Circular Paths is the image of the day at 15° Libra. We are coming to terms with the inevitability of establishing steady rhythms of social activity. This is ruled by Gemini in a twelve-fold sequence, the third sign of the zodiac, 3 points being necessary to form a circle. Not only does history repeat in a circular fashion but all that we do in our individual routines does likewise. This blague for instance can be seen as something of a circular path, or the weekly horoscopes we post. Or our appearing to perform live each Solstice as we do at Joe’s Pub. We want to change things from rut to rhythm, attuning ourselves to the circular natural movements of the celestial spheres on their circular paths. Seeing ourselves as functioning as they do, serenely, without stress but gentle ease. We want our circular actions to feel freeing not binding. So you will want to check that. This image is about moving from boredom to transpersonal peace.

It’s not always easy to know if you’re scaling an upward spiral or if you chasing your own tail. And in a world that is hell bent on comparisons—people have commited suicide due to feeling “less than” simply from too much Facebook surfing—we can be easily defeated by what seems to be everyone else’s success but our own OR we can be inspired by our man real and faux friends and let that move us. It’s always a choice. Personally, I like to imagine that, in my many circular paths, that I am doing the things I repeat that much better each time with a margin for a little backsliding on my otherwise upward trajectory. There should be an algorithim for that. But really, I know that the people who post selfies of themselves with C- or even A-list celebrities, or tout their many accomplishments or places of residence are no more or less happy than any of us. We have no way of judging this; our only goal is to be happy today than we were yesterday which is enough of a challenge. The only true answer is to simply love more. And especially yourselves. That is all.

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For the first time in like forever I woke up didn’t have coffee and lay down on the couch to perhaps fall back to sleep. The tall lady was like what? She was totes surprised. As I was because I usually wake and shake and start writing my blague. So here it is nearly eleven a.m. in Paris and I’m just taking a look at what the oracle is today: In The Heat Of The Noon Hour A Man Takes A Siesta. This 14° Libra symbol surely is spot on—I feel like I’m becoming one with these images. Today’s would be ruled by Taurus in a twelve-fold sequence and we know how languid people of that sign can be so it’s all lining up.

The point is that we cannot sustain constant activity, emotionally or culturall. There must be breaks. I don’t withdraw into my own sphere of selfhood enough, probably. And I have of late been burning the candle at both ends, giddy to be in the city of light and delighting my senses. Even though Paris beckons I must rest today before being absorbed into the delicious swirl. My batteries need recharging, yes, but also my imagination needs something of a reset. I have a bunch of creative projects coming up and I need to be rested to allow them to bubble up. As it is I’ve just come off producing a festival which was exhausting and I moved house which was/is always traumatizing and then we came on this big trip. Boom, boom, boom. And it’s been superfun, but super fatiguing. Both body and psyche need a time out to catch up. And to be rid of toxins i.e. certain people, places and things.

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Children Blowing Soap Bubbles, the image at Libra 13°, serves as a sort of off-sight think tank. This oracle is where we dream up perfect scenarios, letting the ideas come and casting them into the ether. Ruled by Aries in a twelve-fold sequence, we have exited the dream womb of Pisces and are ready to have these reveries take form. The whole of my trip to Paris has felt like the above, Stella and I just letting new dreams materialize in a floating fashion. And last night, especially, was spent out in the company of good friends, English folk who have lived in Paris for nigh on twenty years. And whenever we get together with them time both flies and stands still; I know we none of us ever stop talking and yet I can never quite remember specific threads of conversation. And not because we’re over serving ourselves, but there is just this other dimensional quality to our evenings together and always has been. We are like four kids in a sandbox falling into imaginary thoughts and games. It truly is magical. And this came off picking up a little present of a book of poetry that another dear young friend of ours left for us at Shakespeare and Co. bookstore on the quai; we were there to attend a party for Gentlewoman magazine; the party was actually quite lame, but it was memory bliss for Stella, especially, as the late owner George who is no longer with us invited her and her family, I believe, up to his private lair for tea one afternoon in the early 1980s. It was such a famous place and he had amazing stories about the dreamlike world of Paris in the early part of the 20th century when so many American novelist expats lived here.

