The Numbers Game
Today is my birthday and I'm thinking how these days measure the slot each human occupies in the empirical dimension. It's a mainstay in shaping a person's identity. One is that number. Exactly for one year. No argument.
People comply quite willingly. We even celebrate. It does seem to correlate with the physical progression of the body.
Each year gets a different digit, then digits, in a predictable well-ordered fashion. People's lives are organized, aren't they?
I seem to prefer the odd years. And that's odd.
This new one is odd.
So our earthly days are numbered. Is that logic? Is it arithmetic?
There's a neat little slot for one and all, precise and perfectly sequential.
People comply quite willingly. We even celebrate. It does seem to correlate with the physical progression of the body.
Each year gets a different digit, then digits, in a predictable well-ordered fashion. People's lives are organized, aren't they?
I seem to prefer the odd years. And that's odd.
This new one is odd.
So our earthly days are numbered. Is that logic? Is it arithmetic?
There's a neat little slot for one and all, precise and perfectly sequential.
posted by jm at 1:04 AM
90 Comments:
Love you my sweet gem of the raging universe
Your sticky bun
Back this evening if you are around, big hug for your birthday!
My sticky bun, through thick and thin.
This evening? Really? I'll be here early.
The hug feels wonderful!
I'm going out. Off to the South!
I'll check back. Hope you are out for a bit of fun!
I've been reading raging Universe posts; terrific work as usual. Inspiring.
Our lives a measure of time. Close truths these last few months as I've said goodbye to many.
Thought of our conversations when your father passed. Some very similar experiences with my own papa.
We are only ever a current moment in a long line of sncestors.
So, let's create, leave a legacy of joy!
Love you gobs, e
Ice Cream Daddy is my guy. You'll like him, if you like dads.
You are so right, my sticky. Let's create and leave a legacy of joy.
I'm in.
Hello my dearone!
Thank you for my birthday wishes. My email was down for many days. It's hosted in a place being hit by blizzards....verizon could not find their snow boots.
Just reading your Raging Universe posts. Had to laugh, a few days ago was pondering if Emperor Rex (Trump) might be Cyrus! Ha! The patterns. And again the Persians are seeking their sovereignty.
Kisses and best wishes for the coming year.
SB
There you are!!!!!
Ha ha! Verizon's snow boots. Poor Verizon out in the cold.
Absolutely great that you got the Cyrus reference along with the humor, especially the humor. Emperor Rex ☺. My Dear Beloved One, you are so in the know. I treasure your friendship.
I love the view from the philosophical branch.
So interesting about the Persians. The time for sovereignty is nigh in this little world. I'm gassed and ready.
The best of all of it for you, too, in the coming year.
Your Devoted Mountain Pal
Yes, the philosophical branch has most entertainging views.
If not Cyrus, then a Macleod of the clan Macleod (Trump's mum) they who carried the faery flag in a similar time many years ago.
Full moon shining over us all, a blood moon, what an ending / beginning as the wheel goes round.
XO
Hee hee.... Trump's mum.
The thrifty Scot rules! I must learn about these Macleods.
So very true. A remarkable ending/beginning. Safe at home under a beautiful coming Cancer Moon.
Round and around. So much order in the universe!
And lo and behold. Uranus turns direct again exactly on this blood moon. With a blue one just ahead.
Dear jm, I've been thinking of you lately as I ponder the ever-rising tide of homeless, rootless people in this Cancer country of ours, as Pluto dredges our national Shadow from the opposite side of the wheel. Hypersensitive people on all sides splitting into factions and going at each other over trivia. I observe with detachment at times, other times disgust. What does one do when one's internal wiring doesn't hew to the nation's wiring?
Maybe, simply, endure, just as when one's NN Cap is being trampled by transiting Pluto. I lost my man almost a year ago, in March, and now I contemplate selling my home and moving away. Interestingly, today the Sun, Venus and Pluto are all passing over my NN. They impel my Self to relate in a deep way, perhaps. I've learned so much from you over the years, If I haven't ever thanked you, then let me do so now. :)
Joe, I think about you often and am profoundly pleased to see your voice. I have missed you.
I'm going to wash my old beat up car and return to respond to your rich comment filled with honesty and substance. There's a lot to cover.
"going at it over trivia."
Really. However, Gemini likes that. It's fun and games. If you consider our country's Mars and Uranus in Gemini, and the massively Gemini president we currently have, it can be expected.
Gemini likes to play games. It's a youth thing.
Regarding Cancer, we're a nation of crybabies. We like to be protected. Or have to be.
The Pluto-Cap combo kind of hurts, so the screeching is notched up a bit maybe with Saturn involved. Mommy! Mommy! Mommmmmeeeey! But there is no Mommy right now. I guess it's Daddy time. To maybe get the crybabying down so we can get something done.
You ask a great question....."What does one do when one's internal wiring doesn't hew to the nation's wiring?"
I say either rewire or don't plug in. You could short circuit and get shocked. Watch out!
There are electrical rules.
Thanks for the formal thanks. I like those.
"To maybe get the crybabying down so we can get something done." That's my feeling as well. And it occurs on both sides of the political aisle, or perhaps better to say, from all quarters, since no one is blameless in this national mess we're in.
Absolutely Joe. So good to see it in print. We're all responsible. Some are slow to grasp this little truth so the childish fighting continues. They need it for now.
It's simple. Pluto in Cap destroyed much of your emotional security so you can rebuild a better version based on yourself, your talent and your achievement. Uranus in Aries square means independence. You have a lot of time to reconstruct with Pluto.
It's the same for the country. I think you are deeply wired in. Your understanding of astrology is impressive. And so is your writing skill.
I'm looking forward to the Saturn transit as this page turning thriller continues. There's much more to be revealed.
Awhile ago, I researched how Pluto transits often unfold, including the post you did just for me a few years back. Among the themes of a Pluto transit are "in the dark," death, destruction/upheaval, loss, utter transformation, betrayal, invisibility, dark nights of the soul. (I feel like I have had more than my share of that last... when Saturn was at the nadir of my chart, that was the case but it got better as Saturn proceeded "up" the other side.) And of course, Pluto, being notoriously rich, may bestow treasures of various kinds on the native, assuming the native can see through the darkness to what those treasures are. That often takes a long time to be clear.
I will say the astrology of his passing was remarkable. He'd been hit with sepsis late November 2016 as a result of an infected wound (had been in end-stage renal failure x14 years) so this was always a risk. He came close to death in December 2016, then bounced back against all odds, but then never really regained his strength and just faded away. I think he tired of it all, and wanted to just be done, and who can blame him? When he made this decision (as I assume, b/c he never said anything specific to me) Venus was rx at the time and I think he re-evaluated what was important to him. Long story short, he deteriorated fast during the rx, and was back in the hospital on March 19th, the Weeping Degree. He had a pulmonary embolism and I believe there was some pressure or affliction to his Gemini (ruling breathing) by transit, but I forget what. He was largely unconscious by that time, but he doubtless heard me say to the nurse that I would step out for a bit and get some lunch. He took that opportunity to try to exit life. They called me back and I arrived in time to hear "Code Blue." With no DNR, they had to resuscitate him. the intensive care doctor felt there would be no quality of life at all and with his family and mine, we chose to let him go. That happened 3 days later. What a Plutonic experience to hold someone's hand while they step through the final doorway...
What's not lost on me is the echo of the old myth of the Dying God who dies/is slain in the springtime and rises again 3 days later. Not that he was any Christed figure but he was certainly a good man. :)
With this I agree....
"And of course, Pluto, being notoriously rich, may bestow treasures of various kinds on the native, assuming the native can see through the darkness to what those treasures are. That often takes a long time to be clear."
I think this is the crux of it. The treasures are sometimes obscured. Along with seeing through the dark I think we can feel, and of course hear. We have a lot going for us.
I'm not so sure how rich Pluto really is. He guards the treasures I thought. He doesn't actually own them. You can see through him.
I am remiss. Let me not forget smell.
I dare not include taste.
I assumed we have the word "plutocrat" as a direct result of Pluto's reputation for wealth but maybe it's just that: reputation, rumor.
At any rate, my Pluto/NN transit is forcing me to be my own Daddy now. I know we were getting tired of the way things were, with no way to avoid the end result, so in many ways it's a huge relief that that part is done. Trouble is, I can't tell which way is up or which way to the exit, and it feels a lot like Neptune is involved (fog, confusion) but I'm not sure how. I'm staring at the transits and it's Greek to me. Hades, Pluto, same difference. :)
Taste our way through the dark? Intriguing. I'm thinking pomegranates. ;)
Really!!! The truth please! Rumor has it......those plutocrats don't scare me.
Death is a great relief. Probably the biggest. So true. Getting that part done. Just imagine how the dead feel.
My brilliant friend and I talked about the possibility that death was so ecstatic a release that we were born, possibly again, just to experience it more.
Ha ha ha ha ha!! "I'm staring at the transits and it's Greek to me."
It's supposed to be!
Astrology is wonderful but a person knows the score with or without it.
We might not know we know but we do.
I do wonder though... Seems to me the transit of any sign by Pluto will have a reverberating effect of the opposite sign. Pluto in Cap does represent the complete destruction of and rebirth of authority and structures, among other things, but the shocks there surely must affect home, security, emotions, etc. Do these get destroyed and reborn as well, but perhaps more subtly?
"Seems to me the transit of any sign by Pluto will have a reverberating effect of the opposite sign."
This is why I say you are so good at astrology. Yes. The oppositions work together, and more so if you have planets there. Some astrologers call it being out of phase when you aren't using the qualities of a sign and instead do the opposite.
We have to have security in one form or another but Pluto in Cap demands letting go and applying the need to worldly engagement, where a new form of security emerges minus the immature dependencies and personal tales of sorrow. Capricorn assumes you can control those, not actually delete them, when there is important work to be done.
With a Cancer south, the emotional body is complete and won't disappear but it no longer needs work. It can be transferred to those in need in the world. So you approach situations not from what you need but from what they need. Your emotional desires will be fulfilled automatically. It might not feel that way now, but this is temporary. As the Cap north develops the emotional body finds satisfaction it never experienced before. What you find emotionally good changes.
Security doesn't really get destroyed. It's with you. It becomes time to leave home symbolically and mark your place in what seems a cold cruel world. It won't be, not for a NN in Cap. Your ability to influence is solid.
