A youngish lady, early thirties, walks through the carpark of a convenience store. As she walks she feels a small tremor in the earth. She detects a slight shifting of the earth as she walks through the carpark. She felt it. She is sensitive to these things. The earth twitched and she knows about twitches. A small Parkinson’s like tremor. The Earth expressed a tension. There was the slightest tremor. She looks around. She knows to be alert, to take notice. There is something for her here.
She sees a youth sitting in the gutter, squatting, hunched over a slurpee and dragging on a rollie. She recognises him. Isn’t he that boy who used to come to one of her ballet classes? Isn't he that boy who? The boy is fidgety, nervously tapping the small screen he is staring into. A little universe, a mock reality projects from his device. Tap, tap. Stare. Tap, tap. Suddenly his face screws up, his face distorts. A real reality must have leaked out of that thing! Something disastrous. Some heart rending news has just leaked out of it. On no! He sits frozen. A tear wells up. A tear wells up but will not drop.
The woman has Tourette's syndrome and her still quite youthful english appearance, her refined demeanour, is attended by a regular twitching, by constant tics. Her gait is turned out and she walks in that particular turned out way of ballet dancers. That way ballerinas walk. She wears old and faded, slightly tattered, baggy tracksuit pants. She is not rich. She wears the stylish but now worn out apparel of a ballet dancer on her way to class. And it is true. She is in fact on her way to class. She is always on her way to class. Adult class. Her hair is in a bun. You see this woman was once a promising dancer. She was destined, or so she thought, to become a dancer.
Tourettes and ballet. A strange combination that. To an astrologer such a combination would suggest a difficult aspect, a problematic aspect between Mars and Jupiter. Perhaps an opposition of these two great forces. This indeed was the defining planetary aspect of her birth chart and is the overarching theme of her life. The opposition implies an overflowing of action, an overwhelming of desire. Jupiter's expansiveness confronting the energy of Mars. Too much physical energy, too much desire, a constant twitching. On the other hand if this aspect can be mastered, if this abundance can be controlled, if this overflowing can be directed then these forces can just as well become our tools, our agents. These forces can just as well be transformed into grace, into graceful action. Ballet. But during the woman’s adolescence her planets were let loose, her planets escaped her control, escaped her orbit, they became unfettered and her life lost all order, there was recklessness. During the woman’s adolescence her planets were set loose and they disrupted everything. Oh the damage that they caused. She was diagnosed with Tourettes. And now the regret is always with her. She was overcome and the regret is always with her. Her regret admonishes her and won’t stop. Sometimes she involuntarily utters “Help me!” Tourettes and ballet. Ballet and Tourettes.
This woman identifies with the boy and sees something of herself in him. An astrologer could expand on that and confirm their affinity, could affirm their connection. This boy was born under the same difficult aspect. Mars opposed Jupiter. Jupiter opposed Mars. Double or double nothing. We all have our challenges but I personally am grateful that my chart has lesser obstacles, is less interesting, has less opportunity.
Anyway, here she is in the carpark together with this boy. It is way out of character but the woman forces herself, she compels her resisting body to approach the boy. The boy stands up. He recognises her and offers a faint smile, tear still welling. The woman’s tremors stop, her tics fall momentarily silent giving her room to speak. Everything is suspended in this moment, in this here and now that has been prepared for them. “You are a very talented dancer. What are you doing? Don’t give up!” She turns red, her cheeks turn red and she turns, turn, turn, turns and walks quickly away apologising to herself and to the boy, apologising under her breath. I said too much. The boy stands there with his arms dangling, staring after her, transfixed and staring like he used to do sometimes when playing basketball in primary school. Just stopping and staring, mouth agape, staring and frozen as the game had proceeded around him, as the world went on around him. Those who have an eye for such things would have seen this little conversation, this brief interaction surrounded by a small flock of spirits. Mars was there. Jupiter too. Other helper spirits swarmed around them, nature spirits, the spirit of the Earth. Good spirits and bad spirits, the forces of nature, all vying to appeal to this staring boy and this earnest lady, all offering instructions, advice, help. The lower spirits feed on such emotion, they gobble it up and these two are tasty. Oh please good spirits! The boy twitches. The welling tear drops.
Soon another youth rolls up on a suspiciously expensive looking mountain bike. “Hey bro, yo bro, graff bro go yo, yo-yo.” I made that bit up! Sorry! I'm not up on all the lingo, I'm mocking it really, I shouldn’t. Apologies. But you get the idea. These boys are in a sort of grimy amoral subculture, the dark spirits play here, the battlefield of human lives. I try not to judge. Maybe I don’t understand, it’s a different generation. I am getting on. But I am averse to all this modern aimlessness, to their particular brand of aimlessness, to their indolence, to their violence. Collateral damage, neo-liberalism, causes, excuses. Idle hands… Bad spirits play here.
“Hey bro, did you hear about little Johnny? Little Johnny who?”
“Yeah yeah, I heard about Johnny.” The boy cuts the other slightly older youth abruptly off. Stop.
“Jump on bro!”
The boy tries to jump on but his clumsiness, his own overabundant physicality sends him tumbling and he falls flat faced onto the bitumen.
“Spastic.”
“YOU SPASTIC!”
Eventually the boy manages to climb on and they ride off to no good. In the heavens Mars and Jupiter face one another. In that dangling moment he might have heard. Maybe he did, maybe he received the gift that the Earth prepared for him. Maybe tomorrow.