The Grail
Dear Friend,
I am writing this from the gloom of my attic where rainbow fairy lights twinkle.
I don’t know about you, but after the cocoons of Scorpio, I am ready for the creative heat of Sagittarius.
Sagittarius I feeds our creativity by stoking our desires. The symbol of this atmosphere is The Grail; an elusive object that promises immortality, abundance, and magical powers.
🜁🜃🜂🜄
When I think of the grail, I think of something dazzling, composed of fire and spirit; something magical and yet tangible.
I think of Dorothy’s ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz.
The shoes offer a magical solution to her problem (how to get home from Oz) but they do this by allowing her to step into her intrinsic power.
They are a cultural symbol and a fantasy object.
The grail represents creativity itself – the thing that is both our process and reward.
🜁🜃🜂🜄
Kening Zhu’s illustration is composed of wild fire, rainbows, and unpredictability. Visions forged here have an unimaginable reach.
Austin Coppock describes Sagittarius I as a place where ‘a vision erupts. The ideal self, the half divine hero, appears, composed entirely of spirit-fire. To see it is to be moved by it. It is the shape one’s spirit takes as it enters the mind.’
The generosity of Jupiter combines with the swiftness of Mercury. Wild fires erupt, posts go viral, arrows are loosed from their bows.
T. Susan Chang notes that Temperance, the major arcana card associated with Sagittarius, describes a different kind of bow – ‘to do not with the classic hunting weapon, but with the meteorological phenomenon that is a rainbow.’
She says that, ‘While there is no rainbow explicitly depicted on the Waite-Smith Temperance card, it is there in code. To one side of the Temperance angel, we see a stand of irises - blooms named after Iris, the messenger goddess.’
In Sagittarius I, visions can be cosmic and colourful – seen from afar like wildfires or rainbows – but they can also be filtered through the rose-coloured glasses of fantasy.
The rainbow plant has many Sagittarian features. Its sparkling, iridescent sap entices and traps insects and it is carnivorous – a sharp-toothed weapon like an arrow.
But most of all it ‘requires fire or smoke exposure to chemically condition seeds for germination.’
‘In native Byblis habitats, exposure to fire happens during fast-moving brush fires. The fires are seasonal, but sometimes years go by without them. This means that multiple year’s worth of Byblis seeds can stockpile until a fire finally triggers hundreds or thousands of them to sprout simultaneously.’
Fire-loosed seeds create rainbow plants just waiting to erupt like spirit-fire.
🜁🜃🜂🜄
The Eight of Wands, the card that corresponds to Sagittarius I, is composed of flashes of light, rainbows, wildfires, and ideas that move at the speed of light.
The Eight of Wands pierces us, makes us feel the prick of the arrow, the scent of blood, the thrill of the hunt. It is immediate and it is alive.
It is lightning in the dark. Electricity in the blood.
🜁🜃🜂🜄
If you were to step into your own ruby slippers, where might you go? What intrinsic power might you release?
🜁🜃🜂🜄
🍄 Fruit
Atmospheres now has two live options for each atmosphere: Friday at noon GMT and Sunday at 5pm GMT.
There is also a gift option available for those who would find the cost a barrier to joining.
Find out more here.
🦠 Spores
I have been pondering adding a workshop to Atmospheres for each zodiac season that weaves fairy and folk tales with the decans and contemporary fiction.
𓍊𓍊𓍊 Mycelium
The first season of Labyrinth is coming to a close at the end of this year but you can join again in February next year. It has been transformative for my relationship to art and to group healing. It might be for you too!
I have been fascinated listening to this newly-unlocked episode of the Ordinary Unhappiness podcast about the Thanksgiving holiday.
The episode covers, among other things, ‘the psychic tolls of repression at the level of the individual, the family, and the nation; settler colonialism as a term of political and libidinal economy; primal scenes and screen memories; indigenous activism, counter-memories, and the National Day of Mourning; compulsory identification, difficult recognitions, disidentifications, and the creation of new possibilities.’ Enjoy!
I wish you a week of ruby slippers, spirit-fire, and visions.
Love, LJ