#Transit Stories

[adapembroke]

New Moon in Capricorn: Musing on Dark Ages

When was the last time you took a break?

For me, it had been too long by the middle of December. It had been my intention the entire year to take a significant amount of time off during December to celebrate my baby's first Christmas.

I'm glad I had set that intention in advance. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have taken it. I would have told myself that I couldn't afford to take a break, and that would have been a big mistake.

It's a strange thing, the way human needs work.

There comes a point when you have gone so long without meeting a need that you don't even think you have the need anymore.

People who are starving don't get more and more ravenous. They eventually reach a point where they don't feel hunger. Even if they start to eat again, they can't dive in all at once. They need to start slowly, remember how to eat and digest.

When you go too long without an intellectual rest, similar things happen. Competence wanes. The well of inspiration goes dry. Your work gets harder. The results are sloppier, more and more derivative.

This bothers you, at first. Then it stops bothering you. Once it stops bothering you, you're in a dangerous place. Extreme starvation has its own momentum. It takes an outside force to intervene and keep you from limping along forever.

You might, from time to time, look back at things that you've done in the past with awe the way Dark Age Europeans looked at the ruins of Roman architecture. You know that you aren't capable of those great things anymore, but your curiosity is gone. You don't have the will or the courage to ask yourself, "Why are these things beyond me now? What would it take to get back to my full strength?"

Dark Age Europeans told themselves that the world was once inhabited by giants.

Did some part of them remember that they had been giants once? Did they ever wonder if they were just tired, or if they had fallen into decline?

They couldn't see the universities and cathedrals their children would build. They could only look behind with the certainty that they would never build Roman aqueducts again.

Maybe, they didn't think about those things at all. Maybe they told themselves that thinking about the past was a distraction.

Eventually, we know, they got back to work, meticulously copying manuscripts in a language they could no longer read, because, once upon a time, someone believed the task was useful.

The Dark Ages are a useful myth.

Recent historical scholarship suggests that the Dark Ages weren't as dark as we were once lead to believe, but the story of the years between the fall of Rome and the rise of the Renaissance persists because it is an important cultural myth.

The Dark Ages remind us that time moves in a circle and a line.

Rome is gone. Its language is dead, and its monuments are ruins. It is no longer possible to walk across the continent on Roman roads, and Roman tax collectors can no longer compel you to pay for their bureaucracy.

Rome is gone, but you can trace your finger along the arc of history and find empires that rhyme.

Some histories jump through time from monument to monument, empire to empire, but that isn't an accurate picture.

Human energy rises and falls, waxes and wanes like the moon. There are times when we active and growing to new heights, and there are times when we rest and decline.

Often, we are doing both simultaneously in different areas of our lives.

New Moon in Capricorn: Darkest Moon in the Darkest Season

I am writing this just before the New Moon in Capricorn. I am back from vacation, but I am still tired.

In the northern hemisphere, this is the time when the moon's cycle and the sun's cycle align. We are at the darkest phase of the moon's monthly cycle at the darkest phase of the sun's annual cycle.

It's time to be tired. It is time to rest.

Are you resting? When was the last time you really deeply, truly checked in with your heart? When was the last time you really asked yourself what you're hungry for?

I have rested enough to know that these are the questions I need to be asking, and I will be using Moon Mood Workshop to ask them.

If you are where I am, I'd like to invite you to join me.

[sparklemaia]

yes I'm now on the other side of top surgery and I'm allowed to lift things again 💪 You might have already seen this one on my substack -- did u know you can subscribe to my substack for early access to comics like this?! Sent directly to your email inbox??? FOR FREE????? (there is also an optional paid tier for exclusive bonus content for five bucks a month but like 80% of my posts will be free and publicly available) ty ily♥

[meltedmush]

Art dump (1/2) for today!

[demaparbat-hp]

Izumi of Jang Hui died young. She was sixteen and unwed. A kind child, protective and lonely—thus unfit for this world.

Izumi of Jang Hui was murdered. The Painted Lady was born out of hatred and grief. Her skin is painted red with the patterns of her scars. Her home is the river where the Dark Water Spirit dwells—he who found her, drowned and beautiful.

Build shrines by the river and pray for her good will. Harm her land or people and pray for mercy.

