Midway through Taurus, At 15°, Head Covered With A Rakish Silk Hat, Muffled Against The Cold, A Man Braves A Storm is the Sabian symbol du jour on which to meditate. The word rakish immediately stands out. The tone of this oracle is a bit jaunty, if not somewhat disreputable. The man seems to be a self starter; it is likely that he has braved a storm before. He may be somewhere in the middle on the social spectrum; the prevailing wind isn’t at his back; it might be more of a struggle than he knows, or will even admit. He is braving the storm. He hasn’t accepted a lower lot in life like the porter, but his success isn’t assured. He portrays either naive bravado or great character in heading into the storm. Perhaps the storm is raging inside him and will empower him. This oracle is ruled by Sagittarius in a twelve-fold sequence. The sign is ruled by Jupiter, named for the chief god of thunder and lightning, that may strike, with genius, like wild fire—Sagittarius is the unpredictable mutable-fire sign that inspires the higher mind.

Sagittarius connects the subconscious with the conscious into a stream of consciousness that has often characterized genius expression. The sign is known to breed risk-taking. And this man, with his rakish mindset, shows devil-may-care, daring. He is fueled by outsized confidence which may be more than a match for social heirarchies. He’s a man on the move, and his confidence comes from within, not from outside acceptance or validation. Here, the individual is taking transition into his own hands, moving himself to the next level of human consciousness, social standing and probably both. He is drawing not on privilege but on experience. He’s been there and done that. He possesses street smarts but he’s building upon them; he’s not going to stay where he is, he’s going places. I think of Frank Sinatra, a Sagittarius, or anyone who comes from the city streets but is blessed with high intelligence and talent and he’s determined to put all the pieces together, no denying where he’s coming from, and unapologetic in his desire for success.

When the going gets tough…etc. And some of us know this dynamic well. I’m this man. I come from financially poor beginnings, and my father, who had countless shortcomings, was also this man, and he took us as far into the storm as he could, typically sporting a dapper hat, with a feather, a symbol of higher-mind aspirations. He had the benefit of being middle class when there was one, but still he worked for the man who tried and mostly succeeded to fuck him over in the end. The storm for him was that of social strata and prejudice. He died with nothing except for an uncompromising nature that never let him quit. I seemed to have inherited that. For me the storm is not working for the man. So braving it isn’t a just a necessity it’s a privilege. I welcome the wind and rain on my face.

Then again I had a weird and wonderfully wacky Pisces mother who, again, when in her cups when I was small, insisted I accompany her outside for strolls during hurricanes.

There is something a bit cringy about the costume of the man with the hat. He seems to wear his station in life. He’s a big garish, perhaps, bordering on nouveau. That always makes me uncomfortable. Like Stella Dallas at a fancy estate; or the penchant some men have these days of adopting a sort of neo Oceans Eleven style when asked to dress up for weddings. Barf. I feel some pity for this man in the oracle just as I genuflect to his pluck. He is telegraphing his desire for upward mobility via trappings that might prevent him from it. Again I think of Frank Sinatra who, despite his success, being labelled a wop, as my father surely was, snubbed in the end by those Kennedys who, let’s face it, weren’t exactly bluebloods themselves. But I find prejudice is more prevalent the closer the social proximity between classes. It explains why Italian Americans can be the most prejudice of African Americans. It’s because they were the last immigrant wave before the Civil Rights Movement.

If the storm symbolizes an adverse social climate, I wonder what that means for me. Different things at different times perhaps. Surely there are enclaves closed to me. Although, a jaunty hat connoting a happily tweaked, optimistic mindset, I might not see those obstacles. Sagittarius’ motto, of course is, I see, and as the higher vibration of Gemini, it sees beyond duality, employing a third-eye (blind) tertiary perspective. Our man isn’t this or that. He isn’t his origins, nor is he the embodiment of his aspirations. He is somewhere at the point between, the mark ‘twain—Samuel Clemens is also Sagittarius. So we ask ourselves: Where we are we our transitional selves? Where are we the wo/man on the move? Where are we coming from and where are we going? Are we bravely facing any impeding elements or obstacles along the way? And how does that hone our character?

Sometimes it’s May so suddenly. Things really can start to speed up now as, for many of us, summer looming nigh doesn’t mean decamping to some island in Maine to read a slew of books until Autumn taps you on the shoulder. It’s showtime in more ways than one. This time of year can be a trigger for me because it is truffled with deadlines and I am hardpressed not to get ahead of myself; added to which I experience a surge of f.o.m.o. with so many events and openings and gatherings and ahhhhhhhh. Decades ago, I might have started chain-smoking or overserving myself libations. So I must be supermindful.

The oracle for today at 14° Taurus is: On The Beach, Children Play While Shellfish Grope At The Edge of The Water. And it immediately slows me down. I believe this symbol is addressing human existence on two different levels: On the conscious plane, where we might as yet be (ye) like little children, and on the subconscious one where our selves are connected to some sort of primordial soup, perhaps, of cosmic awareness. In neither instance are we engaged in anything too socially steeped as to be disengaged from nature with cynical, sophisticated or spinning adult minds. We are not window shopping or playing sherpa to posers or sychophants. That which is manifest is, here, is play; and the rest reads as a primaeval source of consciousness, creativity or some such.

So yes, yes yes: I find this imagery quite helpful today. I am engaged in several creative and heady work projects all at once, and my schedule for the next several weeks is packed with marks to hit and stolen moments when I’m meant to move so-called mountains. But what if I were to approach all my scheduled activity as play, letting a good half of my mind float around in the tide of creativity, ebbing and flowing and washing up ideas, here and there, as needed. If the most functional or professional or together I need be is akin to some kid frolicking along a beach who, when out of imaginative notions, might need only run down to the water’s edge to see what life might be floating there, to consider, poke at or capture? Well then that might surely make the month ahead less fraught and more fun and, possibly, just possibly, yield more successful products than a default type-A personality ticking items off myriad to-do lists might achieve. Frankly, I’ve had it up to here with that guy; and I would so very much enjoy just one May without him huffing and puffing and bemoaning the fact “there isn’t enough time.” For what? To be some self-profesying stress case?

