Arty Farty Friday ~ The Creative Mind by Joyce Crowley

While in Kansas for husband's 60th class reunion a couple of weeks ago we also trolled around a few antique/vintage stores. In one of these my eye, always on the look-out for something I could love, which is also a possible bargain, was attracted to a piece of artwork hanging high on a wall, above a line of rather common-place framed prints. In the bottom corner I could just see the piece was signed, and original, created in 1982. The price was attached to the top of frame, but the ticket was too far away and the writing too small for me to be sure of its price. The dollar number was indistinct, though it was definitely followed by the 99 cents beloved of storekeepers everywhere. Dollar number could have been 39, 69, 89, 99 we decided. I went to the desk, brought a guy over to assist. He couldn't see the price either, but pulled out his smartphone to help, held it high and took a photo of the price tag, then enlarged it. Shock horror! $19.99. (Trying not to look too eagerly amazed), "I'll take it. Thank you!"

Once outside I said to husband, "This piece is worth a lot more than $19.99!" And so it appears to be. I don't know its exact "market value", but on researching the artist whose signature appears on it, I discovered a gallery of similar pieces, one priced at $7,500. I don't think this one is worth that much, but still worth much more than $19.99! I remain very surprised that the store owner hadn't done what I did before pricing the piece.

Artist in question is Joyce Crowley - her website is:
Joyce Crowley - Sculptured Painting. In the section titled "Bas Relief" go to the group "Contemporary & Abstract". There are several pieces there in the same style and colours as this one. Mine is titled "The Creative Mind". From her website, about Bas Relief:

All skills of drawing, sculpting and painting are combined in this unique art form. The slow layering process using acrylics and sand creates a bas-relief sculpture presenting a three-dimensional illusion when side – lighted...... whether bold abstract, contemporary flowing designs...... The surface interest, combining sculpture and soft earth tones, is a feast for the senses. The creative designs command attention. The tactile durability and craftsmanship command respect.

The Creative Mind

This online photograph definitely doesn't do it justice because the sculpted texture isn't made clear. The piece is sturdily well-framed.

Windows on Mercury

As Mercury is about to end its apparent retrograde motion, a few Mercurial thoughts surface ~~~

“Language is the dress of thought” wrote Samuel Johnson back in 18th century England. Languages, national, international, ancient, modern, written, spoken, technical, speciality, and even slang, how they evolved, how they are written, how so much diversity exists - all of this is a constant source of wonder. Accents, side-kicks of language, add an extra layer of fascination. Astrologically all those are said to be "ruled" by planet Mercury. Astrology is a language in itself of course, with its own vocabulary, as capable of confusing the reader or listener as any obscure foreign or ancient language.

More important than language itself is nuance of understanding, or misunderstanding, arising between people, even when using the same language in the same accent - perception. Here's where astrology, as well as life-experience, plays its part. Mercury's natal position is key. As Anais Nin wrote:We don't see things as they are. We see them as we are. I'd paraphrase that and say that we don't always perceive words, phrases and concepts as they are commonly defined, but as we, via our uncommon natal charts perceive them.

Sanderson Beck has this to say on his website Astrology Time Patterns: Mercury:

Mercury and the mind are like a great lens or focus device; it is an instrument we use to focus our awareness. The soul is the true experiencer of the consciousness, but our direction and consequent awareness depends on how and where we focus the mind. The mind is tremendously powerful; how we use it is up to us.

There's a list of interpretations for Mercury in the 12 zodiac signs, and Mercury the 12 houses at the above link.

While chatting with husband about something Mercurial - writing, and finding subjects to write about, he suddenly said, "This window is dirty". Somewhat taken aback by such sudden interest in household cleaning I gawped, jaw dropping.

"No", he grinned, "write about it. Write about those four words".


"Write about a dirty window?"



"Yes. I did it once, a long time ago, to give myself a challenge. Just write whatever comes into your mind on that subject."

"Alright", I said, feeling uninspired, not to mention suspicious as to whether this was a subtle hint for me to get outside and do the necessary to our, admittedly murky, windows.

I scribbled down a few lines on the subject matter as challenged, then demanded to see his efforts, composed some years earlier.

All of this is leading to an astrological point, by the way.

My own answer to the challenge came via natal Mercury in Capricorn; his via Mercury in Pisces. The two, very different, pieces so typified those two zodiac signs that, on reading them in quick succession, I laughed out loud.

To copy both pieces here would tax a passing reader's attention span to the limit. An extract from the lengthy sample written by my husband will suffice, along with my own, very brief, effort in full. The difference will be only too apparent! I had not seen his version until after I'd written my own, by the way.


My response to the challenge (Mercury in Capricorn: economical, factual, practical, with an eye to work and business.)

"This window is dirty!"
"Of course it is. In Oklahoma there are no window cleaners, and I don't do windows! In England, window-cleaning is a profession. Many a would-be entrepreneur started out with just a ladder, a bucket, a cloth and a van. It's an enterprise I would commend to the young unemployed of Oklahoma. There are dirty windows galore, all over the state. Any likely lad, or lass, could be well on their way to their first million dollars within six months, with or without a ladder!"

Extract from the long piece by my husband (Mercury in Pisces: imaginative, creative, dreamy, sensitive.)

"This window is dirty," Chessie says out loud. It is just a diversion though, just a deliberate vacation from her usual mental employment. She had been thinking about other things.

On the other side of the smudgy glass, November is trying its best to perform a pretty sunset upstage from the colorless props on the residential back street. Orange rays strain through the bare gray limbs of the trees that edge a street of forty-year-old two story homes.

Chessie stands, arms tightly folded across her print dress, staring through the window at an empty spot at the curb. Morgan always parks his car in that spot.

