Sunday, January 25, 2009

the mind's true liberation la la la


Here it comes, the Chinese new year (year of the Ox) and the solar eclipse in Aquarius, both starting after midnight tonight. A solar eclipse plants something (that will uproot or remove what’s in the way of growth) in your life and it shakes shit up thus – like Jack when he planted the beans typa deal. It’s a good thing for most people, though it can feel a bit upsetting (more than a little maybe), and though the effects take up to a year to fully manifest (unlike the effect of a lunar eclipse, which is coming up on Feb 9th so stay tuned). It will have greatest impact on Aquarians, esp. if your birthday is within a few days of it, and on interpersonal dynamics in general bc Aquarius rules that part of life:

“this eclipse occurs conjunct the Fixed Star, Bos, which in Latin means "Ox"! It is a fortunate star . . . the eclipse also awakens the Fixed Star, Dorsum which is often associated with the 10th arcanum of the Tarot pack, the "Wheel of Fortune". This shows that his life, and the destiny of the world, is at a turning point, when decisions made will have profound impact. It is one of those times when intent can be implemented, but for the majority, it might seem more like a throw of the dice. The pace of life accelerates – and the spinning Fates of ancient Greece will be working overtime!”


This one is hitting the brand new sliver moon in Pisces – that’s my moon, the one that if you’re born under it you’re always a little half in this world and half not and have a tendency to hear people in an ‘intuitive’ way. I can hear (or read) what people are feeling and they’re words to me seem like semi-solid projections of those feelings, the thoughts being often secondary altogether (and everyone seeming full of shit to me thus until [too late?] I figured it out that I was just hearing subtext as text). This eclipse is likely going to send me even more into that ‘cat hearing’ mode. I was also directed to imagine what would change up my professional life, and it was like looking in my mind’s eye at a short list of pending funerals. One in particular, of my mentor, feels to me as if it’s half occurring already and the dinner party at his house last weekend was one of the wakes in retrospect. Let’s call these “retirements” and be optimistic, but still – it’s giving me paws to imagine the responsibility that’s coming at me like a train barreling down. Then I guess I’ll cock my head and hear everyone feeling their mortality all at once as our brightest leadership lights go out and the college, like everything else, tips toward bankruptcy, with me of all people in charge of a bunch of shit, Minnie Mouse the Good Witch - ? Hard to imagine as I’m sitting here, the laundry in a moldering pile, my desk a mess, my skin scaly and winter gray, my bed cold as ice, my fridge full of food I’m ignoring as it goes bad and I opt for toast, all possible options in all categories looking either too big or too small mostly. The way I’m talking to myself about it is obviously counter-productive . . .

To get ready for a solar eclipse: sleep a lot, eat a lot, clear your schedule, clean your house, get rid of any lingering chores. Act as if you’re expecting company, and they might stay for months and months. So make room, but also REST so that your patience reserves are as full as possible. No spell casting allowed, as in the “write it on a sheet of paper” bla b la stuff of previous astrological posts – there’s enough going on without your doing anything, in other words, so don’t put the frog in a blender. LET things begin, then ROLL with them, don’t FORCE them.
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In other news, I went to a roller derby last night, where women with names like Lip Service and Cheese Grater thrilled a mind-bogglingly large crowd, converging in of all places North Tonawanda, and lo international dykes and local blue collar guys find that they can channel the same energy. Like a Grateful Dead jam, only different. I went with one of the founders of the league, Flo(torius), whom before this I would have described as swanlike.

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Then this morning was the long awaited Kundalini workshop, my follow-up to still not being over IPG and taking that as a sign to keep going, though to WHERE exactly remains a cloudy intoxicating possibility. The Guru got kicked back at the Peace Bridge, so actually the day was run by a Sikh KY teacher to my longtime friend Pinky. Siri, the teacher, is ooo a cross between my mother and God himself, anywhere from 60 to 100 years old, about equal parts tall and round, and in her head-to-toe white garb w/ turban she looked like a divine egg. She gave a lecture on what it means to be living in the age of Aquarius. The basic characteristics of this age are centripedal , i.e. we move out and into a democratic and communitarian ethos, proliferating in our ways of understanding the world away from central leaders (kings, ethnicities, clans) into an ever greater awareness that we’re all stuck with each other, that what happens to you happens to me. If you want to live in concert with the times, don’t act in a loopy circuit running your intentions through a filter in your head that is designed to hussle every situation towards your self interest. Because YOUR self interest is the same as EVERYONE’s. Example:

You want to give someone a gift, a flower to a pretty girl: you think in a loopy circuit through your brain which calculates the benefit to yourself of giving that gift, of what she’s going to think about it, the odds of her thinking you’re an idiot and kicking your balls to the curb, you follow this line of thinking until you don’t even give her the flower at all or you’re already pissed at her by the time you do because you’ve imagined her kicking you in the balls a bunch of times and what you hope you’d get out of it you actually consider yourself OWED at that point.

Acquarian alternative: you want to give someone a gift, the desire to do so it reason enough, you do that.

Principle: Trust that whatever you have to give is best given. (Except “fuck you”, that you might wanna keep to yourself.)

Then we did yoga, which I always looooove, I can bend over backwards all damn day if someone lets me, then did a little white tantra (stare into your partner’s eyes and try not to feel like a douche nozzle), then we chanted, then omg we danced. I felt like a total idiot at the dancing part, but Siri Egg was rockin' out and she was something to behold. I want to follow her around and hear everything she has to say about anything at all, so I’m gonna try to roll with that. Stay tuned for the likely installment on male/female polarity and how I’m a socket in a plugless terrarium . . . . meanwhile, sing along:

the 5th dimension - aquarius, let the sunshine in cheesy but o so la la laaaa