‘The Language of the Stars?’ Mary had scoffed. She was convinced Carl scanned bookshops expressly to find the most infuriating titles.
Stella Johnson translates the language of astrology into everyday English, touted the blurb. The author photo bore a striking resemblance to every guileless undergrad in Mary’s Intro to Linguistics, none of them prepared for the complexity of syntactic structure, let alone the exigencies of rational thought.
Mary shoved the offending tome back at her husband.
‘If astrology’s a language,’ she would later demand, ‘who are its native speakers? It’s a pidgin, at best.’
Stella does not ask what a pidgin is. She looks instead to Pluto, transiting her client’s Saturn. A great loss. A world unravelled. This, in the midst of a Chiron return.
‘The stars are silent,’ she replies, as gently as she can.
What Mary hears is this: All languages are silent.
The message burns like a meteor through the inhospitable atmosphere of her mind.
If her late husband were to find a way of reaching her, it would be just like this: a wordless missive interrupting an impossible dialogue. Solid and steady as his own quiet presence. A deep structure that remains unthinkable, unearthed.
Would you like to know more about this story? I discuss it in an Episode 99 of the Structured Visions podcast, ‘Linguistics and astrology.’ You can also sign up to the Grammar for Dreamers newsletter to get monthly updates on the ideas that inspire my work.
Grammar for Dreamers 