Gemini & Hands

Self Portrait

You don’t need a Gemini sun, moon, ascendant, planets, or house placements to be Gemini. Thinking Types have square palms and long fingers. No matter what your  astrology says, pure Geminis have square palms, widely spread long fingers, flexible joints, supple thumbs, and dominant first phalanges on slightly knotty first phalanges with rounded tips. Gemini (mutable) is mentally and socially adaptable. Aquarius  (fixed) is unique, eccentric, and innovative. Libra (cardinal) is strategic, balanced, and fair. Of course, there are dark sides…

When major lines in thinking hands split at their ends, that person is able to see many possibilities and outcomes. They often think or feel they have too many choices and decisions to make in order to get whatever done or go wherever they’re going. Mutable types are the most indecisive of the three modalities, especially air and water.

Cancer, Scorpio, and Pisces are water signs. Feelings must be balanced with Thinking. Libra, Aquarius, and Gemini are the opposing forces. Ambivalent feelings are incarnate in chains and islands on heart lines. Branches of feelings appear to be magnetically drawn to thinking. Parents who aren’t physically or emotionally present and / or don’t talk about their feelings are teaching their children to analyze, compartmentalize, and rationalize feelings. Rationalizing is safer than verbalizing feelings. A physically or emotionally absent parent as role model in the formative years is a recipe for struggling to learn to value ones’ thinking, feelings, and being. A short index finger often goes with a head ruled heart. Split lines are split for many reasons. Most people have challenging journeys.

Astrology reveals potentials. It’s impossible to accurately foretell a future. It’s hard to predict what we’ll do with potentials in our natal horoscope. Symbols may or may not reflect what you choose to integrate into your character and behavior.

Hands are topographical maps of character in past, present, and future. It’s easy to see the person’s corresponding strengths and weaknesses. While exercising our free will, changing our thinking, modifying our behavior, and re-scripting our story, we can observe the results, clearly etched and reflected in the morphology and topography of our hands over time.

Healthy Geminis have long straight pinkie fingers. They’re master bullshit detectors, acutely aware of their own bullshit, like knowingly being tactful and diplomatic when they’re much better off being frank and direct. Critical thinking, careful decision making, and crystal clear communication make good sense out of nonsense. What you see is what you get!

Dominant Gemini has square palms and long fingers, firm pink elastic skin with loop fingerprints. Long ring fingers with whorl prints add attractiveness, talent, salesmanship, risk taking, and luck. Knowing when to stop is the challenge. Gambling is a bad habit and horrible addiction. Dominant  middle fingers, square tips, and developed first knots add technical, scientific, and pragmatic attributes. Powerful index fingers increase leadership potentials, speaking abilities, career potentials, partnerships, friendships, and goals.

Geminis make great lawyers, bankers, doctors, orators, writers, engineers, teachers, salesmen, accountants, and shopkeepers. Dominant pinkie types play small musical instruments that require physical and mental dexterity. Music makes great sense since hearing is Gemini’s physical sense. I’ve worked at special events with top magicians with dominant pinkies. They astound their audiences while deceiving their eyes and minds.

Cultivated Geminis are consummate communicators, social magnets, intuitive geniuses, and great judges of character. Most social of all signs, Gemini is often accused of being an impractical dreamer because he loves ideas so much. He can detach himself from mundane reality, still remaining objective about everyone and everything. He overvalues intellect and undervalues emotion. He feels threatened when his ideas and opinions are ignored without good reason. He can accept your viewpoint, even though he disagrees with you. He’s easily distracted and doesn’t want responsibility for making decisions that have consequences. Longing to be free and unrestricted, he actually needs most to stay focused, disciplined, and structured. Earning rewards requires doing whatever needs to be done with courage, strength, wisdom, and grace.

Hermes (Mercury) was the shortest god. The pinkie is the shortest finger. If the tip is longer than the crease between the first and second phalanx of the ring finger, it’s long. If shorter, it’s short. Dominant pinkie folk are often short in stature like Ed Harris (Sag) with slender body and face. Pure types are animated, with dark hair and penetrating eyes with crow’s feet in the corners. Gemini is the most youthful of all types, eternally childlike, they love children. Men often sport thin beards like Johnny Depp (Gemini). Michael Jackson (Virgo, ruled by Mercury) was a real life Peter Pan. He actually lived in ‘Neverland’. Brooke, Liza, and Liz were Michael’s Wendy’s.

Gemini is androgynous. In Greek myth, Hermes & Aphrodite (siblings) had an incestuous relationship that spawned Hermaphrodite. Dominance of Hermes in one’s psyche (known or unknown) creates bi-sexual tendencies. David Bowie was Capricorn with dominant Hermes. Mick Jagger is Hermes with strong Leo. Cate Blanchett is Hermes with a powerful Taurus sun. She played Bob Dylan, who is Gemini. Boy George is Gemini. Grace Jones, Taurus, has Mercury conjunct Uranus in Gemini. That’s a lot of uniqueness and eccentricity.

Our pinkie finger reveals our ability to communicate. It indicates truthfulness. Early family dynamic can be observed in how the pinkie is set and held. Very short or low set pinkies reveal lack of trust as a major issue. Many women with low set pinkies have told me they have trouble having orgasms. Their real challenge is in trusting someone enough to have real intimacy. Lengths and proportions of pinkie fingers symbolizes technical, language, sexual, financial, and family potentials.

Gemini rules hands and governs our nervous and respiratory systems. Health issues revolve around nervous and bronchial systems. Geminis have potential problems with headaches, thyroid glands, memory loss, and speech impediments. I’m Gemini. I’ve coped with Tinnitus (ringing in my head) for many years. It’s the worm in my apple.

Gold and diamond rings are normally found on the ring (marriage) finger. You’ll see rings on pinkie fingers of acquisitive people. Pinkie rings can symbolize sublimation of sexual energies to accomplish something that requires a lot of libido. I once examined a group of fifty young people born into powerful families in the 80’s. Considering the prosperity of the period, it seemed a paradox that every person I read had short phalanges on the bottom segment of their little fingers. Money will never be the motivation for their career choices. In the final analysis, their families, personal matters, and values will drive these individuals.

Would you buy a used car from this Gemini? Gemini’s liabilities are deceitfulness, trickiness, fickleness, nervousness, restlessness, and shallowness. People preaching on soapboxes, pickpockets, and most con artists have powerful pinkies (inwardly curving). Donald’s curve inward, confirmed in his natal astrology by a close Mercury Neptune square. It’s not what you do, but what you get away with that matters. Our trickster is not hiding his dark side. The streets are littered with conned contractors, jilted beauty queens, and fired apprentices. The Emperor grabs our pussies as he tortures our mother. If you believe mom (GAIA) is happy about her body, respiratory, circulatory systems, and spirit, we’re all in serious trouble!

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Many wonderful people have curved pinkies. They learned the hard way as little children to ‘act nice’. Their job was to avoid confrontation and keep the peace. Learning to say ‘NO’ is a lifelong challenge for them (especially with a large ball of thumb). It’s hard to straighten a curved pinkie, but it can be done. The person must stop trying to please and be whatever everyone else wants and needs them to be. If you’re pretending whatever is OK and it isn’t, check your pinkies.

