On Being Series

The Thought Thinker is a Loner Girl is volume one of the series On Being.   On Being is an astrological, metaphysical, self-referential, self-psychoanalytic case history, narrated in first person by the protagonist Ana, who is the real life author J. Guzmán. On Being is the evolution of J. Guzmán's consciousness throughout Time, and it is meant to aid in astrological research and study (and those of other disciplines like psychology and philosophy). A detailed explanation of what this entails can be found on her website. On Being is open-ended, in that it will continue until the death of J. Guzmán.   On Being is not a series about how to use astrology correctly. It does not directly explain or outline its concepts, theories, or symbols. Rather, it is the raw data in the form of archived diary entries that an astrologer can use to apply practically astrology's techniques for investigative and teaching purposes. If you have Ana's birth information and her compiled life history including dates, times, and locations, you can see how the astrology works systematically in the background. Ana discovers astrology in book nine, and comes to use it to aid her self-psychoanalysis.   In volume one, The Thought Thinker is a Loner Girl, we meet Ana. She is an introverted, self-deprecating teen girl, trapped in a culture she despises – middle-class America's suburbs and public schools. She examines her struggles with identity and mental health as she finishes high school and prepares to enter college and play on the women's soccer team there. She describes an internal conflict omnipresent in adolescence, highlighting themes such as drug and alcohol use, existential despair, self-doubt, insecurity, and the formation of a personal philosophy and spirituality.

The Loner Girl is an Existentialist is volume two of the series On Being.   On Being is an astrological, metaphysical, self-referential, self-psychoanalytic case history, narrated in first person by the protagonist Ana, who is the real life author J. Guzmán. On Being is the evolution of J. Guzmán's consciousness throughout Time, and it is meant to aid in astrological research and study (and those of other disciplines like psychology and philosophy). A detailed explanation of what this entails can be found on her website. On Being is open-ended, in that it will continue until the death of J. Guzmán.   On Being is not a series about how to use astrology correctly. It does not directly explain or outline its concepts, theories, or symbols. Rather, it is the raw data in the form of archived diary entries that an astrologer can use to apply practically astrology's techniques for investigative and teaching purposes. If you have Ana's birth information and her compiled life history including dates, times, and locations, you can see how the astrology works systematically in the background. Ana discovers astrology in book nine, and comes to use it to aid her self-psychoanalysis. In volume two, The Loner Girl is an Existentialist, Ana describes her existential frustrations as her college soccer career seems to go downhill from the very start. Caught in heavy, often conflicting emotions, Ana explores new relationships and struggles to redefine herself in what she perceives as a stressful and unsatisfactory environment.

The Existentialist Craves Nonbeing is volume three of the series On Being.   On Being is an astrological, metaphysical, self-referential, self-psychoanalytic case history, narrated in first person by the protagonist Ana, who is the real life author J. Guzmán. On Being is the evolution of J. Guzmán's consciousness throughout Time, and it is meant to aid in astrological research and study (and those of other disciplines like psychology and philosophy). A detailed explanation of what this entails can be found on her website. On Being is open-ended, in that it will continue until the death of J. Guzmán.   On Being is not a series about how to use astrology correctly. It does not directly explain or outline its concepts, theories, or symbols. Rather, it is the raw data in the form of archived diary entries that an astrologer can use to apply practically astrology's techniques for investigative and teaching purposes. If you have Ana's birth information and her compiled life history including dates, times, and locations, you can see how the astrology works systematically in the background. Ana discovers astrology in book nine, and comes to use it to aid her self-psychoanalysis. In volume three, The Existentialist Craves Nonbeing, Ana's college soccer career finally falls apart as she hits an extreme low point regarding her mental health. She struggles to deal with her coach's emotionally abusive behavior, and lives in a constant state of depression, despair, anxiety, and fear, about what to do with her life and what the purpose of it all is.

The Loner Girl in London is volume 4 of the series On Being, a self-referential, metaphysical case history where the author J. Guzmán psychoanalyzes her own consciousness throughout Time, uses tools like astrology to facilitate the investigation, and documents the entire process. On Being is a life-long, narrative, archival data set of her life in the form of diaries, whose purpose is to assist astrologers and other researchers in the detailed demonstration of how their respective theories, methods, techniques, and practices function in a real life.   In volume 4, the protagonist Ana, who is the author J., travels to London to study abroad and travels solo around Europe for three months after she finishes school. Her experiences could be categorized archetypally into the energy of Neptune squaring her natal Mars, a transit lasting for the entirety of her travels. Her struggles involve persistent and intense anxiety and lethargy, a lack of appropriate boundaries regarding sex, a self-sabotaging overindulgence in alcohol and sugar, an emphasis on stream of consciousness poetry, and an overwhelming confusion and lack of clarity regarding her ambitions and the point of her life.

