Hey everyone, I promised Sonja I would bring up AstroGizmos with the entire Club. Henri and I met two weekends ago with Sonja and she kindly presented the idea of using the I Ching (or a modification of the I Ching) as a means of categorizing everyone's personality, and then using that person's "hexagram" on nametags as a predictor of how you might click with someone else at a Meetup. I will let Sonja describe the process in more detail, because I will undoubtedly butcher the explanation.

Sonja provided Henri and me complimentary name tags based on our hexagrams. I am Hexagram 01, which means I am an extreme piece of work, ALL YANG AND NO YIN. We think Henri is a Hexagram 31, which means he is much more tolerable. If you have seen us at Meetups, Henri and I get along like fric and frac; we complement each other. I think that is because our personalities are compatible. I have always been a believer in astrology, and I think part of the reason Henri and I get along is that our Hexagrams are compatible.

Generally, I don't like to wear nametags and I don't use nametags at my Meetups. I won't require them unless a Meetup venue requires them. However, if you might be interested in consulting with Sonja and getting your "AstroGizmo" nametag, Sonja wants to pilot her concept with our Club, and she is willing to provide personal consultation and nametag for a very small fee. It's not an official Club endorsement, much less a requirement, but if you believe in astrology or the I Ching, you may want to get in contact directly with Sonja.

I will probably bust out my Hexagram 01 nametag at some point in the next few Meetups.

#31 will be present and accounted for, as well. l think it could be fun and interesting to find out and compare just how accurate Sonja's hexagrams are at identifying the personalities of our members. It would be great as a topic of discussion, as well as our own social experiment. I know it pegged me perfectly.

Henri

Okay -- now for those of you who think it would be cool to have your 'official' meet up nametag with your very own stylized heart (chart) on your sleeve, or hip, or crotch indicating that you are in it to make friends of varying degrees of intimacy ...

Send me the (nick)name you want on your tag -- along with the date, time and place of birth -- I use the 6 astro/social elements from your horoscope (they are (a) born day or night and the generalized placements of five planetary factors. 2 to the 6th power equals the square of 8 -- the 8 being the 8 chinese trigrams that make up the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching. The character readings are from the I Ching -- they are not astrological. But the I Ching is a different way of reading energies.

Email me at mojosoffice@yahoo.com -- please put your date of birth mo/day/year in subject line to thwart the spammers.

I'll send you a pdf of your astroGizmo nametag along with its accompanying I Ching hexagram and a readout of the character sketch from Denny Sargent's Book "The Tao of Birthdays. You can cut out & laminate the Gizmo and pin to your sleeve, hip -- whatever suits your fancy -- at the Chopin Theater, March 9 -- and we can find each other.

I'm beta testing this, so the first 100 astroGizmos are free.

Sonja

(and a big Thank You to Jester and Henry)

Hey peeps - wearing name tags is purely optional, and I know Sonja is 100% kidding about wearing your tag on your crotch, but this is a perfect situation for me to remind everybody that any behavior which is embarrassing, anti-social, or uncomfortable is grounds for immediate and permanent expulsion from this SOCIAL CLUB. This is a free, open Meetup Group of a diverse range of strangers, and based on experience, I need to emphasize that everyone must conform to standards of behavior that are comfortable, if not appealing, to everyone else in the Group. Be creative, but the #1 emphasis is on BE SOCIAL.

Furthermore, Sonja, I am not enamored with the idea of wearing name tags to a movie screening. Since you are offering FREE TAGS, let us see the uptake from the other members and then when the social situation permits for the creative, optional use of nametags, Henri and I and hopefully a few others will be happy to break out the AstroGizmos. I am not going to push any name tags too hard. I wanted to provide you some exposure with this thread, and hopefully other members will take you up on your offer of free consultation and tag.

Also, Sonja, if these tags are "from the I Ching" and "not astrological", you might want to brand them "I Ching Name Tags" instead of "AstroGizmos". It's 100% your call, but when I tell people about my hexagram, I just say it is from the I Ching. That way, people can look up the I Ching for themselves.

Of course, Jester, I was jesting -- but some of us are looking for someone to talk with, others may look for an amusing dining companion, or a tennis date, or someone to shoot photos ... and then there are some of us looking for romance -- with an eye to knocking boots at some point in the relationship.

I worked out the astrological iching protocol -- when I construct the gizmo by hand from a chart, i use the iching as a tool -- each line 1 through 6 from the bottom up signifies one of the six astrological factors. i used denny sargent's book for his delineations and to check out my one to one protocol, since i derive the persons hexagram from the astrological factors. For instance -- the top line in the hexagram relates to communiction -- which I determine by the placement of the individual's mercury, which is the planet of communication. The astroGizmo is easier to read for potential compatibility than is the hexagram -- the individual's name on his/her Gizmo is the communication factor -- the top line of the Hexagram -- the yin or yan of which is determined (in my system) by the astrological facto -- both the iching and the astroGizmo are essential, (I'm a libra which is the relationship sign) but the hexagrams are somewhat more nuanced and subtle:the Gizmo is grafik and given simple guide, one can get another person's essence just by looking @ their Nametag; it is not necessary to consult a book; the I Ching manuals are a wonderful embellishment and Sargent's delineations are very sensitive.

Instead of the arcane (and sometimes weird) astrobabble, I've done a sort of feng shui of compatibility -- I use five planetary factors -- mercury is communication, moon/venus are the factors of feminine gender, sun/mars the masculine -- each of these five factors show up as electric (yan, expansive) white, or magnetic (yin, attractive) black -- the sixth factor which predominantes -- is in the upper half of the gizmo and the first and bottom line of the hexagram -- whether the individual was born day or night -- the day, diurnal is symbolized by the sun dominant -- those nocturnally born will have the moon's crescent dominant and the first line of the hexagram a broken, yin line.

Again, of course, this is optional, but as I said before, a lot of us attend meetups because we are interested in enriching our personal lives through relationships. The Gizmo (and of course, its associated iching hexagram) are tools to help us find relationships worth developing.

I'm suggesting those who care to, wear the tags while we're grouping before the theater -- after we've found each other, put them away -- and apres theater at whatever restaurant we end up at, put them on again and I'll explain how the compatibility principles can be read (communication, comfort, compatibility and chemistry) and we'll mingle testing this out.

I believe the Gizmeaux (astro & Iching) will raise the qualitative level of individual engagement in the meet up group(s) in general

(PS Henri -- did you ever find out whether you were born day or night?)