Horoscopic Expressionism: Symbolic object distribution and "cropping"
Pedantus
I have awkwardly labeled, horoscopic expressionism, I often find it
necessity to come up with an at least temporary label for various
techniques I discover being employed by expressing persons. These
adaptations of self-similar things which the expressing person adopts,
makes his own, are the product of tailoring off-the-rack symbolic
objects encountered in one's environment. The unconscious object of the
alterations is to make these objects seems to serve the purpose of Self
representation and Self affirmation. Like Narcissus the psyche seems to
seek its own reflection in any psychically potent self-reflective
medium.
All words and deeds can be seen as the making personal totems to
establish one's demonstrable Being-ness. All artistic productions,
regardless of whatever else they do, must remain "true to the self"
All effective projection are at some level of symbolism first and
foremost--pseudo icons of the Self. From the perspective of horoscopic
expressionism, all art of Art are true inspired and have soul, *if*
these productions manage to transmit, as a carrier wave, the
particular soul of the artist. The artwork, may also heavily rely on
the
collective soul for its more eternal seeming, immortal, quality.
Perhaps
most of us do not achieve immortality in the way of a well expressed
person, but apparently we never stop trying, and at least accomplish a
measure of immortal *presence* in some familial and or communal circles.
"Cropping" is a technique I consciously conceived of only yesterday,
but even just this morning my brother incidentally sent me a picture
which was a perfect example of an ordinary person unconsciously employ
the cropping technique to present his idea of something, "beautious!" I
take this to mean something like Plato's search for the transcendent
Form or Ideal of "Beauty". This even though I was repeatedly trying to
dismiss him so that I could write...that one minute more, that one
picture from his cabin fever diverting flight simulator program, turned
out to be the seed moment for my day...:) Such is the nature and value
of family.
I begin first with Jamie Wyeth here, as a convenient model or
stereotype of the conventional, commercially viable, representative
image producing artist. The challenge presented by commercial art would
seem to confine the soul of the artist to the point of extinction. One
would think that art that was "not too personal" would be in essence
"too collective" in nature to be seen as the product of a fertile
individual in the act reproducing his Self--capturing just the right
images in the environment and projecting the individual pattern of his
own soul in the process. This is the delicate balance we all hope to
learn and relentless expect from every expressing person we personally
encounter. Cropping is then, a care selection of collectively
interesting object or scene in such away that it will seem to suggest
the *presence* of something organized and identifiable , but
ineffable...perhaps we call it "that certain something".
It always helps to first try to identify a *signature level*
expression--an activity or product of any person (as "artist") which
they themselves, or their enlightened critics, select for us...this is
about as objective as we can be from outset. Here the is a picture
found displayed on the index page of Jamie Wyeth dot com. This, though I
would have mistakenly dismissed as being the collective stereotype
schmaltz, just trite pulp and essentially useless to the astrologer, is
apparently deemed a signature level image. For the astrologers purpose
pseudo icon of the artist's Self that can be made subject to natal chart
based analytical considerations--a source of psychological insights.
Wyeth's natal chart:
http://www.geocities.com/pedantus/wyeth_j.gif
Wyeth's, "Iris..," a *signature level* expression:
http://www.jamiewyeth.com/
( Hey, like I said, I didn't believe it to be an individuating Self
portrait either)
Here's what the same thing looks like as your average tourist snapshot
from the car window:
http://www.geocities.com/pedantus/wyeth_iris2.gif
But Wyeth has made the image his own, and he becomes it, by
employing *cropping*--a selective adapting alteration of the available
potentially symbolic objects. A minor psycho-surgical procedure, and not
a lobotomy like the freakish seeming abstract or nonobjective art for
which only a few of us seem to acquire a taste.
http://www.geocities.com/pedantus/wyeth_iris.gif
The Iris, BTW, seems a Neptune dominated expression, in the same way
the lighthouse is a natal Uranus expression. This is piece is
commercial art because of the individually expressive content is
completely subliminal...like identifying fingerprints, we needs a lens
to see them ...the lens of the natal chart.
By comparison, my brother's near commercially useless image, which
sees as "beauteous", is incidentally cropped during the process of
capturing the image from his simulator display. This happy accident
enhances the images overall self-expressive potential. One more
important point for any Jungians out there who may still be suffering
from psycho-pulp notion that think the "Sun" in the drawing is a symbol
of a healthy ego and other such overly broad mistreatment of yellowish
circles...and, one very prominent author in this field has already
accosted me by repeating this sentiment as a means to correcting my
flawed version of Jungian symbols in drawing astrology. <insert
razzberry sound>
Brother Terry's gem of the day displays the importance of natal
Uranus and his temporary mental/ego focus upon that natal planet as the
root of his expression here.
http://www.geocities.com/pedantus/terry-b17.gif
http://www.geocities.com/pedantus/Terry-B17a.gif
Now compare the B17 expression with the o'l standby you all come to know
and love..:)
http://www.geocities.com/pedantus/ts_merge.gif
http://www.geocities.com/pedantus/terymrgd.gif
In both case's Uranus is expressed only as part of a *complex*, as
is always true for natal planets, BTW..:) They are never expressed in
isolation..,and if they were, who could point to them, they are in
essence natal chart archai--ineffable Platonic ideal form not yet
expressed in humanly appreciable terms.