I think I have noticed or sensed some of these things you mention. On one of my numerous short trips for work purposes (Gemini Asc, doncha know!) it occurred to me that my paternal family seems to embody my SN in that they are numerous (a big family from the get-go and mostly paired off with kids, who have themselves paired off and produced more kids), a bit overinvolved in each other's business and apt to bicker and fight among themselves, and when the anchor snaps (ie their mother my grandmother) does go, it'll be WWIII. Contrast my maternal side where they are largely disengaged or disinterested in family drama, see each other once or twice a year at most, and have already lost the parental anchors 25 years ago. It sounds very much Cancer/Capricorn, and it will not surprise you to learn I take after the Cap. :)
And you know, you're quite right. Death is a release for more than just the one left behind.
Hi, jm.
I enjoyed reading your most recent post on the Aquarius/Leo nodal axis. Your knowledge is indispensable! I would like to know if you're going to elaborate on the South Node in Pisces and the North Node in Virgo? Those are the only nodal placements you haven't written about, and I am at the edge of my seat brimming with anticipation. Your astrological insight would be greatly appreciated.
Warm regards!
Yes! The Pisces Virgo nodes are coming. Pisces is in progress. Thanks for the nudge!
Hello, again, dear café patrons. I have been rather busily weighing, instead of esoteric matters, the bearing of the piano on the sword (or perhaps it's the other way around), but recently an acquaintance prompted a cursory, astrological look at a particular group of people.
In that group, there are a number of connections between Sun, Moon and Saturn. (There are other commonalities between at least a few members of the group, but I excluded them from consideration for this simple exercise. I also excluded less prominent individuals for whom data was not readily available.)
I attempted a rough visualization (hopefully with no serious error). The result is one of those sorts of illustrations that someone can, more or less synonymously, call mystifying or illuminating — and possibly argue a fair-sounding case for that.
Perhaps some of you astrology fans will find it of mild interest. (Astrology propeller heads, windmills, vanes, flabellums and thermantidotes, etc. are also welcome to take a look.)
With Saturn returned to its domiciles over these next few years, it seems an opportune time to reconsider Saturn's provinces and provenances.
What a lively and creative visualization of said group!! And informative.
People's parts clump together just like cells. By systemic order, perhaps?
I'm pleased that you think so. It's intriguing and fun, reminiscent of a kaleidoscope — a fractured, repeating, patterned view.
And it is evocative of an organism composed of individual cells, isn't it? Without denying the validity of the individual in any way, I am tempted to visualize the family members as active expressions of, and contributors to, a larger group consciousness having its own perspective, thought levels, purpose.
This exercise differs significantly from, and may sometimes disagree with, the usual fare of "synastric" and "composite" horoscopes. This exercise comes simply from the notion that people having similar "vibes"/issues are attracted/entangled. And, well, why not look at that directly?
But, alas, not being a real astrologer, I can only wonder what astrologers can make of it.
I'd like to see astrology enlarge its scope and offer case studies of group dynamics, develop interesting themes in recurring natal aspects, synastries, and more. I'd like to see new forms of astrological software facilitate.
I wonder what interesting perspectives might appear if, beyond the usual focus on two-factor aspects, the basic implications of larger combinations of planets were explored. (Cue jokes about three planets walking into a bar.)
Going back to the members of the example group, one could guess that the middle son has the most simpatico communication with his father, based on the simple observation that each of them has a strong Mercury-Jupiter-Neptune combination natally. Maybe they just "click" when they talk to each other. This seems corroborated by how the older sons have described the quantity and quality of their communications with their father. (I suppose the combination might also well-characterize their speech patterns and communication styles, but I don't know enough about both men to say so. I can see it in the older, more prominent man, though.)
One can note differences when comparing members of the group. One might guess, based on the Mercury-Saturn conjunction in her natal chart, that the eldest daughter has the most orderly communication or thought process among her siblings. It is unsurprising then that her father was known to solicit her opinion most seriously.
What to make of the recurring Sun-Saturn-Moon combination among the wives and their mother-in-law, and Saturn-Sun and/or Saturn Moon in the group generally, I can't imagine since I know very little about this group of people.
I'm intrigued by the grand trines appearing in the grandfather and the youngest child, as both incorporate Sun and Saturn.
Another example came up recently when my aforementioned acquaintance commented on two notable, outspoken, politically conservative American women, saying that the younger woman was a great admirer of the older woman though four decades separated them in age. (They were born respectively on August 15 1924 and December 8 1961.) The younger woman would meet with the older woman every year that they could, I was told. I took a quick look at their natal charts: A standout feature that they have in common is a hard Sun-Mars-Moon combination: Moon conjunct Mars conjunct Sun in the younger woman, and Moon conjunct Mars opposition Sun in the older woman. I take it to imply a similar energy, just like how the opposition and conjunction have been compared to a tone and its fundamental, like treble C and middle C.
I say "combination" for lack of a better word here. Perhaps I could sometimes say "planetary chord" but a chord in music is a harmonic set of pitches whereas my use of the word "combination" isn't limited to harmonic relationships. Perhaps a better word will present itself. "Planetary curlicues" comes to mind, but that seems irreverent.
You are absolutely right.
Donald's projected destiny is centered around the Moon, Saturn, Cancer, the fourth house, and the tenth house.
The Moon Saturn planets are placed in the collective sector of the wheel in Aquarius-Pisces, both in the grandfather's chart and yours. Yours is a perfect illustration, and very unusual.
Good work.
About recurring patterns....
Societies are big organizations with accompanying divisions of labor. I think families perform specific functions so traits are passed on in order to maintain skills.
In the fourth house the individual works to find its place in the nuclear family, then the skills honed by this family are utilized by society in the tenth house. The greater unit finds its place in the world like the individual did previously.
The Trump clump ascended as a contribution to the first U.S. Pluto return in Capricorn. The grandfather brings nurturing and protective knowledge to the collective (South Node 4th house, 11th house Cancer Saturn) as both he and the country develop maturity without jeopardizing too much emotional safety.
As Pluto returns, people are reminded of the successful war for independence that marked the beginning of the country's life. Still, with four planets in Cancer, dependencies are always rooting and budding. Some are harmful. It's time to sever dependencies that are holding the nation back from stepping out and starting anew. That includes aspects of our current government. So this Sun-Moon-Saturn rebellious Uranian president has a role to play in separation, remaining mindful of the emotional weight of the Moon-Saturn reality.
He belongs to neither party. The Moon-Saturn aligns with the collective as a whole. Citizens are questioning their affiliations as the Independent sector grows. The preference for freedom resurfaces.
The Sun placements guarantee that ego is strong and vibrant. Leadership is in the country's destiny.
How the kaleidoscope, like the horoscope, does multiply the view. Perhaps planetary or cosmic forces pass through something akin to a kaleidoscope on their way to each of us. Shaped sound becoming words to spell or speak meaning as we will … or would will if we can. The gods become us.
Hmm, Moon and Saturn … the ever-changing faces and the aged countenance. The many roads shone before one, and yet destiny. The collective drama is fascinating. Maybe it's few, if any, who find their destiny alone.
Yes, I have Moon-Jupiter and Mercury-Saturn conjunctions in Aquarius, 11th and 12th houses; not far away are Sun, Venus and Mars in Capricorn. It ought to simplify matters to have so much in one place but I seem to sense former personalities hiding in the wings. Currently, the musician and the swordsman seem to be close; perhaps they want me to know something.
My mother has Sun-Saturn conjunct in Aquarius, my sister has Moon-Saturn conjunct in Scorpio and Sun in Capricorn opposite Jupiter-Uranus square Neptune, and my father has Sun, Mercury, Jupiter and Neptune conjunct in Leo. My mother's North Node is conjunct my South Node; my sister's North Node is near my Mars; my father's North Node is conjunct my ascendant at 19 Pisces, and his Saturn in Capricorn is conjunct my Mercury-Saturn in Aquarius.
I've noticed Aquarius-Scorpio squares among my mother, my sister and me: My sister has a natal conjunction of Moon-Saturn -- in square to my mother's natal conjunction of Sun-Saturn. Their Saturns are in a tight square at 19 degrees of their signs. Their square overlays my natal square of Moon-Neptune. I also see that we each have Neptune aspects. I believe that my sister was also a mother to me in another lifetime. We have been allies on a long road. Further back, before civilization, we were members of enemy tribes.
Arguably, my Aquarian planets and Pisces rising means that I am abler to comprehend our mother with her stellium of five Aquarian and Piscean planets. My sister having the Sun-Jupiter-Neptune T-square may have felt a sense of harmonization and alignment from our father with his Sun-Jupiter-Neptune conjunction.
In terms of helping our parents as they aged and needed more attention, we tended to divide labor by having my sister manage our father's needs, and having me persuade, and discuss issues with, our mother. I have our mother's accent whereas my sister has our father's accent, owing to the fact that as small children we were each exposed more to a different parent.
I can guess a little at astrological factors corresponding to my family's history. I expect that similar-appearing factors would work out in a different fashion for other families given cultural, biological, past life histories, and other variations.
It's curious how some things can be revealing yet still opaque. Perhaps a little mystery is naturally companionate with a little illumination. The curtain rises. The mystery is the play.
"In the fourth house the individual works to find its place in the nuclear family, then the skills honed by this family are utilized by society in the tenth house."
That's quite a nice take. I don't think I've heard it put like that before. There seems quite a tussle now between those houses.
"As Pluto returns, people are reminded of the successful war for independence that marked the beginning of the country's life."
"So this Sun-Moon-Saturn rebellious Uranian president has a role to play in separation, remaining mindful of the emotional weight of the Moon-Saturn reality."
"The Moon-Saturn aligns with the collective as a whole. Citizens are questioning their affiliations as the Independent sector grows. The preference for freedom resurfaces."
Well stated. The Pluto return in Capricorn, in the nation's chart; an evolutionary choice revisited. There was divisiveness at the nation's beginning as now. Cracks appear in old structures — attractive conditions for opportunists and newcomers.
Yes, to double down on formative group identifications or to affirm the validity of one's individual perspective.
I am reminded that Saturn has, historically, a complex relationship with change.
