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2003 Announcing 
Sime~Gen Novels 
by
Jacqueline Lichtenberg
Jean Lorrah

From
Meisha Merlin Publishing Inc. 

Sime~Gen Inc. Presents

Recommended Books

January 2004

The Art of The Survivor

By

Jacqueline Lichtenberg

 

 

 To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg, jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  
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Angel Created by Joss Whedon, Syndicated on WB network now 2 seasons on DVD

Seven Seasons of Buffy, Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers Discuss Their Favorite Television Show, Glenn Yeffeth ed. BenBella Books, Oct. 2003 -- companion volume about Angel to be released in 2004

Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology, The Professional Manual by Noel Tyl, Llewellyn 1994

Dark Ages: Ravnos by Sarah Roark, White Wolf Publishing, June 2003

 

Angel, has a hard life – excuse me, existence.

Angel is the vampire with a soul who first appeared on Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Was WB, now UPN) and then became the lead in a spinoff titled Angel. Both shows are about the heroic fight against evil forces, ( soulless vampires, demons, werewolves, rogue gods, disembodied entities, devils).

I recommend them both for the high level of writing skill, serious drama, good in depth psychology, and relevance to modern life. However, as I and others have pointed out in articles in the book, Seven Seasons of Buffy, Buffy this show is not a good source of information on Witchcraft, Wicca or any initiatory path. And neither is Angel which I will be discussing in a companion volume to Seven Seasons of Buffy.

Angel does, however, have a number of things to teach us about life as a victim if you analyze it from the point of view of astrology.

Few Soap Operas do such a good job of testing a character to destruction as the Buffy and Angel series have done to Angel. And I don’t know any Soap characters who roll with the punches as Angel does.

People don’t believe the lives depicted on the Soaps (or shows like Angel) are realistic. But they are. Psychological counselors and social workers hear about these lives every day. And you know who else hears such life-stories? Astrologers.

I’m not a professional astrologer, but I’ve studied the discipline for more than twenty years and have heard many life-stories and matched them to natal charts. I began studying astrology on the advice of Marion Zimmer Bradley who read an early draft of my Sime~Gen novel House of Zeor (now reprinted in Sime~Gen: The Unity Trilogy) and took me on as a writing student. I learned astrology to learn to plot and characterize realistically.

Most of the clients who consult Astrologers are psychologically healthy people who function well in society. But a small percentage of the healthy ones have tales of woe to tell stretching back to birth, perhaps beyond if their plight is karmic.

Until I delved into astrology at the professional level, I never believed Soap Operas either. But now I’ve met psychologically healthy people whose lives are structured by the moment of their birth to hurl at them trial after tribulation after disaster after bereavement after lunatic adventure, after accident, after dreadful mistake, after Hobson’s Choice, after predicament, and all around the list again, sometimes coming out at a pinnacle of success such as J. K. Rowling has had with Harry Potter.

Vast world prominence does not break the pattern – it is part of the pattern. I call that pattern the "Pillar To Post life."

This Pillar To Post signature in a natal chart can be found by using somewhat advanced astrological techniques. If you are past the intermediate level of astrological studies, check out the charts and life-stories you have amassed in your studies against the Vocational Guidance section of Synthesis & Counseling in Astrology, The Professional Manual by Noel Tyl, Llewellyn 1994. Pay attention to the section on Midpoints, and cross-correlate your charts with respect to conjunctions to the North Node, particularly when there is Pluto involvement by hard aspect. Pluto conjunct the North Node when complicated by other aspects can sometimes produce this Pillar To Post life pattern.

Remember there are people who have this life-pattern who do not have this natal chart signature. They can change what is happening to them by altering attitudes and actions. But those who have this signature must learn to master the pattern just as each of us must master their own life pattern, not change it.

A natal chart doesn’t dictate what will happen in life – it sets up the timing of challenges you must respond to. How you respond determines what happens next.

But lives do have patterns. If you don’t believe it yet, read 50 biographies of people in the same profession and level of prominence. Outline some of them as if for a contrast-compare thesis on how to write a biography. You’ll see the patterns emerge.

Vampire existences probably have patterns too. On Buffy and Angel they often note, "this is the scary part" or "this is the happy part" – acknowledging that their lives have a cyclical pattern just like a story.

From the dawn of humanity, people have studied this phenomenon of life-patterns, and codified much wisdom from that study. One perennial favorite wisdom quote is the prayer: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference." That is from "The Serenity Prayer" usually credited to Reinhold Niebuhr.

I suspect Angel is still working on the "serenity" part, though he’s certainly got the courage part, and very possibly most of the wisdom part down pat. And for that alone, this show is worth watching – or just get the DVD’s.

There are people whose lives batter them from "Pillar To Post," who manage to keep the exaggerated and dramatic peak and valley events from being newspaper headlines. They’ve mastered the art of surviving as a target in a shooting gallery, as a magnet for every bully, as every pickpocket’s next mark. And there are those who are in the middle of learning that art of survival, who only aspire to that kind of "cool."

Very possibly all of us have fought this "pillar to post" pattern in our lives for a few years at a time. If not quite dramatic enough to make an Angel or Buffy episode, or a novel by Faye Kellerman (see Dec 2003 column), our lives deliver enough traumas to know the feeling of being a victim of events that you didn’t cause and didn’t deserve, and because of that don’t know how to cope with.

One such pattern often sets in as Neptune transits the 12th House (which doesn’t happen to everyone) and ripens to a discernable result as Neptune crosses the Ascendant. How that transit affects an individual depends on everything else in the chart, plus how well the individual has mastered the art of living "from pillar to post," possibly in prior lives.

One key is to develop a sense of humor and another is the sense of invulnerability that good self-esteem and deeply held faith provide. Surviving such a pillar-to-post period, in this or a prior life, gives one a fascination with Angel’s grace at handling his existence.

When you’re walking your years as a victim, you may find the world is telling you that all you have to do to break the pattern is change the way you behave, or think or feel. Of course, very often, that is true. Very often, the world’s victims bring it all upon themselves. But even more often, it’s not true. What do you do while you search for the wisdom to tell the difference?

Watch Buffy and Angel, and read books. I will have a lot more to say about Angel later this year.

For an extreme contrast to Angel, we have Dark Ages: Ravnos by Sarah Roark.

Angel leaves Sunnydale and Buffy behind him and goes to Los Angeles for the express purpose of seeking redemption after his centuries of killing. He sets out to find the helpless and defend them. Confronted with the woman who made him a vampire, seeing her Evil, he attempts to kill her by setting her on fire.

In Ravnos, the vampire woman Zoe has seen her vampire sire murdered by a vampire hunter. She leaves her home and travels months through a primitive land to track down the hunter to exact revenge at all costs.

The story gives us reasons to suspect that revenge here is a worthwhile goal, detailing the church style inquisition as victimizing the vampire community which practices some restraint with their humans, not taking enough blood to kill. But there are no really "good" characters in this novel.

Zoe develops a strong relationship to another vampire, Anatole, and his welfare comes to matter to her more than her own, maybe more than revenge. He is a spiritual leader among the vampires, and she is clearly not a bad person, but she is so obsessed with her need for revenge that we can’t find much good in her either.

This novel is slow, and very dark. If that is to your taste, you will find this a solidly constructed historical set in an alternate thirteenth century. The print in the paperback is a very light typeface with very small letters, on paper that’s not white enough, making it hard to read under artificial light. Try the library for a copy before buying.

To send books for review in this column email Jacqueline Lichtenberg, jl@simegen.com for snailing instructions or send an attached RTF file.  

 

 

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