She sighs and closes her eyes. When she opens them again she is looking down at the flowerbed in front of the window. "I think I’ll water the flowers," she says, knowing at once that she will not. The unusually mild November weather had encouraged the 'mums and pansies to bloom in abundance. But the watering thought was just another mental vacation from a habitual hard labor of thinking about Morgan.


She shivers a bit. It is warm in her room but looking out at the expiring November day gave her a chill. Her clear-nailed fingers flutter and drum-roll where they clutch her arms just below the short sleeve cuffs of her dress. She turns and walks to a chrome and vinyl chair, which was earlier turned out from the almost-matching dining table. She whirls and sits, knees and ankles together, arms still folded. Again a deep breath, again a long sigh. The ruffle-trimmed bodice of the dress tugs at the high neckline for more slack. Her thumbs flick in unison at the starch-white trim on the sleeves.


"He is an hour late," she says to the rose papered walls of the room, reflecting an exaggerated thought. Actually he is not late at all, she admits behind a pouting lip. "If he cared as much for me as he says, he would have been here long before this," she says, and that seems to make it all sensible. Actually she knows that if he arrived right now he would, in reality, be a bit early. And Morgan would never do that.

She might have felt some reassurance by reminding herself that he was always prompt, but then, he never was. He was always late. He was always really late. She scolds herself again for just accepting his poor punctuality after more than thirty dates, for just acclimating to his sliding schedule. His unfailing tardiness stole a bit of femininity from her. She couldn’t be late herself. No matter how slowly she prepared for one of their dates, she was always ready earlier than Morgan. "I don’t deserve this. I deserve better."

And with that quiet admission, that small thought, back in a corner studio in her mind a new version of her world begins to form. Like a drop of raw umber watercolor falling soundlessly on wet handmade paper, the thought spreads indiscriminately in all directions. Slowly, surely, softly the color spreads, claiming the gentle texture of the paper, integrating with the fibers, the earthy color blending with the white expanse" (There's a lot more).

Conclusion: astrology will shine through even the murkiest of windows!

Word...Painting...Poem

I learned another new word the other day while researching for a post.
The word: ekphrasis.

From Wikipedia:

Ekphrasis or ecphrasis, from the Greek description of a work of art, possibly imaginary, produced as a rhetorical exercise; often used in adjectival form, ekphrastic. A graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art. In ancient times, it referred to a description of any thing, person, or experience. The word comes from the Greek ek and phrasis, 'out' and 'speak' respectively, verb ekphrazein, to proclaim or call an inanimate object by name. According to the Poetry Foundation, "an ekphrastic poem is a vivid description of a scene or, more commonly, a work of art." More generally, an ekphrastic poem is a poem inspired or stimulated by a work of art...........

Poems inspired by paintings are more common than I had realised. A quick Google search can bring up several lists of such literary gems. Here's a link to just one such website.

I was led to the word ekphrasis by a poem that I didn't find in any list, but happened upon while randomly reading some of William Carlos Williams' poetry.

The poem:

THE DANCE - by William Carlos Williams

In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies, (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling about
the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Breughel's great picture, The Kermess.

The poet, William Carlos Williams is featured in an archived post from 2011:
William Carlos Williams and his natal chart


The painting:

Pieter Brueghel The Kermess oil on canvas 45" x 64.5" (1567-8).
Click on image for larger, clearer version.

A kermesse was originally a special celebration on the feast day of the saint who stood as patron for the town or village in which it occurred. It was common in the southern Netherlands and in Flanders. Over time, however, the concept came to mark any special town or village oriented celebration, often organized to some charitable purpose, and indeed the concept of the kermesse made the jump across the Atlantic to Dutch and Flemish communities in the United States, in New York and Michigan, for instance. (More HERE.)

Relocation = New Horizon in Life & in Astrology

Relocation astrology is based on the theory that if one moves to live, permanently, in a location far away from place of birth, the "template" of angles and house cusps in the natal chart swings around, independently of planetary positions (which remain always the same), to provide what's known as a relocated chart. A substantial change in location of the chart's angles (at 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th house positions) could present, at the very least, a change of outlook in the chart's owner. One's outlook is bound to change after a major permanent move, astrology or no astrology!

Using my own case as an example: I moved almost 5000 miles from England to Oklahoma. When relocated, my natal mid-ish Cancer ascendant falls now in late Aquarius or very early Pisces. I can never be exact because I don't know my exact time of birth. (I have natal Sun at 6.46/8 Aquarius). The move has placed natal 8th house Sun into 12th house, put Jupiter instead of Pluto in first house, possibly even right on the ascendant. Pisces used to lie in the mid-heaven area (with Jupiter) but Sagittarius is now there instead, with Mars, in last degree of Scorpio, the closest planet.

I'm still the same old me, but surrounded by different landscape, a different set of people, different benefits, different challenges. My natal Cancer ascendant is, and always will be a part of my personality. Cancerian characteristics didn't disappear the minute I arrived in Oklahoma! Most of my relocated chart is compatible with natal orientation, important planets remain emphasised but in different ways. I didn't choose the new location; one might say that it was thrust upon me, by fate, and that fate was kind.

Has having different signs at ascendant and mid-heaven changed anything for me? Maybe - a little. My relocated 12th house Sun has a rather doleful reputation...confinement, hidden enemies, self-undoing, loss....la-di-da! I choose not to believe that old fashioned stuff. The world has moved on from times when astrologers first came to those conclusions. It has been said that 12th house Sun is often found in the charts of writers. They spend much time alone, writing (not confined, mind you). That fits my present situation - blogging since 2006!

