Whistling In The Dark

Ponderings on the affliction of depression - clinical depression - sent me looking through old posts to find what I'd posted in the past, if anything, on the subject. I suppose depression has been mentioned in posts about artists of one kind or another who had suffered, but no actual post on depression of the clinical type. There's this from 2007 on the milder, more common type of depressed feelings, known as "the blues" or melancholia:

(Edited, slightly)

I wonder what astrologers do when in need of a lift out of the doldrums? We ordinary mortals often reach for the chocolate, the apple pie, ice cream, or a glass of Scotch, or wine.

I'm not insinuating that astrologers aren't ordinary mortals, of course, perish the thought! But they are in a position to know more about themselves and the future, and their future than the average woman and man on the street. So do they have an antidote for the blues?

I ask because each time I pick up a newspaper or read articles and comments on current events on-line I feel despairing, desolate and downright depressed. I don't ever remember a time in my adult life when it was worse than this, either here or when I lived in the UK. According to husband, it's now just about the worst he can remember in the USA too.
[This was in 2007, remember].

So what can astrology offer as a pick-me-up that's neither fattening nor inebriating?

I guess the best answer from me, as a non-astrologer but merely a woman on the street, with a little knowledge of the ancient art (not that one!) would be: nothing stays the same for long, everything changes. Just as the planets move in regular cycles, so does life. A bad patch is followed by a good patch, and vice-versa. Some patches take longer than others to give way to the next stage - these are what we call "the bad times" and "the good times". Enjoy the latter while you can and during the former resign yourself to putting on weight and drinking more than you should.

Apple pie anyone?

There's something else capable of lifting spirits: SING! Or whistle - also known as whistling in the dark, or whistling down the wind.

Whistle down the wind
Let your voices carry
Drown out all the rain
Light a patch of darkness
Treacherous and scary ....

(From Whistle Down the Wind:
composer Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Jim Steinman)

Or there's this - Whistling Away the Dark from the 1970 film Darling Lili.

Julie Andrews

Arty Farty Friday ~ George Ault: Depressed, Obsessed, Alcoholic, Dogged by Misfortune

George Ault, a good-looking fellow, as befits Sun, Mercury and Venus in Libra - but he was an artist who could be said to have "painted his depression".

Born into privilege, on 11 October 1891. His parents were wealthy business people who moved from Cleveland, Ohio to London, England when George was young. He had the benefit of a good art education at Slade School of Art and St. John's Wood School of Art. He returned to the United States in 1911. His benign beginnings turned to tragedy, however. His mother died in a mental institution; his three brothers all killed themselves, two of them after losing the family fortune in the stock market crash. By the time his father died his family's fortunes were gone. Ault spent the last 10 years of his life broke and totally dependent on his wife in an artists’ colony in Woodstock, New York, in a tiny rented house with no electricity or indoor plumbing.

Ault seems to have been something of an obsessive, needing order in everything. In his wife's writings (see first link at end of post) she tells that:

Both studio and house needed to be perfectly clean before he could sit down at his easel. Ault would do the chores himself, Louise recalled, shining the small house each morning to its “permanent brilliance” before starting to paint. Outside, Ault “knelt with grass-shears and trimmed on either side of the path, close and neatly, cutting back the wildness to leave a park-like strip,”

When he didn’t paint, he drank, agonized over the Nazi occupation of Paris, and painstakingly arranged and rearranged his personal library. In 1948, a few days after Christmas, Ault joined his brothers. He fell into the icy waters of Woodstock Creek. His body was recovered five days later.

George Ault's depression can be felt in the darkness of many of his later paintings. Neurotic, alcoholic and reclusive, avoided by former friends, who had no doubt been put off by his alarming behaviour. He seldom included people in his paintings, though not due to lack of skill in that direction. A couple of his sketches demonstrate that he was well capable of figure drawing. I suppose, in his depression and alcoholism, having become alienated from his fellows, he had little wish to spare any space on his canvas for them.

