What goes around…

Posted in astrology on June 16, 2011 by dan

For non-astrologically-related-guff please visit my other blog: doziac

As a student of astrology for some years now, I find writing helps to better assimilate study.  astro:logger started in 2008, for that very reason, after writing a sporadic series of horoscopes for roguemusic.co.uk.  Now, these kind of sun ‘scopes are not really the kind of astrology I’m strictly into but they can help to grasp the basics and flex the fundamental astrological muscle.  They are also a lot of fun in my opinion: it’s like throwing raw ingredients into a pot and later producing a hearty meal.  Only these ingredients are astrological symbols, and the cauldron is consciousness.

I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on Mercury retrograde in recent years, as I found correlations to this relatively frequent event were easy to observe out in the real world, in real time, and the trickster element to the associated happenings never fails to amuse me each time the messenger planet circles about-face. So there is quite a lot of that covered in this blog, interspersed with the occasional horoscope.

I  dip in and out of astrology as and when the mood takes me, so I tend to post rather infrequently, as per the unpredictable (i.e. aquarian) nature of inspiration!  It can mean a slew of posts one month, and nothing the next.  Otherwise, I enjoy creating music and video during the rest of my spare time, as well as writing fiction.  All this non-astrologically-related-guff can be found on my personal blog: doziac.

The Martian Within

Posted in astrology, mars, mercury, pisces on January 25, 2011 by dan

I’ve never been very good in a debate, my safest option is to detach and witness from the sidelines; assimilate and respond in a few days (so teaches my objective Aquarian Sun and steady Taurus Moon).  Lest my natal Mars conjunct Mercury, retrograde in Pisces, bring a furore to the fore.  Mercury is immersed in the ocean of Pisces; too busy catching a breath in the sign of his detriment to ‘think’ clearly. Through this conjunction Mercury provides the data based on which Mars has to ‘act’:  indirect, diffuse, and eventually overrun by the fog: a steam born when martian fire meets water - the latter of which prevails being champion of the elements.  The war of Mars becomes an internal battle,  suppressing emotion for sake of keeping sight of ones argument. This itself can take all the ‘energy’ of Mars, compounding the issue: grip fails, and Mars flails, drenched.  The conjunction of Mars and Mercury alone can certainly make for an argumentative tone,  but such a sign placement can all but usurp this expression, frustrating one’s ego.  

Conversly, this placement bestows one with an acute receptivity and sensitiviety, especially with Mercury retrograde, an ability to probe deep and in between,  to explore that place just before words are made concious and a reduction begins of the raw and unprocessed mental landscape. The creative intellect, more often squeezed through the pipe of cognition; those Alphabites were once the same potato, literally…

This is my own experience with these planets manifest, for better or worse.  Better I listen to my Sun and ‘be’ the observer in keeping with the lessons of Aquarius. Worse and the fire of ego is ever threatened by the all encompassing deluge of emotion.

Moon Phases app – New Moon

Posted in astrology, moon on December 13, 2010 by dan

I’ve just aquired an app. which inserts the date and time (to the exact minute) of each new, quarter, and full moon into the iPhone’s native calendar. I thought this worth a mention as this simple addition could be quite usefull in staying in sync, and thus help anyone wishing to journal along with their lunar cycles.

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/moon-phases-2010-2013/id402708875?mt=8

I also recommend this new moon article on astro.com

Moon vs. Saturn, and the art of good housekeeping

Posted in astrology, moon, saturn on August 31, 2010 by dan

I am still amused and bemused that a favourite astro-blogger of mine decided to create an encyclopaedic archive lovingly dedicated to care and DIY around the home. (?) Particularly since I was accustomed to the no sugar coating style of his Dark Sun Astrology pages!

Discovering the aforementioned site was a timely affair for me since the house I’m currently sharing/renting was due it’s quarterly inspection from the landlord recently.  And so it was time to activate my Venus-ruled fourth house and get to work.

I prefer to think of myself as a creative soul who tends to thrive in a harmonious, orderly environment. I’ve always been first to admit that I am more content and productive when everything is in it’s rightful place, poised for utilisation. Venus ruling Taurus on my fourth house cusp however, might just be an astrological placement that I share with house-proud wives the world over!

The Moon-loving fourth house rules the domicile on a mundane level, with it’s deeper concerns being that of the native’s heritage or ‘roots’, as well as early conditioning from the mother: our traditionally stereotypical housewife! Here is one basic representation of the fourth/tenth house polarity. After all it is the fourth-house mother of yore who would tend to the home whilst the typically tenth-house father would be out earning the daily bread. However outmoded these characters might be nowadays, the astrological model does often infer natural roles in which we seem to have fallen into over millennia, irrespective of astrological knowledge with it’s ancient archetypes, or, original governing images permeating collective unconsciousness.

With the Moon as our home, Saturn is the crap that accumulates over time….

It was sometime during the deep clean when I had an epiphany concerning the polarity of Moon/Saturn. For there I was, wiping weeks of inevitable dust and grime (Saturn) from the window ledges and frames of my home (Moon). But what is dust exactly? Dead skin; broken, decayed matter subjected to the laws of entropy. All themes that are very much the domain of Saturn, who brings us plummeting back down to earth with matter-of-fact realisations of mortality and temporal constraint: the absolutes of human existence. Saturn is Father Time; The Great Eroder (sic), with his gradual soiling of our surfaces; distributing remnants of recent past! Opposed only, of course, by the lunar housewife. The archetype of Cancer nurtures and maintains the abode, however temporary, in a seemingly fruitless attempt to protect and foster a steady state of security against the perpetual invasion of decay.

