Monday, January 19, 2009














Finally, so very finally, it is time to leave most of January behind and thus begin to see more light, more movement and the first dawning of the new reality that the starkness of November, December, and January just can’t go on forever and forever. To quote the defunct Kerry & Edwards (preadultery – not judging!) campaign: “Help is on the way.”

Temperatures will rise with the growing light and a sense of help indeed suddenly comes into being even in freezing Vermont. Though February will have cold and snow, the qualities of this cold and snow will be less severe than of the white stuff of January. February sends the message that the darkest and deepest part of winter is already over… and some kind of thaw is just around the corner. This is where I like to think the sign of Aquarius begins.

The Aquarian sensibility is all about applying a briskly fresh approach and about looking away to a vista that is far off on the horizon. The Aquarian character does things in a determined fashion and at its best involves both innovation coupled with considerable perspiration.

Aquarians seem to know how to make systems, devices, machines, and new inventions work. If they are having a problem with a gadget or some such thing, they will simply retreat into some form of solitary space and try to figure it all out and usually they will succeed. The Aquarian is nothing if not persistent and innovative. Often, they are the mad genius.

Since I know a little about music, I would put forth two innovative and mad genius types: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Eddie Van Halen. Both of these musicians changed things up quite a bit and were able to not only perform original music, but they also came up with new forms of musical expression coupled with glamorous if tumultuous public personas. As a boy of five Mozart was able to read and write music; as a teen he wrote original compositions that transcended genres and later reinvented several of the operatic forms not only musically, but thematically as well. The idea of fiancé swapping that occurs in Cosi Fan Tutte was certainly risqué and novel for the time and Mozart’s opera audiences loved it.

As a result Mozart needed to work quite a bit in order to keep up with the demand for new works. He worked hard as a composer and as a pianist and as a violinist and creativity undoubtedly was an obsession for him.

Eddie Van Halen, too, has made a contribution to Pop Metal and rock music in general. His incendiary guitar playing created new lick patterns culminating with the most original two-handed tapping styles highlighted in the instrumental “Eruption”. His guitar playing technique is novel with the role of his middle finger of his right hand and his use of keyboards. Additionally, he designed many of his own guitars and amps having not been satisfied with playing the gear available at the music store like an Eric Clapton did. Van Halen created artistic designs on his equipment and strangely made the wearing of overalls work as a rock ‘n’ roll outfit.

Mozart and Van Halen together show a bit of the picture that an original and gifted Aquarian is capable of painting. There is the classical skill and poise, yet there is also the innovation and the calculation necessary to achieve greatness.

On a bit of a side idea, in observing a Capricorn-Aquarius cusp friend the other day, I was struck by how these two signs are, in fact, quite similar to one another. As a Capricorn is much grounded in the understanding of hard work and the pursuance of societal betterments (think Cappie Martin Luther King Jr.), so is the Aquarian (think Abraham Lincoln). Maybe it is the winter aspect of both of these signs that so clearly bespeak of the need to accomplish hard work for the good of the larger community. Whereas Cappie will get the work done through traditional and conservative means, the Aquarian will be innovative and perhaps shockingly radical in the pursuit of a fix.

Aquarius tends to govern things like nuclear power and electricity. It is interesting to note that currently we are in a mercury retrograde period in Aquarius, so I suppose that socially radical and innovative communication will be delayed until mercury turns direct on February 1st.

Finally, still up for grabs is whether planet earth has entered the Age of Aquarius with many famous astrologers still undecided about this fact. Let me also put out there that President Obama is Aquarius rising and in this way he resembles my most excellent brother-in-law who is long and lean and smart and kind. Three cheers to our new and fresh President! The young Farrah is included in an image form because she makes me remember my boyhood – and my early love for all Aquarians!

Saturday, December 20, 2008

Time of the Sea Goat


Dick Nixon -- A Fallen Cap

It is only weeks away from 2009 and suddenly, we, in the western hemisphere, are in the midst of the winter solstice and I, for one, am really feeling it. Outside it is dark and cold and Christmas music is blaring in every retail outlet that I wander into. Every year this sudden “winterization” and Yuletide megabomb happens up here in Vermont and it all seemingly takes place right out of nowhere. The snows fall and holiday traffic locks everything up and it all becomes tedious bedlam. Indeed, Hanukah and Christmas Eve (Eid has already ended) are approaching and with these cultural milestones our direct movement towards shorter and darker days will finally end, but the movement toward the gradual increase in daylight hours and sunshine seems deathly slow going at this point.

These sensations and perceptions are all part and parcel of “the slowest time of year.” As the lights dim, we are all forced to take stock of our prior year if not “our entire lives” and to feel that it was all worth it (or not!). As the freneticism of the holiday season blazes on, it is often impossible to slow everything down and to simply accept where we all are positioned. The snow keeps falling and the holidays can make us feel that we are not “where we wanted to be.” I am here, but I really wanted to be there! And of course there is no escape to “there” – whatever “there” may represent to you personally. This is the difficult feeling of the holidays.

This very deep feeling of taking stock of your life and your place within it is beautifully aligned within the sign of Capricorn that begins during the winter solstice. Even though I am only a Capricorn rising, I believe that I understand a bit about this sun sign, especially because many of my friends are double Caps. These folks are a force to contend with to be sure. They are powerful and ever moving toward big goals, yet they are careful in existing in the definite present as they slowly aim quite high in their life pursuits.

The saturnine quality of the Capricorn is undeniable. There is a stark realism to the Capricorn native and even though this realism may result in the ultimate kill joy effect, it is very much a permanent state of affairs with Capricorn. The sober light of day is where the Capricorn native exists best.

As a large peasant family sits around the table during the middle ages in present day Eastern Europe, let’s say on January 1st, the decision must be made as to what animal needs to be killed, so as to have enough food to get through to spring. A wrong choice could very well result in starvation of the family or the destruction of further animal husbandry. This kind of high stakes decision making is what the sea goat excels at. He or she or it knows how to survive and how to plan accordingly.

