Numerology/Astrology for 4/21/21                       

4/21/21 is the number = 12

Add the 4 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 1 = 12. 1 + 2 = 3

The Number 3 is about reframing the negative to the positive. A skill that everyone needs at some point in life. Every day there is another piece of bad news. Every day, we have to choose what to do with that energy. Denial is not a path that leads anywhere. Denial does not take us towards enlightenment but away. The challenge is to allow information to sort it out by sifting things back and forth from our left and right brain. And decide which pieces of this puzzle make sense and help define something of importance in our lives. Regardless put a smile on your face. Be pleasant and patient with others.

~Suzanne Wagner~

Astrology Today

            

The Moon flows our energy in a very Leo’esque sort of way. It allows us to feel more loving and confident. The Leo Moon gives us power and hopes to keep going in a positive, life-affirming direction.

The Moon and Saturn are in opposition and can make things frustrating because of all the small things that seem to pop up just when you least expect them. It will seem as if the items you want and need to get done have to be put aside again.

This day does want to be playful and expressive. But delays will seem to be the way of the day.

Venus and Jupiter are in a quintile, and that supports caring and concern. Do your best to help each other today.

Regardless, try to enjoy this day and do some things that are fun for you.

We are learning to trust others. Just remember, trust is earned.

~Suzanne Wagner~

Quote

Tribute to Rudolf Nureyev

Control was not sacred to him. Realness was.

Rules were never right for him. They were manifestations of another’s fear. And he would not allow fear to control his destiny or for any other person to determine who he was or what his legacy would be.

He believed that discipline was the way you directed that passion so that you could tell a story and touch the hearts of others and make a difference.

He was a man of nostalgia and nuance.

He was a man of complex feelings that overtook his life and choices.

He was a man that everyone will remember.

He was a man that believed fully in who he was and what he came to give.

~Suzanne Wagner~

Blog

I watched the movie “White Crow” last night and found myself making sense of the things in my life while working in Berlin, and we had as a guest artist, Rudolf Nureyev.

This movie was about Rudi’s younger days and the times leading up to his defection from Russia.

I am grateful to be able to say I have shared a stage with this great artist.

By the time he was performing with us, he was physically aging, not well health-wise (as he was HIV positive before they got the drugs that do such wonders now), and he was slowing down.

But on so many levels, that did not matter.

What he was above all other things was an artist. He had a type of animal magnetism and charisma that exploded when he went on stage.

Performing was his life’s blood.

It was always clear to me that he needed the applause. He needed to be on stage. He needed an outlet for all that passionate fury he embodied.

He lived a life as if he was live ammunition that at any point could go off, and you did not want to be the target of that ammunition. He could slay a person verbally in ways that were deeply personal and astoundingly honest.

Many of us witnessed his temper unleashed in full force.

It would explode out of him when he could not get his way. He would tell you exactly what he thought at those times. He despised laziness and those that would not apply themselves in meticulous ways. That fury was not just directed at the dancers, but at all the lighting crews, massage therapists, directors, ballet teachers, rehearsal directresses, anyone with whom he had to engage that lacked focus, intention, and skill.

But what struck me about the movie was some of his personal histories that I was unaware of and some of the things he said, phrases, hand gestures, and body language he would use that came clearly out in the movie that I, too, had personally witnessed. The film explained many things and put clarity on many of the questions he used to ask me.

I now know why he oddly liked me. We had a strange and unusual friendship that I never fully understood.

I was much younger than him when I was in Berlin. I got there when I had just turned 18 and stayed for four years.

When I lived in New York, I constantly went off to museums, artist galleries, Broadway shows, and doing the clubbing scene even though I was technically too young. I got away with the last one because I was so tall at a young age and looked grown-up if you put makeup on me. And they did not look so closely at driver’s licenses in the 1970s.

I was fascinated with all art, was curious about the world and its history. And every spare moment, I was trying to explore to understand this complex web that is humanity.

I did this even to the point that Violette Verdy (famous French ballerina that worked for New York City Ballet) warned me at SAB (School of American Ballet) that my interest in so much that was artistic was not going over well with Balanchine. I was supposed to eat, sleep, and drink ballet while I was at school and not be interested in other art forms.

