Star Sign

Hi, everyone,

I’ve never been one to put much weight into horoscopes. I’m not opposed to them. They just weren’t a big deal to anyone who played a significant role in my life in my formative years, and I have found many other ways of understanding the world’s influences on my life that have been more helpful to me. But I will confess that in the last few years, for two quite different reasons, I have thought more about my own zodiac sign than I ever have before.

You see, I’m a Gemini.

“Gemini” means twins in Latin, and for obvious reasons, I’ve been thinking about twins a lot in recent years. In fact, I’ve written about being torn between my children before. Though we have stereotypes of identical twins being (creepily or amusingly) in synch, I can tell you as a parent of twins that this is only very rarely the case. Most of the time, my kids are doing their own thing, and sometimes their own things are vastly different. In a single moment, I may be trying to attend to one child who is crying after a tumble off the couch while also acknowledging the other who is proud of a creation they made. Or I might be trying to respectfully quiet one who is joyfully screaming simply because she loves to scream while also trying to reassure the other who (like me) is upset by all the screaming!

The other reason I’ve been reminded of my zodiac sign recently is the advent of generative AI (Google’s AI assistant is named Gemini). There is perhaps no other entity that is currently causing such mixed and conflicting emotions at such a large scale. AI is undoubtedly astonishing, and many see it as an overall good, as it increases efficiency and makes some things possible that could never happen otherwise. Of course, others see it as dangerous and costly on many levels.

It’s Christmas Eve, the last day of Advent, and I am, true to form, getting my yearly Advent post in just in time (if you’re further west than I currently am!). One of the things I love most about Advent—the four weeks in the Christian calendar preceding Christmas—is that it strikes me as the season that best gets at the essence of the human experience.

Advent acknowledges that life is inherently multifaceted; most of the time, we experience several realities simultaneously. In fact, I suspect that our existence is so complex that regularly contending with multiple simultaneous emotions is the only possible result of paying good attention to our living.

In Advent (in the Northern Hemisphere), lights burn in the midst of long, deep darkness. We wait for something even as we know it has already come because we need it to come again and again and again. We focus on hope, peace, and love in this season precisely because we are desperate for them: we live in a world of greed, injustice, and violence. Like twin toddlers running in opposite directions away from their (overwhelmed) grownup, our attentions—and hearts—are split.

Here are some recent examples from my life:

• At the same time, I am demoralized after grading final projects, some of which were definitely relying on AI (unethically) and I am encouraged by my education students who demonstrate clear passion and ability for making school a place of joyful engagement.  
• At the same time, I grieve for several friends who have lost loved ones recently and I am profoundly amused by the way my children are pronouncing the word marble (“narble”).
• At the same time, I am furious at the ways my country refuses to take care of the poorest and most vulnerable people in our midst and I am in absolute awe of the incredible diversity of plant life on Earth after reading about the Emerald Green Sea Slug in a wonderful book about plants.
• At the same time, I am horrified at the disregard for life in Gaza and I am moved to tears by an interfaith gathering at which participants sang “Silent Night” outside the ICE detention center in Portland, OR.

I can’t choose between these emotions. Advent says I can’t and I shouldn’t.

There are times, though, that the darkness is too great, and it is all we see. That’s part of the complexity of living too. Most people experience it sometime. Some people experience it frequently.

And yet, the Gemini promise of Advent is that if in any given moment, we’re seeing only tears and tumbles, only violence and darkness, we would do well to keep looking; there is more to see.

And Light by which to see it.

 

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and to everyone, peace and light,

Sarah/Mouse