It’s like the Aurora Borealis down the street, lights dancing on the displayer’s trees near my brother-in-law’s house. I pointed them out to O’en the other night, but he remained focused on the ground, sent by the scents — the Aurora Borealis for a dog, I suppose.
Then there’s the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn, which were so near to each other on Monday night, the night of the Steelers-Bengals game, that I worried for a while, until I learned that soon after sunset would be best for seeing Jupiter and Saturn with the naked eye. The Steelers-Bengals was to start later.
Since these planets haven’t been so observably close since 1226, I thought attention ought to be paid. And probably attention ought not to have been paid to the Steelers, who of late have almost disappeared over the horizon, but of course I did.
They say that in ancient times conjunctions such as Saturn and Jupiter’s were considered ill omens — the gods, people thought, were conspiring. But Elle magazine’s astrologer to whom I was referred by Google thinks differently, that this particular astral pas de deux, Jupiter being doughty and Saturn cautious, checking and balancing one another in the house of Aquarius, is a good omen.
The tie was broken in my mind by the fact that Dec. 21 was also the winter solstice: There will be more daylight every day from now on.
A time of rebirth, of renewal, a time to celebrate the arrival of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. In the coming years, the astrologer says, there will be air-sign planet conjunctions, not earth-sign ones. Science and enlightenment will rule.
Then, too, it’s almost Christmas, in Bethlehem, to which the three Magi, following “the Christmas star” — possibly a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn some astronomers think — came bearing gifts for the Christ child.
It’s hard then — with the exception perhaps of the Steelers — not to be hopeful.