Saturday, April 25, 2009

Wordgo: The Virgo Way with Words


Why are Virgos in love with words?

For years, I have used the
Celestial Influences astrological calendars. There is a two-word affirmation for each sign every month. Examples: “I Am” for Aries; “I Have” for Taurus, and “I Think” for Gemini.

The I-statement for Virgo is “I Analyze.” That job would be really difficult to do without words—lots of them!

There are some main areas of life that Virgos work on: knowledge, health, and service. Note the difference between the I-statement for Gemini and Virgo, both traditionally ruled by the Thinker Planet Mercury. Gemini thinks, but Virgo analyzes. Analysis can often make the difference between information and knowledge, between facts and wisdom.

Gemini often likes information for its own sake, the reason why so many folks with a lot of Gemini in their charts are likely to beat your butt at Trivial Pursuit. They throw factoids, dates and data around like confetti.

Virgo, on the other hand, is not happy until s/he knows why the fact is important, what the data means and exactly why a date was significant. To a Virgo, this is not a party, and that Gemini can take his damned confetti and mess elsewhere. This earth sign literally wants to bring the data down to earth, to know what it’s good for, and how it will help people.

We all know the expression, “garbage in, garbage out” or GIGO when it comes to using computers or any other kind of data crunching mechanism, including our own brains. A Virgo would never put in garbage. You know how much Virgos hate dirt! “Garbage out” would never be an acceptable outcome. The Virgo’s need to sift and winnow, her proverbial job of separating the wheat from the chaff, is ever so much easier if she starts with a decent crop of wheat, preferably organic.

Mercury is also the quicksilver god of communication, the winged messenger. It’s fun to contrast the Mercury-ruled signs. Gemini would love the thrill of having to run the message to its destination lickety-split. He’d deliver it with clever conversation and perhaps report on the weather and interesting encounters on the way. Virgo would be much more worried that the right message got to the right person at the right time. She’d be looking for shortcuts to get there efficiently and the correct person authorized to sign for the article.

So, how do we make the best of our Wordgo tendencies? Many of us are writers, editors, publishers, and composers. (Music is a more math-based type of writing, but if you’re a lyricist, too, what an impressive right- and left-brain merger!) The sign of Virgo has its share of actors and news personalities, all who make their living with words.

There are many potential jobs for Virgo, one of the most employable signs of the zodiac, because we love to work! But since this is the Radical Virgo blog, I hope you’ll comment and tell us your personal way with words, especially if you were a Virgin birth (born with Sun in Virgo); or if you have other Virgo planets that bless you with these proclivities. What do you do with words? How do you love them? (Count the ways.)

I’ll go first. Here are some of mine:

Writer, publisher, shameless punster, a word game player (Scrabble, Jumble, Spellbound) … and a person who loves words in art. One of my favorite artists ever was
Corita Kent, whose words made beautiful became designs for posters, book covers, and murals. Her work includes the 1985 Love Stamp and Rainbow Swash, the 150-foot (46 m)-high natural gas tank in Boston. Her artwork, focused on messages of peace and love. That made it particularly popular during the social upheavals of the 1960s and 1970s. (Have you noticed how the peace sign is coming back, and not just on The Radical Virgo’s new blog header?)

I also love to rearrange words on the
Internet Anagram Server. Some of my faves for “Radical Virgo” are Caviar Do Girl, Garlic Via Rod, A Rival Doc Rig, and Vocal Rag Rid I.

Of course, I research the derivation of words, and wear word jewelry. For my croning ceremony when I turned sixty, I was presented with a
Light Drop Jewelry necklace that says Heals on one side, With Words on the other. I covet a pair of earrings made to replicate old typewriter keys. Unfortunately, my Mercury in Libra can’t make up her mind which keys she wants. While my initials, JM, are obvious possibilities, I sure would like an exclamation mark (!) or a dollar sign ($).

Finally, I thought I’d introduce you to
Wordle, if you haven’t already met—word collages that capture the essence of a blog or website—or any cut ‘n’ paste concoction of words you want to feed into it. This Wordgo Wordle (say that 10 times!) was created by The Radical Virgo on April 19, 2009—a picture in time of what’s happening on this blog. Check out the words that stand out most:


Astrology Chiron Moon New Life Hero One Want

Freely translated: Astrology can be a healing path to receptivity, new life, and becoming our own heroes, the one thing we all want.

The Word from On High!

~~~

Word-Class Reminder: Don't forget to mark your calendar for
Donna Cunningham’s teleseminar on finding career signatures for writing in astrology charts, May 3, 2009.





2 comments:

Susannah said...

I really enjoyed this post Joyce (and I have found another Wordle fan!) I love Wordle and have printed out a Wordle for every blog, they really are telling, some are quite beautiful too.

I grew up in a house where words were important and we played word games a lot, often the dictionary was picked up and opened at random and a word selected to see who knew the meaning and could spell it too.

Well, to stay ahead of the game,I decided that I would learn the dictionary! yes that's right, the WHOLE dictionary. LOL

With my Gemini Ascendant (and Mars conjunct from the 12th house) and my Venus conjunct Pluto in Virgo, this became rather obsessive!
Needless to say for my own sanity I didn't persue the task to the bitter end but was a voracious reader all my childhood.

In general now, my Gemini gathers,and my Virgo sorts the wheat from the chaff.

Joyce Mason said...

Thanks for sharing your Word Love Story, Susannah. I thought I was obsessed liking to read the dictionary as a child. What ambition to want to memorize it! I especially enjoy how your Gemini and Virgo planets work as a tag team to scoop up info and cull the gems (no astro pun intend it). I call this the Sort-It Detail. :)