after spontaneously recording the essence of this back in late January, it reminded me of a train trip through the night of some new and exotic land, maybe even this one.........a certain sense of strangeness, mystery, exhilaration and adventure........
probably we will never redo this, but I'd still appreciate your sharing--what it evoked for you, if anything....maybe it will inspire some writing or drawing even, A WHOLE NEW UNANTICIPATED POST!!!!!! And the chain of creation continues!!!!!! or falls by the wayside--hey, nothing was guaranteed when ya' bought this ticket to life, mister, just be glad your computer hasn't cras
written while sitting @ Joe's Cafe, West Village, New York, November 2005
recorded @ Diamond Audio in San Francisco
David Austen on piano
please comment
thanks
Mark
These depict my typical pensive pose, except the bottom one.
My mouth was probably literally frozen into a smile in that one.
I have rented a car at Enterprise--does that establish my LePicard identity?
Sometimes I feel Lost in Time.
How about you?
AND NOW FOR THE FEATURE ATTRACTION: In a nutshell I would say that Marx believed that modern capitalist society had created a world of those (bourgeoise) who had, and those (proletariat) who lacked. And they lacked not only money and means of production, but leisure time, education, upward mobility and all else that accompanied priviledge. Until they controlled the means of production they could never materially, let alone spiritually or intellectually, improve their circumstances, become fully men and not wage slaves. But the underlying argument is that those without the means of production are lacking what matters in life, including self esteem. It is essentially a materialist/humanist/egalitarian viewpoint, and in 1845, Marx and Engel's came out with "The German Ideology", an espousal of this materialist doctrine, though not yet a complete critique of capitalism or announcement of the historic inevitability of communism.
Marx spent numerous pages of this attempting to refute a former Young Hegelian named Max Stirner, who had come out with a book named "The Ego (or "the Unique") and Its Own" in late 1844 (the publishing date was 1845). Stirner believed that the humanists, liberals, egalitarians, materialists were just replacing one god or chimera, for example religion and monarchy, with another, that it was all illusion, and that by holding such beliefs men inhibited themselves FROM RELEASING INTO THE WORLD WHAT THEY REALLY DID HAVE, namely talents, gifts, innate endowments, energies, passions, genius, even destructive and selfish urges. The point was to release one's Ego Uniqueness into the world. The release and pouring forth of oneself into the world was paramount. To use oneself up this way was the purpose of existence. Otherwise life was a waste. BURN YOUR FUEL AND DAMN THE CONSEQUENCES.
He qualified this by saying that mere indulgence in the senses was not the same as releasing your essence, what Nietzsche might have called "will to power". But Stirner himself said that if what he wrote started wars and suffering, it was not his concern.
Thus it is ironic that Stirner ended up in debtor's prisons more than once, died rather young from an insect sting, and achieved, at best, limited notoriety in his own lifetime. In a more just society he may have written and achieved more, poured more of himself into the world. On the other hand, he may have used himself up all in that one amazing work, which may have influenced Nietzsche, and definitely disturbed Marx. But how many people are there who, laboring at jobs they despise, overtired, without enough leisure time or even creature comforts, insufficiently educated, lacking opportunities, too poor to buy books, let alone a computer, growing up in lousy environments with shitty influences, every day, for months, years, decades, have almost no idea of what their true talent(s) is, let alone the ability or opportunity to release it into the world? Marx's conception, IF PROPERLY EXECUTED AND NOT A TOTALITARIAN ANTI-INDIVIDUALIST STATE, might actually allow such people to discover, develop and release their innate gifts for all our benefit. Let's synthesize and posit it as a coming world of UNIQUE EQUALITY IN WHICH MATERIAL NEEDS ARE SUFFICIENTLY MET AND OPPORTUNITIES AVAILABLE SO THAT EACH OF US MAY EXPRESS AND POUR FORTH HIS UNIQUE TALENTS, GIFTS AND APTITUDES, HIS/HER SPECIFIC GENIUS INTO THE WORLD. AND MAY ALL WORK, SERVICE, ROUTINE BECOME AS PLAY, AND THE EARTH ITSELF SUSTAINED AS A BASE UPON WHICH ALL OF THIS TRANSPIRES.
For without the body, the base, the source, the home, the hearth, the health, the birds, beasts, trees, oceans, lakes and bees, the green, the Walden Ponds, the fire in the belly, the warmth of heart , the beating pulse, the pulsing drum, the ecstatic dance, the taking of chance, the groove with the Muse...........without all of these and LOVING CARE.....
we're left with just INSIPID AIR:
SO DARE TO BE YOURSELF DESPITE THE ODDS YOU FACE
AND SHINE AS AN EXEMPLAR
FOR THE FUTURE OF THE RACE
ARISEN OUT OF AFRICA
WHERE STILL IS FOUND A TRACE.