I have been very fortunate to spend all but the first six years of my life with a house a stone’s throw from a beach. (And the first six were spent at the Skyline Cabana Club, now on the site of Liberty State Park, in Jersey City and that was a total gas.) But from the age of seven, I spent every summer growing up “down the shore” in Belmar, N.J. where my parents bought a big house with a wrap around porch just a block from the ocean. It was city-ish compared to the beach experience we had out in Wainscott, where Stella and I rented our first beach house, or on Cape Cod where we bought a house in the days before we rented in Provincetown and Wellfleet. The point is I’ve never been able to be very far from the ocean. I don’t think I’d be happy without at least knowing it’s nearby.

As a child, my mother, sister and I spent the entire summer in Belmar and my father visited on weekends. It wasn’t that far away from our permanent home or his work; and now in retrospect I’m sure he was up to a little bit of no good. And my Pisces mother was happiest in her cups without any overlording by him in those days. My sister was hostile and never spoke to me. So really summer meant that I was completely untethered. It was the seventies and eighties and I too got up to a little bit of no good. Tales of my nighttime teenage revelries that included long and winding bike rides to and from Asbury Park in the wee hours would curl your hair, so I’ll skip that bit—I have to leave something shocking for the memoirs—but my collection of daytimes was one long idyll. Even when old enough to legally drink and work as a waiter in restaurants, partying with a pack of preppy, nut-brown, sparkling tooth faces framed with dry, thick surfer, salt-stiff, sun-bleached hair, I might skip going to bed, but doze on the porch in a blanket in a hammock for a couple of hours until the first old man or woman walking a dog at dawn would wake me; at which point I’d grab a towel, zombie-like, and stroll the block to the empty beach to greet the rising Sun which would paint the entire ocean pink as it poked its way above the horizon; and I would slip into the silky rose brine and swim out as far as I dared indulging in the rare private moments one might have in this environment which would, within hours, be blanket to blanket, boombox to boombox, a battle of Coppertone and Hawaiian Tropics and orange Bain de Soleil played out in the breeze.

I would emerge after an hour at least, imagining myself a young Apollo or Dionysus dripping from my rejuvenating bath, and fall to my towel to finish the sleep I started hours before, often awaking to find myself completely surrounded by the throng. And I would tip toe home to no recrimination, pulpy orange juice and Munster cheese lovingly melted by mother on a plain toasted bagel. Even writing this is chilling me.

Whenever asked to imagine my most relaxing experience or directed to go to my happy place, or attempt to get a lower blood pressure reading than I typically do, I always recall the sense-memory of my morning swims in that pink water, the crystalline pre-dawn sky still twinkling with stars. My favorite spot to slip in was along a jetty that created a tiny cove and pool that was spared the large rolling effect of the breakers, even at low tide, if you hugged the line of jagged rock and conglomerate as you pushed out to sea. There would be tiny minnows and starfish and crabs and whatever those barnacley things are called attached to the rocks—barnacles maybe. The unreal colors led me to imagine I was swimming in an ocean on another planet, or in some Yes album landscape come to life.

The summer before going to college I decided not to work a job; I demurred, really, much to my parents “chagrin”, apparently—at least this is what my friend Dick Badenhausen’s mother Margo said my mother told her though she never uttered anything to me. I spent everyday, all day, on the beach, from 8am until 7pm, with quick runs home for food, bathroom breaks and, quite probably, the occasional puff off of something soothing. And I read. I just read. Starting with children’s books. I know this will sound odd or sad but I never read children’s books as a child. My parents never read to me and I didn’t read. Even in grade school I would skim any reading assignment or just not do it at all. Nobody checked my homework. We were not a conscientious family. I remember the first book I read, besides D’Aulaires Greek Mythology and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, was The Once and Future King which was kind of a doorstop and supposedly too advanced for my ten year old brain. It wasn’t. Though I loved this book it didn’t trigger readership in me and,, by that time, it was too late to go back and read kids books. I had never even heard of The Chronicles of Narnia until my best friend senior year of high school gave me his set to read over the summer after graduation. Which I did all at once, followed by the The Lord of The Rings trilogy and then Salinger’s Nine Stories, Franny and Zooey, and Raise High The Roofbeam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction, plus my university catalog. I was the most tranquil I’d ever been in my life, at seventeen, no longer a child, already possessing dark secrets, while not yet an adult in spite of them.

Even though I’ve been at the beach most of my life, there is nothing like, and no way to recapture, the experience of ones salad days, which for me were very specifically, July and August of that summer. I am so grateful that I had the unwitting forsight not to work that summer. I have something so potent, more than memory, to draw upon, now as a result. And while it’s still early May, today’s oracle reminds me that: no matter what my calendar looks like, I am going to do my absolute damnest to not create unnecessary work or stress for myself, and to channel the feeling of moving through that pink water, as I consciously would, with the smoothest, longest strokes and nary a splash. I’m going to let the Sabian symbol of Taurus, 14° set the tone for the entire summer. In a twelve-fold sequence this forty-forth symbol would fall under the rule of Scorpio which, in contrast to the preceding sign of Libra, eschews the outer world of order and appearances and embraces an inner world, that, of the subconscious. It is the fixed-water sign, concentrated, distilled and crystalized emotion that isn’t expressed but kept guarded and used to power one’s desire, like a dragon protecting its treasure deep in the recesses of the earth. There is no f.o.m.o here or whining or complaining. Scorpio, ruled by Pluto, named for the god of the underworld (subterra and the subconscious), employs the power of elimination, pruning, to inspire growth at the unseen root level of experience. Thus Scorpio and the astrological eighth house are associated with regeneration, sleep, sex and even death, which is only a dreadful name for rebirth.

