Sagittarius Season: Rage Against the Dying of the Light

I am a sunflower. Most of my ancestors lived in warm, Mediterranean places, and I feel it in my bones. Literally. Living in the dark and rainy Pacific Northwest, I need to take the highest dose of vitamin D even at the height of summer.

Dark winter days have always been rough for me, but this is the first year I've needed to start my days with light therapy. My body is begging to hibernate, and without light, I can't drag myself out of bed.

While I was waiting for the light to do its work and my brain to come online this morning, I was thinking about Sagittarius. Why does the season that is just before the darkest night of the year belong to a sign ruled by Jupiter?

Jupiter brings faith when we need it the most.

Evolutionary astrologers say that the planets come to the places where they are needed the most. I've always heard that saying in reference to the birth chart, but I suspect that it's relevant to the year, as well.

Jupiter is the planet of faith in life. It rules the times right before the winter solstice and right before the spring equinox. These are two times of the year when we need hope the most.

Just before the winter solstice, it is easy to believe that the days are going to get shorter forever, but then the winter solstice comes, and the days slowly start to get longer. During Pisces season, it's easy to believe that spring will never come, but then Aries season arrives, and spring bursts onto the scene like an action hero.

Sagittarius represents one last chance for redemption.

The returning of the light at the dead of winter: this is the story we tell this time of year. It is a very jupiterian story. I suspect you have heard it many times before.

But there is another side to Jupiter: blind optimism and excess, the belief that growth and expansion can go on forever, that they should go on forever. Jupiter rules the boom in boom-bust cycles. Jupiter is the emperor fiddling for a burning city, one last patch on the tower everyone knows is going to fall, the stock market that roars through a global pandemic.

Foolishness, yes? And yet, every tarot deck needs a Fool. We need to believe that we did everything we could before we extinguish the candles on the winter solstice and accept the darkness.

Sagittarius is the sign of mutable fire. It is the last sign in the fire cycle, the smoldering embers of a camp fire that that warms weary wanderers, the guttering candle that keep students cramming for finals awake, the quiet coals that nurse the brooding thoughts of philosophers.

The last fire sign of the year says: Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

This article began life as a post on Instagram.