were in the car, it was suggested that we stop by a local bar & give a friend a ride home from a party. We went to the bar, our friend was there sitting at a table, I recognized a number of Jersey poets, the party was breaking up, it was very late, & we were wasting time trying to pry our friend out of the joint. At this point dream lucidity began kicking in, & I was thinking how absurd it all was. You couldn't possibly take a boat from there to the shore, yet outside was a canal with a number of small boats all going to different places at the shore. But it was the middle of the night & I was tired of traveling, & not interested in taking a long boat ride or engaging any of the dream companions in conversation to find out what it might really be about, because even familiar characters in dreams rarely are who they appear to be, their answers are always evasive or cryptic, & you have to approach them with bemusement if you want to enjoy the encounter. So the dream ended without any resolution, & I woke up with the annoyed feeling of not having been asleep at all but of having used a lot of real world energy inside a dreamscape, to no purpose.

Then my daily horoscope for Scorpio was: Are you hungry for a more intellectual connection with that new cutie in your life? Start getting comfortable with the idea that it just might not happen. Oh come on. There's no "new cutie," & I was 22 years old the last time I was with a woman I might have referred to as a "cutie," & that was her nose. They've always been "cuties" to me, intellectual or not. "Intellectual" has never been a qualification. But "ignorance" has always been a disqualifier.

Labels: astrology, dreams, love

There it was in my spam box, caught my eye just as I hit the delete button. "Prepare" not "beware." Whew! I figured it was spam from Astrology on the Web or some site I got a free chart.

On November 15, 2007, Mars reaches his retrograde station, in preparation for a period of retrograde motion which will last until January 30th, 2008. On top of that, the effects of the retrograde period will continue to be felt until he returns in direct motion on April 4th, 2008 to the degree where he first made his station (12° Cancer 27'). The first beginnings of the effect take place from October 20, as Mars begins to slow, so prepare for issues to cloud, especially if you have strong Cardinal Sign placements in your chart. The Cardinal Signs are Aries, Cancer, Libra and Capricorn.

I'm a Scorpio, a "fixed " sign. We believe everything is fixed; horse races, elections, zoning variances, love. We used to be ruled by Mars, then were transferred to Pluto after it was discovered. Now Pluto's been downgraded from planet to the kind of object you make out of rock & ice & throw at the kid down the street you hate, but astrologers won't send us back to Mars.

Mars retrograde gives rise to irrational action; introspection; depression and self-assessment; sexual issues and relationship conflicts. Major rethinks and reorientation of current projects are also often required.

That describes my normal days.

Sexual desire is activated and sexual action intensified with passion is often associated with the urge to violence and control. Political leaders should also avoid becoming unduly concerned with homeland security and avoid imposing needless restrictions. This position makes the temper rather uncertain and there is a tendency for people to get restless, being inclined to change occupations.

In other words, Mars is always in retrograde for Republicans, especially Cheney (Aquarius). He'll probably have an intense desire to go to a game farm, shoot defenseless half-tame animals , & ejaculate in his Depends. & we can expect Democrats to act more like Republicans - wasn't that already a problem?

Labels: astrology

Apartment inspection today. I got the easy-going inspector. At last minute I pulled the a/c out of the window, it wasn't in any danger of falling but it wasn't exactly installed by the manual. Slow bathtub drain, bathroom windowsill needs painting, bathroom overhead light has to be fixed, a ceiling tile replaced where the bathroom upstairs leaked a few months ago. Rules seem to require glass covers over the ceiling light fixtures in the hallway & I can't make the inspectors understand why I take them off. I don't have a tall stepladder & don't want one, & when a light burns out I put a milk crate on a chair & climb up & stretch up with one hand & replace it right away & don't ask the lady who serves as super to ask the guy who does the handyman work to come up the day after tomorrow or whenever with a ladder just to screw in a new one & put the glass cover over it which I'm convinced shortens the life of the bulb anyway. I keep the hallway light burning while I'm up after dark, turn it off as a bedtime ritual when I check the door lock, it's wasteful but it pushes the lonely shadows out of the corners behind me & it's worth a few extra cents each day on an electric bill that's high only during July & August.