The keynote of today’s image is definitely Imaginative Play. And I’m ready for more of that today myself. I am shaking off the last vestiges of poison from some shady relationships of the past. And I’m going to ritualize my walk today—I’m hoping the Sun goes in and it rains on me because there is nothing like walking in Paris in a grey wet terrarium—and I’m going to fancy myself a multi-colored floating bubble, perfect and evanescent. Glinda, after all, is one of the female archetypes of Libra, the good witch high priestess dressed in her sparkling gown of fleshy pink (the color associated with Libra). I’m going to float in my bubble through the raindrops and dream of a better world for myself and everyone I know.

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Digging for knowledge is something that must be done, in part, as a collective, or at least we must see our personal searches for profound wisdom to be an experience we also share with others. Such is the meaning of the oracle at 12° Libra, Miners Are Surfacing From A Deep Coal Mine, which would be ruled by Pisces in a twelve-fold sequence. We must dig ever deeper to unearth the stuff that keeps our collective mind burning. The search for meaning, specifically the discovery of answers to our earthly questions, requires the determination of many minds. The pursuit of knowledge can be a hot, sweaty, pressurized and tense affair, and we can choke in the quest for intellectual aims.

As with everything Piscean, those opposite facing fish point to a two-way-street element in interpretation. This symbol can be read as a call to action for us to go down some rabbit hole and start our own dig for knowledge and meaning and what treasures, diamonds in the rough, might be found; or it might be a alarm telling us to surface and breath some fresh air of natural life and halt some intense pursuit that is engulfing us. As with many of these Libra symbols we are dealing with self-and-other(s), work for the sake of the collective. There is strain and sacrifice involved. Just as yesterday’s professor had some trouble with his eyes as a result of his academic vocation, today we risk asphyxiation in our more manual heavy lifting of bringing to the surface ancient material that was once actually live—metaphorically speaking, it is living thought and ideas embedded in the past.

I think there are things into which I must dig deeper and things into which I’ve dug that have become ruts that have entrapped me. It’s almost easier to get into the former than it is to extricate myself from the latter. Some pursuits, which have come to define us, are hard habits to break even when they are suffocating us. That was my little gem for the day.

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11° Libra, ruled by Aquarius in a twelve-fold sequence, is A Professor Peering Over His Glasses At His Students, and it’s funny, but I kind of feel that perspective in my bones, today, universally. If one imagines they are doing likewise it indicates to simultaneous points of view: that close at hand requiring personal focus, if not introspection, and a certain checking up on the behavior of others. We keep finding images of the Master in these Libra symbols (though I’ve yet to bump into any immortal alchemists on the streets of Paris this past week, while I’m still hoping) and this one addresses the “problems attending the transmission of knowledge in a special cultural setup. Sure, sure.

There is something inately humorous if not sit-comy about this image, as if the old professor (played by Jim Broadbent in my mind) brings a wealth of mystical knowledge to the table while dealing with the comic antics of students who can’t yet grasp the wisdom but for a few Harrys, Rons and Hermoines in the bunch. Something like that. But I am trying to take this oracle seriously. The professor must look up from his books, the source of his own great wisdom, and observe the very human beings of his students who will not easily or readily absorb the information he’s transmitting. If not an image of kindly affection, it is surely one of patience. We can’t expect everyone to get what we’re putting out there. We must gauge their reactions and measure their absorbtionability. We must see over, even, our own great intelligence, rising above even our wisdom, to find compassion for those who are grappling and yet don’t possess the enlightenment we enjoy. The professor is only partly looking down his nose, he cannot be fully suffused with superiority or he would alienate those he is encouraging a long the path he has trodden. He is focused on instruction—the putting of knowledge into others—rather than their education—the drawing out of others elements of character—and so he is experiencing shifting limits and obstacles to that aim. I hear you professor, I hear you.