HERMES

HERMES

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In ancient Greece, Hermes was the god of wisdom, trade, wealth, luck, fertility, language, animal husbandry, sleep, thieves, and travel. Hermes was also the liaison to death and messenger for all gods. Hermes’ Roman version is Mercury, ruler of Gemini. Thoth is the Egyptian archetype, scribe of the gods. Loki was the Norse god of mischief. In Tarot, Hermes is a Magician at a crossroads with important choices to be made and critical actions to be taken, along with the necessary tools to make them happen. Having physical and metaphysical resources and tools enabled Hermes to go anywhere and do anything.

Hermes was reputedly a real person in ancient Egypt. Hermes allegedly lived to 350 years old in the flesh. Refusing to grow old, he spent much of his youth as a petty thief and mischievous trickster. ‘Puck’ was Hermes adolescence in ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. The 20th Century version is Peter Pan. Peter never grows old. As a 74 year old Gemini, I’m leaving adolescence on a quest to transform common sense into good sense.

Wendy is a Virgo. She’s the part of Mercury that’s practical and responsible. Peter needs Wendy to darn his socks, sew his shadow back on, let him fly away whenever and wherever he wants and be there when he gets back. Wendy balances Peter by changing Gemini’s ambiguous and ambivalent thoughts and feelings into clarity and good sense. Gemini (social) and  Virgo (technical) are Hermes City & Country homes as he transits our Zodiac.

Hermes was the mystic teacher of Abraham and real father of wireless communication. Hermes realized our brains are the cell communication hardware while our minds transmit and receive messages. He understood relationships between cells cause energy and matter to vibrate on different planes at the same time. Hermes described three separate and forever blending planes as physical, mental, and spiritual.

Long before Moses, while other alchemists were still attempting to turn Lead into Gold, Hermes taught disciples that every thought is made up of individual cells; physically, mentally, and spiritually connected to all other cells on all other planes at the same time. We can connect with anyone or anything at any time by first taking a leap of faith, establishing our connections, and then tuning our links.

Alchemy is not about turning lead into gold. Alchemy is a set of magical formulas, tools, and esoteric instruction for becoming healthy, happy, and fulfilled. Alchemy is choosing to nourish clear vision, making wise decisions, cultivating real relationships, and acting appropriately. Positive attitudes, right uses of will, and rock solid faith will create sound structures on solid foundations. By balancing courage, strength, wisdom, and grace with critical thinking, healthy feelings, and right action, Saturn (Lead) can turn into Sun (Gold). Through structure, discipline, and focus, alchemy helps us to be mentally, emotionally, and spiritually connected to ourselves, each other, and our planet.

Hermetic alchemy is a mastery of mental forces by transmuting one mental vibration into another. Hermes describes an unknowable and indefinable spirit as “The ALL”. “While ALL is in “The ALL”, it is equally true that “The ALL” is in ALL. “To him who truly understands this truth hath come great knowledge”. The inner nature of The ALL is unknowable. That’s why we have anthropomorphic gods and institutionalized religion.

Spirit is the essence that forms the whole. Spiritual development depends on the recognition, realization, and manifestation of the Great Spirit within and without.

Hermes taught seven basic metaphysical and philosophical principles.

The Secret”, a popular and profitable self-help campaign, is Hermes “Law of Polarity”. “Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature but different by degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled.” Polarity is spiritual magnetism. Laws of attraction work best when you know what you want and your intention is clear. You can transform negative thinking into positive circumstances by deciding what you want, taking a leap of faith, letting go of fear, and doing the work.

Hermes ‘Law of Polarity’ can turn trash into treasure

GURU of GARBAGE (Click for Good Day NY)

Opposites are extremes of the same thing with varying degrees between. Where does heat end and cold begin? Where does darkness leave off and light begin?  What about positive and negative, hard and soft, sharp and dull, noisy and quiet, high and low? This same principle operates on a mental plane. Love and hate are simply degrees of the same thing. Somewhere in the middle are shades of like and dislike. The vibrations of hate can be transformed into the vibrations of love through the art of polarization, a phase of alchemy known and practiced by ancient and modern masters.

Hermes other six ‘Secrets’ are Correspondence, Mentalism, Vibration, Rhythm, Cause and Effect, and Gender. Knowing these principles enabled Hermes to explore, examine, and explain everything and to execute his thoughts and ideas.

Hermetic masters possessed knowledge of transcendental astronomy called astrology, transcendental chemistry called alchemy, and transcendental psychology called mystic psychology. They cultivated inner and outer wisdom. Critical thinkers throughout history have unlocked mysteries using hermetic thought and principles. Confucius, Galileo, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Nostradamus, Leonardo Da Vinci, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and Joseph Campbell were Grand Masters of hermetic thought.

Hermes used astrology to unlock ancient mysteries. Astrologers espouse Hermes second principle of correspondence “As above, so below, as below, so above”. Astrology is a symbolic system that compares and contrasts our heavens with the affairs of man on earth. Every relationship changes every other relationship on a cellular level by raising or diminishing its vibration, polarity, and rhythm. Astrological symbols embody a variety of archetypal characters, plots, and tales of humans, heroic, but unable to see the forest from the trees while desperately racing against bad shit happening.

Author’s Alliteration: Pious philosophies, pointless partisan political paradigms, and pestilential pecuniary practices pollute higher purpose and poison our psyches. Faulty families feast frenzily on flawed feelings, vague values, and toxic thinking, copiously spiced with needless fear, desperation, and hatred. As we compartmentalize, rationalize, and analyze our insane ideologies and beliefs, we sacrifice our dignity, integrity, nobility, and virtue on the altars of nonsense.

Hermes asks us to know ourselves; to think critically, to be motivated, to make healthy choices, nourish positive attitudes, and embrace our best attributes. As we flourish and blossom, we can select more nourishing relationships and embrace more meaningful roles for ourselves. We can transform lead into gold by choosing wholeness, happiness, healthiness, peacefulness, and gracefully sharing our good fortune with the rest of us.

EPISODE 300 ~ WE’RE BOTH VIRGIN GODDESSES?

EPISODE 300: WE’RE BOTH VIRGIN GODDESSES?

The gals sit down with character analyst, palm reader, tarot interpreter and good vibe king, MARK SELTMAN! Mark takes a look at Corinne and Krystyna’s palms and birth charts, and sees right into their souls. After his completely spot-on character breakdowns, Mark gives the gals some tarot readings about their love lives. 

I was contacted recently by a producer for a weekly podcast called “Guys We Fucked”. The two ladies above were looking for a ‘psychic’ to shed insight into their relationships and sex lives in order to celebrate their 300th episode. I assured the producer that I was not a psychic, but she had done her homework and they had all already decided that they wanted me, regardless of what I called myself.

I called a couple of friends to get their take on the opportunity. My more conservative friend was skeptical, feeling that it would be a circus and that I would end up being embarrassed and regretting my participation. My less conservative friend encouraged me to go for it and reminded me that I really had nothing to lose. I decided to say ‘yes’ and then just have fun with it. I was glad I did. It aired yesterday. I’ve already had emails from listeners and fans around the country, letting me know that they really enjoyed the show and wondering how they could proceed to hire me to interpret and help shed insight into their own intimate relationships.

