The Chains We Keep

October 13, 2023

Image: Rick Owens x Coeval Magazine

Solar Eclipse in Libra 
(October 14, 2023)

Must be the Season of the Witch.

In 1966, Scottish singer and songwriter Donovan wrote

When I look out my window
Many sights to see
And when I look in my window
So many different people to be

By the time I peered into my own ‘window’ as a young person, the multiplicity of people I had become via basic survival was clear as glass. Outcasting the dark parts became a standard practice, as my inner jail piled high with shadow hostages, season by season, year by year. It took an equal amount of years to re-open that cell door and let the spirits free. And truthfully, still not all corners have been graced with light.

Othering is a tale as old as time. 

We do it to ourselves and strangers. We point and stare, we laugh and mock, reject and judge. Sometimes we go as far as violating our own beings and each other’s bodies and abandoning our own deep truths. All this to protect society’s superficial value system and ironically to not be othered ourselves. Are these things really worth the price?

This Saturday, we receive our first eclipse of the fall season, in the sign of Libra. In Tarot, Libra is connected to the Justice card, the XI card of the Tarot (note here that eleven is two ones, a multiplying of self, just saying). For me, this card has always been associated with Karma- the words we choose and decisions we make, and how they impact the future we are all co-creating.

Every eclipse is an opportunity to spend time with our dark parts, and in light of recent world events, also a good time to reconsider what we find impermissible or punishable in others, and for what real reason. 

Turns out the original witches depicted in medieval European art were not costumed broom-riders but in fact naked unruly dames devoid of cloaks, wild and free. Perhaps we can learn from them and become a little more liberated and carefree in releasing outdated judgements from our private exiles.

Accepting each other starts with rescuing our own Other.

So cast your nets... and spells.