Saturn was a god with contradictory origins, having sometimes been regarded as the first king of Latium or of Italy entirely but at other times remembered as an exiled immigrant god who, warmly received by the native god Janus, became identified with one of the oldest sanctuaries for those seeking justice and shelter from war. Curiously, this is mirrored in the currently competing views/identities of the U.S. as traditionally a forward-looking 'nation of immigrants' versus traditionally a conservative one in danger from immigrants (or foreigners), in the arguments over 'sanctuary cities'.
And, these days, it strikes me that we have heard both political liberals and conservatives complain of the overturning of norms, institutions, tradition, etc., yet the two groups stand in diametric opposition to each other on many issues despite some inversions. In ancient times, the Saturnalia was an annual holiday notable for its inversion of social norms; on that day, the chains and fetters were symbolically removed from the feet of the statues of Saturn, regarded as a god of liberation who was nevertheless kept chained the rest of the year.
Saturn, a god of time, has a blurred history and mythology with his co-ruler, Janus, who is the two-faced god who simultaneously faces the past and the future thereby making it possible for consciousness to make an informed choice. Perhaps we could say as well that Janus simultaneously embodies the impulse to conserve and the impulse to progress.
Interestingly, Uranus is, astrologically, an agent of change and freedom, and it is the planet to which modern astrologers have transferred rulership of the zodiac sign Aquarius previously believed to be under Saturn's sole governance.
Saturn and Pluto are related symbols in that, before the planet or dwarf planet Pluto was discovered, astrologers formerly associated with Saturn many attributes now given to Pluto. Mythologically, both gods had connections to death — one god being the lord of time and grim reaper, the other being the lord of the underworld and the afterlife — and to implacable fates, decay, the ravages of time, and more. The ancients thought in terms of natural correspondences (which may overlap) and resonances, whereas later astrologers increasingly distilled distinct core meanings — as with Saturn representing the status quo versus Pluto as an evolutionary change agent.
Saturn and Pluto were in opposition at the time of the September 11, 2001, attacks. Their relationship appears fraught with tension, with drastic changes for good or ill. Our ability or inability to reconcile them may be indicative. Well, we'll see how the story unfolds as we approach their conjunction in 2020, and beyond that. How times change! How time changes!
"Yes, to double down on formative group identifications or to affirm the validity of one's individual perspective."
This has been the crux of Uranus in Aries which is soon coming to a close. The transit pitted the individual against the system with some good results. People were afraid that we common citizens had lost our ability to choose our leaders, but that turned out not to be the case as the last election so dramatically proved. It was astonishing how stacked the deck was against the victor. The "traditional" deck, that is. It's been an oddly uncomfortable relief. Even the angry fearful ones know it deep down. It was a validation of citizens and autonomous power, to some extent.
The voters realize they have not been properly represented by the government and that seems to be slowly changing. Group identification has its place, but the times demanded individuality in order to break the chokehold. And that's what we got.
Some need the group, some don't. And some are just discovering that they don't. People leave, but then return to the fold. It's the nature of free choice. Now in my old age I see I have changed my philosophies and political views. Sometimes liberal policies are appropriate, sometimes conservative. The times are the best indicator. Politics are part of nature. There's an overall rhythm.
I've discussed before America's Saturn in Libra and the lessons of our dual party system. What we are learning is how to have reasoned debate on the path to good governance. With four Cancer planets emotions spin out of healthy balance, turning political discourse into a screaming crybabying irrational hullabaloo. That could use some correction.
When the two factions are constantly quarreling, the individual perspective becomes that much more vital.
Immigration. I mentioned the dilemma in my last Raging Universe post.
Open borders is not appropriate for this country. We have had plenty of immigration to our benefit but it has mostly been well controlled. It will continue.
The Moon and South Node in Aquarius, which the U.S. has, naturally takes in people from all over the planet. We are one of the most diverse nations on earth. But we no longer have to prove how accepting we are. It's fact. It's really not a matter of conservatives seeing immigrants as dangerous and liberals seeing progress. It's just effort misplaced that could be applied more productively, since we automatically shelter others. Excessive, too loose immigration can be detrimental in our case.
Instead, we are moving toward identity, national pride, and great leadership with the North Node in Leo. Sun conjunct Jupiter adds its own dimension. Immigrants were and will be included.
The association of death with Saturn and Pluto is interesting. It relates to this post, "The Numbers Game", and the slot we are given in life as if it were predetermined. At least death itself is predetermined.
It seems Saturn with his precise calculator does the grim reaping to define the time of death. I think you are right about Pluto and the afterlife. Maybe Pluto hovers around death to ensure a safe passage for the creature. So Pluto really might not be so foreboding since he grants entrance into a brand new life. Imagine that! More life.
"When the two factions are constantly quarreling, the individual perspective becomes that much more vital."
I have thought that they are of service in dramatizing or illustrating the extremes for observers, who may then choose, refrain from choosing, or invent new options from which to choose. In any of those cases, intentionality and responsibility are the exercise of one's inner power. One is then not a victim. Our experience of polarity in time and space becomes part of our awakening process as beings of consciousness.
"Sometimes liberal policies are appropriate, sometimes conservative. The times are the best indicator. Politics are part of nature. There's an overall rhythm."
"It's just effort misplaced that could be applied more productively...."
You can tell when someone goes overboard in attempting to persuade, even if you basically agree with their position on a particular issue (at least for a particular time and place). They strive to elicit a gut reaction, but gut reactions are intended for dealing with immediate threats that faced our ancestors in a world full of physical danger, and they are not by themselves sufficient to the long term.
A recurring energy pattern is a kind of habit. A flexible, dynamic, responsive overall balance is important if one aims to be effective and maintain vitality, to have safe passage between extremes.
This requires great effort and yet little effort.
Brushing one's teeth, for example, is something that very young children learn to do. A child's simple task. It involves teeth which are traditionally under Saturn's rulership. Mastering this small task is an act of memory and discipline, the establishment of a good habit that becomes an integral part of the daily routine. Humans — that species that brushes its teeth — invents habits for itself. Then, cumulatively, great effort does get expended over a lifetime on such small maintenance tasks, but it is such seemingly trivial habits of mind, heart, body and spirit that steer one away from the worst fates of degeneration, discouragement, decay, despair and so on. Such fates are the shadow side of Saturn, or back side, much of which is now seen as Pluto's realm.
Studies have shown that those who are capable of great willpower in fact report using it very little in their daily lives, compared to those who complain of constant temptation, distraction, or burdensome obstacles. Those who have strong wills, or self-mastery, while they can indeed exercise enormous will at need, naturally use it pre-emptively to head off potential problems. They arrange their lives just so, and choose their destinies rather than be mere pawns of fate. So there is a key that Saturn holds, unless one flees that aspect of his authority which is one's mastery.
"It seems Saturn with his precise calculator does the grim reaping to define the time of death. I think you are right about Pluto and the afterlife. Maybe Pluto hovers around death to ensure a safe passage for the creature. So Pluto really might not be so foreboding since he grants entrance into a brand new life. Imagine that! More life."
We have more to say on these forces. Or maybe it's that these forces have more to say.
We can see the forces, as they come down to us, dimly reflected and refracted through the frameworks of esoteric arts such as astrology and Tarot, or more commonly as myth and story. (I will say that some of these forces can be rather blinding, stunning, shocking if encountered more directly, say, on an astral level.) The frameworks clothe them in symbols so that they can become comprehensible to us, but I think that we should be mindful not to mistake the symbols for the full realities, though we often speak of them interchangeably.
It is relatively easier to identify with the inner planets, astrologically speaking, but the outer planets seem more distant, even foreign, overpowering and sometimes oppressive.
But the forces are not truly outside of us; what's outside is inside. Some who follow an old mystical tradition say that there are hundreds of thousands of gods and goddesses who dwell within our physical bodies. Others of a more modern cast of mind speak of a holographic universe, where the Whole that is more than the sum of Its parts is nevertheless within each of Its parts.
If our friends will indulge us further, let's take a look at the bones of a kind of Pluto themed story by a modern fantasy writer.
Recently, a great fantasist died. We could metaphorically say that she passed out of Saturn's realm of time, through a door into Pluto's realm.
I read an article which explored how one of the fantasist's greatest early works literalizes analytic psychology's concept of the ego's shadow. In that view, the young child has no real shadow, but as the child's identity stabilizes and enlarges its scope, the child's shadow grows; the shadow is all the qualities that the ego doesn't need or cannot use, puts aside, and perhaps disowns.
The protagonist in the fantasist's novel is a young wizard, a kind of learned but natural magician.
Funnily in this context, I recently read a blog item where an astrologer wrote that although the planet Mercury is associated with the Tarot card called The Magician, in her view the card can also be used to represent the aspect of Saturn trine Pluto in the sense of discipline and determined self-application opening the door of transformation.
Much can be read into any given symbol, of course. Before continuing, let me borrow, from a Tarotist, a few ideas for the Tarot card The Magician.
"Light: Expressing masculine energy in appropriate and constructive ways. Being yourself in every way."
"Archetype: The Ego/The Self"
"Story: Consciously or unconsciously, the main character receives or controls a resource that holds the key to the story’s primary challenge."
(Illustration at my Tarot application tarotmysterium.com. Click card image for meanings.)
In the novel, the young wizard, because of his naive ego, is manipulated (by a evil sorceress) into inadvertently opening a gate to the land of death. The young wizard's master arrives to dispel (or shall we say dis-spell, to make a pun) the gate but a shadow creature, like a small beast, had already come through and escapes. The horrified and shamed young wizard then leaves the tutelage of his quiet master to seek his way in the world.
As the wizard grows in power, so does the creature of darkness — much like psychoanalytic's archetype of the shadow. Despite the wizard's skill and unparalleled strength (enough to survive or best great and terrible powers, a dragon and a dark earth god), he has been gravely injured and nearly eaten by the fanged, clawed voracious shadow pursuing him across the world.
The wizard returns to his former master for solace and advice. The master (who is a hermit sage much like the Tarot card The Hermit that is often associated with Saturn) observes that as long as the young wizard flees, the shadow will be the hunter who determines where the wizard goes until there is nowhere left to run.
The master advises that the only hope is for the hunted to become the hunter. But the young wizard mightily fears the shadow, for he does not know the creature's name, and wizardly power is expressed through the language of true names by which the world was first created.
In the end, ablaze with mage light, he confronts the shadow without shrinking away. As it approaches, the shadow loses its resemblance to those who had caused him grief or to whom he owed a debt or penance, and it appears to be a four-legged animal. It rises up like a man, and they reach for each other.
