Do you hear the wind?
Dear friends,
I’ve been wanting to buy an olive tree for about a year, and this morning I started looking for one again. I found that the Arbequina variety is a little more cold hardy (still not enough for my zone 6 home) and can do well as a house plant. So of course, I looked into some of its requirements: 6-8 hours of direct sun, best placed in an east- or south-facing window. Still, it probably wouldn’t fruit because there aren’t enough hours of sunlight.
deep sigh
Why am I bent on doing this? This isn’t where an olive tree can live and thrive, and though I want this tree as a companion, don’t I want my companions to be as happy as possible? So why would I bring it to this place where it can only be a shadow of its true self with no potential for improvement of conditions? Would I wish that on a friend? On a pet? Absolutely not.
Last month I read the book Essentialism: The disciplined pursuit of less by Greg McKeown. Though it’s a book steeped in capitalism and productivity culture, I’ve found it to contain potent Virgoan medicine. As I separate the wheat from the chaff, the wind that blows away the excess is my essential intent, or the objective that underlies everything else that I’m working (striving?) towards. Mine is to be in deep communion with the human and non-human spirits in my environment. The dream of having an olive tree is carried off on the breeze.
Essentialism has provided me with a toolkit for cutting out the superfluous, which I think is helpful as Jupiter passes through tropical Gemini, playing tag with my Moon, receiving stern looks from my Virgo Mercury. I take on too much, communicate too much, and then am left feeling like not enough. Perhaps that’s why Jupiter is in detriment in Gemini: saying “yes” to so many ideas, but lacking the ability to explore them in full.
The first thing I cut out, as you probably know, was social media. It’s been liberating. Though I’m only two weeks into my break, I already feel like I have room to breathe and pressures to perform have been lifted. I feel like I can explore the topics I’m interested in with more genuine curiosity and less hidden desire to be seen as smart and relevant. And to be quite honest, my focus has been more on my embodied experiences than dusty old books for a while now.
Jupiter’s transits over my personal placements always bring big, uncomfortable (sh)(g)ifts. Last year, it was about my reputation and esteem. This year it seems to be about community, hopes and dreams. You don’t think of one of the fortunes causing you to let go of old dreams, but sometimes growth happens and you can’t hold on any more. Maybe that ambition wasn’t big enough, just a small drop in a now much larger bucket.
I think it’s still too early to say what will change, but I’m definitely in a different place now, my priorities and environments shifting rapidly.
We’ll talk again soon.
Robert