I was up
late last night finishing a wonderful biography of Alan Lomax by John Szwed,
“The Man who Recorded the World.”
As I finish
this Lomax bio I am struck by how hard he worked to keep modern media from
being a ruling Sun of culture broadcasting from a centrist middle. He fought tirelessly to bring the dances and
songs from the rims of humanity all the way to the center and then back out spokes
radiating in all directions. He was
fighting desperately for radio and television to be more like the developing zygote
of the internet. Now whenever I hear
interesting music and stories from far flung corners of the world on public
radio, I will think of Alan Lomax and the other workers of the Cultural Revolution
which began peaking in 1965. And of
course since I am an astrologer, it is ever in my mind that during that revolution Uranus was meeting Pluto
in the Virgo sign of technology and apprenticeship- balanced by Saturn in dissolute
Pisces on the opposite side of the solar system.
Now to my
late night appreciation of Venus-
Yesterday I
kept looking for friendly distractions to give me a break from my studies. My restless little mind can only fix so much
in its mysteriously vast filing system before it begs for relief and
entertainment. Facebook is a great
playground, full of witty posts my friends have either made up on their own, or
harvested from the net, so I spent a good bit of time there. I thought about two friends who cannot drive
and wondered if I should call the one that was due for a visit. I kept looking for some sign on Face Book of his activity
and saw none. Still, even though I wanted
distraction I felt compelled to leave things as they were. To wait and see. It was a big relief last night to see a post
appear with a photo of him enjoying an outing with an old friend and his two
children.
A warm Venusian
feeling of love took over from the uncertainty that ruled throughout the day
and I felt grateful to be part of a community of friends. It was nice to have knowledge of Venus reaching
the point in its new cycle when we can see it moving forward. My distracted picking at nucleophiles and
carbonyl reductions shifted to a meditation on Venus renewing its cycle with
the Earth and Sun. They met (Aug 15) while
Venus was invisible (as usual when anyone meets the big Kahuna) in the Taurus
section of Leo, and now Venus can be seen in the hours just before dawn in the
Capricorn part of the Lion’s sign. I
thought of how a mutual friend, during this renewal of the Venusian cycle of human
gestation, had quietly established a tradition of taking a housebound buddy on fun
outings with his kids. The happiness
radiated throughout my whole body. All
the worry fell away and was replaced by a sense of well being in this community
of humans exercising their ability to love in difficult situations.
I looked on
Stellarium to see how visible Venus would be before the dawn and was reminded
by the faint red dot just above the ecliptic that Venus is still very near
Mars.
It has only
been a week since the planet which ‘moves through the darkness on the far side
of Earth from the centering Sun’ overtook Venus. I recall that on that night I had a visit
with a different friend in Wendell who not only cannot drive but also lost the use of his
legs many years ago. He was able to get
himself out of my car and back into the wheel chair for the first time without
help from the over worked staff where he lives. Will finally overcame where kindness was too
weak to meet life’s challenges. He called me the next day eager for another
visit. Will had also overtaken his
ability to accept with good humor his body’s failure.
It was the following
evening, (Sept 1) as Mars was leaving Venus behind in the Capricorn foot of Leo,
that I received a text from my other friend, the one who posted about his outing this
weekend. He was sitting outside enjoying
the autumn night after finishing a nice dinner.
It was the first time he had reached out to me since I had visited him
over a month ago. So many times I have
thought of him and his family and waited to see if he wanted another
visit. I missed him and worried about
him but felt it best to wait and not push my friendship on him. His text came like a voice over a personal
radio receiver. “Hi! How are you?”
It was such a jolt of joy to get the message that he too thought of
me. Reciprocation is such a beautiful
part of friendship. There are so many
ways that life interrupts in this process, but when it resumes we seem thrilled by it, like
children facing favorite playmates on a see saw when we feel that lift because someone else
has carefully brought their weight to bear on the far side of the fulcrum
from ours. What a wonderful feeling!
Venus has
barely moved since I came home Sept 1 and found that “Hello!” from my friend across
town, but Mars has marched through the Capricorn foot, the Aquarian, and now
this weekend the Piscean little section of the Roaring Lion. The Capricorn, Aquarian and Pisces sections are
just an assortment of slivers from the giant pie slice of Leo Fun. My dad, who preferred a Schaeffer Beer to
sweets, would say, “Just a sliver for
me,” when we were slicing up the rare desert.
By Thursday (Sept 10) when Venus is growing in light like a little green
pumpkin in the patch, Mars will be marching through the Aries section of the
Lion’s pie slice!
The old Moon
will be right there, like a retiring grandparent providing a bottomless spring
of hidden inspiration. Friends lifting
each other, cats licking their young and wrestling with them, entertaining
moments of kindness. We don’t have to
decide if it is because of this renewal of the Venusian cycle occurring in the
sign of pleasure, but it is sweet to know what is really happening down here. That as we turn toward Venus in the morning,
and see the light of the Virgo Sun just beginning to disperse the darkness of
our long fall through the late summer night, that as we see Venus shining anew below
little red Mars, we know that we are about to climb through another revolution on
our wobbly old planet. Turn, turn, turn
and shazzam! Look at us! Look what the planets have made!
