On Sagittarius, From the Road

     I got the pleasure of taking a tiny solo road trip last week, which is a habit I’m working back into my life after the long Covid hiatus from physical travel. I love a good, long drive; just me & Ramona & the road. It often puts my mind into a meditative kind of state, allowing it space to expand on topics outside my usual day to day whirlwind of what needs to be done // made // said.
     This drive in particular, was a perfect capsule for pondering over the idea of perspective. It was such an easy thing to marvel at the differences that can be noticed over the course of 10 miles, 20 miles, 50 miles–how the physical environment we inhabit can shift so drastically in such small increments of space. This was especially highlighted in my encounters with the Sun on this journey–I started an early morning drive in dim, cloudy, misty circumstances, and as I moved across the miles and the expansion of the day, I danced with the sunshine, quickly moving from bright, invigorating light to dark clouds and pouring rain, simply in a matter of miles. The simple truth of where you’re existing in that moment determines whether or not you’re inhabiting the light, & that this fact can be changed so quickly by a change in physical perspective.

    All of which wrapped my noodle brain up into contemplating the Sagittarian archetype, which influences my life so drastically. If you haven’t done any natal chart diving with me, you should know that I am overwhelmingly Sagittarian in my placements. I have a large stellium in the later degrees of Sag that wrap my Rising, Sun, Moon, Mercury, Saturn & Uranus into a little gaggle of strange friends that are all up in each other’s business. It is a double edged sword in many ways, but having the blended energies of all of these placements so wonderfully linked in this sign is something I have come to relish as I’ve gotten older. With me, oftentimes, what you see & hear is what you get–and it can be A LOT!
     Particularly on this drive, I got thinking about the stereotype that so much of what I refer to as “clickbait astrology” gives you about Sagittarius–that Sag is never serious–always flighty & flakey; that Sag will be the character to ghost you; that Sag is the sign that will buy the plane ticket and simply disappear without warning. Mainstream astrology has this stereotype going for Sagittarius that perpetuates this association of a love of travel linked heavily with unrelenting unreliability.
     Which I personally resent, to put it bluntly. LOL

Hold my coffee while I explain my take on that whole vibe.

     For me, Sagittarian energy is all about the matter of perspective. I find the essence of Sagittarius to always be attempting to widen the perspective– a near-constant personal challenge to see what else they can include in the big picture they're staring at. And travel, in all of its forms, can be such an effective way to widen the keyhole we’re peering through.
     And within widening that keyhole, for anyone who might experience a strong perspective change in their existence, you get this very novel feeling of newness. The inner excitement and delight that can come with realizing that everything is not what you thought it was, and that you get a whole new landscape to explore. With any perspective change, I think the ideal situation is that the widened perspective is changing that landscape inside oneself, as well as how you’re viewing & contemplating the outer world–at least that's how I try to process it.

     And here is where I think that flighty, never-serious stereotype arises from--changing one’s physical locale, and in turn one’s physical perspective, results in this novel experience of “the new;” seeing things from a different light, from a different perspective, from a different angle. But, unless you're willing to travel inside and move around the new interior landscape and contemplate the new interior spaces in a new light, in a new perspective, from a new angle, that feeling of “the new” is going to burn out and fade away rather quickly.
     Don’t get me wrong, it’s exhilarating to find yourself in a new place, thinking about your life from a totally new perspective. But if one isn’t taking that new perspective to the inner realms and actively working to let that landscape to be changed too, then the search for “the new” will find you metaphorically or actually buying the ticket and disappearing more often than not.  Without the ongoing interior digging, I feel like that feeling of newness that one is reaching for is where it’s going to stop. And the moment that feeling of newness fades, you’ve got someone looking for the next novel experience–looking to buy the ticket and check out.
     So I think the energy, the archetype of Sagittarius, demands a high level of refreshing one's perspective, for sure, but it requires also re-calibrating the perspective internally as you seek these new places and new vantage points. I think this is the antidote to that stereotypical way of thinking in the realm of Sagittarius, because when you can take that new vantage point into the internal landscape, you’re creating that feeling of newness that then becomes a tool you can call upon when needed. The expansive experience of travel can then be transmuted into a resource that you can fall back upon when the world feels stale and needs a refresh.
     And it isn’t simply physical travel that can conjure this perspective change and populate these new resources–it can be mental travel too; it can be stories and podcasts and books and conversations with people, all of which are just as valid forms of travel as the idea of jetting off to a new location. I think the vital concept is to be conscious of the effort to bring that newness inside one’s self and let it bloom, as opposed to just changing the physical vantage point as soon as you’ve memorized the landmarks.

    By the end of my drive, I found myself renewed by just seeing the physical truth that in some places, the lilacs were still just buds, and in other places the lilacs were fully and magnificently in bloom. And isn’t that the same as the expansive world I’ve got inside of myself–some areas of my life are fully blooming and fragrant, while others are still just tender buds that need to be cared for before I’ll see what they grow into.
     Do you have any placements in Sag/what house of your chart does it rule? Do any of those thoughts and ideas resonate with those parts of your psyche or that area of your life? Let me know, I love a good Sag chat!