What I believe happens in relocation is that the fresh location adds an overlay, to highlight signs and/or planets and aspects which had previously been taking something of a backseat in the personality. Consequently the brighter light which, natally, had fallen on some signs/planets/aspects, becomes dimmer at the new location. Relocation simply causes re-orientation of the whole chart. I guess that transits to natal chart might be reflected more clearly, outwardly, in the relocated astrological house position, but retain some inner echo of natal house position. I have to admit to not having done much research on this particular point in my own chart, not being a keen follower of astrological house lore. Also, as the relocated Aquarius/Pisces cusp ascendant kind of matches my natal Sun which is semi-sextile-twinned by degree with Jupiter in Pisces - there's a similarity there to natal chart. I'm perhaps not the best subject for research into this particular corner of astrology.

Music Monday ~ Carole King & My Cousin

This Music Monday I'm featuring Carole King - for a reason. My late cousin, Stephen, died a year ago this month, just two weeks after his 65th birthday. By a string of strange coincidence I find myself in contact with a longtime friend of his, in London UK. This friend has told me that one of Steve's dearest wishes was to see the show Beautiful - The Carole King Musical. Sadly, he died before being able to do so.

"Before she was Carole King, superstar—she was Carole King, teenage songwriter. Her music would become the soundtrack to a generation.
She fought her way into the record business as a teenager and, by the time she reached her twenties, had the husband of her dreams and a flourishing career writing hits for the biggest acts in rock ‘n’ roll. But it wasn’t until her personal life began to crack that she finally managed to find her true voice.

BEAUTIFUL tells the inspiring true story of King’s remarkable rise to stardom, from being part of a hit songwriting team with her husband Gerry Goffin, to her relationship with fellow writers and best friends Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann, to becoming one of the most successful solo acts in popular music history. Along the way, she made more than BEAUTIFUL music, she wrote the soundtrack to a generation.
(See HERE)

I intend writing a post on what I've learned about my cousin next Monday, 12 October, anniversary of his birthday, but for today just a song or two and a couple of notes of what I've written about Carole King in past posts. It's not necessary to repeat detail of her full biography here - that is available in numerous websites and blogs already.

In a post about a song co-written by Carole King, Pleasant Valley Sunday , I wrote:

The song was written by Carole King and Gerry Goffin, both have Sun in Aquarius. Carol King born 9 February 1942, Gerry Goffin 11 February 1939, both in New York. They married as teenagers, but divorced after about 10 years. Sun and Mercury in Aquarius is their main similarity, but her Moon in Sagittarius is conjunct his Mars. Surprisingly, Carole King has no planets in Water signs, she has three planets each in Aquarius and Taurus, squaring each other. According to Astrotheme she has a Libra ascendant. Gerry Goffin supplies the Watery element with Scorpio Moon, Jupiter in Pisces and Pluto (just) in Cancer, this helps supply emotional pull in their songs, no doubt. Together, this couple wrote over 100 chart hits.

Pleasant Valley Sunday does have an Aquarian flavour. Dislike of status symbol mentality is typical of Water Bearers - I can vouch for that!

Snip from Pleasant Valley Sunday lyrics:

See Mrs. Gray she's proud today
Because her roses are in bloom
And Mr. Green he's so serene
He's got a TV in every room

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday
Here in status symbol land
Mothers complain about how hard life is
And the kids just don't understand

Creature comfort goals they only numb my soul
And make it hard for me to see
My thoughts all seem to stray to places far away
I need a change of scenery...........


And, while featuring Eric Burdon and The Animals in a post - this:

Regarding Don't Bring Me Down, written by Carol King and Gerry Goffin, in an interview Burdon surprisingly admitted:

"I didn't realize that it was a Goffin, King song until I was in a doctor's office in Beverly Hills and Ms. King came in and sat next to me. I didn't know it was her, I was just reading a magazine and she turned to me and said, "You know, I hated what you did to my song." I didn't know what to say, so all I said was, "well, sorry." and then as she got up to go into the doctor's office, she turned around and said, "but I got used to it."

How a performer can possibly sing a song in public without finding out who wrote it seems very odd to me!

I cannot honestly hold my hand up to ever having been a fan of Carole King as a performer, though who could ever dislike King/Goffin songs? I prefer a little more emotional "umph" in performances. This duet, Carole King with kd lang (who could sing the phone book and make it emotional) fills my bill very well. The opening lines of this song, An Uncommon Love, are oddly appropriate too, because my cousin had had hardly any contact with his close, or wider, family over a period of some 40 years. The song begins:

Why do we isolate each other?
All the walls we build between us
Make it so hard to be together...

Here's Gloria Estefan singing It's Too Late. Carole King composed the music, and Toni Stern wrote the lyrics. This performance, at The White House in 2013, shows Carole seated next to President Obama.

The Roman Way in October

I'm having mild withdrawal symptoms don't ya know? Haven't had an Ancient Roman Festival to feature for quite some time. Let me see what was goin' on during October in those long ago Roman days.


Ludi Augustales – October 3-12 Following his predecessors Sulla and Caesar, games were held in Augustus' honor starting in 11 BC. It became a ten-day event under Tiberius. Usually only the last day featured chariot racing.

Yeah, well, those horses and chariot wheels did tend to screw up the turf - not good for the athletes.

Black Day: Anniversary of Arausio – October 6 A day considered unlucky since it was the anniversary of the defeat to German tribes in 105 BC.

Those dang Germans !

Meditrinalia – October 11 To Jupiter, in his form as the wine-god, and Meditrina, goddess of healing and medicine. This was the first occasion on which Romans tasted the year's new vintage.

After quaffing all that new vintage stuff, no doubt Meditrina's skills of healing came in very handy! Ah-ha... we have a post about this, from 2011 (AD that is)- See HERE

Fontinalia – October 13 To Fons or Fontus, god of fountains, springs, and wells. Fountains and wellheads around the city of Rome were decorated with garlands.