Here’s the link to the podcast ~ 57 minutes

SAGITTARIAN HANDS

You don’t need a Sagittarius Sun, Moon, houses, aspects, planets, or planetary placements in your natal astrology to be Sagittarian. Sagittarian hands are healthy looking with mildly flexible wrist joints, pink firm elastic skin, and a confident hand shake. Elastic hands with rectangular palms and short flexible fingers reflect Intuitive  and  mutable personalities. Pure types tend to have long straight  index fingers that stand away from the hand. No matter what your basic type, strong index fingers point to ambition, leadership abilities, self-pride, confidence, spiritual affinities, religious affiliations, idealism, truthfulness, and generosity. Pink color under index fingers adds energy and enthusiasm and reveals a desire to make a difference.

I’m generalizing from my personal experience when I tell you that I see a lot of smooth finger joints, round and conical fingertips, and loop and whorl fingerprints on Sagittarians. I’ve read many tens of thousands of hands over forty years, but I haven’t documented enough statistically to call my experience scientific. One thing I can say for sure is that healthy Sagittarians are idealists, enthusiastic, and self-assured. They’re eternal optimists, honest, and sincere, with friendly charismatic voices designed to persuade. Good luck and positive thinking support them in achieving their goals.

Sagittarians are philosophical, expansive, generous, passionate, principled, proud, truthful, and spiritual. They’re irresistible when they truly believe in themselves. Sagittarians are often accused of seeing life through rose colored glasses because they tend to see people and circumstances as they want them to be instead of how they really are. They love travel and take time to explore and seek food and adventure when they arrive at a new destination. Inherently nature lovers, they’re also naturally healthy types.

Jupiter’s dominant physical sense is taste. Sagittarians love exotic foods, luxurious desserts, and fine wine. Many of the world’s finest and worst chefs have dominant index fingers. Depending on the length and thickness of the bottom phalange, temptation is a force that emerges from deep within the psyche. Loving rich food and fine wine is a potent temptation that can lead them down that dark path of excess that leads to the palace of wisdom. Most of their physical problems result from overindulging in food, drink, and other temptations. Gluttony makes them prone to blood disorders, liver disease, diabetes, stroke, high blood pressure, and troubles with throat, thighs, and hips. Vanity is tactless, insincere, judgmental, opinionated, hypercritical, hypocritical, impractical, grandiose, arrogant, dictatorial, vain, gluttonous, and philandering. Many dominant index fingered people are of medium height with generously proportioned bodies. More than a few have wide chests, high foreheads, and widely spaced kindly eyes on roundish faces with wavy hair.

When a dominant hand’s index finger is long, (past midway to tip of top phalanx of middle finger), projects forward, has a pinkish color beneath (all races), that person loves being boss and hates being criticized. As planners, setters of goals, and natural leaders, they’re attracted to other ambitious career minded professionals, and go-getters (like themselves). They must steer far from strays and fixer-uppers who are attracted to them. Anyone needing a free ride or unable to carry their own weight quickly loses credibility and respect.

Healthy Sagittarians enjoy being married. They need a partner as much as a lover. Setting goals, planning, and dreaming about the future together is essential to having a loving relationship. Their personal problems often result from practicing obsessive and controlling behavioral patterns, and expressing judgmental and critical attitudes. False pride, gluttony, vanity, and bossiness are weaknesses these individuals must overcome by practicing moderation and steadily earning self-esteem and success. Sagittarians must choose a philosophy that helps them be an integral part of a working society instead of tilting at windmills like Don Quixote or being someone who always has everyone else’s answers.

A short index finger is less than half way to the middle of the top phalange of the middle finger. A person with a short index finger must work harder to achieve the same results as a long index fingered person. Many short index fingered people don’t value themselves enough because they were not valued during their formative years. Where was support and encouragement when they needed it? Their challenge is to learn to ask enough for themselves. Plenty of very successful individuals have had to contend with very short index fingers. They earned every drop of whatever they were able to achieve. Nothing came easily, but it was well worth the risk and work.

Scientific studies relate short index fingers to homosexuality. Click if you’re curious about my take on the subject.  Click on this minute long YouTube video if you want to see how understanding index fingers altered our child’s destiny. Basic hand shape reveals whether a person is more intuitivepracticalthinking, or feeling. Whoever cultivates and nourishes a dominant index finger is honest and direct, shows pride in their work, and takes calculated risks. Many strong index fingered people are successful managers, journalists, judges, lawyers, politicians, singers (musical instrument is voice), producers, promoters, priests, chefs, speakers, and salespeople.

Every finger and fingerprint needs to be considered when examining a person’s character. Proportions of individual phalanges, knots, and nails are important. For instance, spatula shaped fingertips with whorl fingerprints embody philosophical, unconventional, and original thinking. Square tips with arch prints are practical, responsible, reliable, and dependable. Round and conical tips with loop prints are adaptable and communicative. Skin ridge patterns rarely change, except under sudden  extreme circumstances. Depending on your basic type, normal and peripheral lines change gradually as thinking and circumstances change. Careful examination of dermatoglyphics requires a quality set of hand-prints and/or hi-res digital photos, a powerful magnifying glass, and precise measuring tools. You can still give a great reading without peripheral details once you know the gestalt of a person. Additional detail affirms and confirms the basic character and behavior of a person and provides valuable information as to current events and timing.

Skin ridge patterns are beyond the scope of this post. Richard Unger has devoted his career to the subject. Richard is a practicing hand reader, palmistry teacher, and finger print expert on the west coast. We’ve stayed in touch and shared our  work and palmistry experiences for many years. If you want to learn more about fingerprints, I recommend Richard’s book LIFEPRINTS as valuable reading for any student of palmistry, metaphysics, and human destiny. 

HAND of SCORPIO

You don’t need a Scorpio Sun, Moon, houses, aspects, planets, or planetary placements to be a Scorpio. Scorpio is a fixed feeling type with long rectangular palms and long fingers. In my experience, Scorpios have stiffer fingers and thumbs, denser consistency to their palms, and less elastic skin than their feeling sisters, Cancer and Pisces. Head and life lines closely intertwining at their beginnings embodies a tendency to procrastinate at starts and finishes. ‘Letting go’ is a huge challenge. Scorpios care too much what other people think (no matter how they protest or behave). Long and  broad nails and straight pinky fingers can be heartlessly open and frank. I’ve observed many Scorpios with dominant first and third finger phalanges, rounded and conical tips, loop prints, developed knots on second joints, and few vertical lines within the lifeline. Balls of thumb with no vertical lines parallel to the lifeline are untrusting and correspondingly untrustworthy. Scorpio has many wonderful qualities. Today I’m focusing on Scorpions. The tail of the Scorpion is a tale of fear and terror.

Pluto was the Roman god of sex, transformation, and death, ruler of Scorpio, lord of darkness, and master of the sexual orgasm (little death). In ancient Greece, Hades was god of the underworld. In tarot, the High Priestess, Queen of Cups, and Death cards rule Scorpio. Voldemort, Darth Vader, the Mummy, and the Big Bad Wolf are modern versions. Religious extremism, politics, and business are Pluto’s playgrounds. Getting away with prejudice and punishment excites, terrifies, and beckons Donaldemort’s Dementors. Join Harry Potter at the polls November 6 2018 ~ EXPELIOSIS!

