Yet everyday I sift through up to 17 pages (in the WordPress dashboard sense of the word pages) of comments daily to skim for spam, abuse and mentions of my name (usually @jeffrey or mr. kishner).

I am grateful that the blog community is so active, at the very least because a blog post with over 2000 comments provides social proof. (‘If these posts elicit so many comments, they must be good!”) Yet I find it odd that I spend a chunk of my day moderating the output of way less than 1% of my readership. That is, if Sasstrology regulars just stopped commenting, I do not think it would have a discernible effect on traffic.

Or would it?

There is something as important as traffic. Namely, community. After all, it is an active community that gives a blog life. If you think of any website as a living entity, the amount of activity on it provides a measure of how vital it is.

For example, if a reader has benefitted from the blog, it is oftentimes thanks to her interactions with other readers, not from what a professional astrologer has written in a blog post. Readers help each other out with their relationship struggles much more frequently than I offer any useful input. Sometimes I think all I’ve done is created the space where readers can support each other, and that blog posts are just placeholders where that can happen with regards to a specific topic.

And that results in a more engaged readership, including readers who tell their friends about the blog.

Recently, I’ve been lamenting the fact that I’m not being especially creative other than when I’m dancing (and trust me, my dance is no performance.) I spend most of my time editing and polishing others’ blog posts for publication, as well as working on business development and social media marketing. I write exceptionally little for the blog, except when I have something to announce or when I respond to a reader’s comment or bug report.

I used to be more more artistic in the traditional sense. In my teens and early twenties, I drew and composed. I wrote a lot in my thirties (Sasstrology is my third astrology blog, and I haven’t only blogged about astrology). And now in my fortieth year, I seem to be more concerned about making a living. Or rather, trying to blend art and commerce, to earn money doing what I feel is my calling (i.e., publishing).

I guess I’m struggling with the concept of publishing as an art. Certainly, I feel I have a vision, an aesthetic, that permeates Sasstrology. I highly value quality writing, accessible astrology, community-building. But is having an “a ha” moment about how to better sell an ebook a creative act? My sleepless nights are more about business ideas, not about how I’m going to poetically describe the tension between Jupiter and Saturn.

Maybe it comes down to passion. If my muse is communicating to me about growing the blog’s traffic or building content partnerships, that’s still the muse talking to me. It’s more about process than content, right?

I don’t think I’m cool, as defined by this particular section of The Times: young, artistic, well-connected.

Instead, I’m creative, introverted, geeky, imaginative, expressive, contained. Perhaps not quite the profile that the paper of record is looking for.

Yet I am impatient. Yes, my action planet Mars is in “right here, right now, baby” Aries, and when I’m ready to go, I don’t want to have to wait.

Besides, I don’t want to be the kind of guy who plans his life according to the “stars.” Although I know that there are some times that are more fortuitous for some events than others, I like to feel that I create my own success, that it’s not dependent on planetary aspects and cycles.

What’s your take? How much do you rely on the ephemeris to plan major life or business events?

Here’s a list of what I’ve been doing:

1. I integrated daily love horoscopes into the blog. I paid a contractor in Pakistan to create a PHP tool to make it easy for me to import them into WordPress and eliminate the need to spend time in the WordPress dashboard clicking on checkboxes and pulling down menus.
2. I’m doing the finishing touches on a major upgrade to the blog that will include an updated blog architecture and a forum, so that I can leave Ning. I am learning quite a lot about “hooks” in Genesis as well as the importance of testing the compatibility of themes and plugins in a development environment, as I don’t want to “break” my blog.
3. I am working with a partner to automate the processing of astrology reports so that I don’t have to manually churn out all the requests for free and paid reports using my Mac software.

I am excited because, with these changes, traffic could conceivably increase by 50%. Yet because everything is happening at once, I am feeling overwhelmed. I am trying to pace myself. Certain tasks have to be done by a specific day no matter what, while others can happen when I have free time and feel inspired. However, when I am in the midst of a technical problem, I do feel obsessive about it, and I would rather solve it now than put it on the backburner. Fortunately, the folks at various WordPress and BuddyPress forums have been especially helpful, as I have no training in web development.

I’ve been feeling very anxious recently. I have been attributing it to the fact that Uranus has been in the final degree of Pisces, the sign that “houses” my Sun, Mercury, Venus and North Node.

How is this affecting me?

Ever since Ning, the build-your-own-social-network platform, announced that it will no longer be providing its service for free, I have been contemplating a major overhaul of Sasstrology. I do not want to shell out $20 per month to host a forum, so I’ve been looking into integrating an open-source forum/social-networking platform called BuddyPress into my blog, which runs on WordPress. Namely, I want “one brand”/one destination, and I don’t want the foundation of my site to be dependent on the whims of a company that can change its policies at any time.

