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[astrosoeur]

bonnefoy for the signs

Aries: “I will name wilderness the castle which you were: night your voice, absence your face. And when you fall back into sterile earth; I will name nothingness the lightning which bore you.”

Taurus: “Unknowing, let us sleep. Chest against chest, our breathing mingled, hand in hand without dreams.”

Gemini:  “Smiling, prime, faded, forever an immobile star's reflection / in mortal gesture.”

Cancer:  “These frail earthly hands will undo / The sad knot of dreams.”

Leo: “Our hands full or not: The same abundance. Our eyes open or shut: the same light.”

Virgo: ”[You] who are strange to me no longer. We have grown, I know, In the same dark gardens.“

Libra: “Dreaming is a language.”

Scorpio:  “Always the same night that does not end.”

Sagittarius: “I live again in the light / Of the shadows you used to be”

Capricorn: “I sense you in the secret of all the paintings I love. I hear you stumbling at the stony core of the only books I read, the few I know how to read.”

Aquarius: “Silence is like the outline of a thousand metamorphoses.”

Pisces: “Let our bodies try to ford a wider time, our hands not know the other shore.”

[astrosoeur]

tranströmer for the signs

Aries: “We look almost happy out in the sun, while we bleed to death from wounds we don’t know about.”

Taurus: “You live well. The slum must be inside you.”

Gemini: “We always feel younger than we are. I carry inside myself my earlier faces, as a tree contains its rings. The sum of them is me. The mirror sees only my latest face, while I know all my previous ones.”

Cancer: “And that feeling of we’re-just-here which must be kept, like carrying a brimful pail without spilling a drop”

Leo: “Every person is a half-open door leading to a room for everyone.”

Virgo: “Time is not a straight line, it’s more of a labyrinth, and if you press close to the wall at the right place you can hear the hurrying steps and the voices, you can hear yourself walking past on the other side.“

Libra: “You drank some darkness / and became visible.”

Scorpio: “I walk slowly into myself / through a forest of empty suits of armour”

Sagittarius: “And the emptiness turns its face to us and whispers: ‘I am not empty, I am open.’”

Capricorn: “I'm carried in my shadow / like a violin / in its black case.”

Aquarius: “Weary of all who come with words, words but no language.”

Pisces: “There is a kind of out-of-sight dreaming that never stops. Light for other eyes.”

[astrosoeur]

anna akhmatova for the signs

Aries: “The ominous darkness shone only for us.”

Taurus: “But the heart’s same old riddles remain.”

Gemini: “From the very beginning, I felt myself to be someone else’s dream or delirium, or a reflection in someone’s mirror”

Cancer: “Now madness half shadows / My soul with its wing”

Leo: “If I can’t have love, if I can’t find peace, give me a bitter glory.”

Virgo: "When we die it won't become darker, It will, perhaps, become lighter."

Libra: “Winged or wingless / no joyful god visits me”

Scorpio: “You will hear thunder and remember me, and think: she wanted storms.”

Sagittarius: “Your voice is wild and simple.You are untranslatable / into any one tongue.”

Capricorn: “In the past did I live here, / and this—a new edition / of moments forever lost?”

Aquarius: “I cannot tell if the day is ending, or the world, or if the secret of secrets is inside me again.”

Pisces: “I remember everything simultaneously; Like the distant beam of a distant lighthouse.”

[astrosoeur]

anaïs nin for the signs

Aries: “I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.”

Taurus: “I wanted to remember in order to be able to return.”

Gemini: “I am always between two worlds, always in conflict. I would like sometimes to rest, to be at peace, to choose a nook, make a final choice, but I can’t. Some nameless, undescribable fear and anxiety keeps me on the move. On certain evenings like this, I would like to feel whole.”

Cancer: “I watched life and wanted to be a part of it but found it painfully difficult.”

Leo: "I disregard the proportions, the measures, the tempo of the ordinary world. I refuse to live in the ordinary world as ordinary women. To enter ordinary relationships. I want ecstasy. I am a neurotic — in the sense that I live in my world. I will not adjust myself to the world. I am adjusted to myself."