As a child we are naturally inward focussed; and at seventeen or ability to be so is still rather automatic. As most of us age we lose our capacity for this and have to intercede with meditative practices to reintroduce this element back into our lives. Even in meditation, I employ that pink dawn ocean; so I’m going to return to that source now, in light of all the tap dancing I’m meant to do as fast as I can, and find that fixed-watery place inside myself, the vibrational crystal of my inner being, the insouciant Mona Lisa smile of my salad days and demure, once again, when it comes to work, taking on only that which I can execute as play. I have Mars conjunct Neptune in Scorpio. In simple terms that spells an active imagination, not to mention the ability to cast some pointed spells. Mars is the active self, fighting the good fight; and Neptune is that vast primordial sea of imagination and possibility. And, really, today’s oracle is about working on both levels simultaneously, finding the parrallel between them, returning to simpler joys for revitalization. Running around, like yesterday’s porter, subject to the needs and dictates of others is anathema to the experience of the child taking his cues from his inner life; not to mention remaining connecting to the natural world and its energies.

The message of this oracle is sychronistically the same as the Tarot card I pulled from the deck, as I’m wont to do daily, yesterday and then, curiously, again today, the Page of Pentacles: Connecting with life’s simple pleasures. As Stella and I tell our clients, this may be simple, but it isn’t always easy. We mustn’t attempt at once more than we can achieve via our conscious minds and ego drives. We must keep a toe in that water and skip along the shore. A not so nice voice in my head is saying: Who are you kidding? And the truth is I have already failed to take this oracle on board in the hours spent putting this blog entry together. Living life on life’s terms can be a challenge. But we must live and let live and allow that which isn’t working to fall away, as no amount of struggle or speeding your way through a schedule like a pin ball bouncing off walls and obstacles will serve you in the end. I’ve never said it before but today it seems highly appropriate: Peace Out.

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I’ve been actually waiting for an opportunity to revisit the Taurus 4° oracle of April 23, The Pot Of Gold At The End of The Rainbow as the symbol sort of set me off on a negative spin. And today feels like that opportunity with Taurus 13° A Porter Carrying Heavy Baggage. So go take a look see at the April 23 entry entitled Roy G. Biv to which I’ve added an italicized postscript that more fully explores the positive significance of that oracle. Life being paradoxical, that oracle was distinguished in my blog as being a real thorn in my side, which stuck this whole time, until I came to accept and realize how not “trite” but truly transcendent and powerful that symbol is, probably more than any upon which I’ve yet mused. But first let’s look at today’s 13° Taurus symbol which triggered my need to go back 9°, to Taurus 4°:

Yesterday, we saw a man and woman window shopping. The female polarity of that image symbolizes our ability to look inward, whist the male is the objective, outward energy, taken together. Heavy baggage is never good, whether it’s an image of servitude, debt or emotional weight. I’m guessing here that it’s all a combo platter. Maybe the man yesterday went on a spending spree after we last saw him “just looking,” or maybe he remained with his nose pressed against the glass unable to purchase anything. Either way we are being made aware, again, of the haves and the have nots. The porter isn’t carrying his own baggage after all, he is burdened by the weight of inequity, something the sign of Libra, which governs this oracle in a twelve-fold sequence, knows a little bit about and doesn’t much appreciate. Libra, with its motto, We are seeks harmony and union and balance and order and equality, especially on the social level, air signs pointing to the mental and social experience. The porter, in his position, can be the personification of the perception of lack if not dearth itself. Then again, he might be happily in service, filling a societal need, doing whatever is necessary to gain a financial or societal foothold.

I think of films of the 1920s and 30s. Some put upon bug-eyed porter double-taking to the camera, commentating on the comings and goings of the privileged, exposing the villain, playing pal to the hero. He is something of a reality check and the conscience of the drama, pointing to the excess and absurdity that surrounds him. One cannot discount the most famous porter scene of all, from Macbeth. It immediately follows Duncan’s murder and provides comic relief while it allows the actor playing Macbeth time to wash the blood from his hands. The porter, along with all the residents of the castle has been on a drunk into the wee hours of the morning. He is roused by a knocking at the gate. In self-amusement, he pretends he is the gatekeeper to Hell, which has some truth in it given the bloody activities that have been transpiring. A connection is being drawn between Inverness and The Inferno of Dante. The porter hears what is MacDuff now repeatedly knocking at the gate and plays a little concocted scene in is mind whereby he, as hell’s gatekeeper, muses on what brand of sinner he might be letting into his make-believe abyss. One such character he imagines might have come a-knocking is an equivocator or con-man. The porter playacts:

Knock, knock! Who’s there, in th’ other devil’s name? Faith, here’s an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven. O, come in, equivocator.

The mention of the scales is not lost on me given Libra’s assignation over this oracle. The con-man can lie under oath, in court, but he cannot lie to God in heaven, so he is bid welcome to perdition, with a chuckle. The porter in our oracle might likewise be providing us comic relief, reciting a similar monologue in his head about those whose heavy bags he’s carrying. Not only might it be easier for a camel to be thread through a needle than it is for the rich wo/man to gain entrance to heaven: being rich and more subject to greed might actually put you on a fast-track to hell. And that porter may prefer to show others the way, carting their karmic Vuitton, than to be ushered in that direction himself. There but for the grace…he might be learning a great deal about the haves, enough to know he’s happy not to be one of them. He may have humble needs which are more than fulfilled by his salary and tips. The baggage isn’t his own. He can leave it at the station whilst others must continue arranging to have it hauled about. They certainly can’t take it with them on their ultimate destination which might very well be damnation.

