Entering Pisces: Dreaming of Kurt Cobain

A preamble of sorts: I am a midwave Gen-Xer, i.e., born midway between Douglas Coupland and Claire Danes. Nirvana meant nada to me till after Kurt Cobain died and MTV released Nirvana's Unplugged in New York album; Nevermind and In Utero were released when I was too busy grooving on the likes of Janis, Jimi, the Doors, and the Dead to identify with the indie-rock Lollapaloozians. Kurt Cobain was born on February 20, 1967 -- a Pisces with a Cancer Moon and, like yours truly, Pluto conjunct the Ascendant.

The dream opens with me driving around the grim roadways of Florida, near where my folks used to keep an equally grim apartment so that my dad could play tennis outdoors in the winter. In my waking life, the last time I was down there was late 1992, when I was in grad school and there was a horrible family fight that nearly ended in divorce between my parents and led to my "borrowing" the rental car to drive to the clubhouse so I could call a friend and not lose what remained of my sanity.

In the dream, the roads around the Federal Highway all look the same, but I manage to find the house of a friend, a much older woman who was surrounded by younger relatives. This friend does not really exist in real life, but she is closely based on someone I recently met who seems to be part friend, part mentor. I realize I need to catch a plane back to New York, which means I have to drive back to the apartment to pack my bags and hustle to return the rental car.

On the way (at a gas station, I think), I meet Kurt Cobain. Suddenly he is at the apartment with me, admiring the astrology poster I created for my current Sunday brunch gig at a French restaurant in Soho. He finds it interesting that I do astrology, but is mostly impressed by the artwork. I tell him about some other creative projects I'm working on and complain about the crappy Chinese tablet I ordered online but is basically worthless for my particular needs.

Next scene takes place at the departures gate at the airport. I see Kurt Cobain once again, and he walks over to continue our conversation. No one seems to recognize him. I am becoming overwhelmed by his kindness, that someone like him could enter my world and care so much about what I was doing. I fall silent. He asks me if I'm doing okay; I know he knows that I cannot believe this is really happening. So I tell him about my brush with a certain someone even more famous and even more married, a celebrity who many moons ago took me out to dinner and wanted me to be his "mistress" (true waking-life story). He laughs as if he understands there was no real attraction in that experience, only curiosity on my part.

On the plane, I feel like Richard Dreyfuss in the last scene of American Graffiti, staring out the window, exhausted but ready to fly toward his future life. I am in the first row of economy class, and I can see the top of Kurt Cobain's bright blond head in the last row of first class. Suddenly, someone on the plane realizes who is flying in their midst, and spreads the word, and a frenzied crowded rushes for him, screaming his name. Some guy waves around a Polaroid he'd just snapped of Kurt Cobain, overexposed with half of his face cut off and one red eye. I scoff, "So you have a photo of him? Big deal. I had an actual conversation with him."

When the plane lands, I walk past Kurt Cobain's empty seat and see all this stuff left behind. A young male flight attendant materializes and announces that it's all stuff for me. There is a tablet, also a manila envelope containing a letter and a song written for me "and 1 other person." I cannot re-create the song's lyrics; even in the dream, the words were blurry. The letter urges me to "keep on trying, and if it doesn't work out, you can always join me on tour in '94."

What year am I in here? There's the dream tablet acting as a reminder that it's 2016 -- but in my waking life, I often perambulate into the past. This past Sunday morning as I walked from the Broadway-Lafayette subway station to the restaurant in Soho where I have my brunch-time astrology gig, the streets were mostly empty...and even though so many of the stores were different, I felt as though I was walking into my past on Prince Street 30 years ago, when I was a moody teenager dreaming of becoming an artist and living in a loft in Soho.

Does Kurt Cobain know that he is dead? Is Kurt Cobain really dead if he is still being conjured up by so many living souls and recognized on an airplane? One water sign infiltrates another water sign's dreams as easy as pie to offer up reassurance, a song with blurred lyrics, and a possible future adventure with him in case I try but fail.

Dreams are the ultimate symbol of Pisces: effortless creativity, a movie filled with symbols that only the dreamer can truly interpret. Many people forget their dreams when the alarm intrudes into this symbolic narrative at an ungodly early hour and so-called real life begins. Others use their dreams as a compass, as inspiration, as a blog post when they do not feel like discussing the astrology of presidential candidates or yesterday's Full Moon.

"Come as you are."

