These are spots in your feasts of charity, when they feast with you, feeding themselves without fear: clouds they are without water, carried about of winds; trees whose fruit withereth, without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;

Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. Jude, King James Version, Verse 12-13.

There are only two kinds of people in this world: those who are envious of their neighbours for their lockups groaning with toilet paper, and those who are not … ! This speaks to me not only of the timeless wisdom of social distancing, but also specifically, of the civility practised a while ago in this season by Pontius Pilate, which this year will need to be honed to a fine art by all of us as we learn to self-isolate for a common good decomposing somewhere in the underworld, on and on, and over and over again. Sidereal Pisces it was which got us into this soteriological fix, and the tropical Signs of Aries and Southern Libra have only made it worse. I’m inclined to wash my hands of the whole damn thing!

If you have dreamed yourself safely tucked up in your childhood with a universe of goodness sparkling on the painted window-pane, and awoken none the wiser but richer for the benevolence of the painter’s condolence, then in seeking kindness from the heavens you have probably plotted the Moon’s course among the stars, trusting the rise and fall through phases and seasons of feelings which would otherwise seem to attach to flimsy relationships with others not painted on the pane. Your imagination, like mine, may have entertained the idea that not only time, but the getting of wisdom, might be measurable by synodic cycles equivalent to the adventures that befall a chick on a training flight.

Let divinely-infused faith, hope and charity be not thwarted, but confirmed, by the subjectivity of the Sun and Moon, since in giving selves to celestial bodies, and the animals and plants in our diets we have treated bestially for so long, we might compel our hearts to reconsider self-denial as a denial of the most important element of identity, its appearance. And how can you deny that, unless you do not discriminate at all? It’s not for nothing your underworld Sun sets in your East. For it is only logical that the exclusivity of culture which keeps it together and gives its adherence identity must ultimately succeed in protecting every other culture from its judgment until nothing is interconnected but through blindness. A world of victims is a mortuary, and the selflessness myth its painted pane.

And so let us reconsider the punctuation of the New Moon, initially from the Migrant’s vantage-point. If the Sun were truly the parent and the Moon its chick, both would be observing the Earth as though the Sun were illuminating it from behind the Moon with the express purpose of lighting the way. So beware little chick so accustomed to dependency and unadapted to change: your parent is behind you, and you are about to discover the imperative of flight! When you come back, you will be someone else: parents never tell you that! Get your bearings!

But the Earth spins! And flies faster than I! Context and judgment, cries the disembodied voice no longer behind the Artisan. Watch the passing parade: Scales, Scorpion, Archer, Sea-Goat, Water-Carrier and Fishes. As I stay in Pisces, and you watch your Earth, you will see me in the procession of trolls pass behind it, leaving it quite dark, but there I will be on Tiger Snake Ridge, shining full on your face with activist pride! Now practise your counting: how many Earth rotations to an Earth phase? If you’re clever enough you might go up there one day! This is crazy! Did you have to do this? Of course, beams the Sun through her teeth, the whole world knows how to fly. When in Rome, do as the Romans do.