Then, the wizard and the shadow both call each other by name at the same time: It is the same name, and the sound is as if only one being spoke while two mouths moved. The mage light dims as the shadow vanishes, leaving the young man to rejoice at freedom and in glad wonder at newfound wholeness.
A psychoanalytic quotation seems in order here: "Filling the conscious mind with ideal conceptions is a characteristic of Western theosophy, but not the confrontation with the shadow and the world of darkness. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious."
Sometimes Pluto becomes darker and enchaining from one's building a powerful aversion. It's been said that the quickest way past a difficult emotion is to go through it, to fully process it.
From a taoist martial arts view, resistance magnifies the difficulty of confronting a opposing force, and gives it leverage over one; it's better to deflect the force to a harmless direction or into useful ends, and that is certainly where Saturn can offer teaching.
In the Orphic Hymn to Pluto, Pluto is called both "strong-spirited" and the "All-receiver" — an odd combination to modern ears. In some accounts of ancient mysteries, Pluto may have once been identified as a torchbearer, perhaps one who guided the initiate's return to the daylight world, and was titled "good counsel" because as ruler of the underworld he could advise supplicants at Pluto's dream oracles.
Pluto's mythical realm is not all darkness: it is the other worlds, containing both the shining paradise where dwell the blessed deceased, and less savory places for lost souls. He has a helmet of invisibility; the earlier name Hades, means the "The Unseen One", but perhaps from fear of speaking it aloud the Greeks began to call him by one of his titles, Pluto, whose root means wealthy. Metaphysically, Pluto is the Unknown Reality, the Unrecognized Self.
So, now we are in a choosing time. Which self and which world would we — will we — be? The stories we tell ourselves, and about ourselves, are more revealing than realized. There are other ways to look at these things, of course, other magic mirrors for our gaze. These are just a few things I note in passing at this time.
"It seems Saturn with his precise calculator does the grim reaping to define the time of death. Maybe Pluto hovers around death to ensure a safe passage for the creature. So Pluto really might not be so foreboding since he grants entrance into a brand new life. Imagine that! More life."
Yes, "Pluto" in one of his most ancient forms as Eubouleus ("Good Counsel") the torch bearer who guides through the dark passage of initiation in the Mysteries. (As such, and as a tranformative power, there may be a connection to what people call the Christ energy and similar concepts, to what some near death experiencers claim to encounter.)
Though wrapped in shadows, hidden, he brings illumination. (We should remember this, I am silently advised by some watching muse.)
Later, as stories developed, that function of Pluto as guide may have been relabeled as other entities having chthonic aspects — Hermes/Mercury, Charon and so forth — but whatever else they may be perhaps we can regard them as symbols for the conscious mind to grasp a larger domain, like the proverbial blind men attempting to describe an elephant by its parts.
Another way to look at this is to contrast the precision of Saturn's scythe of harvest and death with the dark yet accelerative tunnel experienced during the dying process which opens onto superluminal realms organized on principles different from earthly time.
We might expect that with the outer planets beyond Saturn — Uranus, Neptune, Pluto (and perhaps others yet to be recognized) — there is loosening of the natural order within Saturn's sphere which encompasses the inner planets.
Saturn as the common experience of linear, chronological time is that circumscribing limiter which makes action, choice and story possible for us. Fundamentally, if you choose one action, that precludes other actions from simultaneously happening within its scope. Or … so it would seem.
It may be that things and entities persist outside Saturn's realm; they persist above and beyond their earthly aspects, and in ways that may seem foreign and strange. In some cultures and theologies, it is accepted that a person may die and reincarnate many times all the while retaining continuing consciousness in a eternal realm of blessed ancestors. Thus, one can still talk to, pray or appeal to one's ancestor as a guiding spirit though that ancestor may have already reincarnated into another living body. And each of the reincarnations of that ancestor may, if they so choose (and perhaps they may well not so choose), develop in that way, having a conscious presence in the realm of the disincarnate whilst also having conscious presences as incarnate beings. The original self multiplies itself, becoming a richer tapestry of personalities and characteristics upon which it can draw, from its explorations within the spheres of time, with earthly experience.
There may be universes organized associatively by meaning, or perhaps by something like vibrational harmonies, rather than by principles of physical cause-and-effect. Were we to mentally visit those realities — and we do — we might return with the memory of something like a dream, if we recall anything at all, and the dream would be a story, a set of symbols that reflect activities and perceptions only indirectly expressible. Perhaps special preparation might permit more.
But we may be "there" now, even during our waking hours — there on what some call superconscious and subconscious levels. So, from that perspective, to bring more of the "there" here, to conjoin time and the Other, is just one evocative idea for the Saturn-Pluto conjunction as far as implications for self-understanding, self-evolution and self-enrichment. Perhaps we could liken it to the opportunity for daring new initiatives in international relations and diplomacy.
The daring new initiatives in international relations and diplomacy are already happening.
With nine-eleven, Saturn structure was destroyed by Pluto. It was the World Trade symbol. Now at the Saturn Pluto conjunction, world trade agreements are being reconstructed. Trade is a fundamental pillar of human survival.
Not to be unsympathetic to those who are stressed by the times but I find it all very interesting and I am not taking sides in saying so. Some things are coming to an end and then comes the hope of new beginnings. It does seem to fit the heavy Plutonic symbolism of destruction, transformation, rebirth, devolution and evolution. Some systems certainly appear to be breaking down, which hopefully will not be overdone, and which precedes reorganization. It'll be fascinating to see how well or poorly things go, over the next few years. And it may aggrieve the self-righteous to hear it but there will always be a price, of course, no matter which road is taken.
"With nine-eleven, Saturn structure was destroyed by Pluto. It was the World Trade symbol."
Saturn was then in Gemini, often visualized by astrologers as "the Twins", coming into opposition with Pluto in Sagittarius. The World Trade Center was of course located at what we called the Twin Towers, the tall skyscrapers which were shockingly destroyed. There were other supporting indicators, such as Moon in Cancer coming into opposition with Mars in Capricorn.
On a psychical level, I saw the Twin Towers as symbolizing a society at a height of success but which seemed dangerously unaware of how it was regarded outside its self-created domain. In that story, Pluto can represent the destruction that comes from outside, that perhaps might have been avoided with more awareness but was not.
Pluto can also represent instinctual responses. It is helpful for immediate threats but under other circumstances its power has potential to harm, such as through overreaction. Saturn resonates with the prefrontal cortex, the executive control function, and the pineal gland, control over karma. Pluto can bring forth deep fears which can overwhelm the conscious mind and disable Saturn's ability to manage them, to manage the self, to manage the self's affairs in the world, to seek or sort out truth, or to become an initiate into mystery and its hidden illumination.
Particularly this time, of heightened polarity, may actually be an opening for individuals, of whatever group or affiliation, to reshape their inner and outer relationship with Pluto rather than it being overly determined for them by past or future events. Transformation or a deal with the devil — or a little of each? Tricky stuff. Many possibilities await at the crossroads — that liminal, discomforting, in-between place — where, old myths say, the worlds meet.
"It reminds me of the Sanskrit Kundalini rising, that being primal energy located at the base of the spine. It's said to be in the form of a coiled serpent, speaking of Pluto, with awakening being the by-product as the released force hits the top."
In the last day or so, I have been looking at serpentine, dragon and ouroboros pendants, small metal sculptures, and lightly considering their symbolism.
Today, I had the thought, "The giantess is awakening." I thought of Pluto, in some ways like an astrological of blend of Mars and Saturn, and thought to have a masculine polarization. (Uranus, for its part, seems to have some affinities to Mercury, Mars, and Jupiter.)
Later, I noted your latest R.U. post wherein you draw a comparison to the Kundalini energy, its traditional serpent-like imagery, its connection as a kind of evolutionary force to Pluto, and its resonance with transiting Uranus in Aries square Pluto in Capricorn. I thought, That's very fitting, for Uranus must surely represent a catalytic, awakening stimulant with Pluto.
In the East, Pluto, an evolutionary force that can bring destruction, is linked to Shiva. Shiva's name means "good and kind". Although he is often imaged as the god of death and destruction, this can also be understood as destroying ignorance and corruption in human nature. On some evenings, Shiva rides with lost souls as their lord and well-wisher; one is reminded a little of the West's underworld hunter gods who with hounds and ghosts pursue human and other prey in the night.
Interestingly, kundalini shakti is a form of the feminine energy in the mystical literature. In terms of spiritual energy, the feminine is the animating force which acts upon the masculine principle, as Shakti upon meditating Shiva who is in a state of pure consciousness; so, the spiritual dynamic is the inverse of the physical plane.
Perhaps as the creative feminine energy becomes more active, the masculine energy becomes more rarefied and high level in application, and they become mutually reinforcing, cycling as they interchange, merge, and separate in their dance.
And perhaps we could say that the grandmothers (literally and metaphorically) will or are coming into power again, though many will not recognize their activities, for they work relationally, from the ground up in Plutonian fashion, with little notice or comprehension from male-dominated top-down Saturnian structures.
Maybe this is where the action mostly is for Pluto, implacable and evolutionary, albeit we seem most aware of him when after long suppression he erupts volcanically from the ground, as the uncouth revolutionary, to abduct our springtime innocence — or more wonderfully and rarely, when kundalini rises to burst free in expanded consciousness that is disillusioned and free. Disillusionment is the first step to enlightenment, it's been said.
Either, any, or all scenarios, I expect many surprises, moving forward. Then, afterwards, some will say, "Of course!" … of course.
One of the points I make is that Pluto in Capricorn has made good use of high voltage Uranus in Aries, as all people can. It's customized for each individual. Collectively speaking, I think our country has done fairly well. I have confidence.
People generalize a little too much in their quest for group belonging and get confused as to where exactly they fit in. And what so called authority is to be believed. The results of this transit are some realignments....social, political, and personal. The political differences have brought on many rifts among families and friends, thankfully in many cases. The results are forthcoming. The new alignments promise to be odd and interesting, where one can fit in anywhere or nowhere. And somewhere at different times. Free thinking is a valuable item. Especially with Uranus in Gemini as the country has. Me too!
It's a fine thing to destroy ignorance and corruption but it returns since it remains a necessity. It keeps Shiva busy.