And there are lots and lots, and lots of fountains in Rome - I saw many of 'em, but that was many decades ago (not nearly as many decades ago as this Festival though)!

Equus October – October 15 A race of two-horse chariots on the Campius Martius in honor of Mars. The right hand horse was sacrificed to the god with the tail being taken to the regia where its blood was left to drip on the hearth. The head was fought over between the residents of the Via Sacra (the rich and powerful) and the Subura (the poor). This festival and the next represented the usual close of the military season.

Ew...Ew...Ew......!!!

Armilustrium – October 19 To Mars. This marked the end of the military campaigning season. Soldiers' weapons were ritually purified and stored for the winter on the Aventine Hill. The assembled army was garlanded with flowers and reviewed in the Circus Maximus. Trumpets were played. There was a procession with torches and sacrificial animals.

Inhabitants of the USA carry on their version of this particular festival continually, by ritually saying "Thank you for your service" to any individual wearing military uniform, in any situation...whether said individual has ever done anything remotely like service to man or beast, or not. (Perhaps this should be my cue to run and hide!)

Ludi Victoriae Sullae – October 26 - November 1 Sometimes modern readers are puzzled about why Sulla's contemporaries complain so much about him. It should be realized that some of the things he did could be rather offensive to the traditional Roman. For example, after he won the battle of the Colline Gate in 82 BC to restore his control of Rome from the Marian faction, he chose the first anniversary to institute annual games in honor of the victory and by implication of course, himself. Now what had once only been done for gods, was being done on behalf of a mere man. This set a precedent for Caesar. Usually only the last day featured chariot racing.

"the Marian Faction"?
Any connection to "Marian...Madam Librarian
What can I say, my dear, to catch your ear...."?

Thought not!

This:
Julius Caesar’s family was socially distinguished: its members were patrician, and claimed descent from Venus and Aeneas. Although not prominent in politics, they were closely connected with the Marian faction in Roman politics – Caesar’s aunt was married to the popular leader Marius, and he himself married Cornelia, the daughter of Cinna (a follower of Marius). Cornelia died in 69 BC, after which Caesar married Sulla’s granddaughter Pompeia, in 67 BC.

Source HERE

Arty Farty Friday ~ Rocketeer & Artist Frank Malina

It' s interesting when art and science meet in the same individual - Frank Malina is a good example. He was born this day, 2 October in 1912, in Brenham, Texas, son of
son of Czech immigrants Frank Malina, a musician, and Caroline Marek.

From: Frank Malina - America's Forgotten Rocketeer by James L. Johnson:

What makes Malina’s story all the more compelling is that he was a man of great contradictions: A professed pacifist, he nevertheless designed powerful rockets to further the war effort. A communist sympathizer, he made a fortune through his stake in Aerojet. A consummate engineer, he opted to abandon his research career while still in his 30s and would eventually dedicate himself full-time to artistic pursuits. And yet, this sometimes deeply conflicted individual did more than anyone to legitimize the pursuit of rocket propulsion and to pave the way for others to pursue their paths to the stars.

Like most of the early rocketeers, Malina was drawn to the subject because rockets meant space travel. Born in 1912 in the tiny town of Brenham, Texas, Malina as a boy devoured Jules Verne’s classic From the Earth to the Moon, which vividly imagined an extraterrestrial trip. Even as an adolescent, Malina had an engineer’s mind-set. In a college essay on interplanetary travel, he enumerated the great difficulties that would need to be overcome, including the vast distances to traverse, the hostile atmosphere upon arrival, and the lack of any means of communication between that distant point and Earth.

And from an obituary and biography at langlois.org HERE

Dr. Malina was a rare combination of scientist-artist-editor-humanist. He was internationally famous for his work on early rocket development, his pioneering contribution to Kinetic Art, his creation and development of the journal Leonardo, and his lifelong efforts to promote international cooperation in science and technology and the visual arts.

Frank J. Malina obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in mechanical engineering from the Texas Agricultural and Mechanical University in 1934. He became interested in rocket engineering in the 1930s, when rocketry and space travel were scoffed at as "science-fiction dreams". He obtained his Ph.D. in Aeronautics from the California Institute of Technology (Cal Tech)  in 1940 with a thesis on rocket propulsion and rocket flight. In 1994, he was a co-founder, with the noted aeronautical engineer, Theodore von Kármán, of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (Pasadena, California), and was its first director from 1944 to 1946. He conceived and directed the design, construction and testing of the United States' first successful high altitude sounding rocket, the WAC Corporal (White Sands, New Mexico, 1944-1945). From 1947 to 1953 he worked at UNESCO, Paris, as counsellor and head of the Division of Scientific Research. Until his death he was an active member of the International Astronautics Federation as well as the International Academy of Astronautics, both of which he helped to found. He was elected vice-president of the Academy of Astronautics in 1960 and president in 1963. He drew up a plan for a "Lunar International Laboratory" where astronauts, scientists and technologists from different countries could work together for peaceful purposes in space. He was awarded the French Prix d'Astronautique REP Hirsch in 1939, the C. M. Hickman award of the American Rocket Society in 1948, and the Order of Merit from the French Society for the Encouragement of Research and Invention in 1962.

Those persons who were fortunate to know Frank J. Malina, or work with him professionally, treasured their friendship for that modest, unassuming man whose entire life was guided by his respect for all peoples on earth regardless of race, religion or social condition. He had an abiding faith in human nature and the promise of international cooperation and international understanding as the best means to build the foundations of a lasting peace, and he bent all his efforts during the last 40 years of his life to promote those ideals in every way he could in science and the visual arts. He was truly a great Humanist, truly the International Man.

Dr Malina died in November 1981.

