Around 7:15 I got fresh texts from an old lover, now married to a strong woman; I guess it has been a year since the first email came from the blue, like Zeus, Athena, or some theatrical character with the power to astonish. Theatrical was what they called it back in the olden days of Thucydides and Plato when people went to see something. Old time religion. Old time ways of uniting a populace with common emotional experiences. Modern astrologers categorize this type of cultural engagement under the sign of Cancer. I hope one day to read Aristotle and learn what he said about categories.
I jump around so when I type. The thoughts are slowed down in the process of recording them, and related ones invite themselves in to the – record. They weren't in the mix when I started out though. In other words I was not thinking of Plato or his colleagues when I set out to talk about, or wonder about, why I cry.
Raleigh, the town where I live, was facing the Moon. I had looked at all of my progressions earlier; secondary, tertiary and minor progressions. It wasn’t at the top of my mind, but I had seen the transiting Scorpio Moon at the top of the chart after I put food out for the early cats. Only two of the five were on the front porch, waiting for a bite to eat. It occurred to me when I got the chart up from astrodienst, that looking at charts was a form of prayer. I was already sadder and more worried that Squeaky was not waiting at the door to come in, eat her pureed food, and occupy my lap. The chart was my alternative to wondering if her absence had anything to do with the times I thought, “how much longer can this go on?” while putting the food in the blender, using the rubber spatula to get as much as possible into the dish, and then cleaning the whole operation so it would be ready for the next meal. How long can I take this time to nurse a cat turning into skin and bones? The charts of the ecliptic are for praying to the gods, the entities that precede us and continue to make their rounds, when our brief existence has evaporated into less than thin air, into mere memory.
I repeatedly point out this obvious comparison of the planets’ longevity compared to our life, as a liturgy to combat the notion that Saturn and the rest of the group are a pack of symbols or statues or stories, which, be they edifying, esoteric, or entertaining are ultimately creations of the collective human mind. The actual planets, unlike the statues and stories, precede human existence, or at least that’s the accepted order of the universe that I gather, the logos as they put it back in the olden days on the Balkan peninsula.
Please do pardon me for taking the exit ramp from the high speed path to my original thought.
I could see the line of the MC just to the right of the Moon at 29degrees Scorpio. I reckon it was about 7:00am the first time I looked at a chart of the day’s transits. The sky was cloudy with shades of blue and white, and even some rosy hues in the east where the Sun was about to appear. I had chastised myself for not stepping out as soon as I got up from bed to see if I could spot Venus and Jupiter. But the sky from my front window looked so cloudy I supposed I could not even see the culminating Moon. The first order, logos, was to get the crunchies from the freezer and dump some in the dishes for the two cats that were waiting. Bitsy, the young manx, crouched at the door ready to enter, and Brownie, the oldest of the bunch, but still strong and healthy, circled hopefully. Breakfast! Sometimes I let Bitsy in to eat. As the newest member of the pack (three or four years ago) she gets a lot of swipes. But with just the two of them, things are more relaxed. So I put my foot where she tried to enter the opening door and told her she could eat outside today with Brownie.
No Squeaky. No Squeaky. What is going on in heaven when worry pulls on my mind? The map is so important. It is a spiritual tool. No one can see the whole ecliptic at one go, even if the Sun is not shining, a good half of the planetary highway is blocked from view by the big wide Earth. And it is so much more accurate than what I can detect with nothing but my eyes. The map is stuffed, like a Thanksgiving Turkey, with information about the ecliptic that has been gathered over centuries by dedicated observers.
7:22am, that’s when the text came in from the former, ohhh let’s call a skydiver a skydiver, and say... old sex buddy. He reappeared in my life via email, and we soon exchanged phone numbers and moved to texting. Now I hear from him once in a blue moon, I’m just using that phrase as a vague expression of the sporadic timing. I guess it is also more poetic. This morning he asked if I remembered when we went to the Blind Tiger. I had to ask what it was. A topless bar. “You mean the Foxy Lady?” I could barely remember, ha ha. He said we stayed in the motel next door. I remembered a motel stay, but somehow it had gotten separated in my mind from the loud music and g-string dancers at Foxy Lady. That must have been after I had worked for a month at the Hungry I in San Francisco. I was a bit shy to talk to the dancers in Raleigh, but I liked being in the bar and feeling a tenuous sisterhood with them.
