a sign of my astrology...

Been struggling for days to put my thoughts into words. If you're interested, here is both a possible explanation why and a narrative as to what's "really" going on. I reserve judgement on astrology still, but when it's this spot-on, it can't be ignored...

What I struggle to say in thinly suggestive riddles over the past few weeks is pretty much spat forth in this report from my personal chart at Astrodienst.


Pluto conjunction Descendant: Cards on the table
Beginning of February 2005 until beginning of December 2006: Your intimate one-to- one relationships, such as a marriage or other personal relationship, partnership and close encounters with friends and enemies, will be greatly affected by this influence.

In a marriage or other close relationship, pressures will surface that indicate that you and your mate need to consider making significant changes in your relationship. Perhaps you have been reluctant to face the forces at work between you, afraid that discussing them would cause a blow-up. And it probably would, but a blow-up is not always a bad thing in a relationship. Now it will become especially urgent that you both lay your cards on the table and work out all the problems in your relationship that are bothering either of you. Otherwise the pressure may build to the breaking point. This influence can cause a close relationship to break up, if you do not face your problems honestly.

Very often this influence does not affect the relationship itself but brings about an encounter between you and someone who will be very important to you, someone who may literally transform your life. This may be someone in a professional capacity, such as a psychiatrist, who will help you learn what is making it difficult for you to live the way you want to. Or it may be a friend who affects you more strongly than most. Unfortunately it may also signify a struggle with an enemy who is particularly powerful and disrupts your life. However, even in a confrontation with an enemy there is potential for positive change.

Uranus conjunction Sun: A new course
Mid March 2005 until mid February 2006: This is an extremely significant influence in many ways. It represents a time when you will try to achieve new kinds of self- expression and become more free than you have ever been.

This is one of the most revolutionary periods in your life. At its most productive, this influence can clear away limitations that have made your life less meaningful and fruitful, whether they have been imposed by yourself or by others. Your life can be more real. But at its worst, this influence can signify a time of wild instability and chaos, when events seem to happen unpredictably and disruptively.

Whatever you feel about change in life, now you will be forced to break up old patterns and embark on a new course. Whether you complete this process depends largely upon whether your life has degenerated into a dull and safe routine. It also depends upon how much energy you put into resisting changes.

You will be attracted to anything new and exciting, as well as new techniques in your work and in personal development. You may become more interested in science and technology. Younger persons will experience this as a time of rebellion, particularly against authorities, such as parents, officials and employers. You will not be very patient with restrictions at this time.

However, this influence need not be destructive. It is a call for you to examine your life and see what changes must be made to keep you from becoming too rigid. You may simply make tremendous changes in many aspects of your life so that you feel more free and more completely yourself.

Saturn opposition Jupiter: Crab walk
16 July 2005 until 31 July 2005: During this time, your opportunities for growth and expansion in life are limited. You may feel that you are moving sideways, if not actually going in reverse. There may be financial problems, especially if you have overextended yourself in the recent past. Another effect of this influence is restlessness and impatience with restrictions imposed upon you. This period requires patience, but unfortunately yours seems to be almost exhausted.
This is a period of readjustment after a period of possibly too-rapid expansion. Certainly it is necessary to examine your recent past to make sure that you have acted according to what you really want to do and really ought to do. This influence can have the effect of getting you back into a path that you have wandered away from. Do not be discouraged by any recent setbacks. Quite likely they were for the best, as you will probably see in a little while.

Make things more secure and more stable, but do not start any new projects now. If your expectations are overly optimistic, you may be disappointed, but at least the reasons will become clear. You will see what aspect of reality has interfered with your ideals, and in the future you will be able to take this into account.

Also at this time personal relationships may go through a period of trial. You often feel as if your personal freedom is unduly limited by others. Separations sometimes come about because you feel that that is the only way to achieve freedom. And, in fact, you are usually better off after a separation that occurs during this time.

This is a time of cutting back and finding a more stable form for your life. It is not a time of growth and expansion. In fact, too much expansion in the past may be the reason for what is happening now. In the future you will have to make plans on a more solid basis so that changes in your life and pressure from circumstances and people cannot interfere so much. This influence is a useful, if not always pleasant, encounter with reality.

Saturn trine Neptune: A monastic consciousness
Beginning of September 2005 until mid June 2006: At this time you will reach a new understanding of your own being and the world around you. In recent years you have probably been through periods of great doubt, uncertainty and confusion. Although those periods were painful they have contributed to your new view of the world. Now is the time to deepen and take advantage of your new understanding. This is an excellent time for studies that can raise your consciousness, such as yoga, occult metaphysics, spiritualism and mysticism. Now you are able to study these subjects and put them into practice in your everyday life. They will not be purely intellectual or mental activities - you can make them real and useful!

At this time your own ego involvement in your activities is low. You are more likely than at other times to act for altruistic reasons. You can devote yourself selflessly to movements and activities that help you bring your ideas to reality. Yet you do not feel that you are denying yourself, for everything you do seems to be a logical expression of what you are.

Your ideals are not in conflict with the realities in your life at this time. They are in creative balance, with the ideal giving form and the real giving life. Your approach is one of calm sober reflection. This is not a time of lightness and gaiety; instead it produces an almost monastic consciousness that contemplates the world with detachment.

