www.michellegemmaphotography.com mystic, connecticut

Full Moon in Sagittarius at 23 degrees

“The body’s wisdom musically in touch and in tune, sensing the resonance of cellular awakening. Eager and enthusiastic and bright, you have given over to the process. Always in midstream. Seizing upon opportunities, challenges, openings. Needing to know just how it feels at the micro levels. What is it like to be free, to be joyous, to be unrestricted, here in the body, in the world? You seek the full-on motivating spark of knowing what it feels like to be tuned out and discovering what it really means to be tuned in all the way.” from Sagittarius at 23 degrees by Ellias Lonsdale

In much the same way in which he characterized planets and asteroids as powerful, gendered beings in Inside Planets, Ellias Lonsdale gives new depth and nuance to degree analysis, an area often seen as technical or reduced to cliche.

Lonsdale builds on three main degree interpretations: Dane Rudhyar’s concept of the Sabian Symbols described in The Astrology of Personality and An Astrological Mandala, Marc Edmund Jones’s Sabian Symbols in Astrology, and John Sandbach’s recent Chandra Symbols. Beginning in 1988, Lonsdale worked with his wife Sara in tracking the Sabian symbol, the Charubel Symbol (the most useful of the other sets of degree symbology) and the Chandra Symbol. After Sara died in 1993 Lonsdale worked with her (as Theanna) and their friend Alita “to pierce through the veil,” as he says in his Introduction, “to find the angel behind each degree. This ultimate version is won from death and fused with rebirth and each word shows this power.”

The degree symbols are most useful in elaborating a personal birth chart. One can learn about personal cycles from studying the place of a transiting or progressed planet by degree at a given time, revealing collective as well as personal timings. The Zodiac degrees also act as an oracle. One can open the collection anywhere for a given day, or in reponse to a question. The degrees will reveal what is happening now and if we are attentive and responsive to the cues, what is required of us. Comparing charts of friends and famous people who are known for certain qualities, one can gradually discriminate among the degrees.

These beautifully written and fully imagined readings of the Chandra degree symbols speak to a deep level of personal change and authenticity.

Ellias Lonsdale is the author of Star Rhythms, The Book of Theanna, and Inside Planets. He lectures widely on astrology and is an astrological counselor in Santa Cruz, California.

https://aquaorfire.net/astrology/inside_degrees/inside_degrees.html#sagittarius

featuring Model: Titus Abad
as Sagittarius for the Personal Universe Series
Photograph by Michelle Gemma

Moon enters Taurus 3 July 2021

PARADOX VISION

From The Polarity Experiments for Emporium Photo III October 1995 Mystic, Connecticut, USA

featuring Model: Bethany Webster
Collaboration with Mark Wallace and his “Tree Wounds” series, Paradigm of Tree
Mark tells us, “The tree, through the ages, has been seen as a symbol of balance and fulfilled potential. The viewer, upon first seeing these photographs, may only be affected by the notion of the wound. But upon finding that the wounds are those of the trees, the sensation becomes a deeper, unexplainable psychic phenomenon. By combining the tree and the human form I hope to provoke the realization that modern Western culture is out of balance with nature and itself, and expose the need to regain the connections.”

Happy Birthday Bethany who does great work with her “Mother Wound” psychology and education.

FULL MOON IN SCORPIO 26 APRIL 2021

EVERYTHING MATTERS
featuring Model: Emma Rocherolle
as my Scorpio on the Full Pink Moon
Photograph by Michelle Gemma
shot with the Mamiya 7
on Ilford Delta 400 Pro film
Inspiration: Flatliners by Peter Filardi

Jewel of the Solar System

The brink of the infinite. Tapping directly into realms of existence beyond the physical, you sense all-pervasively the multiple frequencies of all that is really here.

Having a vast grasp of what is possible and of what is asking to be brought in, while extended very far into regions others miss.

Feeling, hearing, tasting the power of spirit in action.

Half mesmerized and half supercharged to get everybody in on it somehow. 

Perhaps retreating to more traditional versions of the infinite path if frightened by a lack of understanding coming back.

Communing with the mysteries, and absolutely at home within those places others find strange.

The inside becomes all, the outside virtually transparent to the light within…

inspired by PISCES 26: “The Aurora Borealis.” by Elias Lonsdale
https://aquaorfire.net/astrology/inside_degrees/inside_degrees.html

Saturn takes about 28-29 years to come full circle.

Saturn transits and cycles can be considered cycles of achievement and maturity. When Saturn forms a hard aspect to a personal point in our chart, we might feel that everything is slowed down–we encounter delays, frustrations, and pressures. But these times also challenge us to face reality, thereby opening ourselves up to increased wisdom and the freedom that comes with living in truth.
cafeastrology.com

featuring Model: Carol W.
as Pisces and her Saturn Return
8 March 2021
Westerly, Rhode Island, USA
all photographs by Michelle Gemma
Dec 17, 2020 12:04 AM EST Saturn entered Aquarius…
Carol was born with Saturn in Aquarius at 24 degrees!
This is Saturn Return.
This is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in our solar system. Adorned with a dazzling system of icy rings, Saturn is unique among the planets. It is not the only planet to have rings, but none are as spectacular or as complex as Saturn’s. Like fellow gas giant Jupiter, Saturn is a massive ball made mostly of hydrogen and helium.
Surrounded by more than 60 known moons, Saturn is home to some of the most fascinating landscapes in our solar system. From the jets of water that spray from Enceladus to the methane lakes on smoggy Titan, the Saturn system is a rich source of scientific discovery and still holds many mysteries.
The farthest planet from Earth discovered by the unaided human eye, Saturn has been known since ancient times. The planet is named for the Roman god of agriculture and wealth, who was also the father of Jupiter.
https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/saturn/in-depth/


WAX and WANE: The Full Moon of February 2021

Hymn to Demeter

The Earth Goddess Demeter went to Eleusis in search of her daughter Persephone, who had been abducted by Hades , God of the Underworld.

