Carved in the Stars
A skeptic's musings on the zodiac
I like the idea of self-determination— that I alone carry the power to form my human destiny. I balk at the idea of fate, or the thought that my personality might have somehow been shaped by something as simple as the month in which I was born. I cherish the idea of making my own way, of carving the story of my life into stone— chip by chip.
My knee-jerk reaction to astrology is to dismiss it as ridiculous pseudoscience. Horoscope predictions seem as reliable as fortune cookies or a cheap soothsayer from a roadside stand. Even beginning to read an article from a popular woman’s magazine that describes my own astrological sign, the Pieces, I roll my eyes.
Emotional? That makes me scoff. I am one of the least emotional people I know, or at least I like to think I am. But on second thought, being the queen of burying my emotions does not necessarily mean I don’t feel them, does it? Sometimes I feel so much I just shut down, another Pieces trait apparently. When it comes to empathy, I do have a heightened awareness of other people’s feelings. Even if I don’t always know how to respond to them, I’m generally well-tuned to them. So maybe the article is right on for that one as well.
The symbol of Pieces is that of two fish, and Pieces are said to be drawn to the water. To say I love the water would be an understatement. I lived the first five years of my life on a sailboat. I literally learned to swim before I could walk. By the time I was three I could hold my breath and swim the entire length of the pool in one go. To this day, nothing soothes me like water. Even if it is just the sound of babbling creek, or a hot bath, it comforts me.
As I continue to read, I see two more traits that stand out to me: creativity, and a desire to escape reality. Both of those traits are encompassed in my passion for writing. I always attributed my strong imagination to being an only child. I fantasized about worlds and scenarios both real and imaginary, both realistic and wildly fantastical. As I got older and my mind developed, so did the narratives. As soon as I could put a pen to paper, I began to transcribe some of those stories.
For me, writing is not just a hobby. Sometimes it feels like a borderline compulsion. It is as if I have these stories, these words, written on my very bones, itching through my fingertips to make their way onto paper. In the age-old question of nature versus nurture, I have no doubt that my writing ability is in large part due to the nurturing I received in my youth. My parents taught me to read early on and encouraged my literary pursuits. They, along with later teachers and professors, also taught me how to hone the technical craft of writing. The other part though, where the stories themselves come from, sometimes feel as if they are from some deeper place I cannot quite describe. It seems inherent, some aspect of creativity that makes up a piece of who I am.
At our core, each of us as human beings have distinct personalities and traits. We are who we are. A certain amount of that is built into the very fabric of our beings, ingrained in our bodies which are made of ancient stardust. I don’t think I’ll be reading any horoscope predictions any time soon. However, a certain part of me is willing to concede that there might be some link between the human psyche and the cosmic patterns of the universe, that we can’t quite grasp in a scientific way. I don’t believe my future is written in stone, but I do agree that some part of who I am might have been carved in the stars.
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