MISCELLANY... touching on a Sun Virgo astrologer, fashion police, lifeboat heroes, photography.

Continuing a monthly trawl through astrologers with birthdays in zodiac sign where the sun currently resides: Virgo Sun astrologers proved to be rare. I found only Liz Greene and Louis MacNeice. The latter born 12 September 1907 in Belfast, Northern Ireland was a poet and scholar, rather than an astrologer proper, but he did write a book on the subject. My post on him is HERE .

Liz Greene was born on 4 September 1946 at 1:01 PM in Englewood, New Jersey (see chart at Astrodatabank)

American professional astrologer and author, Jungian psychologist and lecturer; one of the most highly respected astrologers of the 20th century. Greene has been awarded the Regulus Award for Theory and Understanding, 1989, recognizing the work with other disciplines and philosophical models. She relocated to England and then to Switzerland. With Howard Sasportas, she founded the Center for Psychological Astrology in London. Her books include "Saturn, A New Look for an Old Devil," "Star Signs for Lovers," and "The Outer Planets and Their Cycles." After Sasportas died of AIDS, she teamed with Charles Harvey as co-head of the Center.

Does she match the pattern I've been trying to establish (i.e. that best astrologers have Air (mental acuity) and Water (emotional intelligence) prominent in their charts)?
She does: 5 planets in Air signs (Libra and Gemini), a Water sign (Scorpio) rising.




Glancing down the long list of tags on my Blogger dashboard I noticed fascism and fashion adjacent....the fashion police ("never wear white after Labor Day, don't wear socks with sandals, don't wear back bra under pale shirt", etc )come to think of it are really distant cousins to outright fascists!





Among some photos we took during the time husband lived with me in the UK, in Bridlington, on the East Yorkshire coast I noticed this:



We found the gravestones of James Watson (43), David Purdon (38) and Robert Pickering (34) in the grounds of the town's Priory Church; they represent a very sad story of men who sacrificed their lives attempting to save the crew of a brig "Delta". In February of 1871 a terrible storm and gale, often referred to as the most notorious and best remembered of all the gales on the Yorkshire coast, caused the destruction of several vessels and deaths of many seamen and lifeboat crews around Bridlington Bay. A report of events is available at Flamborough Lifeboats website. The gravestones in the photograph commemorate three of the crew of the lifeboat Harbinger, David Purdon, one of the three, had also built the boat, three other crewmen of the Harbinger perished too.


The report of that storm reminded me of the raw courage lifeboatmen everywhere have always displayed, often with little recompense. They, along with firefighters are the TRUE heroes of our times, and of times long past.

A man of courage never wants weapons.
~Author Unknown

Painting by J.T. Allerston, see also HERE.



Words of my husband, aka "anyjazz" on photography:

A friend once described the difference between "taking pictures" and being "a photographer": You have to have the eye.

Taking a picture often catches the moment, a photographer catches the mood, the aura, the personality, the action. A picture shows you Grandma Hattie in her best dress. A photograph shows you how she felt that day. A photographer knows how to use the medium to capture more than the image. The elements.

Think about that: The Elements.

Color, balance, texture, design, rhythm and detail all are parts of most photographs, illustrations or paintings. These are basic elements of visual arts. There are probably others. Start with these.

In some photographs there can be seen action, story, drama, emotion, mood. Some others record a moment, predict an outcome, ask a question, decide an argument, set a course.

In some photographs the subject matter alone can be an element of its beauty or worthiness. In another photograph, there may be no identifiable subject at all but other elements, color, action, mood are there. In a sports photo for instance, the subject can be quite secondary to the excitement, the event, the action.

Sometimes it is just a picture of a baby, sometimes it is a picture of the future of mankind. Both pictures are wonderful but one is just an image of a child while the other is a legend.

Physical elements: Color, balance, texture, design, rhythm and detail. Intangible elements: action, story, drama, emotion and mood.

If a photograph combines several of these elements then it is likely an exceptional photograph.

A website carrying daily doses of all manner of wonderful photographs is Fluidr.com

Below are some of the husband's own work - shots he particularly likes:

"Some years ago I attended a couple Pawnee Powwow celebrations in Pawnee, Oklahoma. This gentleman posed for a picture. He was a distant relative of mine, loosely connected through marriage. A sort of ex-father-in-law from an ex-marriage of an ex-marriage...or something like that. He was a full blood Pawnee, I understand. His name was: Chauncey Gardipe. He and I actually got along rather well to the best of my memory.
This is a scan of an old print. I shot it with my old workhorse Pentax K1000 and some tri-x film. You can now tell how long ago it must have been. 40 years probably."

"I remember this shot very well. I was at Lac Gustav in Northern Quebec. The wind died for a moment and I got a shot in while the water was smooth as a mirror. The logs are the remainder of an old dock that had been replaced with the one next to it. Knowing what it really was kept me from seeing that it was a beautiful optical illusion."

"Bored but Quiet"