| Kingston, NY, Feb. 7, 2008
Tonight we're publishing the first installment of the Love, Lust and Compersion report, which is now titled, "It's not about sex. It's about Self." The link is at the bottom of this letter. Everyone is looking for love; everyone craves sex. Many people are in crisis about these things, and some are at war with themselves and those around them. Many are trying to figure out who they are, with not so much help. As one of my literary heroes, Wayland Young, wrote long ago, people are unhappy mainly because they are unfree. I am conscious of writing into an atmosphere of confusion, longing, considerable anger -- and a prevailing state of unfreedom. My intended audience is those who want to be free. Relationships tend to not work so well, and we tend not to question why, in a meaningful way that gets under the surface. I have some ideas about why, and while I'm not sure they're right, my intention is to start a conversation, rather than to end one. This project has grown considerably larger than I originally planned, so to facilitate workflow it will be issued over a series of nights, through the 13th or so. After the current post, I'll take the weekend off and resume Monday evening. One huge chunk is too long for most people to read at once, and too big for our editors to handle at once. The first few segments don't touch the astrology. Rather, they address key themes relating to jealousy, relationships and compersion. The last few posts will look at the astrology, ending with the horoscope which (like Small World Stories) is being written with the assistance of Paloma Todd in Barcelona. I'll explore the astrology mainly through 8th house themes (sex, death, surrender, shared money, power issues), also looking at the implications of the 2nd (self-esteem), 5th (creativity and risk-taking) and 11th (group and friendship themes) houses. We'll also check out Chiron and Nessus in Aquarius, potent forces today. I am sure I won't be able to avoid Eris; never a good idea. I recommend clicking those and checking out the Planet Wiki entries on each of those three planets. A few weeks ago, I received a comment from a reader concerned that I was slanted toward heterosexual reality. It's difficult to see one's own bias, but I am aware of being bisexual and consciously writing for an audience of predominantly heterosexual women who identify as monogamous. However, an above-average number of men have subscribed to this series; I've kept that in mind and I am truly happy to see you here. This being said, I have a mental limitation in that I don't understand sexual orientation that polarizes (or tries to polarize) to one side of the sexual spectrum or the other, to the exclusion of the other. Intellectually, I kind of get it a little; but intuitively I can't grasp the notion. I cannot predict the relevance of this writing to people who are not heterosexual, but being something other than heterosexual myself, I trust there is at least some relevance. I'm in a similar situation with monogamy: I don't understand love that excludes. To me, love's greatest quality is that it includes, to the best extent that we can cooperate. Yet theme of jealousy seems to be endemic to the human condition. There are few coherent ideas on the topic, much less sane ideas about what to do. Those in the reading audience who have explored polyamory (honest non-monogamy) will recognize some of its themes as the series develops, particularly the idea of compersion. In practice, relationships and gender are fluid; they change and are subject to an ongoing process of revision and sometimes even conscious creation by individuals and by society. Our definitions of masculine and feminine seem important, but more often they are ridiculous. Despite being ridiculous, they make all kinds of demands on us that we hop to, as if somebody were pointing a gun. Here is the link to the first segment of, It's not about sex. It's about Self. Yours & truly,  |