The coming Age of Aquarius is part of a phenomenon called a Precessional Cycle. What this means is that during a 25,920 year period, the first day of spring falls on ALL 360 degrees of the zodiac. Divided by 12, the number of signs in the zodiac, we get a result of 2,160 years for each sign of the zodiac. Each of these 2,160 year periods is called an "Age".
We are now nearing the end of the Age of Pisces. Anyone familiar with this sign is aware that it has to do with faith, compassion, sensitivity, imagination, mysticism, delusion, victimization and a number of other qualities relating mainly to FEELING as opposed to THINKING, FAITH as opposed to KNOWLEDGE, EMOTION as opposed to LOGIC, EQUALITY as opposed to LIBERTY, SAINTS as opposed to GENIUSES, ILLUSION as opposed to REALITY.
We certainly have seen the best and worst of the Piscean qualities during the roughly 2,000 years of this Age. A sense of compassion for people we've never even met has spread, for example, but so, unfortunately, has deluded faith in whatever illusions and spells our religious and political leaders have used to control us, divide us from each other, turn us against each other, almost always for the benefit of themselves and their patrons, the wealthy elite. See the film "Zeitgeist" for more on this.
All that being said, the obvious question might be: WHEN WILL THE NEXT AGE BEGIN? Well, if an exact year is wanted, I would have to say 2061. This would put the beginning of the Piscean Age about 100 years before the birth of Jesus, whose later followers used a fish (Pisces) symbol. But there is evidence that an Essene "Great Teacher" or "Teacher of Righteousness" preceded Jesus by about 100 years, and it is very likely that Jesus was influenced by this person's followers who were apparently living quite monastically near the Dead Sea.
Another compelling reason for positing the change year at 2061 is based on the ideas of Dane Rudhyar. Rudhyar talked a lot about crucial points, turning points within cycles. According to him, the LAST QUARTER of any cycle marks A CRISIS IN CONSCIOUSNESS, A BEGINNING OF THE END of any cycle. Given the 2061 transition year, the last quarter of the Piscean Age would have started in 1521, almost exactly the time of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation. This marked a time when people began to read the Bible themselves, in their own languages, rather than having it INTERPRETED TO THEM BY PRIESTS WHO READ IT IN LATIN. Thus more and more people were gradually able to think for themselves. It was the beginning of the end of the Piscean Age largely for this reason.
A final factor pointing to 2061 as the changeover year relates to numerology and the 666 figure of Revelations. If we think of the Apocalypse as a cleaning out of the scum and bullshit in order that a new Age can emerge, rather than the literal end of the world, it's possible that 666 might be a numerological reference to the chronology of events leading up to the change. If we simply multiply 6x6x6, we get 216, which curiously contains the same digits as both 2160 and 2061. If we subtract 216 from 2061, we get 1845.
And what was so special about 1845?
Well, that was the year in which one man, at odds with the bandwagon of American acquisitiveness, expansion and Manifest Destiny (the Mexican War, annexations of Texas and California were about to take place), undertook an experiment in living which can best be described as "expansion through contraction" or "less is more".
His name was Henry David Thoreau.
His book about the experiment, "Walden", came out in 1854 (numerology again!)
What he had to say is as relevant as ever, if not more so given the economic debacle.
But then again, debacle=crisis=opportunity, or at least to those who can see it that way, including, unfortunately, the still greedy. But those for whom Thoreau is a guide are growing in number and influence as well. It all boils down to how we want survival to manifest: as a Dark Ages or a Rennaissance. Maybe we will have both, even at the same time. Maybe we already are. More to come on all of this and more as notions arise, including the possible implications of Marx and Max Stirner's views, since they, too, emerged significantly in 1845. DIG IT!!!!!!!!
Jack Kerouac: Spinner of spontaneous bop prosody of the moment, heart and soul.
Jack London: The great eclectic self-taught writing mind whose life of passion and adventure outshone even his productions.
Nietzsche: A much misunderstood soul who spoke of the need for certain men of genius to rise above the herd and soar.
Max Stirner: Barely known thorn in the side of Marx who challenged men to use and release whatever of uniqueness was theirs to put out into the world.
William Blake: He tried to inspire men to rediscover their spark of creative genius and divinity in a fallen world.
I lived in NYC for a while back in 2005/2006. The vast Gothamness
of the place did eventually get to me, but places like the Cloisters, way north in Upper Manhattan, and the Park running along the bank of the Hudson were sweet spots for getting away from the Beast.
Rousseau, Thoreau, Paine: three of my heroes, guides, role models. I'd have added William Blake, maybe Max Stirner, Nietzsche, Jack London, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder and Dane Rudhyar, but I couldn't find photos of them. Only Snyder is still alive, but they are all with me.
