I’ve noticed that we allow Saturn to reign over us as we allow no planet to reign over us. We ask ourselves and each other, during our Saturn returns or squares or maybe just when Saturn is transiting over an angular house, “What does Saturn want from me?”

I don’t hear this about the other planets much. I never hear “What does the Sun want from me?” or “What does the Moon want from me?” The Moon! We couldn’t care less what she wants from us, if we call it a she. We care about managing the Moon. We care about making sure that she doesn’t get too out of hand or that we don’t allow her to wreck havoc on our weekend plans. We couldn’t care less about appeasing her.

Jupiter is a little different. We ask ourselves what Jupiter will give us and, by asking this question, we ask ourselves what we really want. Jupiter despises Mars, or so we are told. We live in fear of Mars. We are constantly on the look out for him as if he will total our cars or flood our basements if we do not surveil him adequately.

Venus is another slighted one. We must see Venus as the eternally hungry one because I see the most altars for her out of all the planets. And why not? Venus altars are beautiful as other planetary altar might not be. Mercury must be at least a little jealous since the only time we talk about him is during those periods of his retrograde, when he seems to have a vendetta out for our electronics.

In Chinese astrology, the reason why Jupiter returns are so fearsome is because the point opposite Jupiter represents a taisui. Taisuis are not really gods in the western sense of it. They are politicians, sometimes mythological and often times very, very real. Taisuis are not really to be worshipped but to be appeased and, through that appeasement, mocked. Lu Xun talks about how peasants treat the gods, who are like bureaucrats in the sky, either as children or as monsters. They give them candy or they attempt to frighten them away. Peasants don’t want anything to do with the gods.

I have a problem with appeasing Saturn honestly. The Saturn in your chart, that is your fucking Saturn. Tell him what you want and make it very clear that you won’t settle for less. Transiting Saturn? That’s our collective Saturn. What Saturn means is not up to any of us but up to all of us.

The Moon is not here to be managed. The reason why we often think about managing the Moon, and I am guilty of this often, is because the Moon represents our physical bodies. It is hard to think about our physical bodies without wanting to manage a hunger there and a drowsiness here. I mean, there are entire industries built on this, aren’t there? Managing the body?

We often treat Mars as a demise and Venus as a luxury object. We defend ourselves against Mars, which is interesting because Mars has often appeared as an immigrant god. Both the malefics represent the possibility of change but we feel as though we cannot help Saturn. We feel that we can thwart Mars and often attempt to do so, whether he represents our anger or impatience or our hunger. Venus is much easier to materialize, being Venus. To fetishize. Venus is flowers and jewelry and all of the beautiful objects that have more meaning value than use value.

But are these planets really who we think they are? Or, rather, do they become who we say they are?

What would an astrology that trusted the Moon look like? One that does not see Mars as a problem but instead assumes it to know exactly what it is doing, as anger and fear often do? As hunger does? What does an astrology that dematerializes Venus look like? One that looks for Venus not just in our aesthetics but in our codes of being? Because isn’t that the point of aesthetics anyway? To administer a bureaucracy of relationship?

What would an astrology that treated Saturn not as a patriarch in the sky that we can’t help but appease but as a real dom, the kind of dom who appears in kink spaces? A dom with needs but a dom who also makes mistakes, who doesn’t want to hurt you and wants to know exactly what it is that you want so that they do not hurt you? What would happen if we trusted that Saturn understands and believes in pleasure?

It would be an astrology that challenges the Sun. Because, if we think of the Moon as manageable, we often think of the Sun as inevitable. It is too shiny and bright to be tackled. We can’t help who what the Sun does to us. But perhaps we can. Perhaps, through imagination, we are able to challenge the light and the nakedness of the Sun.