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.As the drill bit spun round and round it seemed to be boring inthe words, "Oh make my universe beautiful, happy, fragrant,friendly."Ordinarily, so trite a phrase would never have impressed me.Inmy softened condition, however, the affirmation was being stampedindelibly upon the ethers of my world within.All at once it seemedclear why so much emphasis is place on the word of God.Words arethe archetype makers.It was high time (pun intended) to startmanufacturing a new gospel for my own body.Etymologically theword gospel means "God's spell." Ah yes, I was learning more aboutmagic every day!Because astrology is the language of archetypes I was receivingever more astrological input.It now appeared that the issue of rejuvenation was one of harmonizing Saturn, the "ancient of days,"with Venus, goddess of beauty.Saturn is the natural ruler of the planeof concrete matter, whereas the gifts of Venus come from ourplanetary alter ego.Nature, associated with Venus-ruled Taurus,regenerates herself yearly in accordance with the Saturnian time cycleof the Sun's circuit through the zodiac.Staring at my mouth in themirror it struck me that physical attractiveness derives much of its ap Gentle Magic1 2 1peal from the smile which shows the teeth.Yet teeth, skin and theunderlying bone structure are Saturnian, as is the power to endure.No wonder Saturn is exalted in the Venusian sign Libra.Venusianbeauty comes largely through the exercise of Saturnian determination.At that moment, the idea of formulating a new set of body-repairing archetypes seemed entirely feasible.I envisioned groups ofpeople inhaling ketamine vapors and then lying back while positiveaffirmations were systematically stamped into their psyches.What abeautiful way to treat obesity, depression and addictions! The ideaseemed enormously exciting and I was sure it could be done.Thiswould be the therapy of the future.Returning to my normal flattened-out state, however, I had mydoubts.Not about the process but about my ability ever to convincethe public to try it.What, after all, had the medicine really done forme? Yes, my fingernails had improved.But honesty compelled the admission that my face really hadn't changed much.Nobody was aboutto mistake me for an Egyptian queen even if I did feel a new innerglow.Time may be the great healer but it is a terrible beautician, andwe were still functioning in time's domain.Leavening lead that was my body assignment and I still couldn'tfigure out how this alchemical miracle was to be accomplished.Thewhole conundrum sounded like a Zen Buddhist koan that wasn't evensupposed to have a proper answer.Would the way be shown.In the meanwhile, our daily life remained active and fulfilling.Now that we were spending more time with Howard's bouncing ten-year old daughter Valerie I began to think of taking up a hobby thatwe might enjoy together.For years the pastime I had most wanted tocultivate was the making of windows, lampshades and the like out ofbits of colored glass.First there had been no time for such an occupation and now there was insufficient space.However, when Valerie andher friend Cathy came for the weekend I did purchase some readymade molds and glass beads with which we could experiment.Theidea was to arrange the beads within the forms and melt them in theoven to produce suns, stars, flowers, animal9 and so forth.The process turned out to be surprisingly easy.Watching the individualglobules fuse into glassy patterns pleased me beyond measure and Iresolved to look into the possibility of ordering the beads and lead forframes in substantial quantities.After we had completed our handiwork I gathered the leftoverbeads, laid them out concentrically in the fluted heart-shape mold thathangs on my kitchen wall, and placed them in the oven to bake.Ihadn't expected that the finished product would be worth even thatminimal effort, but to my surprise the resultant red heart surroundedby radiating orange and white bands looked as though it could pro 1 2 2Journeys into the Bright Worldvide a base for some interesting free-form effects.Using a hot knife Icarved the fluted edge to resemble wings and then reheated theemblem so that the wings could be bent back into a more pleasingshape.Even so, the effect remained crude and I chastised myself forputtering over so unproductive a task
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