Sagittarius 2018 (Nov 21 – Dec 21): An Arrow’s Intent

The Sun enters Sagittarius on November 21^st, and will reside there until the Solstice, December 21^st. The Sun is lucky enough to share Sagittarius with Jupiter this year (article, webinar). Somewhat less fortunately, the Sun also shares the Archer’s sign with a retrograde Mercury.

It should be noted, before moving deeper in to the month that other than Mercury’s retrograde, this is one of the least difficult solar months in some time. Mars’ intense retrograde is long over and Venus has been direct since November 16^th. Furthermore, no Eclipses dot these weeks, and Jupiter is now home in Sagittarius.

The Sun’s time in Capricorn (12/21-1/20) will be significantly more challenging. In many ways, these Sun in Sagittarius weeks provide a tour of the positive potentials which 2019 holds, while the Sun’s time in Capricorn is due to initiate us into the coming year’s difficulties, promised by Saturn, Pluto and Ketu’s copresence.

In Sagittarius, the Sun’s beams illuminate the ideal, the best-case scenario. Within them walks the mythical self, the ego-ideal, the legendary layer of being. Though this may seem unrealistic, it is not. The Archer aims above the target to correct for gravity. Similarly, we must aim above ourselves if we are to become what we could be.

The Sun’s copresence with Jupiter in Sagittarius attempts to convey this wisdom, tries to convey the blessing. Yet the world below is in a poor place to receive it.

The tiny apocalypse we reside in has villains aplenty, but is lacking in heroic characters. We mourn the deaths of yesterday’s heroes but do not rise to replace them. In mourning them, we mourn and bury heroism itself, rather than conducting the rites necessary to resurrect it.

While the heroic rots, tiny villainy proliferates, as does a type of grey, spirit-less species of virtue. This is the goodness that comes only from not being bad. Not-doing this, not-saying that, not-associating with them. Goodness and virtue have become increasingly defined in the negative.

Make no mistake: not-doing evil is a crucial part of the good. Yet it is at best half of what is necessary. If you know who and what you’re against, great. But do you know what you’re for? How much time have you spent planning to create a better self and a better world, to feed the good? Negating the negative is certainly its own good, but a life of negation does not feed the heart, and leaves one in a nervous, defensive/offensive state of war.

This month’s configuration is a call to balance dealing with the negative with cultivating the positive. It is a call to be better than not-bad, it is a call to think on the good you would be and do in the world, to become more rigorous and precise in your definition of the self and world you would create.

It is also a call to shift the genre of your story from survival-horror, where you’re just trying to avoid all the terrible shit out there, to something a little closer to the hero’s journey, where you’re actively pursuing what is meaningful, beautiful, powerful and true.

It is ironic that the hero’s journey has been reduced to a monomyth with a single formula. It is ironic because the formula for a person’s heroism is always distinct and individual. It must be, because the motivations for the quest must arise from the depths of the personal soul. The strength to overcome its ordeals can only emerge from the deep blaze within. That power does not emerge from calculated interest. The spirit of what-is-reasonable empowers one to make a reasonable effort. No more, no less. Big power, the power to bend the world, the self, has to come from a bigger, crazier place. Not crazy, exactly, but pre/post sane. Its power is that of spirit before it is filtered through calculable self-interest and fear.

Fear teaches us to live in the short-term. It teaches us to avoid risk. It teaches us to put the soul on hold. In our time, fear is a constant and a given. It is in an everywhere-cloud, and a virus we constantly re-infect each other with.

It is passed through speech, but is most communicable through the gaze. We stare at the government surveillance apparatus, it stares into us. We stare at our political opposition, they stare at us. We stare at social media profiles, they stare at us. We stare, they stare. Like a colony of dysfunctional Gorgons, we infect each other with a deepening rigidity and paralysis, a slow-acting flesh-to-stone spell.

This is how the heroic dies, locked in an immobile cage of gazes facilitated by monopolies. Yet while the heroic may lie hobbled and imprisoned in gazes, it cannot be destroyed. Not dead but dreaming, it lies eternally ready to live again.

Within you lies that legendary version of yourself. A myth too beautiful and potent to be believed. An invincibility of spirit able to endure and all ordeal.

This spirit is only and always “for.” It is for truth. It is for love. It is for courage. It is for art. It is for skill. It is for success. It is for joy.

It is a type of power which can only be conjured by the affirmative, and its effects are obvious. Visualizing success statistically increases the chances of success. Imagining not-failure increases the chances of failure. This is a keystone of performance psychology, understood by children everywhere but forgotten by many adults. If you want someone to fuck up, all you have to do is chant “don’t fuck up, don’t fuck up, don’t fuck up, don’t fuck up.”

This art of intention is made clear by the Archer. One puts all of one’s focus into hitting the target. There is no room in the mind for not-missing, only the perfect shot.

The same is true is of the selves we become and the worlds that we create. Do you intend to be a not-terrible person, or an amazing person? Do you desire to be not-hungry, or do you aim for satisfaction?

The form of magic most dependent on the formulation of intention and desire, sigil-magic, is explicitly dependent on the affirmative. If you aren’t familiar with this method, Gordon White can show you how. If you construct a sigil for contentment, you do not have to add the part about being not-discontent. It is already there.

We get caught in the inefficient process of obtaining the positive by negating the negative rather than just simply aiming for the positive.

But we are afraid to aim for the positive. What if we’re being silly? What if we don’t deserve that? What if its impossible? What if we’re just being like that delusional person we roll our eyes at?

It is important to distinguish between locking our intention on an outcome from simply believing that will simply happen. It is the difference between investing ourselves in the creation of a reality vs. simply waited to be handed a pleasing outcome. As the Chinese proverb goes, “A peasant must wait a long time with their mouth open for a roast duck to fly in.”

Though literally miraculous, our ability to intend and shape is finite. We can only dedicate ourselves to so many things before we are crossed by our contradictions. Furthermore, the ink with which we pen our wish-lists is precious. Intention and desire can only be alchemized into said ink in conditions of sufficient clarity and honesty-with-oneself. It must contain heartsblood, which is precious but free.

This is the ink we can write our story with. Without it, we are subject to the will of a hundred other authors. We might manage to avoid being cast in their devious plots, but that is not enough.

Your own legend lies within you, like and unlike any other. Though this period of history seems a poor place to plant it, barren, poisoned and generally uninviting as it is, your story will still thrive. It’s seed is not a result of history. It is a cause of history. It does not draw from the land, it gives to the land. It is the tree planted in the waste which infects a broken land with utopia. It is medicine. You are medicine.

While the Sun shares the Archer’s sign with Jupiter, review your intentions, they are the arrows intended for next years targets. Run your fingers down their shafts, consider the composition and design of their heads, the stories written along their length. Gather those that will fly true and prepare to fire them into the stony soil of the year to come.