Robert Zoller

Tape 7 2007 Conclave (audio transcript)

Saturday Afternoon 1

Zoller starts with a long praise for the work of Bob and Ellen and Ben Dykes

"Over the last few months I have been living here at 532 Washington Street in Cumberland Maryland with these two lovely people."

              [brief interruption from audience about microphone and the sound in the room]

"Never the less, I have been living here at 532 Washington street for the last several months, and I have gotten a vision of what's going on at Hindsight such as I have never gotten before. Now it was true that 13 years or so ago, I was part of the Hindsight project and that at time for various reasons I left the Project and I really haven't had much contact with it ever since. However, in what I have seen here in Washington street in the last three months has moved me very profoundly. I have seen that the Hindsight project is essentially a project in which Bob Schmidt thinks about and translates and shares with everybody who will listen, with a certain amount of desperation at times, I suppose... "please listen", and rightly so, because the material is incredibly important and it is only under very special circumstances that this kind work can be done.

Now what I have seen in Bob Schmidt, I have seen a man who has dedicated his life, his adult life, to the translation of astrological texts. Not only to their translation, but to their exposition, interpretation and publication. So were this guy to die tomorrow, God forbid, he would have spent the majority of his adult life in a kind of extremely laudable, self-abnegation to learning and to philosophy and astrology such as few of us can ever claim to even come close to. At the same time, and this I think is remarkable, heroic, this kind of behavior, where you are not working in the university, not working in the corporate system, but doing what your heart demands you do and you are doing it as well as your mind and body will permit you to do, which is truly heroic behavior. I can't tell you how much admiration I have for that.

At the same time, I am mindful that in my own life and the life in my teacher Richard Lemay, and I think in the life of everyone else, it becomes apparent that this kind of heroic behavior I was describing, is impossible without sacrifice.  Somebody has to sacrifice in order to make it possible for somebody else to do what Bob is doing. That of course, in this case, it is his wife Ellen Black.  Whose own heroism consistently continual support and collaboration with this learned hermit, Bob Schmidt, and to have done so for 30 years, which is apparently the length of time they have been together, which is to me, quite breath taking. I, for myself, can't manage to maintain a relationship for more than about 7 years. So somebody who has been able to maintain a relationship for 30 years, is supernatural as far as I am concerned.

If it weren't for Ellen's undying cooperation, support and commitment to the marriage and to Bob Schmidt and Hindsight, you could be sure there would be no Hindsight. Because while Bob would have gone about doing what he's doing, he can't help himself, this is the way he is wired. He will do this under any circumstances. He is like the energizer bunny who keeps on thumping away at the drum. Had he not the environment that Ellen has provided from her own family history and her own gumption, feisty assertion of solidarity with her husband Bob, I don't think he would have gotten nearly as far as he has gotten. For myself,  I feel as though I should say these things   First if all, I think it should be known what kind of sacrifice is going on  in order to make this material available. I think all of you recognize this to some degree or you would not be here. There is a tendency in this world to overlook what is really happening in front of us. Under these circumstances, if I had not said what I have said, it would be easy for us to come here, absorb what we can about what is being said and then go home and forget about Project Hindsight and that would be a great mistake. We are living in a world with precious little heroism because, people like myself who see it, don't say it nearly enough.  So I want to make sure that it is said here today. And I want to thank Bob and Ellen for their sacrifices in the name of Astrology. Though I think that their real contribution is not going to be understood or  recognized and appreciated fully until they are both about  6 feet under and pushing up tulips. Because like an artist, whose work is not appreciated until after he or she is dead, so to you have an analogous situation here. This work is ground breaking, very specialized and hard for us to appraise.   It takes years for us to get any kind of sense of what is going on here [9:19] For that reason, it is too easy for this to be misvalued. I just wanted to say that. Thank you both for what you have done for the astrological community. " [9:33]