Those who cannot carry their own heavy weight might well have too much. And yet, as we see in Macbeth, enough isn’t enough for some people. There are those who despite their lush lot in life still plot and scheme to eliminate others in their path toward some expanded worldly dominion, only to find themselves on a runaway train, hastening their own demise. This is the opposite of the illuminated rainbow path with its blessed weighty residuals, having been sent ahead, waiting on the other side.

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If yesterday was about appreciating the natural world and what we already have to make our garden grow, Mary, then today is about casting our gaze outward with some longing for that which we might desire from what society has on offer. A Young Couple Window-Shopping is the Sabian Symbol for 12° Taurus, which, in a twelve-fold sequence, would be lorded over by the sign of Virgo. This makes immediate sense to me: The Virgo, who is apparently not gluten-free, holds a sheaf of seeded grain which she is about to consume, and the natural intelligence of her body will separate wheat from chaff, nutrient from detritus. If we read the sheaf as a phallic symbol, this might be an image of would-be gestation not digestion, but, still, the natural intelligence of the human body will take its course. Either way, the Virgin considers what she takes in and its effects on her. Today’s oracle reads similarly, the couple is considering what’s on offer in store windows in anticipation of consuming the bounty society, not nature, has on offer.

When it comes to natural appetites in the form of hunger or some surging in our loins, it needn’t involve our mind, though it should in light of making the right choices in what to eat or who to pork. When it comes to societal stores of bounty, we must employ our mind and ego more actively. Discernment isn’t just a filter, it is the means by which we digest our experience and decide what is need and what is want. We should give ourselves the requisite props for operating in society. If you’re a musician, you should shop for the right instrument; if you’re a high-powered sales executive, you need to look your best and possess some efficient gadgetry. Materials can take the form of needs if they are in service to true self-expression and efficacy. Virgo is the sign of service and of work. And you better work and serve your own realness. Discernment however is more difficult to employ on the societal level as, unless you’re given to gluttony or excessive lust, our natural appetites have inherent shut-off valves. But how do we know when enough is enough when we enter the man-made agora, the market place, and how do we know what is too little. Perhaps the couple is window shopping because they cannot afford to buy anything. Surely, this image carries the connotation of feeling cut off from the bounties civilization might provide, feeling like one with his or her nose pressed up against the window, with no easy access or entreé.

Personally I don’t like how I feel when I over consume on goods. I can get as nauseous buying things I don’t need as I do overeating or indulging in sweets. But it can be a good barometer. It might see me embrace a more ascetic lifestyle for quite awhile; just as it inspires me to take stock of what I do have and to appreciate what that is all the more. With our clients we work very mindfully on the power of appreciation and foster a sort of alchemy that can positively take hold  when they embody that power in their own lives. Also, think of that Beltane image of yesterday—A Woman Watering Flowers in Her Garden—and its interpretation as Mother Earth, the natural intelligence of the world, taking care of all life, her own vast organism, of which we are just a part; now think of the couple, man and woman, polarities pointing to the proliferation of life, on a stroll out window shopping: They are in a position of power to purchase that which might work or not with Mother Nature in her design. Adam and Eve have been set loose from her Garden and their actions might further alienate them from it or they might contribute to their getting back to it. In our society it’s all to easily to foster this separation between nature and the human self; though we can always stop, that window symbolizing both a momentary pause and perhaps some self-reflection on that score. The virgin of Virgo bids us consider what consumption or consumerism will do to our individual organism and the larger one of our world, as they are one and the same.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The notion of we humans being organs of consciousness via which the world, or indeed the universe, might perceive itself is not only an intriguing one, but it’s somehow reassuring in its sense of connectedness and literal responsibility. Virgo rules digestion. And I think we can trust our guts to know whether our consumerist actions will entail the making of too large a footprint. We are window shopping, just looking. Our eyes are the first line of defense against glut or waste. Let us try imagining our gaze is not just our own. Let us be the eyes of the world.

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First of all, since there are 360° of the Zodiac and 365 days of the year, we have a bit of catch up to do such that the symbol for today doesn’t kick in until late this afternoon and bridges into tomorrow. And I’m so psyched that this image is super Natural, as tomorrow is Beltane, May Day. In Gaelic tradition, nearest and dearest to my heart, Beltane marked the day the cattle were driven out to summer pasture, so we see a connection to the sign of Taurus into which the holiday falls. Special bonfires are lighted on this day, providing protective power to cattle, crops and we the people. All house fires were extinguished and re-lit from these sacred fires, and there were feasts with offerings to the Aos Sí or Sidhe (remember my post about Ard Na Sidhe?), the supernatural race of beings that we call hmm-hmms in our household, who live in a parallel universe along with us. They are the spirits of the natural world and so we today and tomorrow celebrate the Taurus 11° symbol of A Woman Watering Flowers In Her Garden.

It is nowhere said that the Woman is the goddess herself, but that is my interpretation. I see her as Gaia, the personification of the Earth, nurturing her spirit children embodied in the flowers. I also think of the Samarian woman of several days ago, at her well, where she met with divinity incarnate, in the form of the Christ avatar; now she has drawn that water and is using it to cultivate her own garden. In a twelve-fold seequence, we are here under the influence of the fifth sign of Leo, and its astrological house of co-creation with god. As the fixed-fire sign, which translates to the hearth, the center of the home—Leo rules the heart, the center of the body—we are looking at the consolidation of energy and passion and it being a source of life-force for others. And, of course, we are back to those sacred Beltane fires of fertility and protection.

The consciousness of the woman “attaches itself to the wondrous efflorescence”  with a selfish kind of love, says Rudhyar. I don’t know about that, but I do know that ego and pride are hallmarks of the Leo experience, and a healthfully prideful person does tend to be invested in what she cultivates. Especially gardeners. It defines them. In that sense, the flowers symbolize the cultivation of the ego itself. And though I’m sure there is some truth and power in this interpretation, the notion of Beltane and hmm-hmms is no doubt lost on our dear Dane. I think this oracle has a far more sweeping symbolic resonance when we consider the biological beyond the animal (human) and floral forms, and consider that, just as those flowers might have individual spirits, the planet, as organism, has her own supreme godhead. And it’s up to Mother Nature to decide what or not gets cultivated.

