Matthew's Mysticism: Sagittarius Season

Each month, MOBImag brings you Matthew’s Mysticism – astrology from a Black queer astrology embodied artist’s perspective.

Associated with blessing, fortune, good luck, the guru, the master teacher, the philosopher, and the one that does all of this in an effort to bring expansion- Sagittarius season is here to broaden consciousness, and bring us into the illumination of all truths being fragments of a greater, universal truth.

Cults, Christ and Self Inflicted Crucifixion 

 “You tell them. Everyone already thinks I’m a bitch,” were the words told to me by my Sagittarian best friend. We were planning a talent show for our performing arts high school in Cincinnati, Ohio. We had cast the talent and were preparing to tell everyone who had not made the cut our final decision. Kimber had a reputation for being blunt and incredibly forthright. Since we were in the seventh grade she had always had very strong, crystal clear opinions about her immediate surroundings and the world at large. Thus, when it came time to deliver our final decisions regarding the show, she told me to break the news to some of our, perhaps, less than confident peers – many who had already resented her fiercely direct nature. Nevertheless, she was not so concerned, however, with how she was seen, but for the sake of sparing further hurt feelings, she sent me out to break the news. This strong, bold, divine feminine energy housing masculine mutable fire was unafraid to express her truth to anyone, students and teachers alike. I marveled at my Sagittarian best friend’s unapologetic truth-telling nature. 

The resonance I felt, however, was something I unknowingly had already possessed. Albeit hidden within the nuances of my astrological natal chart, which I did not yet know, there was a hidden blunt Sagittarian truth-teller inside of myself. Not being a fully realized adult in life, however, let alone having any astrological knowledge of self, I leaned into my softer Piscean nature that sought to preserve the comfort of others. It was not until my twenties that I was made to face this Sagittarian truth-teller, and that truth began with myself. 

My Lilith is in Sagittarius. What is Lilith in astrology, and who is she historically? Lilith was the woman that existed alongside Adam (not behind him) before Eve’s existence in the bible. As the original first lady of the Garden of Eden made to have dominion over the Earth alongside Adam in the bible, Lilith was mortified upon discovering God’s plan of her being second in command to Adam’s rulership, as opposed to ruling equally alongside him. Enraged and immediately disputing the matter, Lilith voiced her grievance, only to the detriment of her being cast from the garden of Eden. 

As a result, Lilith was not only demonized in biblical history but furthermore, for the sake of perpetuating patriarchal rulership lest women rebel, she was removed from the biblical text altogether. In astrology today, our Lilith sign represents a raw, primal, pre-rational, instinctive, gut knowingness. For example, if one has Lilith in the sign of Gemini; there is a raw, instinctive awareness that people are to be in a community sharing ideas. If one has Lilith in Cancer; there is a raw, instinctive understanding that one must cater to their emotional landscape, and even address/heal ancestral emotional patterns. With a Lilith in Sagittarius; there is a raw, instinctive need to speak one’s truth, and to see oneness in all philosophical “truths.”

Fundamentally, Sagittarius deals with long-distance travel, exploration, experimentation, foreign relations, religion, higher thinking, belief, philosophy – all of these things to discover the truth. In a lower vibrational space, Sagittarian energy will become dogmatic about indoctrinating others with their version of “the truth” – spreading their mutable wildfire of ideologies that only they hold dear. These are the people preaching on the train to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, lest you wake up in hell. However, at its optimal existence, the wise essence of Sagittarian energy sees the oneness of all “truths,” and once it has become enlightened, in its guru, master teacher energy – it delivers the message of this philosophical truth far and wide. 