Virgo: “I was always ashamed to take. So I gave. It was not a virtue. It was a disguise.”

Libra:  “I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.”

Scorpio: “The nightmare always. Am I in love with the nightmare, as Kafka was, as so many poets?”

Sagittarius: “Reality doesn't impress me. I only believe in intoxication, in ecstasy, and when ordinary life shackles me, I escape, one way or another. No more walls.”

Capricorn: “When others asked the truth of me, I was convinced it was not the truth they wanted, but an illusion they could bear to live with. I was convinced of people’s need of illusion.”

Aquarius: “I don’t want worship. I want understanding.”

Pisces: “What kills life is the absence of mystery.”

[astrosoeur]

hjalmar söderberg for the signs

Aries: “Truth is like the sun, its value depends wholly upon our being at a correct distance away from it.”

Taurus: “He had longed for the passion, and nonetheless fled it.”

Gemini: “And what is moonshine? Secondhand sunshine. Diluted, counterfeit.”

Cancer: “One wants to be loved, and in lack thereof admired, in lack thereof feared, in lack thereof loathed and despised. One wants to instill some sort of emotion in people. The soul trembles before emptiness and desires contact at any cost.”

Leo: “I believe in the lust of the flesh and the incurable desolation of the soul.”

Virgo: “Thought is an acid, eating us away. At first we imagine it will only eat into that which is rotten and sick and must be removed. But thought thinks otherwise. It eats blindly. It begins with the prey you most gladly throw to it - but don't imagine it will be content with that! It doesn't stop until it has gnawed away the last thing you hold dear.”

Libra: “We know so little about one another. We embrace a shadow and love a dream.”

Scorpio: “I’ve borne my isolation with me through the crowd as the snail bears its house. For some people isolation isn’t a circumstance in which they find themselves, it’s an innate characteristic.”

Sagittarius: “Life, I do not understand you. But I’m not saying it is your fault. I think it is more likely that I am a vicious son, rather than that you are an unworthy mother.”

Capricorn: “Perhaps life is not meant to be understood. All of this rage to explain and understand, all the questing for truth, might be but a byway.”

Aquarius: “There are people who have no talent for happiness and who know this with painful, implacable clarity. Such people don’t seek happiness, merely to bring some sort of form and style to their unhappiness.”

Pisces: “No, there’s no dream of happiness that in the end doesn’t bite its own tail.”

[astrosoeur]

lispector for the signs

Aries: “It’s like the story of someone who went and didn’t return—that’s where I’m going.”

Taurus: “If this story doesn't exist now, it will. Thinking is an act. Feeling is a fact.”

Gemini: “I've never been free in my whole life. Inside I've always chased myself. I've become intolerable to myself. I live in a lacerating duality. I'm seemingly free, but I'm a prisoner inside of me.”

Cancer: “I am at the living and soft centre. Still.” 

Leo: “Within me trembles the world.”

Virgo: “Make no mistake, I only achieve simplicity with enormous effort.”

Libra: “ I hardly exist and if I do exist it's with delicate care.”

Scorpio:  “Who hasn’t ever wondered: am I a monster or is this what it means to be a person?”

Sagittarius: “I am the priestess of a secret that I no longer know. And I serve out of blissful ignorance.”

Capricorn: “Did something happen to me that I, because I didn’t know how to live it, lived as something else?”

Aquarius: “I, who symbolically die several times just to experience the resurrection.”

Pisces: “I don't think, just as the diamond doesn't think. I shine, totally clear. I'm neither hungry nor thirsty: I am. I have two eyes that are open. Open to the void.”

[astrosoeur]

rilke for the signs

Aries: “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”

Taurus: “Please don’t, above all, plant me in your heart. I grow too quick.”

Gemini: “So we are grasped by what we cannot grasp.”

Cancer: “Excess of being wells up in my heart.”

Leo:  “Is there any taste of us in that eternity into which we merge?”

Virgo: “Love consists of this: two solitudes that meet, protect and greet each other. ”

Libra: “Rose, oh pure contradiction, joy of being No-one's sleep under so many lids.”

