The Tower of Babel story shows people building a tower to remain centralized, to speak a common language, to reach heaven. God was ticked off at their hubris and put a stop to this endeavor by turning their single language into many languages. As a result, the people could no longer understand each other and scattered across the earth.
Toni Morrison suggests what might have happened if they had stayed put:
Perhaps the achievement of Paradise was premature, a little hasty if no one could take the time to understand other languages, other views, other narratives. Had they, the heaven they imagined might have been found at their feet. Complicated, demanding, yes, but a view of heaven as life; not heaven as postlife. (1993 Nobel Prize lecture).
Morrison’s “heaven at our feet” asks us to slow down, but our current moment is engineered for the opposite.
This is what James Hillman meant when he warned of the “monotheism of Hermes that holds us in thrall.” Hermes’ task is to make communication possible with little regard for the content of the messages he delivers. When we prioritize a single, streamlined way of communicating, we lose the “complicated, demanding” beauty of the individual story. This will likely become increasingly acute as Uranus electrifies Gemini until 2033.
Yesterday I heard a bird singing at 5:30 a.m. shortly after a rain shower. I am very familiar with the song of the American robin, having heard it many hundreds of times. But this bird’s cadence was unusual enough that I held up my Merlin Bird ID app to record it and confirm if it actually was a robin. Sure enough it was.
Then I glanced out the window and spotted the robin perched alone on a power line in our backyard; it continued to sing its solo for another 30 minutes. This is Uranus in Gemini—the eccentric, unique breakthrough.
The robin is a reminder to lean into our own unique songs and to “take the time to understand other languages, other views, other narratives.”
If Uranus in Gemini provides the high-voltage electricity for our unique songs, we need a grounded vessel to contain that power. Without a center, the eccentric song is just noise; it needs a place to land. The antidote to the monotheism of Hermes is Hestia, the goddess of hearth and home:
“Hestia brings focus, inwardness, concrete immediacy, and a sense of place as counterbalance to Hermes’ frenetic traveling of digital space. Her presence affords the possibility of dwelling, inhabiting; she is the warmth of the hearth fire that offers the intimacy of being at home in the interiority of psychic space (psychologist and Jungian scholar Michael P. Sipiora, Psychological Citizenship and Democracy: The Political Relevance of Hillman’s Archetypal Psychology).
While we may be stuck living in the shadow of the Tower, we can build a hearth at the base of it. In a world of Hermetic speed, perhaps the most revolutionary (Uranian) thing we can do is stay still and listen. Think of the robin on the power line; it used a tool of global connectivity (Hermes) as a place of local dwelling (Hestia). It transformed a high-voltage wire into a sacred perch, proving that we can be “on the grid” without losing the unique cadence of our own souls.
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Come see me in Chicago on June 25.
I would love to see you in person this summer. On Thursday, June 25 I’ll be at the Jung Institute of Chicago leading a six hour experiential seminar: Living Seasonally With Astrology.
Rather than a dry lecture, this will be an salon-style guided discussion, with props, music, and reflection time. We’ll use the archetypes of Gemini, Cancer, Leo, and Virgo as symbolic mirrors to explore the “living” quality of each season.
- Format: In-person only (no video, just presence).
- Registration: Look for the “Summer Intensive” Thursday session. CEs are available.
Click here for details and to register.
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