Here, then, is where the Capricorn resides. The Capricorn native is more able to make this decision than any other sign. They know the right way to turn from within their very bones! And of course Saturn tends to govern bones and the skeleton. The relationship between time and the human skeleton is one of the most undeniable connections that exist on planet earth. Cappie feels the aging process taking place. Gravity slowly pulls everything down. The seriousness of time passing is a wave length that anyone touched by Saturn understands.

The connection, then, between Christ’s birth (though probably not the right birthday – most sources point to him as being Aquarian) and Capricorn is apparent in a little baby sleeping in the hay. Mary and Joseph have no money nor do they have a hotel/motel room and they don’t even have Skype. Yet, they have hope and some wonderful stars glimmering in the sky and they can simply wait it all out. Peace be onto all beings.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008


An astrologer’s worst feelings of self-doubt and self-loathing tend to accompany a horribly botched natal chart, an incorrectly guessed sun sign (this often happens in a crowded environment i.e. loud bar!) or a transit read incorrectly… and realistically this can happen any old time for astrology is no easy art form to master or even to influence -- it would seem to be pure geometry, astronomy, art and feeling. Proponents of the scientific method need not apply. It is all in the interpretation.

I profess to not being able to even perform transit readings and I am still awaiting the time when I can begin to study angles correctly for I was absolutely terrible at high school geometry and to this day angles seem difficult for me to read or interpret. Several real astrologers have told me that at some point they will help me to begin understanding the angles when I finally commit to it, but at this writing my wife and I are busy moving into our new condominium, so once again, it would appear that learning about angles and transit charts will have to be put off for a while longer. All in good time I say!

For now I am still content reading more about the planets, the houses and about understanding their relationships within particular charts while furthering my sense of even the simple sun signs. As a fledgling astrologer and as an English instructor, I hope to feel content as a grounded observer of planets and elements as they flow through the lives of us complicated humans and to write about these movements, if at all possible. We humans are also always changing. The human life is infinitely complex and to study it takes incredible fortitude. Our natal charts and inner natures are difficult to understand and they are all worthy of several lifetimes of study – too bad we probably only have just one!

In any event, it is worth a try and the story that I have now embarked upon describing in this month’s blog entry is one in which for over fifteen years I misidentified the sun sign of a friend and band mate of mine from the musical group “Blue Harvest”. This misidentification has to do with this month’s sun sign being, of course, Sagittarius. Yes, I realize that Scorpio falls into this month as well – but that was last month’s column…

Before getting into the specifics about the sign of the archer, let me share some of my personal history having to do with playing in a particular band. Blue Harvest was a blues and rock band that was around in the early nineties in Boston consisting of yours truly on guitar, AJ Jackson on bass, numerous drummers including Dean Sommese, Rebecca Harold on keyboards and lead vocal and Jean Hlady on piano and vocal. We tended to play a mixture of blues-based material and often we would churn out some current rock standards.

Not only was Blue Harvest an eclectic mix of folks, it was also a thirsty band and I can remember one gig at Sir Morgan’s Cove in Worcester, MA at which we were paid in drinks alone and if I remember correctly, we “earned” plenty of “money” that night. And though we were perhaps just pikers starting out, we did play with taste and conviction if not with perfect precision as a result of our “pay”. And always we did strive towards making a connection with the audience no matter who they were. Rainy Sunday night shows, however, were especially difficult for “connecting” – probably because there was no one in the tavern! In addition, we would get on stage with no sound check and the inevitable sounds of feedback would ring out from time to time and I remember that the monitors never quite had the right mix in them.

I will always remember when it was time for Jean to sing some songs in our set like “Heat Wave” by Martha Reeves and the Vandellas; Jean would really put out a wonderful spirit involving full voice and jumpy stage energy! In fact, Jean was able to interpret a song that had migrated from decades before into the early nineties because she was able to to summon up that same level of positive energy from within a much different time period with both precision and grace.

The audience would love it.

Jean would later be responsible for writing a character review & analysis of my personality that would allow me to eventually make my way into the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. As a respected librarian in Watertown, Jean was able to mention some of the skill sets that I possessed and that would eventually aid me with negotiating difficult classroom work and student instruction. And until graduate school, I had no idea how much I would need those supposed skill sets!

While I feel that I was close to all the members of Blue Harvest, I always felt a distinct connection with Jean. She was a bit older than I was and though she could mix a mean gin & tonic, she always had her shit together as a mother and as a wife to the Boston-based guitarist and Berklee professor Craig Hlady of the group Holiday Bash. She was always successfully accomplishing any assorted number of tasks. Outside of her many “adult” (I was just a kid during those times, or so it seemed) responsibilities, Jean would still show up at band practice with optimism and energy and I always respected her for that. The five of us would gab incessantly; we’d drink mixed drinks from a thermos and then get down to trying to play the cover tune that we were rehearsing; on occasion we played some of my originals. Again, we did some older R&B, some current POP tunes and many a blues number.

I will always hear in my mind the rehearsing of the song “Sad, Sad, Sad” by the Stones and Jean complaining about the lack of chord changes (the verses were really only F major to C and C sus4). Yeah, it was boring for the pianist to be sure. Suddenly, though, a bridge section cropped up during the song and at least 5 different chord changes suddenly popped out. Jean then complained about the number of chord changes! No matter what was going on in the world – Jean told it like it was. She was a steady Capricorn to be sure! She had that Capricornian sensibility all around her.

After Blue Harvest imploded, I lost contact with Jean, but I remembered that a Capricorn had given me a new solidity and a new lease on life. Jean’s steadiness was moving me forward too.

Fast forward to Montpelier, Vermont, in late October of this year of 2008. I hadn’t seen Jean in over a decade.

