Ponedjeljak 21 Ševval 1440
Planet of the (Islamic) day (according to Ibn 'Arabi): Moon
Prophet of the (Islamic) day (according to Ibn 'Arabi): Adam
Planetary day and hour (Western): day of the Sun, hour of Mars
The Sun is in 2 Cancer (in my 10th house): A man bundled in fur leads a shaggy deer. (Symbol for 3 Cancer from Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala)
The Moon is at 17Pis35 (in my 7th house). Lunar mansion (according to Ibn 'Arabi): 28, The Hierarchization of the Degrees of Existence, not their Manifestation, letter Wāw, The One Who Elevates by Degrees (Rafī‘-ud-Darjāt)
Lunar phase: Disseminating - Demonstration (phase names and keywords from Dane Rudhyar, The Lunation Cycle)
About an hour ago, the Moon entered my 7th house.
To pick up on a theme from the last time I wrote, I realized this weekend that, not only is it "over" for me with respect to my place of employment, but it has been over for about the last 12 years. I have completed a few projects, I have been invited to present and to have a few articles published, etc., but fundamentally, the sense of drive and "enthusiasm" that led up to my promotion and being awarded tenure effectively dissipated soon thereafter.
One of the ideas that has occurred to me recently is that I have increasingly sensed an ancestral burden with respect to higher education and its associated professional life, as if this is a destination toward which my ancestry had been leading me. Perhaps the idea of advancing oneself through education is not much more than a 1960s American myth. In any event, this thought led me to wonder if my drive to achieve academically had been fuelled in part by the idea that it would represent a goal toward which my mother had striven but which she had not achieved because of obstacles in her family of origin. Once she passed, it seemed as if that particular impetus had lost some of its power.
If 2007 was, in fact, the year that the academic dream died for me, it would at least have represented a good run, from the time of my admission to college (a project which had been underway, in a sense, from about 30 years earlier) to achieving the rank of associate professor with tenure. Even with respect to graduate school and my area of academic specialization, it would have been about a 20-year run from the time of my first round of graduate school applications to my having been granted tenure.
People's interests and needs change over time. I can see how themes that were related to the composers whose music I have studied have remained interesting to me, even if the daily/weekly/yearly grind of academic life has worn down my enthusiasm for striving to find space for the kinds of musical projects that are genuinely of interest to me.
I think that this has been difficult to admit to myself, and therefore difficult to put into words until now. Part of the conflict may stem from the notion that being a tenured associate professor is a position of privilege (or at least is commonly perceived to be such). Admitting that I'm not really that into feels in some ways like an admission of a lack of authenticity. On the other hand, admitting the way I feel about my situation may in fact signal a deeper sense of authenticity. Overall, this has felt like one of those moments in therapy in which one settles into a realization that one has known for some time but had been resisting because of a number of vaguely sensed inner conflicts. Verbalizing it seems to bring with it an acknowledgement of exhaustion from the effort of having resisted the insight for as long as one has done, but also holds open the dimly sensed possibility of the emergence of new ways of framing one's situation while moving forward from where one is now.
Peace,
KH
Prophet of the (Islamic) day (according to Ibn 'Arabi): Adam
Planetary day and hour (Western): day of the Sun, hour of Mars
The Sun is in 2 Cancer (in my 10th house): A man bundled in fur leads a shaggy deer. (Symbol for 3 Cancer from Dane Rudhyar, An Astrological Mandala)
The Moon is at 17Pis35 (in my 7th house). Lunar mansion (according to Ibn 'Arabi): 28, The Hierarchization of the Degrees of Existence, not their Manifestation, letter Wāw, The One Who Elevates by Degrees (Rafī‘-ud-Darjāt)
Lunar phase: Disseminating - Demonstration (phase names and keywords from Dane Rudhyar, The Lunation Cycle)
About an hour ago, the Moon entered my 7th house.
To pick up on a theme from the last time I wrote, I realized this weekend that, not only is it "over" for me with respect to my place of employment, but it has been over for about the last 12 years. I have completed a few projects, I have been invited to present and to have a few articles published, etc., but fundamentally, the sense of drive and "enthusiasm" that led up to my promotion and being awarded tenure effectively dissipated soon thereafter.
One of the ideas that has occurred to me recently is that I have increasingly sensed an ancestral burden with respect to higher education and its associated professional life, as if this is a destination toward which my ancestry had been leading me. Perhaps the idea of advancing oneself through education is not much more than a 1960s American myth. In any event, this thought led me to wonder if my drive to achieve academically had been fuelled in part by the idea that it would represent a goal toward which my mother had striven but which she had not achieved because of obstacles in her family of origin. Once she passed, it seemed as if that particular impetus had lost some of its power.
If 2007 was, in fact, the year that the academic dream died for me, it would at least have represented a good run, from the time of my admission to college (a project which had been underway, in a sense, from about 30 years earlier) to achieving the rank of associate professor with tenure. Even with respect to graduate school and my area of academic specialization, it would have been about a 20-year run from the time of my first round of graduate school applications to my having been granted tenure.
People's interests and needs change over time. I can see how themes that were related to the composers whose music I have studied have remained interesting to me, even if the daily/weekly/yearly grind of academic life has worn down my enthusiasm for striving to find space for the kinds of musical projects that are genuinely of interest to me.
I think that this has been difficult to admit to myself, and therefore difficult to put into words until now. Part of the conflict may stem from the notion that being a tenured associate professor is a position of privilege (or at least is commonly perceived to be such). Admitting that I'm not really that into feels in some ways like an admission of a lack of authenticity. On the other hand, admitting the way I feel about my situation may in fact signal a deeper sense of authenticity. Overall, this has felt like one of those moments in therapy in which one settles into a realization that one has known for some time but had been resisting because of a number of vaguely sensed inner conflicts. Verbalizing it seems to bring with it an acknowledgement of exhaustion from the effort of having resisted the insight for as long as one has done, but also holds open the dimly sensed possibility of the emergence of new ways of framing one's situation while moving forward from where one is now.
Peace,
KH