Scorpions are controlling, compulsive, jealous, possessive, fearful, resentful, obstinate, manipulative, subversive, secretive, and suspicious. They seduce, covet, and betray our sacred trust. The seduction turns Pluto on, but the betrayal gets Puto off. He encourages terrorists, rewards rapists, and reveres religious raiders while inviting them to join him in an eternity in hell. The path of too many dark secrets leads to the palace of sociopathy. From first breath to final exit, Pluto awaits with a kiss of death. Executioners, undertakers, coroners, morticians, garbage men, power hungry plutocrats, ideologically ill leaders, and spiritually bankrupt human beings live in Scorpio and are ruled by Pluto.

Scorpions make manipulative bosses, mean spirited jailers, abusive parents, and jealous partners who hide their true feelings, especially the shadowy unstable side of their emotions. Your friendly neighbor, a model citizen, devoted husband, loving father, loyal friend, and faithful parishioner dies. His family finds pornography, secret love letters, sadistic and masochistic sexual supplies, illegal drugs, and concealed money. Truth becomes transparent in hindsight.

 

False tweets and fake facts create opacity and distract US from the real secrets about greed, hatred, and sex. Tyrants rationalize the most bizarre behaviors, believing they can get away with them, and they do, if we let them. Their deepest darkest fears and desires propel them towards mental, emotional, moral, and spiritual illness, perversion, and bankruptcy. Evil Priests feign love and compassion as they physically and spiritually rape the innocent souls they were entrusted to protect. Fear, guilt, shame, and remorse safely guard their evil secrets.

 

“Money talks and bullshit walks”. I’m disappointed by both political parties. Republican partisan politicians have become morally and spiritually bankrupt sadists who get their greatest pleasures from harming have nots. Too many fearful Democrats and poverty minded masochists are desperately scraping at the bottom of the barrel and begging for pennies as we sign their petitions, fill out surveys, and pledge loyalty to too many urgent causes. Joanna and I sign many petitions and give as much as we can afford to worthy causes, but it’s like applying Band-Aids to compound fractures. Whatever we do is a just drop of potable water in an ocean of poison. No matter who wins in the November elections, expect more philandering, sexism, insider trading, evangelical hypocrisy, and partisan political power plays until Plutocrats no longer control humanity’s destiny. Humanity’s ideological, philosophical, and spiritual paradigms must shift.

Money is power. There are over 1,500 billionaires. Many are financing greed and hatred. Humanity needs a billionaire or three to back loving and giving. Our world, societies, and social cultures have been corrupted by a handful of greedy moguls who own our food, healthcare, energy, communications, transportation, raw materials, manufacturing, marketing, retailing, finance, religion, and politics. Plutocrats devalue our democracy by placing greed over giving, embracing religious fundamentalism and fanaticism over real and true faith, and by choosing consumption, waste, and denial over truth, good sense, and human and planetary good health.

“It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt”. Many of life’s most painful lessons are a direct result of choosing money over values and religion over spirituality. It’s easy to rationalize the blackest behavior when your head rules your heart. I never intended to hurt anyone. No one did anything they didn’t want to do. I may not have told the whole truth, but I didn’t lie. I’m sorry for my part. Why must we always lose what we’ve not valued enough or taken for granted in order to cherish it?

SCORPIO & PSYCHE

When outer planets change zodiacal sign, personal psyches are transformed forever. Collective psyche transforms correspondingly. Pluto normally takes twenty years to change sign. While Pluto was at home in Scorpio from 1984 to 1995, it doubled its speed and potency. Pluto, Uranus, and Neptune’s journey through Scorpio in the 20th Century changed our views of Sex, Violence, and Death forever.

Scorpio’s eighth house rules sexual behavior and other people’s money. Sex scandals ousted Senator Gary Hart, while greed and hubris caught up with televangelist Jim Bakker. Bakker was convicted of defrauding his followers out of 158 million dollars.

 

Homosexuals exited closets in masses in the late 70’s and early 80’s to become a topic of everyday conversation. HIV prevention and condoms were promoted on national TV to stop the spread of AIDS.

 

 

Scorpio can be healthy and evolved like a Dove or Phoenix who rises from the ashes. When Pluto passed through Scorpio, sexual fantasies, perversion, and untimely demise flourished and blossomed in its dark underbelly. Too many Scorpions had too many horrible hypocritical secrets. They sold their souls to the Devil by finding pleasure in corrupting innocence. The seduction turns Scorpion on, but the betrayal gets him off! Predatory preachers raped the innocent souls they were entrusted to protect in an unholy alliance with the Devil ~ a crime punishable by GOD as an eternity in HELL.

Since Jupiter entered Scorpio on October 10, 2017, many greedy misogynists have grabbed many pussies, repressed many women from exercising their reproductive rights, prevented others from voting, condoned lying, and then rewarded the worst of sexual behaviors. The human race has become a race against bad shit happening. VOTE!

 

Faith healing was certainly no help to the AIDS epidemic. Fundamentalist religious fanatics, poisonous partisan politicians, and insane ideologues had plenty to hate and lots to preach about. Imagine the hubris of a ‘CHRISTIAN’ leader who thinks he can steer hurricanes to punish non-believers, who calls non-Christians ‘Termites’, derides immigrants, Islam, Muslims, and discriminates against colors… a complete idiot promising nonsense!

1980 put the first professional actor in Whitehouse after the lowest voter turnout ever. ‘Reaganomics’ didn’t ‘Trickle Down’. The Reagan years were like ’20 Mule Team Borax’ and ‘Death Valley Days’ revisited. When Oliver North exposed the Iran Contra scandal, he and Reagan played their roles as well as possible, managing to walk away quietly and relatively unscathed from political scandal.

 

Other significant violent happenings were manifesting. Police bombed the headquarters of a black radical group called MOVE. Terrorists from the Palestine Liberation Front seized the Italian cruise ship Achille Laura. Terrorists bombed Pan Am flight 103, killing 259 passengers and 11 villagers in Scotland.

 

Neptune regenerates or degenerates. Neptune (Pisces) transited Scorpio from 1957 to 1970, generating sit-ins and peaceful demonstrations and degenerating into race riots, terrorist bombings, and hijackings. New opportunities for spiritual transformation and growth benefited very few. Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated by `two of her own bodyguards’. Racial tensions rose as Bernard Goetz, the subway vigilante, became a folk hero after he shot four young black men in NYC. He said they were robbing him. They claimed they didn’t provoke him. White justice prevailed.

Neptune rules dreams, illusion, and delusion. It was an era of escapism. Political unrest catalyzed the assassinations of John Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr. Many thousands of men went into exile rather than serve in the Vietnam War. Lots of confused and fearful people consumed all sorts of drugs while others devoured pornography and violence. Oral sex and contraceptives became popular while indiscriminate sex became normal.

Uranus (Aquarius) transited Scorpio from 1975 to 1982. It was the end of the Vietnam War for America and the beginning of terror for Cambodia. A senate committee admitted that ‘ASSASSINATION’ was modus operandi in U.S. foreign policy.