[tawnysoup]

Transitional phase

[maliciouscrow]

watched an old Doctor Who called “Hand of Fear” and thought “ooo what could that title mean” and then it turned out to just be literal hand that was scary

[octolingrendezvous]

there are no strings on me

[navycat305]

Something something Max Jagerman prevented Pete from shooting his shot with Steph when he was alive by beating him up and then prevented Steph from shooting her shot with Pete as a ghost by stopping the fucking bullet she was trying to shoot him with

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I love that some trans people do is talk about their pre-transition selves with no context as to their transition.

Like, if a trans woman talks about her past by saying, "when I was in Boy Scouts..." and never elaborates that she's trans and that there was a time where she was a boy scout. I just think that kind of normalization is great (and honestly, it can be funny when others are like "a GIRL in the BOY scouts?????? My life is changed")

[adapembroke]

Saturn-Neptune Conjunction: Let's Do Real Magic

There's a scene in the television miniseries Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell that makes me cry every time I watch it. The York Society of Magicians has challenged Mr. Norrell to prove that he is capable of doing practical Magic (aka casting spells). He offers to perform some magic, but in exchange he wants the magicians of the society to swear that they will stop claiming to be magicians if he succeeds. 

All of the magicians sign the contract except for Mr. Segundus. He gives a short, pitiful speech like a mouse caught in the rain. "Magic is my life, Sir. What will I do when it is taken from me?"

Lately, when I look at the magical scene, I feel a lot of despair. Magic is everywhere, and magic is nowhere. The marketplace is full of snake oil salesmen selling bottles of greed. I am so disgusted that I spend more time than I should looking up at the sky and trying to figure out which planet is most likely to come in like a storm and sweep it all away. 

Like Mr. Segundus, magic is my life, but in my better moments, I am certain that I would give it all up if it meant that the sacred things were no longer profaned like this.

I'm not the only one who smells change in the wind. In quiet corners, astrologers whisper about the upcoming Saturn-Neptune conjunction. 

"This is when astrology will stop being popular. Tarot decks will be left to collect dust in attics. The New Atheists will rise again, and materialism will reign supreme."

Predictive astrology isn’t my jam, but there’s something to the theory that Saturn and Neptune coming together will be the death of magic.

Saturn is all about getting back to brass tacks. It’s all about the real. The provable. When Missouri decided to be the Show-Me State, they were channeling Saturn. One of the expressions of Saturn is materialism because material reality will hit you over the head whether you believe in it or not. Gravity doesn’t care if you like it. It’s stronger than you, and it’s going to do its thing. 

When Saturn hits Neptune, the planet of magic and spirituality, it’s possible that Saturn will obliterate the magical landscape. The charlatans and frauds will be revealed for what they are. People will become disillusioned, and the zeitgeist will wake up from magic like a bad dream. 

If there is nothing to what we do, that is how the story will play out. We will look back at this time the way we look back at the “what’s your sign, baby” 1970s. Magic will return to the fringe corners of the metaphysical section, and many brokenhearted people who bet on the magic bubble will have to find something else to do.

That isn’t the only way the story can go. As I write this, a pair of ravens has started screaming at me through the window. (This is a thing that happens to me when I’m writing something good.) It’s possible that they’re just doing raven things, but there’s a story in which the ravens aren’t just criticizing the temperature of the water in the bird bath. I love the more magical story, and I have seen enough evidence for it that I have bet my career on the belief that magic permeates the material, that rational and mundane explanations aren’t all there is. I believe this so strongly that, like Mr. Segundus, magic is my life, Sir. It gives me hope that magic won’t be completely swept away in the Saturn-Neptune tide, that another story can play out, a magical story that bears some interesting similarities to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell begins in a magical dark age. As far as anyone knows, no magic has been done in England since the Raven King disappeared 300 years ago. Then Gilbert Norrell inherits a fortune and dedicates his life to making practical magic respectable again. When the magicians of the York Society challenge Mr. Norrell to display his power, he has been studying magical books for decades, trying to understand how magic is done, so he can do it himself 

(spoiler alert) 

He succeeds. He performs feats of magic that are so extraordinary, the gentleman magicians of the York Society look pitiful in comparison. When the truth comes out, no one is able to mistake Mr. Norrell’s magic for the scams of the charlatans selling false prophecies and fake spells on the street corners in yellow curtained tents.

(This isn’t a classist story. There is a vagabond magician who is legit. In the end, he is given the respect he deserves because he is able to prove that he knows his shit.)

I don’t think it’s an accident that the Saturn-Neptune conjunction happens at the end of Saturn’s time in Pisces. Saturn in Pisces is all about taking the things that we wish were true and making them real. Astrologer Austin Coppock has pointed out that Saturn in Pisces times have traditionally been times when fantasy stories with worlds rich enough to live in have been created. 

