Ḥa'amiyah

Ḥa'amiyah accompanies the period from 29 September to 3 October and belongs to the Powers. This symbolic portrait concerns the courage to understand even what disturbs us: destructiveness, violence, conflict and parts of life we would rather ignore.

Your gift is to bring understanding where others see only something to reject. You may be drawn to the reasons behind difficult behaviour, the workings of a fear or the possibilities of a dangerous force. Trying to understand does not mean approving. It means making distinctions, recognising responsibility and finding more thoughtful ways to act.

Enrico Fermi, Mahatma Gandhi, Truman Capote and Elie Wiesel show four directions this search can take. Fermi evokes the understanding of immense energies, open to different uses and carrying serious responsibilities. Gandhi represents confronting violence through non-violence. Capote, with In Cold Blood, brings a close investigation of a murder. Wiesel evokes the task of keeping the memory of the concentration camps alive. What links these examples is the choice not to look away.

The main obstacle is the fear of knowing yourself. You may mistake an unpleasant thought or an aggressive emotion for proof that you are bad. You then hold everything in, try to appear kind and restrained at all times, and constantly watch your reactions. Such rigid calm can make contact with others difficult too: in protecting yourself from judgement, you end up hiding yourself.

You may withdraw, say little about yourself or constantly occupy yourself with respectable tasks to avoid what you feel. You do not have to force yourself to explore overwhelming material alone. The useful step is learning to distinguish an emotion from a choice and a thought from an action. If fear, nightmares or isolation become persistent and limiting, they deserve skilled attention, without being interpreted as a fault or an unfulfilled spiritual duty.

In this portrait, Bluebeard's locked room and the pit from which Joseph is freed are images of something that can be faced and passed through. Understanding a difficult part of yourself need not absorb your whole identity. It can instead broaden your understanding of others and open a way out of conflict.

This ability has applications in research, in medicine with the necessary training, in justice, in discovering talent, in communication and in writing. Graham Greene evokes the thriller, where secrets and tensions become narrative material. The reference to Sting and the name The Police symbolically connects music with the themes of security and exploring the darker side of life.

An interest in security professions can also arise from a desire to understand human passions. For this to remain a strength, however, it must go hand in hand with rules, responsibility and respect for people. Familiarity with evil does not entitle you to reproduce it. Richard III appears as a figure of the possible crossing from understanding darkness to being ruled by it, without treating his historical reputation as a certain explanation of the person.

Money and prestige may interest you less than a compelling investigation. This detachment can support independent work, but does not guarantee income. It is worth attending to the practical conditions that allow you to continue too.

Your direction is to unite curiosity and discernment. When you stop fighting the mere existence of your emotions, you can use them to understand without being governed by them. Work on difficult questions also needs limits, trusted relationships and rest: this allows you to return to everyday life with greater clarity, instead of turning every day into an endless investigation.