Zodiac

The struggle to love the woo-woo while keeping it science-real

I like hurtling through the dark on Spaceship Earth. It is a place of startling duality: land and sea, night and day, snow and sand.

Perhaps that is why we live as if we’re torn in half.

We are ugly and cruel. We drop bombs and trade guns. We kill girls for just trying to go to school. We cheat when we don’t think we’ll get caught.

We are beautiful and compassionate. We draw pictures of mountains because we like that they make us feel small. We run towards caved in buildings to help those inside. We plant gardens under highways.

We study the world while still maintaining a sense of wonder. We learn all the metal bits that make up an engine and yet our hearts beat faster when we hear it roar to life.

Humans are built to analyze. Humans are built to stand in awe. We are suited towards duality. Tell me about fossil records and atoms and skeletal structures. Tell me about horoscopes and crystals and miracles. Let me forever hold these two contrary realms in a single mind.

Mercury in retrograde

I was walking my dog on a damp morning and I sneezed. Something in my back kinked up. Strange. I hobbled home, figuring it was an old injury flaring up. I watched a television show and when I tried to sit up, my back spasmed, completely frozen.
I spent the next three days clutching crystals and hiding from the outside world.

When Mercury slips into retrograde, I usually get warnings from friends, who, like me, are science-minded.

Mercury goes into retrograde three times a year, for three weeks at a time. The planet rules communication, travel and contracts, so when it’s in retrograde, so are they. Buses break down. Flights are cancelled. Contracts are signed with glaring mistakes. People misread each others’ tones and fight.

I distrust astrology. If it all were true, you’d think our bodies would acclimate to a phenomenon that occurs nine out of fifty two weeks a year. It is less special than the leaves changing or the ice melts in Spring. Plus, wouldn’t local stimuli always have more effect than the pull of a planet thousands of miles away? When confronted with the gravity of Mars and the heat of a desert, you can guess which influence is actually going to leave me dreaming of Alaska.

I do not like the idea that my obstacles are already determined, even though I believe that cause and effect have a powerful impact on our lives. I do not like the idea that I cannot be whoever the hell I decide to be. However, I am what you’d call a true Gemini: moody, communicative and independent to a fault. So as I deny yoking myself to the signs, the astrology gods probably chortle, oh, Ash, you’re such a Gemini gosh.

Still, it is fun. I like reading my horoscope. I like reading my friends’ horoscopes. It is a comfort to plumb the unknowable depths of strangers and friends using the stars as our map, as we have navigated the Earth for hundreds of years. It is a comfort to believe that we can spy just a few inches into the future and batten down our hatches accordingly.

The way I see it, Mercury -is- sometimes in retrograde — even when it’s not. In my ideal world, we airquote “Mercury” being in “retrograde” as a code for ‘shit is going down and forces I don’t control conspire against me, but I’m going to rock it anyway.’ After all, it’s nice to have something to blame that is not a human villain trying to take you down.

It’s healthy to understand that sometimes we’re little ant people, victims to the whimsy of larger forces — natural disasters, random violence, badly sequenced genomes. It’s a special sadistic narcissist that believes they are master of every aspect of their lives. We are freer when we see that we are tossed and battered often as much as we lead.

Law of Attraction

I get a strange form of reverse insomnia when I am crazy with ideas. My body will wake me up after six hours of sleep and shoo me from bed. Instead of my usual desire to be horizontal, all I want to do is drink tea and clack away at my keyboard.

I like to do lists. I’m not a big wisher. I ship projects and pick up random pioneer-era skills (soapmaking, knitting…) that are of questionable value in a world where you we order food to our doorsteps and fall into 12-hour Netflix comas. However, for every project I do ship, there are ten that have sputtered out and live on only in head.

It’s not that I don’t want to do them; I would love to make all my weird ideas reality. When I think of a certain future goals, whether they be projects or lifestyles, I picture a bunch of muse-godesses lounging on a chaise. They look down on me with half-closed eyes. Not yet, they say while they feed each other grapes. We don’t wanna give you that yet. Declare your intentions. Come back when you’re actually serious.

