16 on the 16th Series: September

Sep 23

Here we are with 12 thoughts on the 23rd. Eh… you win some you don’t complete some, but it doesn’t have to be a loss.

Last week at this time we were in the midst of a Pisces eclipse, and for my 1988 babes, we are experiencing our nodal return. I am new to learning about what the nodes represent in a birth chart and it is hard for me to grasp, but I think that is how it’s meant to be. The South Node represents the things your soul is letting go of, and the North Node is the things your soul is needing to complete in this go round. So for me, I am releasing Virgo and ascending to Pisces. That means getting rid of perfectionism, releasing control and order, and ascending into fantasy, dreamy vibes that are beyond logic. My north node is also in my 10th house of public life and career so looking ahead, I was thinking “Wow! This month’s blog is going to be spectacular! I’m going to have so many thoughts!” And here we are a week late with hardly enough musings. Make what connections you will to that but my only excuse is that I was exhausted last week. It was the 16th, I knew I didn’t have enough thoughts and the stress of making them up seemed too daunting to begin. I considered just skipping it and trying for 32 in October but that seemed crazy. This series is supposed to be an experiment I have conducted with myself and that means I have to be honest with the data. 16 thoughts a month is hard, and consistency has always been hard for me. Virgo season, whether it’s your natal South Node or not, is also hard! You’re not quite in fall but it certainly doesn’t feel like Summer. I always feel like a student learning new lessons, and learning new things is brain consuming and tiring. So, I let myself wallow in that for a week and now I’m here, ready to move forward with the thoughts I had that I didn’t think were good enough to post on the 16th.

I love watching softball in the park on a summer evening. Team sports, especially pick up games, are so communal. I like watching people working together towards a common enjoyment and I wish we could translate that feeling to more in life.
August 16 to September 16 is a long time. A lot changes this time of year, a lot starts, a lot ends, and nothing seems steady. It’s exciting but it also makes me feel really apprehensive to commit to ideas, or plans in general.
Last month, which feels like a million years ago, I presented my thoughts outloud to a group of people at Brooklyn Art Haus. It was very cool to lead a conversation that allowed other people to share their thoughts and notice the similarities and connections between us. I was joined by my friend Matt Pascua and while our focus was mainly the thoughts we’ve had during Mercury Retrograde we discussed a multitude of things. I will most certainly do that again!
What is home? Who really owns a place? I’ve been in my new apartment in Brooklyn for a year now and I think it feels like home. My parents, who have lived in the same house I grew up in, are trying to move and sell their house. I’m feeling a mixture of things because for as long as I can remember I wanted to run away from that house. I wanted to pack up like a waltzing matilda and hop on a train and never return. And that is basically what I did - I moved out when I was 18 and have returned for short stints but I’ve never lived in St. Paul as an adult. It will be weird when they move out and I have to say goodbye to that house.
The North Node moved to Pisces and Saturn is right there, making me feel like I’m not only preparing myself for a test in a subject I’m bad in but there is a stern teacher watching me do it. I am trying to remember that I don’t have to be the best, the only thing I should be is the best learner. And learners mess up a lot, because they’re learning.
I’m reading a cool book about Neanderthals and it makes me so curious about these people. In a lot of ways they were physically very similar to Homo sapiens. They had bigger eyes and a bulging occipital lobe whereas sapiens have a larger frontol lobe and smaller facial features. Also, their larynx was much higher than ours and tongue was shorter. Sapiens have such a long throat and tongue that we can make all sorts of nuanced vowel sounds and cadences with our speech and it’s impacted our culture hugely. Neanderthal’s language and society reflected these differences and they probably used more gesturing and less vocal inflection to communicate but there is no evidence they didn’t have complex language skills. Their brains were larger than ours, afterall! Throughout the last few thousand years Homo sapiens have isolated themselves in the animal world and by learning about these ancient humans I fortunately, feel more connected to what came before me. This book also has a chapter on mitochondrial DNA to track back our lineage to Homo erectes and the potential of “Eve”, the one mother that had some mutations that led to the evolution of Sapiens. The book was explaining the complexity of DNA and how everyone’s is all so unique “unless you have an identical twin” it said. And my Sapien sized eyes rolled back into my larger than neanderthal frontol lobe.
That being said, reading this book and knowing what humans do to the world and to each other makes me not want to be human. But not wanting to be human is some of the most human shit in the world. We have not wanted to be human so much that we have created religion to justify that we are in fact divine and better than human. I had this thought as I was in the grocery store and let me just say - my grocery store plays banger after banger. I don’t know who is in charge of their music but they do a great job. Anyway, the song that was on was “I see your true colors shining through” which made me feel so safe and so human… I turned down the cereal aisle and as I look for the grain that has completely domesticated my entire species and created an entirely new type of society through agriculture the song changed to “I died in your arms tonight” and that I wanted to be less human again.
When one of my egg yolks break I wonder if that’s what me and Erin looked like.

9. I dog sat my bosses dog for a long weekend and I started to try to sniff the city like he did. You get a lot of information that way actually! I passed a very heavy pee smell and then a few feet away was a guy who was standing there and I’m pretty sure it was his pee. I wonder what dogs get from smell other dogs pee, because I could tell a few things from this guys pee and I wanted to be able to decipher all the smells I was getting in. The main thing I knew for sure was that this guy was dehydrated. But there was a distinct smell that stuck with me and I feel like maybe he has an infection or something. Anyway - kinda gross but I have a nose I might as well use it.

10. Walking around with this dog also makes me feel like fool card. This new eclipse cycle also has me feeling like the fool. I’m in charge of myself and other animals but I have no idea what I’m doing ever. I just create the moment and so is everyone else.

11. The other tarot card I’ve been seeing a lot on the street is The chariot. I think this has to do with the closing out of the last eclipse cycle in Aries and Libra. It started in October of 2023 and it has been a loud impactful one, to say the least. I have no idea what exactly is going to go down but it will most certainly involve gathering two opposites and willing them to work together to progress forward. There is clearly a large imbalance that needs to be righted but how can you make peace with an unrelenting fist pounding down on the tipped side of the scales?