Scorpio: “It is nothing but a breath, the void.”

Sagittarius: “The inner — what is it? If not the intensified sky, hurled through with birds and deep with the winds of homecoming.”

Capricorn: “For among these winters there is one so endlessly winter that only by wintering through it will your heart survive.”

Aquarius: “I want to be with those who know secret things or else alone.”

Pisces: “Make your ego porous. Will is of little importance, complaining is nothing, fame is nothing. Openness, patience, receptivity, solitude is everything.”

[astrosoeur]

the signs told as a circular tale

Aries is the child, the initial flame of life, the spurring force which sets all into motion. The image of dynamism, of origin and birth.  

Taurus is the cultivation of life, the taming of its fires. It is the eternal instilled into the ephemeral, the soul inhabiting matter, the body gaining the senses. The birth of beauty and decay, art and sin, as the underlying circular forces of the world. 

Gemini is the division of the heart and mind, the soul and the intellect into twin flames which are scattered out in the world. The search for the other half begins. It is the scinitllating magnetism between people, ideas and things which gives birth to the art of communication. 

Cancer is homecoming. The two halves reunited, completed, fullfilled: and together they create the great virtues. A shift from pursuit to possession and bloom. Life reinvented through the art of Love: instilled into the powers of consuming and nuturing. 

Leo is the unfettering of the Self from the other. The birth of the ego and thus also the tragedy: the shadow and the illusion. Culmination at the threshold of degeneration or rupture. Nature awakening from its slumber to turn elemental and temperamental. 

Virgo is the weathering of the storm. Rationality as an incisive scapel to the tumours of the heart. The flame of life focused, overstrained, as a tireless searching light for cure, salvation, perfection. 

Libra is the mediating between intellect and heart. An amelioration of harm done and softening of edges; planting the seeds of beauty in the place of the scars. The bright interrogation light turned down and inwards into a luminescence of spirit, marking reconciliation. And the dance begins. 

Scorpio is the dance continued all the way into the depths. Swallowed whole by the abyss: the mind is lone, and the heart is loud. In the dark, all is revealed.

Sagittarius is the odyssey out of the depths. The birth of comedy through tragedy, and wisdom through resurrection--its vines growing from inwards and out, into a permeating perspective of verdancy and freshness. 

Capricorn is the the height of maturity. The roots of wisdom drying up, as everything is at last interconnected, grounded and resolved. It is the last great breaths of cultivation, erupting into solemn serenity.  

Aquarius is the transcendence of matter into the immaterial. The soul being torn up by its very roots only to disperse as an ignis fatuus painting the skies, marking the birth of alchemy.

Pisces is the process of merging with dream, returning to the elementary state of abstraction. It marks the very end, yet also being back at the beginning, for another time around on the eternal wheel.

[astrosoeur]

the signs as notions on hell

Aries: “Hell isn’t other people. Hell is yourself.“ - Ludwig Wittgenstein

Taurus: "Let heaven exist, though my own place be in hell." - Jorge Luis Borges

Gemini: “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven..” - John Milton

Cancer: "What is hell? I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” - Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Leo: “I am still blazing in my golden hell.” - Sylvia Plath

Virgo: “There is some wisdom in taking a gloomy view, in looking upon the world as a kind of Hell, and in confining one’s efforts to securing a little room that shall not be exposed to the fire.” - Arthur Schopenhauer

Libra: “I believe I am in Hell, therefore I am.” - Arthur Rimbaud

Sagittarius: “And the hell is not the torture of pain! It is the torture of a joy.” - Clarice Lispector

Scorpio: “Hell is—other people!” - Jean-Paul Sartre

Capricorn: “Each of us bears his own Hell.” - Virgil

Aquarius: “Life to them was a rat's hell—they could flee it only with each other.” - Julia Kristeva

Pisces: “Hell has enlarged its soul and opened its mouth without any limits.” - James Joyce

[astrosoeur]

the mercury signs

Aries: brusque truths, an unhindered and combative flow, enthusiastic inquiries, impassioned polemic, hasty candor of the moment, playful goading and provoking, grand words, indecent persuasions, an eagerness to impress, childlike humor. 

