Stars in my eyes, birds in my belfry

Just for fun, here are a couple of panels from Jamie Fernandez’s Is This How You See Me?, spotted by Chris Gavaler, my spouse and resident comics scholar. It’s not very often that discussions of menopause occur in the comics.

Speaking of hot flashes, here we are in Leo. Leo’s my ascendant sign, I just learned, meaning there’s a push and pull between the leaderly strategist in me and the introverted lover of beauty you’d expect of a Libra born in the middle of the night. I mentioned here, a few weeks back, my efforts to write about H.D. and Tarot, but really H.D. spent much more time studying astrology–the two practices were deeply linked in her era. The complex mathematics and history of astrology is intimidating and I felt handicapped by my ignorance in studying H.D.’s work, so I booked a reading of my natal chart. Hey, it’s research, right?

I might not have taken the step if I didn’t know the perfect person to ask: a student of mine from years ago, Cameron Steele, who went on to a creative writing PhD, and who knows plenty about the modernists as well as astrology and tarot. I’ve been subscribing to “interruptions,” her substack newsletter, for a while, so I had a vivid sense of what a serious, talented writer she has become–as well as of her studies of astrology and tarot and her growing practice as a reader.

I’m so glad I invested the time and funds in a consultation with her. I still don’t think I’ll spend years of my life studying the stars, like Cameron and H.D.–I’m a curious agnostic at heart–but it was a fun, deep, and literary conversation. She also nailed me. A skeptic would rightly point out that she was already in a position to, yet there were moments in eerie excess of even what an astute reader would pick up from my books and posts. The moment that pierced me–and startled Chris, too, when I repeated it later–was her observation that I constantly try to make myself small to avoid retribution. You can tell me if I’m wrong, but I’m not sure if people really know how afraid my childhood made me and how difficult that fear has been to shake (still a work in progress). Making myself small isn’t exactly a good move for a publishing writer, either.

It’s too early to know whether the dates she listed will truly be turning points in my life, but I’ve marked them down and will pay attention. I’ve also started the writing ritual she advised: sitting down with openness every Monday during the hour before dawn. That seems like a good practice as I lurch toward September teaching, no matter the reason: putting what grounds me first instead of pushing it off. If you’re curious, too, you can book a Zoom session with Cameron here.

This has been the path of my summer: many paths, branching in obscure ways, as I pivot among projects and allow myself to take restorative breaks from work, too. I’m reading a lot for work and pleasure (and will post mini-reviews of some of my #sealeychallenge readings soon-ish). I’m also hanging with my son a lot; he’s home for just 9 days more before moving to NYC to start his math PhD program. We’ve been playing Wingspan, and he’s got the best head for games I’ve ever seen: if it’s a solvable game, he solves it swiftly, and if there’s a lot of chance involved, he makes the most strategic possible use of his luck. He’s won every game so far, but I intend to beat him once before he leaves. A poet should have SOME kind of an advantage where birds are concerned, right?!

All is quiet in my publishing life, although I never mentioned here that Verse Daily featured a poem of mine in July. Appropriately enough, it’s about trying to tilt the odds in your favor (and very much a channeling of the frustration we all feel sometimes when passed over for the prom queen tiara). The egregiously long title is “It Is Advantageous to Place on the Table a [Hollow Figurine] of Apollo, with Bibliomancy.” I also have a lyric essay forthcoming in The Hopkins Review, although I haven’t received my copy yet. Maybe by the next supermoon?