The idea of making your intentions known to the universe is called the Law of Attraction. Like attracts like. If you have positive thoughts, positivity will find you. If you believe you can, you can. It is a beautiful idea, but it is often privilege at its height. If it’s true that positivity is attracted to positivity, the counter is true. By that thinking, only the ugliest and most negative among us would starve or get hit by cars. Only the villains would get cancer. Unfortunately, that’s not how it works. Plenty of beautiful people have died from cancer. Cancer is an asshole and it doesn’t care who you are or how clean your spirit is.

Making the universe aware of your intentions and then believing everything will conspire to help you — there’s something dangerous in this thought. Taken the wrong way, it is a reward for having a hopeless whim, which I do not believe the ‘universe’ values. In the same way that people in successful relationships do not engage in acts of mind-reading, the universe doesn’t telepathically search for your specific hope.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Intention is a powerful thing.

Living with intention opens your eyes. It helps you make meaning out of mundane details. It gives you power to act with the universe instead of floating in its sometimes chaotic current. Say your deepest desire is to write a novel. You begin to see the world with new eyes. Ordinary places become potential settings full of interesting people. Coworkers who used to annoy you become mysteries to unravel. Insane interactions on the subway become story fodder. Time alone at home becomes sacred: it becomes writing time. The universe doesn’t directly reward simple wishes, but they change your universe immensely.

Making intentions known — and I mean -really- making them known to the universe — means making them real. It means telling someone. It means shitty prototypes and ordering supplies. It means signing up for classes. When you make honest intentions real, when you make them clear, of course the universe takes note.

This is because we are woven into the universe. The best of us are topped off with a desire to create things and manifest dreams. The best of us see evidence of our loved ones’ desires and want to help make them real. We are animated star dust, universe powder compacted into wish fulfilling machines. We are wired to lift each other up.

Crystals

I have fond memories of collecting gemstones with my siblings, running our fingers over tiger’s eye and rose quartz in kid hobby stores. Some of my favorites:

Amethyst: translucent and delicately hued, beautiful rough or polished
Fluorite: commonly electric teal or purple, depending on the elemental impurities within. Looks flipping sweet under an ultraviolet light.
Selenium: foggy white columnar stone, flakes off in your hands. Nicknamed -tv rock- for its strange translucency when cut thin enough
Malachite: startling green gem with beautiful marbling when polished. Used as an ancient pigment.

I am so glad crystals are making a comeback. Crystal is a wide term in the New Age sense. While scientifically a crystal refers to the molecular structure of a solid, it colloquially seems to mean -a sort of rock or gem thingy that makes my hand feel funny when I hold it-. A chunk of polished marble? Crystal. Rutilated quartz, with its beautiful little streaks of silver? Crystal. Lump of Fool’s Gold? Crystal.

Every crystal (or ‘crystal’, if you can’t get past the semantics) has a supposed effect. Aquamarine is for gentle souls: it promotes courage in a compassionate way and bonus! helps sore throats. Citrine is energizing and sun-like, encouraging creativity and digestion.

Dr. Christopher French decided to test the real effects of crystals. In a blind study, he gave 80 participants a stone to meditate with. Some were genuine, some were made of plastic. Regardless of whether or not the stone was real, subjects reported feeling effects of the ‘crystal’, especially if they believed that crystals had healing powers.

Placebo is a powerful thing. Can it cure disease like medicine? Likely not. Can it help pull you out of a metaphysical funk? Hell yes.

Crystals can be powerful totems. The right one can be the physicalized lack we feel in our lives. A little chunk of citrine can help us find that little bit of self-esteem we were missing. We can leave our bad joojoo inside the sparkling clearness of our quartz pendants.

Many of our favorite things are actualized ideas we can touch with our hands. Watches bring turn the abstract idea of time into gears and quartz movement. Telephones are a connection to faraway friends and family members. The idea that you can hold peacefulness, determination or alertness in your palm is a powerful balm for pain and insecurities.

Perhaps nothing in the material of a lowly rose quartz crystal incites the chemicals in your body that make you feel love. However, if you hold that cloudy pink blob and get the warm fuzzies, it’s unfair to say that it isn’t a real cure for heartbreak.

Goodbye Alphabet Meditation! This is the last in a series I started to brush up on my writing. Check out all of the posts, or check out my weekly newsletter if you’re interested in hearing more.