So, many memories, such a long eventful life, sooo much sex. This week it keeps popping up. My Scorpio Moon is behind it all. Every thought, or event associated with sex I attribute to my Scorpio Moon. I used to say associate, as in connect; drawing a line from one image to another in a school exercise, this goes to this as that goes to that. This verb goes with this noun. But since I’ve been reading Spinoza’s Ethics I say ‘attribute,’ as in ‘paying tribute.’ It makes me think of grateful Ionian islanders paying tribute to the Athenians for the first few years after the whippersnapper Hellenes repulsed the mighty Median Empire. To say I attribute these considerations of sex, an integral step in the process of life, to my Scorpio Moon is to pay homage to the Earth and other bodies of the solar system as sustainers of the life I seem to lead. To use the word ‘attribute’ instead of ‘associate,’ shows that I feel not so much a partnership with these heavenly bodies, as awe and respect. I have nothing to teach them, but everything to learn from them. So I don’t just categorize or associate the sexual theme of this week with Scorpio and my birth on a day when the Moon was in Scorpio, but I pay my respects to the solar system that literally made this journey possible.
Just to be clear, when I say heavenly bodies I include the one we live on, and I assume they are all connected – by the logos, or as they say these days, gravity. Some law or other.
Doesn’t the New Testament begin with that declaration? In the beginning was the law? Or the order? In the beginning was the logos. Why do they translate logos as word?
And sex was a part of that order. So was death. Are growth, corruption, love and war not steps in the order of life that has generated human existence? Have these not been with us since the beginning?
Then why do I want to cry because Squeaky is not at the front door? Why does the thought of telling my old sex buddy about being diagnosed with Grave’s disease bring a little tear? Sex and death are even more inseparable than love and marriage. They don’t go together like a horse and carriage, they go together absolutely. There’s that logos again. Can’t have life without corruption. It’s the law.
I thought, as I went for the solace of the charts, “This is a sign that I still have far to go on the spiritual path to liberation, this urge to cry.” No one is here. No one will see the tears. They speak only to me. “Mary Pat, this is where you are,” is what they say. “You are carried in the flow of life and ignorant of what’s beyond.”
So, now, after thinking about Raleigh facing the Scorpio Moon at sunrise, after writing this essay while the Moon passed into Sagittarius, and Raleigh turned eastward making the Aquarian Sun rise and the Sagittarian Moon slip to the west, after reminding myself and my readers that this is the world that gave birth to us; after all that, the urge to cry has passed. I’m still looking for Squeaky, but resisting hope. I’m still enjoying the pleasure of reconnecting with a good friend, but resisting desire. I’m still curious, but reminding myself that curiosity keeps me here, as I need a body to satisfy it, and that as long as I remain in this body I am limited.
The first chart is for the moment I received the first text from my old friend. You can see the Moon at 28degrees Scorpio 51minutes. It is the crescent next to the capital letters MC. MC means midheaven, which you can think of as where we see the Sun at midday.
And now it is 5:44pm. I am using wifi at the library. The next chart is for 3:16pm when the neighbors on my other side knocked on my door. The teenaged siblings I’ve watched grow up, Felix and Claudia. I saw them approaching the door and got up to answer before Felix even knocked softly. “Umm, Maria, my mom said she found one of your cats near the steps this morning. There weren't any signs of blood….” I grabbed a towel and went to retrieve Squeaky’s corpse. As I lifted her nearly rigid body in the towel I said, “The bitch kitty is gone!” and gave an embarrassed laugh. “Where ever your spirit is we love you Squeaky!” and then I said, something like this is how we all have to end. Their looks of tenderness broke into startled smiles. I turned and went quickly. I don’t want so much to resist crying as to focus on what is actually happening. Squeaky is free.
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