Mar 292010
The invitation arrived in my inbox (I love any excuse to use that word), and I read it with glee. Maybe that’s because it was my birthday and I was open to adventure (transiting Jupiter was on my natal Sun after all); or maybe it was because I was finally available to attend an evening with my friends that had eluded me thus far. The invite was to a salon in their lovely home. They’ve been hosting monthly salons for a year, and I have always found the themes to be exceptionally creative. At last, here was one I could attend. With permission from my friends, I have reproduced parts of the invitation:
You are cordially invited
To
Mary’s Wake
The Details
Mary Smith (a fictional person) was born on March 12th 1960 and passed away unexpectedly in her sleep at the age of 50 on March 25th, 2010. On the evening of March 28th, sixteen artists will gather and using any medium or creative form of expression, explain their relationship to Mary (friend,
lover, parent, sibling, child, etc.) and talk about her, and her relationship to each artist.
The Objectives
This salon is an exploration of how a group of people can create a fictional character. On the evening of Mary’s Wake, her character will be brought to life as artists share their own experiences with Mary and discover things about her that they never knew.
The Rules Of The Evening
*As always, everyone who attends must present something
*Presentations should be approximately 5 minutes or less
*Presentations can be in any medium, and take place in any room
*Your presentation must focus only on YOUR relationship to the character
The Most Important Thing
The event is meant to be fun, so think creatively when looking at ways to express. A few examples of ways to express might include; bringing in a painting you have done that was Mary’s favourite and telling us why; sharing her favourite recipe, bringing in a scene from a play you acted in together. The point is that this evening is not limited to (but may still include) simply reciting eulogies. The idea is to be as creative as possible in your approach to remembering Mary and who she was to you.
What immediately jumped out at me was that my friends had provided a date of birth for Mary – and it just cried out for a natal chart. Fictitious though this person was, I realized I had an opportunity to present my understanding of her through an astrological lens. It was like crack to me. (That’s another naughty word I love to use, and you can blame it on Jeffrey Kishner for giving me the bodacious task of writing daily and weekly lovescopes at sasstrology. But I digress.) Without a birth time for Mary’s character I instinctively decided to utilize the actual time that I cast her chart – noon. No city of birth was given either so, since the salon was being held in Toronto, that cosmopolitan city would serve as the place of Mary’s birth. I must say, I really loved doing this exercise, and I would encourage any of you who love to blend astrology with your creative flair to give this a try. But you’d be surprised by how much content is required to fill five minutes. (Makes me wonder how I manage to fill ninety minutes with clients or students!)
Here then, is the story that I created for our fictional character, Mary Smith. (FYI: the similarities that I reference between Mary’s chart and mine are real.)
Even though Mary and I were born some five years apart and on different continents, we had a great deal in common. We’re both Pisces with Cancer Rising, for starters. I should mention that Mary was studying Astrology with me. For those of you who weren’t aware of her proclivity to the metaphysical arts, this shouldn’t really come as a surprise. Exploring topics at the fringe of everyday reality was one of Mary’s favourite pastimes. And she really got off on shocking people with her sometimes dramatic advocacy for anything that veered away from mainstream convention.
Look, it’s even in her chart; I’ll show you: See, here’s her Pisces Sun that makes her a true believer in unseen realities. And it’s hand in hand with the Moon’s South Node, so she’s been a believer for many a lifetime. And revolutionary Uranus in Leo is in Mary’s Second House of values – and at the apex of a yod, no less – so that was the side of Mary that liked to get in people’s faces a bit when it came to trying to wake up the ‘non-believers’, as she called them.
Still, that Pisces Sun is entangled in an opposition to her Moon in practical Virgo (she was born at the Full Moon, by the way) so Mary was definitely on a search for tangible proof of hidden dimensions, so that she could spread the word to anyone who would listen. She told me that this was one of her sacred duties, as she called it – and went as far as to say that it was her reigning need. And, with the Moon in her Third House, what her siblings thought of her ideas was especially important. Mary revealed to me that her brother found Astrology to be a lot of nonsense. But she added with that trademark glint in her eye that this only spurred her on to gather as much information as she could. See? Her pleasure-seeking Venus and thrill-seeker Mars are together in the sign of avant-garde Aquarius, in the Eighth House of occult knowledge. So Mary was driven – consumed, one might say – by her thirst for esoteric knowledge.
But like all journeys of a lifetime, Mary’s was sometimes fraught with anguish. One night, after a class that had run overtime, I sensed that she wanted to hang around for a bit. I teach from my home, so I poured us each a glass of wine (come on, transiting Neptune was sitting on her Chiron) and she opened up a fair bit. Knowing that our Cancer Rising Signs were only six degrees apart (and yes, I do marvel that it was six degrees of separation), I wasn’t surprised by her candour. I learned that evening that Mary’s belief in the profundity and validity of Astrology had cost her a few friendships, which filled her with sorrow – though she wasn’t prone to making a display of her emotions. (I suspect few Virgo Moon types are.) She had this childlike innocence with people (compounded by that trusting and naïve Pisces Sun), which made her vulnerable to emotional pain. See, look at that: Venus conjunct Chiron, the Wounded Healer. Yet she had so much insight and wisdom into those people who called her too flaky to take seriously. Though it hurt, she never held a grudge. Mary saw the beauty in souls who had been cast aside by others, recognizing in them a wounded kindred. And, in keeping with that maternal Cancer Ascendant, she nurtured them lovingly like a mother hen.
You know, she had a sharp mind, which is evident from the flowing angle between determined Saturn and mental Mercury in her Ninth House of continued learning. I guess you could say that her mind was enchanted, given that Mercury was under the rays of her Sun. She was a gifted student who ended up teaching me way more than I taught her in the year and nine months that she studied with me. Of course – how could she not be a natural-born teacher that led by example, with mentoring Jupiter and Saturn on an angle and in a harmonious aspect with powerful Pluto in her Third House of communication?
Mary, wherever you may be now: I hope you arrived at the place you always dreamed of. That place you described as the cosmic womb. And may I see you there, one day. Rest in peace.
Dear Reader, do any of you host or attend salons? It seems to me to be a really positive manifestation of the current Saturn in Libra square Pluto in Capricorn phenomenon. Would you ever consider incorporating Astrology into such an evening, given the opportunity? Share your stories, if you will! Blessings.
Michelle Suzanne
Michelle Suzanne is the author of Starstruck. You can also read her weekly love scopes at Sasstrology, where she co-hosts the Astrology Rocks podcast with Jeffrey Kishner.