ASTROLOGICAL PRACTICE: Practicing Astrologer since 1977, student of Uranian Astrology starting in 1978. STUDIES IN ASTROLOGY: Independent study of astrology since 1975; starting with texts by Michael R Meyer, Alan Oken, Marc Edmund Jones, Sakoian & Acker, Stephen Arroyo, and Dane Rudhyar. Began studying Uranian Astrology in 1978; later mentorships under Iaen V K Sullivan and Ruth Brummund. Continued in independent studies of astrology with materials by Esther Leinbach, John Soric, Alexander Ruperti, Roger Jacobson, Joyce Wehrman, Sepharial, L Edward Johndro, John Sandbach, Ronn Ballard, Alfred Witte, Ruth Brummund, Ludwig Rudolph, Sylvia Sherman, Demetra George, Karen Hamaker-Zondag, Donna Cunningham, and Martha Lang-Wescott. OTHER INDEPENDENT STUDIES: Hinduist, Buddhist, Qabalistic, and Egyptian Hermetic, including works by Patanjali, Sri Aurobindo, C P Ranasinghe, Alice Bailey, Chogyam Trungpa, Gareth Knight, C C Zain / Elbert Benjamine. Introduced to Church of Light study in 1977; membership since 1988. Jungian studies, including works by C G Jung, Jolande Jacobi, and Murray Stein. FORMAL EDUCATION: 6 units from ABD (doctoral level) in Linguistics & Language Education 1990-93 University of Kansas; Certificate in Second Language Education 1990 University of California Extension at Berkeley; M.A. in Linguistics 1989 California State University-- San Jose; Certificate in Second Language Pedagogical Linguistics, 1989, California State University--Sonoma; B.A. in French language, minor in Spanish, 1984 (in absentia), Missouri State University. Graduate studies include educational and developmental psychology; psycholinguistics; test development & design; computerized instructional design; French literature, linguistics, and translation; German for graduate-level reading and translation. (Click here for Blake's academic CV.) TEACHING EXPERIENCE: Periodic and substitute teaching of English to international students at community colleges and adult schools in urban and suburban San Francisco, and University of Kansas, from 1989 to 1997; Teaching intermediate level French at University of Arkansas, 1995; Organizing and coordinating astrology study group in Berkeley, California, 1981-82; Student assistant team-teaching beginning astrology at Missouri State University, 1977; Student assistant teaching French, New Bloomfield High School, Missouri, 1972.
TRANSLATIONS: Udo Rudolph: America and Russia: A Comparison: from Hamburger Hefte. Ruth Brummund: The Brummund Rulebook - 2nd Edition: a midpoint astrology reference for the 21st Century. Ruth Brummund: The Brummund Technique Book (in preparation; excerpts can be viewed here). Numerous other articles on Uranian Astrology by Ruth Brummund, posted on the Uranian Beacon. OTHER SKILLS AND INTERESTS: Computer Operator for 8 years at University of California at Berkeley. Early Commodore computer program development of programs for traditional Hamburg School astrology techniques. Student of tarot since 1975. Eclectic non-sectarian Buddhist aspirant. Creator and webkeeper of the astrological websites "Uranian Institute/Uranian Beacon" and "Uranische Leuchtfeuer" since 1999, and "L'Institut uranien" since 2003. PERSONAL HISTORY: Among Blake's paternal Scots ancestors were Massachusetts immigrants who served in George Washington's Continental Army, while his mother's 19th-century German-American immigrant ancestors were among those who risked their lives to battle Nazism. Blake's parents moved to coastal southern California shortly after their marriage, but later returned to their native Missouri, where he was born and remained until 1979. From his first inklings of conscious awareness, he sought international contacts through hobbies in geography, cartography, foreign languages, instrumental music, and international shortwave radio. Astrology triggered his interest in the early 1970s and university studies gave him access to books needed to calculate astrological charts, starting in 1975. His enthusiasm for languages and multicultural studies led to undergraduate studies in French and Spanish and Russian, interspersed with independent studies in astrology. In 1977 he began producing typed astrological analyses for clients, and was hired as an teaching assistant of astrology for a "mini-physics" course at the local university, where he shared the lectern with a triple-Leo anti-Astrology Physics professor whose objective was to disprove the validity of astrology. An interesting challenge, yet not unfamiliar to an unconvential thinker facing the conventional. In 1978 Blake obtained his first Uranian Astrology literature, and obtained a Transneptunian ephemeris to begin application after an immediately subsequent and revitalizing relocation to California. Pluto transiting over his Sun in 1979 brought a whole new life accompanying a move to the university city of Berkeley where the most state-of-the-art astrological texts were available in local bookstores, which included Lewin's Books, Shambhala Books, and nearby Fields Books in San Francisco. As the 80s rolled around, Blake attended regular astrology meetings organized by Yvonne Lewin at Lewin's Metaphysical Books in Berkeley. Within a few years he was fortunate enough to make contact with Iaen Sullivan, an experienced and successful maverick Uranian astrologer with an eager international clientele, and gained access to astrological software to shift the astrological emphasis from calculation to interpretation. Blake studied and observed the Transneptunians carefully and cautiously for several years, particularly because of the negativity of the older literature, before including them in his readings for clients in 1984. In the early 1980s Blake organized an astrological study group in his home, and started corresponding with Udo Rudolph of the Hamburg School in Germany, negotiating for translation rights to Ruth Brummund's Revised Rulebook. Ms Brummund's book had become the new interpretation standard for progressive uranian astrologers in Germany, integrating a welcome new and less fatalistic psychological component into Hamburg School astrology. The translation agreement with Mr Rudolph was ultimately canceled due to unrelenting third-party intervention -- yet Ms Brummund later bought the copyright to the 2nd edition of her own book and in the 1990s asked Blake to resume and proceed with completing the translation of her master reference work, published in English as the Brummund Rulebook, and now available in the Special Uranian astrological software program. In the mid-80s Blake began graduate studies at Berkeley and again fit astrological and translation work in between classroom textbooks dealing with language teaching methodology, psycholinguistics, and developmental and educational psychology. After attainment of a language teaching certificate at Berkeley, he continued studies elsewhere with attainment of a Master's in Linguistics, and completion of the bulk of a PhD program in Education and Linguistics that came to a halt with challenging events. After graduate coursework in German reading and translation, followed by work in database development and maintenance, and language teaching, interspersed with astrological study and research during breaks, he returned to California and settled in San Francisco, where, in 1999, he started the Uranian Beacon website to promote the substantial unpublicized recent developments in Uranian Astrology. Blake's consultation and study with German astrologer Ruth Brummund led to a radical shift in his perspective on astrology, and the Uranian Beacon was significantly modified and renamed the Uranian Institute for Astrological Study & Research in December 2001. The English translation of the Brummund Rulebook modernizes midpoint astrology, and is already included in the new Special Uranian astrology software program produced in conjunction with the Aureas astrological software company in Europe. Mr Finley works to maintain links with current developments in pertinent frontier physics, metaphysics, and psychological astrology, and integrate those with pragmatic Uranian interpretive approaches, despite recent health setbacks. He has had the good fortune to develop communicative links with a few of the finest progressive and future-directed astrologers on the planet and is striving to integrate humanistic and innovative developments into the field of astrology so that it continues to upgrade and evolve as a tool for the personal growth and empowerment needed to meet the challenges of today's and tomorrow's world. For more information on the program integrating the aforementioned astrological knowledge and experience, paving the way as we take on the 21st century, click here. ] ] ] |
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