Planetarium
Lowercase prose-poems and reflections dedicated to the planets. Originally found on Twitter or in my newsletter.
Saturn
constructive saturn: the vital heavy earthweight of responsibility we could feel for each other. a grief so dense it has form. oaths that honor the truth, that we are bound to each other. a commitment to sustainable solutions over pretending-at-care. abolition over reform.
saturn as time itself. saturn as the crunch of leaves that are also clocks. saturn, holding us in place. saturn as promise, as refusal. saturn as "don't be hasty." saturn as alignment, as spinal column. saturn as a forest of pine and mushroom. as the wisdom of bone and stone.
saturn as descent into soil, sand, and stone. as sense-making through place. as finding divinity through place. as communing with divinity-as-place. the body as a dowsing rod. the weight of your bones. with your eyes in your feet, who will you see?
one way to meditate on saturn: learn about bones. it's easy to think of bones as inert but they are a matrix of growth, storage, and release — constantly assessing what size they should be to carry the weight of what we load onto them, shifting based on pressure and use.
i like that the rings of saturn up close look so like a vinyl record. such specific grooves that, when adding pressure, reverberate, echo, repeat, travel through timespace to you, for a finite amount of time. a record is a memory and a specific possibility. it is story, captured.
Mercury
mercury as translations, transgressions, transactions. as crossing, as thresholds, as tricks, as alchemy. as shopping for that new perfect pen. as in you can't catch me. as in i am the thief & the one from whom i stole. as in where do you want to go? we can go anywhere.
if mars severs, differentiates, if venus bonds, harmonizes, then mercury traverses, translates. mercury is the god of the between-things & so is the god of the trick of language, that deceptive, necessary bridge-builder. the alchemy of naming the thing.
mercury is technique. mercury is "how." mercury isn't only language. mercury is pulling the thing apart to see how it works. mercury is inventing other ways to listen, measure, and tinker with the world as a way to be with it.
Jupiter
jupiter is lightning and thunder. the rending of the earth and sky in shattering brilliance and boom. if sagittarius is the arrow-bolt, electrified, fiery & bright, then pisces is the downpour, flooding the earth with life itself, holy water, & its possibilities of what might be.
who else but jupiter could be made temperate by living between mars and saturn?
Mars
mars is abrupt. mars interrupts. mars splits what is (or seems) continuous. what wisdom can an interruption bring forward?
a short mars story: i was trying to get candle wax off of something with the handle of a teaspoon, like you do, and my hand slipped such that i cut my knuckle with said teaspoon.
my cut is small but deep, red, angry, and painful. it's not too bad but it's chatty. it keeps telling me it exists. in its comparatively micro-world, it is flooded with immunity, blood, and battle — for the skin tissue, for its tiny planet, for its ecology, for me.
a cut on a joint that you use a lot is really something because it does not get to rest unless you rest. it keeps being agitated (i'm agitating it) and it struggles to heal. the stinging increases the more i move it, protesting.
the inflammatory process is an interruption *to me* with what *i* need to do today. while i interrupt the inflammatory process. who is mars here? sometimes interruptions change when you shift the scale.
how does your natal mars placement interrupt? what continuous action does it split? sometimes it is our continuity that mars rends and it is fucking painful. and also sometimes mars can interrupt what needs to stop and show us how we need to stop.
Venus
holy venus. merge-making venus. giggling venus. naked venus. sky venus. sea venus. venus of scales, seashells, foam, swords, roses, perfumes, colors, crafts. venus the dying-rising one. delighting venus. desirous venus. raging venus. kind venus. healing venus. venus venus venus.
Earth
earth seems an erotic creature. erotic as in desirous and creative. desirous of relationship and so creates so many beings with which to be in relationship. erotic as in beauty making. as in a loving show-off. have you seen a mountain? an icicle? a bird? a mushroom? yourself?
earth, i have loved you i have loved you i have loved you i will love you more, i will love you more in every stream & spider, every bit of moss & wriggling worm, every yellow bloom busting thru, every fruit you offer, every crack of thunder. i will love you more.
