Category: Platypus people

The introduction of the platypus was such a shock to the British scientific community, in the early 1900’s, that they considered the monotreme an elaborate, well-conceived hoax. They thought they had the animal kingdom all figured out. Those of us who know some platypus people empathize, for when they began to express themselves we thought they were joking. We thought we had human nature all figured out. As we learn more about them, we realize they’re not kidding, and our shock turns to intrigue, as we begin to think they might be able to teach us more about ourselves from their funhouse mirror perspective.

Find Your Own Truth

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“You need to find your own truth,” Ray Bradbury said to a caller of a radio show on which he was a guest. Mr. Bradbury expounded on the idea, somewhat, but he remained vague. He said some things about following the lead of influential masters of the craft, and all that, “But you’ll eventually need to find your own truth,”

We loathe vague advice. We want answers, thorough and perfect answers, that help us cross bridges. We also want those answers to be pointed and easy to incorporate, but another part of us knows that the seeker of easy paths often gets what they pay for in that regard.

When we listen to a radio show guesting a master craftsman, however, we expect nuggets of information to unlock the mystery of how a master craftsman managed to carve out a niche in his overpopulated craft. We want tidbits, words of wisdom about design, and/or habits we can imitate and emulate, until we reach a point where we don’t feel so alone in our structure. Vague advice and vague platitudes feel like a waste of our time. Especially when that advice comes so close to our personal core and stops abrupt.

Ray Bradbury went onto define his vision of an artistic truth as he saw it, as a guest on this radio show, but that definition didn’t step much beyond the precipice. I tuned him out by the time he began speaking of other matters, and I eventually turned the channel. I might have missed some great advice, but I was frustrated.

After I heard the advice, but I went back to doing what I was doing soon after hearing it, because he didn’t give me what I wanted and needed at the time. It did start popping up when I was doing something, and then it started popping up when I started doing something else. The advice initially felt like useless new-age advice we give to confused souls looking for guidance. It felt like sage advice from some kind of guru who never figured out how to succeed within normal structures in life, so he began dispensing gobbledy gook that others should interpret but never can, so they just label the guru a spiritual guide, because they don’t know what else to call him.  

It might take hours, it might take weeks, but this idea of an individual truth, as it pertains specifically to artistic vision, becomes applicable so often and, in so many situations, that we begin to chew on it and digest it. Others may continue to find this vague advice about an artistic truth nothing more than waste matter –to bring this analogy to its biological conclusion– but it begins to infiltrate everything the eager student does. If the advice is pertinent, the recipient begins spotting truths what should’ve been so obvious before. They begin to see that what they thought was their artistic truth, and what their primary influences considered true, is not as true for them as they once thought.

Vague advice might seem inconsequential to those who do not bump up against the precipice. For these people, a platitude such as, “Find your own truth” may have an “of course” suffix attached to it. “Of course an artist needs to find their artistic truth when approaching an artistic project,” they say. “Isn’t that the very definition of art?” It is, but if we were to ask an artist about the current project they’re working on, and its relation to their definition of an artistic truth, they will surely reply that they think they’re really onto something. If we ask them about the project after they finish the piece, we will likely receive a revelation of the artist’s frustration in one form or another, as most art involves the pursuit of an artistic truth coupled with an inability to ever capture it to the artist’s satisfaction. Yet, we could say that the pursuit of artistic truth, coupled with the frustration of never achieving it, provides more fuel to the artist than an actual, final, arrived-upon truth ever could.

Finding an artistic truth, involves intensive knowledge of the rules of a craft, locating the parameters of the artist’s ability, finding their formula within, and whittling. Any individual who has ever attempted to create art has started with a master’s template in mind. The aspiring, young artist tries to imitate and emulate that master’s design, and they wonder what that master might do in moments of artistic uncertainty: Can I do this? What would they do? Should I do that? Is my truth nestled somewhere inside all of that awaiting further exploration? At a furthered point in the process, the artist discovers other truths, including artistic truths that contradict prior truths, until all truths become falsehoods when compared to the current artistic truth. This is where the whittling begins.

In a manner similar to the whittler whittling away at a stick to create form, the storyteller is always whittling. He’s whittling when he writes. He’s whittling when he reads. He’s whittling in a movie theater, spotting subplots and subtext that his fellow moviegoers might not see. He’s whittling when we tell him about our experience at the used car dealership. He’s trying to get to the core of the tale, a core the storyteller might not see.

