8/24/2023
(But) I’m a Virgo, an Associate Producer’s Reflection on Time in a Time of Birthday
I am a Virgo (Virgo sun, Virgo moon, Ares rising) deep into my Saturn Return. Webster’s Dictionary definition of ‘Virgo’ is “a zodiacal constellation on the celestial equator that lies due south of the handle of the Big Dipper and is pictured as a woman holding a spike of grain”. Webster’s also shows recent uses of words “On the Web” and the first for Virgo is: “meanwhile, earth signs—Taurus, Virgo, and Capricorn—are pragmatic, hardworking, and down-to-earth. —Sabrina Talbert, Women's Health, 18 Apr. 2023”.
The whole of my Saturn Return (like anyone born in the early/mid 90s) has taken place over the course of the pandemic. I have moved three times, and moved through more gigs and jobs than I care to admit. I will experience Saturn Returning again in my early 60s and late 90s (B’ezrat Hashem), and I feel about Astrology like my old friend Ben Kerns feels about ghosts: “I don’t believe in them, but I am [also] afraid of them.” This is nearly the exact definition of belief.
We are in Virgo season. A time of creative and communicative abundance. I am thrilled to be producing The Garden again and especially for a Virgo season presentation. A time of creative and communicative abundance is exactly what The Garden is all about. (Technically we’re performing in the cusp time of Virgo, but I’ll count it anyway.) May we bask in this season and not allow it to make us work too hard. “Just because the wind is at your sails does not mean that you must use it.” Or as Kurt Vonnegut writes, quoting his sister Allie, “Just because you’re talented, that doesn’t mean you have to do something with it.”
I am turning 29 years old in early September, which effectively means a couple of things for certain:
I am beginning my 30th year. Because when we turn (or rather, are declared-to-be-turning) 1 year old on our first birthday, we can understand that each year, on our x birthday, we are effectively ending year x, and beginning the next one, or, subsequently, year y. E.g. I am turning 29, which means I have lived for twenty nine rotations around the sun, and am now beginning my thirtieth rotation.
(Photo credit to Raychel Ceciro, Berlin, 2023)
I have completed my twenties. Everyone older than me tells me this is a good thing, that I’ll “LOVE” my 30s. I don’t necessarily disagree but of course to experience the passage of time, especially now, is terrific and terrifying. I write “especially now” because, well, look at the world. I am 29 (30) at the end of the world. But maybe everyone who has ever been 29 (30) has felt this way.
I have really enjoyed my 20s. I will not deign to write about everything I have accomplished in this blog post. For that, you can feel free to check out my cv if you want to read a list of things and events at places I’ve had a hand in. I am really proud to look back on what I’ve accomplished and of course this is balanced with the realities of constant self-comparison to others (read: those who art younger or similarly aged) who have blazed ahead by leaps and bounds. But luckily, at only 29 (30) years young, I know that thought-train is a losing game.
I have been guided by the realizations (given me by others) that:
you can’t fail, you simply adjust your timeline (a gift from Jess)
it is more productive to speak your feelings than live in the false harmony of internal conflict (aka in Talmudic Hebrew as machloket) (a gift from ‘oh boy the balance’ an art collective of which I gratefully am a constituent of)
success is running at your fears (safely) head first (my own idea, but likely derivative)
I’m a Virgo is Boots Riley’s new show on Amazon Prime. It is about a young Black man living in Oakland, CA whose parents have been hiding him away well into his 19th birthday because he is a thirteen-foot tall giant. His name is Cootie. After Cootie is discovered, he makes fast friends with some non-judgemental regular-sized friends his age. When these new regular-sized friends ask Cootie if he wants to go out for his first foray into the world, he thinks (via montage) about all of the things that have been against him, and then says, “Virgos love adventure.” Isn’t it something that these new regular-sized friends accept Cootie implicitly and immediately? Mmmm.
I watched the first episode yesterday (funny enough the first day of Virgo season), so I haven’t seen the whole thing yet. However I highly recommend the show.
(Photo credit to Boots Riley/Amazon Prime
In April, 2019, the Event Horizon Telescope captured the first direct image of a black hole, located in the constellation of Virgo, 55 million light years away. My soul too (and maybe all of ours, though I won’t presume to know all our souls) is a black hole. By this I mean, the soul (I think) contains our creative and empathetic spirits. And just like a black hole, it is bottomless, taking in light (and everything) into its vacuous fisheye lens, holding it, everything, chewing chewing, but never getting any bigger. Just chewing. The heart gets bigger though. As a Virgo, I too also love adventure.
I had always thought, maybe confusedly, that a light year was the length of time it takes light to travel from the sun to my eyes. But why my eyes, specifically? And better yet, if a pound of feathers weighs the same thing as a pound of bricks, shouldn’t the year it takes for the sun to make it to my eyes, be the same length as a year it takes to do anything else? For instance, assembling together a pound of feathers from your journeys abroad. Or a pound of bricks. Or as my dear partner Raychel (also a Virgo) wisely crystallized while giving this post a kindly couple of edits, “a year is a year”. Anyway, a light year is actually a unit of astronomical distance equivalent to the distance that light travels in one year, which is 9.4607 × 1012 km (nearly 6 trillion miles).
Chewing is a practice.
(Photo credit to EHT/NASA)
Here’s to chewing. Here’s to the black holes far away outside of us in Virgo and far away inside of us in Virgo. Here’s to a youth spent on making art, and love, and joy, and adventure. Here’s to beginning my thirtieth (twenty-ninth) year in Virgo season, surrounded by talented and compassionate and giving artists (read: people) who make me better all the time, and who I hope I may be lucky enough to affect similarly.