Flowers for the Lean Times
On sect and self respect
Hello friends,
I am continually in awe of Portland in spring. Violets and periwinkles have yielded to late spring inflorescence. Roses are in full bloom, their heavy petals bending their limp stalks to the ground. I saw my first St. John’s Wort, a leafy bush topped with bright yellow flowers, the first harbinger of summer.
Lately I have been courted by black elder after only seeing its white counterpart for years. It’s regal mystery continues to unfold for me, even after making an essence of it for Gemini II.
I want to know what it means to extend these delicate flowers past their original debut, well into winter where the land grows brown and the air a misty cold that clings to your skin. What tools of light and beauty can we take with us when things get hard? This is what I ponder in the height of spring.
On the Malefics and Self-Respect
Saturn will be exactly squaring my Mars for the next month and a half and I’ve also been thinking about self-respect. More specifically, I am thinking about the long and arduous process of figuring out who you are and holding both the power and responsibility of that authentic self.
The word “respect” comes from the Latin respectus, meaning “regard, a looking at," or"act of looking back (or often) at one”.1 In a relational sense, to respect another person is to actually see them enough to consider, to regard their point of view. To turn that sight to the self, on the other hand, means to examine one’s own behavior, both owning one’s achievements and accept one’s shortcomings.
Much of my thoughts on self respect have come from Joan Didion’s essay of the same name. Though Didion claims many think of self respect as “a kind of charm against snakes, something that keeps those who have it locked in some unblighted Eden,” or a free ticket out of difficulties, she believes it “concerns instead a separate peace, a private reconciliation”.2 Self-respect, first and foremost, is an internal quality that others may not see even when it’s present.
Outwardly, self-respect manifests as “a certain toughness, a kind of moral nerve; they display what was once called character…the willingness to accept responsibility for one’s own life,” from which, Didion believes, “self-respect springs”.3 Self respect may be achieved by softening— I think of the compassion that is needed for me admit when I am wrong and not flagellate myself for it — but it nonetheless makes one stronger. Compassion literally means “suffering with”: self respect takes work. More specifically, it requires accurately “looking back” at one’s conduct, accepting it, and stolidly facing the consequences.
Those with self respect “know the price of things. If they choose to commit adultery, they do not then go running, in an access of bad conscience, to receive absolution from the wronged parties; nor do they complain unduly of the unfairness, the undeserved embarrassment, of being named corespondent”.4 In other words, a person with self-respect does not expect the laws of cause and effect to bend to exempt them from the natural results of their choices. They don’t do something harmful and brush it off as “that’s not like me”. Well, you did it. It couldn’t be more “you,” than that. But there’s something repressed or not fully expelled when we don’t accept what our actions hath wrought. It reminds me of this image I saw recently:
Put another way, self respect is the understanding “that anything worth having has its price”.5 We do ourselves a disservice when we leave without paying the bill. To lack self respect “is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference”.6 When we do not fully accept our conduct and its price, we are stuck in our patterns of acting out and avoidance, of self-destructive behavior that we dare not claim as our own. By blaming everyone else for your problems we may seemingly protect the image of ourselves but we are also hollowing it out so all that’s left is the surface with nothing left for just us.
Instead, lack of self-respect causes us to both “despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses” and be “in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out—since our self-image is untenable—their false notions of us”.7 To lack self respect makes us both contemptuous of and reliant on other people, without which we wouldn’t even really know who we are. Going back to this idea of self respect as a “private reconciliation,” we now see it as an integration of our values and our weakness, an ownership of all our parts, which also allows us to separate what is our problem and what belongs to others. We may not alway please others. We may not always please ourselves. But by being honest, accepting the chain of events of which we are a part, we can stay aware of our ever-roiling experience, which to me, is a form of love that Mars and Saturn can get behind.
You see, while Mars likes to go fast and act decisively, Saturn likes to take their time and create things with longevity in mind. When these two square each other, like what is currently happening to me, these two impulses counter each other and creative solutions must be found to satisfy both planets. More specifically, I’ve noticed that harsh words or actions said carelessly have longer-ranging consequences. There are moments of hurt or anger on my part that I can no longer shove off to the side but must address directly, regardless of the consequences.
So, if you find Mars and/or Saturn bearing down on you, consider the role of self respect when it comes to actions within your control. Of course not all of them are. Sometimes, we just have shitty, seemingly random issues to deal with. But find the space where your agency can fit and see what self respect can heal or change.
Born by Day or Night: Astrology and Sect
One of the most crucial and neglected part of astrology is sect.
Were you born to the light of day or under the shroud of night? Much is tied up in this duality.
Determining if you have a day chart or night chart is simple.
Identify the Ascendant/Descendant line in your chart. Is your Sun above or below the line?
Those with the Sun above the horizon are day charts and those with the Sun below are night charts.
The first thing sect tells us is if we are more aligned with the Sun or the Moon.Day charts have the Sun as the Luminary of Sect while night charts have the Moon.You are more likely to identify with the sign and qualities of your luminary of sect, so night charts might have an even harder time connected with their Sun signs than day charts.
Your Sun is still important if you’re a night chart and vice versa but, there’s an awkwardness to the luminary out of sect’s activities or a sense that it’s besides the point of your primary path. Austin Coppock likens sect to the day shift vs the night shift.Being born during the day means while the Sun knows the practices and protocols well, the Moon is groggy, perhaps a bit cranky and must learn new rules to operate.
Sect also tell us something about how we move through the world. Think about what happens during the day: people go to the office, shops and restaurants and open, mail is delivered, business and public announcements are made.