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Having Passed Safely Through Narrow Rapids, A Canoe Reaches Calm Waters, the keynote of which is the self-control and poise necessary to reach a steady state of inner stability, is the symbol of the day at Libra 10°. And anybody who’s anybody knows this is the key to living life, if not to life itself. Self-control is an important, shall we say, skill? to master. It is easier to ace this ability the less we are bombarded by the kind of need that comes from negative conditioning or trauma slash undue desire, not to be confused with the true brand. This symbol would be ruled by Capricorn in a twelve-fold sequence and the idea of finding a “haven” is endemic to that sign.

In Sextrology, we speak of one of the modern archetypes of the Capricorn (male) as being C.K. Dexter Haven, the character portrayed by (Capricorn) Cary Grant in the movie The Philadelphia Story. He is quintessential Cary in that he is the main hearthrob, but he’s been through it. He was a drunk, and he’s rehabilitated and remains so in the story. The out of control source of chaos (the narrow rapids) become the resource of calm—we cultivate calm not by controlling but accepting the so-called rapids of our life, seeing them as a natural rhythm. They either service us or they don’t. In other words, we are either capsized by them or we ride them until we can find a point of refuge. C.K., if you say it fast enough, is “seek”…so his name translates to: seek dexter haven; dexter meaning “right” as opposed to sinister which means “left” or “wrong”.

Whenever we see water it is safe to say we are dealing with emotions, the canoe being our vessel of emotional being that we’ve carved out for ourselves in coping with more volatile times and conditions. The source of the water (emotions) can be tumultous and we might find ourselves in tight and rocky situations, but this is how we develop our own resource. The so-called opposite signs of Cancer (cardinal water) and Capriocorn (cardinal earth) are symbolized by a source and by resource, Capricorns energy being that calm mountain lake—the emblem is a sea-goat which embodies the watery depths but is equipped to scale those mountains. A haven, like Shangri La, would be characterized as some lakeside resort in the mountains. Resort, retreat, relief, resource, reserve—these are all Capricorn words.

Can we see our troubled emotional times as having not only let out onto a calm retreat but have been the creator of it? Can we see our own inner resource as having been developed and preserved via the rushing emotionality of our past experience. Are we more self-preservational, reserved and even retreating as a result of having been in the rapid swim in our lives. I think the answer to these questions is found in your own reservoir of being, proving that navigating your own emotions is tantamount to developing your own spirituality.

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Three “Old Masters” Hanging On The Wall Of A Special Room In An Art Gallery is the image at Libra 9°. Is it me or are we talking a lot about “masters” lately? Also I’ve been spending tim in art galleries which I rarely do which is also fun. As I’m writing this I’m sitting in just any old cafe in France. I contacted just a handful of friends to let them know I was here. They both texted me within this hour to see if I could meet tonight; and as I was walking in one door of cafe, the third friend, who hadn’t contacted me, entered in through the other door. That’s right, just try not to see me. Savoir Faire Is Everywhere. He wasn’t trying not to see me but it’s been difficult. You may remember I mentioned just a few days ago, and a couple of times earlier in the year, that this longtime friend of mine and me had a partying of the ways because he’s a [censored] with the worst [censored] under the sun. Well I know this French friend I just bumped into through that [censored] as they were once boyfirends, and for quite a long time. It’s been a most synchronic, vibey last twenty-four hours as it is, Paris having reaffirmed my faith in the magic path. I haven’t for a very long time felt so acutely the sense that I am meant to be exactly where I am. Fittingly this oracle is ruled by Sagittarius in a twelve-fold sequence which always opens that third eye perspective—the number three being central to this image. I don’t think Stella will mind me telling you too, that she had this dream while here that she existed in three different dimensions, that there were indeed three of her embodied in one. I reassured her that she is a triple goddess.

So the scholarly interpretation of this image is: the need to return to source during a confused search for new value in a chaotic society. Source is just another word for Paris, right? Well right now it is for me. But this isn’t all about me (ahem). To wax universal, there are always moments in our lives that focus on re-grounding ourselves in great achievements of the masters—symbolized by the work of those masters. I like to consider Sextrology a masterwork of sorts. I’m always encouraged by the number of people who haven’t read it, not only because it means more potential sales for me—wee hee—but because we put a good six years of our lives into that book, sacrificing everything else, to truly evolve the genre and come up with something new. It has been a great success but at a great cost because the publishing industry, and our publishing house in particular, is made up of a lot of sick people. Remember, we were published by Harper Collins, which is ruled by Rupert Murdoch in an asshole-fold sequence. And it trickled down. So it was a bitter sweet experience and we alienated a lot of these tunnel visionaries by telling them what we were going to accomplish with that book. They laughed and snickered. They tried to fuck us over at every turn. They lied, they cheated, pretty much about everything. And don’t get me started on agents or as we call them: “people who lie for a living.”