Wow! As I walked into Rhapsody, a health-conscientious restaurant in down town Montpelier, I nervously awaited Jean’s arrival… I know that we had both aged and “moved on” … would we still have those great conversational flare ups like we had all those years ago?

Suddenly, Jean was there! Wow! I couldn’t believe it. Jean hadn’t changed much at all and we nervously tried to decide what to eat. My wife, Deborah, was with me and together the three of us stumbled around figuring out what was good on the menu. Abruptly, I started to talk to Jean about what we should drink and then the old dialogue started in again. We had a choice of only beer or sake and then we started to recount the benefits of each kind of liquor – this was classic Blue Harvest dialogue…whose liver would last the longest?

Eventually, we all settled upon a table and pulled up our food trays and sakes. For the first time I really looked at Jean and she looked fine. Her hair was still luxurious and chestnut and she was smiling with a sense of joy. I suddenly felt secure about all of the long years that had gone by. I know that we weren’t the same people, but I knew that we would still be friends without a doubt.

As we sat talking about the obvious updates to our lives, it struck me that Jean was speaking quickly and that I was getting a sense of “burning through ideas and a relentless catch up.” Within my body there was a feeling of freneticism, which I didn’t normally put down as Capricorn energy. Usually as I hang out with a Capricorn person, I usually get a sense of solidness and ground and even a certain kind of slowness. It is a feeling of safety and of “Oh, here we are. All is OK.” Although Capricorn energy can get heavy at times, it is certainly grounding! As a triple air sign, I find it extremely beneficial to spend time with anyone who possesses the qualities of heavy earth for it certainly grounds me to the spot in a beneficial manner. Yet here we were sitting and I was tiring quickly as we shot through pictures and various stories.

I didn’t know anything about astrology in Blue Harvest days and almost as a sudden wish Jean blurted out a story about how she and her husband Craig first dated decades ago on his birthday of Christmas Eve: December 24! OK … so at least he is a Capricorn.

“Jean … when is your birthday?” I asked this last question sheepishly.

“Oh, it’s great because it is in the same month as Craig’s … December 20th.”

Suddenly the burning feeling and the freneticism and bubbling joy was making sense – Jean was a Sag. Duh, Erik. How had I made up a whole history of her being this solid and heavy Cappie?

As I was whisked away into my past years, I suddenly thought about Jean’s being late sometimes, her wild optimism about how something fun was always going to happen (it usually did) and how she was continually setting new directions for her young son and husband (translation: sending arrow after arrow into the sky). Then I noticed her chestnut hair and happy-go-lucky smile and there it suddenly all was!

Now certainly it can be argued that Jean is almost a cusp and an adult … why not make her into a Capricorn?

Well, I guess that depends on how strongly you believe in the power of 12 sun signs. You can’t really be 2 at one time – it just doesn’t work. Now if Sagittarius begins on the 22nd of November, then really, as far as I can tell, Jean is always going to lead with a little bit of fire and a strong ability and desire to escape the confines of home since she is a December 20. Of course I don’t know her rising sign, but for now, let’s not go there. A Sag is a Sag: Tina Turner, Jimi Hendrix, Noam Chomsky and Britney Spears … the arrow flies and flies fast and high! Sag is nothing if not ebullient energy.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Something stung me!




You are walking outside in the chilly air and suddenly, as if out of a bad dream, you notice that the trees have lost all of their leaves and that they stand naked and bare against the sky. Underfoot, as the leaves begin to turn into mulch and decay, you now absorb that the earth feels cold. You look up and again gaze at the sky. Though it may look quite striking when the sky is a clear and pure cobalt blue, you observe that with the setting sun comes an understanding that you are now starting to live in a vista of gray, black and white hues. Welcome to the twilight zone! (This is when the theme music used to kick in when Rod Serling was still around smoking cigarettes.)

Here in Vermont “the twilight zone” tends to happen around October 23rd, which definitively ushers in the time of the astrological sign of Scorpio. By the time Halloween arrives on the 31st it is difficult to understand if we are all living or dead or somewhere in between. Make no mistake about it; this time of year is very much about death and dying. Reevaluation of all kinds of relationships tends to also begin during this time of year. Narratives of all kinds begin to fade, decay, or unravel.

If I may be so bold as to generalize and consider Scorpio a “November sign”, I believe that it is self evident that there is a starkness to Scorpio individuals, events and places that are unmistakable and unavoidable. November has a peculiar energy to it and the energetic field of a Scorpio is like no other, it is akin to a radiator that is suddenly turned on in the room; if you listen closely you can almost hear the hiss. It invades your space as if through your very pores. The Scorpio individual to me is like a tautly pulled guitar string that is being played with a violin bow. There is indeed an intensity in the room when a Scorpio walks in and whether the individual be a loud person or a quiet person, I believe that the guitar string quivering underneath is felt by everyone on some level. This feeling I also compare to the sense of starkness and razor edge clarity that one might receive from a visit with a Zen master – the interaction penetrates down to the very core of your being. A Scorpio native is adept at “piercing through” just like your favorite psychologist.

In beginning a discussion about the sign of Scorpio, perhaps it is best to start with a question concerning its monthly emergence. Is the month of November ever easy to take on by anyone? I would say not. It heralds in energetically the most demanding time of year. Is the Scorpionic circumstance, individual or place ever a laidback walk in the park? I think not. Scorpio intensity demands attention just as does the successful negotiation of the period from late fall to early winter. Successful participants find themselves alive and well in the New Year of 2009!