Notes from the Underground: Sun Shining on my Pluto

This morning, I woke from a sleep so filled with Plutonian dreams I felt that I hadn't slept at all. And the lyrics from one of my favorite Beatles songs, "She Said She Said," have been ringing through my head all day: "She said, 'I know what it's like to be dead, I know what it is to be sad,' and she's making me feel like I've never been born." The amusing-to-me thing is, I am the "she" in this morbid scenario. Yes, it's that time of year again: summer's almost gone, and the Sun is conjunct my Pluto. Metaphorically speaking, I died this afternoon, and feel like just a shell of myself. However, I anticipate a real sense of rebirth in approximately 10 hours, when the Sun conjuncts my Ascendant and enters my 1st house.

If you are born with a planet rising in your chart, the nature of that planet -- more so than the sign it tenants -- imprints itself on your self-identity and self-consciousness to such an extent that it claims you as its own (and vice versa). Lucky ducks born with the Sun, Venus, and Jupiter Rising tend to view the world as a positive, beneficial place full of possibilities, and greet the world with vitality (Sun), beauty (Venus), and faith (Jupiter) -- unless, of course, said Rising Planet is seriously debilitated through multiple shitty aspects with other planets.

I am not about to claim that Pluto Rising is the hardest or "heaviest" of all planets to be placed on the Ascendant -- though fellow Pluto-Rising Kurt Cobain, had he been big into astrology, could've written the ultimate grunge-rock song about it -- but Pluto Rising could probably win a pissing contest against Saturn Rising, and as Saturn walked away shaking piss off its shoes, it would probably accuse Pluto of having a bad attitude.

The three outer planets are impersonal, "generational," dealing with the desires, dreams, and fears of hundreds of millions of people, and for one person to come into such immediate contact with a "collective" planet almost guarantees alien status, as well as feeling compelled toward a highly unusual destiny that does not always translate into owning an impeccable curriculum vitae and enjoying good, clean fun with your family and a bunch of swell, upstanding folks. If you who are reading this happened to be born with Uranus, Neptune, or Pluto Rising, chances are that your biggest goal in life is not to be CEO, have a sexy yet reliable spouse and 2.3 kids, or win the lottery in order to take early retirement and spend the rest of your life shopping. Your wants and needs are far bigger: fame. Brilliant bursts of creativity leading to breakthroughs in the arts or sciences. Shamanistic visions. Taboo or "alternative" practices that can estrange you from friends and family. Especially in the case of Neptune Rising, your desires are often inchoate: you may not always know what you want, just what you don't want -- at least, not on alternate Thursdays.

Pluto Rising people long for power and control, yet are often considered too dominating (or, paradoxically, too vulnerable), too sexed-up, or too dubious to attain it through normal channels. Not all Pluto Risings are self-destructive scofflaws, but if you are looking for a wholesome boy- or girl-next-door, it's best to look elsewhere. Pluto Rising, despite its deadly serious rep, does not lack a sense of humor -- but unlike Mercury and Jupiter types, Pluto Rising uses humor as a defense mechanism, as well as to "get in there" before going for the jugular.

Aside from Kurt Cobain, Pluto Risings include Judy Garland, Issac Mizrahi, Emperor Nero, Ted Bundy, Madonna, Keanu Reeves, Steve Martin, Muhammad Ali, Donna Cunningham (an astrologer who is responsible for the many hits my "'We' Regeneration" post has received -- thanks, Donna!), Walt Whitman (whose "Song of Myself" declares that he is "large and contain[s] multitudes"), Al Pacino (only someone with a powerhouse-Pluto placement could've portrayed mobster "godfather" Michael Corleone so effectively), and Glenn Close (whose depictions of scorned "bunny boiler" Alex Forrest in Fatal Attraction and, over 20 years later, ruthless, unscrupulous lawyer Patty Hewes in the TV drama Damages brilliantly demonstrates what happens when Pluto goes unhinged and off the deep end).

Pluto Rising natives do not only long to soar high -- they desire to plumb the depths. Call a Pluto Rising person anything you want -- he or she has probably heard it before. But one adjective that can never be applied to someone with this placement is "shallow."

In Honor of International Left-Handers' Day

Today is International Left-Handers' Day, which first celebrated approximately 10 percent of the human population on August 13, 1976. In a decade that brought us many wacky crazes, like mood rings, disco, and the pet rock, Left-Handers' Day proved to have staying power -- although it is one of the lesser-known holidays, the Internet has certainly increased its visibility. (I myself, who was old enough to remember the Bicentennial, was unaware of this holiday till I started going online.)