So I’ve been spending numerous hours, behind the scenes, beefing up my CSS/PHP skills so that I can build Sasstrology 2.0 on my own (with the help of some very smart WordPress people in various forums). Although I feel confident I can do this, I’m also feeling worried about the future. I believe that Sasstrology has the potential to be a lot bigger than it is, but I am also taking some risks by integrating the blog with the forum. (And then there’s just the fear that, even though I’m building Sass2.0 in a development environment, something could go wrong when I launch it live on Sasstrology.com.)

When I get this anxious, I remind myself that nothing has to change. I don’t have to update the technical foundations of the blog. I can just pony up the 20 bucks per month to keep the forum on Ning. I can just keep doing things the way I’ve been doing them. I have a formula right now that seems to work well enough, so why rock the boat?

Which brings me to Uranus. I really don’t think it’s healthy for me to just do the same thing week after week. I need to push myself. To do otherwise is to settle, to die on some level. I’ve been working so hard for the past few years to get to where I am, and frankly I’m not even halfway to where I want to be. (And where I need to be if I want to support my family with this endeavor.)

So I will keep soldiering on. Somehow, knowing that Uranus will backtrack into Pisces again is comforting – I can keep working on the next version of Sasstrology behind the scenes without feeling that I am obligated to move forward. I know that an inner revolution is taking place even if I’m not immediately ready to share it with the world.

When I read about this news at TechCrunch, I searched for information on how to integrate the button into WordPress blogs. Facebook has a form you can fill out to output code to put into your blog. However, this form only allows a static URL. If you want a button for each individual page on your blog, you have to do a little bit of hacking.

I did a little bit of google searching, but the solutions I found (Geekosystem and Ruhani Rabin) did not work on my blogs. (They resulted in errors.)

The following code works for me:

<iframe src="http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=<?php the_permalink(); ?>&width=450&action=like&colorscheme=light" scrolling="no" frameborder="0" allowTransparency="true" style="border:none; overflow:hidden; width:450px; height:70px"></iframe>

The key difference is that instead of the other URLs I used <?php the_permalink(); ?> which is WordPress’ default code for creating dynamic permalinks.

To implement this into your blog, just open the single.php file (or index.php if there is none) and paste this code after or before something that looks like <?php the_content();?>. You will have to experiment to see what works well. The only other change I made to the code is add a numerical value for “height.” Otherwise, Facebook uses a fair amount of space, presumably to display all the faces of your friends who liked the same post.

I think this is way cool, because I get a quick snapshot of people who are contacting me – not just friends, but clients, readers, even the people who send out business newsletters. (For example, I now know the name of the person sending out the Gig Alert from TheHiredGuns (the handle before @thehiredguns.com is very generic, it does not include her name). I also know what she looks like, her various job titles, plus I have links to her profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn, Friendster, MySpace and Bebo.

Now, if this were you, would you not feel unsettled?

Opting Out

Rapportive simply pulls all this information from publicly aggregated data. They list as their sources Gravatar, Rapleaf and Twitter (Rapportive pulls the recent tweets of your email correspondent so that you can read them right within Gmail). I imagine that your employment information is pulled from LinkedIn.

The service that pulls just about everything but your picture and your tweets is Rapleaf. A few years ago – when they branded themselves as a reputation management company – I registered with them and then realized (to my surprise) that they listed a whole bunch of my online profiles, one of which I had no desire to be made public. (What ever happened to privacy?) That’s when I learned that most of the services listed above (LinkedIn, Flickr, etc.) make public the association between your registered email address and your username or profile link.

I chose to opt out. And you can, too. Removing your email from their database will not solve the general privacy problem on the internet, but at least you can feel at peace knowing that so much information about you won’t be easily accessible.

I realize that these companies probably do this so that your friends can “find” you on their service (for example, when they pull email contacts from your address book and tell you who’s signed up with them). However, we pay a price for this convenience. Granted, you first have to know someone’s email address so that you can then find out what networks they belong to. But just because someone contacts you does not mean they’re explicitly giving you permission to know so much about them. Not all correspondence is business, not all correspondence is pleasure. You may want a business contact to know about your LinkedIn profile, but you may not want them to have access to your Flickr photostream.

One solution, of course, is to be mindful of the email addresses you use to register for different services. If you have a “friend” email address, you can use it to sign up with Flickr and Facebook. If you have a “business” email address, you can use it to sign up with LinkedIn and perhaps a business Twitter account.

