by Erik Roth | Nov 19, 2022
The Sun makes its annual pilgrimage into the seasonal / temporal sign of Sagittarius on the 22nd of November, staying in that sign until December 21st. This will take place at 12:20am PST, 3:20am EST with Venus and Mercury also in Sagittarius, less than 10 hours after their conjunction the day before.
The sign of Sagittarius, not the constellation, is the essence of the explorer and seeker archetype. This is the sign that seeks out truth in meaning as a quest. Sagittarius serves spirit and humanity by this seeking, exploring and blazing new trails across the land and elsewhere. The adventures and explorations are intuited through a desire for meaning, rather than the challenge or fame of it. Meaning drives this sign ever onward.
Sagittarius is also a fiery and intuitive sign as well, a restless energy ever exploring the next steps sometimes before even finishing the previous steps.
The Sun’s ingress into Sagittarius means its entering the constellation of the Scorpion. The whole Scorpion resides in the sign of Sagittarius, which also helps inform what Sagittarius is about, especially on a deeper level. Signs and archetypes more personal and intimate for humanity as they are more deeply woven in our psyches. But the constellations and stars play an important role in our consciousness as well.
The Scorpion is one of the more easily recognizable constellations along the ecliptic. It has a snake-like appearance that ends with a curled tail (its stinger). On the front are 3 stars (symbolizing the head and arms/claws) that appear like Orion’s belt. To the left of the head is the bright star Antares, the “heart of the scorpion”. At one time in history, the Scales constellation extended the Scorpion’s claws.
The Scorpion is also the guardian of the Galactic Center (spiritually, the Golden Gate) and has been seen in stories guarding the afterlife or heavens in some way. Sagittarius starts with the head and claws of the Scorpion through it’s tail and stinger and ends at the December Solstice point, marking Zero Capricorn.
An image that comes to mind with this combination of the Scorpion and Sagittarius is an explorer going under an ancient temple searching for lost knowledge and a deeper meaning. It can be seen as a deeper level of exploration, searching for what lies beneath all the way to the gates of infinity.
The Scorpion will begin to be visible again by middle of December, with brighter star Antares coming out about Dec 18th or 19th or so in the early-morning sky before sunrise. When we do see the Scorpion, we’ll be looking at Sagittarius. Over 1,800 years ago, Sagittarius was major part of the Archer constellation (and why it is still called Sagittarius by most people today). But the wobble of the Earth, called “precession” has moved the Earth to show the Scorpion there now.
In this “season” of Sagittarius, the time of venturing out into the wild blue yonder for new discoveries of one’s truth begins. But it is really ongoing in our all of our souls. Jung and Frankl believed that our search for meaning was the most important driving force in human beings. Sagittarius takes this to new heights in its archetypal expression.
It is the quest or journey itself that holds the true meaning, much more than arriving at a specific locale or truth. The journey continues well beyond the truth, be it personal or a collective truth. In that vein, the unhealthy side of Sagittarius is fundamentalism, where an arrival at one truth becomes the ONLY truth. But the journey is ongoing, the trail beckons and the stars call.
With the Sun, Venus and Mercury all is Sagittarius for a couple more weeks and the Sun extending that until Dec 21st, we can see deep into our own journey and the meaning of it. But then we can ask ourselves where will the road go next?