It's difficult to present his Kinetic artwork to good effect online. There are some videos at YouTube, but they're not really good enough. Two very brief samples are below, both of the same piece titled "Cosmos" created in 1965.

Regarding Dr Malina's artwork - see this article by Patrick McCray:

Malina was especially keen to introduce material from science and technology, particularly space exploration and astronomy, into contemporary visual arts. Even his early forays into painting incorporated “shock waves and fluid flow and paintings of airplanes and rockets.” As he moved away from traditional art techniques, Malina spent considerable time experimenting with new ways to create novel visual effects. In the mid-1950s, for example, Malina worked with a French electronics student to create what he called his Lumidyne technique. He made his first pieces using it in 1956.

ASTROLOGY

Frank Malina's natal chart - born 2 October 1912, in Brenham, Texas. Chart set for 12 noon, no time of birth available, so Moon's position and ascendant will not be accurate.

That Grand Trine linking Sun/Mercury (self and mental orientation) to Saturn (science) and to Uranus (invention, futuristic) forming a circuit in Air (well, one is Capricorn cuspy) signs says everything necessary about the rocketeering facet of his talent. His gravitation to art, and in particular to Kinetic Art is reflected, I think, in the opposition between Uranus (futuristic) and Neptune (creativity, imagination). This opposition of slow-moving planets was a generational alignment, but because Uranus links to personal planet Mercury by harmonious trine, and Neptune links to Mars and widely to Venus (planet of the arts) by less comfortable square aspects, the opposition is specifically drawn in to Malina's personality. Venus in square aspect to both Uranus and Neptune, perhaps loses some of the square aspect's sting because Neptune in late Cancer echoes the Watery element of Venus in Scorpio; and Uranus in Earthy Capricorn's last degree isn't totally alien to Scorpio Venus. That peculiar cuspy effect must be going on here.

The personality description given in a quote, above, bears repeating:

Those persons who were fortunate to know Frank J. Malina, or work with him professionally, treasured their friendship for that modest, unassuming man whose entire life was guided by his respect for all peoples on earth regardless of race, religion or social condition. He had an abiding faith in human nature and the promise of international cooperation and international understanding as the best means to build the foundations of a lasting peace, and he bent all his efforts during the last 40 years of his life to promote those ideals in every way he could in science and the visual arts. He was truly a great Humanist, truly the International Man.

Charming Libra Sun, quite possibly in trine to sociable Gemini Moon (can't be sure without time of birth), would cover much of that description. It does also sound very much like textbook descriptions of Aquarius - perhaps Aquarius was his rising sign.

I should also mention, after what came up from yesterday's post on Libra's fixed stars, that Dr Malina's Sun was conjunct Vindemiatrix - so... that star ain't always the herald of a harsh or difficult personality!

Fixed Stars in Libra (a few noticed in natal charts)

Libra is next in the series of monthly posts on Fixed Stars in each tropical zodiac sign.

Data comes from Astroweb (HERE), showing star positions in 1900 in the left-hand column and in 2000 on the right.

Astrological interpretations for most of those stars, if found to be tightly conjunct a natal personal planet, or important point, are available online. A good, all-encompassing website to investigate for this is Constellation of Words.

Chosen stars to feature further this month are three I've noted during research for past blog posts: Arcturus, Algorab and Vindemiatrix.

Arcturus came up in a post here:

SNIP:

In The Best of the Illustrated National Astrological Journal 1933-1935,... there's an article by Stuart Holmes titled Arcturus and Artists, sub-heading: Golden Star Found Consistently Recurrent in the Horoscopes of the World's Greatest Artists.......The article states that the author's research (or perhaps that of his astrologer wife?) has shown that aspects to Fixed Star Arcturus feature strongly in the natal charts of many artists. He names Michelangelo, Dore, Lord Leighton, Millet, Rops, Burne-Jones, Watts, Winslow Homer, Durer, Holbein, Ingres, Delacroix, Bouguereau, Blake, Boucher, Gauguin and Cezanne as all having strong aspects to Arcturus "but principally the ruler conjoined with it".

He goes on in more detail about various painters and sculptors and how configurations in their natal charts match their chosen styles. He ends the piece: "One of the strangest factors in these charts of great artists is the fact that Venus, the ruler of art and all beauty, is always square to some zodiacal body".

At the time the article was published, in the early 1930s, and as stated therein, Arcturus was at 23 Libra. By 2010 the Fixed Star had moved, very, very slowly to 24.22 Libra. A piece online, by Rob Tillett: Fixed Stars, allocates Arcturus the keywords:

Inspiration, riches, fame, honour, popularity, benefits through travel. Success through work. Effect: Very Fortunate. Character: Jupiter/ Mars.

Vindemiatrix and Algorab are mentioned in posts here and here

SNIPS

Salient points have been pointed out in the linked articles above, but two things stand out for me: the fact that his [Rick Perry's] Mars and south node of Moon conjoin Fixed Star Vindemiatrix.
From Skyscript:

Vindemiatrix, which Ptolemy defined as like Saturn and Mercury, and referred to as 'the bright star in the northern wing', is the third brightest star of the constellation, being less brilliant now than it was in Ptolemy's day. The name is a feminised Latin deviation of the original Greek name, Provindemiator, meaning 'the Grape Gatherer', since the heliacal rising of this star announced the time to pick the grapes.... Although symbolically associated with a time of harvest and thus, one would assume, associated with the rewards of previous efforts, it is generally accorded an unfortunate influence in keeping with its predominantly Saturnine nature. Robson claims that it gives falsity, disgrace, stealing, wanton folly.......

I'm generally wary of Fixed star interpretations, but do feel it's important to note them in cases such as this, where we might glean additional information as to their significance from watching how things unfold.