But I could not help myself. I was fascinated with all the creative expressions in the world. It was what my days off were all about; going off the Smithsonian and other famous museums to spend copious time with famous masters and their paintings—looking at them in detail and feeling into the mood and intention of the painter, etc.

When I knew Rudi in Berlin, he had picked me out of the corps to do a principal role in Giselle (Myrtha) creating ruffles in the normal seniority system of a German Opera House. Suddenly I was in long personal rehearsals that were very Russian in their approach. That meant repeating things over and over again until the fatigue found you sitting on the floor wondering how you ended up on the floor from a jumping sequence.

He saw me as so young and told me so. I thought of him as so old and told him so.
Then we would laugh. He would call me names, and I would call him names in a playful but emotionally heightened banter that could and would break down rehearsal structure and the proper decorum expected in a German Opera House. He never had any use for the appropriate rules of etiquette.

He was continuously irreverent, sanctimonious, and disruptive. He loved to poke holes in the control patterns of those in charge.

He was a storm of energy, the likes of which I have very rarely witnessed. His power was powerfully controlled and intentionally directed by his mind. He might act chaotically, but he was not chaotic in his mind.

His level of mental clarity was at the place of genius. He noticed things that others missed.

But what struck me about the movie was something that he would often say to me privately. He was never familiar in rehearsal (that would be inappropriate for his “God” image he liked to portray).

I would see him in the hallway before class, and he would say, “What did you do with your day off?”

I would say, “I went to the Dahlem Museum.”

Instantly, he would be more interested. Then he would say, “What did you like the most?”

And I would tell him about sitting in the room of Rembrandts for an hour looking at all the brush strokes and the angle of the lighting. Instantly we would be in deep conversation about art. In such moments, he was engaging, interested, and his kindest self. Art calmed him down.

In the movie, they showed this side of him that I did not know was such a massive part of him going to Paris with the Russian Ballet Company and then defecting there. I watched him (in the movie) marvel at the paintings and the sculptures of Paris and remembered our many conversations about such things fondly. In those moments, we were in alignment, and we saw the world through similar eyes.

He loved Paris and France so much that he wanted to be buried at the Cemetery Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois on the outskirts of Paris in a special section for Russians.

His tombstone looks like the rug that he would warm up with from his native area in Russian. It represents his nomadic life and his history because he was born on a moving train.

He was through and through a powerful, arrogant, difficult, tempestuous, ragingly artistic, and passionate man. He was in his soul a Russian nomad, wild and free. He was a controlled obsession when it came to beauty and art. He was in his heart and soul an adorer of all things beautiful. He was willfully funny. He was insanely determined to make everyone do their best. He asked everything from you but then allowed you to feel the accomplishment. He respected effort. He loved without regret or thought of consequences.
He showed me how to let go and allow who I truly was out. He gave me chances to be better. He challenged me, angered me, yelled at me, and threw me in a fountain for disagreeing with him.

He was someone that I cannot say that I was his friend. But I can say that I was his familiar.

I got to know a person who I understood in a way that perhaps not everyone got to see.

I did see what was underneath that rug he carried around.

I did see what was under the knit cap he would pull over his eyes so he could do his own thing in class and be disrespectful to the ballet teacher.

I knew what he was up to when he intentionally disrupted rehearsals.

He did not scare me because I knew he respected strength.

I did not back down around him because he did not want that. He wanted someone to push back.

It was as if he was yelling at everyone, “Am I the only one fully present here? Is there no one else feeling how stupid and insane this moment is?”

His temper tantrums made me smile.

The world of ballet is all about control, rules, and discipline.

But his world of dance was about raw, uncontrolled emotion and passionate expression while on a stage. He wanted to reach into your soul and rip a hole in your rules of society and the mental control so many hold so sacred.

Control was not sacred to him. Realness was.

Rules were never right for him. They were manifestations of another’s fear. And he would not allow fear to control his destiny or for any other person to determine who he was or what his legacy would be.

Discipline was the way you directed that passion so that you could tell a story and touch the hearts of others and make a difference.

He was a man of nostalgia and nuance.

He was a man of complex feelings that overtook his life and choices.

He was a man that everyone will remember.

He was a man that believed fully in who he was and what he came to give.

~Suzanne Wagner~