Thursday, November 28, 2013

Crawl 03: Two sides of Gravity

Today, on occasion of our 8th marriage anniversary, we went to see Gravity the movie in 3D, at luxury theatre of PVR, Directors cut @ Ambience Mall, Vasant Kunj, The movie was spectacularly, full of special effects, two astronauts marooned in space, human struggle, emotional drama in space. Sandra Bullock with a stellar performance. an emotional movie worth watching!!! Now from the saturnine viewpoint...

From the Saturnine perspective: Gravity is such a loaded word! my first connection with the word was with the John Meyer song "Gravity". he sings about gravity dragging him down under, in the same lines of other songs: the song "i believe I can fly", Nicole Kidman in Moulin Rouge " One day i'll Fly away", and most importantly Pink floyd's "Learning to Fly'. All these, and another million songs are about flight, anti gravity, flying away, into the sky/ beyond. Gravity, the movie talks about a complete reversal of this scenario, without Gravity, without humanity, lost, marooned, isolated in hevavenly space, you crave, die, long, to return to the ground, terra firma, .. and Gravity! In the last scene sandra bullock claws, grasps at mud on a lake's edge,cherishing gravity! In most metaphysics/ astrology etc, Saturn Shanidev has been always associated with Gravity/ gravitas. everyone curses him for the heaviness/ burden of their lives, but like in this movie, outside of his influence, in the cold, suspended animation of zero gravity, free folating, unberable terror holds!! What Milan Kundera calls: The Unbearable Lightness of being!

Being Libran ascendant, my ascendant constellation/ Nakshatra is Swati (15), the symbol of which is "young plant shoot blown by the wind".. basically a rootless, ungrounded character. who could crave for saturnine gravity, the ROOT-edness of the Muladhar chakra, more than ME! I could so identify with the later part of the film, as Sandra bullock, alone in space, yet scrambling, scampering to return to earth/ root/ Gravity!! So what I'm saying is cherish the Gravity, the Saturnine heaviness, the Karmic burdens, that we constantly bicker about. WITHOUT it, we could be so utterly rootless, un-grounded, lost/ marooned in space! So, cheers to Gravity, the movie! Jai Shanidev!


Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Crawl 02: Caveman in Future shock

Since the last post, Crawl 01: Crawling From The Wreckage, for me, it's been like a caveman in Future Shock! Just the way, Alvin Toffler had described.in his book!!
All these years I had been using a Nokia N-72 phone for years and years. My earlier phone in 2010 was some newer Nokia phone, which I sold off after just using for few months finding ita limit of 2000 numbers, and took the N 72, a hand me done phone from wifey who had bought in 2006, and had later upgraded to a blackberry. The N 72 could store unlimited numbers, had a few games, calculator, etc. But this week, suddenly, after so many yearsof using a slowly dying phone, I decided to upgrade to an android phone. And the serpentine experience began...

I bought a Samsung Galaxy Star Pro, a most basic and cheap Android phone, one day later which I found was a 2G phone, so internet outside of wi-fi was incredibly slow. And to type on the touch screen pad to type out letters was difficult enough for facebook comments, so I had to JUST FORGET about blogging. Defeating the main reason why I took the damn android phone anyways. Also, the other main reason was to constantly, on the go,  update, on my facebook group Adims astro Zoo for my followers, but, groups seemed to never open on a 2g phone. Endless notifications and updates from other people constantly flooded  my phone, but what I wanted, well never. What a classic flop! Basically, my entire reason of buying the android phone, to connect with the world on the net constantly, had completely crashed!!

From the Saturnine Perspective: As I have written in 3 Headings on top of the blog:  (Saturn Intro/ Deconstruction/ Journey), in the Saturnine journey, initial failure is always a mandatory part of the journey. the legacy of previous failed attempts, is a must. It's never a graphical, linear, smooth progression, like in the diametrical opposite of the Solar order. And, moreover, what the hell, what was i expecting? That, yours truly, a primitive 80's caveman waking up to the android world would find it so easy to adapt, all at once??? The Saturnine journey, the Crawl is always like the great dialogue from the movie Contact stg. Jodie Foster.. " small steps"! So, here i am, stuck with an cyborg android phone. THANKFUL, that i can at least call up!! I realised what architect Mie Van Der Rohe always said... LESS IS MORE! I mean, with all the proliferation of the internet age, has actual social interaction increased/ or ACTUALLY severely dropped between humans. I would vouch for the latter. So, here I am, a caveman, grumpily grumbling about the Android age. When, I should have taken it saturnine slow, and gradually upgraded, over a period of a year, slowly to more advanced phones, before diving into the "lateshtt"Android platform. Like Alvin Toffler says.. "future shock'.

