Half, and Half

Many a pop-starlet was born under the sign of Sagittarius, and though this vocation could not be farther from my life path to date, it is one of the main reasons I have always identified with my sun sign. To be a Sagittarius is to be a performer, whether on the stage of your bedroom floor, or in London’s O2 stadium. Sagittarius has a voice; our challenge is to learn how to use it.

Fast and fiery, passionate and persuasive, we centaurs have a lot to say. We are the archer, and our words are shafts of sound that can wound when we aim them poorly. Perhaps it is best when we share our hearts through song, because we are both sincere and silly. Britney Spears and Cristina Aguilera, two mammoth icons of my teenage days of self-discovery (and slight self-obsession), share my horsey sun sign. Drawing the world in with inuendo and youthful charm, I claimed them as star-sisters as soon as I saw them. In my imagination, the three of us ran free, galloping over beaches with midriffs bared and lilting laughter echoing over the dunes. We would giggle in the face of the consternation we caused, and ride roughshod over the broken-hearted boys we left behind. Sagittarius has a very teenage energy to me, and I suspect I’ll never grow out of it.

Over time, I grew into the more scholarly aspects of the zodiac’s resident philosopher. We Sagittarians aim our bows high, seeking the truth. We are a heady mix of wit and wisdom; you may laugh through our lessons. We are centaurs - mythical creatures combining the animal and the humanistic. We are both wild and stayed, feral and focused. We are often very likeable; irreverent and fun, we can be the life of the party. But there’s a whimsy there that is hard to pin down; our heads float up into the clouds, looking for the arrow we loosed moments before. We like our ideas big; we are, after all, the teacher, the forever-student, the freedom-loving traveller and, occasionally, the bombastic bore.

My sun shines in Sagittarius, but this sign claims many other planets in my natal chart, amplifying its powers and helping me understand them. My Uranus and Neptune, dreamy and rebellious, also hunker down in soul-seeking Sagittarius. Their pull is upwards, out of the here and now and into the stratosphere, the realm of possibility and ideation. Often this makes me quick; I think and act almost simultaneously, carried away on a deluge of insight that descends like a flood from the hole my arrows have ripped in the sky. My Mercury too sits in Sagittarius, spurring me on to share all I see and understand. The speed is heady and fun, but often self-destructive. My brain moves fast, and the fire of my horse in motion can stir combative tendencies that I work hard to quell. Torn between lecturing and provoking laughter, I am sometimes a passionate teacher who fails to instruct.

These various planets show the different faces of our arrow-slinging centaur, but I have actually understood my Sagittarian nature best when it appears in opposition to my Capricorn rising and Taurus moon. The sea-goat and cosmic bull both demand routine, structure and grounding in steady progression towards a goal. As a horse-woman, I float, dream, aspire and fire of wild arrows of wonder into the endless heavens. But as horned beasts of the earth, I crave comfort and ease here on earth. I love Netflix and nightclubs; I swig tequila and cinnamon tea. Social media forms an overlap; the venn diagram of my earth and fire signs meeting over TikTok, Clubhouse and true crime documentaries. It seems simple, but it has taken me years to figure out this puzzle of my preferences. I now understand what sequence I must commence to get out the door in party mode and, helpfully over the last year, how I can lean into my homebody tendencies without tipping over into apathy and despair.

The skies hold many secrets, but none so complex as our own selves, written in our bodies and written in the stars. We are one tiny fleck of light in an expanse both dark as sea-bottom and bright as the sun at high noon. The highs and the lows, the beauty and the pain; all of life’s polarity has been spelled out, star by star. Often I gallop giddily over the clouds at full tilt, all teenage dream; other times I plod over the dry earth as resigned as an intractable bull. This year I have done plenty of both, but I am grateful for the power of my horse legs to fling me from despair to hope. I have leant into my Sagitarrian nature, and it has elevated me. Forever the optimist, to be a Sagittarius is to believe -- in the world as it is written or in the meaning you create.

Whether carried on the voice of a singer in a bralette or written by the hand of a wisened professor, Sagittarius knows the words of inspiration and prayer. These are not so different. We shoot hope into the realm of the angels on the tip of an arrow, aiming high and daring to follow, though we be but human. Sagittarius runs fast and sometimes blind, but trusting always in our power to invent the future with the force of our persuasion.