this first one is about astrology

& it has no subtitle

Pete and I took Bruno to the planetarium at OMSI on Sunday because it was hot and because he loves space. We saw Worlds Beyond Earth, which is just a half an hour and narrated by Lupita Nyong’o. I am a person obsessed with people so I don’t spend time thinking about space typically. I’m also a person who hasn’t given astrology much thought but I decided that it seems just as wild to believe that the planet choreography at the time of our birth doesn’t have any effect on who we are as thinking that it does.

I’m thinking about how if I’m having dinner with several people and one of them is grumpy I am affected by that. The energy of that one person, just basically a sack of meat, affects me even though they’re not touching me and they’re maybe not saying words to me and they’re definitely not throwing knives at me.

So then thinking about how small a baby is to a solar system. How permeable they are and how alien… and then thinking about how the gravity of the earth is holding the moon and how the gravity of the moon is pulling the seawater and how the gravity of Jupiter fucks so hard with its moon Io that it makes Io volcanic. How would I not be connected to those things? And maybe at least a little bit governed by them?

The sun was in the sagittarius constellation when I was born. I have proof:

The website purewow.com tells me: Sagittarians tend to inspire the people around them to live their best lives, like a cross between Oprah and Santa Claus.

I’m not a good researcher but I got curious about how it became a thing that Sagittarius means I should be enterprising and independent. I read on wikipedia and websites like LoveToKnow.com that basically every ancient culture worked with some form of astrology and it became a kind of shared google doc. The Babylonians divided the sky into twelve signs and the Greeks named them. Then they linked the signs to myths and created personality associations. Chat GPT says: the constellation of Aries was associated with the god of war, so the sign of Aries was thought to embody traits such as aggression and courage

The system went global and was modified as needed. I love that mine is a centaur shooting a bow and arrow bc I love pants and bold action.

Using co-star as reference I counted how many of the traits I identified with for each sign. I fuck with both Cancer and Leo 100%. Four out of five Sagittarius traits fit me. I am two days away from being a Capricorn but it’s a hard no for me. I also struck out at Aquarius and Aries, and would make a very poor Pisces.

I am not looking to bunk or debunk astrology. For a bit of the day on Sunday I noticed the size of space and how wee we are and I got curious.

For extra fun for me I would really love to know: what is your sign and 1-10 how much do you identify with it?

Thank you for reading my first substack! I am excited about this.

~ Britt