“I could tell you about the greatest adventure tale ever told, or a story that everyone agrees is the funniest they’ve ever heard,” she says, “and you’d focus on the part where I said the instead of the.” The whittler searches for the truth, or a subjective truth that he can use. Is it the truth, or the truth? It doesn’t matter, because he doesn’t believe that the storyteller’s representation of the truth is the truth.

Once the artist has learned all the rules, defined the parameters, and found his own formula within a study of a master’s template, and all the templates that contradict that master template, it is time for him to branch out and find his own artistic truth.

The Narrative Essay

Even while scouring the read-if-you-like (RIYL) links the various outlets provide for the books I’ve enjoyed previously, I knew that the narrative essay existed. Just as I’ve always known that the strawberry existed, I knew about the form some call memoir, also known as literary non-fiction or creative non-fiction, but have you ever tasted a strawberry that caused you to flirt with the idea of eating nothing but strawberries for the rest of your life? If you have, your enjoyment probably had more to do with your diet prior to eating that strawberry than the actual flavor of the inexplicably delicious fruit. In the course of one’s life, a person might accidentally indulge in a diet that leaves them vitamin deficient, and they might not know the carelessness of their ways until they take that first bite of the little heart-shaped berry.

“You simply must try these strawberries,” a co-worker said in a buffet line at the office. I have always loved strawberries, but I didn’t even notice these particular strawberries in the shadow of the glorious array of meats and carbs at the other end of the buffet. While I stood there, impatiently waiting for the slow forking procedures some have for finding the perfect piece of meat, she gave me a look. “Just try them,” she said. I did.

Prior to eating that strawberry, I knew nothing about chemical rewards the brain offers for fulfilling a need, and I didn’t know anything about it after I took that first bite either. The only thing I knew, or thought, was that that strawberry was so delicious that I experienced a temporary feeling of euphoria. I piled some strawberries on my plate, and ate a couple of them, but the line was so slow that I was allowed to eat a number of the strawberries on my plate before progressing. I normally do not do this, and I normally loathe those people who do. I prefer to assemble a meal for myself and wait until I’m at a table before I even take my first bite. My co-worker was so insistent that I try one, that I bit into to one to indulge her.

“These things are glorious,” I said.

“What are?”

“The strawberries.”

“Oh, right,” she said. “I told you.”

The sixth and seventh strawberries were as glorious as the first few, and before I knew it, I was gorging on the fruit when another friend behind me, in the buffet line, informed me that I was holding up the line.

At this point, the reader might like to know the title of the one gorgeous little narrative essay that spawned my feelings of creative euphoria. The only answer I can give is that one essay will not quench those suffering from a nutrient depletion any more than a single strawberry can. You might need to gorge on them in the rude, obsessive manner I did that day in the buffet line. One narrative essay did not provide a eureka-style epiphany that led me to understanding of all the creative avenues worthy of exploration in the form. One essay did not quench the idea depletion I experienced in the time-tested formulas and notions I had of the world of storytelling. I just knew I needed something more and something different, and I read all the narrative essays I could find in a manner equivalent to the effort I put into exploring the maximum benefits the strawberry could provide, until a grocery store checker proclaimed that she never witnessed anyone purchase as many strawberries as I was in one transaction. She even called a fellow employee over to witness the spectacle I laid out on her conveyor belt. The unspoken critique between the two was that no wife would permit a man to make such an exaggerated, imbalanced purchase, so I must be a self-indulgent bachelor.

An unprecedented amount of strawberries did not provide me with an unprecedented amount of euphoria, of course, as the brain appears to only provide euphoric chemical rewards for satisfying a severe depletion, but the chemical rewards of finding my own truth, in the narrative essay format, have proven almost endless. The same holds true for the rewards I’ve experienced reading the output of others who have reached their creative peaks. I knew narrative essays existed, as I said, but I considered most to be dry, personal essays that attempted to describe the cute, funny things that happened to them on their way to 40. I never thought of them as a vehicle for the exploration of the answers to our abundant questions on how to be, become, and live in  the stories written by those authors who accomplished it.

