featuring Model: Morgan Vail
as my Cancer from the Personal Universe Series
shot during a partial Solar Eclipse
Michelle Gemma Photoshoots
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: Caroline Walz
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”
NEW MOON in Aries 24 March 2020
New Moon in Aries 24 March 2020
featuring Model: Lehla Cheyenne
as my Aries
First Sign in the Zodiac
First Shoot in my astrological series Personal Universe.
Welcome to the Terrordome:
“I got so much trouble on my mind
Refuse to lose
Here’s your ticket
Hear the drummer get wicked”
Photograph by Michelle Gemma
Stonington Borough, CT USA
Fade Into You
featuring Model: Morgan Vail
as my Cancer
from the Personal Universe series
water signs in Pisces season
15 February 2018
at the Farm, North Stonington, CT USA
Photograph by Michelle Gemma
“You live your life, you go in shadows
You’ll come apart and you’ll go blind
Some kind of night into your darkness
Colors your eyes with what’s not there”
lyrics from “Fade Into You” by Mazzy Star, from their second album, So Tonight That I Might See, released in 1993.
WAX and WANE: The Full Moon of January 2020
Spacecraft escaping the Solar System
Distance from Sun (AU) Pioneer 10: 125.220 Pioneer 11: 103.732 Voyager 2: 122.804 Voyager 1: 148.103 New Horizons: 46.357 
Speed relative to Sun (km/s) Pioneer 10: 11.934 Pioneer 11: 11.224 Voyager 2: 15.326 Voyager 1: 16.967 New Horizons: 13.975 
Ecliptic latitude Pioneer 10: 3° Pioneer 11: 14° Voyager 2: -37° Voyager 1: 35° New Horizons: 2°
Declination Pioneer 10: 25° 57′ Pioneer 11: -8° 57′ Voyager 2: -57° 58′ Voyager 1: 12° 2′ New Horizons: -20° 28′
Right ascension Pioneer 10: 5h 10m Pioneer 11: 18h 52m Voyager 2: 20h 2m Voyager 1: 17h 15m New Horizons: 19h 12m
Constellation Pioneer 10: Taurus Pioneer 11: Scutum Voyager 2: Pavo Voyager 1: Ophiuchus New Horizons: Sagittarius
Distance from Earth (AU) Pioneer 10: 124.471 Pioneer 11: 104.650 Voyager 2: 123.581 Voyager 1: 148.694 New Horizons: 47.317
One-way light time (hours) Pioneer 10: 17.20 Pioneer 11: 14.51 Voyager 2: 17.13 Voyager 1: 20.61 New Horizons: 6.5
Brightness of Sun from spacecraft (Magnitude) Pioneer 10: -16.2 Pioneer 11: -16.6 Voyager 2: -16.3 Voyager 1: -15.8 New Horizons: -18.4
Spacecraft still functioning? Pioneer 10: no Pioneer 11: no Voyager 2: yes Voyager 1: yes New Horizons: yes
Launch Date Pioneer 10: 1972-Mar-03 Pioneer 11: 1973-Apr-06 Voyager 2: 1977-Aug-20 Voyager 1: 1977-Sep-05 New Horizons: 2006-Jan-19
We discuss the five spacecraft which are leaving the Solar System on escape trajectories – our first emissaries to the stars. On this scale, the nearest star to the Sun would be approximately 100 meters away, and it would take Voyager 1 about 70,000 years to cover that distance.
https://www.heavens-above.com/SolarEscape.aspx?lat=33.448&lng=-112.073&loc=Phoenix&alt=343&tz=Arizona
featuring Model: Caroline Longo
all photographs by Michelle Gemma
The Full Wolf Moon of January,
and Lunar Eclipse in Cancer
10 January 2020
Mystic, CT USA
Just Like Heaven
“Show me, show me, show me how you do that trick?
The one that makes me scream.” she said
“The one that makes me laugh.” she said
And threw her arms around my neck
“Show me how you do it,
And I promise you,
I promise that
I’ll run away with you,
I’ll run away with you.”
Spinning on that dizzy edge
I kissed her face and kissed her head
And dreamed of all the different ways
I had to make her glow
“Why are you so far away?” she said,
“Why won’t you ever know
That I’m in love with you,
That I’m in love with you.”
You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Strange as angels
Dancing in the deepest oceans
Twisting in the water
You’re just like a dream
You’re just like a dream
Daylight licked me into shape
I must have been asleep for days
And moving lips to breathe her name
I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me
You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Just like heaven”
The one that makes me scream.” she said
“The one that makes me laugh.” she said
And threw her arms around my neck
“Show me how you do it,
And I promise you,
I promise that
I’ll run away with you,
I’ll run away with you.”
Spinning on that dizzy edgeI kissed her face and kissed her head
And dreamed of all the different ways
I had to make her glow
“Why are you so far away?” she said,
“Why won’t you ever know
That I’m in love with you,
That I’m in love with you.”
You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Strange as angels
Dancing in the deepest oceans
Twisting in the water
You’re just like a dream
You’re just like a dream
Daylight licked me into shape
I must have been asleep for days
And moving lips to breathe her name
I opened up my eyes
And found myself alone alone
Alone above a raging sea
That stole the only girl I loved
And drowned her deep inside of me
You
Soft and only
You
Lost and lonely
You
Just like heaven”
featuring Model: Emma Rocherolle
as my Scorpio
from the Personal Universe series v2
v1
https://michellegemmaphotography.com/personal-universe-2/
Photographs by Michelle Gemma
Lords Point, Connecticut USA
inspired by https://www.thecure.com/lyrics/just-like-heaven/
Waiting in Sagittarius for the Last *FULL MOON* of the year and decade in Gemini
GEMINI 20
A bull stung by a scorpion.
