Hudson Valley Astrologer

“Clutter is not just physical stuff. It’s old ideas, toxic relationships, and bad habits” –

Eleanor Brown

The question of clutter has come up, and since I am surrounded by clutter, more clutter than all the debris found between Mars and Jupiter, I ask myself how did all this stuff get here? The clutter in my life, if I am to be honest, seems to just appear mysteriously and with the force and gravity of our second Sun, Jupiter, the Great Beneficent, the one that holds our cosmic pants up, the asteroid belt.

Without the “Good Shepherd,” (Jupiter) I am told by an astronomer friend that some dreaded asteroid would escape its orbit and collide with Earth. While this sounds ominous I wonder if the clutter in my own sphere isn’t as dangerous. What if some of this debris escaped my personal orbit and collided with the neighborhood?

Jupiter (known as Brihaspati or Guru) was revered as the celestial teacher and guide of the gods, symbolizing wisdom and protection. How fascinating that modern science observes Jupiter playing a significant custodial role in the Solar System, cleaning things up as it were. For example, Jupiter deflects and rejects many long-period comets from the Solar System and while bringing stability and order to this region, Jupiter also effects the destabilization of smaller bodies, causing collisions, and increasing the risks that a meteor or even a rogue asteroid might escape the dust bin (the asteroid belt) of our Solar System and strike Earth.

Clutter can be a serious thing at the level of the cosmos, and personally, anything that doesn’t contribute to making life easier, better, or more enjoyable, will take up unnecessary time, energy, or space. In this case, asteroids (“star-like”) are a contrarian example for the need, as a great teacher once taught me, to put each thing in its place. She meant that asteroids are not planets and are a reflection of disorder, of things that are misplaced. Similarly, clutter invites inattention and the meaninglessness that encroaches on us, almost invisibly, like the lessening of light near the fall equinox.

At the risk of sounding cliché, I was going to make a metaphorical connection between war and clutter and it certainly feels that way at times, but I wonder if that doesn’t misplace undo emphasis on Mars and not enough emphasis on Jupiter? Am I highlighting my own inner turmoil? Am I allowing the passionate, emotional chaos of unresolved issues too much sway by ignoring how much “stuff” in my life has been misplaced? If I view clutter as a “war” against my surroundings, what am I fighting for? Ir not fighting for if the clutter is winning? Or is my struggle simply a symbolic representation of a passionate desire to better manage my physical and mental disarray?

If I don’t clean things up, “put each thing in its place” and keep it there, there may be unintended consequences, like opening Pandora’s box. Reestablishing some semblance of order always feels more positive, and hopeful, like when Pandora quickly closed the box again, and trapped hope (Jupiter) inside.

But like “a thief in the night,” clutter is inert, and has the potential to unleash unforeseen consequences, a distraction that is not deflected or rejected and might disrupt the peace. Not tending to orderliness, then, is a symptom of an unsettled mind. Some of us may believe that clutter just magically appears, and we may hope that it might just go away with the wave of a wand, but we need to be more judicious than this. As the final arbiter of our own orbits we need to choose what stays, as well as what goes in our lives. Only one question remains: who decides?

HVA

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