I’m writing this on the 27th, the night before the cazimi, when a planet enters the heart of the sun. The ancients saw this as a sacred infusion when a planet was renewed by the Sun. The heart of the sun is a place of secrets, darkness, obscurity. Against the sun’s brightness, no planet stands out until it can get about 15 degrees away.
Cazimis always make think of the temple period and the high priest on Yom Kippur. The high priest would enter alone into the holiest of holies. How he offered the ritual sacrifice stood between the people and disaster, between divine wrath or mercy.
During a cazimi, we all enter a holy cavern. Cazimis aren’t rare: technically a new moon is one. However, this experience is far rarer. The last time we had Saturn and Mercury do this together was in October 1983. At their best, Saturn and Mercury conjunctions bear the weight of wisdom. There is a cost to words, a depth to power. How far will we seek the truth? Can we bear what we will find?
The truth is, as someone with a lot of Gemini in their chart, I struggle with Pisces. I understand Mercury. How it relishes details, communication, curiosity. Mercury is an outsider in Pisces, struggling to make do. Here, the truth is a blended mess. Words fail. Any informational structure is an illusion we make for ourselves. Like a fish on land, I gape, and thrash. How am I supposed to know or process if I can’t put it into words?
And yet, Pisces is in love with what could be. She is hope beyond reasonableness and practicality. In her domain, we can begin to believe the divine is all around us. If we just opened our minds to see it, the divine would love us with open arms.
Once upon a time, a 5 day work week was someone’s dream.
Once upon a time, the right to protest was a distant goal.
Once upon a time, women dreamed of opening their own bank accounts.
Once upon a time, our ancestors dreamed of the lives we get to lead. They prayed for the worlds we get to create. Pisces reminds me that one of the most radical opportunities for change is to believe it is even possible. To see what is beyond the here and now and imagine what, how, we could be.
In the cazimi’s divine shadow, I am learning to dream again. Of a future where gun violence is nonexistent. A world where we value the planet more than profits. For a future for Palestinians beyond state violence and bombs where they live, dream, and walk freely.
I imagine my own life as something wild and new. How could work be something that feeds me, rather than diminishes me? How can I build community and make space for joy, love, and ease? How can I share the astrology, words, and art that seem hell bent on getting out of me? As I break out of old ideas of safety and possibility, what new ways can I find? Who can I be?
Maybe you like some of my family sigh when you hear this. It seems too idealistic, too easy. There are bills to pay, conservatives to fight, a world full of its own broken past.
In these moments, I look at my nephew. He’s almost 3, a whirlwind of energy and giggles. I imagine thousands of little children just like him, growing into the world we are making. What will they see when they grow up and understand our choices? What can I leave behind that will be better, brighter than this?
I want to give him radical possibility because believing in that has been the hardest thing I can do. I struggled for years simply because I couldn’t imagine not having that corporate job. I often told my therapist how I felt like a caged animal, pacing back and forth, unsure how to get out or if I even could. I couldn’t see a solution, believe in taking the risk. My lack of imagination was a major factor in my own unhappiness.
In this moment of cosmic renewal, we can all begin again. We can call forward the future that fear says is too beautiful, too idealistic. In our hope and imagination, solutions have a way of finding us. With Saturn, the lord of time and reality, there’s a chance to make that hope as real as skin and bone.
I do not live easily in this energy. I build it in small, mercurial ways. I leave it between the lines of get out the vote letters. My hands plant it with native species at the park. My heart builds it in community at synagogue and my art coop.
I do not know what the future will bring. I hope that with each action, I plant a seed. Who knows? Maybe my nephew will see a few of them grow to become wildflowers, or better yet, wide and generous trees.