For North Americans and Northern Europeans alike, November simply put becomes an existential time. What is left for any of us when the leaves have all fallen, clouds drift overhead and a cold drizzle becomes virtually ceaseless? Home owners and renters alike start pulling down the storm windows and the living space gets sealed in tightly. That awful dry heat gets turned on. Homeless people try to move indoors somehow. I believe that this all causes a disconnection with the outside world that results in an additional existential uneasiness as the approaching winter begins to make itself known outside and human communication starts a drastic cycle of winding down. Does this not suggest the very process of something or someone dying and rotting away? Extreme as it sounds, I believe that we lock our own coffins every year as we shut ourselves into our homes in order to endure the oncoming winter. It is a practice run.

Now maybe it is only the wife and I who get SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder), but I tend to believe that there are many other individuals like us out there. Even the most cheerful people among us become broody and self-reflective as the concept of mortality shows itself to be real in nature when the bare trees bend in the mounting cold winds. The body begins to feel stiff and cold and it seems harder to get up in the morning and to face the labors at hand. The pace of life has to slow down and for the first time since early summer, people begin to really feel tired and to sleep more.

All of this, then, becomes the very life blood of the Scorpio native. These folks do not go for the light and easy feeling and conversation that for instance a Libran like me loves … Instead, the Scorpio native will cut to the chase with force and precision as if time were indeed growing short. A surgeon performing a life saving operation under pressure typifies the intense Scorpionic figure putting out a particular energy into the world. Life is meant to be lived with passion and it is to be pursued with fervor!

I might go on a limb here and state that most Scorpio individuals are gifted at cutting, slicing, stabbing, and poking. There is a sharpness and penetrating approach to them that is unavoidable. One Scorpio in particular that I know has a perfectly lethal backhand volley. Scorpios enjoy negotiating layers and burrowing to the core of a particular individual or situation.

On another level, we might begin to examine Scorpio as a destroyer or an exploder. These two acts can be examined as good or bad depending on the circumstances. A nurse shooting up a patient with toxic chemotherapy could very well be looked at as a Scorpionic figure. She is acting out of a feeling to save the patient with lethality and precision. There is nothing more Scorpionic than this act. A weapons expert may be trying to do the same thing as he plants a car bomb under the car of particular individual. Both of these are Scorpionic acts which involve intensity, lethality, and precision with very different motivations.

I am not implying that all Scorpios are assassins or spies, but they very well could be! A Scorpio knows how to “fulfill a mission” and it is a rare thing that a Scorpio native will abandon a mission in that this is simply not what a fixed sign does. A fixed water sign will slowly flow forward inch by inch if necessary and make sure that “the Sting” takes place. Again, it is necessary to say that “the Sting” can be the successful completion of a client’s difficult natal chart just as much as it can be the disconnecting of a security system. Generally speaking, Scorpio does not suffer fools gladly, and this sign wants to reach its goals quickly and efficiently and to receive or make plans for another mission!

Through my own experiences with Scorpios, I have to say that the sex thing is connected to them somehow as well. And this statement can have nothing to do with promiscuity, but more with sexual expression. In another life long ago I played in a band in which our drummer was a stripper. She was also an excellent song writer. We were also roommates and from what I could tell, she was not any more sexual than any other person, but the stripping thing is obviously connected to the language of sexuality and money! Another Scorpio I know is an excellent acupuncturist and she can speak easily about the body and sex and about the energy centers within the body. Again, here we can see that Scorpio can be very much interested in the body and probably sex is most certainly one of the languages that the human body speaks.

Scorpios are amazing people and offer us many gifts of health, rejuvenation and understanding. Just don’t double cross ‘em! This month features two Scorpio songwriters who continue to penetrate us with their voices and instruments.

Saturday, September 20, 2008

The Boss, Balance, and Twilight Blues

Here we are once again folks, on the cusp of the chilly autumnal season and if you are alive at this moment in the Northeast, then you are without a doubt experiencing the autumnal equinox coming on and introducing the beginning of fall and no matter how you slice it, yet another season of death and decay will soon be under way. Things be moving on as they often say … year after year for that is the cycle of life on the mothership earth. Even as an October Libran native myself, I always find this time to be overwhelmingly serious and depressing. It is a period of time in the calendar that signals perhaps the most pronounced shift from one condition to another. This might be broken down best as a sudden shift from hot to cold! And, indeed, this is a shocking time for all of us humans, animals and plants alike! We sort of all go Libran for a month as we try to find some equilibrium between body temperature and home thermostat. The skin gets dry and the outdoor winds blow cold, yet the sun shines brightly.

Although the beginning of cool weather ushers in the very best air quality (even for this particular air connoisseur), there remains a permanent fright (read: frost!) in place of the upcoming overly cold winter and the shortening days that include significantly less sunlight than existed in excess only a few months before. Suddenly everything has “moved on”! And indeed, during this seasonal change it is difficult for me to release my powerful memories of waiting for the upcoming summer because actually I waited a long time for summer and it already came and went! Wow! Where did it go? Time does indeed begin to move more rapidly as we age. This October I will be 44 and am trying to figure out what that means exactly.

During this particular autumnal equinox of ’08, I am especially drawn to thinking about my father who is in the last stages of Alzheimer’s disease. It is easy to see plenty of metaphorical material around me that now speaks about my own shorter days on this planet: my graying hair, increasing jowls and now my completely bedridden father who no longer possesses thoughts of any coherence. Autumn signals a kind of twilight of the soul and this often results in a heavy heart. I believe it was Duke Ellington who said that twilight is the saddest time of day.

Another topic that connects with all this for me has to do with how we can all learn to relish this time of year just as the Libran is forced to do so if he or she is to survive another birthday, the dropping of the leaves, and the slow but steady change to a landscape of grays has to be felt and understood; it is nature’s way. Libra understands this. Suddenly we have all arrived at melancholia and there is no choice in the matter. You can’t fight what is happening in the outside environment no matter how hard you try. A tropical screensaver just won’t cut it when the outside landscape is gray.

