"Venture With Poise" by James Bristol (2014)
This evening the Moon is in Leo, at a 120° trine to Uranus in Aries. Across the whole of Friday, this Lion Moon first trined Mars in Sagittarius, followed half a day later by a trine to Saturn in the Archer’s sign. By Saturday morning, Luna will trine the Sun in Aries before separating from incendiary activation for a day or two.
There’s a fiery momentum, playfulness and unpredictability in the air. Let’s look at some classic and modern astrological, alchemical and psychological takes on the elements. Fire (intuition) is said to rule the physical plane, earth (sensation) the material, air (thinking) the mental, and water (feeling) the emotional.
One might ask what distinguishes the fiery physical from the earthy material.
Earthy sensation rules the sense-perceptible world, with all its aesthetic dimensions and physical limitations. Earth signs and those with earthy charts, no matter how powerful or forward at times, often bear a slightly stoic countenance with a touch of irony. They have seasoned expectation of resistance and the natural difficulty of wills clashing and blades sharpened through being swung against stone.
Fiery intuition is the sense of oneself, incarnate as an immediate experiential fact, capable of imagining, exerting one’s will, and projecting one’s beliefs onto the external environment so as to shape it in affirmation of self and, at its height of expression, others just as well. The fire sign motto’s in succession — from Aries’ instigation of Spring, ‘I am’, to Leo’s center of Summer, ‘I create’, to Sagittarius’ close of Fall, ‘I philosophize’ — conjure arrival in and imaginal construction of one’s world. This fiery imagining, much like the essentially active, autonomous quality of an archetype, is what earth seeks to bring into form.
So earth has more to do with sensory environment and resources fashioned, and fire the physical acts and paragons projected into our environments. Aries, action embodied. Leo, creative assertion. Sagittarius, targeting philosophical ideals.
In this way, philosophizing is as physical an act as it is seemingly abstract.
Mars in Sagittarius has its brilliant reputations, but the Archer can be a very restless, uncomfortable sign for Mars. I’ve already mentioned this Aries season the impulsive and indulgent tendencies of Mars in Sagittarius; I often hear it recommended that those born under it, and by extension anyone experiencing this by transit or at all, burn off excess energy with vigorous exercise or centering meditative/yogic practices. This is arguably solid advice for anyone, yet I witness the Sagittarius flavors in my life and the lives of others time and time again.
Restless body or not, to philosophize, the traveling home base of this sign, is itself a physical, athletic act.
A lot of people: "If humanity put the same amount of energy and concern into spirituality and social justice that they do into professional sports, the world would be a more beautiful place!"
Me: "Yes, and..."
I second the sentiment that the world would be even more beautiful if humans applied the same energy and concern to spirituality and social justice as they do to pro football or whatever, but here's the trick: it can be hard to apply to thinking and philosophizing the same athleticism that we do to primal experiences, whether sex or war or touchdowns. And of course that's not to say that the physical arts involved with these things don't have both bodily and 'higher minded' nuances. Most know that they do, and most are into it.
It's simply hard for some people to think and philosophize for more global and universal causes with the same touch of physical immediacy that they put into sport or fighting or fucking. Of course both sex and physical sport demand improvisational strategy, personal values and spiritual vision, but typically less collective, global concern. These things often take on too immediate and primal a form.
Spiritual and social issues don't always seem as 'in front of us', at least not in the perception of some people's minds, as are bodies to sport or bodies to merge with. Not everyone recognizes the same injustices in their communities. Not everyone witnesses supernatural occurrences that shake them from their stale worldviews. War certainly subordinates primal urges to very charged, higher minded beliefs, but ones far too rigid and literal.
All I can say is what works for me: I get up every day, and as readily as I eat or make love, I think, I philosophize and I write down the ideas that I have to get out to stay sane — and feel like I'm contributing for the sake of any more than my own body and the vessels of those I love.
To philosophize and live your highest truths is an athletic thing, trust me. Coming from a cat born Scorpio rising, Mars ascending in Sagittarius.
Yours truly,
Alex
There’s a fiery momentum, playfulness and unpredictability in the air. Let’s look at some classic and modern astrological, alchemical and psychological takes on the elements. Fire (intuition) is said to rule the physical plane, earth (sensation) the material, air (thinking) the mental, and water (feeling) the emotional.
One might ask what distinguishes the fiery physical from the earthy material.
Earthy sensation rules the sense-perceptible world, with all its aesthetic dimensions and physical limitations. Earth signs and those with earthy charts, no matter how powerful or forward at times, often bear a slightly stoic countenance with a touch of irony. They have seasoned expectation of resistance and the natural difficulty of wills clashing and blades sharpened through being swung against stone.
Fiery intuition is the sense of oneself, incarnate as an immediate experiential fact, capable of imagining, exerting one’s will, and projecting one’s beliefs onto the external environment so as to shape it in affirmation of self and, at its height of expression, others just as well. The fire sign motto’s in succession — from Aries’ instigation of Spring, ‘I am’, to Leo’s center of Summer, ‘I create’, to Sagittarius’ close of Fall, ‘I philosophize’ — conjure arrival in and imaginal construction of one’s world. This fiery imagining, much like the essentially active, autonomous quality of an archetype, is what earth seeks to bring into form.
So earth has more to do with sensory environment and resources fashioned, and fire the physical acts and paragons projected into our environments. Aries, action embodied. Leo, creative assertion. Sagittarius, targeting philosophical ideals.
In this way, philosophizing is as physical an act as it is seemingly abstract.
Mars in Sagittarius has its brilliant reputations, but the Archer can be a very restless, uncomfortable sign for Mars. I’ve already mentioned this Aries season the impulsive and indulgent tendencies of Mars in Sagittarius; I often hear it recommended that those born under it, and by extension anyone experiencing this by transit or at all, burn off excess energy with vigorous exercise or centering meditative/yogic practices. This is arguably solid advice for anyone, yet I witness the Sagittarius flavors in my life and the lives of others time and time again.
Restless body or not, to philosophize, the traveling home base of this sign, is itself a physical, athletic act.
A lot of people: "If humanity put the same amount of energy and concern into spirituality and social justice that they do into professional sports, the world would be a more beautiful place!"
Me: "Yes, and..."
I second the sentiment that the world would be even more beautiful if humans applied the same energy and concern to spirituality and social justice as they do to pro football or whatever, but here's the trick: it can be hard to apply to thinking and philosophizing the same athleticism that we do to primal experiences, whether sex or war or touchdowns. And of course that's not to say that the physical arts involved with these things don't have both bodily and 'higher minded' nuances. Most know that they do, and most are into it.
It's simply hard for some people to think and philosophize for more global and universal causes with the same touch of physical immediacy that they put into sport or fighting or fucking. Of course both sex and physical sport demand improvisational strategy, personal values and spiritual vision, but typically less collective, global concern. These things often take on too immediate and primal a form.
Spiritual and social issues don't always seem as 'in front of us', at least not in the perception of some people's minds, as are bodies to sport or bodies to merge with. Not everyone recognizes the same injustices in their communities. Not everyone witnesses supernatural occurrences that shake them from their stale worldviews. War certainly subordinates primal urges to very charged, higher minded beliefs, but ones far too rigid and literal.
All I can say is what works for me: I get up every day, and as readily as I eat or make love, I think, I philosophize and I write down the ideas that I have to get out to stay sane — and feel like I'm contributing for the sake of any more than my own body and the vessels of those I love.
To philosophize and live your highest truths is an athletic thing, trust me. Coming from a cat born Scorpio rising, Mars ascending in Sagittarius.
Yours truly,
Alex