It is difficult to describe an epiphany to a person who has never experienced one or even to those who have. The variables are so unique that they can be difficult to describe to a listener donning an of-course face. More often than not, an epiphany does not involve the provocative shock of unique, ingenious thoughts. My personal definition involves all of the of-course thoughts nestled among commonplace events and conversations that one has to arrive at by their own accord. When such an explanation doesn’t make a dent in the of-course faces, we can only conclude that epiphanies are almost entirely personal.

For me, the narrative essay was an avenue to the truth my mind craved, and I might have never have ventured down that path had Ray Bradbury’s vague four words “Find your own truth,” failed to register. For those who stubbornly maintain their of-course faces in the shadow of the maxim the late, great Ray Bradbury, I offer another vague piece of advice that the late, great Rodney Dangerfield offered to an aspiring, young comedian: “You’ll figure it out.”

If advice such as these two nuggets appear so obvious that it is considered unworthy of discussion, or the reader cannot see how to apply it, no matter how much time they spend thinking about it, adding to it, or whittling away at it to find a worthy core, I add this: You’ll either figure it out, or you won’t.

A Simplicity Trapped in a Complex Mind

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“That’s David Hauser,” my friend Paul said when I asked about a man who sat in the corner of the liquor store talking to himself. “He’s crazy, an absolute loon. Went crazy about a year ago. People say he got so smart that he just snapped one day, like that!” Paul added snapping his fingers.

I loved The Family Liquor Store, because I loved anomalies, and The Family Liquor Store was a veritable breeding ground for them. I knew nothing about anomalies before I started going to The Family Liquor Store. I thought I did, but the patrons there informed me that I had no idea. I knew people who succeeded and others that failed, but my definition of the two measures was relative to my dad’s. We considered his friend’s promotion to department store manager the pinnacle of success. I knew as little about the definition of success as I did the depths of failure and despair I encountered in the liquor store owned by my friend Paul’s parents, where Paul was employed.

Even while immersed in that world of despair, I encountered pride, coping mechanisms, and lies. A customer named John told me that he once played against Wayne Gretzky in a minor league hockey match, Jay informed me of the time he screamed “Go to Hell JFK!” to the man’s face, and Ronny told me of the various strength contests he won. The fact that I flirted with believing these tales informed the regulars in The Family Liquor Store that I was as hilarious as the fools that told them.

“Why would they lie about things like that?” I asked to top off the joke.

“Wouldn’t you?” they asked when they reached a break in their laughter. “If you lived the life they did.”

The unspoken punchline to this ongoing joke was that I might be more lacking in street smarts than any person they ever met. The answer to the question that was never asked regarding my standing in their world was that a thorough understanding of their world could be said to be on par with any intellectual study of the great men of the book smarts world, in that they both involve a basic understanding of human nature.

“You see these guys here,” Paul’s father confidentially whispered to me on another day at The Family Liquor Store. “I could introduce you to them, one by one, and they’d tell you wild stories of success and failure, but the one thing you’ll hear, in almost every case, is the story about how a woman put them down. They all fell for the wrong woman.”

Knowing how this line would stick with me, I turned back to him in the moment, “What’s the wrong woman?” I asked.

“It varies,” he said. “You can’t know. All you can know is that you don’t know, because you’ll be all starry-eyed in the moment. Bring them home to meet your dad, your grandma, and all your friends, and listen to what they say.”

I met a bunch of fussy fellas, since hearing that advice. Some of them wouldn’t even look at a woman below an eight, on the relatively superficial scale of physical appearance. Others looked for excessive class, intelligence, strength and weakness, and still others were in a perpetual, perhaps unconscious, search for their mama. For me, it’s always been about sanity. I’ve dated some phenomenal women throughout my life, and I’ve also had an inordinate attraction to that sassy mama-who-could-bring-the-drama, but when those ultimatums of increased involvement arrived that sage advice from Paul’s father wormed its way into my calculations. I wouldn’t limit this warning to women, however, as I would put just as many men through the FrootLoopery index I developed for those with whom I choose to surround myself.  I did this, because as much I like crazy, and I do enjoy their company in near-spiritual manner that could only be called a like-minded bond, I did not want to end up in an incarnation of my personal visage of hell, otherwise known as The Family Liquor Store, where it appeared a wide variety of bitter, lost souls entered, but none escaped.

