Mutable Rejection
A love letter to the weirdness in-between and why it's vital for the health of our collective imagination
I really don’t wanna start this with “so in astrology…”. Using astrological terms can be off-putting. I want to be on-putting to the people who need it so I can activate whatever part is next in your imaginal rube goldberg machine, even if you don’t know astrology.
Whatever, for now let’s go with: in astrology, a way of categorizing things is called quadruplicity or modes. There are 3 modes, like ways of operating, and each one is useful. You may resonate with one more than the other, that’s your natal chart speaking. These 3 modes are:
Cardinal = generates or initiates energy (think fire spark or turning on your computer)
Fixed = maintains or concentrates energy (think stumps that hold up a house, or long distance running)
Mutable = blending or distributing energy (think mixing ingredients together, making cordial or how a caterpillar becomes a butterfly).
(Shout out to Demetra George for some of these adjectives).
These associations come from the seasons and are applied to the signs of the zodiac. There are 4 cardinal signs and they happen at the start of each of the 4 seasons (the astrology I study was founded in places where there are 4 clear seasons). The 4 fixed signs happen in the middle of a season when it is only hot or only cold or only green or only brown. The 4 mutable signs happen at the end, when there are both green and brown leaves on the tree. I’m bored, let’s move on.
Where we fucked up
~~~Our society~~~ (‘our’ is subjective as hell but you get me), is fucking obsessed with the first 2. I see this as the indoctrination of ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’, as algorithms needing a definable niche or else you won’t be promoted, as a disregard for alternate paths, as trend setters and the followers who make it grow, as inconsistency being seen as a moral failing, as the seasons being taught as 4 in climates with 7 of them, as the difficulty to withstand dialectical discomfort and a ravenous clawing for either/or, right/wrong, yes/no and the social consequences of this (detrimental leftist identitarianism, cancel culture). Tiring.
But why? IDK. But I see it astrologically. I see it in the sun and the moon. The 2 lights. The sun is at home in one sign, leo, a fixed sign. The moon is at home in one sign, cancer, a cardinal sign. The sun is a reliable source of light aka god or the soul, and the moon is the temporary reflection and capturing of this light in a “meat suit” aka the body or the matrix or whatever. I wrote about this before. Moral of the story is, the sun / moon dynamic is in everything, across beliefs and contexts. Spiritual study has taught me this. They’re the biggest lights in the sky to us. It makes sense we latched on to them.
This is reflected in the thema mundi, which is an ancient tool that astrologers use to learn astrology. It means natal chart of the world and it’s ‘perfect’ in the spiritual sense. The thema mundi suggests the universe’s ship is driven by a cardinal sign, the one that starts things, creates things, initiates, and its life is sustained by a fixed sign, the one that keeps things going.
So if the sun is fixed, and the moon is cardinal, where does the mutability go? It gets relegated to the shadows and bites us in the ass. It gets stuffed down, locked away, pushed to the edges. Mutability is nuance and context, and sometimes it is too annoying and it ruins the perfect picture.
This is the pervasive rejection of mutability.
Gemini is a mutable sign, the sign of the twins, two at once. In the thema mundi, Gemini is the 12th house. The 12th house is where complexity is relegated to for being too difficult. The 12th house is where we push things away to, out of sight, shoved waaaay down in the unconscious, breathing down our necks and disappearing when we turn around, of shadows and secrets and liminality. It’s the house that’s associated with the period right before birth, where you’re pretty much a person on earth but still kind of in the ether. It’s the house of being here and there. And it’s also the house of ‘bad spirit’, self-undoing, mental illness, hidden enemies, addiction, isolation, prisons and hospitals. It’s everything we avoid out of fear and the consequences of this. Mutability is found here. And when ignored, it, to put it simply, drives us crazy. And it’s boring.
What we can do (and how to make it more fun)
I don’t think we are particularly adept at 12th house things because it is scary to go there. We are scared of being isolated. Mutability is a social risk.
It makes me think of improv. A lot of people take an improv class to help their social anxiety, their fear of social risk. I did this. A core principal of improv is the concept of ‘yes, and’ - “I accept this and I will also add something else because I can”. That’s mutability. Another core principal of improv is to just go with whatever weird thing springs into your head. Even if it’s embarrassing or shameful or scary and you think only you will understand it. That’s the 12th house.
Improv takes guts. And I think its wisdom is useful in combating the side effects of a society primarily guided by cardinality and fixidity. Improv helps us find the secret third thing, the mutability. A lot of people say improv is freeing, exhilarating. I felt this. I think it is because it is scary but you do it anyway. Life (sun, moon) is scary but we do it anyway and embracing mutability means accepting whatever life offers us. The first step is acceptance. The 12th house is also associated with spiritual transcendence, the ultimate ironic freedom, finding divinity in dark places and being changed forever because of it.
Every time a client comes to me with a mutable rising sign or heavy mutable placements, I shake them metaphorically and tell them to stop comparing themselves. You are not meant to be one thing, you are not meant to be the sun or the moon, you are meant to be a disparate creative amorphous mist, a blend of solar and lunar light held in the hermit’s lantern guiding us into the depths of complexity. You are the alchemical goo inside the chrysalis. The Hermit card is associated with Virgo, a mutable sign after all. Thank you for having the guts to be weird. Trust the process. Trust the process. Trust the process. You are forging a path of freedom.
Notes:
In the thema mundi, mutability is also associated with the 6th, 3rd and 9th houses. Makes me think of a fish’s growth being determined by the size of their tank (3rd house) and the tension of wanting to be as big as God (9th house); feeling like a burden for needing help and the burden and burn out of helping (12th, 6th houses). The mutable houses in the thema mundi would be super interesting to explore in relation to the rejection of mutability, especially as they’re cadent, but it’s 3:30pm and i’ve only eaten a protein shake and 2 tim tams today and need more go juice for that lol
Mutable signs are: gemini and virgo ruled by mercury, pisces and sag ruled by jupiter.
Dare I say mutability is divergence, and I have long associated the neurodivergent experience with the 12th house experience… more to come on that mayhaps
timely words from a mutable venus person:
Thanks for reading. Feel free to share what this activated in your rube goldberg machine. Also I changed the name of the newsletter for the sake of creative freedom. Permission slip.Let’s goooo. Oh and thank you to murray Marz mirror’s mercurial rough draft remedy support in getting me writing again.
Yesssss beautifully said 🌀🕯️🌀
staying so tooned <3