From the second link -

DANG! Another triple Libran [Lenny Bruce] who goes against the grain. Nazi horror-monger Irma Grese struck me this way too - I blogged about her here. A few more charts like these and I shall start doubting traditional interpretations of Libra as the most diplomatic, tactful, indecisive sign of the zodiac. The dark underbelly of Libra is definitely not pretty. The thought led me to a little more research and this is what I discovered:

Lenny Bruce's natal Mars at 9 Libra is conjunct Fixed Star Vindemiatrix designated unfortunate or malefic by ancient astrologers. His natal Saturn is within minutes of arc of Fixed Star South Scale in Scorpio - another malefic, very unfortunate star.

Irma Grese was born with Sun conjunct Algorab ("One who is destructive, malevolent, fiendish and lying")

Lesson learned: it's worth checking whether Fixed Stars are close to personal planets if things seem discordant with accepted astrological interpretation, especially in the case of Libra Sun people who are supposed to be, in the main, mild mannered, sweet, ruled by Venus.

Something else springs to mind too - Via Combusta, The Burning Road, spans 15 Libra to 15 Scorpio, which takes in Bruce's Sun, Mercury and Saturn. I puzzled over Via Combusta here. .......... Curiouser and curiouser.

In my own natal chart Libra is devoid of planets, so I've no personal experience to add.

Planetary Ponderings

Perhaps it's today's alignment of Earth-Mercury-Sun that has me in pondering mode.

Does Mercury Retrograde really screw up communication lines and cause computerised items to act strangely? (We're in the midst of a Merc-retro period right now, the retrograde period will last until 9 October).


All about Venus - a good piece about the planet by Charles Q. Choi, from space.com:
Planet Venus Facts: A Hot, Hellish & Volcanic Planet.



Will some form of life be found on Mars ?
Mars Shows Signs of Having Flowing Water, Possible Niches for Life, NASA Says.


As for Jupiter: Juno is a NASA New Frontiers mission to the planet Jupiter. Juno was launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on 5 August 2011 and will arrive on 4 July 2016.
See HERE - a short video, and HERE.


Saturn has recently transited from Scorpio into Sagittarius - thankfully at last hauling its ass off my natal Mars at 28.54-ish Scorpio!

Saturn orbits the Sun once every 29.4 Earth years. Its slow movement against the backdrop of stars earned it the nickname of “Lubadsagush” from the ancient Assyrians. The name means “oldest of the old”. (HERE)

Coffee Day on Tuneful Tuesday

Bet y'all didn't know - or had forgotten - that September 29 is International Coffee Day.

Cue for a song, or two.





Java Jive is an obvious choice. It was written by Ben Oakland and Milton Drake in 1940, originally performed by The Ink Spots. This is a later, 1970s, version by The Manhattan Transfer :

Not as obvious to most is the song that springs immediately to my own mind whenever coffee is mentioned. The song isn't about coffee, but the first line is.

Coffee black, cigarettes, start this day, like all the rest,
First thing every morning that I do, Is start missing you....

I like the song, it reminds me of an old friend who used to sing it often, and to my ear sang it even better than the original Don Williams 1970s recording. Don Williams sings it in the video below, backed by some images from the movie Brokeback Mountain. The song was written by Wayland Holyfield.

If you're a coffee drinker, why not have an extra cup in honour of the day? I'm a bit of a Philistine when it comes to coffee at home. I use instant, as do (or did) many Brits. I'm picky about the type and brand though. I'll use only Nescafé Colombian instant, Starbucks Colombian instant (a tad expensive, but good) and Nescafé Freeze Dried - but the latter is hard to find in Oklahoma, and exorbitant shipping charges preclude buying it online.

"Lost in the Fifties..." ~ Class of '55 Reunion

Husband's high school class reunion (60th) in Salina Kansas, as it turned out, was a pleasanter experience than expected - for us both.

There were some 50 to 60 attendees at the casual "mixer" meeting on Friday evening. Some people had travelled from as far away as New Hampshire, Michigan and Colorado. 1955 class members, according to notes on display, are now scattered through most of the 50 states, with Arizona and Florida vying with the home state, Kansas, in the double figure league.

A sad, but inevitable, inclusion was a lovingly prepared display, made up of photographs from the school yearbooks, of all those class members who are known to have died since 1955. The proportion is thought to be: around 178 still on planet Earth, from a total of 250 students in the 1955 graduation class. Not bad! It was sad to note, among the memorialised, a youthful photograph of my husband's best friend from school days and beyond, his nickname, "Z". We had attended his funeral in Wichita a few years ago.

On the lighter side, there was a fun display of some pages from the school's yearbook listing graduating students' "Pet Peeves and Future Plans". Husband's contribution went like this:

There he is (in the bottom photograph) with two re-united classmates. The lady on the left very kindly extracted three items from her scrapbook and put them in his keeping: two poems he had written, and an article, with his photograph (below), mentioning some of his doings.

Fall Equinox

 David Palladini's Zodiac, Summer thru Fall +

Happy Autumn to all!

Nathaniel Hawthorne, in The American Notebooks in October 1842, wrote:

“I cannot endure to waste anything so precious as autumnal sunshine by staying in the house."

I'm with Nat. So after today the blog will stand still until Monday. We are to attend husband's High School Reunion (60th) this weekend, up in Salina, Kansas. We shall probably only attend the "mixer" meeting(s), rather than any regimented dinners etc. Not sure how I shall feel about it - I resolutely refused to attend any such affairs relating to my own schooldays, back in the UK. Still, I do like Salina, and there are antique stores to explore, should things become depressingly...erm... elderly.

Chiral ?