For all of the questions I asked in The Family Liquor Store, and I asked a ton of them, there was one question that I dare not ask: Why would a normal family, with normal kids, want to open a liquor store on the corners of failure and despair? I never asked this question, even as a young man with an insufferable amount of curiosity, because I knew that the answers I received would reveal some uncomfortable truths about the one who answered. One harsh answer I learned, over time, was that if we surround ourselves with failure and despair, we feel better about ourselves and our meager place in the world.

“How does someone become so smart that they go crazy?” I asked Paul, still staring at David Hauser, the man who appeared to be having full-fledged conversations with himself.

“I don’t know,” Paul said. “They say he had a fantastic job, prestige, and boatloads of money, but he got fired one day, and no one knows why. His wife divorced him when he couldn’t find other work, and he ended up sitting in the corner over there, talking to himself for hours on end, drinking his brew.”

Among the possibilities he listed was the idea that a woman might have led to David’s fall. I latched onto that possibility, because it bolstered Paul’s summation of the men in The Family Liquor Store. I was satisfied with the answer, but Paul and those who informed him, said it was more complicated than that. They wouldn’t let that too-smart angle go in regard to David Hauser’s condition. They declared that was the, “The nut of it all.”

Talking to yourself was a common practice of The Family Store patronage. Those who didn’t do so were the ones who stood out. The interesting and defining factor that separated David Hauser from the pack was that he not only talked to himself, he listened, and he appeared to be a good listener in those one-sided conversations, a characteristic that made him an anomaly in a world of anomalies. There were times when David looked to a speaker no one else could see, but he reserved those shared glances with the speaker for the introductory portion of the speaker’s conversation. When the purported speaker’s dialogue progressed, David Hauser’s gaze took a diagonal slant, and it morphed into an outward glance, followed by an inward one that suggested he was contemplating what the other was saying. At times, David Hauser and the purported speaker said nothing at all.

Prior to David Hauser, I assumed that everyone who spoke did so to fill a void. In a world of people with no listening skills, most intangible friends are excellent listeners. David Hauser filled that void, but he and his companion created other voids, what some might call seven-second lulls. At times, the lulls in those conversations ended with active-listening prompts on David’s part. This display suggested that the purported speaker ended the lull, and David’s listening prompts encouraged the speaker to continue. At other times, David stopped speaking abruptly, as if the purported speaker just interrupted him.

I was intrigued with David Hauser when he first sat down to discuss whatever he felt compelled to discuss with his imaginary friend, Paul’s description of the man’s fall fascinated me, but the more I watched the man and studied his progression, the more obsessed I became with him. I knew Paul would mock me for it, and I knew he could be brutal, but I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to know what this guy was saying.

“I have to know what he’s saying,” I told Paul.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Paul said. “Why?”

I thought of telling him that I thought it was funny, but I tried that in the past and Paul spotted the ruse for what it was. He knew I was always on the hunt for primary source information that I couldn’t learn from books. I went through a whole cavalcade of excuses in the brief pause between us, and I came out of that saying, “I don’t know,” which was about the most honest answer I could’ve said, because I didn’t know why I was doing what I was doing, but I knew I had to do it. 

What I think I needed to know was if David Hauser needed to talk to an imaginary person to help him through this moment of devastating failure in his life, or if that moment led him to become mentally impaired “Like that!” as Paul described it. Did David Hauser speak to himself to sort through internal difficulties, as a form of therapy? Did he recognize how odd it seemed to us on some level, and he needed it so much that he didn’t care what we thought, or did he genuinely believed he was talking with someone else.

I didn’t know what I would see or hear to satisfy my questions, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t pursue this matter to a satisfactory conclusion. Is there a word that can inform another that a person genuinely believes another person is there? I wondered. Is there a word, or series of words, that will inform an observer that a person has manifested another person to satisfy their needs? The latter was so far beyond my comprehension that I didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about it, but I figured David’s mannerisms, his tone, and the context of his active-listening prompts would form some sort of conclusion for me.

“Be careful,” Paul said after mocking me. Those two words slipped out as if he was repeating a warning he received when he considered investigating David Hauser further. To pound his warning home, Paul dropped some dramatic repetition on me, “Be careful.”

