The Centaur
A seeker, half-wild.
As time goes on, this is no longer my defining moment but my dad died in 2020. Just a few months shy of my 30th birthday and in the throes of the pandemic. I was so sad, so angry, so sorry and remorseful. Time did a weird thing where it stopped and became disjointed, slowed, quickened, stopped again. I understand this better now but I feel like I've yet to catch up to a certain calendar state. Before that, a tornado struck my neighborhood and uprooted quite literally my family's sense of security and stability. We were all quite stuck but I still feel like the only one that hasn’t caught back up yet.
Over the last couple of years since then I have been working on deepening my astrological education. I am not an astrologer! Just curious and looking for more options and paths. It was very easy to put all my attention into my grieving and understanding the parts of me that hurt. But as I started rejoining the world — the world of COVID at that — I noticed an awful lot of resistance. I tried to get back to “normal” but what in the world was normal? I stayed home. I went out. I joined groups, I left groups. I made friends, I lost friends. I had no idea where to put my energy anymore, no real desire to do so. I saw in astrology a different calendar where I didn’t have to pretend like I was ok just because it was a good month, I follow the pagan wheel of the year too and there are some periods of the year where we are just supposed to be down lol.
So, initially I was journaling based on astrological prompts I could find. I’m used to that with shadow work. I wasn’t really trying to give myself answers, just noting my feelings and hopes, desires, epiphanies about myself and my world. I was getting ideas for where I could best apply myself internally and externally. Discovering some DEEP blockages smh. I learned about houses and what these placements and transits mean, why some folks react differently to certain phenomena. It was painful and a little foreign to me but something was really dope about it too.
[ID: a 5 card spread somewhat in the shape of an arrow. The cards are all abstract symbols and various shades of purple and pink. From the top counterclockwise the cards are:
Temperance
Ace of wands
The Hierophant
The Star
4 of Swords]
I’m doing much the same this year with new and improved knowledge. I’m sharing some readings for Sag season for a few reasons: namely, I realized I've gone through several different decks already lol (I try to touch all my decks throughout the year) and this is a great way to showcase them and their different opinions. But also, as a fire sign myself I don’t “get” Sagittarius. In astrology there’s really nothing to “get”. We often conflate the behavior with individuals with the entirety of what that sign represents i.e why are they all this way lol. But because I don’t understand is why I've been eager this year for the lessons that the archer had for us.
Sag szn this year kicked off with a new moon and so I tried a new-to-me spread to get the ol’ internal processor going. When I look for spread ideas on the ‘net I tend to look for psychological stuff or something that resonates with my emotional state. Lately, I've been feeling ungrounded. This new moon in Sagittarius spread by Labyrinthos really spoke to a lot of things I was feeling. The addition of the card of the season, Temperance, to provide guidance to the reading was a great reminder to bring balance and adaptability. I used my favorite new deck Lonesome World, a people-less deck I use when I need big picture answers. When I look at the cards pulled here I see cards of rest, truth, knowledge, philosophy. All fine tenets of the season. But I start thinking of “lack”. Where I wonder? I won’t go over the whole spread but I'll share two questions that stood out to me:
What is it that I’m searching for? Ace of Wands. Aces signify new beginnings and potential, but I'm hesitant when I pull a lotta aces. This could be someone with no follow-thru, endlesslt starting over. Wands are also associated with the fire sign pantheon, fiery will and all that. Got an interesting feeling from this card that led me around the whole reading. It feels like someone waiting for impossible conditions to be met before starting a project in the season of just going for it.
What am I not committing to? The Star. One complaint of Sags and their Gemini counterparts is supreme flakiness so I feel this is a fair question to ask lol. Everyone loves The Star but can you read it as a card of untetheredness too? I feel this embodies the aspects I fear most about myself, that I’m deluding myself into thinking there is more to be done than there is; that secretly I'm just bored, denying my own goals to fuel that boredom, failing to commit to grounding or appreciating good things cultivated in the present.