Irreverent political humor nourished hungry audiences. Saturday Night Live flourished and blossomed as poisonous partisan politics sparked a revival of satire and parody. As Uranus transits Taurus (values) and opposes Scorpio (death & transformation), it catalyzes irreversible changes in our personal and collective psyches, philosophies, and purpose. Hopefully, when we’re done with Fascism, we’ll never take what we value or have failed to value for granted again!

HAVES must learn they can no longer afford not to value ‘have-nots’ or to take them for granted. Have-nots must be loved and appreciated for any and all good things that aren’t about money. Our Founding Fathers saw us all as their children and truly wanted what’s best for all of us (despite their personal prejudices and programming). Thanks to them, we can say what’s on our minds and share what’s in our hearts via our first amendment rights!

Scorpio symbolizes powerful women, sex, and death. Persephone and Helen of Troy were Scorpios. The Episcopal Church ordained its first woman in 1974. Barbara Walters was First Lady News anchor on ABC TV in 1976. Scorpio rules reproductive functions. MIT scientists created the first synthetic gene in 1976. The first test tube baby was conceived outside of the womb in 1978. The first Death sentence in ten years was carried out when convicted murderer Gary Gilmore went before a firing squad in 1977.

Scorpio rules garbage. No one ever accepted our infamous Garbage Barge that ferried 3,100 tons of toxic waste 6,000 miles before returning to NIMBY, to be incinerated for all to breathe. Speaking of refuse, Fidel Castro’s “Freedom Flotilla” embarrassed US when we realized that Castro had unloaded his underworld criminals, mentally ill, and other misfits on us. Over 1,000 “No Nukes” protesters were arrested on Wall Street on the 50th anniversary of the 1929 stock market crash. Imagine 1,000,000? 10,000,000?

In 1975, the ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ became an instant cult classic. Its message was ‘anything goes’ (as long as you’re not hurting anyone). Punk Rock was a rebellious, unconventional, and nihilistic expression of Uranus in Scorpio. Ultrasound became an alternative to x-ray radiation. Palimony suits became popular. IBM introduced the personal PC and transformed communications for all time. Performance art became a popular and exciting venue for all creative artists. Personal gender identity needs to be accepted by all or we will face the deep and dark consequences of our fear and hate.

 

The only guarantees in life are Death, Taxes, and Insurance. Insurance is an 8th house matter. It implies we have something of value (2nd house) to protect. You can purchase Insurance, which is a contract that guarantees one party pays another party against a specified loss. You’ve got to pay to play. When premiums are paid, we worry less about the costs and consequences of bad shit happening to family, health, home, car, property, or whatever we value that’s insurable. Everyone’s health must be insured.

Insurance is premeditated gambling. The insured shoots craps and always loses, even when she wins. Your insurance agent is your bookie. Your insurer is the casino. The house is always favored financially due to statistics, permutations, combinations, and probabilities. High risks are wedded to high stakes. You can check your prospects by examining your actuarial tables and know your odds by observing your premiums.

Insuring is often confused with ensuring or assuring. Life is not ensured or assured. Spraying crops with pesticides ensures fewer bugs, weeds, and funguses. It assures we eat, drink, breathe, and apply some degree of toxic chemicals to our lungs, guts, hair, skin, mouths, nails, toes, genitals, or whatever. Investing Social Security in the Stock Market doesn’t insure, ensure, or assure the market won’t collapse. Employees of Enron believed their pensions ensured and assured a secure retirement. Conserving energy ensures we will have more energy and waste fewer natural resources. Drilling for oil in wilderness does not insure we will have enough oil. It ensures and assures we will have environmental, social, political, and planetary health challenges and problems. Offering vengeance as a solution to violence assures more violence.

Life insurance protects the living. What’s the premium for a graceful and painless final exit? How much $$$ are the last months, weeks, days, hours, minutes, and seconds of your life worth?  Everyone dies. If you want to learn more about Dying with Dignity, read Final Exit by Derek Humphrey. When your time comes, having a logical, practical, painless, and peaceful alternative to facing a future of dependency, lack of awareness, lack of love, pain, or poverty in old age is a good idea. Or not…

“Dr. Death” (Jack Kevorkian) inspired me to create my very own ‘Dr. Death Do It Yourself Kit’. In case I ever decide to end this insanity of trying to be sane in an insane world, or lose my health, I plan to leave this planet as peacefully and painlessly as possible and to leave others with as small as possible a mess to clean up. An oxygen mask attached to a tank of helium is my means to an independent, painless, peaceful and non-messy final exit.

Mixing politics, religion, and profit with our 2nd amendment rights will surely backfire on the NRA. Laws that enable us to own and use weapons will be regretted when have-nots with guns become fearful and desperate enough to use them. Boundaries between sanity and insanity will blur, and haves will be looking over their shoulders while attempting to protect their families and possessions from the ravenous masses that are scraping for pennies at the bottom of the barrel while watching haves living like royalty.

We’ve become dinosaurs. Our physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual futures and the future of our planet are being threatened with chaos and extinction. Our Constitution has armed us (whoever is ready, able, and willing to protect ourselves, our families, ideologies, and beliefs) and given us permission to exercise our rights to declare open season on tyranny, eradicate greed, and remove the predatory Tyrantosaurus Hex.

LIBRA & HANDS

You don’t need a Libra sun, moon, planets, aspects, or houses to be Libran. As Thinking Types, Gemini, Libra, and Aquarius hands have square palms and long fingers. Libran hands frequently have long clear downwardly curving unobstructed headlines that fork at the end. Librans can see every side of an idea or situation. That’s one reason they’re notorious for resisting making up their minds. Anyone who has long straight strong dominant pinkie fingers and large broad nails communicates clearly, frankly, and effectively. Strong index fingers are common on ambitious hardworking managers, directors, and leaders. Dominant bottom and middle phalanges are well designed for banking, real estate, and food businesses. Dominant top phalanges make great public speakers, lawyers, directors, journalists, educators, and religious leaders. Librans tend to be idealistic, romantic, aesthetic, and refined. Thinking types in general dominate PR, political, publishing, marketing, sales, and entertainment fields.

Wielding logic, tact, and diplomacy like Samurai swordsmen, Librans compartmentalize, analyze, and rationalize their thoughts and feelings until they achieve their desires. Having wide spacing between head and life lines reveals spontaneity, love of freedom, and a desire to initiate. The wider the space, the less the person cares what others think. Changing a Libran’s mind is like mental monopoly. Be direct and make good sense. Don’t get emotional. You’ll regret it.

Healthy Librans have firm sincere handshakes. Pink elastic skin with long graceful heart lines flow from the pinkie to the base of the index finger and embody a romantic and sentimental nature. A branch at the end of the heart line that reaches down to touch the head line means that the person may rationalize, analyze, and compartmentalize their feelings. Black and white and love and hate are cut from the same cloth, opposite only by degree. Librans with gently curving vertical lines within their life lines are lucky in love. Anyone with long vertical lines parallel to their life lines has intimate family ties and friendships. They’re wealthy in relationships.

