Possible themes of this conjunction: aliens; the future’s future; life as a mythological, rather than a logical, event; the Heisenberg Principle; living inside your art; clear framed glasses are ironic if you think about it; regenerating livers like bees at a closed window; the power of the word psychic; the unwritten love story of Grant and Sherman; literally the library; interests in your interests; Reiki for a month; the movie Arrival.
This post arrived in a fugue, as they are wont to do from time to time. These kinds of fugues cause me anxiety, and I hurt until I get all the words out of my body. I once had an entire novel arrive in such a fugue and, prepared for how annoyingly sensitive I sounded, I took at stab at explaining my situation to the author and my advisor Debra Magpie Earling, who, thankfully, totally got it. She said: “Sometimes these ideas come to us collectively like a weather systems. Just know, its lightning will strike more than one person and if you don’t get the story down, someone else probably will.” Just recently I met the other (or at least one of) the people this story struck and we have decided to become writing partners, as both of us have yet to get our inspired pieces completely figured out. I tell you this because the whole scenario is quite, quite, exemplary of Jupiter and Uranus energy.
Anyways, how are we doing? How are we feeling post eclipse? Who needs to stand up for a minute and stretch it out? I would ask how your eclipse was but I can’t bring myself to. Personally, I’ll need a couple of years to process that one.
More about this Jupiter/Uranus conjunction. Jupiter is all about expansion, learning, experiencing the vastness (the uncontainableness!) of reality. Taking that thought a little further, Jupiter is wise to the knowledge that rules are totally made up. When we peer deeply into reality’s fibers, it's Jupiter who lets us know our velocity but restricts our position, so we never limit our minds by thinking we know both. I just used a restriction metaphor to explain expansion, but honestly, it makes sense, yes? Think about Jupiter this way: when people specialize in something they want to pursue: long distance running, music, whatever, they release their time in other facets of their lives that aren’t going to help them grow. Eventually, hopefully, mastery is reached and doors and opportunities open, broadening their experience. Broadening the people, places, and events they have access to.
I like what Richard Tarnas says about Uranus, which is that its archetypal energy is perfectly Promethean. Meaning, Uranus inculcates a future seeing energy. In that way, our Uranian placements can tell us where we are psychically experiencing the world. It’s the area in our charts where we look into an empty room and only see potential. A potential that, acted on, might make us feel like we’ve put ourselves out on a limb. Or, an inescapable rock we’ve become chained to, out in the middle of nowhere, where, an enormous eagle has been sent by the gods to daily ravish our livers. As I write this, I’m now seeing the mythology of the placement of our Uranus as the place where, when we don’t believe in our visions, we painfully toil in addictive loops. My question for you, reader, is: where is your sweet future-glimpsing room? What is its nature? Is it in other people, in your work, in your home? My OG bestie, Tracy, who lives in her art pieces, sees the future in products she craves that have yet to be made. Years and years ago she became obsessed with the idea of clear frames for her prescription glasses. She looked and looked but the problem was, they hadn’t been invented yet. Eventually this fugue struck the right person. Within five years clear frames were every, goddam, where.
My eighth house Uranus sees the future in the future. I became obsessed with astrology and tarot at a time where people were embarrassed on my behalf when I would admit this obsession. But today, it is not uncommon for people to have their sun, moon, and rising signs memorized. When I created this substack three years ago I was terrified to use the word psychic in the title, a word that, for so long, has been associated with creepy-crone-telling-you-unsolicited-details-of-your-imminent-death vibes, but I (slowly, soberly) trust my visions and that the world will eventually catch up to what I understood about psychicness, which is that it is less a definition than it is a process. An evolving process. An intellectually queering process. Oh, the limited, limited intellect.