Demeter goes in search of Persephone and, during her journey, reveals her secret rites to the people of Eleusis, who had hospitably received her. Her distress at her daughter’s disappearance was said to have diverted her attention from the harvest and caused a famine.

The Mysteries at Eleusis originated in the two-fold story of Demeter’s life—her separation from and reunion with her daughter and her failure to make the queen’s son immortal.

The Mysteries began with the march of the mystai (initiates) in solemn procession from Athens to Eleusis. The rites that they then performed in the Telesterion, or Hall of Initiation, were and remain a secret.

Another important aspect of Demeter was that of a divinity of the underworld; she was worshiped as such at Sparta, and especially at the festival of Chthonia at Hermione in Argolis, where a cow was sacrificed by four old women. The epithets Erinys (“Avenger”) and Melaina (“the Black One”) as applied to Demeter were localized in Arcadia and stress the darker side of her character.

featuring Model: Jane Anderson
all photographs by Michelle Gemma
The Full Snow Moon of February
in Virgo, Honoring the Myths of Seasonal Renewal,
for the Full Moon Photoshoots series
27 February 2021
Norwich, CT  USA

source text: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Demeter

root addendum

widows walk at spicer mansion 1992
delta of venus at the greenman collective nye 1993
lotus at beebee dairy 1994
greenman collective before band rehearsal 1995
jumbalaya at depot house last show august 1996
outside the depot house last show august 1996
greenman collective last show 11 september 1996
portersville live at the mystic disc arts festival august 1998

all photos by michelle gemma
35mm film that i developed and printed at the greenman collective darkroom at taugwonk spur, and later in the darkroom in my backyard in mystic.
check out the root of twinkle volume 6 issue one summer 2020 here on portfire, plus the back issues to see more photographs of mystic life.

New Moon in Gemini

“The numerology on this NEW MOON in Gemini is beautifully dyadic, as we have lots of Gemini in the chart and lots of 2’s; the Sun and Moon are both at 2 degrees in Gemini, and Venus and Mercury are at 20 degrees in Gemini on the 22nd in 2020.
We can see how this reverberated dual reflection aptly plucks the strings of the polarizing vibrations of the times.
But Gemini encompasses more than just the dual nature, and reflects a wide spectrum of perspectives, possibilities and communications.
The Gemini archetype shows us how we can create a kaleidoscope of inclusion with the multiplicities of form, just as is reflected by the very diverse nature of our natural world.”
https://www.mysticmamma.com/new-moon-in-gemini-may-22nd-2020/

featuring Model: Carol W
Watch Hill, RI  USA
Photograph by Michelle Gemma
for the series “Personal Universe”

International Dylan Thomas Day 14 May 2020

An international day to celebrate the life and work of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, held each year on 14th May, the anniversary of the date when Under Milk Wood was first read on stage at 92Y The Poetry Center, New York in 1953.
“International Dylan Thomas Day gives us a chance each year to celebrate Dylan Thomas’s achievements. There is still the enthusiasm for a national day to mark my grandfather’s life and legacy and we want to keep May 14th as a prominent date on the literary calendar.
Dylan Thomas’s writing has travelled through time – it is as relevant today in our troubled times as when it was written sixty-five years ago. It continues to travel across the globe reaching new audiences everyday. His poetry lives on.
We invite you to tell us about how you are going to mark the day and encourage you, wholeheartedly, to get involved and to love the words.” — Hannah Ellis, Granddaughter of Dylan Thomas
https://www.discoverdylanthomas.com/news-events/international-dylan-thomas-day

The photographer Rollie McKenna was at this 92Y reading of Under Milk Wood, to photograph Dylan Thomas, and she writes this in her autobiography, Rollie McKenna: A Life in Photography (Knopf, 1991),
“Dylan Thomas’s career didn’t truly take off until he ‘hit’ the United States. Readings at the Poetry Center and tours throughout the country where–in his own words–he ‘boomed and fiddled while home was burning,’ all but devoured him. The money he made, so necessary to support his family, passed through his fingers like water. The praise, so addictive, was fleeting. Still, he wanted to read again to his vastly appreciative American audiences and, above all, to write the final ending to his play for voices, Under Milk Wood. 
Frenetic reading tours, sycophant-laden parties and late-night bar-hopping exhausted him, and just an hour before rehearsing the actors for the first New York performance of Under Milk Wood, Dylan was in particularly bad shape.  On arriving at the Poetry Center, he vomited, declared that he could not possibly go on and collapsed in the green room. After half an hour, he was shaken awake.  Pulling himself together, he directed for an astonishing three hours, urging the actors over and over:  ‘Love the words.  Love the words!’  I was so dumbfounded by his recovery that I almost forgot to shoot.
When the night of May 14, 1953, arrived, the theater was packed.  The audience, silent at first, then tittering, finally exploded into laughter on realizing that this was no highbrow affair but a loving, ribald tribute to a village.  Dylan took fifteen curtain calls as tears slipped down his face.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/11/17/books/pictures-from-a-life.html

In celebration:
featuring Model: Liz Walz
Stonington, CT  USA
Photograph by Michelle Gemma
for the series “Personal Universe”