I thought of mocking him for being so cinematic, but I couldn’t shake the idea that Paul’s warning held some merit, and my curiosity in this matter might prove dangerous. “Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said. “What if he says something so intellectual that it gets trapped in your brain and you go insane trying to figure it out?”

“Could that happen?”

“How does a guy go insane by being too smart?”

Paul could’ve been messing with me, and my obsession with David Hauser kept me from seeing it, but it was more likely that he believed it. We were both avid fans of the horror genre, and we were both irrational teenagers who still believed in various superstitions, black magic, curses, elements of dark art, and the supernatural. Our minds were just beginning to grasp the complex, inner workings of the adult, real world, but we were still young enough to believe that that there could be a reality occurring in our world that operated from an altogether different premise.

Long story short, Paul’s attempts to warn me, followed by his questions, did set me back, and I did try to avoid the subject of David Hauser for a spell. I was not what one would call an intellectual young man. My curiosity was insatiable, and I was an observant sort, but tackling highbrow intellectual theory or highbrow literature was beyond me. I was ill equipped for that, ill-equipped, naïve, and vulnerable to the idea that a thought, like a corruptible woman bent on destroying, could leave a man incapacitated to a point that they frequent a low-rent liquor store for the rest of their days speaking to non-existent people.

In the brief moment that followed Paul’s warning, I focused on this idea that David Hauser reached some sort of intellectual peak and went over it. What is an intellectual peak, I asked myself. It seemed like one of those foolish, theoretical questions we ask ourselves just to be provocative, but I found it fascinating, and as Paul said I had a real life example of it before me.  If there was an intellectual peak, I figured that I hadn’t even come close to mine at that point in my life, but I thought that I should work through the dynamics of it in the event that I ever brushed against that border. Will a person know when they’ve arrived at the border of an intellectual peak? I wondered. Is there a maximum capacity one should be wary of crossing? If they do cross it, do they risk injury, similar to athletes who push themselves beyond the limits of their physical ability? I thought of a pole-vaulter, sticking a pole in the ground, attempting a jump he should have reconsidered and the resultant physical injuries that could follow.

When I put those irrational fears aside, other irrational fears replaced those, as I walked over to David Hauser. Paul’s “Be careful” played in my head, along with the realization that prior to building the courage to step near David Hauser my fear of him was speculative in nature. It dawned on me that all I was doing was braving the fears of the unknown. I had no idea how I would deal with whatever reality lay ahead, but I braved those fears and began to cautiously approach David Hauser.

David Hauser’s volume lowered a bit, as I neared his sphere of influence. I considered that a coincidence and I progressed, pretending to look at something outside the window behind him. As I neared closer, his volume dropped even lower, until he stopped talking. I didn’t think that was a coincidence, but I wasn’t sure. I wondered if he was trying to prevent me from hearing what he was saying.

Whatever the case, I couldn’t hear what he was saying, and I was more than a little relieved. I felt brave for nearing him even though I was afraid. I was wary of getting too close, because I feared the idea of having one of his overwhelming theories implanted in my brain. I assumed such an implantation might be equivalent to an alien putting a finger on a human head and introducing thoughts so far beyond that brain’s capacity that it could cause the victim to start shaking and drooling, like what happened to that kid in The Shining. I considered it plausible that I could wake in a straitjacket with that theory rattling around in my head, searching for answers, until I ended up screaming for a nurse to come in and provide me some relief in the form of unhealthy doses of chlorpromazine to release the pressure in my head.

I later learned that David Hauser achieved an advanced degree in some subject, earned from some Northeastern Ivy League school. I never found out if that was a fact or not, but if it was, it placed him so far above those trapped in this incarnation of hell, known as The Family Liquor Store, that I figured everyone involved needed a way to deal with his story, and everyone loved the story.

I wasn’t there when David Hauser told the story of what happened to him, so I don’t have primary source information I wanted regarding his fall from grace, but the secondhand stories of how this once prominent man, of such unimaginable abilities, fell to a level of despair and failure was on the tip of the tongue of everyone that heard it. “Like that!” they said, with a snap of their fingers to punctuate the description. Bubbling beneath that surface fascination were unspoken fears, confusion, and concern that if it could happen to him, it could happen to any of us. David was also our symbol for impairment, and the idea that the luxury of physical and mental health frees us up to achieve the luxury of individuality. This isn’t to say that impaired individuals can’t achieve individuality, but that they’re more distracted by trying to maintain health. We don’t appreciate this luxury as much as we fear the possibilities of the opposite. In doing so, we search for answers. No one knew who came up with our answer first, and no one questioned if that person knew what they were talking about when they dropped their prognosis, but no one truly cared whether it was a fact or not. We just needed an answer, or some way to cope with the enormity of it all.