After 44 years of living in this sign of cold balance and analysis, it would seem that by now that I would have developed a technique for staying grounded and content as a “triple” Libra (natal sun, moon and Mercury are all in scales – Mercury to me is huge!) as I move through the inevitable seasons. Nevertheless, I continue to struggle and know that I am not alone. Bruce Springsteen aka “The Boss” seems to have this same planetary composition of “triple Libra” as I do and I believe that he stays grounded through the pursuit of hectic musical undertakings and various political projects which keep his air moving (a definite necessity for Libra!). Of course this is all completely conjecture on my part since I don’t know the Boss personally.

As a general rule, Libra tends to stay healthy through intellectual communication and any communication cessation or breakdown tends to drive this masculine and cardinal air sign crazy. Yet, here is a slightly contradictory point! Libra also enjoys a certain amount of stasis in order to realign the energies, but if it is completely imposed upon the Libran native, then the particular stasis in question is absolutely not desireable! Forced stasis and a lack of intellectual and artistic communication for the Libran are akin to a slow and steady death. The daily routine and the work day have to be allowed to move around somewhat. Even though Libra yearns for a perfect continuing homeostasis of its own, when the outside world gets stuck in its own stasis then look out world, gentle Libra gets pissed off! Libra is that impossible sign that wants matter to move in addition to staying the same. As we are all just entering into a difficult Mercury retrograde period this week, it is becoming especially painful for Librans to see virtually all technology and relating and communication breaking down. Little positive movement is going on as can be evidenced in the financial markets.

Libra is of course a cardinal air sign and it wants to be able to initiate projects. The sign may be viewed as lazy, but often there is activity brewing under the surface and it will indeed be exposed with quick enthusiasm in due time. Unfortunately, as a cardinal sign, Libra may gloss over many of the details and timetables necessary for carrying out a particular venture. They sort of want to be the idea people. Hopefully there is a Virgo around who can lend assistance with the actual detailed nuances of an undertaking. Libra will want to blow into a room with a pure idea that often can be quite a good one, yet the reality is that some earth signs could really help with doing the actual hard work with some water signs putting some human feeling into the undertaking and the fire signs burning the midnight oil of enthusiasm and initiation.

The Libran is a good thinker, but she needs other signs to support her with particular tasks and directions that involve actual hard day to day work. Perhaps a final wisdom that can be attached to the sun sign of Libra is that although Libra detests large crowds, the sign does work well with other astrological energies in smaller groups and perhaps only then is when the Libran finds true harmony. Libra can then become the fresh air that everyone needs.

Friday, September 12, 2008

Chiron for me is in the sign of Pisces


















It is said that where Chiron resides in your chart is where you are wounded and where you must heal your wound. Often my feet get hurt and I tend to lose faith in the universe and most isms quite regularly -- both of which I believe correspond nicely with Piscean dilemmas. The one area where I have yet to lose faith is in the healthy student and teacher relationship. It is in this area where I believe my healing often begins. In addition, specifically, I believe that I can assist students in achieving writing success. Hence an additional posting for this month:













Classroom Strategies for the Development of Writing Confidence


by

Erik Kaarla, MA; MEd.








Even now after having been a writing instructor for over thirteen years, I am still amazed by the magic that goes into the writing process … or the complete lack of magic. Sometimes there just isn’t any writing process because a particular student doesn’t get any writing done. This is always frustrating for the student and doubly so for me as the instructor, for I feel as though I have failed the hapless student essayist.

Fortunately, I feel that most of my students can somehow get that writing engine to turn over eventually, and frankly, I think that it has much to do with letting the writing simply happen. Over the course of my years of teaching in the writing classroom I have come up with some methods for improving the level of writing confidence in my students who are active readers and not suffering from any acute learning disabilities. These techniques I believe to be quite straightforward and effective, but first I would like to share some background information about the writing process itself.

In The Discovery of Competence, Kutz, Groden and Zamel talk about the purposefulness of advanced student writers absorbed in their writing processes in much the same light as I would characterize the budding first year writing students who do possess some self-confidence and a belief in achieving writing success:


These students, experts as they are, are also voicing their anxiety as they begin the task of writing a particular paper. But they know themselves as a writer, as a learner. They know what to expect next in their own idiosyncratic processes. And they can see the shape of the whole project. They can trust that they will ‘end up somewhere -- eventually.' They are lost in the process, but only temporarily, and they can trust in the now-familiar experience of being lost and eventually finding a way out. (13)


Of course every part of the writing process contains pitfalls and stumbling blocks that can end the student's journey towards a completed draft. Through well-designed pedagogy and assignment selection, an instructor can positively influence the outcome of a student's attempts at writing a difficult essay. Proper topic selection can help produce results in students to whom composition seems mostly arduous drudgery.



Spending Time on Topic Selection

Young writers carry within themselves a portfolio of pictures and sounds that are made up of experiences, creative notions, fears, and values. These portfolios provide wonderful sources of inspiration to be explored during the writing process. As a student goes about the business of approaching a new writing challenge during the creation of a draft, these creative portfolios should influence the writing process and the resulting product. Be the writing outcome marginal or extraordinary, it is important for the author to feel some kind of victory. If this feeling is positive -- regardless of how outsiders view the writing -- then it is clear that this author is ready to write again come the next opportunity. (Kemppinen 37)

Often struggling writing students have track records of never completing drafts on time. If these students are overly chastised for this deadline-missing behavior, the consequences can be disastrous. A single student’s anxiety level may go through the roof, which may even end with the student dropping the class or stopping any meaningful participation for the rest of the semester.


Sometimes draft non-completers are simply labeled “basic writers.” Researchers like Walter Minot and Kenneth Gamble have made multiple suggestions in the area of teaching basic writers. Minot is Professor of English at Gannon University, and Gamble is an associate professor and Chairman of Psychology at Gannon, where he teaches courses in personality theory and learning theory. In their 1991 article appearing in the Journal of Basic Writing, Minot and Gamble examine other studies concerning the writing process.