At a time when our planet is in such crisis, I cannot help but feel that Nature herself will always have the last laugh. Yes we should stop global warming and all forms of pollution not because we are killing the planet, per se, but because, I suspect, the planet will have a way of ridding itself of the causes (us) of any dis-ease. Right now we are trying the Earth, pressuring her beyond healthy boundaries; but I don’t think she is by Nature a victim; I imagine her being quite patient with us hoping we get our act together before she has no other choice but to destroy us, not the other way around. Surely, ancient agrarian cultures like my ancestral Gaels were far more reverential toward Tara, which is the name of both the Irish mother goddess and the tantric Hindu diety; not dissimilar from Terra, which is the Roman name for Gaia. (It seems to all be of a piece.) The ancients probably had no concept of being able to kill her the way we consider modern people capable of destroying the natural world. Even in our notion of saving Her, I think we take far too much pride in assuming that we might have the power to obliterate Mother Nature in the first place. Who says? Sure, we can blow ourselves up but we really would never blow up our Mother planet. We don’t have that power. She is a patient goddess, as we’ve seen, and she will continue to tend her garden, whether we’ve irradiated and/or exited it or not.

I like to think of the May pole not just as some phallic symbol helping to fertilize a new season of the Mother’s bounty. I see it as an emblem of the axis on which the Earth and we are spinning. Our dancing around it is a reconfirmation of our commitment to live life here on Her terms. She is the center of our world. We do not have dominion over her. She is waiting ever so patiently for us to come to that conclusion. She doesn’t want to wipe Her face of us. She takes pride in us as she does every flower. We are hers. To her the concept of being in the world but not of it is anathema. She is our mother. And she is cosmic. She is a body floating in outer space after all. Yes she has a heavy relationship with the Sun God, and she keeps the Moon Lady on the side. She be fierce. And we don’t want to find out just how much. And so we should strive to align, as her special guardians, to the grand Cultivation that is her inscrutable m.o.. Woe be to those who don’t give her all the props in the Universe this Beltane.

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I really must take a look-see at the list of folks born on this day because today’s energetic oracle seems to be all about compassion in the its most sweeping, serving, sacrificial humanitarian form. For Taurus 10° the image is A Red Cross Nurse. We are doing more than just going inward to foster our own life and celebrate our own spirit when faced with bleak environments or circumstance outside our window: We are venturing forth into the darkness and personifying the light for others. Being a Red Cross nurse means this is volunteerism; there is no gain or the making of a livelihood. It is compassion in its purest form. There aren’t any perks here. This is true altruism. The Samarian woman of a few days hence might have met Christ but now the nurse is  the embodiment of a Christ-like nature. (The American Red Cross was founded by Clara Barton who was, incidentally, born on December 25—I don’t think that’s Christ’s actual birthday—he’s a Pisces, certainly, not a Capricorn;  but it is a fun fact.)

Just as yesterday’s Christmas tree would have been governed by Gemini in a twelve-fold sequence, it’s cozy interior and gifts for friends and family befitting that sign’s rule over ones immediate surroundings as well as intimate relations, today’s image would be ruled by the sign of Cancer, one of hope and feeling, nurture, recovery and salve, if not salvation. Cancer is ruled by Mother Moon and its realm is that of feeling. The nurse is moved not by mind but emotions to care for those in need. They are the gateway to her spirituality. So few among us are thus inclined. We don’t want to look outside if the landscape is troubling. We want to stay in doors with our decorated tree, fancy flimsy china, copper pots and decoupage ornaments. We perhaps missed the symbolism of all good gifts surrounding us; we are trapped in the trappings of our comforts, disinclined to share our abundance, but bemoaning our lack. How many of you heard, or said, that this winter was bad for your business, your bounty? I heard it most from people with more worldly goods by far than most. Poor Eve. Enough isn’t enough for some people—they think they can have it all and they can’t. Meanwhile, in fear, they cling to their candle-lit rooms and dried, dead floral arrangements, worried sick they mightn’t make another million this year. Compassion will forever be lost on them.

When I read A Red Cross Nurse I got an immediate image, which, at first, I thought was frivolous, but as I’m writing this I realize the opposite is really true. Before there was
“Downton Abbey” there was “Upstairs, Downstairs”, the former having stolen so many of it’s plots from the latter it’s not even real. UpDown as we diehard fans like to call it is a million times better than the pat confection that’s presently presented by PBS, which showed the truly original UpDown back in the day. Start from the beginning and rent every season. Any show that gets away with calling an evil German sadistic homosexual aristocrat Baron von Rimmer is aces is my book. Enough said.

Back to the nurse: In the 1973 season the character of Georgina is introduced, shades of Sybil for you “Downright Abject” fans. Georgina is played by the lovely Lesley-Anne Down and during the Great War she is swept up by compassion and becomes a Red Cross nurse, despite the fact that she comes from Upstairs. For, really, it’s far more difficult for the Upstairs set to leave their drawing-room fear-based lives of losing what they have than it is for those who’ve nothing material to squander and whose lives are already all about service. But off Georgina goes even though she is the most celebrated bright young thing of her generation, the century-old version of a dreaded Kardashian only with an I.Q. and taste. I think of the people I know sometimes and ask myself are they Up or Down. Those who were Up in modern America are often so because they were born into Down circumstances. Many of those who are Down are vehemently so, having contempt for anything Up. I think of our summer place Provincetown where the great culture war is increasingly being played out. I like to think of myself as somewhere on the staircase employing my wit. I am an equal opportunity shade magnet. The Downs can find me uppity and suspect I have some kind of trust fund. Wrong. I’m a quasi-well-traveled autodidact whose busted my ass so to work for myself. The Ups seem to worry about me and tend not to visit but rather invite me, considering their surroundings so much nicer. Meanwhile the smokey tattooed former set is typically Bennington educated and more well-heeled and cared for by parents affording their stylish love of poverty, whilst the lockjaw latter crowd with their chihuahua accessories and editorial mudrooms were my busboy a New York minute ago and have zero references beyond Lulu Guinness and “Glee”.