My guess was that even if we could’ve convinced David Hauser to sit down, in a clinical setting, or create some sort of climate that would assure him that no one would use his answers to satisfy some sort of perverse curiosity, we still wouldn’t get any answers out of him, because he probably didn’t have any.

The man who spent most of his life answering the most difficult questions any of us could imagine, hit a block, a wall, or some obstacle that prevented him from finding the answer that could prove beneficial to his continued existence. His solution, therefore, was to talk it out with a certain, special no one for answers.

That led me to wonder if that had anything to do with David Hauser lowering his voice and silencing as I neared him. If David Hauser’s mind was once as strong and complex as those in The Family Liquor Store suggested, and he had one question stuck on repeat in his head, to the point of needing to manifest another presence to help him work through it, how embarrassing would it be for such a man to have an eavesdropping teenager, who knew so little about the world, find that answer for him? 

I had an answer for what happened to David Hauser, we all did, but I’m quite sure our answer didn’t come anywhere close to solving the actual question of how a man could fall so far. I’m quite sure it was nothing more than a comfortable alternative developed by us, for us, to try to resolve the complexities of such an complicated and intricate question that could’ve driven us insane “Like that!” if we tried to figure it out and it trapped itself in our brain.

If you enjoyed this piece, you might enjoy the other members of the seven strong:

The Thief’s Mentality

He Used to Have a Mohawk

That’s Me In the Corner

You Don’t Bring me Flowers Anymore!

… And Then There’s Todd

When Geese Attack!

Scorpio Man II: The Second Entry

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My life has taken quite a turn, since last we spoke. I might continue to experience some unease when confronted with the dark shadow of my fixed, archetypal Scorpio male leanings, when the moon is in the north node of my chart, and people ask what Sun I was born under, but I now understand that this is due to years of patriarchal conditioning bred into my psyche.

Those of you who read the previous entry may deem me irretrievable, and I may be, but I am focusing all of my energy on progressing through the three totems of this Scorpio archetype. To suggest that I achieved evolvement, or that I’m progressing toward change, would be harmful to my progress, but suffice it to say that my wonderful Natural Psychologist, Ms. Maria Edgeworth, informs me that I’m more open to balancing my summer and winter now.

“This is an accomplishment most associate with the Pisces,” she said, “and you’re moving closer to a center than any of the Scorpio Men I treat, who remain stuck in the first level of Scorpio Evolvement, the Scorpion totem.” That’s a direct quote, and I don’t mind posting my progress here. As someone once said, “If you done it, it ain’t bragging.”

Yet, as I work my way through this, I am still going to lie about my archetype, as I said I would in my previous testimonial. I wish I didn’t have to do it, but I find that this temporary lie cleanses the palate for those who worry that Mars, the god of war, and Pluto, the god of the underworld, might still rule me, while I undergo intense Level 1 training to face my limitations in order to transmute and evolve passed them.

My hope is that we all find a way to move passed our prejudicial and unconscious displays of emotional security that take the form of a silent scream when we find ourselves trapped in enclosed spaces, such as an elevator, with a Scorpio Man. The act of lying about my essence is counterproductive to my therapy, of course, but it’s just so frustrating that I haven’t witnessed corresponding progress in others. I want to tell these people, these silent screamers, that I’m working on it, but that I’m not yet to the point where I can harness the discordant elements of my power. Until I’ve achieved that level of confidence, I’ve decided to just take the stairs.

The always-positive Ms. Edgeworth tells me there is hope, however, and that all of the expensive and intensive hours we put into these sessions to purge the limitations of my past and foster growth, will pay dividends in the form of spiritual fulfilment of my aura that will eventually become evident to all.