Taurus: cemented opinions, laconic and unhurried in speech, will never admit they’re wrong, protective sentiments, warm approaches, delayed reactions, sentimentality, plain-spoken sincerity, indulgence in listening, practical-minded mentality, aversion to verbal ambiguity, devoted reassurance, comfortable topics.

Gemini: a silver-tongued flow, keen discussions, impertinent questionings, mastered cajolery, monologues, an adaptive tone, storaged facts, frivolous dissipation, unduly opinionated in everything, sly remarks, gossip and fabricated “truths”, quick-paced reasoning, verbally resourceful. 

Cancer: a lachrymose tone, language overgrown with sentiment, masters of disarming, dedications, meandrous thoughts, an immersive inner world, reminiscing, tête-à-têtes, mid-conversation pauses, atmospheric storytelling, bashful reactions, delicate consciousness, confessions. 

Leo: panache, unanswered questions, conversation as performance, brilliant raconteurs, baiting, revelations, language curled with humor, an indestructible morale,  gilded soliloquies, white lies, lively interactions, chameleon-like expression, masterful feigning, permeating influence. 

Virgo: seasoned in finding le mot juste, interesting debates, calculated ripostes, an analytical mindset, meticulous schemes, perfectionism, masters of critique, attention to detail, conversational symmetry, acridness, precise timing.

Libra: a diplomatic standpoint, flowery words, smooth persuasion, airy evasions, speaks with care, idealized sentiments, politeness, softly observant, wide perspectives, easily suggestible, gilded flattery, a lightness of spirit and humor, engaging questions, illusive deference. 

Scorpio: trenchant truths, intense sentiments, secrecy, speaking in absolute terms, brooding, a leery perspective, loaded questions, great discerners of insincerity, verbally hypnotic, a dark sense of humor, overwhelming reactions.

Sagittarius: habitual intervening, bon-mots, seasoned spurring, a wandering focus, big ideas, impromptu exclamations, optimistic naiveté, overstated storytelling, unfiltered frankness, empirical wisdom, infectious buoyancy, ravenous curiosity. 

Capricorn: an economy of words, focused attention, felicitous courtesies, great confidantes, formal approaches, unsentimental judgments, adopted pragmatism, advisory remarks, deep-rooted beliefs, renaissance attitudes, clear intentions, kept promises, solemnity of perspective. 

Aquarius: a roundabout expression, distance, cryptic and vague statements, a mastered use of silence, erratic responses, a knowing tone, habitual wringing of concepts, conversation as play, lofty ideals, an itch to contradict, stirring influence, adopted absurdity. 

Pisces: absorptive listeners, a fanciful outlook, internal monologues, overflowing sentiments, touching words, pensive silences, drifting off, boundless exchanges, lingering sentiments, dreamlike logic, recitals, a lulling softness in tone.

[astrosoeur]

the moon signs and their downsides

Aries moon: lacks in patience and 'hurries' their emotions, causing them to either misfire or backfire. Taurus moon: tirelessly tries to touch, as a way to compensate for what they can’t feel. Gemini moon: over-rationalizes their feelings to the point of not being able to tell the difference of what is genuine and what is fabricated. Cancer moon: innate feelings of being incomplete in their own emotions, immersed in the resolute illusion that they have to be completed by ‘a second half’. Leo moon: great difficulty in distinguishing between acknowledgement and actual reciprocated affection Virgo moon: unshakably feels like their emotions are unbecoming, and compulsively tries to gild them into adequacy, but ends up distorting them in the process. Libra moon: has hearts like trembling violins; quivering, filled with feelings half-felt, their hesitance preventing them from feeling freely. Scorpio moon: ferociously protective of their feelings, like a lioness of her cubs, to the point of emotional isolation - their hearts being in a perpetual state of brimming over. Sagittarius moon: shuns any negative and dark emotions entirely, rendering themselves to one-dimensionality in the process. Capricorn moon: armed to the teeth towards the matters of the heart, always on guard against overwhelming emotions, seeing them as shortcomings. Aquarius moon: has an alienated heart speaking a foreign language, great difficulty in understanding emotions, often deserting them to flee up their ivory tower. Pisces moon: possesses a soaring hunger for emotions beyond, out of reach; their hearts condemned to be adrift in dream and fantasy. 