But let’s get metaphysical. Cancer, the sole cardinal-water sign, is associated with The Flood; just as Gemini, mutable-air is associated, in its shadow aspect, with overthinking, duality, consciousness of opposites that characterizes The Fall. In Gemini, we are subject to dualistic thinking—its ruler Mercury is named for the god of tricksters, liars, merchants, jugglers, thieves, basically a whole bunch of carnies—and so we see how yesterday’s symbol might leave one torn. Do we stay cozied up against the harsh outside world in our glittering world of gifts, or do we go beyond our immediate surrounds to help wash others’ cares away. In the Greek flood myth, it is the goddess Themis who saves humanity after the destruction of Zeus. She is the mother source of repair. And we take on her mantle, as did UpDown’s Georgina, when we leave the comfy world of personal attachemnt with its trumped up petty dramas, and selflessly and impersonally participate in the care of all. We become the light to the hurt and despondent and the reparation of humanity.

I do things for social and creative causes; but I have never expressed volunteerism on this most consecrated of levels. Seemingly, neither has anyone famous born on this day. So much for that theory being born out. Seriously, go look at a list of famous people born this Taurus day. There are some lovely people, but mainly its those who’ve cultivated a specific talent with nary a saint or nurse or would-be savior among them. Oh well. And anyway, for the occultists in my midst, the Red Cross mightn’t be all it’s cracked up to be. And there have been more than just conspiracy theory crackpots (who me?) who have drawn the connection between the Red Cross and the Rosy Cross or Rosicrucians, many of whom have a very sinister take on the organization, from its very origins, especially when it comes to things like blood-banking. My arms go weak just typing that. Ugh. Anyway, everything has it’s shadow side and so I offer up this wild and crazy  read by Dr. Len Horovitz which might put a spooky and cynical spin on Upstairs’ Georgina’s role in those field hospitals. “She done already done had herses.”

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Despite the seasonal discrepancy the oracle for today, Taurus 9°, is A Fully Decorated Christmas Tree, an artificial one of which is still in the window of the apartment across the alley outside mine. Oy. But the symbolic meaning transcends time of year. It is all about creating light in the darkness, like casting a Lumos spell, in Rowlingian vernacular. Rowlingian. I will have to Google that to see if I’ve just invented it. Nope I didn’t it’s out there already. Of course. The world outside is cold and barren, trees bare at Yule, while the Christmas tree inside can be lit up like, well, itself, decorated to the hilt. Let’s say the tree is life, if not of it; the one inside represents our inner life, which we can animate, even when external life around seems devoid of life energy or creativity. Works for me. The tree representing our inner life forms a canopy for gifts which we can present to others, the nurturing of our inner spirit giving bounty to those around us. The external landscape may symbolize any time we feel a low point in our experience or sense lack emanating from the environment around us and those who people it. Not to worry, we can always celebrate (ourselves) and in so doing be a source of abundance, happiness, a light in the darkness, for others. Being originally a pagan tradition, the tree ceremony marked the Solstice which is the darkest point in the year and, yet, at the point when light is on the wax, returning, albeit slowly. In us, meanwhile, as Morrissey put it, “there is a light that never goes out.” This symbol suggests that we are aware of the cyclical nature of life—those barren trees outside aren’t dead, after all, they’ve dropped their need for outward appearance, attracting the birds and the bees, and have reverted their energy, inward, to the root level where growth is concentrated and crystalized, for the next outward-growth season to come. Today is a day when we might take a page from nature’s book and drop our concern for the world of appearances and instead look inward to sing a rowsing song of celebration of self that lifts others’ spirits along with our own.

Neighbor’s Artificial Inner Life

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If yesterday’s cosmic energy was hinged on recognizing ourselves as being able to receive a certain revelation, and also to embody that revelation, as a result of a happy disconnect with traditions and tribes that no longer resonate with us, today is about living in the present in a matter suited to the future which you glimpsed in that revelation. Today’s Sabian Symbol for Taurus 8° A Sleigh On Land Uncovered By Snow suggests that the revelation, or indeed the reveal-ation, happens over time. Not to say that we mightn’t find ourselves to be something of a fish out of water, which is another aspect of this image. But that’s what comes from taking ones pioneering spirit and fixing it firmly. For a time it remains hidden, then it is revealed but unsuited to it’s environment but as the saying goes: Winter is coming. It always is. Thus today we consider, as Rudyhar puts it, the value of anticipating and preparing for expectable conditions. Of course your idea of what expectable conditions are differ from mine. We might see expectable conditions in an astrological chart which you may think is hooey; you might think some other Jesus is coming and first thing on his to-do list is to punish all the queer people. Everyone has been handed a different playbook of revelations. As well they should be.

I believe the snow symbolizes the purity of our own vision. In the wake of that we hope to have revealed a vehicle that can travel through the landscape of that vision. The paradox is that our vehicle cannot travel without the stuff of that vision. Which is right. We must reimagine our future, now, based upon the vehicle we’ve engineered from the original vision. A new version of vision must come to bear before we can move through our future experience. We got a glimpse at first of where things for us our going, we made a plan, now we must put both elements together to work that plan which will require revision. This will likely effect the nature or design of the vehicle, back and forth ad infinitum. Tweaking plan then vision will be a constant—our mistake will be to get stuck in the wholesale necessity for either to be fixed. But right now they are. This image emblemizes the idea that we should know where we’re going but be in no rush to get there because, timing being everything, we have to wait for the right climate and conditions. But we’re ready, regardless of who sees us as a fish out of water. The Jesus Fish was out of water for quite a long time—cue lions eating Christians—but slowly the environment caught up to those who were already living that future vision, at great sacrifice, to be sure.