You can’t open a portal and step into Middle Earth, but I’ve seen stories like The Lord of the Rings work real magic. There was a period in my life when I was deeply depressed, and the only thing keeping me going was my extended edition of The Lord of the Rings DVDs. I was in college, and I would finish my classwork for the day, and I would turn on the movies and knit on the couch until my husband came home from work. When I got to the end of the trilogy, I would take out the last DVD and start the first one all over again.

From the outside, I’m sure my life looked deeply sad. (I was deeply sad.) But I am convinced that The Lord of the Rings is the only reason I was able to plow through that time and get a degree. Without that degree, I couldn’t have gotten into the MFA program that introduced me to Rachel Pollack and her books on tarot. Tarot led me to therapy, and that was when I became aware that I had spent most of the previous decade on a slow walk into a life in which depression isn’t running the show.

Saturn in Pisces is a time for creating stories of enchantment. We need them more than ever to slow-walk ourselves out of Dark Ages. 

In short, this is a moment for doing real magic. 

If we rise to the challenge, I believe that we don’t have to be afraid of the Saturn-Neptune conjunction cleaning house in the magical world. When Saturn shows us the real thing, the knock-offs always look pitiful in comparison. Then, we will all breathe a sigh of relief as the frauds and scenesters are swept away in the tide, and we’ll live happily ever after. The end.

Related Articles

[sparklemaia]

a page from my top surgery recovery sketchbook 💚

[reasonsforhope]

i live in the midwest US, right? and something that's been so fascinating to me is the fact that i spend equal time, roughly, in urban, suburba, and rural areas- and i'm seeing the same renewables growth in all three. solar panels, advertisements for EVs, charging stations, newly installed wind turbines, actual EVs and hybrids on the roads, i've even been able to witness solar panel installations in the city. the buses in my city's fleet are more and more becoming electric or otherwise more sustainable. i see farmers with portable solar and batteries by their houses. people in the suburbs are getting solar installed and bragging about new electric vehicles.

it's becoming more and more commonplace, and it's both affordable and popular to go green. that really gives me hope, honestly. seeing people who don't really care about the environment go environmentally-friendly anyways, because it's profitable, or cool, or cheap, or just because they like it. sure, it's sort of sad, but on the other hand it shows me just how widespread this change is. and it's not a huge thing either!! like i just see new solar or wind or the like and it's more of a "huh. neat" or "we need to look into panels for the house" than anything else. so much hope in the little things like that, in seeing the way the world changes when no one is looking.

having governments and activist organizations working for this is making a change, and it's so beautiful and i'm so lucky that i get to be alive to see the world changing for the better. and my area is experiencing unprecedented growth!! and i see so much of that come with solar. there's like, a gas-station style charging station near me. isn't that awesome? i can't wait to see more of it.

That's awesome!! Thank you for sending this in, that really is so full of hope, especially the fact that it's the midwest and it's happening equally across urban, suburban, and rural settings. That's so great to hear.

The renewables revolution isn't going anywhere, and it's because of just what you said: it's cheaper and easier and more profitable. And it's gonna change the world.

[starry-bi-sky]

yall ever think Shen Yuan went through like, internet withdrawal after being transmigrated into Shen Qingqiu? Like, he's canonically a NEET shut-in who did nothing but spend his time online, you can't tell me that for the first week or first few weeks of being SQQ he wasn't twitchy.

Like, reaching instinctively to his pockets for a phone that wasn't there, having an obsessive itch in the back of his mind that he should check and see if X or Y novel or webcomic has updated -- only to realize he can't anymore and being irritated by it. Wanting to go and see if there's new posts about this or that, but again realizing that he can't.

When he's bored or uncomfortable or just feels like wanting to escape he tries to go for his phone to distract himself, but oops! Not there anymore, and now he has to find a new and different way to distract himself from his feelings. And going through system notifications, quests, etc only does so much.

And there's that Tetris Effect too. SQQ makes a mistake while writing and instinctively goes to backspace on it except hey-ho that's not a keyboard and now he just dipped his pinkie into a bottle of ink or on a still-drying letter.

With him scrambling to fix his reputation and learn how to be a peak lord, I think his abrupt cold-turkey from all things internet would just be another straw on the camel's back that he promptly Ignores until it goes away on its own after he acclimates to his new surroundings.

[cinamun]

Previously... | Next

[umbrvx]

a villain’s journey

[strilondism]

matriarch