Basic writers may not differ from other students in any externally identifiable way except that their writing performance on specific writing courses falls below that of the average freshman at that college. Once identified as such, researchers and teachers alike will probably view them as a homogenous group and will pay little attention to the important differences that might exist within the group. We find similar instances of oversimplification and over generalization in areas where more sophisticated theories of behavior have been applied to writing. (118)
As much as we have to examine the writing process in its entirety, doing at least a forty-five minute block on topic selection with corresponding exercises is always a worthwhile activity. What I often like to do is to give each student 3 potential topics and to have them come up with a thesis statement and an outline as to how they would cover the particular topic in question. Within this assignment, I ask them to take note of several things:

Is it easy to come up with 3 major points that would constitute the body of the essay?
Do you envision a struggle when having to expound on these 3 separate and distinct ideas?

Are you excited by your thesis statement or theme and do you really want to explore it to its full potential?

Upon first hearing the topic that everyone was to write on, did you feel excited and motivated, or did you feel stressed out about having to come up with content?

As students discuss their feelings with concern towards these processes, often their stress levels come down significantly. This, in turn, makes it easier to go forward with the assignment in question.

As instructors of English, we all are glad to recount various writing process theories for our students. Some of us may even choose to engage the classroom in philosophical debate over whether the "process" or "product" has the most value. Whether or not we write in our free time ourselves usually influences how much emphasis we place on the hallowed methodologies of getting started on a piece of writing in the correct fashion; perhaps we choose to emphasize in front of our classroom that there is not any one technique that is the best for all writers, but that there should be a certain reverence for composition as an ongoing process.
Donald Murray has theorized about the act of teaching composition through the technique of understanding and isolating the writing process. He is quick to show that it is different for each writer, but that there is plenty we can learn from trying to map this process out.
If we stand back to look at the writing process, we see the writer following the writing through the three stages of rehearsing, drafting, and revising as the piece of work - essay, story, article, poem, research paper, play, letter, scientific report, business memorandum, novel, television script - moves toward its own meaning. These stages blend and overlap, but they are also distinct. Significant things happen within them. They require certain attitudes and skills on the writer's and the writing teacher's part. (Murray 4)


In order for students to be able to write a basic narrative essay that makes a statement about an experience they have gone through that resulted in a profound change, the student needs to pick out that singular experience, gather and arrange historical and sensory details, figure out their impact, and then recount the experience as clearly as possible. This is no easy task for even a seasoned writer. To write is to make a commitment to tell a story that matters. If a student is lacking in self-confidence, this can become a problematic undertaking. The student may feel that his or her story does not need to be told. The student may feel that the details are hard to remember. Self-confidence directly plays into the invention component of this topic and that is why this is a difficult process for early college writers to begin the semester with and this is the precise reason why I begin my Composition 1 courses with essay #1 being "An Experience that Changed My Life Forever."


Processing the First Narrative Assignment

In the classroom I initiate small group interaction after the students get a chance to think about what a life changing experience actually is. In groups of three and four, the students "sell" their choice of topic to the other members in their group by verbally stating how this event changed their lives. I won’t accept a vague answer like "I really made some great friends at camp that summer!" or "That trip to France really made me think."

I also forewarn the students that they should avoid writing about an embarrassingly personal topic, unless they can discuss it maturely because of their being far enough away from the time of the experience or because of their coming to terms with it. My central focus is on their topic selection skill. I tell my class that I am always available for individual discussions concerning these topics via email. It has been my experience that if you can't write a little something about yourself, then the construction of a process analysis or an argument essay on a designated topic is simply out of reach.

When beginning any writing project, a solid topic is a stepping stone towards achieving writing success, especially in the case of the resistant writer -- there is no better way to have the students feeling good about the assignment than through assisting them with topic selection. In Writing Relationships, Lad Tobin discusses how a poor topic choice can hinder a student:
When I [Tobin] asked him why he was writing a comic essay on making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, he had no idea. I suggested that if the essay was meant to be satiric, he ought to think about who or what was being satirized. He seemed totally confused and asked for an example. I said that the essay could, for example, be making fun of technical writers who complicate simple processes. He looked irritated. (37)


Later Tobin is able to get the student to think about such ideas as topic relevance and about commitment to saying something substantial in an essay. Educating the reader in a mature and well-thought-out manner should be the writer's goal. In Tobin's account, the student soon connected with a more realistic topic. Having a student select a defined topic that involves him or herself in some meaningful life situation helps to motivate the student to tell a story, and hopefully to tell it well. The ownership of the personal narrative can't be denied, especially in the case of writers who just can't seem to get through the writing process. If these writers are allowed to have a stake in getting through the invention process in order to begin composing ideas about something meaningful, the results are often well worth the wait.

Discussing the Writing Process

When the college freshman sits down to write and nothing happens: what is to be done? Probably very little because the student doesn't know where the instructor's office is, not to mention anything about the office hours. Perhaps it is 2AM and the student is attempting to write something in a notebook while there is a party going on in the background. Whatever the case may be, it is imperative that a savvy instructor make room in the beginning of the semester for focusing on the writing process and on what to do about it "if yours doesn't work." David Murray ponders the writing process in a succinct fashion.


This process has been revered - and feared - as a kind of magic, as a process of invoking the muse, of hearing voices, of inherited talent. Many writers still think that the writing process should not be examined closely or even understood in case the magic disappear. We can study writing as it evolves in our own minds and on our own pages and as it finds its own meaning through the hands of our writer colleagues and our writing students. (Murray 3)


As Murray suggests, the writing process is indeed a mysterious concoction. As a writing instructor, I can say from firsthand observation that the students who performed with above average success in my Composition classes from 1995 - 2008 learned much about their personal writing processes in the beginning of the course. Most of these students were able to finish work within deadline parameters, and their work tended to have more content than did those students who did not take the time to delve into just what makes their respective writing processes tick.