Ah that’s the rub. How much are you willing to sacrifice? And, further, how patient can you be. In a twelve-fold sequence of signs rolling through these 360 symbols, today would be characterized as a double-Taurus image. We know, from our Taurean friends, the power of patience and persistence in their fixation on their own talents, if not visions. The sleigh is like a rosebud, waiting for the right conditions to bust forth, Orson Welles being a Taurus not withstanding. This sign—look around you at all the the buds and flowers preparing the way to bear fruit—is very much about latent or dormant potential. But it isn’t vague or undiscovered, it is already consciously known and accepted and being prepared for some kind of roll out. The potential of Citizen Kane, his path unfolding, his vision of the future, was already fully scripted in his experience as a young boy, synonymous with his sled. He glimpsed the future then, though he had to wait for it to unfold. And, in his case, it was as thorny as it was beautiful; likely because his vision involved some form of retribution. And his vehicle was designed to ride rough shod. His original revelation may have been as pure as the driven snow, but the means via which he sought to realize it colored that vision as he journeyed forth, vehicle and vision, vehicle and vision, informing and reforming one and other, over the hills of time.

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Here we are again at the number 1/13 in a twelve-fold cycle, on day 37, Taurus 7° having thrice passed through the zodiac and, thus starting the cycle anew. So, little surprise we are arriving at yet another symbol of new order: The Woman Of Samaria At The Ancestral Well. I had to do some online research on this one to ascertain what it was all about. So, apparently Jesus, newly risen, not only appeared to this woman but he outright told her (I would play this with ironic false modesty) yeah, “I am he.” Now why this is so important is because she’s the first and arguably the only person he says this too. This is before he let’s on to his disciples—I’m back—but even with them he never really says it in so many words. You know our Jesus, always with the metaphors and parables. I so relate—pin in that. Now, apparently the Jews hated the Samarians for like evah. And this unmarried woman is meant to represent the fringiest element of her culture, so she’s not, like, someone official or vetted, Samarian-wise. Still, she is at the ancestral which connotes a deep tradition; get it? So here we have the messiah telling a traditional enemy of his people, and someone pretty out there within her society. Yep, I’m the Christ. I’m the new order, in effect; the implication being that she’s already disenfranchised from her tradition and thus pretty open to receive the proverbial good news. The breakdown of the old guard is already embodied in her non-adherence, if not disobedience, to the traditions of her own culture. So in her we have a willing recipient if not a convert to what JC has to say.

Dane Rudhyar puts it thusly: A new quality of being is revealed which renders the old patterns obsolete. Word. On first meditation I thought this oracle wasn’t going to resonate with me personally but it really does. First, I’m the fancy free Samarian babe at the well pretty much over not just the old-guard traditions of society-at-large at which anyone reading this blog would scoff. For there are more localized traditions, more recent ancestry in my midst that I can’t subscribe to and doesn’t really cozy up to me either. Some of you might relate when I say I don’t feel I’m all that readily embraced by my tribe. I’m not the person you trip over to talk to or have for one of your special dinners as a guest of honor. Mine is not the face that artists and photographers (and I’m talking friends and close colleagues) are jokeying to paint or shoot in portrait. People don’t hang on my every word or Facebook post regarding gentrification or gender issues. I’m simply not one of those people who are fawned over or petted or celebrated in any major way. It’s just not how others generally regard me, but for in very few instances, among my dearest friends, the number of which I can surely count on two hands. And that’s the way it is and that’s the way it’s meant to be and I wouldn’t have it any other way. Except…I’m also the other figure not mentioned in the wording of this oracle…

Surrounded as I am by golden calves who are endlessly being worshipped, invited, raised high, painted, photographed, and otherwise blown, many of whom worship, invite, name drop, paint, photograph, us-y and otherwise rim all the other golden calves in one big gilt bovine cluster fuck, year after year, amassing a deep well of mutual, group ancestral sychophancy, I (have decided to) emerge as an avatar of a new order. Yep, that’s right folks, I’m busting out as the new messiah and I’m really only most interested in revealing my truth, disclosing my true nature, to other people like myself who don’t give a shit about where everyone is going, what they’re wearing, whom their with and how many shows of validation they are receiving on Facebook for whatever gumball of an opinion or a snark remark has fallen from their overindulged, egocentric noggins. While most fatuous folks we know are lost in their orgy of pseudofame and delusions of power and influence, pretending to some pedigree and treating everyone like they’re some lucky servant whose role it is to dote on them, I’ll be at the well, if not the bar, hanging with a new tribe of goils who are not above fetching their own refreshment, thank you very much.

Like both the Samarian doll and my main man JC, I tend not to fit in with the prevailing tribe. Once upon a time, that might have bothered me; but now I’m so effing grateful. There really isn’t much in it, spiritually that is. Sure, you might have some fragile sense of belonging, but it takes up a lot of time and energy, all that worshiping and being worshipped. It’s truly dullsville. While being on the fringe has a sharpening effect on your psyche, such that one day you can wake up and enjoy the revelation and declaration that you are in fact gods’ gift to humanity, but you were just too humble all this time to go around advertising the fact. Except when you meet someone who is as unimpressed as you are by the heirarchies of worship in your midst, and all the middle men, so many middle men. And so many yes men. Meh, who needs it. Not me. I have nobody to impress. Who has time? What with all the money lenders needing ridding from the temples and all those in pain in need of healing, seriously I’m lucky I have time to stop and share three simple words with my lady pal over a ladle of some cool fresh H20.

