In the past, I was extremely susceptible to moon mood swings. Back then, I didn’t even realize it – I’d just be more prone to fights and arguments and getting my Tom Ford boxer briefs in a twist. In more recent years, I’ve become aware of these moods, and they do tend to coincide with the moon or Mercury in retrograde. Friends have noticed it too – not just in me, but in the way the world tilts slightly askew in those periods. Whether or not there’s anything to it, I find it better to be a little more careful at such times – more of a precautionary method of living than any actual stronghold of evidentiary astrology.
We’re finished with Mercury in retrograde until the end of January 2021, so there’s that. Mars is in retrograde until November 13. And there are a few full moons before the year ends. Will it be messy? Of course. Life is messy. But there will be magic as well. The moon is magical. The stars are enchanting. The planets are filled with mystery. There is beauty and a sense of perspective we rarely consider or contemplate in an average day when one truly pauses to think about the vast expansive size and scope of the universe. It’s humbling. It’s frightening. It’s startling.
I once had an Astronomy Professor who taught me about more than just the Arms of Orion. He was a bearded, unkept, and questionably-dressed guy in his 60’s. He always looked slightly odiferous, though I was far too scared to get close enough to confirm. His style was very adamantly a blend of the threadbare and practical meeting a heavy dose of I-don’t-give-a-fuck. In those supremely self-righteous college years, I thought he was giving away some of his respect by coming to class so poorly attired. As our class progressed, however, and I watched his wonder and awe whenever he tried to impart the immensity of the universe, I realized it was he who had his priorities in order, while my silly superficial structuring of the world was built on the flimsiest of spectral glamour. In all his years of studying the worlds beyond our world, he understood that the clothes we wore were not important in the face of such vast space.
The idea of how small we all were, how our lives were so minuscule when viewed even from the relatively-nearby distance of the moon, and even more so from the edge of our singular solar system. Expand your mind to encompass that our solar system is one of many, and that those solar systems expand so far beyond that it’s almost unfathomable. When that took hold in my mind, when the notion fully hit me in all its terrifying form, it altered the core of my being, and so shaken was I that I immediately backed away from it, sealing it off instantly. I felt a profound and debilitating horror of how little I mattered in the grand scheme of the universe – how small and insignificant we all were. That’s not something you can carry through the daily requirements of simple existence and keep going. I understood that.
But every once in a while, when the moon glows just so, and the planets align to dot the night sky, I am reminded of that feeling, of the helplessness in the gaping face of immensity. And then I close it off again. To keep going. To find peace in the moon and the sky. To get through another day.