Athena is a strong Libran archetype with powerful Aquarius and Gemini backup. She’s the Greek archetype for Wisdom and Justice. Clasping the ‘Scales of justice’ in one hand and the sword of thinking in the other, she balances ethics with action. Athena rules the strategic thinking required to win in war. Great warriors like Odysseus (Libra), Achilles (Aries), and Theseus (Gemini) worshiped Athena. Often pictured as a handsome Goddess in battle armor, she sports the shield of Intuition and supports the owl of Wisdom on her shoulder. Athena’s mighty sword is applied with icy detachment. She discards emotion for clarity of thought and cuts to the quick.

 

Libra is the Autumn Equinox, 7th sign of the zodiac, 7th house of marriage, a time for partnership, sharing, and giving. Librans strive for balance, idolize harmony, dislike discord, and despise unnecessary confrontation. As negotiators, they’re very decisive when it really matters. They’re notoriously indecisive when it doesn’t matter… where to eat, what to wear, and when to go… Librans can be annoyingly aggressive and vague at the same time. Most Librans prefer being frank and direct, but then they can’t figure out why some people don’t like them. ‘Nice’ is easy, but safe is not satisfying. It isn’t easy to be honest, but honesty is what makes good sense in the final analysis.

All of us have Libra, Venus, and 7th houses in our symbolism. Deep down, we know what’s true and fair. We must set ethical and moral values and boundaries in order to know right from wrong and see truth. It’s too easy to compartmentalize, rationalize, and analyze our feelings, thoughts, and actions. Some Libran aphorisms are: “Laws keep honest people honest.” “Locks keep honest people out” “Contracts are as good as the people who sign them”.  Why must we lose what we value to not take it for granted?

“Even an attorney of moderate talent can postpone doomsday year after year, for the system of appeals that pervades American jurisprudence amounts to a legalistic wheel of fortune, a game of chance, somewhat fixed in favor of the criminal, that the participants play interminably.” Truman Capote understood the truth behind the folly. It’s ironic that Libra rules our Laws and their execution. Legal power enables rich players to shirk social responsibility, manipulate laws, and justify personal and social behaviors and actions. Haves are innocent until proven guilty. Have nots are guilty until proven innocent. The American Dream is a birthright only for folk who can afford it. Poor folk will forever be scraping for pennies at the bottom of the barrel.

Librans must find a balance between ethics and honesty. Maybe a Libran knows something that would change an outcome, but fails to mention it. Philip Morris always knew cigarette smoking was unhealthy. Monsanto knows that ‘Roundup’ causes cancer. Bayer knows they’re killing butterflies. The powers-that-be in Flint knew they were poisoning the people who depend on their protection. Short-sighted Republicans care more for themselves than democracy. Our self-appointed Emperor has deceived, exploited, and manipulated the huddled masses with mountains of alternative facts, hordes of toxic pussy grabbers, and a limitless supply of poisonous propaganda.

Libras with square palms, long fingers, strong pinkies and well-balanced phalanges are well-suited for commerce. You’ll see them in chic designer clothing taking clients to trendy restaurants. Long unobstructed straight headlines are innately practical, honest, and dependable. Strong index fingers embody an ambitious strategic hardworking nature. Strong stiff thumbs along with a firm percussion under the pinkie finger reveal strong will power, dogged determination, and relentless persistence. A wide gap between head and life lines at their beginnings exposes an impatient, independent, freedom loving individual with plenty of initiative and corresponding need to take action.

The most challenging task in reading hands is learning to judge hands. One person’s long is another’s short. Your firm may be my soft, depending on the particular person. Rigorous practice (reading thousands of hands) and asking the right questions is essential to observing and interpreting human character as reflected in the topographical maps of our hands. The counseling part is another story.

Many of us behave contrary to our sun signs. Few of us are pure types. My brother, Gary is a Pisces, a mutable feeling type. Neptunian on the inside, Gary’s hands reveal a Libran character. His behavior is rooted in cardinal thinking.

Gary is a psychiatrist who specializes in geriatric clients. He’s a practical philosopher with an adventurous spirit. I used to threaten that I’d go completely nuts with age, but then (luckily for both of us), as a Gemini, I decided not to get old. Gary’s analytical and logical thinking graciously and gracefully merges with his intuition and compassion, enabling him to nourish and heal the most stressful of clients and situations. Pisces gives Gary a natural empathy that many Librans lack. They’re too busy analyzing, rationalizing, and compartmentalizing their feelings to trust them. Gary is a devoted husband, father, son, brother, friend, human being, and an awesome psychiatrist.

The first two hand illustrations in this post belong to Gary’s daughter, Andrea, my niece, a healthy Libra and person. When the sun sign and hands match, that can be very good or very bad or both depending on what the person chooses to do with their choices and free will.

LIBRA & PSYCHE

Autumn Equinox 2018

Outer planets powerfully influence our collective psyche as they change sign. They also catalyze massive transformations in our personal psyches. We can observe our inner and outer worlds transform in cardinal, fixed, and mutable modalities. Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto transited Libra in the 20th Century. Forces of good and evil clashed as we tried to find a balance between optimism and pessimism, tolerance and intolerance, justice and prejudice, and progress and regress with little social or political stability.

Uranus transited Aries (opposite Libra), arriving in Taurus May 2018 and transiting into Gemini in April 2026. Neptune in Pisces and Pluto in Capricorn are impelling poisonous  politics by deceiving  voters and conning partisan politicians with empty promises fueled by the hubris, hatred, greed, and gluttony of a philosophically and spiritually bankrupt Emperor.

 

Our future is at risk. While Neptune (Pisces) transited Libra from 1942 to 1957, Nuclear weapons proliferated. The first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. President Truman ordered the Atomic Energy Commission to produce a much bigger `Hydrogen Bomb’. Now, Neptune in Pisces has provided us with a deluded Emperor with his finger on the button.

Why won’t the United States see that we’re all in this together? Our obligation is to ourselves and each other. We have a responsibility to nourish future generations. We need to cultivate healthy behaviors, values, thinking, feelings, will power, physical habits, relationships, creativity, philosophies, purpose, dreams, and spirituality.

When will fear stop, accountability start, decision begin, and taking charge take place? Is it possible to prevent ‘bad shit from happening’ instead of always racing towards it?

The United Nations was born on October 24 1945. Their Charter was ratified by China, France, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, and the United States. International cartels firmly established themselves. A European Common Market was recognized. Civil Rights Movements flourished. Group Psychology became popular.  A World Council of Churches was established. Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini, founder of Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, became the first American Citizen to be canonized by the Roman Catholic Church.

The Devil is hard at work in the church. He confuses and tempts priests with tainted money and evil fantasies while giving them the permission and power to physically and spiritually abuse and corrupt sacred souls they were entrusted to protect. No matter our religion, we’re one big dysfunctional family. Each of us has a unique story.

‘As Above, So Below’

“THE ALL is in ALL, while ALL is in THE ALL”

“The Lips of Wisdom are closed, except to the Ears of Understanding”  Hermes

When Neptune left Libra in 1957, the bestselling novel was Peyton Place, focusing on sexual intrigue in a small town. Allen Ginsberg was a popular poet writing, “I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness”. People born between 1942 and 1957 tend to be overly idealistic about relationships. ‘Haves’ must learn what the ‘Have Nots’ have… to strive, accept, compromise, sacrifice, and let go.