When I Started Smoking Weed for Real is volume 5 of the series On Being, a self-referential, metaphysical case history where the author J. Guzmán, as the protagonist Ana, psychoanalyzes her own consciousness throughout Time, uses tools like astrology to facilitate the investigation, and documents the entire process. On Being is a life-long, narrative, archival data set of her life in the form of diaries, whose purpose is to assist astrologers and other researchers in the detailed demonstration of how their respective theories, methods, techniques, and practices function in a real life.   Volume 5 is Ana's documentation of her year 2013, when she was 22 years old. In it she finishes university before leaving for South America. That year Pluto was conjunct her natal Moon. When Venus conjoined Pluto on the degree of her Moon she began a relationship with a man that eventually became unbearably, emotionally toxic, in classic archetypal fashion. That man, called Alex, taught Ana how to truly enjoy marijuana, hence the name of this volume. Yet it was not this drug's influence that she became addicted to. It was Alex's poetic, self-deprecating, cabalistic charm that she began to obsessively consume, even when the mask came off and she found anger, mania, and gaslighting. She found herself chasing the high she got from Alex through rabbit hole portals to the Underworld. But the Underworld sounds sexy only until you go there.   Unfortunately, because Ana started smoking weed for real and didn't know at the time she was writing an astrological, self-psychoanalytic case history, she didn't document all the intricate nuances of her and Alex's relationship in as detailed a manner as was possible. Luckily she saved email correspondence with him. With the help of extensive commentary on the matter by J., the reader can get a clearer picture of what happened.

The Loner Girl en Sudamérica is volume 6 – and the first bilingual book – in the series On Being, a psychological, self-referential, metaphysical, astrological, diary case history. OB is a first-person, self-reflective narrative serving as a qualitative, longitudinal research project investigating what it means to be, using tools like astrology to explore human consciousness.   Volume 6 documents the protagonist Ana's year 2014, when she travels to South America and learns Spanish as a 23-year-old, visitando varias ciudades en Uruguay, Argentina y Chile, y conociendo a la gente y las culturas diversas mientras luchaba con aprender el idioma. As On Being is the written evolution of Ana's consciousness throughout time in the form of personal, intimate diaries, and she was immersed in the Spanish language for the entire year of 2014, it follows that she would begin writing in Spanish. Thus this book is full of code-switching and linguistic experimentation that mixes English and Spanish. If you don't speak Spanish and/or have no interest in reading/learning it, ¡este libro no es para vos!

Faso, ¿tenés? is volume 7 of the series On Being, and the second bilingual book of the series. It spans year two of the protagonist Ana's adventures in South America and her trip back home to the States.   On Being is a psychological, metaphysical, self-referential, astrological, diary case history, serving as a qualitative, longitudinal research project investigating what it means to be. Basically, I, J. Guzmán (as the protagonist Ana) psychoanalyze myself throughout Time, document meticulously everything that happens to me and how I feel about it, and connect it to astrological theories and timing techniques. If astrology truly works, if it can be considered a legitimate system with rules and internal coherence, you'd have to see it working in relation to somebody's real-life, autobiographical narrative.   I named this volume Faso, ¿tenés? porque por el año entero estaba buscando faso, y la mayoría del tiempo solo pude encontrar el paraguayo de mierda que me daba un dolor de cabeza. Más que una persona me dijo que la gente hace pis en las plantas en la creación del paraguayo, e incluso agregan cosas aún peores. I was so immersed in that almost-drug-addiction vibe, where all you can think about is how much you want to smoke. I wouldn't necessarily consider an addiction to marijuana a legitimate addiction, at least in my own case, sino un deseo fuerte de fumar, una fijación intensa. ¡Quería quemar tanto! Quería estar volada para poder analizar mi conciencia de forma diferente, pero es re difícil encontrar flores reales en sudamérica, a menos que conozcas a las personas correctas. It was all I could think about.   ¡Ya! Eso es todo. Now you can open the book.