Okay but back to today’s oracle…I was talking about the need to reground ourselves in the great achievements of the past and, in a narcissistic moment, I took this in an personal achievement direction, which I think is valid. So too is mining the past for the great works of our ancestors which, in my case, would be those who have sacrificed themselves to the Theatre and also to keeping the notion of Metaphysical practices alive in a world that is becoming increasing two-dimensional and kardasian. All the more reason for us to embrace our multidimensionality, something for which Stella’s subconscious is advocating. “Esoteric traditions speak of a three-fold soul, or of the fundemental rays—of power, love-wisdom and intelligence-in-action,” says Dane Rudhyar. “meditation, inits deepest sense, is a return to source—an attempt to re-identify oneself with one’s archetypal essence of being, which is triune in manifestation, after confused but challenging wanderings , to identify oneself consciously with this essence.” Boy, he’s good.

And yes the great moments by masters of the collective past do inspire us individually to be the greatest versions of ourselves specificially in the initiating of new beginnings. These new beginnings, though ideological, will be more sound than the tried and true routines via with which we have run ourselves into the ground. The energy of this Sabian Symbol is one of “Transfiguration”. In order to create, or rather be the seed of the future, one must invoke the past in the process. Moses and Elijah were invoked in Jesus’ transfiguration. We don’t live in a linear cosmos, folks; everything is cyclic, especially the continuity of spirit. “This is the notion behind apostolic succession or gurampara—an uninterrupted chain of gurus in the Indian tradition.”

So whom are you invoking in your embodiment of a new form of self?

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A Blazing Fireplace In A Deserted Home speaks to the realization that even in our most desolate hours spirituality burns within us beckoning our consciousness to return to a soulful center. This oracle at 8° Libra is ruled by Scorpio in a twelve-fold sequence which makes sense given that sign’s association with the depths of human consciousness—both in terms of suffering and finding meaning—which are catalysts for the regeneration that is the hope of this image. Many of us lose our way. Those of us on spiritual quests may abandon these even though we’ve had experiences, if just glimpses, of essential beingness. A couple images back, we entertained the notion of transmission of said beingness from a master. Even those who’ve received this mind might stray from this “guru’s love” but the true guru, or spiritual practice, awaits our return with open arms.

This is also an image of hitting ye olde rock bottom, which again is often the place from which people soar. We must go to the darkest place, sometimes, in order to rise phoenix-like. Planet Pluto which rules Scorpio has an eliptical orbit which sees it rise and fall from our perspective. The subterranean god, Pluto and his wife-counterpart Persephone, are Chtonian figures, meaning ones who inhabit the underworld. In psychological terms, it is a metaphor for our own subconscious wherein lie the seeds of awakening to a new reality that will see us rise ever higher. How low can you go, or have to, one wonders.

I think today’s oracle bids us examine where we are experience desolation and to alight on the spark of our spiritual fires still burning. Woe it is for those whose light has already gone out, what Dane Rudhyar calls a rare and tragic occurance. And yet we all know when we encounter such zombies and sociopaths who are beyond the hope of spiritual rekindling. Even if the creative dream we were trying to foster and protect is abandoned it isn’t the end of us. The destruction is part of the same cycle as new creation. We find new hope. And though there are times when this cycle is all encompassing—Scarlett O’Hara digging into her Chtonian tara to root out a vegetable she chomps on before vowing never again—we all experience tiny occurances of this cycle all the time, even in the midst of great fortune. So today let’s ask ourselves where the desolation lives and then see a fire there burning in the midsts of all that’s cold and broken.

