Stars F This week’s fiery full moon sparks dramatic breakthroughs, creative innovations and exciting ideas that need firming up on the drawing board for another fortnight before lift-off…
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ARIES: Sun/Mercury’s emphasis on friends and business income from social activities arrives delightfully accessorised by lively Jupiter in your zone of personal pleasures. This week’s homework is minimising reactions to other people’s inconsiderate behaviour, which doesn’t mean accepting or condoning it – just letting go, so you don’t further the hurt.
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TAURUS: This week swings between slow and steady (your natural rhythm), and sudden pop-up possibilities – the challenge being not settling comfortably into the former or stubbornly resisting the latter. Just be the responsible, reasonable, kind, diplomatic being you are and current astral energies will love you right back.
GEMINI: Go right ahead and enjoy your favourite things this week: such as socialising, networking, meeting and greeting, cruising, schmoozing, making new connections and brainstorming exciting ideas. As always during Mercury retro conditions apply, with hot spots ranging anywhere from making snap judgments to the opposite polarity of letting things slide…
CANCER: During this week’s interpersonal adjustments, make sure to keep your home zone a beautiful secure sanctuary where you can retreat and reboot. And in emotional moments you might want to ponder His Cancerian Holiness the Dalai Lama’s attitude to the Chinese military, who he calls My friends, the enemy…
LEO: This week’s great for promoting new ventures with your signature flair and enthusiasm, as long as you don’t repeat old mistakes from the past. If plans go pear shaped around emotion-fuelled midweek Leo full moon, resist the drama hook and use the opportunity to find more creative solutions.
VIRGO: Intimacy – if you can overcome this week’s obstacles stacked against it – will be so worth whatever effort you make to get there. Or else take a punt on something interestingly different (but not involving money), which even if it doesn’t meet your expectations will offer a worthwhile and instructive learning curve.
LIBRA: Group dynamics may not be all you’d hoped for during this stop-start week of flux. But as windows of opportunity open, close and reopen, seesawing between forward thrust and gruelling gridlock, your challenge is to move through trickery, mishaps and uncomfortable synchronicities to find whatever gold’s sparkling in the garbage.
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SAGITTARIUS: Archers are famously impatient, but this week’s Mercury retrograde isn’t just about upsetting delays and frustrating miscommunications. To paraphrase Sagittarian astrologer Jonathon Cainer, it also offers fabulous opportunities for realisation and negotiation – profound insights, uncanny inklings, smart hunches and intense revelations – along with the conditions for putting these into practice.
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CAPRICORN: That uneasy feeling of the ground shifting under your feet’s never pleasant for earth signs; if your path seems to be giving way, move to higher ground for stocktaking and re-examination. Sure you’re itching for new horizons, but Saturn suggests ditching baggage and integrating recent life lessons before take-off.
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SCORPIO: With this month’s astral emphasis in your house of elders, listen to what they have to say. As this week investigates misrepresentation, take a forensic look at your personal circle and apply adjustments in your environment, work or social community. Final advice? Only engage in passions that leave a lasting afterglow.
AQUARIUS: Even if you drop the occasional conversational clanger, make the odd expensive shopping error or people misinterpret you, don’t ignore the many precious opportunities for fence-mending this week offers. Forget deal-breaker attitudes. Trust your instincts. And above all, boldly rejig any self-sabotaging patterns you realise you’re repeating.
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PISCES: This week’s Life of Pisces is chokka with evolutionary activity in the relationship arena, so have a go at looking beyond people’s current role of good and not so good into their genuine soul. Even a fleeting glimpse makes it easier to re-engage in a way that encourages beneficial alchemy.
LAUNCHING A SENSATIONAL 2015
SURVIVAL GUIDE FOR REGIONAL CREATIVES
NORPA, the region’s premier performing arts company, invites theatre and dance lovers to witness what they have on offer for 2015. The evening will feature special live performances from two of the companies featured in NORPA’s 2015 season. Artistic director Julian Louis will also give his insights into each of the shows on offer this year, from national touring companies to works created in our own backyard.
Turning a creative idea into a profitable business isn’t easy, particularly in regional areas. Arts Northern Rivers partnered with creative industries consultant Jill Moonie to create Survival Guide for Regional Creatives. The workshop will address challenges for regionally based creatives and strategies for success, including insider tips on: networking and building business relationships, developing a message and utilising resources. Special guests Ellie Beck from Deadwood Creative and professional artist Christine Willcocks. Survival Guide for Regional Creatives is a must for creatives wanting to invest in their career, Friday 13 February 2015, 9.30am–12.30pm at Bangalow RSL Hall. For bookings: 6628 8120 or info@artsnorthernrivers.com.au or visit artsnorthernrivers.com.au/blog.
A licensed bar is open from 6pm and the pop-up diner will be operating from 7.30pm. Tickets to all shows in NORPA’s 2015 season will go on sale at the launch. You can purchase tickets to individual shows or get big discounts by purchasing season subscription packages of three shows or more. Free event but limited seating so please RSVP to rsvp@norpa. org.au or 1300 066 772. Friday at 6pm, Lismore City Hall. Magician, comedian, inventor, master of illusion, ventriloquist, shadow and mime artist – he’s a multifaceted Aussie genius who keeps you guessing until the last moment. Brimming with originality, he’ll make you laugh, cheer and gasp with his uniquely breathtaking skills and hilarious audience participation.
GRAND G RAND OPENING
A grand finalist in Australia’s Got Talent, Crowe has performed alongside Bon Jovi and Russell Brand, and for David Letterman and Queen Elizabeth. Raymond, how does a person become an illusionist? I don’t imagine there’s a Tafe course! Now has never been an easier time to learn magic. There are numerous DVDs and books to teach the technique of magic; however, the real secret of magic for me is the ability to perform and be able to share magic with other people. My suggestion to anyone is to take dance, acting and/or voice classes because you also need to be a good actor to perform magic. How much time do you have to dedicate to working up your illusions and magic tricks?
Thursday 5 February 7.30 Music by The Swamps
pm
CLUB BYRON (Bowlo)
6685 6202 |18-20 Marvell St 26 February 4, 2015 The Byron Shire Echo
I am continually developing and experimenting ideas and illusions and this keeps me busy most of the time. Why do you think people love magic so much? Like we know it’s a trick, but it seems unfathomable! Magic is many things to many people. To some it’s a challenge and to others it’s the joy of being surprised and the wonder of it.
F R E S H F RO M M O R E T H A N 50 SELL-OUT SHOWS OF T H E I L L U S I O N I ST S 2 . 0 ,
T H E U N U S U A L I ST – R AY M O N D C RO W E
C O M E S TO T H E BY RO N T H E AT R E F O R A V E RY SPECIAL PERFORMANCE. And perhaps in this high-tech virtual age people are looking to be amazed by a person and not a machine.
Tell me about your show – what should people expect? It’s the only show in the world that features a rock-ukulele-playing baby, a romantic performing flea, where paper butterflies come to life and live goldfish are caught in the audience! Now that’s unusual! Byron Theatre Community Centre on Sunday at 2pm. Tix at the Byron Centre – 6685 6807 or byroncentre. com.au.
Do you create your own tricks and illusions or are they often inspired by the masters? Yes, I create many of my own illusions. It’s like learning to play an instrument. You must first understand the fundamentals before you can write your own music. Who are the masters, btw? My masters have been many, from magicians to silent-comedy greats such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. What does it mean to be an unusualist? I loved magic, puppets and ventriloquism as a child and slowly over the years as I grew up I developed other skills as a performer. These skills were so varied that I called myself an unusualist.
Byron Shire Echo archives: www.echo.net.au/byron-echo