In September, I want you to think about loss. I want you to think about shadows. I want you to think about your shadows, in the plural, because you happen to have several of them.

September is that time of the year when the sky starts to get a little darker. Saturn and Jupiter, in Aquarius, are about to lose their retrogrades when the Sun gets further along into Libra. For now, they continue to drift backwards. Midmonth, there’s a pseudo and unaspected reception between Venus and Mars. Two planets that cannot know each other are forced to acknowledge one another.

In Libra season, we celebrate Saturn. We typically think of inheritance as a thing of value but what happens if we inherit loss? If inheriting loss means continuing to mourn, to celebrate, and to remember loss, then does it also mean to perpetuate loss? If loss is a negative, can a thing like it be inherited? Can a negative be sustained?

When I was in the eighth grade, I read a book about shadows. I learned that babies have to learn how to see shadows, that they have to learn how to understand their lack of presence. Babies are surprised when shadows do not behave as objects do. They expect the things that they see to carry a weight and to hold a space.

But shadows are spacious without taking up space. They are weightless and they do not stumble. They make no sounds. They can disappear in a heartbeat and reappear in another but you are never sure if it is the same shadow that reappears. They can and often coexist with other shadows. They can appear to be almost any color depending on the quality of light that they are seen next to but they are, in essence, a lack of color. Shadows are seen where there is contrast but they do not exist. They bind you to the world because they must exist on a surface and cannot untether themselves.

In September, I want you to think about loss. I want you to think about shadows. I want you to think about your shadows, in the plural, because you happen to have several of them.

I once realized, when I was thinking about the ancestors who I know, that there are also ancestors who I do not know. Most of these ancestors are women. It is easier for me to imagine my male ancestors, to name them, and to memorialize them. It is much harder to remember what I do not know.

There is a lot of information out there about how to animate your shadow. There is a yearning to treat the shadow as if it can become a knowable thing but shadows are not knowable. They are an absence of things. To make something known would be to render it as something other than a shadow. There are certain things that you know about your ancestors but there are certain shadows—things that you do not know that continue to follow you around, mimicking your movements as if they know you.

The fall of the Sun is a celebrated event. It is celebrated through Saturn—through the things that bind us to what we cannot know and cannot understand. A fallen Sun is a grieving Sun. It is a Sun that remembers and understands loss. Loss is something that is inherited without being perpetuated.

Virgo

To control something, you must know it and you cannot possibly know everything in the world. There are some things that you can choose to make into your responsibility but there are things that you will never know. To not know something doesn’t mean that you will never respond but that you cannot respond with full agency.

Figure out if you consent to all of your responsibilities. Fall is a subtractive time of the year. You cannot consent to a responsibility if you don’t have all of the knowledge needed to consent. Make room for saying no by knowing what you cannot hold.

Libra

You, like everyone else in the world, are an unknowable thing. You have no idea who you are and who you can become. Stop worrying over whether you are legible or whether senpai will notice you. Start wondering whether there is enough space for your mystery.

Giving space to your mystery looks like never having the right answers, always allowing yourself to change your mind, and giving yourself enough time to fail. Stop living urgently. Give yourself enough time to do things more times than a novice has tried. You might have to go to bed a little earlier for this to happen.

Scorpio

Take an anonymous walk. During this walk, try to get lost. This will be harder than you think it is because you like to have a sense of direction. Wander in one direction until you get tired of it and then wander in another direction. Take strange shortcuts and not main roads. Go until you no longer recognize the place where you are.

Then, introduce yourself to someone. Have a conversation. Talk to someone at the bus stop and ask a random question. Ask someone if they know any good food around you. Eavesdrop on a public conversation between strangers. Find someone to listen to who does not know you.

Sagittarius

What friends do you not know anything about? Maybe you have no idea how the mother of a dear friend acted during their puberty. Maybe you don’t know what kind of kid another friend was in elementary school. Maybe you don’t know why another friend made the choice to move when they did that one year.

