Sun Enters Sagittarius
“It's like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it's only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it'll shine out the clearer. I know now, folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something… That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it's worth fighting for.”
— Samwise Gamgee, J.R.R. Tolkien
Our journey through Scorpio saw us confront the harsh reality that awaits all living things, and gave us a powerful time for excavating deep wounds and investigating their intense emotional content with purpose. But what does one do after they have examined the evidence and discovered the root of their motivation? After one has looked what they are most afraid of in the eye?
The season does not end here, waiting for Winter in fearful darkness with nothing left to give. It ends with a story to tell. Sagittarius waits by the glowing embers of the hearth for others braving the darkness, to recount how it overcame what was asked of it. Autumn isn’t just about death and loss; it’s about imagining what comes next.
Optimism can seem like a fool's errand in the face of the darkness of Winter (and the wider state of the world) but Sagittarius is no fool for believing things can be better. It does not laugh at the coming dark because it thinks it frivolous, or because it is naïve to what dangers awaits us there, but because it understands that to despair is for your struggle, your story, to lose its meaning.
Sagittarius has the audacity to think bigger and see farther than what we suppose is possible because it is not concerned with how it will achieve its dreams, only that it still has them. No matter how ambitious the vision, or impractical the journey to get there, Sagittarius pursues the light on the horizon.
It knows that having a vision is the first and most motivating step toward meaningful change. Without a cause to be here, we remain dead.
Sagittarius teaches us that we cannot take ourselves too seriously, or we will remain weighed down by the past. Even despair has a meaningful part to play in each our stories, and it is the telling of that story to others that makes the burden lighter.
Wherever our folly may serve as a warning, or our triumphs may be an inspiration, Sagittarius encourages us to speak of our experiences with shameless hyperbole because it wants us to represent something larger than ourselves.
The risk that comes with such zealous belief is that the vision is often undertaken with little concern for self-preservation. Sagittarius loses itself in the big picture. It only knows how to charge forward toward that beckoning light, and is in danger of losing those around it should it move too fast or too far.
While on the one hand Sagittarius is an archer with a blazing arrow, lighting the way, on the other it is a cult leader (or political pundit) spiraling down a rabbit hole with all who will follow them. To Sagittarius, the ends justify the means, and data that contradicts the narrative is often swept aside.
This Sagittarius season in particular — with its ruler, Jupiter, in opposition to the Sun, and both Mercury and Mars going retrograde — is going to challenge us to reflect on our worldly narrative, how we embody our commitment to those beliefs, and how much we pay attention to the details which question their validity.
Does your narrative illuminate a way out of the darkness, or are you lost and too deep in your own dogma to see? Are we convincing other people to convince ourselves? If you are meant to be a torchbearer, is where your quest leads you perhaps not worth going alone?
Sagittarius’ big plans rarely turn out as expected and, if they are achieved, somehow always pale in comparison to the initial dream. There is no one specific vision that offers salvation for everyone. In the end, Sagittarius must discover that it was never about the destination. It really was about the friends we made along the way, the collaborative story, and what the journey could teach us about ourselves.
Find this month’s planetary forecast and transit list here!