Being a lefty, I have only one minor bone to pick with whomever decided the date of Lefty Day: it should fall on March 13, not August 13. This is because Neptune is the planet that is most associated with left-handedness, and rules the sign Pisces (and the Sun transits the Pisces zone of the zodiac from February 19 to March 21).

However, I am fine with this holiday's falling on the 13th day of the month, because even though the number 13 is a Pluto/Scorpio number, not a Neptune number (that would be 7), 13 is a transgressive, subversive, taboo-oriented number, and many people still look upon lefties with suspicion and superstition (e.g., the devil is said to lurk on the left).

If you don't believe me about the Neptune thing, go on eBay or to an astrologer's yard sale and score a copy of the Oct./Nov. 1999 issue of The Mountain Astrologer, which features an "article particle" by yours truly, titled "Neptune: The Left-Handed Planet." I'd reprint it here, but this interface doesn't seem to handle text-oriented scans very well, and I'm not in the mood to transcribe the whole article. (It's copyrighted, by the way, so keep that in mind if you're a plagiarist.)

In a nutshell, back in the day when I was but a pre-Saturn Return but oh-so-serious sprout, I did enough research on the natal charts of famous and not-famous lefties to make a case that Neptune and/or its corresponding sign Pisces are unusually strong. Aspects between Mercury (which rules the hands) and Neptune are also common in lefties -- it doesn't seem to matter what the aspect is, as long as it is tight. This does not, of course, mean that everyone with a strong Neptune (i.e., Neptune conjunct Ascendant or Midheaven and/or making many aspects to other planets) or Pisces stellium (i.e., three or more planets conjunct in Pisces) is left-handed -- my Pisces bestie, for example, has more Pisces planets (some of which, including her Mercury, trine her Neptune) than anyone I've ever met, yet she is right-handed. However, she exemplifies many traits of lefties: creative, artistic, sensitive, quirky. I would say that makes her an honorary southpaw.

However, southpaws including Marilyn Monroe, Kurt Cobain, Jimi Hendrix, Babe Ruth, Judy Garland, Rembrandt, Queen Victoria (who passed down her "birth-left" to subsequent generations of Brit royals including King George VI and Prince Charles), and Paul McCartney all have kick-ass Neptunes and/or strong Pisces placements. Not surprisingly, as Neptune/Pisces rules the arts, a staggeringly high percentage of notable lefties can be found there; two stunning examples of southpawhood, Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci, defined the Renaissance. Unfortunately, a high percentage of lefties can be found just plain staggering, as lefties tend to hit the bottle and other party favors harder than their righteous pals, and also tend to be clumsier and more inept due to living in a world designed for righteous consumers (from scissors to can openers to handshakes to door knobs to power tools to Western-style writing and driving).

Neurologists and psychologists have determined that lefties are not just more creative, juiced-up, and accident-prone than righties, but are also more stubborn, emotional, and angrier than righties, more prone to bedwetting, schizophrenia, and ADHD -- ooh, my neighbor's cooking something yummy, think I'll raid my fridge for a snack -- so Twinkies etc. are back but I can't keep 'em around, I'm on a diet, I'll have to eat some peanut butter instead -- wait, what was I saying...? Um, so I'm almost positive that author Ellen Gilchrist is left-handed; not only is she a Pisces, not only is her alter ego Rhoda Manning a Pisces, she makes a point of identifying several of her characters as left-handed. I'd ask Ms. Gilchrist, but I wrote her a fan letter back in the pre-Internet '90s and she never wrote back, and I'm just too damned sensitive to be ignored by this great writer a second time....

My own chart is a practically a calling card that announces my left-handedness: Neptune in the 3rd (Mercury-ruled) house trine Sun, Mars, and Mercury (the latter within a quarter of a degree), sextile my Rising Pluto, separating from a square to Venus in the (Neptune-ruled) 12th house, and widely opposing Saturn. Interestingly, my father, who is also left-handed, also has strong Neptune aspects -- but they are squares, not trines, and he did not flow into the arts as I did. He also had an undiagnosed case of dyslexia (far more common among lefties in Western culture due to conflicting orientation), whereas I was reading at a high-school level by age 6 -- yet my 3rd-house Neptune does mark me as a daydreamer who can easily get disoriented in my local environment. I can also sense funny vibes really fast, and have learned to exit venues and cross the street instead of scoffing at my spidey sense.

Happy Left-Handers' Day! If you are left-handed, I'd love to hear from you about your chart, if you are in the arts, and any other observations you may care to share about living life as a lefty. If you are not a lefty but are romantically involved with one or are the parent of southpaw spawn, I'd also love to hear from you.