The point of noticing all the things that you don’t know about your friendships is not to ask them questions that they don’t want to answer. It’s to remind you that there is still so much space for intimacy to grow even with the people you think you know well. It’s to impress upon you that possibility is not a thing that is found but something that is cultivated through curiosity.

Capricorn

Think about your father’s father’s father. Do you know who that person is? What do you know about them? What don’t you know about them?

Make a list of all of the things that you do not know about this specific person. Maybe you don’t know how they wore their hair, how they dressed, what their favorite food was, and whether they liked keeping cats around. Maybe you don’t know how many years they lived and where. Maybe you don’t know how many siblings they had, whether they got married or not, and how they felt about it. Maybe you don’t know what they looked like and how they felt when they were your exact age.

Aquarius

Do this: turn on a lamp so that you can see your shadow upon the wall. Sit down, observing the outline of your heads and ears, and have a conversation with it. Pretend that the shadow is not you but is the appearance of an ancestor who you have never met and do not know the name of. Have this conversation with your forgotten ancestor and notice the questions that you think to ask of them.

The point of this exercise is so that you find questions that you don’t know the answers to. Resist the urge to research or to ask family members about what you don’t know initially. Feel the weight of not knowing and of not being able to know.

Pisces

If you know too much about someone, then you feel responsible for them. Practice good psychic boundaries by letting people have their secrets. In the same way that you do not owe knowledge to anyone else, no one owes knowledge to you.

Practice saying that you do not want to know what you do not want to know. You do not have to know everything because you cannot control everything. Practice letting friends fight without your input and letting family members have their relationships with each other without having to involve you. You cannot be everything to everyone. You can only be yourself.

Aries

You have no idea what versions of you other people carry in their heads and you don’t care. That is one of the best things about you. Remind yourself that you will never know, truly, what anyone ever thinks of you and that it is not those versions of you that gets to live.

The version of you that gets to live is the version attached to your physical body. You can tend to this body but you will never know all of its secrets. Tend to your aliveness so that you do not forget your body is not a shadow but remember that your body will also never forget its own shadows.

Taurus

Find a time of the day that you do not know. Do you not know the mornings because you are either sleeping or hurried? Do you not know the evenings because you have a television habit during that part of the day? Do you not know the noon times because you are stuck indoors somewhere? Or maybe it is the nights, during which you forget that the world shifts and changes?

Take a walk at a time you usually find yourself indoors. Notice how the Sun beats at noon and what bugs come out at night. Notice whether there is dampness on the leaves or if they are bone dry. Notice if you see a different set of neighbors than you are used to or whether the neighbors you do see have a different appetite for conversation making.

Gemini

Having a crush on someone is also about noticing all of the things that you do not know about that person. Where did they grow up and who were they when they were a teenager? Who do they hang out with and how do they feel about those people? What do they do at night and in the mornings?

Enjoy your crush. Enjoy all of the things that you may not know about someone you like. Enjoy that you yearn to know these things and that you want to cultivate the type of relationship where they are shared. Enjoy the feeling of wanting to know what you do not know.

Cancer

Think about your mother’s mother’s mother. Do you know who that person is? What do you know about them? What don’t you know about them?

Make a list of all of the things that you do not know about this specific person. Maybe you don’t know how they wore their hair, how they dressed, what their favorite food was, and whether they liked keeping cats around. Maybe you don’t know how many years they lived and where. Maybe you don’t know how many siblings they had, whether they got married or not, and how they felt about it. Maybe you don’t know what they looked like and how they felt when they were your exact age.

Leo

Shadows tend to show up more when there is more light, which is one of the oxymoronic things about them. Figure out what you don’t know by starting with what you do. Start with the issue of your birth. List out all of the things that you know to be true about the conditions under which you were born and then notice all of the gaps in your knowledge.

If you don’t know all of the things about what pulled you into this world, then how could you possibly know what you will become? Enjoy not knowing because it gives you space to dream a little. If anything is truly possible, then you will never become the people you are able to predict into being.