The results are starting to come in now as political policy stands in both parties are shifting and even blending. In fact, leaving a party and becoming unaffiliated is a great liberation in itself as people are discovering.
Uranus is destructive, too, with its shattering and barrier breaking. I agree that Pluto's destruction comes from the depths. It has more feeling sensation to it than high and dry mental Uranus. Together they can produce big results.
So Uranus, Pluto, and Mars have been been actively destroying while good old Capricorn patiently constructs. Saturn is always there when you need him.
Capricorn needs reinforcement and raw materials now for constructive systemic purposes.
"Uncouth revolutionary." That's funny.
"One of the points I make is that Pluto in Capricorn has made good use of high voltage Uranus in Aries, as all people can. It's customized for each individual. Collectively speaking, I think our country has done fairly well. I have confidence."
That is such a good point!
"The new alignments promise to be odd and interesting, where one can fit in anywhere or nowhere. And somewhere at different times. Free thinking is a valuable item. Especially with Uranus in Gemini as the country has. Me too!"
I am looking forward to seeing how things play over time. Nothing lasts forever, and old strictures must fall away having served their purpose. What replaces them is in formation, and likely in plain sight though we often don't recognize it until later.
"In fact, leaving a party and becoming unaffiliated is a great liberation in itself as people are discovering."
This is like what my sister and I tell her kid. I say, You don't have to automatically take sides like it's some kind of sports team to which you have to be blindly loyal. The sides, such as they are, have changed over time and even switched positions on some things in their long struggle for dominance and power.
"'Uncouth revolutionary.' That's funny."
Well, I imagine that's exactly what his mother-in-law, Demeter (Ceres) called Pluto to his face for abducting her daughter Persephone. "You — you — uncouth revolutionary!"
I like a bit of irreverence at times. Some people are so very serious every day. Good humor implies a sense of proportion. I picture Pluto erupting from the ground, riding his golden chariot pulled by black steeds, about to abduct Persephone goddess of springtime but, unlike classical depictions, he is scruffy, needs a shave, dressed in black leather, carrying a semi-automatic rifle and wears ammunition belts strapped across his chest. Would make a nice series of modern art paintings to acquaint the public with the gods as they dress nowadays.
...Aha, here's a nice photo of him as a young boy: The Uncouth Revolutionary. Contrary to expectations, he grows up to be an uncouth musician. (Actually, the young musician was born with Pluto in Scorpio in opposition to Mercury, with Pluto in a minor grand trine to Venus and Neptune, and Pluto square to NN.)
On another astrological item, I was interested to read this morning that Jupiter (currently in Scorpio, I believe) is calculated to lose its Great Red Spot within a human lifetime. The massive storm used to be several times the size of our home planet Earth; now it's only 1.3 times the size. It is growing taller as it narrows. It already seems a bit smaller than I remember it from my youth. I wonder what will replace it's role in our mass consciousness, and what it should mean astrologically. Historical records indicate that in the 1600s, people saw a different, earlier, massive storm on Jupiter than the one we see today. The storms come and go. Even the gods change with the times, it seems, as perhaps one might guess from astrology.
It occurs to me that Pluto as musician is an interesting serendipitous idea to consider. I happened on the photo of the boy randomly by searching Google images for words like revolutionary and machine gun. Naturally, it led to a musician with the professional moniker of Machine Gun Kelly. The nice thing with this kind of chasing down mental leads is that sometimes there is a nice "coincidence", like a kind of magical confirmation bias. In this case it turns out that he has natal Pluto in the sign it rules, and Pluto is prominently aspected to planets having to do with communication, the arts and music.
Pluto factors in with singing. The primal force in the root chakra travels up to the throat in Taurus and comes out in song. A gutteral transformation occurs.
Singing is embarrassing since people are uncomfortable with the lower expressions of self and most voices come out inhibited and strangled. They can be loud and aggressive but the strangulation remains. Opening up isn't easy.
Still, Pluto's treasures surface as music melts the heart, soothes fears, and brings profound pleasure at its best.
Very nice. Orpheus performs before Pluto and Persephone.
In traditional opera and ballet, the role of Pluto is usually performed with a low, bass singing voice, representing the deepness and weightiness of the underworld.
I have noticed that the odd-numbered chakras have to do with self-identity and self-expression, as the even-numbered chakras have to do with relationships and connections.
The throat chakra is where the power is raised to a sufficient height and breadth of perspective that it can literally comment on the emotional and physical spheres below. It is the self-aware emergence of art and knowledge, of spirit identity and spirit memory.
Hi, jm. How's the progress on the North Node in Virgo and the South Node in Pisces?
:-)..rather slow. I'm probably the slowest poke on the planet.
But keeping promises seems to be in the air. I will do it.
The notes are done!
Looking forward to reading them. :)
That's quite a charming band performance and use of musical body language in that video you posted, jm. Red's tie is almost a bib — it's so wide! Would be useful when consuming spaghetti, especially if the tie is also red.
"Do we eat sensibly or ...?", you mused. It seems that what it means to eat sensibly is still being determined. Perhaps one diet will never satisfy all. Indeed, camps of dietary advocates and enthusiasts naturally coalesce as people persuade each other, and therefore sharper division results from greater intra-camp coherency. The path to unity works in forked ways.
Speaking of food and forks ... Paleo or vegan spaghetti sauce? An older acquaintance commented on how exhausted she was after cooking and prepping for, and then hostessing, her holiday dinner party this past weekend. She made both sauces for her guests who have highly discriminating tastes. According to all report, the dinner party was wonderful and she'd outdone herself. It was a bit of a mess, but decidedly worth it for the memories.
A younger acquaintance — perhaps as prematurely aged from his youth as the older acquaintance retained her youthful ways — commented that he dreaded holidays. Such an interesting alchemy they can be, I thought. When my sister held holiday get-togethers in our parents' house, I took it on myself to greet our guests with all warmth and appreciation. The way one looks and smiles into people's eyes, the tones that carry messages beyond simple words, cannot help but transform the flow of events, and therefore with immediacy and intimacy. Sometimes it takes a bit of extra power to reach some persons, so it helps to drink deeply at the restorative well of infinity first. Holidays offer many chances to touch magic and pass it on.
Some will lose their way, but all who can hear the call of the invisible should fear not — or at least fear less! It is that time of year when we are en masse reminded that great cycles draw aged matters to a close and something new and small and possible emerges into the land of time. It's not unlike, dare we say, the birth of a new star in the heavens going unnoticed but for a few — an ancient event that in fact is not only still happening but happens all the time in greater or lesser forms in our lives.
Merry holidays and happy such times, my dears. ;-)
Body language by the pros. What a zany ensemble!
They're most excellent.
Like spirit, music is not merely abstract but it must be embodied for its fullest expression.
And that brings up something interesting. When deaf people party or attend popular music concerts, they don't hear music as hearing people do, but their bodies sense the pulses and their feet feel the beat in the vibrating floor and from that their deafness-adapted brains have profound emotional experiences. In deaf persons' brains, the "auditory" centers will receive and process messages not from ears but from other sources, particularly augmenting the sense of touch.
"I don’t think bands know that they have deaf fans," said one sign language interpreter of music. You can see her silent interpretation of music and lyrics, using motion to paint images in the air for deaf audiences to absorb, in the video recording for the article, "How Deaf People Experience Music"
She saw the need and pioneered her specialty. "I saw these deaf kids and they were dancing all over the place and signing to the music and I was like 'Whoa, deaf people do love music'. For a long time everybody told me deaf people didn't like music." More at "Feeling the beat: What it's like to be a deaf music fan"
And, fortunately, there is a "New initiative to address ticketing barriers for deaf and disabled fans".
The world ever changes, and while others fight the battles of yesterday, some hold visions not so much of a world before nor a world beyond but of an accessible, responsive world that is coming into being. Let those who have ears to hear, hear; and let those who don't have ears to hear, feel. And for the rest, God bless!
Happy lunar New Year to all! And Saturn-Pluto conjunction, too, while we're at it!
Mooney, Looney, Spooky, and the Boss Man.
Proceed with caution!
Indeed...and in deed too. A serious harvest is upon us, as the wheel of the year turns.
It is the Year of the Rat in the lunar calendar, beginning a new twelve-year cycle. Like our little mammal cousins, we are advised to be instinctive, acute and alert in nature, and to react properly before the worst circumstances take place. The personality archetype of the Rat is to be be sanguine and adaptable, and also sophisticated and popular in social interaction.
Saturn and Pluto have an interesting relationship. When Pluto was discovered, it initially inherited some of the mental associations formerly related to Saturn by astrologers (just as Uranus inherited something of Mars and Neptune inherited from Venus). With an expanded symbol vocabulary, astrologers refined the symbol system by analogy with higher octaves of planetary forces.
One wonders whether they should find a sympathetic resonance, as with musical instruments. Can Venus and Neptune pluck each other's strings, so to speak? What kind of music would Saturn and Pluto, or Mars and Uranus, make if they were a musical duet? Oh.
With Saturn and Pluto now approaching my natal Saturn-Mercury conjunction in Aquarius, and with Uranus entering a Taurean second house, I myself have done the fateful thing.
I have quit my home of many years to join the exodus from my native island kingdom sometime called, variously, The Capital of the World, The Center of the Universe, Metropolis (by day) and Gotham (by night), and many other epithets both damning and kind such as The Modern Gomorrah and The City So Nice They Named It Twice.
For, though it may — and long may it! — shock the sensibilities of my more staid fellows, it is a place both "Naughty AND Nice" — a descriptive phrase I once glued in bright glitter onto a striped red and white Christmas stocking (with glittery ruby red stiletto heels) I made as a gift for my sister's friend. (Santa would surely approve; after all, we are grown up and may stay up late with all the consequences thereof.)
I am near enough still. By subterranean passage under a river, I can traverse part of Saturn and Pluto's domains, and under Neptune's, to re-emerge in my old neighborhood, more than a league away, in a matter of minutes to meet with friends or with clients. It's curious in our modern era how people cross between realms so easily and quickly yet remark little on daily marvels save for annoyance over the occasional failure to adhere strictly to that Saturnine taskmaster, the clock. (For an example of a Saturnine clock, please see "When Saturn Starts Dancing" by Paula Belle Flores.)