Uranus (Aquarius) transited Libra from 1968 to 1975. The spirit of nationalism shifted from optimism to pessimism. Faith in progress turned into disillusionment in national institutions and world progress. The period was marked by useless popular inventions like a pet rock, giant platform shoes, and shag haircuts. Punk Rock, Primal Therapy, and Streaking became popular. The Supreme Court Legalized Abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy (Roe vs. Wade). Is it time for some Matriarchy for a change?

Uranus in Taurus and Pluto in Capricorn have enabled ultra-conservative forces to conspire to bias a Supreme Court that will curtail Women’s Reproductive Rights. Bumbling Bureaucrats choose Money over Values, promote Religion over Spirituality, embrace Greed over the Good Health of our Planet, and offer generous helpings of Fear, Confusion, and Delusion as alternative facts instead of Honesty, Integrity, Dignity, Courage, Strength, Grace, Virtue, and Wisdom. Our health and our Planet’s health are controlled by too many pussy grabbers, fearful haters, and greedy gluttonous shitholes. We must be in charge of our own well-being.

 

In 1968, Governor George Wallace, a racial bigot from Alabama, announced he’d be running for President on a newly formed American Independent Party ticket. He threatened to repeal the “so called civil rights laws”. In 1971, an assassination attempt left candidate Wallace paralyzed from the waist down. Diplomat Henry Kissinger approved the financing of clandestine CIA activities in Chile aimed at successfully preventing the election and inauguration of Salvador Allende as Marxist President.

Patty Hearst shed new light on ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ after she was kidnapped and brain-washed by the Symbionese Liberation Army. A military junta deposed Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie. The most popular show on TV was a comic satire about a racist named Archie Bunker. Racism is not so funny these days.

 

In Taurus, Uranus has brought us an empty and valueless Emperor who has chosen to build physical walls between us and our closest neighbors while building ideological, philosophical, and spiritual walls among and between us and the rest of our world.

 

 

Pluto (Scorpio) transited Libra from 1971 to 1983. It was the official launch of the environmental movement ~ Reuse, Recycle, and Recreate. Growers and pickers reached a settlement that ended a nearly ten year grape boycott (led by Cesar Chavez). Farm workers finally had bargaining power. In 1954, Neptune was in Libra and Pluto was in Leo. In the case of Brown v. Board of Education, the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation of schools was unconstitutional. On April 20, 1971, the United States Supreme Court upheld the use of busing to achieve racial desegregation in schools. Unfortunately, making something law, doesn’t erase hatred.

An arm of the Palestine Liberation Organization terrorized the 1972 summer Olympics in Munich. Prime Minister Idi Amin slaughtered over 300,000 Ugandans and alienated his country from the rest of the world. Violence in Ireland forced Britain to seize control of Northern Ireland and suspend the Protestant controlled parliament. In 1975 South Vietnam crumbled, bringing an end to the Vietnam War. Because of the Karen Ann Quinlan case, `right to die’ rulings were enacted all across the USA. The serial killer “Son of Sam” was put away after terrorizing both males and females in NYC. Religious extremist Jim Jones’s followers drank the cool aid and died.

John Lennon was murdered.

“Imagine there’s no country,

It isn’t hard to do.

Nothing to kill or die for,

And no religion, too.

Imagine all the people.

Living life in peace”

MY CANCER BEST FRIEND

LLOYD WILSON

Cancer is a feeling type… instinctual, empathic, emotionally complex, and hard to comprehend. Pry into their private lives and watch them retreat into their shells. Cancers hide their most vulnerable selves beneath a facade of nurturing actions. Cautious and vulnerable, Cancers avoid emotional confrontation wherever and whenever possible, although, they prefer being frank and direct over tactful and diplomatic. Their feelings can swing from loving, devoted, and nurturing, to secretive, obsessive, and fearful of the future. Their smartest option is always choosing satisfying over safe. Cancers can become dark and moody when they feel controlled or confined. They must feel protected and secure before they can fully trust. Once trust is earned, loyalties run deep. Cancer needs to cultivate intimacy wherever and whenever they can. Healthy families, close friendships, and satisfying work nourish and support them. Creating structure, organization, and detail also helps them feel stable and secure.

Healthy Cancers are loving, compassionate, and devoted. They’re compatible with other feeling types (Scorpio & Pisces). They feel safe with practical types (Taurus ~ Virgo ~ Capricorn) who are reliable, responsible, and dependable. They’re challenged by thinking types (Gemini ~ Libra ~ Aquarius) who compartmentalize, rationalize, and analyze their feelings. They’re cautious around intuitive types (Aries ~ Leo ~ Sagittarius) who are passionate, spontaneous, and impatient, and afraid they’ll be left holding the psychic garbage bag (they are) and scared of dealing with the collateral damage when idealism, optimism, enthusiasm, and logic wane (and they do). Cancers are acutely consciousness of everyone else’s emotional needs. When they feel insecure, they can become internally secretive and externally aggressive at the same time. Cancer works hardest when income matches output. Motivated by good food, emotional security, and cozy surroundings, their mission is to nurture family, home, and creative imagination.

The impudent young guy on the left in this picture is me, captured forty-four years ago in a photo booth at Kennywood Amusement Park in Pittsburgh, Pa. Lloyd and I met while working part time at a model making shop where we fabricated preschool children’s learning devices for the University of Pittsburgh’s Learning, Research, and Development Center. We made toys for ourselves and our loved ones on our own time. About to graduate from different colleges, I was to become an industrial designer. Lloyd would continue being an artist. We were a couple of Peter Pans on our way to Neverland.

Lloyd didn’t get much nurturing as a child. He developed his quick wit and sense of humor while trying to avoid extreme physical abuse. When his mother was happy, Lloyd was safe. When she was unhappy, she’d incite Lloyd’s rage filled father to beat him up. Lloyd tried hard to fix his broken parents, but they were too sick to support his efforts. Instead, they judged, criticized, and abused him. Lloyd’s mother finally abandoned him by killing herself; his father was committed to a mental institution, and years later, his lovely sister who I had met in Florida (two beautiful children, great husband, and an apparently idyllic life), suddenly and unexpectedly blew her head off with a shotgun.

Lloyd’s slender rectangular palms and long fingers embody his Cancer sun, which is conjunct my Mercury. His Gemini ascendant and my Gemini sun harmonize with one another. Lloyd’s head and life lines tightly intertwine at their beginnings. That reveals his need to feel appreciated and his tendency to take things too personally, even when they aren’t. A sensitive child, Lloyd desperately craved love and support, but didn’t get any.

Lloyd survived childhood without much approval. Meanwhile, he thrives on love and appreciation. Lloyd will give you the shirt off his back if you need it, but you had better never take him for granted. I know because Lloyd has literally given me the shirt off his back in my moment of need. I was on my way to an important meeting and got a nasty stain on the front of my shirt. Before I could blink, Lloyd took off his shirt and traded with me. What I love about him is that it never occurred to him not to do that.