Similarly, to be led by the Sun often means you follow a clear path with illuminated steps. There’s more visibility and scrutiny, perhaps, but there’s also the institutional support that comes with aligning with normal working hours.The Sun is the light of spirit and our personal ideals. Holding close to the far-reaching vision is crucial for day charts.
At night, we go home, sleep, go on dates, dance, spend time with our loved ones, smooch, perhaps work on hobbies or unconventional/second jobs.To be led by the Moon is to follow a dimly lit path, with only the next step illuminated. Fellow night charts seem to take the untraveled path out of necessity. They must, in the words of Demetra George, pass their wisdom through “the dark cavern of the body” and sink deeper into matter and particulars to go on their path. They can only take the next step and see where their wandering leads them.
In addition to aligning you with the path of the Sun and the Moon, sect also gives us more crucial information about how the other planets in your chart behave.
Sect Benefics and Malefics
Namely, which benefic is working on your team?
Venus and Jupiter both promise good things, but one’s relationship to them varies based on whether you’re a night or day chart.As the planet of wisdom, justice, wealth and institutional support Jupiter belongs to the day.
The power of Jupiter comes from a broadness of mind that helps us connect with wider systems and communities, receiving the benefits of being a part held within the whole. Venus, on the other hand, deals with intimate, local and sensual pleasures. She belong to the night.
The power of Venus comes from the body, from things that appeal to our personal tastes, that are beautiful and let us have fun for its own sake. The pleasures and gifts of your Benefic of Sect align with your personal journey and contribute to your becoming.
Your Benefic out of sect, on the other hand, Venus for day charts and Jupiter for night charts, is still helpful but in a more tangential, distracting way. I once heard my friend Dira liken your benefic out of sect to living next to a party house and having a thriving social life but being in college and finding these events and bonds distracting from your studies.
In other words, if you find Venus transits lacking the beneficence you have come to expect, it might just be because you’re a day chart or vice versa!
Being a day chart or a night also tells us which parts of our lives will be productively difficult and which will be unfairly, arduously so.
Let me introduce you to your malefic in and out of sect. You may expect Saturn, a cold planet, shrouded in mystery and darkness to align with the night and hot, bright Mars to the day, but the opposite is true. You see, the malefics represent extremes. Mars’s excessive heat is exacerbated by the light of day, like exposing a rash to the Sun. Saturn’s excessive coldness becomes brittler and even more stuck under the night’s chill.
As such, if day charts have a universally harder time with Mars transits while Saturn ca be unnecessarily difficult for night charts.
While a malefic in sect will teach you something productive or yield favorable results when you put in the work, the malefic out of sect is experienced as hard for no good reason. Think of the process of toiling away at an academic paper over many months. The work is grueling, tedious, but you complete it. The malefic in sect will most likely reward your hard work with a good grade. The malefic out of sect may have your computer accidentally delete your paper or give you a teacher who will give you an unfavorable grade simply because they feel like it.
For night charts, Mars provides them with the protection and boundaries to make their way throuh the night’s journey while Saturn’s mysterious whims put seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their path that they can’t seem to get around to easily.
For day charts, Saturn describes the structure and discipline needed to enact their diurnal visions while Mars creates visible enemies and needless conflict. I’ve also noticed Mars transits showing up physical for day charts, particularly through sudden injuries and ailments.
There is power and lessons to be had with either malefic. But just know that if you seem to have an extra hard time with your malefic out of sect, you’re not alone. It’s just their nature <3
Sect and Half-Light: Dusk and Twilight Charts
On one level, determining the sect of a chart is simple: is the Sun above or below the rising degree?
But in practice, some charts are more slippery. For most of a given day, the designations of “day” and “night” are obvious, save, of course, for the sunrise and sunset. During these periods, light and dark share the sky, giving it a dreamy, liminal quality.
As such, people born around these pivotal moments of the day don’t really seem to be wholly day or night charts. You may feel more of a kinship with either sect depending on which side of the horizon your Sun is on, but you may not be able to find as much belonging in your supposed sect as others more firmly in the night or day.
In discussing with my dusk chart friend Brea, they told me that they experience an inherent neutrality with planets of both sects. Neither malefic as more or less difficult. Neither benefic is particularly loud, at least based on whether they’re nocturnal or diurnal. Sect-based timing techniques don’t work as well for her. They recommend techniques like primary directions to iron out one’s exact relationship to the horizon but there is much to be found betwixt and between.
Similarly, Juan Eduard Cirlot writes that the half-light of twilight and dusk “is characterized by lack of definition and ambivalence, and is therefore closely related to the space-symbolism of the Hanged Man or of any object suspended between heaven and earth”.8 Part of being a twilight or dawn chart is to live with this ambivalence, neither fully one place or another.
Think, too, of the difference between being born into emerging light or emerging darkness. A dusk chart has spent the final throes of its labor in the night, but must somehow use this experience in the breaking day. A twilight chart says goodbye to the light that held it in favor it darkness’s opening maw. If you have a half-light chart, see if you relationship to the planets and their sect align with this sequencing.
I love talking about the nuances of sect in readings, where your self and its potential can really come to life. Click the link in my bio to book for June now <3
And finally, a recommendation for the week: Smell a rose. Smell any flower you see really. Say hi. Befriend it. Run away with it. Tell everyone about your love affair or tell no one.
Until next week,
Love,
Chloe
https://www.etymonline.com/word/respect
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Juna Eduard Cirlot, “The Dictionary of Symbols,” p. 836
i love this description of sect! haha my sun is conjunct my MC in the 10H so i feel like a day chart baby for sure 😆