Ms. Edgeworth proclaimed that controlling the criminal element of the Scorpio Man is the most difficult aspect of Scorpio Evolvement, for those seeking to achieve the enlightenment found in the second stage of Scorpio Evolution, The Eagle Totem. “But you’ve made such great strides in this regard,” she said. “The idea that you’re spending so much of your free time around such a helpful soul, without giving in to the impulsive desire to harm her in all of the sadistic ways to which the Scorpio man is predisposed, suggests that you may already be on the cusp of advancement.” Ms. Edgeworth added that she “thinks sexual congress with this woman may be an ideal method to metamorphose some of my limitations.”

That’s right! Scoop! I have a woman with whom I now spend my evenings. Her name is Faith Anderson, and she and I have been getting along quite well.

Faith told me that she was a Pisces on our first date. She said it while we were playing a game of pool. I should’ve been suspicious, but it wasn’t until she sank a frozen to the rail cut shot, using a medium stroke in our very first game of eight ball. I gave her look, but I managed to keep my suspicions in the off position, thinking that we often see things that aren’t there. When she proceeded to sink two ninety-degree cut shots in the game that followed, however, I was totally onto her. I knew she was harboring secrets only a fellow Scorpio would. No Pisces could sink a frozen to the rail, cut shot, after calling it, and walk away as if nothing happened. I didn’t hold it against her though. I mean, I was lying to her too. I told her I was a Virgo, so she couldn’t know that I have the same powers she does of detecting when people are playing mind games. She would later tell me that she was onto the fact that Mars the god of war, and Pluto the god of the underworld ruled my world too, the moment she caught wind of the articulate nature of my dark sense of humor.

As I stated in my previous testimonial, society places largely unspoken, but relatively intense pressure on Scorpio Men to conceal their nature, but what I didn’t know until I met Faith is that women face some of the same reactions. Perhaps it was my male need to protect a woman, but when we began to feel some pressure in the room directed at her, I was angry at no one in particular and everyone at the same time. I wanted people to feel ashamed that we scorpions felt the need to conceal our identity no matter how hard we worked to control our predispositions. I wanted to tell the people at the bar that night that this innocent and sweet woman felt the need to deceive them into believing something she’s not. “And do you want to know why?” I would’ve asked in a confrontational manner befitting such a launch. At that point, I would’ve asked them if they dined already, because my rant would’ve taken so long that I would’ve heard their belly gurgle long before I was done. Long story short, I identified with her need to lie to me and tell me she was a Pisces, until I came to know her better, and she felt comfortable discussing her vulnerabilities.

“I just wanted a chance,” she confessed when she finally opened up to me, “a non-discriminatory, judgment-free chance to find acceptance and love.”

“I know,” I said. “I know.”

Our connection was so strong that when Faith finally agreed to metamorphose my limitations, she did so saying, “As long as you continue to work with Ms. Edgeworth to confront your pre-existing limitations and make a commitment to grow passed them.”

“It’s as important to me as it is you Faith,” I said.

She relented, but I could tell she had misgivings. “You swear,” she said, stopping me in the moment. “This isn’t just talk? You swear to seek a balance between summer and winter, while acknowledging that you’re predisposed to cling to your blossoming previous life at the same time? We need you to interact with others to delve beneath the surface and prepare for a more spiritual and fertile future.”

I said, “I do,” to each of these questions.

“And you can’t just rely on me,” she continued, “or even Ms. Edgeworth. You can’t become dependent on either of us to achieve the highest expression of Scorpio, beyond the Eagle Totem to The Phoenix Resurrected Stage, and quit saying I do to everything I say. These aren’t wedding vows.”

“You don’t need to worry about me Faith,” I said. “I’m striving to advance beyond all this.”

“I believe you are,” she said, holding my face in her hands. “I believe I’ve finally met a man who, like that mythical Phoenix, will rise from the nature of your being and overcome it all.”

It was a glorious moment for both of us, but it didn’t last long. I don’t remember if it was the next day, or the next week, but we were fighting like cats and dogs. Imagine that, two people ruled by Mars the god of war and Pluto the god of the underworld argued. Ha! Our argument involved an incident in which I exited a packed movie theater aisle, to go to the bathroom, facing the people in the aisle.

“That was definitely a microagression,” she informed me. I said I didn’t know what a microagression was, and she explained the concept to me.

“Okay, how was exiting a movie theater aisle a microagression then?”

“You put your … front side to the people sitting in the aisle, and in such close quarters.”