[astrosoeur]

the signs as classic cocktails

Aries: Sazerac - bold, febrile, herculean (absinthe, rye whiskey, sugar & bitters)

Taurus: Sidecar - nostalgic, grounded, simple (cognac, lemon & sugar)

Gemini: Bijou - glimmering, floral, piquant (gin, red vermouth, chartreuse & orange bitters)

Cancer: Vieux Carré - enfolding, warm, visceral (rye whiskey, cognac, red vermouth, bénédictine & bitters)

Leo: Clover Club - vivid, lavish, ebullient (gin, raspberry syrup & lemon)

Virgo: Negroni - bitter, precise, full-bodied (gin, campari & red vermouth)

Libra: Angel Face - alluring, ambriosal, balanced (gin, apricot brandy & calvados)

Scorpio: Brandy Alexander - rich, dark, tempting (cognac, crème de cacao & cream)

Sagittarius: Between the Sheets - bright, impassioned, playful (cognac, light rum, triple sec & lemon) 

Capricorn: Penicillin - potent, remedial, formal (single malt scotch, honey, ginger & lemon)

Aquarius: Last Word - elusive, intricate, fateful (gin, green chatreuse, maraschino & lime)

Pisces: Aviation - ethereal, soft, fanciful (gin, maraschino, crème de violette & lemon) 

[astrosoeur]

venus and its darker aspects

Venus square/opposite Mars - Oscillation between polar opposites emotionally: intense love to burning hate, utter reverence to aversion. A constant circle of going up in flames. Intensity which can be almost fatal. 

Venus square Pluto - A heart beating to creation, destruction and rebirth. Love as power, as the fight between forces of surrender and domination. Sin and absolution through intimacy. Shadowy emotions which catharsize through emotional intimacy. 

Venus septile Saturn - Romanticism incarnate. Sees beauty in tragedy, sadness, darkness and death. A belief in love as a kind of suffering. 

Venus square/oppposite Lilith - The devil in disguise. Raw, unfettered instinct and emotions. Lust and shame interwoven. Love as a labyrinth of obsession, treachery and compulsion. 

[astrosoeur]

the signs as french expressions

Aries: Après moi, le deluge - “after me, the flood”, something thought to have been said to Louis XV by his mistress Madame de Pompadour, implying an indifference to what (damage) happens after you are gone, a disregard for the consequences of your life. 

Taurus: Plus ca change... (plus c'est la même chose) - “the more things change, the more they remain the same”, a way to express disillusion or defeat in regards to how things always stay the same at their core, even though things change. 

Gemini: Savoir-faire - “know (what to) do”, the quality of being capable to handle any situation with grace, having mastered adaptability and ingenuity. 

Cancer: Enfant terrible  - “unruly child”, refers to someone (often a child or one of childish spirit) who, by being overly candid and untimely in behavior, embarrasses and shocks their surroundings. 

Leo: Roi fainéant - “do-nothing king”, an expression for a king with no (real) power, a play-king left to his riches, vanities and dissipations. 

Virgo: Le mot juste - “the exact word”, coined by Flaubert, searching for le mot juste is the tireless and hopeless effort in finding the perfect word to describe something, to fix the unfixable.

Libra: Cherchez la femme - “look for/seek the woman”, a presumption that if a man is acting strangely, out of character, or inexplicably—there’s always a woman lying behind it. 

Scorpio: L’appel du vide - “the call of the void”, being plagued by intrusive thoughts of destructive nature, feeling momentarily drawn to demise.

Sagittarius: Esprit d’escalier - “staircase wit”, the frustrating phenomenon of coming up with the perfect observation or comeback after the opportunity to use it has passed.