Next time you’re out saving the day, give a thought to your maid, wife, or whoever happens to fill this role in your life. And remember that they are the real heroes of your story, and, like Batman: for every episode that ends in defeat of one’s nemesis, the following week said nemesis will be back with another torrent of abuse. One of the only differences being our heroin’s weapon of choice! See also: Dirt Devil; Pledge; Mr Muscle; Grime.

Technical Difficulties

Posted in astrology, mercury, music, retrograde, virgo on August 23, 2010 by dan

Today the Sun joins a retrograde Mercury in Virgo, so I’d like to wish a very happy birthday to any Virgo natives reading this, it should be an interesting month for you all! Be patient however, birthday cards may very well get lost in the post. Or that new phone may need to be sent back for repairs due to some kind of fault: Many happy returns!

Meet Sanchez.  A member of The Rogue Collective; promoter and visuals-executive, born with the Sun in the sign of Virgo.  Here we can see him busy tending to the video projection for the stage at Saturday’s Feck the 90’s night at Club 85, Hitchin.  Despite the huge success of the evening, which included fine performances from Ministers Dead, Martell, and the fantastic Gideon Conn, proceedings were beset with technological issues regarding the visuals, which indeed reflects the current Mercury retrograde occurring in Sanchez’s native sign of Virgo.  The picture was taken amidst the frantic clicks and futile reboots of the offending laptop, efforts that were sadly to no avail.  Do not be fooled by his apparent cool demeanour; beneath this facade lies frustration, the kind of frustration only a machine can evoke in a human being.  You can see (below) what we had to contend with for the first portion of the evening.  In the end we settled for a generic media player kaleidoscope.  Perhaps I should have forewarned Sanchez of the trickster’s pending plans, especially with his sign having front row seats for this particular retrograde.  There’s something of the trickster in me though; having a retrograde Mercury in my own birth chart, I quite enjoy watching the chaos ensue around me during these flustered times of upheaval.

Back In Time

Posted in astrology, mercury, retrograde on August 20, 2010 by dan

Mercury goes retrograde tonight, in the sign of  Virgo – the same day a London Underground strike is scheduled!  Mercury’s station occurs at 19:59 GMT.

As I post this, the roads are earily quiet and so are the phones, and I fear this is merely the calm before the storm as Mercury slows to a halt before reversing. With the moon gradually moving closer to her full-moon position in Aquarius, there will be a lot of air-energy around from Sunday, more than enough for trickster Mercury to sully with his sorcery!

 

 In true Retrograde fashion, let’s Recap some of the events that correlate with Mercury Retrograde cycles over the last year or so:

April 2010: Mercury Rx in Taurus: Eruption of Icelandic volcano, Laki, responsible for grounding (Taurus) many planes across the globe.  Mount Laki is named after the Norse god-equivalent to Mercury, AKA Loki.  Taurus, being an earth sign – natural, tangible, physical - correlates well with volcanoes!  This cycle also coincided with a postal strike in the UK -  a huge blow to commerce, another realm of Mercury!

Jan ‘10: Rx in Aquarius: Transportation affected with nationwide gridlock due to snow in the UK!  Ah, Aquarius, ruled by Uranus: cold sky-god

Sep ‘09: Rx in Libra: Fire in the channel tunnel calls for safety review! Libra’s ruler Venus was over in Scorpio when this retrograde occurred. A typical symbol of Scorpio is the Phoenix – rising from the ashes of a fire!  Scorpio-ruling Pluto is lord of the underworld, or subterranea and tunnels!

May ‘09: Rx in Gemini: The NHS lose thousands of patient records, and we all know Gemini loves details and facts! At the end of this cycle we mourned the fate of Air France Flight 447 after it crashed into the Atlantic leaving no survivors.  Gemini is an air-sign.

Jan ‘09: Rx In Aquarius: US Airways Flight 1549 successfully ’ditched’ in the Hudson River 6 minutes after takeoff by Aquarian pilot, Chesley Burnett Sullenberger III.  Clearly feeling the direct effects of  an Aquarian Mercury retrograde, the captain managed to hold it together and made one of the only successful water landings in history for this type of aircraft!

GRIDHEAD… and the astrology of Whack Syntax.

Posted in art, astrology, music on August 11, 2010 by dan

The astrology of Whack Syntax by GRIDHEAD

I recently commissioned my long time friend, Brad Benford – AKA Gridhead, to create the above artwork with a vague suggestion: the polarity of day and night, split diagonally. Sun, moon – GO!

Being a fan of his ever evolving and unique style (bias not withstanding!) I was more than excited at the prospect of letting Brad run with this idea.  Since the original version (pictured above) some colour has been added, which i’m saving for the cover of a musical album I’m producing that goes by the same name.  But this is only one of a multitude of images Brad has manifested in recent months!  Whilst also keeping busy on bass guitar with the bands Droome and The Mavis Krank,  Brad’s creative endeavours come together with a similar tone and quality.  Broody bass lines evoking a sense of otherworldlyness marry seamlessly with the angular strokes and abstract psychological mazes inferred in his extensive range of paintings and drawings.

The easiest and quickest way for a glimpse would be to check out GRIDHEAD’s facebook profile. Alternatively, and for a limited time, a selection of his work will be on display and for sale at GRIDHEADS gallery space at The Portrait Barn Studio in Little Wymondly until 30 September 2010.

The album the above piece was commissioned for is still very much a work in progress.  In the meantime there’s a few tracks featured on my Soundcloud profile that will eventually find their way onto the finished article.

GRIDHEAD has also put together some short time-lapse videos which animate his pieces as they’re being created along with various music.

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