Peter Strain is an AOI Award winning Illustrator working and living in Belfast. His work is inspired by film and music as well as social, political and cultural issues. He tackles these with a highly distinctive hand lettering style, bold imagery and humor.
When My Uncle, who’s completely deaf, was about 17, he got in a heated argument with my great aunt, his mother. They were furiously signing back and forth. Suddenly they both stopped and started laughing and laughing. My great aunt had accidentally signed, “Don’t you yell at me.”
Aries: Clothed in sunlight/restless in wanting/dying of fever/Changed shapes of an empire/startling invaders/vast promissory notes of joy.
Taurus: A man searching/for lost Paradise/can seem a fool/to those who never sought/the other world.
Gemini: Why does my mind circle around you/why do planets wonder what it/would be like to be you/All your soft wild promises were words/birds, endlessly in flight.
Cancer: A vast radiant beach/in a cool jeweled moon/Couples naked race down by it’s quiet side/And we laugh like soft, mad children.
Leo: We can do it on a sunny/floor with friends & make/any sound or movement/that comes. Roll on our/backs screaming with mirth/glad in the guilt of our/madness.
Virgo: A clean paper or a pure/white wall./One false/line, a scratch, a mistake./Un-erasable./So obscure/by adding a million other/tracings, blend it,/cover it.
Libra: I open the wild smile of/my remembrance. I know you love me/to talk this way./I hope no one sees this message/written in the calm lonely/far out languid summer afternoon/with my total love.
Scorpio: I can change/the course of nature./I can place myself anywhere in space or time./I can summon the dead./I can perceive events on other worlds,/in my deepest inner mind,/& in the minds of others.
Sagittarius: Moment of inner freedom/when the mind is opened & the/infinite universe revealed/& the soul is left to wander/dazed & confus’d searching/here & there for teachers & friends.
Capricorn: A man rakes leaves into/a heap in his yard, a pile,/and leans on his rake &/burns them utterly./The fragrance fills the forest/children pause & heed the/smell, which will become/nostalgia in several years.
Aquarius: The face changes as the heart beats/& breathes/We are not constant/we are an arrow in flight/the sum of the angles of change.
Pisces: She looked so sad in sleep/Like a friendly hand/just out of reach/A candle stranded on/a beach/While the sun sinks low/an H-bomb in reverse.
The Sun rules Leo and exalts in Aries Leo: “I am the King!” Leo is the resplendent exhibition of self expression. It’s God’s creative genius coming to life. Leo is born to lead and emanate the fabric that he has been sewn into. The whole world literally revolves around Leo, without the Sun we are nothing, Leo is equally as indispensable Aries:
Aries is fighting to form a personality, battling on behalf of his
inner child for the right to flare and fire. Aries is the prince or
princess who wants to rule. It’s the life quest to shine his inner sun.
Mercury rules Gemini and Virgo and exalts in Virgo Gemini:
Words! Language! I can talk! I can talk my head off and I can open your
mind and release a Pandora’s box of quips into it and it will be
delightful and dizzying. Geminis can read anything from gossip to scripture. Virgo: But is this information correct? How
valid is this knowledge and where can I apply it? Can my silence do the
talking for me this time? It’s breaking down information like minerals and nutrients.
Moon rules Cancer and exalts in Taurus Cancer:
The moonlight mother, under the hostage of Luna’s waxing and waning,
the Cancer has moon beads shining under his skin, he is the epicentre of
new life and creating new tapestry. The female fertility principle Taurus:
Facilitates the new life of daisies and dandelions. Gives birth
creatively, to sound, poetry, and architecture. The male fertility
principle
Venus rules Libra and Taurus and exalts in Pisces Taurus: This is a pure love of every sensual, sexual, and artistic form. It is an appreciation for love, life, and beauty. It is exquisite the form of a body, the taste of cherry chapstick, the sensation of massage oil Libra:
Everyone is God in human form to Libra, it is connecting,
collaborating, socialisation, finding yourself in someone else, losing
yourself into something deeper. Devoutly seeks partnership - marriage or otherwise Pisces: Searches for a marriage with the Divine Source, wants to re ignite the love story between her and God. Because Pisces is all encompassing, the frequency of love itself
Mars rules Aries and Scorpio exalts in Capricorn Aries: Aries doesn’t contain his Mars, its like flashing lights - sparks from
an electrical socket, the energy radiates from their pours and is
reflected in their restlessness Scorpio: Internalizes and holds Mars like a battery. Energy caverns inward, the streams, volcanic eruptions, and confronting a battlefield within Capricorn: Internally systemized Mars energy then directed externally, into tweaking surroundings and moving forward with worldly ambitions. I think
Capricorn equally distributes mentally and somatically..there is
resonant streams of high octane intensity in Capricorn that isnt erratic
and volatile
Jupiter rules Sagittarius and Piscesand exalts in Cancer Sagittarius: The vision that extends beyond the horizon, a quest for the expansion of consciousness that lures the individual across land and sea, searching for meaning, wisdom, and personal experience. Searches for intimacy with the Source through nature, the universe, and learning Pisces:Jupiter is the Piscean faith and belief. Jupiter is turned inward for spiritual pilgrimage. Idealism and vision. The lenses into the divine are enlarged and the
hidden is magnified. This is how Pisces see, feel and hear divinity in
lucid perception. Cancer: This is the exploration of the far inner landscape, traveling the amniotic fluids and valleys of the divine kingdom that rests inside. Can dwell within to find the spirit
Saturn rules Capricorn and Aquarius and exalts in Libra Capricorn: Life is under the command of discipline, diligence, and duty. The voice of the critic is deafening inside the Capricorn mind, and there is little room for lethargy or half attempts Aquarius: There is tremendous depth and perception in Aquarius. Limitation with personal acceptance of belief. Saturn is where traditional astrologers claimed Saturn “rejoiced” in masculine territory with moist air jubilation. Saturn gives Aquarius a pedantic mental state, a need to project ideas onto humanity Libra: The sign of law and justice expresses fluidly in the planet of authority and establishment. Libra has through every idea and perspective, and the decree of Saturn is wade through every factor and reach a conclusion based on rationality and fairness.
Now that i’m grown and can look back at least 2 decades worth of life experiences, I realize that if I could be granted 3 superpowers that would actually be useful to my life, they would look very different from what most people would think. My top three actually useful superpowers would be:
Internet Negation:the ability to cancel someone’s ability to use the Internet for anything. I would overwhelmingly use this on racists. They wouldn’t be able to check emails, tweet, use tumblr, search online and etc. Literally barred from the Internet use completely.
Spermakinesis: the ability to shoot blanks until I actually wanted to impregnate a woman and the ability to call back my sperm thus unfertilize a woman’s egg after the fact.
REM Acceleration: the ability to get 8hrs worth of REM sleep in just 1hr. I would be productive as fuck!