I have been fortunate with most of my sections of Composition having had a diverse mix of students. Within a good racial, cultural, gender, and writing ability mix, students were often able to see many differences between their respective writing processes and to learn from one another. Students who displayed more of the signs of self-confidence and some academic maturity tended to proudly recount their respective writing processes. They seemed to instinctively know that the writing process was important for producing descriptive language and writing that demonstrated critical thinking. In the case of ELL students who spoke up about their writing process - they didn't necessarily have a better command of English than the other ELL students who remained quiet, yet the vocal ELL students simply tended to have a stronger belief that their writing process mattered and might prove to be a good model to others. Was this empty boasting on their parts? Maybe, but it seems that students who achieve writing success often do want to share their ideas; they feel proud of these ideas, and in this way help others not to be stuck in the hinterlands of never being able to create a draft in time for class.
When college freshmen must begin to perform peer edits and to interact in a decentered classroom that more or less runs on the individual's stick-to-itiveness, basic writers are shocked. Students lacking writing confidence are completely immobilized. They do not know what is expected of them and they do not know how to deliver "the academic goods." The building block for successfully writing numerous essays over the course of the semester always involves the use of a fine-tuned writing process. Here are some key points to direct students toward as they develop their individual writing processes.


1) Always respect the composition process and establish early what works for you and stick to it!

2) Spend some quality time on thinking about the exact topic that you will be writing on.


3) Establish goals for your invention work, drafts and revisions that are in line with your writing process. Is your invention process very involving and complex? If this is so, always be aware that to quickly try and come up with a draft may prove futile and could jeopardize your forward movement; take all the time that is needed in order to respect your process.


Using Questionnaires for Writing Practice


In a newly developed program of writing instruction Lonka et al. devote a substantial part of their student-centered pedagogy to the writer coming up with a characterization of his or her own level of writing confidence and writing style. They achieve this through having the writers take a lengthy questionnaire as they compose and draft an essay. This practice assists the writer in seeing himself or herself in the writing process. The writer must fill in specific point values from a certain range in order to give a proper answer to a question that targets the writer's nature. Some of these questions include: How willing are you to model your writing after some other text? Do you see writing as more a modeling process than as a regurgitation of knowledge? Other topics the authors go through involve perceptions of self, procrastinatory behavior, perfectionism, and if process or product is more important to the particular writer.

Of course writing is an intense journey of self-discovery. Studying the process of writing itself is even more a focused experiencing of self. It is for this reason that Lonka et al. decided to bring the writer right into the very core of the composing process (57). Speaking to Differing Learning Styles Writing confidence is indeed necessary for getting through the invention and revision processes in writing, especially when work must be completed within distinct time frames. In order for students to get through the lengthy process of writing college-level essays, they must feel competent with their own understanding of texts. How a text is dealt with in class becomes very important in freshman English classes. Exactly what classroom methods are being employed to bring texts alive for students? What seem to be the chief teaching techniques that are reaching students? Is lecturing proving as constructive as interactive group work? How many different kinds of learners are there in the classroom? Psychologists Kolb and Fry came up with an innovative classification of learning characteristics:


The learner, if he is to be effective, needs four different kinds of abilities - Concrete Experience abilities (CE), Reflective Observation abilities (RO), Abstract Conceptualization abilities (AC) and Active Experimentation (AE) abilities (qtd.in Tennant 101). Kolb and Fry go on to describe how AC and AE people are CONVERGERS, CE and RO people are DIVERGERS and finally, how AC and RO people are ASSIMILATORS. These three typical learning styles of students are quite different from one another, and a large number of students are not picking up information easily from, say, a classroom pedagogy based on lecture alone. The writing confidence of freshman students can be in jeopardy right here already if a class is a requirement and the students who are CONVERGERS (in that they need to employ active experimentation in order to learn) cannot do that in a particular lecture course.


I make this point to show that the students who are not being reached in the classroom often have poorer and poorer self-image as a result of compounding frustrations in the classroom. As educators, we need to become keenly aware of these pathways and attempt to see which of these learning directions may be more effective for a particular student who is having visible learning difficulty. We need to understand how to develop the student who is lacking, for example, in abstract conceptualization abilities. A classroom based solely on principles of active experimentation (AE) will not effectively reach the students that rely mostly on their concrete experience (CE) processing skills. In other words, it is essential that throughout the semester the instructor combine elements of interactive assignments, oral presentations, peer editing and individual composing exercises, so that learners of all styles have a chance to negotiate the writing process successfully. A variety of teaching methodologies should help in reaching each and every student.


Please see a list of Works Cited here: http://www.geocities.com/erikkaarla/thesis.html


Thanks for reading!



Thursday, August 21, 2008

Analyze This!

In a hopefully valiant effort to confront more of what is “negative” or “excessive” in my own natal chart, I have decided to analyze all that is overly Virgo or Virgonic in me, and then, perhaps, to expand from there to other signs in the future. This effort, is, of course, timely, because we in the western hemisphere have now entered into the time of Virgo -- that pristine patch of sharp light, titillating early evening coolness, and strange aloneness that heralds in the arrival of the fall season and the month of September, a fairly definitive end of summer methinks. I think Don Henley’s lyrics from “The Boys of Summer” make the statement best about the change in seasons: “Empty street, empty lake; the sun goes down alone.”

I would make the argument that there is a collective aloneness of spirit that strikes all of us as the supple richness of summer begins to slowly wane as the nights turn longer and colder. The sunlight is no longer as brilliant and forceful as it was, in say, mid-July. The cooler air is intoxicating now yet it comes with the inherent sadness that new growth has died and even old growth will even soon be trampled underfoot with the coming of the falling leaves. And what was the summer that just passed about anyway? Many of us can’t remember it that clearly. The Virgoan heart both yearns for the fecundity of summer and for the bounty arriving at the end of the summer’s abundance – it is an impossible emotional resting place to be even for a mutable sign. As crickets cry out in the night there rises a feeling of panicky sadness and delight – such is the complicated change of seasons in the Virgoan heart. The time before Libra and October arrives is unique –in any shape or form it seems quite virginal and pure.

