ARLAN БОБ МАЛЛИГАН WISE « THE « ABC АСТРОЛОГИЯ ’ S OF ASTROLOGICAL , ЙОГА И СЛУЖЕНИЕ WRITING »
I have been leading writing workshops at the OPA retreats for the past two years . They get good feedback and produce good writers . When I saw that nobody else was giving writing instruction for astrologers and that there was a need for it , I jumped into the empty slot .
I ’ ve always found writing to be an easier way of transmitting my thoughts than speaking them . I have five planets in Mercury-ruled signs and he is one of the final dispositors of my chart and so I read and I write . My Aquarian moon in the 12th house finds comfort in words . I am finding a new way to honor my dear friend Mercury by leading these writing workshops .
There was a time when I took as many writing classes as I could find in my vicinity . I took workshops in writing short stories , writing poetry , and writing personal memories , I wrote an astrology forecast for my local newspaper for two decades . I became the person who the newspaper editor would call when she needed someone to cover an offbeat subject , like interviewing the animal communicator who had come to give a talk , or write a review on the book on Buddhism recently published by a local author . I wrote articles for OPA ’ s journal , The Career Astrologer , and served as the editor for a few terms . I wrote and wrote and wrote .
Then , one day when I was asked to submit topics for the MAC conference in Cleveland , I first worked up a talk I called “ When Mercury Rode the Mail Train ” which profiled three of the early , pre-Internet astrology columnists and writers , Patrick Walker , Eleanor Bach , and Edie Custer . I also came up with the idea of teaching a writing class . I ’ d heard talks on how to write for astrological journals and for astrology books , but never saw a class on just doing it . I gave the class and it went well . That became the seed for the three-day writing workshop I do at OPA retreats .
What do we do in these writing workshops ? We write . We encourage each other with mutual support while we write and then read what we have written . I start with each participant writing out his / her goals for the weekend . Then I hand them a sheet of exercises , which ask them to write a one-sentence explanation of a series of planets in signs such as Mars in Gemini Square Uranus in Pisces . I ask them to compose four sentences about today , and then to translate a series of synastry aspects like Sun in Leo married to Moon in Taurus . And , write on how to explain Retrograde Mercury to a fundamentalist Christian .
On the following days we look at each other ’ s charts and assess our writing strengths and weaknesses . We look at authors ’ charts to see what drives them to write and what themes we find . I read to them passages on writing from different well-known writers . We , and I do it too , write a short article that I submit to The Career Astrologer so everyone gets the opportunity to see their writing in print . We also discuss and start long-term projects which the participants will continue to work on after they return home .
The value of attending a writing workshop comes in finding one ’ s writing voice through the action of writing . One of the objects of the class is to evict from memory the voice of that high school teacher who gave you a C- on a paper and said you could never write well . It is validating to write with others and receive mutual support while an intimacy builds over the three days in a safe and secure container . You learn that you are a good writer , and , yes , you can write . ■
The Career Astrologer Volume 20 • Number 1 • Winter 2011
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