Cancers are collectors. Some stockpile food in case of shortage or emergency. Lloyd collects art books, literature (most well-read person I know), religious art, art supplies, tools, raw materials, and clothing. When wealthy people die, their families donate their wardrobe to Goodwill or the Salvation Army. Lloyd has a keen eye for the finest designer clothing. He skillfully sorts through the merchandise for great finds. I call him my personal dresser. We wear the same sizes. Lloyd chooses suits, coats, and jackets with me in mind and has gifted me with outfits worth thousands of dollars that he paid ten or fifteen dollars for. Many had never been worn. He’s a master bargain hunter.

Lloyd’s very flexible thumbs symbolize his ability to adapt to the most horrible of circumstances. They also embody his frequent generosity of heart and spirit. It’s very hard for Lloyd to say “NO”. The gold ring on the bottom phalange of his middle (Saturn) finger on his unconscious hand symbolizes his need to have clear boundaries, be frugal, and learn how to be less available so that he won’t be taken for granted. Of course, Lloyd knows that, but it’s still fun to see his character, motivations, and challenges embodied in the morphology and topography of his hands.

Lloyd would say to me, “People who tell the truth don’t need to have good memories”. I’d reply, “We may be bastards, but at least we’re honest”. Over fifty years of friendship have witnessed many challenging lessons in humility for us. We delayed finding balance between our outer and inner worlds by always choosing to learn the hard way. We had to let go of our need to be more than we were. We learned there are no shortcuts.

Lloyd Wilson is Pittsburgh’s best kept secret because he loves his anonymity. His artwork reveals a magical spirit, but few will truly get to know it. Lloyd personifies Cancer’s best qualities. He’s supportive, sympathetic, receptive, reflective, intuitive, imaginative, extremely devoted to friends and family, and my best friend (male).

MOTHER OF GEMINI

There are lots of Geminis out there, but few are aware of their potentials. My mom and I were born under the sign of Gemini, ruled by Hermes. Mom was a cultivated Gemini and poster child for the geriatric crowd at seventy-seven. I remember mom saying she had “healthy neuroses”. Being her healthiest and happiest self was the only thing that made sense to her. She maximized her best qualities and minimized her worst.

The luckiest thing mom ever did was to marry my dad. They met at a bus stop. He had just returned from WW2 as a hero. It was love at first sight. She was a twenty-one year old virgin princess. He was a twenty-five year old former bad boy turning good. She played Eurydice to his Orpheus and Persephone to his Pluto. I was conceived on their wedding night and born nine months and one day later. Mom wanted to have a natural childbirth, but after thirty-six hours in labor, I was cut out. She came within inches of dying and spent weeks convalescing. When I first discovered astrology, I sought an eminent astrologer for my first reading. “This is a death chart” she told me. “Your life is about transformation.” A person’s horoscope is also their mother’s transits at birth.

Mom once said to me, “Most parents make most of their mistakes on their first child”. That certainly was true in my case. It wasn’t easy being her son. If the definition of a genius is an average kid with a Jewish mother, ours was father, but that’s this story. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel loved by my mother, but I felt more loved when I was making her look good. Being my freedom loving mischievous self, interfered with mom being her very carefully cultivated self. My brother, Gary (four years younger), and sister, Jennifer (seven years younger), were spared mom’s inexperience and impatience. They don’t believe me when I tell them tales of my childhood trials and tribulations with their mom.

Mom considered raising her children one of her greatest accomplishments in life. I certainly did my best as a young child to make her proud of me. When I turned twenty, I confronted mom to tell her that we weren’t perfect and that she had made plenty of mistakes during my formative years. She replied, “Well son, I’m sorry for anything I did which caused you any harm. My mistakes were not intentional. I tried my best to be a good parent. You’ll understand when you’re a parent. You’re an adult now. You must grow up. Let go of what holds you back. You need to be as healthy as you can be.”

What could I say? She was right. Apology accepted. In the final analysis, my siblings and I turned out well in ways that matter most. Mom’s optimism and idealism, relentless frankness, and loving encouragement compelled all of us to be true to ourselves.

Although mom stayed at home during my childhood, she also stayed busy. Mom supplemented dad’s income by writing from home. One year, she won twenty-five contests by saying something in fifty words or less, finishing a sentence, writing jingles, or winning crossword puzzles. She published articles in consumer magazines like Redbook and Ladies Home Journal. Mom was a ghost writer for syndicated cartoons. The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, and Family Circus were clients who frequently purchased her gags. She worked with a local artist. Our family was the source of her materials. That’s me below and this actually happened…

One of Gemini’s notable qualities is true friendship. Mom attributed her ability to make friends quickly to moving frequently in her childhood. With so many changes involving multiple schools, mom learned to adapt and develop social skills to make new friends. If you examine the balls of thumb on her very Thinking hands (square palms with long fingers), you’ll see many long lines parallel to her lifeline. Mom maintained lifelong bonds from early childhood. She and her friends loved each other through Heart Attacks, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Diabetes, Cancer, and other diseases of old age. Mom’s friends were her riches. I too, cherish my friendships.

Gemini remains forever young. Hermes reputedly lived over three hundred years in the flesh. That means I’m an adolescent at 71. I do feel like it. Mom stopped aging at 39. Everyone joked, but no one questioned her decision to remain young until she was on her deathbed. In her last few days of life, mom’s intensive care doctor told us that in all his years, he’d never had a patient who was so sick and so determined not to look sick. Wheeling mom around the hospital, people thought I was her husband. She’d say “Thanks for the compliment, but he’s my father”. “Pleased to meet you”, they’d say. Even then, I was a potential embarrassment to mom. Some things never change.

Geminis are thinkers and communicators. Mom was one of the most well-read people I ever knew. She was interested in psychology. When I was ten years old, mom read Man’s Search for Meaning by Victor Frankl. It reinforced what she already knew and confirmed her most significant value in her life, which was the knowledge and understanding that while you can’t always control what happens to you, you have the power to choose what you think, feel, and do about what happens to you. When I went to Carnegie Mellon University to study industrial design, mom went to graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh to get a master’s degree and become a psychiatric social worker at the Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh. She was an innovator who was famous for her crystal clear case notes, ultimately becoming a matriarch in the hospital system.

Geminis have a unique sense of humor. While mom was lying in her hospital bed with tubes going in and out of her, she said to me, “What worries me is how nice everyone is to me. Do they know something I don’t?” Jennifer warned, “You’re not allowed to die until you finish raising my (teenage) kids”. She joked about buying mom’s casket at Costco. Mom loved the idea. Gary told her, “I’ll start worrying when you stop putting on your makeup”. He believes he prolonged her life by threatening to taxidermy her and display her in a corner of his living room. If you want a real taste for mom’s humor, you’ve got to check out this exercise ball video she made in response to my extremely health conscious sister giving her the ball. For whatever it lacks in quality, it makes up for in laughter.

When mom turned 80, she wrote, “Eighty years of age does not seem old to me. Old is when one is again dependent as we were in infancy – needing help as a constant to feed and care for oneself. I may die from an illness before I ever get old, then on to the next adventure.”  I wholeheartedly concur. Mom was eighty-three when she passed. She continued to maintain her humor and to ponder the meaning of life until her final moments as she battled metastasized breast cancer. I promised her I’d ‘pull the plug’ if necessary. She let go on her own. I’m honoring our birthdays this year by asking anyone to contribute to her favorite charity ~ Southern Poverty Law Center