Curation and Collection
Strange to me, spun off of the list of “writer’s desert island” tools, what to take, what not to take, and so forth.
Curation, collection, concatenation, collation, and Capricorn?
The original title was a technical conundrum, a question of taxonomy, and the idea of the first blogs, in my case, merely a chronological list of what happened, more like an online journal, which, dig deep enough, was all this was.
As the technology spawned new avenues, and as subsequent generations brought in whatever they have to offer, the idea of the “web journal” became a “weblog,” which, in turn, became a blog.
Still an ugly portmanteau.
There seems to be two different directions “blogs” take, one is curation. Useful links, pointers, maybe some commentary, maybe a snarky Scorpio quip and a link. That’s “curation.” Like, a pointer to a news article. A “collection” is then defined as a longer list.
Self-appointed writing mentors, and website guru teachers web-splain how a written piece must have a direction. Goals, audiences, destination, call-to-action, a buy now button.
- The problem with my material, as it is presented? No clear destination, and no clear form.
Along those lines, I have a client who regularly sends me news links about obvious mercurial miscues when Mercury is Retrograde. That would be a clear example of curation.
While I don’t have a stated goal, a definite destination in mind? My work tends to ramble then dissemble all over. Some of my work is simple curation, as I’ve been obsessed with various products, and I do like to keep a running diary, of sorts, covering whatever books I’m reading. That’s a product of a singular influence from a certain professor.
Experimental & Experiential
Then, too, I use the web journal format as way to explore ideas that can’t be attended in my weekly horoscope, just what I do. So part of the weblog is simple curation. Part of it is collection.
As an astrologer, part of my job is curation and collection.
Looking at the year ahead, what I was working through, the other parts of the long title, Curation, collection, concatenation, collation, and Capricorn?
What the year ahead brings is a certain kind of compression — concatenation. In my wandering ways, over the last decades, I’ve spun off writing in a number of different places. In the last year, I started to concatenate, that is, to bring it all together in one location.
I’ve got fishing, astrology, Shakespeare, travel, luck, love, astrological lore, and various mythologies, all from various efforts, all collected in one place, more (or less). This is the outcome of an expression of the energies represented by the year ahead.
Curation and Collection
I was figuring my list needed to be re-ordered, to make a little more linear sense.
- Capricorn
- Collection
- Collation
- Curation
- Concatenation
- Capricorn (again)
I start — and end — the year Anno Mirabilis with Capricorn elements, and the millennial elemental shift from Earth to Air.
The year ahead depends on where we’ve been, and how we choose to react to these influences. The big ones, as I see it? Obviously the way the “Inner planets, and their retrograde patterns,” Mercury, Venus, and then Mars, which, I know, Mars technically isn’t an inner planet, but spreads energy like one.
Those planets and their respective transits, collected, are troubling for about three quarters of the population and relationships. Saturn bumping into Aquarius? Saturn squaring Uranus? Upsets the way things are.
The last spin through with Saturn in Aquarius? Dawn of the distributed electronic information networks, and then, Pluto moved into Sagittarius? “Citizen Journalism.”
World-Wide-Web, &c.
While the format changes, the nomenclature and display of the data, all that shifts around? The underpinnings remain, much of which was set in place the last time Saturn was in Aquarius.
Of note, Saturn in Aquarius saw the first of my material in electronic distribution, as well as the time I hammered together a rudimentary web page code.
Used to be a web page, then social media, now? There’s an app for that, although, that, too, is going by the wayside.
A little more than fifteen years ago, I took a part time job to “help a friend out.” Think I was paid all of ten bucks an hour, and I would occasionally take an afternoon off to do readings — I’d make more in one reading than all week at the job.
In the time, I pulled together a web page for the company; they rented student housing over in the barrio.
A salesman was pitching something to my putative boss at the time, and the sales guy said, “Look at the web page, you know it’s real…” Boss guy I was “helping out,” he looked at me, and this was 2003? Saturn in Gemini? “Kramer can put a web page together in half an hour.”
Even then, the shine of electronic media was long gone. Authority and validity.
The way Jupiter and Saturn work, together, for a century heading into Air?
The question is about authority. Authority and validity.
It’s about collecting the data, then collating that collection, then curating that data, then concatenating. You realize, this is all very Capricorn in nature? Making something useful out of what’s there.
We’re building towards a bright future, but this next year has some personally turbulent conditions. That means? Follows the outline —
- Capricorn
- Collection
- Collation
- Curation
- Concatenation
- Capricorn (again)
That’s how we all arrive at “authority and validity.”
Want my way of seeing this material? I’ve been doing metaphysical “lap dances” for near 30 years now. Astrological show and tell. My site has archives that stretch back to the early — currently? Starts in 1995.
