© 2010
by Joyce Mason
All Rights Reserved
April is National Humor Month. Of course, if you’re a regular reader of The Radical Virgo, you know that every month is humor month here. Witness Quotes for the Signs and Auntie Joyce’s Astro-Aphorisms, not to mention my general inability to pass up a good pun, no matter how serious the subject.
Donna Cunningham, on her fabulous blog Sky Writer, notes that the astrologically-inclined like quizzes. She is also an expert on the Tower of Astrobabble. English for Astrologers—No Astrologese, Please will give you a direct experience of what it’s like to be on the receiving end of such gibberish, clueless about a single word that's being spoken to you. I remembered Donna’s talk on this topic at a United Astrology Congress (UAC) in the ‘90s. That memory and her report about our astro-quizzical nature gave birth to the following self-test. Be painfully honest!
One point for each YES answer unless otherwise noted:
1. You have changed your name to Celestial, Starr, Venus or some other astro-inspired moniker. (2 points)
2. You cannot introduce yourself by name alone. It goes something like, “Hi, I’m Athena—double Aries part of a four-planet stellium, Grand Water Trine including Mars, Venus, and Uranus, Cap Rising … in my second Saturn Return.”
3. At astrology conferences, you can’t give it a rest, even at lunch or dinner. You throw out verbal chart details for people to project on the planetarium of their minds till they’re dizzy. By dessert, they’re nauseous with Information Indigestion.
4. You have the chutzpah to use words like quincunx and rectification in front of strangers you’ve never met, people who are highly unlikely to speak in star tongues. They're probably wondering if some of your lingo refers to other body parts. (3 points)
5. You refuse to talk to, much less have relationships with, people who don’t know their exact birth time. (3 points)
6. You don’t just go to Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB) to look up the stars in every movie you see; you go to Astro Data Bank to look up their charts. Then you talk about it to everyone you meet, as if they cared.
7. When friends have a baby, you can’t resist giving them your two-cents’ worth on the kid’s future, even if your information was (a) not requested, (b) they’re not particularly believers, (c) astrology might be against their religion, and/or (d) the kid’s a Scorpio and you don’t use filters to tell them what they’ve got in store. So what if you contained yourself enough not to say “my condolences.” (6 points.)
8. You don’t leave home during Mercury Retrograde, you blab about it for weeks before and afterwards to strangers on street corners, and you send all your friends the Murky Retro dates with your annual holiday letter so they’re prepared for the New Year.
9. You have never forgiven the State of New York (or wherever you were born) for not recording birth times—or your mother for not writing it down to the second in your baby book. If she’s still alive, you still remind her—often. (2 points.)
10. Your answering machine message includes the daily planetary positions. When Aunt Tillie calls, she thinks you’re “talking dirty” and in some kind of sex code with those positions, numbers, and funny words. She’s heard of that book, Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus! That’s why she hangs up without leaving a message,
Your AQ Score
0-2: You are a great astrological ambassador. You don’t pollute the air with a lot of astrobabble. You make star talk just intriguing enough that newbies are curious about learning the language of astrology.
3-6: You could afford to learn some empathy. Visit a neighborhood or country that speaks a language other than English or whatever’s your usual. Do not take a translation phrase book with you. And don’t be a wuss. You must, at minimum, ask directions, haggle at a market, and make small talk at a coffee shop.
7-9: You’re broaching the realm of giving astrology and astrologers a bad name. Go wash your mouth out with soap and start learning to translate all this crap into something John or Jane Q. Public can comprehend.
10-20: You ought to be ashamed of yourself. You make us look terrible! You are obsessed, possessed, and need to go to AA—Astroholics Anonymous. They offer a 12-Step program—and don’t even think about how that that parallels the 12 signs and houses, much less talk about it.
PS ~ See you at the next AA meeting!
~~~
Photo Credit: All Talk - Sign Series |© Mediaonela | Dreamstime.com
Slightly astrologized by the author
Don’t forget the gift with purchase of Chiron and Wholeness: A Primer through April 30!
