i suppose it's an interesting time to be an astrologer or insomniac, but this is beside the point.
the point is that i'm not much of either: my lifelong sleep disruptions rectified themselves about four years ago, and i shy away from both stellar and planetary prognostication. it's not that i don't believe in the theoretical validity of such pursuits; in fact, it seems a necessary corollary of the underlying interdependence of all things that every object and being in the whole of the universe must reflect the consciousness and position of every other piece of the puzzle.
in practice, however, it seems that the desire of the observer, combined with his or her limited perspective, inevitably corrupts readings. the planets and stars were set in motion at a time that predates the intentionality of bacteria and amoeba, much less my own particular incarnation. in my experience, astrological meaning has emerged retroactively, and often in ways i couldn't have expected and would have been unable to comprehend at the time.
perhaps there are people who do not suffer from these shortcomings, but i'm doubtful that they write horoscopes for the daily paper, or post to social networking sites. furthermore, i would be willing to be dimes to dollars that these same people (if they exist in human form) are unable to read their own charts with any accuracy. to do so would be a curse, and as the Cassandra myth teaches us, those who foresee the future are doomed to madness:
2500-year old kylix image of Cassandra
that's why most attempts at prognostication sound more like the fearful wishes to keep uncertainty at bay to me. we enjoy the fiction that, by knowing the present, we can somehow ensure our future desires. when we fall victim to this, though, life becomes little more than a complicated hall of mirrors, projected in the past in all directions and overwriting the potential of the present. it seems more productive and honest to recognize the unknowability of what lies ahead, to embrace each new moment as unique, connected to the past by an invisible tether and leading to a future incomprehensible in its beauty. this line of thought, apparently, was what informed yesterday afternoon's ritual.
each year my yin and i celebrate the solstice by dismantling our altar, wiping it down, doing a sage smudge, and then putting it back together. we write down intentions, we meditate, we chant – we prepare ourselves for the year to come by ridding ourselves of the things that are no longer serving us. yesterday's ceremony was especially powerful, and what emerged was an entity more concerned with what lie ahead than what came before:
our altar, clearing the way for the year to come
the old journals that usually occupy the back row were replaced by a blank journal my yin brought back from India, and the arrangement of the items had a distinctive arrow-like shape, which implies a forward movement:
we planned none of these things; they simply came into being of their own accord. it was only after their emergence that i noted the shape, that i recognized the substitution of old journals for blank journal signaled a shift from the memorialization of the past to the celebration of the future:
my hubris is inadequate to bear the pretension of pretending to know what these changes portend.
the future may not be unwritten, but it is unreadable, and i take joy in knowing that the year to come will be full of tremendous changes. our wedding and honeymoon, the completion of my graduate degree, and who knows how many other momentous occasions will transpire between now and the next solstice, which is a scant six months away. every day between now and then will grow a little longer, and i have only the vaguest outline of what will come as the days begin to shrink throughout the summer and fall, approaching the next winter solstice. how could one know what will happen?
more importantly,
who would want to?
loved it... many thanks for this..
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