Capricorn: Nostalgie de la boue  - “mud nostalgia”, a desire or yearning for what is depraved, degrading or crude. 

Aquarius:  Poète maudit - “doomed poet”, used to describe the fate of the great poet, who is doomed to obscurity and to live as an outcast to, or against the world.  

Pisces:  Flâneur - “stroller”, a leisurely wanderer of city streets, an aesthete and observer of life. 

[astrosoeur]

paul valéry for the signs

Aries: “Power without abuse loses its charm.”  Taurus: “The definition of beauty is what despairs." Gemini: “That which has always been accepted by everyone, everywhere, is almost certain to be false.” Cancer: “The universe is a flaw in the purity of non-being.”  Leo: “What soul would hesitate to turn the universe upside down in order to be a little more itself?” Virgo: “Politeness is organized indifference.”  Libra: “My soul is nothing now but the dream dreamt by matter struggling with itself!” Scorpio: “To enter into your own mind you need to be armed to the teeth.” Sagittarius: “As for the world, all reality has no other excuse for existence except to offer the poet the chance to play a sublime match against it -- a match that is list in advance.” Capricorn: “Consciousness reigns, but does not rule.” Aquarius: “Our most important thoughts are those that contradict our emotions.” Pisces: “Follow the path of your aroused thought, and you will soon meet this infernal inscription: There is nothing so beautiful as that which does not exist.” 

[astrosoeur]

baudelaire for the signs

Aries: “What can an eternity of damnation matter to someone who has felt, if only for a second, the infinity of delight?” Taurus: “Extract the eternal from the ephemeral.” Gemini: “To be away from home and yet to feel oneself everywhere at home; to see the world, to be at the centre of the world, and yet to remain hidden from the world.” Cancer:  “I am the vampire at my own veins.” Leo: “Angels would damn themselves for me.” Virgo: “I have cultivated my hysteria with pleasure and terror.” Libra: “Swan-white of heart; I smile not ever neither do I weep. I am as lovely as a dream in stone.” Scorpio: “Do not look for my heart any more, the beasts have eaten it.” Sagittarius: “One should always be drunk. That’s all that matters… But with what? With wine, with poetry, or with virtue, as you choose. But get drunk.” Capricorn: “We are weighed down, every moment, by the conception and the sensation of Time. And there are but two means of escaping and forgetting this nightmare: pleasure and work. Pleasure consumes us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose. ” Aquarius: “Strangeness is a necessary ingredient in beauty.” Pisces: “The Poet is a kinsman in the clouds, who scoffs at archers, loves a stormy day. But on the ground, among the hooting crowds, he cannot walk, his wings are in the way.”

[astrosoeur]

proust for the signs

Aries: “Desire makes everything blossom; possession makes everything wither and fade.”  Taurus: “Love is a striking example of how little reality means to us.“ Gemini: “The bonds between ourselves and another person exists only in our minds. Memory as it grows fainter loosens them, and notwithstanding the illusion by which we want to be duped and which, out of love, friendship, politeness, deference, duty, we dupe other people, we exist alone. Man is the creature who cannot escape from himself, who knows other people only in himself, and when he asserts the contrary, he is lying.”  Cancer: “Love is space and time measured by the heart.”  Leo: “Our desires interweave with one another; and in the confusion of existence, it is seldom that a joy is promptly paired with the desire that longed for it.”  Virgo: “It comes so soon, the moment when there is nothing left to wait for.” Libra: “The inertia of the mind urges it to slide down the easy slope of imagination, rather than to climb the steep slope of introspection.” Scorpio: “The true paradises are the paradises that we have lost.” Sagittarius: “Mystery is not about traveling to new places but about looking with new eyes.”  Capricorn: “We must never be afraid to go too far, for truth lies beyond.”  Aquarius: “But sometimes the future is latent in us without our knowing it, and our supposedly lying words foreshadow an imminent reality.”  Pisces: “If a little dreaming is dangerous, the cure for it is not to dream less, but to dream more, to dream all the time.”