I’ve been asking myself some big questions lately, the sort of existential examination one finds oneself in during significant periods of growth and adjustment. Middle Age, Midlife Transits (my Uranus Opposition, namely), the world having gone mad and flipping itself on its head, moving to another country and then back home, to the Southeast are all contributing factors, I’m sure. But it’s Saturn transiting my 9th House, I think, that’s really bringing it home.
The Ninth House governs the philosophical engines of our lives and the worldviews that drive them. Religion, The Law, Higher Education. It’s ruled by Sagittarius. How do we perceive the world? 14 years ago Saturn was moving through my Fourth House. I began studies for a Masters in Spiritual Psychology and explored my roots, ancestry and conditioning through that lens. But something is changing within me, some need to structure or codify my beliefs in a new way. I’ve always felt slightly emptied by a strictly New Age philosophy. Perhaps it’s my Saturnine personality, but I yearn for something more formalized, a direct connection to those who came before me, to my lineage, to ritual.
I remember back in my twenties attending a dinner party. The subject of God came up and I, in a moment fueled by an extended adolescent angst, asserted my frustration with organized religion. The girl sitting next to me, a devout Christian, asked, with great sincerity and humility, “what, then, are you accountable to?” That moment, and that question, has never left me.
What am I accountable to?
Just a couple days after this Full Moon, Jupiter moves into Gemini. Beginning in August, it will square Saturn in Pisces. Next Spring, they’ll square in Cancer and Aries. There’s a balancing act here. Our beliefs are met with reality, a grounding cord. Saturn in Pisces has already been offering guardrails, containers and limitations on formless idealism, spirituality. We’ve seen an uptick, for example, of public conversions. Public figures announcing their faiths. None of this surprises me. The pendulum always swings.
Jupiter in Gemini is a marked shift from Jupiter in Taurus, where Jupiter has been traveling this last year. Our expansion and growth now evolves from Fixed Earth to Mutable Air. More conversation, more wit, more banter, more thoughts, more choices. Multiplicity. Not this or the other, but maybe something else entirely.
During 2021 and into late 2022, Saturn and Uranus squared in Fixed Signs. Jupiter joining Uranus in Taurus has amped up the righteousness. Rigid, unyielding belief. Committed rebellion. Pluto dancing in and out of Aquarius hasn’t eased the tribalism. The Opinion Economy, as I’ve come to call it. Culture War Ping Pong. One could argue that opinions are beliefs, but I think they’re more akin to branches, an extension of the trunk and roots, but not the base itself, which is actually far more interesting. Why do we believe what we believe? What drives our beliefs? And why do we so often need others to believe what we do? Is it possible, like that formerly ubiquitous bumper sticker, to coexist? Doesn’t our survival depend up on it?
I do wonder if we’ll see more adaptability, more fluidity with Jupiter joining Saturn in a mutable sign. I wonder if we’ll witness increased curiosity, if Pluto will amplify tribalism or wreck it. Perhaps, like anything, it’ll be a bit of both.
I’m trying to lean into the openness more, to explore my fear of living in an increasingly technological world, to soften the divide within my consciousness between God and Machine, to challenge my own disillusionment with the current state of things and instead embrace the beauty and humanity that unites. I do believe in that - in life, in resurrection, in the flowers gently peeking from concrete, in the human spirit, in the capacity to be awed by the Moon, the Pantheon, a stunning turn of phrase, a baby’s first step, the miracle of falling in love.
Sagittarius, Jupiter and The Ninth House govern Higher Education. But book learning isn’t the whole picture. Sag wants to experience the world first hand, wants to engage, gain experiential knowledge. I considered, in college, going to Divinity School. I crafted my undergraduate degree in Humanities on the subject of morality, literature, fine art and the the story of Jesus, as a political figure in his time and as a prophet. My focus, more specifically, was on Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables as a bridge text between the Romantic and Enlightenment eras. And Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Brothers Karamazov. That was over twenty years ago, though. Literature can deeply move us. It can shift our perception, open our minds and reorganize our orientation. But we’re still left with the very real, very confronting question of what it means to be good.
Lately, I’ve been exploring what religion and faith has meant to those closest to me. Concurrently, I’ve noticed a similar interest arising within clients, a searching for more of a framework. Some are leaning into Eastern Religions and others towards more Monotheistic traditions. But the trend is there.
And so I’ve been asking Daniel, who was raised in the Church, more about his beliefs. About his thoughts and reflections on what it means to be Christian, his relationship with and to God, how it’s evolved over time, revisiting inquiries I had made at the start of our relationship. I’ve also been asking a close friend I deeply admire and cherish, a practicing Catholic, about her thoughts on various tenets of Catholicism. “It isn’t meant to be easy or simple,” she said, “this idea that God took human form. It’s part of what gives it so much depth and weight.” I’ve been sitting with the profundity of such a meditation. I find it so incredibly moving.
And I am delving more into the faith I was raised in - Judaism - and its connection to the Lunar Calendar and the earth and harvest, into the Holidays and their significance, the more minor ones I had known less about.
I remember asking my Rabbi one evening during Hebrew School, “What is God?,” and his replying “Danielle, that’s going to be a lifelong journey for you to explore what God means to you.” I was nine. That, too, has stayed with me.
Doubt feels integral to faith. A wrestling, a questioning. At least to me. Perhaps that is the most Jewish thing about me. Perhaps it is integral to what I believe. That this world will never quite make sense, that too much is beyond comprehension or codification, that, ultimately, it’s the mystery that sustains.
Next week, I’ll be traveling through Greece, to my Jupiter, Saturn and Sun lines. Seems fitting. And divinely timed.
Growth, Expansion, Learning, Believing. This Sagittarius moon is a leap forward. The ruler, Jupiter, is conjunct Venus and there’s hope, a fuller, rounder story, a values upgrade perhaps. What is the story we’re telling ourselves, and others? What’s the narrative we’re hooked into? Is it true? Is it even helpful? And to whom? And why? There’s the possibility, always, with Sagittarius of preaching, of boastfulness, of lecturing. But what’s really going on? Again, what’s true? We’ve had a run of this Taurus stellium, something in our lives is fertile, seeding, sprouting. There’s some firmness, some solid ground. What do we make of it? What, again, is the story we’re framing? So much talk these days of what needs to be destroyed. What needs to be built? What’s worth believing in? Sagittarius reminds us that education cannot be found solely in the pages of a book. Life itself is an education, that this Earth, with all its unsolvable mysteries and pandemonium and devastating horror and awe-inspiring beauty, is a school, drawing us out from within, challenging our preconceived orthodoxies with its never-ending contradictions. Experiential knowledge. So what’s the lesson? What is, it, really, that we’re here to learn? We ask so much of what we want from life, but maybe the wiser, more interesting question is ‘what does life want from us?’
If you’re interested in listening, I’ve been on three podcasts recently:
I sat with Jessica Zweig on The Spiritual Hustler
and Corinne McAndrews on The Soft Focus
And Jenna Zoe on the Human Design Podcast
And I’ll resume client work when I’m back in June
Love,
Danielle