Sag rules my 2nd house and I decided to finally look up what that means this year. The literature has brought up many epiphanies. One piece of literature that has stuck out to me states that this placement indeed gets bored easily and has a hard time appreciating the good things in front of it. That’s a tough admission to swallow but I own it lol, was just called out on it. That has made me think really deeply on my connection to the material world and complacency and contentment. Many years ago I confessed to my therapist that I had a hard time recognizing contentment. I read it as complacency or a “nothing” void of feeling that I had to fill up because I was always a tempest of emotions. When I slowed down it seemed my heart may stop like a shark that stops swimming to check out kelp. That lesson is coming to me now again in a big way as I realize my “boredom” sometimes triggers unnecessary change. I grow cynical. I reject what I fear may be stagnation. I can definitely see how this shapes my relationship to my finances and my personal relationships.
[ID: 2 cards from the CBD Marseilles tarot deck. The cards feature elaborate artwork with simplistic but colorful imagery. From left to right the cards are IIII of Cups and Le Jugement. (Judgment)]
And as if to confirm I'm in the right place, I've had two very different conversations this period. The first was with a dear friend who, admittedly, I've felt alienated from lately as we simply share different life philosophies. The longer these missives go on I'm sure you'll come to understand I simply am not afraid of struggle. I actually get annoyed at the thought of an easy life lol especially in a society where we are socialized to be cool with the absolute mininum lol. There’s something to be said for churning mountains to molehills, yet the hunger for more if you choose to see it as discontent or restlessness can be a fantastic asset; it is possible to merge this with your higher self and create strength. One may even think of it as discernment. There are so many areas where we are encouraged to be complacent that I think require a hunter's eye.
And yet…even I can admit when I'm likewise stuck still. Its fine if people just don't function all the same. Which brings me to the other scenario which was quite different. Just this week I had a conversation about another friend I’ve been on the outs with for a while. He’s the classic man that has everything. Better ingredients, better pizza, better bitches, better money etc as the meme goes lol. This person has a marked unhappiness about him and a bottomless pursuit for validation that I know very well.
“If he has all this,” my mother asked exasperated, “then why does he still act like that?”
I muttered, “It’s obviously doing nothing for him. Money and hoes are ’t healing his soul.”
In that moment I really felt my Sag connection lol the mere idea that I can cloak myself in worldly goods and no internal healing? I've tried to make myself happy with the things that were supposed to make me happy. Many years of frustration later and I now understand that it simply doesn’t woek that way. Sometimes I do think the only thinf that actually brings me comfort is the pursuit, Viewing my shadow archetype in these conversations has me convinced lol. God, there’s no winning.
Let's talk about the other spreads briefly.
Each read has been a journey of questions. I have a funny connection with the Marseille deck (and this particular reproduction has a very interesting story), it sheds the mysticism we’ve come to associate with modern tarot with more down to earth wisdom. I kept thinking about the first conversation and my anger with someone who, if nothing else, was at least being honest about their disposition in life. Why is disappointment so hard to hold? I said, “cards, where do I store my disappointment?”
The deck replied, “4 of Cups”. Family both chosen and blood, community, assimilation into a role. Joining fixed social structures that lack adaptability. I feel my very self revolting here and I’m a little confused. I expected a bodily answer but cups are cards of emotions. It seems that these are the targets I take my anger out on, as if I'm recreating the conditions for disappointment on purpose.
“How do I exorcise that disappointment?” I ask.
“Judgment,” it answers and here I think, yes. I’m forever trying to fix my family dynamic and repair my relationship with my mother specifically through other avenues. I am not angry or disappointed in this friend, I am restless. When I can't talk to my mom I seek out the ways in which I feel she has let me down and try to correct things there. The solution is always to address the mother wound, not shoot the arrows elsewhere as I bleed out. And now is a great time to point out that traditionally Sagittarius the Centaur, the archer, is in fact Chiron lol.
And so…what about the other conversation? After that I went back to my relationship with complacency, with contentment. What makes me content? How does this feeling resonate in me and how can I honor it? Occult wisdom can describe happiness in search and in where we are, which seems to be the theme of this pull from the Neon Visions oracle deck: a left hand.
[ID: a single card with a white boarder depicting a stylized disembodied pink left hand with long black nails.]
“Appreciate the moment for what it can offer.” And so I think I'll pause this quest for now and go back to my newly formed connection with the spirit of this season, as provided by Astrology.com:
… Sagittarius’ connection to travel, higher knowledge, and truth-seeking stem from the centaur race’s questing attributes, yet mostly from Chiron, who was the kindest, most generous and friendly to humans of them all. Being half-human and half-beast, the centaur/archer holds both an intelligent civilized side, and also an untamed, bestial nature, embodying a balance of primal instinct and wisdom.