Astrology has allowed me to be more accepting of myself

It’s 1 AM on Monday morning and this house party in Marrickville is looking quite grim. Some gatecrasher has decided that the horrendous brown leather couch taking up most of the dance floor is the perfect place to leave their equally horrendous (and now beer-soaked) tweed jacket. In the backyard 8-10 bare chested queer hipsters have decided they’d rather play naked chop suey than slop their way through Mandy’s terrible taste in ‘Japanese Noise’.  It’s both a jungle and a riot, but it’s one that leaves me feeling strangely unfulfilled. I head to the porch to hang out with a group of sad Inner-West comedians who are now coming down from another extremely average MDMA trip. I’m getting comfortable with my tribe, there’s warmth and cigarettes and moth-eaten doggy blankets and I might even might start snoozing off, until someone raises the ever divisive subject of astrology.

Out of nowhere the conversation is in high-gear. Where just seconds ago Jeremy was despondently lamenting the price of Banh Mi, he is now passionately asserting that he is in fact, definitely a Leo. Madge gets her Aries on and begins to contest everyone on everything. Out of nowhere 3 Geminis appear in the doorway. They are lit from behind by the $50 light machine the host bought from DJ Warehouse. The group blisses out. ‘They’re so beautiful.’ The three musketeers are deeply offended, confused but also smitten. In their helpless ego-confusion they run back to the bathroom to butt-fuck each other instead. Sarah tells me her spirit animal is the rhino, which means she has a penchant for food-play. The one who raised the subject, ‘Neo’, sits smugly in the corner finishing her joint and rubbing her clit under the doggy blankets — far from typical Capricorn behaviour.

Again, as at every party I attend, I am left in a situation where I must desperately reconcile the meaningful cultural archetypes I am attached to with the reality of who people really are and what they are really doing. Do my Pisces friends like me? Or do they get kicks out of scrutinising my insecurities? Maybe I should find myself a Scorpio man to dominate me like my Aunt suggested. I wonder if Hugh is still mad at me for stealing his brie. Oh whatever, I concede, it’s probably my rebellious Jupiter in Sagittarius.

Sarah finishes telling the group about her molars, and after a deeply uncomfortable but contemplative silence, Jeremy speaks up about what it was like to incarnate on Earth. He says he remembers what is was like to be a soul, to be in his eternal non-physical perspective. He says he remembers the feeling of diving through the Leo stargate, and the feeling of his chosen astrological planetary aspects locking into place in his energetics as he descended to the surface of the planet.

I just stare at Neo glumly, scanning her now dull pancake face for any sign of confirmation. Is this real? And why would she know the answer? Maybe it’s a reflection of my unmet childhood need for reassurance, or maybe it’s my Sun in Libra. Maybe it’s worth having mystical ways of understanding our personalities, and maybe our dreams and cosmic connections are worth being interested in. But does all this change who we are? Does it change who we think we are? How do we measure these changes? And who can tell me what is real? I get up and move to the kitchen for a glass of water.