You have learned much in the last several years, and now you will be able to put into practice what you have learned.

snowfall

i remember
how it sounded
crystaline and fragile
every
individual
flake
frozen flowers
touching
shifting
joining

solitude
silence
empty and full
fading in
to the numb
cold
and meditative
landscape

i am alone
emptying outward
as clear
unstained
as the snow around me
new
if i cry
tears will freeze
and instead
i focus
on the quiet

love is
all
around me
it's not
up
to me

love will find
me
steps leading in
to untouched
expanses

placid
stoic
lucid stasis
i will wait
awake

Bears and Boyfriends...

When I was growing up, I had a big brown teddy bear that I used to keep on my bed. It had been there for as long as I could remember. So long in fact that I had to ask mom later on in years where I even came by that bear.

“Your Uncle Brent won it for you at a circus when you were about 3 years old. You were so young, it’s okay if you don’t remember,” mom explained.

I never remembered the circus, or my Uncle giving me the gift, but I have always remembered the bear.

It was December 2002. I was seeing a guy who I had recently fallen mad for, as love often makes you do. I remember my friend Connie telling me to be careful, watch out that I didn’t lose my senses. How was I to make any sense of it though? He’d walk into the room and I would hear violins. There was no wrong about him.

I remember being in a department store with him and with Connie. I had taken all sorts of joy in buying things I found along the way earlier that week, when he wasn’t around… expensive things, but things I knew he liked and wouldn’t treat himself to normally. I wanted for him to have those things. Connie reminded me to be rational. “Has he indicated that he’s getting anything for you,” she asked.

“Nah, he doesn’t really need to anyhow. I’m getting him the stuff because I want for him to have it. I love the guy.”

He turned to me at one point as we were checking out. I was looking overhead at the cash registers at a long string of stuffed animals with holiday bows around their necks. All of them were kind of sappy… a big sad dog with droopy ears, a white gorilla…

“So is there anything in particular you want for Christmas,” he said to me.

I grinned. Just then, looking at the procession of stuffed toys above me, my gaze came over a big black bear with a gold and maroon bow. Immediately, I remembered the bear from my childhood, and told him and Connie the story.

“I’d love to have that black bear for Christmas.”

We had already checked out. He said he’d be sure to come back by later on to get it. Connie in the meantime remained quiet, taking in all she had seen. Later on, we talked over coffee.

“I’m just concerned that guy isn’t good for you. I just see you making all sorts of sacrifices and giving so much of yourself, and he’s just skating along taking it all in. Please be careful Kevin.”

A couple of weeks passed. Excitedly, I loaded up my truck and drove out to visit. We had planned a weekend together just before the holiday and I drove several hours to meet him at his home. I arrived after dark to a quiet living room in the country. He’d put up a beautiful extravagant tree, hundreds of lights. It was amazing. We sat at the couch and talked in hushed voices in the silence, smiling and relaxing in the comfort of that evening. I brought a bag with his gifts over to where he was sitting.

I remember him opening every one, smiling, saying thank you, holding me and kissing me on the cheek. I remember the joy in his face and the feeling that at every moment the papers flew off, I had truly given him something he wanted. I loved him, I wanted him to have those things.

And then all the gifts were opened. We sat and talked. I let the tension float out of me thinking he must be trying to tease me. He blushed. “I was only able to get you a couple things, I have been so busy, and I just didn’t know what to get you.” I grinned and told him it was alright, that he didn’t need to get me anything at all, that I was just happy I could be with him. Still he returned with two small packages he pulled from behind the couch.

I wanted to remain humbled. It would’ve been perfect if he’d gotten nothing at all really. Instead, I un-wrapped two gifts from him. One was a nose hair trimmer. The other was a vibrator.

I got through that night telling myself that it didn’t matter, that what mattered was the fact that he thought of me at all. I continued to tell myself, well, maybe I really did need a nose hair trimmer after all. The vibrator, well, not really, but maybe he just misunderstood. Maybe the whole thing was just a big misunderstanding. It was just misunderstanding, right?

I drove home the next morning. 3 hours. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t devastated really. I got home, sat in my apartment and cried. I called Connie, and told her she was right. We talked for a little while and I began to feel better. She even had me laughing after a while, and asked if she could come over for a game of cribbage.

“Of course sweetheart. I love you Connie.”

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door. I came in from the patio to go let Connie in. When I opened the door, I found my friend… holding in her arms a big black furry bear with a gold and maroon bow.

“The people who truly love you Kevin… they pay attention. They have no choice but to adore you and want only to see you happy. I truly love you Kevin.”

That bear is on my bed every night, and has outlasted several boyfriends, to be true… and as for Connie, I know her friendship will be there even if all the bears and boyfriends fade away eventually.

I love you Connie. Thank you for paying attention.

my own

You all have been telling me you want a recent photo... here I am on the 4th of July by my pool in San Diego. And here are a few words to tell you how I am...

i have taken a haitus from being who i was supposed to be for a while
i decided to silence my ego clammoring for wants
i went and forgot myself for a while
i wandered the desert
i changed my name
i lost touch
i followed
instincts
mine

i i i i i

i

a
m

m
y

o
w
n

i tear myself down to build myself up
and remake of me
the person i am

i lose myself
to find myself
and find eyes
staring back
that know

eyes of jade
that are
somehow

my own