Did move me to toss out some old paperwork, souvenirs of a legal problem now settled & which embarassed me & resulted in my moving to a place that feels like an exile. Of course, everywhere I've ever lived my entire adult life from the time the old family house was sold & all its accumulated treasures discarded has felt a bit like exile, but oddly not because I've ever wanted to return there. That I live only about 2 miles from that street just reminds me that I ought to be farther away from it by now. An old friend returns from California every year or so to visit his mother in the house where he grew up, & there must be something comforting in the continuity even though he got away from there as soon as he was old enough.

I think I deserve a one bedroom apt with a balcony in a high rise building in downtown Rahway next to the river estuary, a very short stroll from the library & across the street from a church I'd be likely to attend on occasion. It's not luxury digs; the place is actually a kind of microcosm of Rahway. For 12 years in Linden & another 10 in Rahway I lived next to flowing bodies of water. The creek in Linden was hardly more than a ditch I would rarely have thought about except that it attracted a lot of birds. But the river in Rahway has tides in it in, & although it's far from Somers Point & North Wildwood & even Keyport or one of the other Jersey towns I've fancied over the years, I was always aware of the tide. Every time I left or came home to the apt there I habitually looked into river to see where the tide was. I knew only a handful of other people who did that, a weird little fraternity who might greet each other by saying, "River is oily today" or "A lot of eels came upstream." Not much to get excited about, but in a sense I knew there was a connection to my step-brother checking out the Manasquan behind his house in Herbertsville, except he had the better view & fleet of genuine commercial fishing boats ten minutes down the road. My sister lives near the Black River, beautiful, filled with boulders, & claustrophobic for long stretches, & there's a creek down the hill you can hear literally babbling at 2 am. But that's not my kind of water, I mean it's the kind where I feel like an outsider. The crawling things that live around it in the crevices & under the rocks freak me out. I can't sit there for more than five minutes without thinking something got under my clothes. I never felt that way as a kid - I actively searched for ugly bugs. So it's something else I draw from water now, & I want it to come from the ocean.

Labels: astrology, home furnishings

Have I ever met a Pisces woman I didn't love? Yes. But I've loved a few. Scorpio males like me can't intimidate them, for long. On the other hand, Pisces females empathize with our burdens; masks that are stone-faced one day & the Jester Fool the next; incomprehensible silences, selective memories. Scorpios are afflicted with a consciousness of incurable sadness & a terrible hunger for joy. I lived for 20 years total with two Pisces women, both justifiably swam away, & yet I continue to believe (in demented moments) that either one might have been better off had she paddled back after a few years. Because most Pisces women I've been lucky to know well are watery, oozy dreamers inside (& often on the outside) who rightly try to protect the emotional space in which they dream. But one has to listen for what a Pisces considers the practical solution for her situation. She wants whatever she has difficulty providing for herself; beyond that she is very flexible & tolerant. So men who think they have what every woman would love to have can find themselves at a disadvantage. These woman can be different in ways that both delight & frustrate. Especially their inclination to communicate through fish codes. Wonderful during sex, or discussing art or varieties of religion experience, not always so handy when trying settle a dispute or reach a simple decision. They are uniquely qualified to befriend Scorpios. & vice versa.

Labels: astrology, love

"What is the secret of synchronous kisses?"

Labels: astrology, poem

I've met two woman born on March 17, about the same age, who aren't anything like each other - except perhaps that both prefer what is familiar, which seems to be the sort of Pisces woman I meet. The four Pisces women I've known well - well enough to observe how they live over a period of time - are all home-centered, & by that I don't mean pushing a vacuum around & keeping a showcase antiseptic kitchen. Rather, they wrap their homes around themselves like an old blanket & prefer others come to them. That kind of home attracts me. I never sought out Pisces women - we found each other. But for about 8 years I've deliberately kept a safe distance from The Fish. There are 11 other astrological signs & if none of them happen for me then I'm better off being alone. Maybe. I'm in contact with only one of the four, & she's been married to an Aries since before we met, a good & sensible life that has preserved her from intimate entanglements with Scorpios. The most stupid thing any woman I have ever known has ever done was a Pisces leaving me to be with another Scorpio. Whatever kind of life a Pisces has with one Scorpio, she will almost surely recreate with the next, even madness, & if she made a mistake she'll never be able to admit it to herself. It's just too difficult to crawl out of that old blanket again.

Labels: astrology