Last week, in researching and featuring poet Jane Hirshfield, I learned a new word from a piece of her poetry/prose:

Left-Handed Sugar - Poem by Jane Hirshfield

In nature, molecules are chiral — they turn in one direction or the other. Naturally then, someone wondered: might sugar, built to mirror itself, be sweet, but pass through the body unnoticed? A dieters' gold mine. I don't know why the experiment failed, or how. I think of the loneliness of that man-made substance, like a ghost in a ‘50s movie you could pass your hand through, or some suitor always rejected despite the sparkle of his cubic zirconia ring. Yet this sugar is real, and somewhere exists. It looks for a left-handed tongue.

Chiral ? Was this word, I wondered, related to Chiron, "wounded healer" and centaur often found in astrology's broader reaches? No, it has no connection to Chiron.
Wikipedia:

Chirality /kaɪˈrælɪtiː/ is a property of asymmetry important in several branches of science. The word chirality is derived from the Greek, χειρ (kheir), "hand", a familiar chiral object.

An object or a system is chiral if it is distinguishable from its mirror image; that is, it cannot be superposed onto it. Conversely, a mirror image of an achiral object, such as a sphere, cannot be distinguished from the object. A chiral object and its mirror image are called enantiomorphs (Greek opposite forms) or, when referring to molecules, enantiomers. A non-chiral object is called achiral (sometimes also amphichiral) and can be superposed on its mirror image.

The term was first used by Lord Kelvin in 1893 in the second Robert Boyle Lecture at the Oxford University Junior Scientific Club which was published in 1894:

"I call any geometrical figure, or group of points, 'chiral', and say that it has chirality if its image in a plane mirror, ideally realized, cannot be brought to coincide with itself."

Human hands are perhaps the most universally recognized example of chirality: The left hand is a non-superimposable mirror image of the right hand; no matter how the two hands are oriented, it is impossible for all the major features of both hands to coincide across all axes This difference in symmetry becomes obvious if someone attempts to shake the right hand of a person using their left hand, or if a left-handed glove is placed on a right hand. In mathematics chirality is the property of a figure that is not identical to its mirror image.

I live and learn, sometimes on the ecliptic, sometimes elsewhere.

Using hands to explain chirality is the easy part. I shall delve no further into the scientific uses of the term, lest eyes (mine) begin to cross in trying to experiment with the chirality of eyes.

Music Monday ~ A Birthday

Happy Birthday to Leonard Cohen! Here's what I wrote back in 2011:

I've once or twice approached the natal chart of Leonard Cohen but was wary of featuring it in a blog post. I enjoy many of his songs, though preferably sung by others: Bird On a Wire, Hallelujah, Suzanne, Dance Me To the End of Love to name a few. The man himself, though, strikes me as being a wee bit "out there", farther out than I care to go!

When I first saw Cohen's chart I was surprised to note that he has no planets in Scorpio. The "feel" of nearly all his songs is most definitely Scorpio, for me. Death features often, as does gloomy self-obsessed melancholia.

So....where's the gloom ? Could it be that through emphasis on perfection-loving Virgo in his chart (data from Astrodatabank): Sun, Venus (the arts) and Neptune (creativity), he seeks a perfection that simply doesn't exist in this insane world, and his unsuccessful search tips him into gloom and despondency? Pluto, planet of death and darkness, in Cancer, lies in sextile to his Sun - perhaps that's an additional source of the dark feeling in his works. Moon in Pisces (ruled by Neptune) contributes that rather otherworldly flavour found often in Cohen's songs.

Wonderful, wonderful songs - it could be said that his vocals leave a bit to be desired, but as with Dylan and Kristofferson, the authentic version is definitive, but others can polish and shine the superb lyrics.

Mysteries of a Neptunian Sort

Neptune, our planet with closest connection to drugs, visions, and mysteries currently traverses its zodiac home, Pisces. I sometimes get to wondering whether, during its sojourn in Pisces, we're going to see a revival or "re-working" of something even more mysterious than we're accustomed to experiencing (which is mysterious enough, at any given time!)

During the 1960s, for the whole decade Neptune was transiting Scorpio, one of the three Water signs where Neptune is said to "feel most at home". Look what happened then! Neptune's "influence" was made clear in the prevalence of hippie culture and fairly widespread ingestion of mind-altering substances among members of the young generation. Some iconic music came forth from that decade, and that's no coincidence I feel sure.

In Pisces Neptune will be feeling even more "at home". I'll not be a bit surprised, at some point, to be reading of the emergence some new cult or mysterious goings on, involving new (or old) mind-altering substances. Neptune will move through Pisces until early 2025, so, though nothing of that nature has appeared so far - ten more years are still to go. However, with Pluto travelling through Capricorn and Uranus in Aries the outer planetary "atmosphere" might bring forth a different type of cultish mystery. The only current Neptunian mystery involves Neptune's other link - to the oceans: the disappearance of flight MH370. The plane is thought to be lying somewhere on the seabed of the Indian Ocean, but is eluding all discovery attempts.

Speaking of mysteries, Wikipedia tells me that tomorrow, 20 September, marked "The seventh day of the Eleusinian Mysteries, when the secret rites in the Telesterion began" in Ancient Greece. Ancient Greeks had no knowledge of planet Neptune, as far as we know, but the Eleusinian Mysteries seem to be purely Neptunian in nature.

From an archived 2011 post:

Long ago, humans felt a deep need to celebrate and honor times of sowing, reaping and harvest, keenly aware that, should anything untoward negatively affect nature's cycle, many people - perhaps all - would die in the ensuing famine. For instance, 20 September, in ancient Greece, would have marked the 7th day of the Eleusinian Mysteries: revered initiation ceremonies held every 4 or 5 years (sources vary), lasting 9 days, honoring Demeter the Mother Goddess of agriculture and fertility, and Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.