Another experience was even more disorienting, but ultimately, much positive and fulfilling due to involvement of a young cyber friend. Since I gave up music composition, arrangement, since 2005, things had  changed quite a lot. Those days, I used to program design music tracks on my 16 track Korg workstation, keyboard sequencer. Later used to dump it in studios track by track, for mixing. Since the long days of my absence, people had moved on to computers, and music/ sound soft-wares like Logic, Nuendo, Pro Tools, virtual instruments, VST plugins. All programming, designing, and music tracks were completely done  was much more efficiently done on laptops, and PC's. I had fallen behind relevant technology by years and years, and even now always preferred to programme tracks on the keyboard sequencer, Korg Trinity, Triton etc.
Recently after gradually crawling back like a worm, back into music composition, arrangement, at this very old, withering, Saturnine age, I  had to give a rough outlay for a music for a corporate ad film. before the director went for the shoot, he wanted the music, so he could design it according to the feel of his indicated music. my friend was far off, there was No keyboard to programme, no studio access. and the day of deadline had dawned upon me! I hastily called my young musician friend/ colleague Saurabh Babbar, ex guitarist of Vedic Death metal band "Bhairav'. On my insistence, he had now gradually shifted from guitar to explore his fiull potential as an electronic musician with some deadly tracks! saurabh he came down with his Laptop which had Ableton software loaded on it, and we sat down. without even my keyboard as a MIDI trogger device! just the laptop. Like old bollywood style, I chewed some paan, stood standing and began humming notes and melodies, which Saurabh then literally typed down/ programmed / converted into arranged layers and tracks of music, on his Ableton software. All notes, selected from the on screen virtual keyboard!, with NOT even a mouse!! He was Typing it all out,  and on the touch pad of the laptop!! It was far out !! And the result?  The most analogue, Indian, ethnic track that I had ever composed in life. Question: What was happening here??

Ans: The Saturnine journey: As described in the 3 headings above, the Solar/ Sun path is straightforward, and where, Journey= Goal, Process= Product, Objective= Result. What you see is what you get. But, the saturnine journey is completely opposite, it's angular, serpentine, disjointed, tangential, like the name Konastha (angular) of the ten names of Shanidev, suggests. In the Saturine journey, the journey is often diametrically opposite of the Goal. And the the Product is often diametrically opposite of the process!! The saturnine journey is NEVER straightforward. What you SEE is what you NEVER GET!! And what you never foresee is what you get!! A winding, tangential, rhizomatic, serpentine becoming! You never know, what you get.. in the saturnine journey,..

Monday, November 11, 2013

Crawl 01: Crawling From The Wreckage

"Crawling from the Wreckage" I have waited FOREVER to use that title, somewhere, sometime in my blog. This was the title of Storyline from issue # 19, of Doom Patrol, from where Grant Morrison took over the usual storyline, and the normal costumed hero comic book, continued to became one of the most awesome Avante Garde series in comic history!

Today, 11/11/ 2003, or 11th day of the 11th month of 2013, as the Sun enters 25th degree of Libra, and achieves 5 degrees of distance between the Sun @ 20th degree, thus (almost) ending the Combustion of Saturn by the Sun. (Sun combusts any planet within 5 degrees distance). So the unholy combination/ the wreckage of Sun + Saturn + Rahu conjunction in Libra is slowly getting over. ( Check my Karmic blog link: Kalsarp with Rahu Sun Saturn 17 oct - 16 nov). And hence the ideal time, ideal opportunity of using the title.. Crawling from Wreckage!
In fact, so disturbed was I by the events of this transit that by noon was I contemplating changing, overhauling this entire blog into some other topic/ format. But by evening Amon-RaAset Magus from the Frateritas Saturni facebook group commenetd on the blog, and an old friend Urja Syrop called up from US after a long time. And I HAD been reading Doom Patrol yesterday late night, so it all fell into place. Previously, I had used the title "Crawl" erroneously in my prior Ketu blog for a long time. But in the end, it's Lord Saturn who Crawls so slowly. and I have Shanidev conjunct with Ketu in my 9th house of Fate/ fortune, thus, things often Crawl forward for me! :P
In the end, I feel we arte just vessels capturing the Ego/ essence quality of planetary transits. Just responding to planetary motions in the sky, even though a lot of us love to believe in the Illusion of 100% free Will/ Will power/ or Will to Power! But the Saturnine way is that of the Crawl. Slow serpentine, meandering crawl, unraveling journey.
So, here I am finally recovering/ crawling from the disaster of Sun + Saturn conjunction in my ascendant... yours truly.. Crawling from the Wreckage..!!