In our family there is only one dominate astrological sign and that is Sagittarius. When I was a little boy, I was the only Sagittarian child for many, many years. This was a unique distinction because among my mother’s family of Armenian gypsies, many of the significant elders were also born under the sign of the archer; the bow and arrow is practically our family crest! My mother was born on December 4th (today), her father was born on December 6th, her father’s sister, Aunt Gladys was born on December 9th, their other brother, Uncle Kaspar was born on December 2nd and his son Bruno was born on December 4th (an hour after my mother)! So in 1961, when I was born, I was the only child with a December birthday until my cousin Gigi was born in 1975. Today, besides my mom, I’m the next oldest Sagittarian and my son Julian was born on December 5th, cousin Gigi’s son was born December 8th and a second cousin, Sandi, born on December 11th and she has a daughter, Beth, born on December 3rd...so together we are contemporary Sagittarians in the family, but the legend of the archer looms larger than life among the elders for if not for them, there may not have been any December babies in our family at all!
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| The land of my family heritage in Armenia... |
The family tale goes that in the North Armenian mountains, during the spring of 1915, when she was 16 years old, Great Aunt Gladys Dokouzlian was walking in the woods outside of their little mountain town with my grandfather Nish (he was 9 years old) and young Kaspar (he was 7 years old). They had been gathering berries when they saw a plume of smoke from the village; they ran to the edge of town, they saw soldiers on horses shooting and beheading everyone, including their parents, siblings, family members, everyone they knew! They hid in the woods and for several weeks, Gladys led the boys through the wilderness and into nearby Georgia where a Polish engineer working for Russia rescued them. The engineer took them to Greece before he arranged for the children to stay with his sister, a school teacher in Chicago, Illinois; they arrived on Aunt Gladys’ 20th birthday in 1919!
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| The Last Sagittarian Gathering in June, 1984... |
So, every year since they arrived in America, the three siblings make a special point of combining their December birthday powers to celebrate together, as a family, all the Sagittarian survivors!
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| My 6th Birthday in 1967... |
Next Monday I’ll commemorate my 54th birthday, still a tale of the Sagittarian survivor but in a battle very different than the elders of my mother’s father and his generation. The enemy I fight is nowhere outside of me, it’s a constant battle of wits between me, myself and I, one that I never will win, I will never lose, I never should fight but I never, never, never, never give up. This is not the only place where I live life during wartime, I sense a struggle within this nation during this lifetime. I believe it can happen, I think it might have already started and being both a Sagittarian and an Armenian, I plan to also be a survivor…I hope to see the peace after the next war of the world, may it be a long lasting, timeless one. In the meanwhile, the devil is in the details which I cannot begin to spell out; I’m not smart enough or I care too much to look too hard, I’d rather leave the explanations to the theorist and historians and focus on what I can do best which is understanding what seems to work for my family and me in the present day now with what we have and where we might want to go next. I’m a believer in truth, but I also believe in keeping one’s cards close to the chest so I’d rather not spell out our plans exactly; we’re planning our work, then working our plan. I might suggest you do the same, but either way, we’re happy and busy and productive and that’s all there is sometimes because sometimes it’s all it takes, dig?
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| Contemplating life at 54 years old... |
It’s a customary practice of mine to review the year I’ve had and perhaps speculate on the next year ahead during these days around my birthday. I think that’s pretty common, many people take stock of their lives around their birthday, it’s a sensible thing to do sometimes. This year I look back with a sense of gratitude, a sense of satisfaction and a sense of love for life. I have felt some new, exciting and sometime unexpected feelings this past year, I have learned many new things, remembered some old tricks and got my kicks at a Grateful Dead show one last time…so hell, yeah, this past year has gone down fairly well for me, thank you. I look towards the next 366 days or so, knowing that I have deadlines and plans for somethings, I have loose notions and random thoughts about other matters yet again, I look forward with a positive, enthusiastic and zealous lust of this life. This experience of being a spiritual ghost, walking around in a carbon based plasma based meat suit which hangs on a skeleton of stardust while standing on a huge rock that’s spinning around a hot star at 67,000 MPH as we hurl on the far edge of a distant galaxy in a vast, endless universe…whew, this life is a hell of a ride, one far-out trip! Bring it on, I fear almost fucking nothing, this is a great journey so far and I plan to make the rest of it as exciting! So that’s both my plan and attitude for this next year, I’m feeling very ready to take on anything. I hope it’s something very good, may it be something that benefits many, but be it what it may, I’m here and I’m ready.
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| Completing the audio edition... |
The audio book version of “My BiPolar Reality; How Life Goes On…” is in the final stage of post-production and will be available at your favorite purveyor of audio books, on or off line, by December 21st; pre-orders are available at
www.dphilipchalmers.net on December 7th for only $2.99! I have been quite engaged with this process, but it’s almost done and I do hope to spend a little time sharing in the good cheer of ending this year with many of you in the on-line communities. I am anticipating a hibernation period over the foreseeable few months, I have both a book and a screenplay to complete and the family is seriously considering a relocation. Next year, 2016, is going to be a crazy year in America, in the world…if I remember correctly, it’s very near the beginning of the end of something, I think…but anyway, it’s time to take my siesta and I’ve been drifting off topic all paragraph, so let’s just end it here, shall we?
I hope you all have a very happy Sagittarian weekend, do like us archers do and always aim high!