This way, at least the folks who are poking around the web will only see the parts of your online identity that you want them to see.

If you want to know what I can see about you in Rapportive, just email me at jeffreykishner at gmail dot com, with “what do you see” in the Subject line. (I won’t share your info with anyone but you.)

I stopped being a client in my mid-thirties, and since circa 2003 I have been seriously involved in a dance/movement practice called the Five Rhythms. Although I have teachers, they have a 1:many relationship in class, and I feel I have room to develop my own practice, not to be pushed in a specific direction or told that the way I am moving is “wrong.”

I cannot tell you how freeing this is. When I dance – provided I feel I am in a “safe” space – I can somatically express exactly what my bodymind needs to get out. Sometimes I do question, though, what kind of growth this practice facilitates. Am I just “getting it out” in a Reichian release-type fashion? I know release work is healing, but I don’t think I’m changing my core beliefs or anything. In some ways, I actually feel fairly stuck, especially with my interpersonal issues.

Part of the problem of doing movement practice in a group is that I am balancing authentic expression of my innermost self with feelings about being part of a “tribe,” not to mention dealing with erotic attraction. I am looking out while moving from within, and the former often ungrounds me from my inner experience.

Yet despite the distractions inherent in being in a group, I often derive a feeling of nourishment from participation in one – even if I don’t actually talk much with anyone. I feel I am having real connections with some – contrary to what my analyst-in-training said, which was that these dance experiences aren’t “real” interactions because words are not spoken.

And even if my psychological patterns don’t dislodge by virtue of my movement practice, I do feel an almost shamanic experience of surrendering to something deeper than my surface consciousness. It could be that I just need to get my rage out – for I tend to scream and thrash about at times – but I can’t see any other culturally-appropriate way to express it. I can exercise all I want, but it’s no substitute.

Probably the most profound experiences I have had on the dance floor have been when I’ve felt the vibrations in my chakras. When it does happen, it’s usually the fifth (throat) although on occasion I do feel some type of energy at my crown. It is fairly common for people to place one hand on their heart (4) and belly (3), and I do this, too – but I don’t think the energies here are as vibrational, if only because the matter there is more dense. (I’m talking here with absolutely no authority about chakras. I attended a three-day training with Anodea Judith and have read a few books.)

I also tend to shake a lot in class. My understanding is that it’s a release of kundalini energy (Shakti) that is thwarted in “her” attempt to meet Shiva at the crown because I have blockages in my energy system. Sometimes I feel I would fit in at one of those Pentecostal meetings where congregants shake and speak in tongues (although I don’t do the latter).

Where the Twain Meet

When I was a grad student studying counseling psychology, I took a few workshops plus a class in Hakomi Therapy, and I was also a client of someone certified in Hakomi. Developed by Ron Kurtz, Hakomi is a body-oriented therapy influenced by Buddhism. It goes beyond the “felt experience” of Gendlin (“focusing”) and goes deep into how specific messages are encoded in physical patterns or areas of tightness.

I have not studied dance therapy, nor have I been a client, although I know there is someone who has developed a dance therapy model based on the Five Rhythms. I have no desire to be a dance teacher, but I would be interested in doing some inner work combining 5R and therapy.

I’m certain that I would not be where I am now without having immersed myself in the world of psychotherapy for so long. I learned about Kundalini when I was studying at the California Institute of Integral Studies. And I learned about the Five Rhythms when I attended an East Coast conference on psychotherapy and spirit (which is what CIIS is known for). So my path does have a purpose.

I’m not sure I’ll ever break out of the life-long patterns with which I am unhappy, but I do know that dance/movement practice keeps me sane – not literally, for I’ve never decompensated, but just releasing all the angst I carry around (either from the past or the stresses of daily life) helps me to live my life with some greater degree of serenity than if I didn’t dance on a regular basis.

It is a given that anything one publishes on the internet is nowadays more-or-less permanent. Therefore, one must think about one’s reputation. The thing is, whom do I want to feel positive regard towards me?

Of course, I want to be liked by everyone. But in reality, I need to care about two things: future employers, and future girlfriends. Right now, I’m married and am a struggling self-employed person – in which case, I don’t have to worry about a prospective boss or date googling me. However, anything can change at any time. I could divorce, or my blog could fail and I’d need to find a job, if only to pay my basic expenses.

Transiting Uranus is making its final conjunction to my natal Venus on February 9 of this year. My Venus is in my 7th house of partnership and rules my 10th house of career. So, basically just about anything could happen in my career and/or love life this winter.

But does a writer hold himself back out of fear of some future state of affairs?