So, how did I come to be like my best friend in her Sagittarian boldness? Well, it was quite a journey. Picture it: Spring 2017, I am the youngest minister in the Grammy award-winning Bishop Hezekiah Walker’s Love Fellowship Tabernacle Church, located in Brooklyn, New York. After a seven-year stint in the ministry, groomed through the hierarchy of the Pentecostal doctrine of the triune God, I had become learned in dissecting scriptural text. I had opened youth Sundays with fervent and fiery prayers, led workshops for the men’s and youth ministry, faithfully participated in the yearly 21 day fasts, and as a result, I was finally ready to mount the pulpit to unpack the seven last sayings of Jesus for the Good Friday service, the service before Easter, and my biggest public ministry moment to date. I prepared my message on “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Threading multiple biblical texts that unpacked the humanity of Jesus at that moment, I rendered a thoughtful message to the saints. Having come to the church at the tender age of nineteen, a young man in college, twelve hours away from my native home, not knowing quite who I was, this church had given me guidance, structure, and had nourished me in a keen philosophy of the world. My preaching was my thesis, and validation from the community that had nurtured my entrance into young adulthood. After the service, I felt as though I had accomplished a great feat in my spiritual walk. All the years of sacrificing the desires of my flesh, denying the pleasures of the world, walking as upright in the doctrine as I possibly could have led to my finally being recognized. My ego was quenched, and yet I found that my spirit was still incredibly thirsty. 

Weeks after preaching, I found for the first time I had this strong, tempestuous nagging feeling that I required more. This feeling was not new, and in times like this, I was used to calling a personal fast. I figured I needed to surrender to a deeper space of stillness and contentment only found in the solitude of my soul, generally accessed by abstaining from certain foods at times, sometimes all food, music, television, social media – whatever felt necessary. However, the decision to fast only intensified what I felt was a need for more spiritually. These feelings I kept to myself. I figured it was “the enemy seeking to sift me.” I was what the saints called “a defender of the faith.” I couldn’t possibly be tempted out of the walk of salvation. However, after all these years of learning, and all these years of ministering, to the point of finally mounting that pulpit, I was finally questioning if any of this shit was real. I continued to suppress the primal voice of my raw, instinctive Lilith in Sagittarian truth – thinking that perhaps it was just the strictness of my church and that I needed a change of pace after seven years. Thus, I resigned from my position at Love Fellowship and ended up going to another, more liberal church. 

The Rock Church was located in lower Manhattan, run by a charismatic set of twins with colored hair – Bruce and Glen, former designers of Beyonce’s House of Dereon. Needless to say, the church was full of quirky artists, models, musicians, actors, and local Lower East Side residents. I enjoyed my time at the Rock Church and it felt more like “home energy,” especially since I had come from an artistic background. However, that nagging feeling lingered. I had left a more cult-like institution where I had stripped myself of my sexuality, learned to police my way of being to fit standards of a Christian patriarchal norm, and had stopped questioning obvious contradictions that I felt went against my innate critical thinker. I was now attending a more liberal church where there was more space for creative self-expression, and even sexuality didn’t seem to be an issue. However, I still felt there to be this missing piece. Maybe it wasn’t the church I was in, perhaps it was Christianity as an institution and system of thought. Now, this scared the hell out of me. For so long I was discouraged from questioning what I had been taught, lest I entertain thoughts that led me closer to hell. So now, what were these thoughts? 

Now, seven years prior while visiting friends in Los Angeles, and before joining my church and surrendering to the fundamentalist thought, I had picked up a book on astrology and gotten deeply immersed in it during my visit. I recalled learning of the Sun, the Moon, and the Rising signs, and how they were three manifestations of one individual. Suddenly I had this epiphany; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit- three manifestations of one person. And herein laid the mustard seed of my understanding of how all religions, beliefs, or systems of thought blended and held oneness to some degree. In this instance, I felt the slow eradication of my trained dogmatic views that separated and demonized anything that felt foreign to what I was taught to believe to be the ultimate truth. Quickly, I began exploring other systems of thought, other religions, viewing them completely objectively, and no longer with the intent of knowing them to just tear down their validity, to manipulate someone into salvation. But what about the relationships I had formed in the church? What about the religious family members who I had denounced my sexuality to, and told I was now going to marry a woman? What about the friends I had longed distanced myself from because we were living separate lifestyles? As Earth, Wind and Fire said “After the love has gone, everything right was wrong.” It was a moment of fierce, illuminating Sagittarian truth. That Lilith in Sagittarian energy had awakened me. And as a result, I knew I was being called to share my new truth, unapologetically, just like my best friend Kimber had always done in school. I knew some would not like it, nor would they understand. I knew I risked losing an entire community of people. However, I knew my new understanding of oneness had to be shared. When asked why I left the church altogether, I began to have those uncomfortable conversations around my ideas of oneness – it was time to share my Sagittarian truth.