Uranus is that sparking broken power cord in the coyote picture, but
Uranus is the glowing ball in the B17 expression. Now did anyone notice
natal Saturn..LOL...:)
---------------end of lecture beginning of sermon------:)
What I call, "horoscopic expressionism," is basically an observation
method and astro-analytical technique which seeks to improve upon the
vague, or at least, to my mind, the overly broad descriptions of
Jungian, Myth based, archetypal roots of the individual psyche, or
personality. These archetypal notions are of course the root stock of
any productive analytical effort, but these mythic "images", or such
similarly intended nouns, become almost irrelevant concerning the nature
of a given individual and the personality complexes they attempt to name
as target concerns of a particular psyche/person. The relationship
between the seeding mythology-based input--the "archai" of an archetypal
Self, most often does not get properly interpreted due to a certain
lack of precision inherent in this field of astrology at present.
Potentially nurturing artifacts drawn from our invaluable mythological
inheritance are not correctly paired with the words and actions of the
*real life*-conceiving, and real-life-creating, ego of a particular
person.
Here the term ego means the sum of our conscious selfhood--our life
as something we can most confidently say that we *know*--all that we can
observe and directly or indirectly manipulate so as to make our life
better...to promote our personal growth. Astrology as a medium of
transfer seek to expand the possibility of *knowing* the Self...a way of
"seeing" our own reality in a more spiritually meaningful way.
The reality of the personal psyche is most often not directly
perceivable in terms of consciously manipulated "images". This
limitation is a function of our human intuitive mind's *normal* or
average conceptual capabilities. We fail to grasp ourselves in much the
same manner that we fail to grasp what it means to travel a light year,
or the image/idea of an orbiting vehicle traversing in a straight line
in curved space. I, for one, cannot help but wonder what the heck is the
reality of a curved void? It would seem my ego is better suited to the
task of conceiving the straight line idea of plane geometry, and can
probably best reproduce the image of the thing using pencil and a ruler.
The ego understandably puzzles over the validity of any subjective
abstract art--the ambiguous landscape of the psyche--the geometrically
inconceivable *place* of unconscious Self on its Homeric odyssey.
The personal psyche as a particular variation composed intuitively
employing a multiplicity of resonant mythic themes, seems quite
naturally more the result of a spontaneously Self-created *recipe* which
is cooked up at any given occasion using only the most immediately
appetizing ingredients from a whole grocery list of thematic staple
goods. Reflexively employing the only some of the pantries contents,
these quickly plucked, prepped, and made palpable...hopefully presenting
the Self as interesting *and* socially tasteful.
The archetypal astrologer is not the cook in the awkward analogy,
but rather more the designer of new apparel...a new look for the Self.
Though the myths material, as employed by Jung, et al, seems to be
inherently very durable, and to the fingers feels more eternal, they are
as bulk as the animal skins with which fancifully adorn of conception of
ancestral cave dwellers. When these oversized but paradoxically
fashionable trappings remain un-tailored, we are basically forcing the
individual Self to wear a fairly primitive of-the-rack self image.
Perhaps any astrologer, no matter how comfortable they are in their own
skin, no matter how capable of being their detailing seamstress, as yet
appears, to me, not yet capable of providing a more truly esteem
enhancing wardrobe for their mall mashing clientele.
Horoscopic expressionism is no more and no less than the art of
observing and better measuring the individual native's own mythic body
and it peculiar individual anatomy. in the hope that really brilliant
astrologers will one day learn to tailor their wares with more
precision, and avoid send a client down the main street of his/her life
parading in something akin to the Emperor's New Clothes"...:)
The astrological technique presented by Liz Greene and others,
inadvertently, and certainly innocently enough, fails to respect the
existence of one's individual identity. This general problem in
psychological astrology seems like a preoccupying distraction with
something not quite swallowed by Science. Astrologers seem
unconsciously prone to a paying a ventriloquist silent lip service to
the tabla rassa version of one's individual personality and its unique
potential(s). They do this by replacing Sciences inherently false
assumption of a dominating generic human norm with a similarly
ubiquitous and psyche dominating "mythic image" In term of horoscopic
expressionism the so-called image are redacted--edited and frame *by the
individual natives themselves* and not by the astrologer! Feeding
persons on mythology, as currently performed by archetypal astrologers,
somehow strikes me as watching a scene in which the ghost of the
behaviorist, BF Skinner, feeds peanut butter to Pavlov's dogs in order
to watch how long the application keeps the client's tongue busy doing
something predictable. But, then I always preferred critical
commentaries of GB Shaw and their habitual reliance on seemingly
unprovoked caustic outbursts and attention begging histrionics.
Thanks,
Rog