My new abode has a fireplace in a room with a ten-foot ceiling. There is plenty of space for me to wave my tai chi practice sword about — a key criterion when I chose the place. (Here is a photo (link to photo) of the western half of the room, with a couple of unfinished paintings placed on mantel for the time being. I will decide where to place art after I unpack and get furniture in.) The windows are large and placed to admit morning and afternoon light. There will be fire and light, oh yes, and movement.
The previous Saturn-Pluto conjunction in the 80s was a time of transition, too, for me, moving from one place in the world to another, of fateful choices. For me it was a time of delving into the heart of infinite mystery, the dark night of the soul. Then, some years later after a Saturn return, Pluto passed over my natal Neptune in Scorpio, and Neptune passed over my Sun, Venus and Mars in Capricorn — a mystic and creative period heralded by a taste of kundalini in communion with higher planes.
I can speculate that the Saturn-Pluto conjunction relates to something dying, and then that allows something to be born, or reborn. The timing of that sequence, a death followed by rebirth, will depend. Perhaps Saturn and Pluto carry the force and quality of their encounter forward as they stately dance over natal planets, and when they move most in concert. As always, individuals will respond as they will to the great cycles. Let those with stars in their eyes watch for it, for they will see clearly.
Fantastic!! Moving is a big event.
Looks like you got a good realtor. The fireplace is gorgeous!
Saturn as "real"tor. I'm trusting Saturn as manager to work with me in constructing a reborn career in music, considering all this merriment is in my 10th house.
Saturn Pluto relates to many things. One aspect I find interesting is Death (Pluto) of the Father (Saturn) in the psyche which prepares a human to be the boss of the self.
"Who's in charge?" An appropriate question under the circumstances.
Space is a precious commodity. It breeds dignity in living conditions.
The value of emptiness. Buying nothing!
Saturn Pluto did well for you. It must be your excellent behavior!
Here are a few photos of the fireplace glowing. It did not seem practical to burn wood regularly, so the glowing coals are rocks of pink Himalayan salt sold as part of electric lamps. The camera does not capture the salt rocks clearly, their forms are much more articulated when seen in person.
Also, there is a photo of my bedroom en déshabillé before unpacking and re-organizing, shortly after moving in to the apartment.
And a close-up of a few of my paintings, some of which I have set on the mantel for the time being until I decide how to arrange everything in the apartment. The two canvas paintings on the mantel are unfinished and have been so for years; perhaps I will someday circle back to them.
The small images are cards, some of which I made for friends or relatives. Here are some close-ups of a selection of greeting card designs. The ones directed to my godchildren are based on themes from games, video and television shows that they enjoy.
" I'm trusting Saturn as manager to work with me in constructing a reborn career in music, considering all this merriment is in my 10th house."
And, "No time like the present!" Thus spake the taskmaster, Saturn.
But what does that mean, one wonders.
Does it mean that the present is always a timeless, timeful, moment of intrinsic power, of carpe diem and seize the day, because it is the beginning place of all action, the transformational key if we, like a poet birthing words onto a page, watch — and perhaps by the very act, by a special form of most active watching, coax — the emergence of innermost feelings as outer actions?
"Saturn Pluto relates to many things. One aspect I find interesting is Death (Pluto) of the Father (Saturn) in the psyche which prepares a human to be the boss of the self."
That's an excellent point. The parent image is a projection — when one ceases to be a child, and takes on adult responsibilities, the projection no longer holds; the relationship has changed. Then, Saturn is an aspect of the self as one grows in mastery. The Parent and Child are one, the Parent is in the Child, as the Parent contains within itself the Child it once was.
Perhaps Saturn means that Time brings learning, though to some swifter than others.
'"Who's in charge?" An appropriate question under the circumstances.'
Perhaps the charge moves as it will, carrying the whom along with it. Is identity the source of movement or does identity arise from movement...or both?
"Space is a precious commodity. It breeds dignity in living conditions. The value of emptiness. Buying nothing!"
Wise architect! You live in spaciousness, a priceless gift freely given to all and yet many divide it to put a price on it. Divisiveness and cost, it seems, conspire to acquire.
"Saturn Pluto did well for you. It must be your excellent behavior!"
Maybe Saturn-Pluto is also implacable persistence towards a goal. I tell people that finding a new residence was like a medieval quest for the Holy Grail, passing the tests of tempters and challengers, like tasting the visions held by the golden chalices of the Seven of Cups before imbibing fully of any. They who persist will naturally go farther.
Furthermore, when we flow in harmony, we know we are the forces that become us. It's been said that (despite the common spiritual aspiration) we are not becoming gods but the gods are becoming us. The abstract principles enter manifestation.
On that path, the inhospitable places do not belong to one's reality, and must be passed by.
Where one can live, truly live, one can mold the energies around one as an artist commands color to create form or a musician summons music out of featureless air. Then, creativity, which to be what it is must ever be both received and given, speaks miraculously through our fingers and our own voices, the movements of our bodies through time.
We walk in its ways though it comes anew to us wearing the face of a stranger.
Past Saturn's gate, are Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, bringing empowering gifts of spontaneity, sublimity and transformation. We often fear them as outer forces when projected onto the great movie screen of the world, but they also represent potent inner resources of which we may have been unconscious or have forgotten, which great art calls into our collective awareness that we may reflect and perhaps begin to understand.
It looks like a wonderful apartment.
"The camera does not capture the salt rocks clearly, their forms are much more articulated when seen in person."
Now that is a loaded statement. I lean towards live myself.
"Is identity the source of movement or does identity arise from movement...or both?" he asks.
My answer. I think motion is a fact of life and the driver is anywhere, source undetermined. A change of position in order to adapt to circumstance.
It's all action and reaction anyway. Done to a rhythm.
"Now that is a loaded statement. I lean towards live myself."
No doubt that's why we incarnate. Many things seem good in the abstract but actual practice is where excitement lives. The rubber hits the road, and there is friction.
Speaking of incarnating, moving into a new residence may be compared to reincarnation.
The physical body is a container, and so is a domicile. Both serve as bases of operation for the incarnate self, both are fundamentally layers, fields within fields within fields, of energies.
A change of body or a change of domicile re-orients your relationship with the world.
"I think motion is a fact of life and the driver is anywhere, source undetermined. A change of position in order to adapt to circumstance. It's all action and reaction anyway. Done to a rhythm."
Here's something I heard today. It seems most apropos to consider at this time:
The limits of a thing start where the limits of a thing end.
It's similar to, but more encompassing than, "Every ending is the beginning of something."
It brings to mind the infinite Ouroboros.
I am reading that the Ouroboros's magic serpentine circles were understood by the ancient Egyptians to protect the Sun, the self-created one, afloat on its solar barge, The Boat of Millions of Years, in its dark night passage through the underworld.
For that matter, the Ouroboros is a most ancient and rather Plutonian symbol, representing the formless disorder within the orderly world, and was thought to be a cause of the world's periodic renewal. Perhaps it can be likened to the Universe regarding itself as a quantum-entangled object, for regard changes things.
Ah, I am further reading now that the solar deity was himself earlier pictured as a serpent that renews itself each morning as it ascends from chaos-waters. His tears of joy, on recovering his lost children from the chaos, became the first humans.
On an individual level, our modern day magi, scientists, tell us that the dreaming brain reorganizes its experiences, consolidates memory, discards, reinforces, connects things.
Then, the self awakens anew and refreshed from sleep. The wave of conscious awareness and identity that collapsed to merge back into the ocean is replaced by a newly emergent wave. A portion of the unconscious rises, turns its gaze upon the world without rather than within, and knows itself as awake.
Our brains and bodies do this every morning and further, I believe, the conscious and unconscious are constantly circuiting, becoming each other, like yin and yang. For stasis is not life, and the exalted crest of identity is formed by motion, by ceaselessly rising and tumbling over.
It is a most curious experience to become aware of the process, watching the unconscious emerge from the underworld and look out at the world through unfiltered eyes, from the spheres beyond Saturn.
"I'm trusting Saturn as manager to work with me in constructing a reborn career in music, considering all this merriment is in my 10th house."
Pluto was a god of wealth and hidden resources. He is the midnight sun, the governor of hidden ways. Maybe a wise Saturn will be prepared to make full use of the changes that come, and the inner resources revealed, for he has been said to be the most dependable agent of change.
If your natal Saturn and Pluto relationship, whatever it is, is recapitulated in some way by Saturn and Pluto as they circle the heavens, one wonders if that could be a time of special care and a revival of what their dance long ago began.
Much is placed on being a first mover. But with the great shifts, when the territory itself changes, often it is the second mover who learns from the missteps of the first mover, and surpasses.
In other words, things are in flux, and people are bothered! The Wolf Moon approaches this week, and the wolves are out and snarling. This calls for popcorn, maybe even chocolate pretzels and root beer.
Happy Samhain, dear café patrons! The Wheel turns and The Hanged Man contemplates the upside-down, topsy-turvy, self-reversing World.
Here's a little tune I made on a rainy day, from my new abode. The days shorten and nights lengthen but soon enough it will go the other way again. Enjoy, and blessings!
Resurgence (string version)
A classical musician! Who could have known?
It's true. Topsy-turvy constantly reversing world. Upside-downside, east side-west side, inside-outside, here and there, you name it.
It's all weather patterns I think. Responses to shifting pressures. Humans love to impose logic and meaning on the sequence, but the real meaning is as good as the fool creating it. And only logical to that particular fool.
So we celebrate. Happy All Saints Day too!
Well, I didn't know! But one day, a couple of years ago, I saw a video about a talentless young man who didn't know he was a musician. He'd struck his head landing badly from catching a football tossed over his parents' swimming pool, and spent a few days in the hospital. He was lucky he didn't lose speech or memory. Within days, his suddenly racing brain rewired itself; suddenly he could play anything. He saw parallel streams of black dots with his mind's eye, which he knew represented the music of multiple instruments, and it was all he could do to play quickly enough to keep up with one stream. When he dragged his mother into a musical instruments store to demonstrate his newfound mastery of the piano, she listened in awe and cried. The salesman asked him how many years he'd been playing piano, and disbelieved his answer. His doctor said that discovering inherent natural abilities is partly a matter of bypassing the verbal language center, and the modern education, that suppresses them; in rare individuals who suffered exquisitely precise trauma, the neurotrophic chemicals released by dying neurons stimulate the growth of new connections and the birth of prodigious abilities.