The Mysteries originated in the city of Eleusis, 15 miles west of Athens, possibly as far back as the early Mycenaean period (c.1600 B.C), and continued for almost two thousand years, in a world both alien yet oddly familiar to us, in the twenty-first century. Theirs was a world permeated with anxiety and dread, perhaps not unlike that of the USA after 9/11, or during the Cold War years. Famine was, for them, a persistent threat. A single crop failure could spell the difference between life and death. The risk of war, whether from marauding bands or organized armies, was constant. Death or slavery awaited the losers of a conflict. Family provided the only social safety net for most. People lived constantly on the edge of disaster.

The long drawn-out structured rituals of the Mysteries produced a change of consciousness in the participants bringing about a kind of spiritual birth, intended to reunite the person with the divine spirit of the cosmos. The rites, ceremonies, and beliefs were kept strictly secret. Since The Mysteries involved visions of an afterlife, some scholars believe that the power and longevity of the Eleusinian Mysteries came from psychedelic agents. Before experiencing the final soul-shattering vision of the Greater Mysteries, initiates drank kykeon, an entheogenic potion made from ergot, from which LSD is derived. The initiates then spent the night in a darkened hall, where they beheld a great vision, which was “new, astonishing, inaccessible to rational cognition.”

 Pisces by Johfra Bosschart

Neptune's earlier transits through Pisces have been investigated by several writers online. A reliable source of such data is astrologer Steven Forrest's website here:
Timeline of dates and notable events under the transit of Neptune in the sign Pisces. Though interesting, I'm undecided as to how much of astrological use can be gleaned from this. During each of Neptune's trips through Pisces other patterns, made by the slow-moving outer planets, would have been different, those would have to be factored in to any conclusions reached about Neptune in Pisces "influence" on events.

During Neptune's previous transit of Pisces, 1847-1862, not long after the planet was discovered, there was a surge of interest in spiritualism in Britain and Europe. Spiritualist churches were founded, and spiritualism's attendant mysteries were on the the minds of many. At that time Uranus and Pluto were either in, or about to move into, Taurus. Though Taurus and Pisces are quite different "flavours", both have a strong creative side; Neptune in Pisces wouldn't have been overly watered down by the other outer planets' placements.

The Neptune-Pisces transit before 1847-62 was during 1664-1698. Though we have dry, factual history books to guide us, we can't imagine quite as clearly the general atmosphere of those times. I don't see that religious wars and expulsion of Hugenots relate to Neptune in Pisces. Religious wars had been more or less continuous for centuries. Witch trials seem to be the opposite of Neptune in Pisces. The other two outer planets during mid to late-17th century moved: Taurus and Cancer (quite friendly to Pisces), and Gemini to Leo (less friendly to Pisces). Perhaps witch trials reflected that move?

One more step backward in time.

1520 - 1534: Factually: Martin Luther condemned as heretic, excommunicated...Henry 8th cutting ties with church of Rome...Religious Peace of Nuremburg...Calvin's Protestant movement in France...etc. All religion all the time! Religion is traditionally Pisces territory, though I'd have said more linked to Pisces' traditional ruler, Jupiter than to Neptune. But religion is...well... something of a mystery itself isn't it, and therefore overseen by Neptune also! During that 16th century span the other two outer planets were in Taurus and Capricorn in the early stage, and had moved to Cancer and very early Aquarius by the end of the transit. Neptune's Pisces position didn't blend at all well with Pluto in logical Capricorn and early Aquarius, but got along reasonably well with Uranus in Taurus and Cancer (though not as well while Uranus traversed Gemini). So religion and its mysteries won some and lost some!

Beyond that time, I believe Neptunian mists become much too dense, and Neptunian mysteries too "far out" - just like the Eleusinian ones, to allow easy translation into 21st century logic and language.

Arty Farty Friday ~ Alexandra Exter

A look at Russian-French avant-garde painter, ceramist, graphic artist, costume and stage set designer, Alexandra Exter/Aleksandra Aleksandrovna Ekster. She was born near Kiev on 6 January 1882, into a wealthy Ukrainian family.

In 1904 she married a successful Kiev lawyer, her cousin. During 1907/8 she studied art at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in Montparnasse, Paris. A comparatively wealthy background allowed her to travel widely in Europe during pre-war years.

She lived between Kiev, Odessa, Milan, and Paris. In 1924 she and her husband emigrated to France and settled in Paris.

Her circle of friends included famous painters Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, and Georges Braque who is said to have introduced her to Gertrude Stein . She was strongly influenced by Cubism, and was a pioneer of Art Deco. As for the arty -isms, Exter's work embraced several: Cubism, Futurism, Suprematism, and Constructivism. She has been described as one of the most experimental women of the avant-garde, though was perhaps at her best as an artist in her theatrical work. She taught at the Academie der Moderne in Paris and later was a professor at Academie d'Art Contemporain, she also worked as a book illustrator. Alexandra Exter died in France in March, 1949.

A few examples of her work and a 5 minute video showing more. Even more examples can be seen via Google Image.

 City

Sevr Bridge, Kyiv. 1912

 Venice

 Stage set for Merchant of Venice

 Costumes for Romeo & Juliet

 Castles Under the Sea

ASTROLOGY

An Earthy Grand Trine circuit dominates her natal chart, linking her Capricorn Sun/Mercury and/or Venus (planet of the arts) to most of the clustered planets in Venus-ruled Taurus, and inventive Uranus in Virgo. The Earthy yet Uranian flavour of her artwork is evident in her embrace of Cubist elements, and Constructivist art which was "committed to complete abstraction with a devotion to modernity, where themes are often geometric, experimental and rarely emotional". (See HERE).

Without time of birth exact position of Moon can't be established, but it's likely to have been in Leo - which would link well to her gravitation to, and evident delight in, stage and costume design.