nature's zodiac

The planets all have their signatures. Mars is red, Mercury is fast, Saturn has the rings. But one planet’s signature is in its size. Jupiter is known for being the biggest.

The big buoyant gas giant is found right after Saturn, the planet that represents reality and chronological time. Just beyond reality exists possibility, something real but ‘yet to be’. Someone can say ‘that’s a real possibility’ and such a reality often must be grappled with. Eyes can grow big in the light of new possibilities. One can feel themselves as large with possibility, reaching a new and heightened vantage point on the things around them.

Time has as much to do with imagination as it does minute hands. Every invention that is real in time was once only real in imagination. It takes a committed attitude towards what is possible and often a network of able engineers to bring these ideas into existence. But at their root lies the question: is this possible?

Such a question respects law as much as freedom. The law (something like gravity) establishes a means that enables the free dreamer to dream productively (and invent things like water mills). The inventor is free to confront the known laws and get closer to envisioning something possible that they may then work to bring into existence.

This sequence is as true for the inventor as it is for the individual. The individual, in a very real sense, is the inventor; they both bring things into existence, hopefully for the purpose of bettering life.

To be big in time is to be rich with possibility as well as knowledge. The things we learn, that is, the things we truly learn, become embedded in the body as wisdom. From here, the knowledge is not something memorized but something internalized. We can turn to new problems and use this knowledge in a fresh and spontaneous way, a way that respects the reality of time, which is to say, respects the abundant reality of possibility as well as time’s forward push.

We are natural systems within the larger system of nature. Our cares are what establish inventions worth inventing. This is the essence of life.

When someone is full of life, are they not often brimming with an outlook of possibility or a fresh and spontaneous way of being? Are they not often large with magnanimity and connected to cares that sit high with meaning and perspective rather than the petty concerns that swirl and bite at the ankles.

Is it possible to make room for more possibilities? Is it possible to see your limits as useful means towards bringing something real into existence? If so, you can grow larger in time, and rival the minute hands with your efforts and plans. Jupiter is the planet of faith, and faith steers in the direction of what is possible. Even a sliver of hope can render the impossible to the possible in one’s mind. This is how expressions like “where there’s a will there’s a way” stick around so long. The will in a person connects to the vast upper atmosphere of hope while staying grounded in the natural laws and limits. 

How can you work at being larger in time?

These thoughts were inspired by the ideas of Sara Walker and Lee Cronin whose “Assembly Theory” sees time as an object that is measurable in size.