Finally, the drum jam, the mainstay of my existence for so many years here in San Francisco. Other than occasional recording projects and taking my drum out to the woods or beach to play solo, I don't jam much anymore. I spend more time taking walks, pontificating online, sometimes going on reading binges, being a political junkie.
But hey, things change, and I seem to have moved beyond the Stoner Drumming Crowd. Not that I was smoking much myself, but the scene was getting old.
When the beautiful San Francisco spring weather kicks in, usually in April, I may still pop in there for a groove....or two....or five....or more.
Either that or else just keep occasionally playing for the birds and butterflies, joggers, walkers, wanderers who pass along or over the old gnarley trees and flowered dunes where Lobos Creek runs through on its way to the Golden Ocean. How I love the beauty of this "ant hill by a bridge".
Even when I'm gone I'll feel it in my bones.
I have established (for now) a dialogue with Vox member Paxton re: Mercury retrograde and its possible influence on human life. I suspect that it does have an influence, though not a direct one. Rather, it influences sunspots, which in turn influence human life.
As evidence, I cited The Astronomical Journal, Volume 72, 1967 May, No.1349, Number 4 (google it just like that but w/o commas), entitled "Influence of the Planet Mercury on Sunspots" By way of an introduction it states:
"The Zurich relative daily sunspot numbers from the years 1850-1960 are shown to contain a small but consistent periodicity at the sidereal period of Mercury."
Regarding evidence of the influence of sunspots on human life, I cited the following:
1) Wikipedia:Alexander Chizhevsky
2) cyclesresearchinstitute.org/Chizhevsky.html (including links at bottom of page)
3) Google Books: Integrative Biophysics: Biophotonics--page 10
4) google books: The Science of Truth--page 237
5)Wikipedia: Sunspots (Scroll down to "Effects of Sunspots On Human Ecology" and also to reference #8--
"Jupiter's Influence" from the "New Scientist"
I told Paxton that I did not consider any of the above to be definite proof of the astrological validity of Mercury retrograde. I merely wanted to establish that there is evidence that at least one planet (and others are cited as well), is very likely, if not definitely, influencing sunspots, which in turn are most likely, if not definitely, influencing human llife.
My point was to bring to light the fact that there is evidence in support of real physical causes underlying some aspects of astrology which is either unknown to, or denied by many otherwise highly scientific people. I have been a little nasty, and I apologize for that. I am simply attempting to open some minds wider, if only a hair's breadth more.
I also regret my lack of computer skills. Someday I'll learn to put links and such you can click on, but for now my skills remain rudimentary.
Enough for now. I am open to ALL MANNER OF QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS ON THE MATTER AT HAND.
So it is time to move on, to progress to eager eyes and minds. The book depicted here is one of my all time favorites on the subject, though it is really only beneficial for those who already know the 4 basics of natal astrology--planets,signs, houses and aspects. For those with some knowledge of transits and progressions it is also quite concise and insightful. One of the best things is that it is not what we call a "cookbook" i.e. a listing and description of every single aspect. Rather, it persuades and inspires you to use your own intuition, memory and analytical ability in understanding the various dynamics of a birth chart, including the ongoing ones (transits and progressions).
Once one understands the basics of one's or another's chart, perhaps the best thing to do is to keep a journal of events, feelings, opportunities, crises, encounters etc which arise under the influence of certain transits. In the book Arroyo gives very good descriptions of the kinds of experiences that tend to arise under the specific planetary influences. You can compare these descriptions to your journal entries in order to come to a more specific understanding of what you are or have been experiencing and why. Then you might be more prepared psychically, spiritually, physically, mentally, existentially etc for what is still to come.
The outer planet transits from Uranus, Neptune and Pluto influence us for a very long time, even years, and they usually take place in 3 or more "acts (as in a play)" or stages. Thus we have time to experience, learn and adjust to their impact and significance in our lives. The first experience can be quite disturbing, without or without any foreknowledge. But by the last "pass", one might have quite conscious awareness in dealing with the call for change inherent in the meaning of the planet(s) involved. For all transits of the Outer Planets are essentially about the need for change of consciousness, mentality, behaviour, attitude, approach etc to life as it unfolds.
That's enough for now. Feel free to comment or contact me. I am willing to answer questions here and there, but am not set up to do full scale readings as of yet. And that I will probably have to charge for in order to avoid being kicked out of my house. If I do start doing readings on my own site, I'll let you know. And if anyone wants to correct anything I've said thus far, your comments are also welcome. It's time astrology was de-mystified and allowed as a legitimate discipline into the mainstream. Let's begin here.
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