Ault's paintings of the 1940s have a distinctive style, not quite surreal, yet not quite realistic. Flat colours, straight lines and sharp angles dominate, with some rather odd perspectives.

Will his depression and obsessions show in his natal chart, I wonder? I have my doubts. His state of mind was mainly brought about by events over which he had no control: his mother's slip into mental instability and death, World War 2, financial ruin of his family, suicide of three siblings. The guy's life was plagued by misfortune!

Let's see: born 11 October 1891 in Cleveland, Ohio. A 12 noon chart will have to suffice as I can find no birth time for him. Rising sign will not be as shown, and Moon, if he was born around or after 5pm would have been in Aquarius rather than Capricorn.



His draw to artistry is easy to find - Libra is ruled by Venus, planet of the arts, and here we have Venus in its own home sign along with his Sun (self) and Mercury (mental orientation). His obsessive need for order? I'd bet that can be laid at the astrological doorstep of Mars tightly conjunct Saturn in Virgo. Virgo is the sign of perfection, Saturn the planet of discipline, with Mars energising an urge for costant order. It's a pity his time of birth isn't known, so's to establish Moon's exact position. If around the 20s of Capricorn, Moon would be in harmonious trine with the Mars/Saturn in Virgo conjunction, strengthening those traits of perfectionism and need for order even further in his nature.

There's another tight conjunction: Pluto/Neptune in Gemini. This one is generational, shared by many well-known and iconic artists and communicators. In Ault's case an harmonious trine to Mercury in Libra gives the conjunction's powerful creativity extra significance.

I don't see any clear pointer towards his depressive state, beyond that indication of a constant reaching for order in everything. Perhaps his rising sign might offer a pointer. If Gemini were rising or in first house, for instance, then the Pluto/Neptune conjunction of potentially powerful creativity might manifest a shadow side: an obsessive addictive personality. Or, perhaps the simple answer would be that his tragic life experiences overwhelmed all - even his natal chart.


January Full Moon




Black Night at Russell's Corners (in Woodstock, close to his home there. Ault painted 5 variations of this scene, another below).



Bright Light at Russell's Corners



Sullivan Street, Abstraction


Brooklyn Heights



View From Brooklyn





Memories of the Coast of France



Old House, New Moon



Studio Interior



Anne



Untitled. Seated Female Figure.




SEE ALSO:
http://www.themagazineantiques.com/articles/george-ault-and-1940s-america/

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/40628/to-make-a-world-george-ault-and-1940s-america-reviewed)

Lifting Spirits

I wonder what astrologers do when in need of a lift out of the doldrums? We ordinary mortals often reach for the chocolate, the apple pie, ice cream, or the bottle of Scotch.

I'm not insinuating that astrologers aren't ordinary mortals, of course, perish the thought! But they are in a position to know more about themselves and the future, and their future than the average woman and man on the street. So do they have an antidote for the blues?

I ask because each time I pick up a newspaper or read articles and comments on current events on-line I feel despairing, desolate and downright depressed. I don't ever remember a time in my adult life when it was worse than this, either here or when I lived in the UK. According to HeWhoKnows, it's now just about the worst he can remember in the USA too.

So what can astrology offer as a pick-me-up of the non-fattening , non-inebriating kind?

I guess the best answer from me, as a non-astrologer but a woman on the street, (if you know what I mean), with a little knowledge of the subject, would be: "Nothing stays the same for long, everything changes. Just as the planets move in regular cycles, so does life. A bad patch is followed by a good patch, and vice-versa. Some patches take longer than others to give way to the next stage - these are what we call "the bad times" and "the good times". Enjoy the latter while you can and during the former resign yourself to putting on weight and drinking more than you should".

Apple pie anyone?

There's something else capable of lifting spirits - SING! Or whistle - also known as whistling in the dark, or whistling down the wind. Speaking of which, here's an audio-visual aid I made earlier. This one always gets me "nibby nabby nooby-ing"