The Gift
The Gift was an old buddy, she popped up under the radar, hadn’t seen her in a month of Sundays, for sure, and she had an odd question, would I like about four boxes of astrology books?
Sure, and my larcenous heart first thought, “I can take each book, individually, and sell it online.”
The books, all astrology texts, were from some friend of a friend who passed, and no one knew what to do with that many astrology texts. As I sorted through them, there were really three boxes, and one box was a small box, so two and half? Still, there were a huge number of books to sort through.
There’s a scene from a novel, Great Gatsby, maybe? “The books in the library were uncut.”
Archaic expression, and I might be remembering it all wrong, but the term “uncut” referred to books that were published but the pages hadn’t been fully separated. Old school, more than one way, but at one time, a new book required a blade-like instrument to have at hand when reading for the first time. In my parent’s library, I recall certain novels with the same rough-cut edges to the paper.
Many of the books in this collection were “uncut,” except, most of them came from the old “Big Three” of technical astrological literature, AFA, Whitford, and Weiser. Those are popular, niche publishers.
Pawing through the boxes the first time, it was easy, as there is always certain amount of material that is either dated, not historical, just “Preview for the year, 2011,” and then, “Basic Astrology,” in many guises. As I sorted, first pass, the financial prediction from the last decade? That goes out. Some of the more basic primers on astrology? I kept two.
One is a copy of book that formed the mindset for my current thinking on the topics, Secrets from a Stargazer’s Notebook, which, it wasn’t the content, but the approach and attitude that I liked. Since I don’t have a copy on-hand, now I do. Weird, but its spine was un-cracked.
“Pages uncut.”
One other one, and I doubt I’ll hold onto it, but for now? A typed set of notes, published as a thin journal, “A Correspondence Course in Astrology.” Looks like it was an early 1980’s dot-matrix, typewriter setting, strange set of basic notes. It looked like it was supposed to be presented as a correspondence course, and what it reminded me, as I flipped through, pausing, of what I did know.
It’s a body of knowledge, and while there are exercises, and sidetracks, undercurrents, new theories, and discoveries, turns out, cruising through the bulk of the collection — seems to be a way to let me know I know this.
cf. this Sagittarius —
The basics, I got covered. Who does what and is associated with which quadrant of the heavens, houses, mansions of the moon, and all the rest.
Some books were un-cracked, one with an old phone bill tucked in as a bookmark of some sort, though, to me, the data referenced didn’t mean a lot — by itself.
Part of it is a series of texts that read like an angry screed, a book-length diatribe about how “Astrology is a science,” not the horrible stuff published as a a Sun-Sign Horoscope — but as I’ve oft-implored — it’s always best to see what fits one’s planets at the time. To me? “Arts and Sciences,” as in: both.
A portion of the books, and the two notebooks, have made their way from my hands into the arms of willing students. I’ve added about two linear feet of thin tomes to my shelves for my perusal, as there’s two sections that I have scant training with, and now I have some texts to peruse.
The gift that keeps on giving, in a good way. More books, more education. Arcane theories to basics, and back again. The horary arts?
The Gift