Well, I thought. I don't think I'd like cracking my skull on concrete -- that'd surely go badly as it does for most people -- but I bet I could get the hang of composing (a fancy word for hearing unwritten music in one's head) a tune if I simply applied myself and listened, hard. And if that humble experimentation goes well enough, I might try something much harder than composing: learning to play an actual instrument. Find out what all this music stuff is about.
Soon, I bought a digital piano. I stared at it in horror, after carrying each heavy part up the stairs and bolting it together. It came in parts like Frankenstein's monster and, just like Dr. Frankenstein, I thought, "Oh my God! What have I done?"
Well, "Resurgence" was actually worked out mostly on that piano. I transcribed the notes I liked onto computer where I worked further on the composition, and then I set the computer to play the result using synthesized cello sounds. I've never actually tried a cello for real. Untraditional approach, I know -- but it sounds like real music, doesn't it? How?
After buying the piano, I was told I had known the use of the violin in France. Well, that may be but sometimes I suspect we have the past lives that we retroactively decide to have, and not an instant before.
Time is relative to the observer, our modern wise men say. According to their atomic clocks, it passes at different rates on mountaintops than at sea level, and slightly faster for taller people than for shorter people. Maybe someday they'll say that timelines are more negotiable than thought.
There must be, I mused recently while I was sleeping, not merely the relativity of space-time, and of motion, of which scientists speak, but a relativity of consciousness and of the motion of consciousness which appears as the reality we perceive. Perhaps, if you look ahead in time, there is something or someone looking back to you. If you look upwards to higher planes, something meets you, perhaps to become you. Perhaps it is like an action-reaction equivalence, yin and yang, just like in physics, because in every interaction the forces always come in pairs. As a physicist explained -- and I am not kidding -- if the ground did not instantly push back against your footsteps, you'd never feel the Earth beneath your feet, and the force of your legs would knock the Earth out of orbit.
But the world does not spin out of control underfoot. It carries us along, from sunrise to sunset, spring to winter, and back again, spiraling through time and space to nowhere in particular. Yet another everyday marvel unremarked.
Is there a sense in which music becomes us to create it, even as part of us becomes it to create us? A question for a muse, to muse and amuse.
I love my digital piano. I have a box of sounds running through it that sort of mimic the traditional instruments, but it's all real to me. Some jackass hacking on a wood violin makes me appreciate what some do with the synthetic. It's all sound which lands in each ear and brain uniquely each time.
I have one analog piano, the digital, and a synthesizer. The analog electric is deeper and fuller than the digital, but the digital is more crystalline and bright. They are wonderful together. I mix it all up and play over my phenomenal drum machines. I've gotten percussive sounds I've never heard in traditional drums.
I take a sound and transpose it way down into the depths, where is stimulates the body in odd ways. Is it real music? Of course it is.
Playing an instrument is fine but not necessary. The imagination tells the story.
In terms of new brain connections, your story brings to mind what I've learned about psychedelic substances. Psilocybin, for example, deactivates the coordinating center of the brain and creates many new connections, or possibly stimulates seldom used ones. A whole new map appears, dependant on shutting down normal messaging.
Physicists say that black holes sing the B note.
"Some jackass hacking on a wood violin makes me appreciate what some do with the synthetic."
Oh, well said! I am definitely not a purist.
"I've gotten percussive sounds I've never heard in traditional drums. I take a sound and transpose it way down into the depths, where is stimulates the body in odd ways. Is it real music? Of course it is."
You are a genius. I so agree. There's a man who regularly carts his grand piano to Union Square Park in New York City. He lets people lie on the ground, eyes closed, under his piano to listen as he plays. They weep.
"A whole new map appears, dependent on shutting down normal messaging."
I think I initially spent an hour listening to random tones. No music theory. Then it got much easier, as I got familiar with the tones and how they sounded in relationship to each other.
I am skeptical of traditional instruction, although I bought the Alfred's text and took a stab at it. "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" was perhaps the most pleasing of the lot. But I stopped when I saw "Gilligan's Island". I thought, "Do I really want to have an ear worm of 'Gilligan's Island' in my brain for days?"
I've heard that polyglots don't follow how schools teach foreign language. It doesn't work for them and they think it's the worst way. They just make up their own approaches.
Maybe time moves between prescriptivism and descriptivism, making the future hard to pin down. Sometimes, one just has to be there!
"Physicists say that black holes sing the B note."
Oh...I just tried looking that up and found out that NASA has a new sonification project. They seem to be mapping the sound of the universe. Must be a sign of the times.
NASA "Sonification" project lets us hear the cosmos (Video at bottom of article. Charming Milky Way sounds starting at 0:38.)
Sounds from Around the Milky Way (without narration)
Sonification of a Hubble Deep Space Image
All Planet Sounds From Space (In our Solar System) (The outer planets, beginning with Saturn, sound eerie.)
I heard a charming British speaker this morning saying something about a "bridge of faith". "When you feel unsure of yourself, feel a crisis of confidence: Walk. Just walk. The ground will rise to meet your feet. We are supported." It particularly struck me because of what I was thinking about how in physics forces come in pairs. In every interaction, there is a pair of forces acting on the two interacting objects. The balance of equal and opposite forces supports us when we walk or we sit. The speaker didn't mean it in a physical sense, of course, but an interesting parallel.
If the chair we sit on lacks sufficient structural integrity to channel its opposite force directly upwards, then it may break into pieces when we sit on it, and then the force goes off in different directions scattering the pieces. This is an essential insight in the practice of tai chi chuan, that martial discipline whose symbol is the tai ji symbol of yin and yang forces swirling in an eternal circle. In tai chi play, the victor is often the person with the most structural integrity in posture, stance and movement when strength is relatively well-matched between opposing players.
Likewise, when you plant your feet to push a large object, such as a box or a piece of furniture, you make your body structurally sounder, and you become an extension of the ground so that you overcome the object's resistance to being moved.
Principles of force interactions, and the importance of integrity, apply as well in interpersonal relationships and in international relations, whether in defending against aggression or when allies combine physical, mental and emotional strengths to overcome adversity or to build something greater than one can do alone. This is something to remember although, as we see time and time again, it is often forgotten, dismissed or yet to be recognized.
"I am skeptical of traditional instruction"
As am I. I realized its shortcomings very early. All one has to do with the piano is experiment with intervals and combinations. You'll find sounds that really appeal to you and you can learn through pleasure. Self discovery is vastly more satisfying than doing scales and battling the keyboard as if it were an enemy. Like the hacking violinist. The fight with instruments loses my attention very quickly. The muses are fickle, but can be lured like all creatures.
Collaboration with the earth along with structural soundness is a wonderful pursuit, made more pronounced with Uranus in Taurus as Pluto in Capricorn gets ready to move on.
Humans might consider the fact that they do not control nature. The earth is an ally, as you point out, and even what appears to be destructive is likely beneficial to survival.
"You'll find sounds that really appeal to you and you can learn through pleasure. Self discovery is vastly more satisfying than doing scales and battling the keyboard as if it were an enemy."
I had a little disagreement last month with someone who asked if I had been practicing scales. I said, "I haven't been. Hmm, it's kind of like typing exercises." She said, annoyed, "No, I don't think so. Typing is boring and produces nothing. I like scales! They produce music. It's like sports: athletes practice the same moves over and over."
I said, smiling, "Well, some people like typing exercises! But, you know, we didn't have anything like scales in visual arts. We just ran with the tools once they were in our hands."
I reasoned, "On the sports field, things are constantly changing, so maybe they have to practice basic moves in isolation. But when learning a ready-made composition, the performance itself is repetition and vice versa. Besides, students break down a piece to learn it, and many classical pieces contain runs of notes that are scales or are scale-like.
"I'd like to learn a musical instrument because I realized that my early experiments are impossible to play with a single pair of hands, though my computer can play them. Not that music unplayable by human hands is a bad thing but I'd like to know the difference."
She was then struck by a tangential thought. She said, "I always thought that the pianist's touch is important...but maybe that's not so important with digitally produced music. I'll ask a friend of mine who's a composer what he thinks. He uses software in his work. I'll ask him."
I later read that there are concert pianists who have never done scales as a formal practice, and who don't believe their performances suffered compared to their peers. Perhaps the optimal approach is dependent on the individual student.
I've heard of one musician who said that as a little child, he was puzzled by the music teacher's instruction to memorize the note letters for the major and minor scales. He thought, "Why memorize? Why not just look at the piano keys and hear the notes in your head?" You could ask him to mentally replay an orchestral performance and quiz him for hours on exactly what he was mentally hearing at any instant, and his answers would match precisely to a digital recording of that performance. Curiously, when he played on the piano, he preferred to perform popular types of music with strong beats and complex rhythms.
This all also brings to mind an anecdote about a musician in a non-Western culture. He was asked by an enraptured Westerner if he would repeat a performance so that the Westerner could write down the composition. The musician laughed and said that it was impossible. There had been no ready-made composition. The music rose, he explained, from the world around them. It grew from unrepeatable events that happened during the performance: the bleating of the sheep on the hill, the wind moving the leaves on the trees, the passing of a cloud over the sun, the call of a bird, the buzz of an insect. All of that influenced his playing and became part of the music. His open awareness was radically different from the narrow concentration demanded of students in the West.
That's so very different from the kind of music education where a student may learn to play a classical composition from printed scores but be unable to improvise. They are taught to imitate the masters except that some of those masters -- Bach, Mozart and Beethoven -- were known to thrill audiences with spontaneous improvisations. Bach was not particularly unique in his ability to improvise; nearly all keyboard players in his time could. Something of the art has been long lost in the worship of the standard repetoire.
This has implications, I think, for our societies. Possibilities open up to the creative. There will be drama and tension along the way, just as there is in music. And the performance may well be unrepeatable, like a human life, like species evolution, but that is no showstopper to nature's will which courses on.
"Collaboration with the earth along with structural soundness is a wonderful pursuit, made more pronounced with Uranus in Taurus as Pluto in Capricorn gets ready to move on."
Ah, Uranus in Taurus is now in my astrological 2nd house, trine to natal Pluto in the 6th. Changes in work and residence.
With Neptune in Pisces sextiling natal Capricorn Sun-Venus-Mars, the doors that open are well-crafted. With Neptune transiting natal Pisces ascendant, and aspecting Neptune in Scorpio, the heights open to depths and the depths to heights.
