a delicate balance, a heavy anchor
finding the balance between awe and despair, and the anchor of community
We’re in Sagittarius season, and as a late-December Sag, I am admittedly biased into loving this season. I love the Christmas lights, I love the sparkles, I love cheesy holiday traditions and building a small tower of thoughtful gifts under the tree. As someone in the Jewish diaspora, I love the lighting of Chanukah candles and the ritual of acknowledging and believing in miracles for 8 consecutive nights. And more so this year than others, I’m grateful for the invitation Sagittarius season offers to dream of what might be possible.
Sagittarius is a mutable sign, coming at the end of autumn and ending just before the winter solstice. As an archetype, it has a bit of a stereotype of being unreliable: being unable to commit and always off on the next adventure. While stereotypes might hold a grain of truth, like most lies do, they are ultimately too superficial to really offer us a picture of what this archetype of the Centaur can offer us.
Instead of catty stereotypes, I find it helpful to remember that this sign offers reminders that it’s ok to change our realities and dream into the possibilities. Sagittarius craves new experience and relishes the changes this brings to one’s life and sense of self - if you go on a trip and come back exactly the same, what is the point? (And, it bears noting, for as much as Sagittarius is known as the world-traveler, being the archetype of the centaur means these trips can just as easily be inwards as well. Nothing quite so unknown as the workings of inner space)
In the Tarot, the card associated with Sagittarius is Temperance, a card of patience and gentle, deep probing into the heart of our desires. When I was first studying the Tarot, admittedly this didn’t make sense to me. How could Sagittarius, the so-called life of the party, be represented by the quiet contempaltion of the Temperance card? But then one night, it dawned on me - I was being limited by my own ideas and assumptions (Gemini, the polar sign of Sagittarius, offers that needed reminder that we should always be ready to cast aside our assumptions as new information comes in, and we were just bathed in the light of the full moon in Gemini, so this is as good a time as any to release old assumptions).
Temperance, as the archetype in the Tarot that reflects Sagittarius, is a reminder that it is powerful, and important, to align our prayers with what we desire, rather than what we fear. Desire comes from the Latin de-sitare, to pull down from the heavens, and so the Centaur will always be drawn to what is possible and what is longed for.
But we have been conditioned into naming what is wrong, and aligning our hopes with what we fear will happen. “I hope they don’t ____” “I hope I don’t ____”.
Sagittarius, aided by Temperance and lit up by Jupiter, the planet of blessings, is encouraging us to dream into the possibilities, without losing our footing in the world as it is. To dream of what is possible while reckoning with what is happening. This is the magic of Sagittarius, as an archetype, meaning this is the magic of the season.
Imagine the world you most desire. How it feels and sounds and tastes and looks. This is not an exercise in manifesting your dream house - I’m not necessarily interested in what color the cabinets are in your ideal kitchen. Instead: what does it sound like to have the easy laughter of children playing outside? Can you hear the birdsong? Can you imagine feeling at ease and comfortable in your body, without the familiar sense of dread that has likely been rooted in your belly for so long, it feels like just another part of you?
This is what I mean when I say this isn’t necessarily easy or simple - it is difficult to imagine a future we haven’t experienced. But it is possible. In my forthcoming book, I write about how we can create what I call a topography of feeling by using seemingly disparate memories to weave together a tapestry of what it means to feel safe and loved and happy. In Anchor, a weekly somatic group I have been leading since 2019, we regularly practice what it means to dream into a future we long for, because this does require practice, and in my experience it is best practiced within the container of long-term community. Something as profound as envisioning the world we long for without ignoring the way the world currently is takes persistent, patient practice.
But it can be done, and I encourage you to do it.
If you want to be witnessed in your imagining, send me an email with what the future you dream of is like. You’ll get an auto-responder from my assistant first, and then once he forwards them to me I will read them, and dream into the future with you.