Videos hosted by Michael Erlewine

I have blogged here that I am donating the Heart Center Astrological Library which I have curated for these many years to the University of Illinois to become part of their permanent collection. The university is the third largest library in the world, so it will have a good home. It is time.

The library may well be the largest such library in existence, and to my knowledge it contains the most astrological periodicals ever assembled, and they are the most ephemeral.

No astrological organization has room for it and I don't want my family to have to deal with it should I leave the planet. I am told I could sell it off, book by book, and make some serious money, but what would be the point in that? I have spent a lifetime building it and want it to remain together. I include a panorama of the library to give you some idea of the extent of it. Of course, this image looks funny, but really we are looking at a rectangular room as I turn around with the camera 360 degrees.

[For a larger image, here is a link. When you click the link then double-click the image to see it larger.]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/98006906@N05/9238026460/

As for missing it? Perhaps some, but I have read all I need to read for this lifetime. That's for sure. By donating it, scholars and other folks will have permanent access to it. Some years ago I donated my rather large collection of images and data on Rock n' roll concert posters (over 30,000) to the Bentley Historical Library of the University of Michigan. Much that that data continues to exists as ClassicPosters.com, a site I founded.

And I have mentioned previously that as part of AMG (All-Music Guide, All-Movie Guide, etc.) I sold my library of music and film books as part of that company, including my personal collection of music CDs, which are now in a warehouse in Ann Arbor, Michigan, over 600,000 CDs. I still have more music CDs than I will ever listen to.

I also am merging my company Matrix Software with Cosmic Patterns, as mentioned in an earlier post, and will now have an advisory role only in the organization. As mentioned, I will continue to advise the new company, so I can still be useful.

So, I am downsizing folks, not all the way to dust just yet, but heading that way, of course.

So I am in a rare mood indeed my friends, after some forty years of effort running a business. As you might expect, I don't feel a loss from leaving all of this, but actually a release, a sense of freedom and wide open space. I am free to do, well, what? "Nothing" is a good answer, but actually I will be concentrating on my new cable TV show Spirit Grooves (SpiritGrooves.net), which I am told will soon reach 2,000,000 people and counting.

http://dharmagrooves.com/#&panel1-1