That reminds me: I dreamed last night that I thought to close a door and to re-open it onto a different room than it did before. I did so, and it worked. I stepped through the clever door. I left the house and mingled in the park while pretending that I was a native ignorant of the other version of the world.
Speaking of planets, last month I came across a wizard selling books in a public park, while I was out to meet my musical-scales-loving acquaintance for lunch. The wizard's cap was tall and grey, the buttons on his close-fitting black denim jacket were little brass pentacles. "Your meeting me now is no accident," he declared, his dark eyes intense. "Because this is the day of Jupiter and the hour of Jupiter, and the Moon is conjunct Jupiter in Capricorn now," he explained. "I was born with the Moon conjunct Jupiter," I told him. "See, it's no accident," he said. "I didn't even expect to meet anyone today." "Why not?" I asked. "Well, there's just fewer people out when it's overcast," he said. I glanced at the busy park around us.
He bade me shut my eyes and concentrate. "Oh, the energy is strong. I've never felt this before," he said. I smirked. Later, I thought I ought to have pranked him by envisioning my astral hand grasping his shoulder or poking his back. "You have a very sweet energy. I see a dishwasher," he said. "Is that symbolic?" I asked. "No," he replied. "It's something you have to get away from." I thought, From dishwashing? Or from that dishwashing machine I'd thought to buy?
Then he laid out some Tarot cards, and said, "This is you, the Princess of Pentacles. You're very good at figuring things out. You know how to make money. Here is the Seven of Cups." "Illusions, fantasies, too many options?" I asked. "Well, it could also be ideal relationships," he said. "But the Princess of Pentacles is facing the other way. She needs to turn around. And here is the Princess of Swords. You'll apply your mind to dealing with the Cups. At the top is the Empress. That's very fortunate: Whatever the Cups represent, you can have it. Uh-oh, the Hermit! Maybe you don't want it."
"So...I work too much and should pay more attention to my relationships?" I asked. "Oh, my friend is waiting there. I'd better go! Good to meet you!" As I stood, he tried to sell me the romance novels he'd written. The back cover of one mentioned something about a man, a woman and "a hot trucker". "Hmm," I said doubtfully, imagining the additional dirty dishes and cups sans dishwasher. "Look, I put a quote from Nietzche at the front. He's my favorite philosopher. Do you like him?" he asked. "'There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective "knowing"; ...the more eyes, different eyes, we can use to observe one thing, the more complete will our "concept" of this thing, our "objectivity," be.' I haven't read much of him outside of the required bits in college. But I agree with the quote. Well, I don't want to buy anything today, but I'll check out your work." "I consult online, too," he said, handing me his contact info. A young man came up, eyeing the cards. "I'm into this," the young man said, non-accidentally.
"Curiously, when he played on the piano, he preferred to perform popular types of music with strong beats and complex rhythms." He liked to improvise with them, I should add.
The good thing about playing an instrument is experiencing the pleasure coming through the fingertips. It excites many many pathways throughout the nervous system. The marriage of touch and sound.
I remember the exact night I decided not to go to any more live jazz performances. The musicians were running scales all night, like they usually do, and it was all about speed. I was unbearably agitated. There was no breathing room.
The problem could be the brain patterns set by doing endless scales. So they automatically play in that mode when they tackle the instrument.
To my brain, the spaces between notes are vital. It's the all important phrasing. The empty spaces, pauses create anticipation and appreciation for the next notes. They are like synapses completing connections. Even lush complex music needs spacing. Pauses also lend drama and express confidence, two things I adore.
Scales are good for building strength and flexibility. But that might not be necessary. The fingers can articulate in countless ways. The path to mastery is elusive.
"The good thing about playing an instrument is experiencing the pleasure coming through the fingertips. It excites many many pathways throughout the nervous system. The marriage of touch and sound."
I think of the brain's network as a living thing (perhaps like some believe the U.S. Constitution ought to be) — dynamic, evolving and adapting. The tension between destructive and generative forces seems to be where the action is, and where the power of music enters in most effectively to restore and maintain connections, or to develop new connections and shape whole new realities.
A psychological crisis ensues when someone feels like his narrative has been broken and he doesn't know how to continue. The changing patterns of music reminds the brain of possibilities, and how to emotionally connect to them.
"The problem could be the brain patterns set by doing endless scales. So they automatically play in that mode when they tackle the instrument."
Their strength became their weakness. In art school, we had teachers who wondered why some students challenged themselves to try approaches that they weren't good at (yet) when they already had strong skills in other approaches, and we had other teachers who advocated that to be good designers their students should aim to have a broad repetoire of skills. Sure, a student could peak early and could repeat herself endlessly with problems that had become trivial, and obtain consistently good grades that way. But you could tell which students were after bigger fish.
"To my brain, the spaces between notes are vital. It's the all important phrasing. The empty spaces, pauses create anticipation and appreciation for the next notes. They are like synapses completing connections. Even lush complex music needs spacing. Pauses also lend drama and express confidence, two things I adore."
Oh, that's what I tend to do! I was adding new measures, pauses, and changed timing and emphasis into the written pieces I looked at.
If I were revising the beginner's book, I'd be tempted to insert little compositional exercises. Like fill-in questions: "This melody begins with these notes. What notes would you want to follow them? What notes would you want to precede them?" "Here are two musical phrases. They seem unlike and unrelated, like political parties. How would you combine them into one effective, stronger piece than they are alone?" "Close your eyes and listen as you play a random set of notes. Turn that into a song. Do this regularly." "Pick a completed melody. Insert new measures to enhance some phrases." Those were some of the things I did just because I thought I'd like the songs much better that way. Also, exercises on alternative interpretations. I think that my form of creativity, which leans towards transformation, informs me differently from those with fewer range of skills and experiences to draw upon. Sadly, our public education generally hasn't fostered much original thinking.
"Scales are good for building strength and flexibility. But that might not be necessary. The fingers can articulate in countless ways. The path to mastery is elusive."
Hmm, I touch type a lot, so maybe that skill contributed to my relative disinterest. Besides, I'm the sort to think that whoever designed the piano keyboard did the best they could for their time...but there might be better designs more suited to the human form given newer technologies and manufacturing capabilities.
The busy busy busy brain network. Buzzing like mad. Vibrating non-stop.
Cortical insanity sometimes. SHUT UP for a sec!! So I can think!
Thinking's overrated, ha ha!
I'll Say.
I've been studying pure sensation versus thought. They don't seem to be particularly compatible.
Sometimes I feel the exceptional pleasure of sound, shape, color, nature and all, without analysis. I'm released to blend in with the whole affair. Then my brain barges in and snatches me from my reverie, taking me back to where I was tying to link thoughts in the misbegotten attempt to understand the world and its people, including myself.
I'm leaning toward further sensation.
"I've been studying pure sensation versus thought."
Oh, excellent. I appreciate the appreciation of one's senses. 'Tis better than to take leave of them! I see so much of the latter. I am looking at doing some more perceptual investigations myself.
"They don't seem to be particularly compatible."
I wonder whether that partly has to do with our Western habit of mind which depends so much on structure and separation. We are educated to employ a kind of narrowband focus that shuts out much. It has its purposes, but it may create blindspots if one's repertoire isn't bigger.
"Sometimes I feel the exceptional pleasure of sound, shape, color, nature and all, without analysis. I'm released to blend in with the whole affair."
Sometimes I am seeing without complication, awareness like a still pool, nary a ripple on the surface, perception like a mirror surface. Then my brain is like a clear blue sky without people around asking for responses. They might be surprised to know.
When I do respond to others who write to me on issues of concern to them, my so-called thoughts sometimes seem to be translations, shape-shifts, of perceptions and sensing deeper than thought. I may clothe them with reason and facts to make them appear presentable to those who are impressed by such things. They may doubt my responses, but they have often enough proved truer than their fears and so we go on (though sometimes they are displeased if I don't corroborate their hopes either). Perhaps one helps best by simply seeing them more fully into being, and that happens between the lines.
"Then my brain barges in and snatches me from my reverie, taking me back to where I was tying to link thoughts in the misbegotten attempt to understand the world and its people, including myself."
Heh. You know that happens to even to those who claim they know better!
I wonder if Pluto, besides being the uncouth revolutionary, is a god of ruminations — snatching teenaged nature deities from their innocent reveries, whisking them off in his chariot to his netherworld kingdom, and feeding them winter pomegranate seeds to ensure the cycle of seasons, death and rebirth.
We go away to come back, never to quite the same place; we dance the unfolding mystery. Sometimes thoughts seem like thunderstorms, like rain and hail. They too become passing phenomena to perceive.
Ah, I am hearing caws now. Perhaps it is a raven. Ravens were mostly absent a very long time in this region but had made a comeback.
Very apropos because it is Yuletide, and Yule belonged to Odin with his ravens and wolves, originally.
Also apropos because Thought and Memory were the names of Odin's ravens — but now I suddenly become aware that what we call "thought" is different from what was once meant when ravens were our allies instead of competitors. For Odin, to send his thought was to go forth himself, to shape-shift and look through the sharp eyes of a raven, or listen through the keen ears of a wolf. His name meant he was a seer.
Today, people are inundated with thoughts, our own and those of others, and much poorly written, dead prose. And thought becomes thoughtlessness in the unmindful sense. It is far from good art which evokes fresh perceptions and reminds its viewers of their own forgotten inner experience.
But Odin's ravens, who were mind and memory, had eyes to see and ears to hear, and they could fly, their wings sending the world awhirl like a kaleidoscope around them. Daily they would become the world, and then restore themselves to Odin, the half-blind yet seeing self who drank only wine and spoke only poetry.
"I'm leaning toward further sensation."
Sensation may very well be how the world comes to be. This is very good. My thanks and I'll take your words as further encouragement in that direction myself.
Well, the holidays quickly approach. I'll take this opportunity to wish a blessed Yule to you and the beloved café patrons, wherever they may be, and may the New Year be as sensational as you all please.
Apparently Google had to visit Vault 7 to see if Tseka could be permitted access to the Cafe.
If this attemt succeeds, I shall return soon. My time available this morning e aporated.
Looking forward to a visit.
Blessed Solstice to all.
Light In
And I'm having problems with Blogger. Remember those vagaries?
See you soon.
And for all those interested, RU is opened and running, comments included.
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