“Front, back, what’s the difference?” I asked.

“You are, essentially, putting your … maleness right in their face,” she said. There was some exasperation in her voice, as she saw that I would need further explanation. “You are essentially raping the space between you and them. It’s called hyper toxic masculinity.”

“But if I didn’t intend to do anything of the sort-”

“Look up the term microagression,” she added, “and you’ll see the word ‘unintended’ listed as one of the first words in the definition.”

We went back and forth through various incarnations and details, but the import of it was that while she was a little disturbed by my action, she was “completely mortified” by my failure to acknowledge how my derogatory action was directed at people rooted in marginalized groups, and until I confronted my offense, we were “totally incompatible”.

The argument extended into the night, and it included an impenetrable silent treatment that ended with the threat that I might never have my limitations metamorphosed again. I was confused. I knew Faith’s belief system, and even though I didn’t fall in lock step with them, I did my best to respect them. I was so confused that I brought the issue to Mrs. Edgeworth in our next session.

“Welcome to primacy of the secret intensity of Pluto’s bearing on the Scorpio archetype’s personality,” Ms. Edgeworth said when I detailed this argument for her.

“Pluto?” I said. “Don’t you mean Mars? Don’t you mean the fires of Mars?”

She laughed in a soft, polite pitch. “Most people think that,” she said. “I think that misconception is based on the fact that Pluto is a relatively new planet, dwarf planet –or whatever they’re calling it now– to us. I would not say that you, or anyone else for that matter, are wrong on this matter. I would just say that because we didn’t discover Pluto until the 20th century, it’s relatively new to our interiority, and we haven’t evolved our understanding of the quietly driving effect its strange elliptical orbit can have on a Scorpio, like Faith. It can alter the characteristics in a manner some call a manifestation magnet that acts in conjunction with the more consistent, more understood fires of Mars acting in a manner that when Pluto is in the Scorpio node two, and Saturn is in Scorpio 10, opposing the Taurus moon, and squaring Venus in Leo and Jupiter in Aquarius. The effects of this magnet can lead to a manifestation you might view as out of character reactions in the Scorpio archetype. Some might use this alignment against themselves and others, attracting destructive outcomes through hyper-awareness and obsessing on negative observances, but when two separate and distinct Scorpio archetypes begin interacting under the same manifestation magnet conjunction, it can lead to some intense energies that result in either the darkest shadows or the bravest, brightest lights.

“My advice,” Ms. Edgeworth continued. “Is try talking to her in a non-manipulative manner. Explore the dynamics of power and powerlessness in your relationship and coordinate those with your patterns of behavior, and her desire to invest future emotions in you. You may find that you’ve accidentally introduced the darkest aspects of the Scorpio archetype into your psyche that have manifested a situation of non-growth, and stagnation, which result in her lashing out in a manner that just happened to occur in the movie theater, but could’ve occurred just about anywhere in any matter of substance.

“If you can somehow tap into undistorted expressions of the matriarchy,” she continued. “To heal your relationship and connect to the healing process of absolute and undistorted femininity you two will achieve a plane above limitations and find deep communion with the higher levels of the Scorpio archetype that are full of healing, grace and compassion.

“It’s up to you of course,” she concluded. “But I have always found that the intense nature of the Scorpion archetype nature can be distorted and misunderstood, but beneath all that is a desire to get to the bottom of things, the real truth as it relates to the soul.”

Ms. Edgeworth was right, of course, as Faith agreed to work with me toward a greater understanding and a brighter future. I can tell you now that under their guidance, I have never been as happy, or as confused, as I am right now, but if there’s one thing to take from this testimonial let it be this: there’s no substitute for a well-informed partner providing a thorough, and subjective, reading of your charts. Not even a wonderful Natural Psychologist can provide such assistance in intensive and expensive, five-day-a-week, hour-long sessions. For those, like me, who spend so much of their time now struggling to understand their charts to escape the first totem, Scorpion level of the Scorpio archetype, who no longer have time for sports, sitcoms, or beer with the buddies, I have empathy. I will tell you, however, that I haven’t found a better method of achieving spiritual fulfilment, or your life’s goals, than sitting down with a partner who can help you find your individualistic method of transmuting passed your pre-existing limitations in a caring and non-manipulative manner.

Scorpio Man

Scorpio Man III