Perhaps a few of us have already even dreamed about the approaching snow. I know that I did just the other night – and it wasn’t pretty! I found myself shivering on and off for the entire day upon awakening.

This summer, having recently acquired my exact birth time from the City of New York through the correct forms and pleas (Thanks Laurie!), it appears that in my natal chart I have 3 planets in Virgo. That’s a lot of Virgo! In fact, in taking a look at my entire natal chart it would appear that I am mostly “Libra and Virgo” – doomed to balance and analyze I am! I would venture to say that this is not an easy chart to come to terms with. It is here that I have some self-loathing suddenly coming out because I realize that there is a prissiness and fastidiousness to me that is unyielding and un-repentant. Yeah, I have plenty of Virgo in me, but how does this manifest itself?

Well, the apartment has to be vacuumed a certain way and the bathroom needs to always be clean (usually, I take care of it, so the wife doesn’t have to go crazy). I am always taking vitamins and obsessing about what I am eating. I hate the thought of aging and I often have an upset stomach from all of the vitamins that I consume. Though I wish it were not so, it would seem that this is very much a part of who I am as a human being. It would seem that I desire things to be a certain “correct” way at all times and if they are not I am distressed. Here, then, is the Virgo in me coming out daily as regularly as you please. I want things orderly and neat. OK, I admit it! Dishes in the sink seem almost lethal.

This month’s posting comes with a scalding confession from me: I have always been a bit annoyed by sun in Virgo people as a result of their nitpicking and their difficult personas of “exactaholicism” and constant criticism. My wife is Virgo rising and her laser-like fault finding freaks me out to no end. How strange, then, to discover that as I am in the world either when teaching English class, or playing guitar, bass , tennis, or cleaning the apartment that I, too, am displaying this same exacting quality. I suppose now is the time to really come clean (HaHa!), then, and to send out an apology to all Virgos everywhere that you are all part of me and I am sorry if I felt somehow better than you. The truth is that I suck! I nitpick and get lost in systemologies just as much as you do and I point the finger at those who are less than exacting. Hello Pot – This is Kettle.

Another confession I must make to all my readers (if there actually are any of you out there) is that my Virgoan nature has been under scrutiny by various psychologists for over a decade now. In my therapists’ offices always I am told to FEEL instead of to analyze, yet in my early home life I was taught to be exclusively rational as a child and not to feel and this has created some problems for me that have followed me around all the way into the present day. During all of those years of therapy I simply could have turned to my healer of the moment and said: “Dude, I have three planets in Virgo. It is very hard for me to stop analyzing and to start feeling. Please show me some clear techniques for transcending this block. If I combine that all with the Libra in my moon and sun… most all emotion escapes me! Can’t we all just get along?!”

Well, trained analysts don’t like to deal with astrology during their appointments ... at least not usually (secretly I am glad of this fact), so often I am met with some bewilderment about my strange New Age views.

But I do know myself today better than ever before. Not only does Virgo analyze, but there is also a kind of cold and mutable sense to the analysis: “If I had the power … I could make this better by doing this ______ “(fill in the blank). “Indeed, this should always be done like this ________.”
“On the other hand, let’s change it to this _____________.”
Strangely, since Virgo has a mutable quality to it there is no fear in changing direction and analyzing the next minutiae that comes into view out of the rear view mirror. Indeed, the Virgonic view of the world and universe tends to intersect with the reductivist idea of Occam’s razor: All should be reduced to the simplest level in order to guarantee truth and goodness. In this way I feel that Virgoan wisdom is indeed profound. There is a Zen-like focus to the entire approach: Boom! This is happening right now and here are the basic parts to the phenomena; let’s analyze it all down right now and get it right!

Since I have put up Charlie “Yard Bird” Parker’s picture up for this month’s blog, I feel that I should say a few words about Mr. Parker. He was the hippest of the hip in Jazz -- yet he was analyzing things all the time -- how could he have been such a laidback cool cat, then, and a Jazz icon at the same time? I mean analyzing things endlessly is really square, right? Well, this is a difficult piece in the Virgo principle to deal with indeed. My hypothesis is that Bird knew the mechanics of the vibrational universe and that he was simply tickled by it – there was no need to ANALYZE further; Bird maybe analyzed where Max Roach or Bud Powell were going on any given night in order to get the groove right, but that was the extent of it. End of story. Bird was probably at the zenith of Virgonic wisdom and suddenly all had been reduced to its smallest parts and coefficients and the cosmos played perfect music that came out of Bird’s alto on command – even the plastic one!

Another Virgoan by the name of Goethe wrote brilliantly and pointedly in any number of disciplines and it seems quite easy to see where the gifts of analyzing with prowess could produce a transcendent work like Faust taking on the task of explaining the very phenomenology of good and evil in a narrative. This is no small feat.

Finally, though, the female Virgo is somehow supposed to be chaste, they are also often knockouts and the true movie beauties! Lauren Bacall, Sophia Loren, Salma Hayek, Amy Winehouse – all born in the time of the corn maiden. Beauty like that must indeed be perfectionistic because these women of movies and song certainly seem as if designed by Aphrodite herself. All of them, though, have the bug of a loner in them that must be appeased from time to time. Needle-like perfectionism on occasion needs to be able to take some time off. Yet after the vacation, the precise Virgoan is ready to serve others once again whether it be through the stinging licks of guitarist Joe Perry of the rock band Aerosmith or through the twang of Shania Twain’s voice. Virgo gets it done right and dots the I’s and the T’s in the process.