Hudson Valley Astrologer

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

— George Bernard Shaw

Sitting in a class room many years ago, I was an unlikely academic. My persona then wore a tough guy scowl, hidden behind long waves of blond hair that hung down in front of my face. I tried way to hard to be cool, and always left just enough room for a cigarette to poke out from my “Cousin It” facade, as if to say “get me out of this godforsaken place.” The teacher called me “professor,” with a rye mixture of astonishment and sarcasm. Astonished that I had the answers to so many of the questions; sarcastic because his priors didn’t matchup with someone of my countenance, someone who looked like me, cool, like James Dean, but far from a movie set and about twenty-years too late.

He was “playing” but it was embarrassing for me, such a “cool dude,” to accept his nickname because it was clearly making fun in a sardonic. What he didn’t realize was that I found the subject of psychology fascinating, and with a little bit of playful encouragement he might have empowered me in my studies rather than create this contest of dominance which his own ego must have needed at some level to allay his own insecurities. He used his advantage at the head of the room to pique my own insecurities and I bit the bait to “prove” to him he could not move me. So, I won by losing. Not a great pedagogical approach I admit but this issue, underachiever syndrome, is probably more common than we like to think.

Carol Dweck built a career on solving this kind of problem in the classroom and wrote a book on the topic called Mindset. In astrology we consider the condition of the third house to be representative of mindset, and the 3rd house — 9th house axis connects our secondary education to higher learning, sometimes college or university but occasionally independent studies too. The Sun rules the 9th house in my chart, which holds Pluto and Uranus as well. Uranus is retrograde and rules the 3rd house of mindset and early education. My education was interrupted, or chaotic might be a good description. I grew up in a wild household of 9 siblings. It was fun! We might say it was ALL PLAY and no work with hardly any rules. We were an incorrigible tribe! Not really conducive to getting our lessons done. Even though I grew my hair and smoked cigarettes by the time I was in 5th grade, I was always respectful of my elders. Mostly, because my mother was a badass and single handedly raised 6 boys and 3 girls. She taught us how to slap fight! Needless to say we were very good at slap fighting. So, my professor wasn’t wrong about his assessment. He was just not complete, he needed to update his priors.

More recently, in between my own and my wife’s second Saturn Returns, we decided to get a puppy. And not just any puppy but the most playful kind of puppy on planet earth. We got a Labrador and called her Rosie. But I was very close to calling her Quiddity after reading an essay about Alexandra Horowitz’s book The Year of the Puppy. Each day I wake up, or even when I return home after being away for only a few minutes, Rosie greets me with her whole behind bouncing from side to side, and her tail wagging in sync. Rudely both front paws are up like she’s doing the doggy paddle in midair, and she wears a big grin on her face. She pounces playfully. Obviously, she’s not learned her manners yet.

Dweck suggests in her book Mindset to name your “persona” as a way of separating your “fixed mindset” from your Core personality. I thought that sounded like fun so I named my “fixed mindset” Quiddity after Horowitz’s puppy. I even found a mascot to represent “Quiddity.” Since Rosie is inclined to be a little too rough with her stuffed animals we had to hire a kind of hall monitor for supervised play session. I had to rescue “Quiddity” from a certain unraveling, Rosie gets right at the stitching and methodically unties her toys rather than just rip them apart. If I didn’t intervene and spontaneous tuck Quiddity up between the ceiling and the top of the kitchen cabinets we wouldn’t be having this playful moment.

Quiddity has got to be the cutest little stuffed magic dragon ever. The word comes from the Latin quidditas which means “what it is.” In philosophical circles it means the core essence or inherent nature of a thing. I like the idea that Quiddity describes the essential nature or “whatness” of something. My entire astrological philosophy hangs on a similar construct I call the Astral Core, and centers on the synthesis of the Sun-Moon combinations in the horoscope. My idea was to borrow this cute little mischief and identify it as my “fixed mindset” persona, in keeping with Carol Dweck’s suggestion to separate my sense of who Quiddity thinks I am from my Core Identity, who I really am. Quiddity by the way is prone to magical thinking among other annoying habits that can delay progress or stunt growth. But let’s not throw Quiddity totally under the bus, because he is enormously helpful too! Quiddity reminds me to not sweat the small stuff and to play a little.

I believe it was Piaget who did research on the effects of play on children, and that play, and rough housing with the father in particular, was a form of socialization that help young boys develop confident and healthy identities.

But play can be taken too far, which Quiddity and I have been known to do. The Puer Aeternus comes to mind, which of course is the archetype that embodies spontaneity, and a childlike wonder that aligns with the joy and freedom of play. But a downside can crowd out the fun when immaturity and the avoidance of responsibility takes hold, symptoms that devolve into what has been called the Peter Pan Syndrome. The puer’s fixation on pleasure and fantasy can mirror excessive or unbalanced play, where escapism replaces growth. This archetype often develops due to unresolved parental dynamics or a lack of grounding influences during formative years. Think Captain Hook, and being out at sea aboard the Jolly Roger.

Last year was bitter sweet. I had one of my best years in a long time business wise, but it cost me some valuable playtime. I was grieving a death in the family. Probably still am. I also had to put aside “childish” things because there was simply no time. The “grownup” things were more mature and important if taken purely from a revenue perspective, but ironically those same activities are also soul sucking. They don’t feed my spirit in the same way that the Puer Aeternus does, the way Quiddity does, because I lose myself in being too serious.

Take these daily prompts for example. The Jetpack app is awesome and lets me “play” around with a response and just “take off” and write without delay or bogging myself down in too much research. It’s fun and I am trying to keep it that way.

In 2016, I left Facebook as social media platforms became increasingly contentious. I’ve messed around from time to time trying to find both a message as well as another platform, but it doesn’t take long before frustration sets in. It seems there is more noise on social media than not, so I quit, and went to work studying and writing in my own private silo offline. This app and the daily prompts feel like a FUN again and a new way to reengage.

Writing is so rewarding. Like playing with Rosie, who never seems to fail to let me know when I’m not playing enough. She’ll fetch my sneakers and remind me, even if it’s only been no more than 10 minutes. Quiddity reminds me too! Every time I walk into the kitchen he’s “up there,” a reminder that there is such a thing as a higher self, and that a “fixed mindset” just doesn’t belong “up there.” But I also need to remind myself that the “whatness” of writing cannot get lost in a “fixed mindset” either, within the inner critic (“Quiddity”), who lights up like Tinker Bell with the zoomies and starts running rough shod around my Peter Pan brain.

I’m not a Tarot aficionado but sometimes I do wonder about The Fool stepping off that cliff and into the abyss, with a little dog yapping at his heels. The “whatness” of The Fool is unclear, is The Fool entranced in oblivion, consumed in unadulterated courage, or imbued with trust in the universe? I’ll need to check in with my card mavens, or maybe ask Quiddity what’s up.

Happy Saturday

HVA

💚🍀