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At 7° Libra we have A Woman Feeding Chickens And Protecting Them From The Hawks. We could all use her. This image is ruled by Libra in a twelve-fold sequence and it follows from yesterday. Today we are taking the perspective of the guru or mentor or master who is protecting his, well protegés which means “protected ones”. Wherever there is power there is the possiblity of its being used for light or darkness, creation or destruction. We might have had our creative visualization in place, fixed on making a better world for ourselves and others; and yet the power can be corrupted by those looking to benefit from others’ hardship. It isn’t enough to have the creative idea, we have to protect from the power hungry that seek to use it for their own ends. “We witness the contrast between the ideal situation envisioned clearly by the creative consciousness and what will be in actual operation; thus the forever-present struggle involved in making it possible for the future-oriented actualizers of an ideal to survive the attacks of tradition-worshiping minds that can only follow the lines of automatic response.”

This is the energy of certain guardianship. We must be watchful and vigilant, feeding the ideas as well as protecting them from the hawkish. Our brain children are so-called for a reason as they inspire the same kind of care as our literal creative offspring. We so often refer to our projects as “our baby” and it’s with that same kind of attention that we must continue to nurture and grow our creative plans.

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How Libra these last half a dozen images feel. This one—A Man Watches His Ideals Taking A Concrete Form Before His Inner Vision—is seriously so. Here at 6° Libra we are under the rule of Virgo, the mutable-earth sign that is all about shaping, molding, composing, taking form. I remember back in the late middle 80s being a bit ahead of the curve of my other cronies, praising the power of crystals, building my inner temple, toting around Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization. It’s funny how such personal fads, for lack of a better word, do get dropped and replaced. I used to creatively visualize actively back before I realized that you can have this sort of mechanism going on in the back of your brain all the time. And, of course, I employ that “skill” to help others, clients, visualize better lives for themselves. I realize that, in terms of my indidvidual self, that I’ve gotten a bit floppy on that score. But as today is the first full day after my birthday I think I’ll make it a point to sharpen up on this score. There are things I want to achieve, now that I am free from psychic-friends’ ties that bind, and the power of these Sabian Symbols, in writing about them, weaving my own personal feelings and experiences into the fabric of these (I think) powerful oracles, is beginning to take hold. I hope that was a sentence—as it is I think the official tagline of this Blague shall be: Typos Happen. I’m off on several tangents. Come back.

Hi, I’m back. Dane Rudhyar, that old cut-up, says that the keynote for this image is: The need to visualize clearly one’s dremas or ideals in order to make them truly effectual. Word. And I for one need to be more concentrated on this score. He then goes on to quote a French proverb, which is cool, because guess who’s heading to France today via Eurostar. According to this proverb: What is well conceived can be easily formulated.” I think this is also true, but I’m not sure it’s the way I work. I mean I tend not to conceive before formulating. I tend to just jump in and start formulating because I find that the process informs the conception. In our circles, in our circles. Oh but hey, the Ruddy says this: The process of interior visualization can be quite essential EXCEPT in the case of a creative individual who has become a totally pure channel for the descent of spiritual Power and a clear lens through which the Archetype in the Mind of Man (or God) can be projected without distortion wherever needed. Yeah that’s more me. Ha. I wish.

I have had moments in creation where I have felt that direct connection to the Muses and have had it last for months or even a year or so on end. Recipe for madness as well as strokes of genius. And maybe the reason I haven’t created any, say, solo performance work to speak of as of yet, or written any full songs for that matter (i have reams of half-written ditties) is because I haven’t creatively visualized and fully conceived—gotta love that word in this context—that which I want to express. Now, Virgo is the Virgin after all i.e. she is designed to conceive. The sign rules digestion as well as gestation. So maybe I need to get into emotionally-intelligently hatching an idea from visualization to execution. Sounds so simple. Yeah right. Again, I’m more a flash of ideas and then a jumping into the deep end of creativity without quite knowing how to swim sort of creative, opening channels to inspiration; I suppose I’ve always considered ultimate conception of creative vision to be a bit, well, too thought-out. Then again, maybe that’s why I don’t have a very large body of work. Food for thought. Must have been a Virgo who invented that phrase.

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