Everybody Wants to Be a Cat!
I heard recently (from @queercosmos), and felt it to be true, that Leo is the sign of self-disclosure. Cf. one Leo’s attempts to do so to date: in the archives of this newsletter; my Patreon project; my LiveJournal (I forbid you to go looking for it); hundreds of diaries and journals, dating back to age 7; consistent stream of photographs on Instagram; and my understanding that writing stems from the self, regardless of topic or research or argument or audience.
I like the idea, because it makes me uncomfortable, that a practice of regular self-disclosure eventually achieves a kind of balance: at any rate, it necessarily has a humbling effect. The art of oversharing teeters between cringe and charm. An unsupported habit of dramatic self-disclosure (as is typical, e.g., of prideful Leo) usually makes a person sensitive to rejection; so can a single instance that “fails,” i.e., when you had placed your hope in the confidant’s willingness and ability to apprehend and affirm your inner life.
Writing (or artmaking generally) and interpersonal relationship are two obvious arenas of self-disclosure, and these overlap in poetry (and other genres, though not as much).
Writing has seemed unnecessary and redundant lately, held up to the blinding mirror of Life, which, in the heat of summer in the city, is For the Living.
Life, instead of writing about it, has become a pleasurable, repeatable sequence of bike rides, cold ocean plunges, and home-cooked meals; and, deep, simple happiness in relationship.
tide chart for my upcoming birthday
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The activities of this summer have foregrounded embodiedness, the body, for me for the first time in over twenty years. The last time I remember feeling like this, easily able to access the body before, instead of, and over and against getting mutinied by the churning of the mind, must have been in elementary school. I can feel the monkey bars, smell the wood chips, see the ocean beyond the canyon behind the back fence. Maybe this rehabilitation is owed primarily to the ocean swimming; but the steady sunshine, and the fun biking, and the hungry, nourishing eating have all contributed importantly too.
I think that to be human is to be self-obsessed, regardless whether the self understands itself more as a freakish individual venture or more tribally in a matrix of family, community, culture, &/or nature. Leo is simply honest about this self-obsession and willing to lead by example for the benefit of others.
So, lately: the push and pull of bicycling, throwing the power of a city e-bike into the headwind along Embarcadero and up the hill that bottoms out in Crissy Field. All the hills. A cheesy sourdough roll from Acme Bread in the Ferry Building. The vibrant choppy San Francisco Bay, floodtide, shrieking and shaking in searing cold, J checking his watch, lasting ten infinite minutes.
After showering with almond-scented Dr. Bronner’s, massaging superrich apricot lotion into my limbs in a hot sauna alongside cackling naked old ladies. Smooth skin thanks to fine and pounding sand. Jasmine cream worked through sheaves of salty hair.
Fingers of zucchini studded with garlic and chili pepper, seeping olive oil into a bed of beluga lentils and coconut rice, sautéed early this morning on the other side of the bay, warm from the microwave downstairs at the club. Jar of cold-brewed minty, floral tea. One of the gals left a box of chocolates in the kitchen: hazelnut praline.
The body: food and movement. Leonine themes of love and strength. Love as strength: the woman in white gently prying the jaws of the lion open on the Strength card. Growth, opportunity, shine.
Aquarius, the polarity of Leo, is not the only sign that lives and dies for freedom of expression: Leo lives out this cause in a more personally-invested way, and is more immediately concerned with the here and now, these relationships, this lifetime. Fuck the future!—except for posterity, we do want that.
But posterity is just the dream of the guarantee of love: posterity cherishes the memory of how present we were for ourselves and for our loved ones. What lasts is what we live, which is love, because only love lasts, making the present eternal and (oh yeah, baby!) the eternal present.
Cherishing is an indulgence we can all afford—and must, Leo would probably say. To indulge is to embody in pleasure. Be here now, and everybody (the Sun brightest of all) is a star.