The elaborate ritual of putting yourself through life or death crises to determine what you are made of and how far you are willing to go in this life.
Choosing from expanded faculties the optimal situations to enact this battle royale.
Selecting what is karmically familiar. Variations on old themes involving bondage and freedom.
When you are trapped, caught, stuck, a furious inner force asserts itself and can reconfigure everything. But it is a high-stakes ritual drama and loaded with real dangers.
You must check yourself out in ultimate ways, for there is surging in your blood an impulse toward liberation, which cannot be distorted in any way.
An extraordinary journey through radical tests and trails of an initiatory intensity.
It is all about guts, and stripping away everything but the true inner direction.
And if you must slay and move through illusions on every front, that is just how it is.
You cannot survive any longer on old ways to do it–it is time to welcome the enemy into your very midst and discover that there are no enemies.”
Text by ELLIAS LONSDALE © Copyright 2019 published on https://www.mysticmamma.com/full-moon-in-gemini-december-11th-12th-2019/
Photographs by Michelle Gemma
All clothing by Susan Hickman
Models: Caroline Walz, Liz Walz, Alycia de los Santos, Vicki Rock, and Julia Farrar.
Qui Transtulit Sustinet
“They Who Transplanted Still Sustain”
“The brand’s beleaguered design team, accustomed to a spreadsheet mentality—churn out X chinos in Y colors, repeat—were suddenly given what felt like creative carte blanche. Drexler “put the product and the design before the business, in a way,” recalls a former employee. “He made the creative drive the business.”
Drexler once told a roomful of employees that he’d passed on a hire because the candidate didn’t know the meaning or origin of her high school’s name. How could you go someplace every day and not be curious enough to figure out where the name came from? Drexler stayed five steps ahead, and for those who could keep up, the sky was the limit: invent a new product, a new category, a new business within the business. And if you can’t keep up, get the hell out of the way.”
https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2019/6/j-who
“The original Fitch High School (now the former location of Fitch Middle School) was built in 1928 next to the Town Hall on Poquonnock Road, and was funded in part by the will of a local merchant, Charles Fitch, with the stipulation that it be named after his son, Robert E. Fitch. In the early 1950s, the district enrollment was larger than the school could handle. The school district decided to split to a junior high and senior high system. In 1954, the school district built a new school, the current Robert E. Fitch Senior High School, in its current location at the top of Fort Hill Road, and renamed the existing school Robert E. Fitch Junior High School.”
Notable alumni and faculty:
- Amby Burfoot, 1968 Boston Marathon winner
- Dave Campo, Dallas Cowboys Secondary Coach
- Jason Filardi, screenwriter: 17 Again, Bringing Down The House
- Jesse Hahn, Major League Baseball player
- John J. Kelley (1930–2011), winner of the 1957 Boston Marathon, member of two U.S. Olympic Marathon teams and a coach at the school
- Fran Mainella, National Park Service Director, 2001–2006
- Paul Menhart, former Major League Baseball pitcher
- Matt Harvey, 7th overall pick in 2010 MLB draft to New York Mets
- George Hall, Arena Football League linebacker
- Samantha Urbani (Singer/ Songwriter)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fitch_High_School
If you have not checked out the music of Samantha Urbani, I urge you to do so forthwith: https://luckynumber.bandcamp.com/album/policies-of-power-ep
Caroline’s Supposed Demon
featuring Model: Caroline Walz
as my PISCES
for Personal Universe, an astrology series
26 September 2017
Watch Hill, Rhode Island, USA
Photograph by Michelle Gemma
title from the song, “Caroline’s Supposed Demon” by His Name is Alive, from their album Livonia (1990). Lyrics by Warren Defever
“Caroline’s supposed demon
Caroline they say she’s haunted
We may only once divide the
Pain and darkness deep inside us”
“Defever began recording in his basement in 1985, while still in high school. His initial work consisted primarily of Defever alone recording the music to a 4-track recorder, with friend Angie Carozzo providing vocals. After Defever went off to college and met Karin Oliver, she became the band’s primary vocalist.
The group’s work resulted in a self-released cassette. Defever sent the tape to 4AD in hopes of being signed to the label. Despite label president Ivo Watts-Russell‘s rejection of the band, Defever continued to send him tapes, with improved versions of the songs appearing on each new tape. Ivo signed the band in 1989, believing that (along with his This Mortal Coil partner John Fryer) he could re-mix the songs into a proper album 4AD could release. Livonia appeared in the summer of 1990, and became one of the label’s biggest sellers of the year. ‘He took it apart, and he didn’t put it back together,’ Defever would later comment on Ivo’s production style.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/His_Name_Is_Alive
When I was on social media (June 2013-June 2019), I came to the attention of Warren Defever, because, on occasion, I posted a variety of his lyrics, mostly from Livonia (1990), and Home Is in Your Head (1991) to illustrate my photographs. I used the hashtags #hisnameisalive and #hnia and #warrendefever
and soon enough, I found that he would “like” the posts. His user name was “xoxowar” and one day I realized what his name meant! I thought, oh he must sign his letters with the fond and cheerful “xoxo” which means hugs and kisses (I had many Italian aunts who used this signature for all correspondence). And his nickname must be “war”. I was so excited that I decided to message him on Instagram. He responded soon after, telling me that I was correct! That was the extent of our correspondence.