In my writing consulting work at the university, we have been looking at and exploring artificial intelligence, and I am so grateful because I would have otherwise never played around with it. I love research. Love it like an addict. When I get a research itch *cracks knuckles *rolls eyes in the back of head, it feels phenomenal going down the information rabbit hole. I once spent an entire month researching the (fascinating) relationship between Ulysses S. Grant and William Sherman because their curious bond seemed somehow connected to the novella I was (and still am) writing about the western United States after the civil war. I just reread a draft of this novella-in-progress and I don’t believe I mention either of these men once. Whatever; that research was completely worth the time spent. What an absolute gift, to be obsessed with specific interests. I feel bad for people who don’t enhance their life in this way. If that’s you, take heart; it’s never too late.
During our last staff meeting we were given several prompts to ask the AI platform of our choosing (I chose Gemini) to conduct.
Prompt: Help me brainstorm ideas for a research paper. I will suggest a general topic, then you will ask me questions about my specific interests, then recommend specific topics that match those interests. Wait for question.
I asked Gemini to help me think of topics around the mystical experiences of Saint Teresa and Padre Pio. And what Gemini suggested was so fun to think about (Teresa’s blissful states of union versus Padre Pio’s compassionate suffering), I forgot to move onto the other three prompts. The whole experience left me riveted by AI’s abilities to help me think in different directions. As I write this, I'm realizing I should also go down the Grant/Sherman AI research rabbit hole, to really maximize the difference in researching with AI versus other standard research methods: JStore, google, literally the library, etc. But I would no more ask Google Gemini to write up a paper on Sherman and Grant’s relationship than I would ask a, I don’t know, inexperienced mechanical engineer to read my tarot cards for me. These inquiries require creative direction in order for life to be breathed into them. I digress.
Having had read some AI papers, I don’t personally feel threatened or afraid of the inevitability of artificial intelligence impacting my daily life. Reading what AI cobbles together, to the best of its ability, reminds me of how it feels when a salesperson is using all their best studied “techniques” in order to land a sale. No matter how practiced and masterful their moves, there is something absolutely unnatural about these interactions that is, frankly, repulsive. Repulsive! AI excels in quality and variety of research but lacks rich depth mixed with the particularity of flawed perception. When I tell people I am a writer, many respond that they too believe they are meant to write and do I have any advice? Yes, be interesting. But you can’t teach someone how to be interesting. Further, you have to be interested to be interesting. And a state of intense interest requires focused, Jupitarian expansion and a willingness to go out on a limb with one’s particular Uranian vision that no one else yet sees.
I thought this post was going to be about the month of daily Reiki I have been receiving from my practitioner and friend, Jolee, but here I am four pages in and I’ve unexpectedly made this Jupiter/Uranus conjunction piece about the exceedingly exciting limitations of AI, which is fitting, because that is a succinct metaphor for this conjunction, happening today, although its themes have probably shown up in your life in the last week or two. Perhaps the theme of the conjunction stated even more succinctly would be: the joy of focus, or, uncanny expansion, or, being basic will not keep you safe.
What I will say about the Reiki is that, future future-er that I am, five years ago in an astrology reading I did for Jolee during a hard time in her life, I apparently suggested she learn Reiki, which, incredibly, she did. I don’t even really understand what Reiki is now, so I’m not sure why that suggestion came to me five years ago. Yet, five years later as I trudge through my own hard time, her practice is completely busting me open and saving my life. The situation reminds me of the movie version of Arrival based on Ted Chang’s short piece, “Story of Your Life” from his collection Stories of Your Life. In the film, the aliens’ purpose for coming to earth is to, future knowers that they are, strategically “gift” humans with highly advanced technological information so that, years and years later, when under attack, the humans, now proficient in the exact technology left for them, will come to the aid of the aliens and ultimately save them.
I save Jolee and Jolee saves me. And all this saving shows up as grace. Just total grace and a deeper love and appreciation for all the mundane ways we pretend we aren’t psychic or that we don’t know what the future holds for us. Not that I see what is going to happen all the time. I get it in glimpses. The problem is that I don’t always choose to believe myself and the shame of this disbelief is that instead of preparing myself for my own evolution, I hide. But lately, my head is up and out and I’m feeling pretty good thanks to AI, and Reiki, and Jupiter and Uranus coming together. Today, I’m feeling pretty kingly in myself as a knower of things. Because sometimes, I do know some shit. Sometimes.