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The oracular energy of today is all about overcoming obstacles. Perhaps as a result of that dreaded pot of gold of two days ago—you can’t take it with you—yesterday we faced the abyss of an open grave. But today at 6° Taurus we seem to be building a Cantilever Bridge Across A Deep Gorge, suggesting there is a way to find a lasting link while living. What is highlighted here is some kind of collective—we can’t build a bridge on our own. The link we are creating is that between people, via group cooperation, just as it is one designed to help us over a sense of emptiness or void, these dynamics being one and the same.

Looking at my schedule today, it is the day that I must begin contracting all the seventeen artists I have slated to perform this year’s Afterglow Festival in Provincetown. And I must also reach out to sponsors and donors to fund this yearly project. I’ve been trying to build other bridges with other venues, as well, to produce the great artists with whom I’ve the privilege to work, but it has been a total slog. Not returning emails. How do people get away with this? It’s part of a larger question which is: why do people who operate so shoddily in the world, with no regard to formality or the social fabric, succeed at all? We seem all to often to reward those who are self-serving, ineffective and second-rate; while individuals of quality and character have to spend their time bumping up against these, let us call them, void-ers. I’ve resolved, at various times in my career (which has entailed the wearing of many hats) to be more cutthroat and other c-words, but I only ever end up being compassionate, even for these void-ers, which partly pisses me off, but, for which, I am largely grateful. I’m not after that pot of gold after all. I’m interested in experience. But, man oh man, you would not believe the people who have reached out to contact us this year, friends at ad agencies that want to help us spread our word, even so-called good friends with production studios and branding companies wanting to help realize our vision. And then (what is it like to live in these people’s heads) they completely disappear. You called us, remember? This is not true connection. This isn’t building a cantilever bridge. This is the opposite. Honestly I think some people must wake and bake and think they’re having an epiphany about us and what we’re doing and gain the momentary bravado to phone and promise the moon. But again, it’s just fairy favors. That pot of gold.

The only way you build a bridge together, whether professionally or personally, is to start building it. Before we ever charged clients or even called what we did a consultancy we offered our services up for free. We don’t get paid to do the Afterglow Festival, we just do it to fill a void and prevent a further chasm in Provincetown’s birthright as the birthplace of the modern American stage. I do this by holding out my beggar’s bowl and asking those whom I believe have a stake in Provincetown’s stage heritage remaining intact to give what they can, whether it be ten dollars or ten thousand. I can ask for money because it goes solely toward building that cantilever bridge. It has nothing to do with me personally, but for the pleasure and satisfaction I derive from pulling this project off each year. As it’s become increasingly successful, mercenary minds want something from it. Those who gave to us now see us as a way for them to profit and it makes me queasy. In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve taken the gloves off this week with the blog. I’m on a bit of a Norma Rae soap box; but I am a Libra after all, and any form of injustice makes me break out in a rash of righteous swords.

Today’s symbol really is about making one’s individual life better by recognizing a chasm that needs to be bridged and working with others toward doing just that. Certain things cannot be done on our own. And those of us who recognize where there is lack or have understood deprivation in any sense of the word (like that widow yesterday) are more equipped than others to make some positive changes, buidling bridges in this world. This gives the individual life substance and purpose. I’ve quoted her before but as Uta Hagen would say: Obstacles only make your objectives stronger. So if the hotel that usually gives our artists discount rooms during the Afterglow Festival suddenly wants to profit on us this might inspire me to reach out to a bunch of hotels and inns and ask them to house our artists individually, and gratis to boot. It’s way more work for me, but it’s good work. As I write this I realize that Greed is one of the biggest voids that exists in this world. Look at the polarization of the haves and have nots. The gulf between them has become vast because the greedy find a way to buy politicians and otherwise find loopholes around paying taxes while raising prices on everything their corporations manufacture, including food that makes people sick so that they have to spend their hard earned money on drugs created to cure illnesses these same corporations, in effect, created. I wish this was exaggeration but it isn’t.

It is indeed more difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle; which is why I’m most in awe of my richest friends who spend their money in truly philanthropic ways. There are those who have given to my non-profit since year one whom I know strive to give as much as they can. Wealth and fame do not make people happy, that is a fact. And there is something about the making of a lot of money that corrupts people and causes them to horde it. I think this can happen to most folks. So I find it so rare and refreshing when I encounter those of means who give so much without thought to it just being a good write off or buying some kind of recognition. One of our most faithful patrons insists on being anonymous and is truly caring. And there of course is Ms. Rowling who singlehandedly pays for the entire operation of her Lumos foundation, so that if I person makes a donation to it, that whole amount goes toward the cause, never toward expenses. People of means do have a great power to do good in this world and so few of them do, ironically. It’s so inspiring when they dedicate their life to building bridges over gaping voids they see in our human society. I know many rich people give money to causes, but so few care about them.

Okay hopping off my soapbox. What I am realizing from this oracle is that I can’t do something that can be metaphorically expressed as bridge-building alone. True progress is a collective endeavor and must include the ideas and skills of more than one person. A cantilever bridge is only fixed at one end. That is to say we don’t know where the other end might lead; we must be flexible in regard to where our efforts might “land.” This is why those hit and run contacts from people pretending (to themselves) that they want to “help” doesn’t work—because the fact is they are leading with their agenda, they know exactly where they want the so-called collaborative effort to land: in their own pocket books or with an individual feather in their cap. This is why they cannot follow through. Because they were never prepared to devote to the process of filling a void, that was a pretense for their own reward. So, if you’re one of those people who reach out to others under the guise of collectively wanting to make some corner of the world a better place, when really you are only fishing for projects via which you might profit, you should take this oracle to heart today. Because you not only don’t gain a foothold with that future aim, you lose any ground you’ve gained in the relationship you sought to parlay into your half-wake-and-baked vision.

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