Talking Parts: Omon Square Quarisson

About the Talking Parts series

Many of us are intrigued by what astrology can tell us about ourselves and others. Looking at an astrological chart through a psychological astrology lens, we can get to know the different parts that make up our personality and come to better understand the tensions and conflicts of our inner world.

Exploring the aspects between planets in our birth chart, as well as their sign and house placements, can give us insight into the quality of interactions between parts of our psyche. Some may get along well and collaborate to bring ease to certain functions or situations (trines and sextiles). Others may deny the existence of one another (oppositions) or sense one another as a direct and dire threat and feel compelled to fight for their lives (squares).

In these fictional short stories, I personify the planets in key aspects in my own chart in order to learn more about myself. I imagine the identities of these players, bring them into dialogue, and explore their fears and desires. Through this investigation of the dynamics between these characters, I invite change in my relationship with my own inner parts. What might I better understand, release, or open into through this process? I can’t wait to find out.

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Image description: an ovular cucamelon, dark green with light green splotches, hangs on a thin stem among leaves and tightly coiled runners.

Omon has always had a fire going and a pot bubbling above the flames. They add things from their own exterior: sweat, snot, blood, and copious amounts of salty tears. They also harvest regularly from within their internal environment, feeding the concoction with the sweet roots of their pain, lush foliage of their longing, pungent berries of their rage, and slippery fruits of their fear.

Omon often longs to forget this cauldron, but the realities of their personhood oblige them to persist in this role: without the simmering receptacle Omon would have no outlet for the decadent crops of their energetic body, which would rot on the vine, building up toxic levels of putrefaction and killing Omon. In order to stay alive Omon must tend, monitor, and cut when the time is right.

Despite their vigilance, the harvest is often overly sweet or excessively bitter. Sometimes the crop is so soft it disintegrates upon handling; other times the result is a rind so tough even the sharpest knife quivers to slice it.

Regardless of quality, all of it gets added to the soup and Omon must live with the extremes of taste and texture. This cyclical process allows them to survive but it also drains them. They wonder what would happen if they just stopped. There have been times when they’ve pushed their limits and let a field of fury or loneliness grow way past its harvest window. Omon has ached to abandon their responsibility, let their insides go wild and out of control and past saving. They have been on the verge, but when the moment has arrived in which the pot is almost scorched bare and they’ve trembled with the buildup inside them, they have faltered in the face of the unknown and whacked down the overgrown crop, weeping in both frustration and relief as they fill the pot to the brim again.

Lately, as a distraction, as an excuse to leave the hearth for a few hours, Omon has been going to pottery classes at the community college. They’ve picked up on the techniques like a good adult learner and made some objects that have received praise from the instructor and generated impressed coos from other people in class.

Their true satisfaction comes from simply gripping, squeezing, and manipulating the clay. Before it’s anything functional or aesthetically pleasing or even legible as the object of anyone’s intentionality. What Omon loves is how the clay feels: solid but malleable, infinitely changeable, forever touchable. They love the suck and glide, the way it squirts through the gaps between each finger. They love the swampy deserty smell of it as it exhibits qualities of both solid and liquid. Their mouth remembers the minerally, gritty smooth texture from the times they’ve sneaked a taste while alone at the back of the workshop.

These sensations and this relationship soothe Omon. Their cauldron may have been near boiling over earlier that day or the contents may have almost evaporated into panicky nothingness, but when they get their hands on clay, grip it tight, feel it ooze through the seams of their clenched fists, Omon relaxes for a few moments. Coming to ceramics class is a reason to bank the fire and allow their decoction to babysit itself for a while so Omon can focus on something else.

The problem is that their attention does wander. Tonight, while the instructor, Dale, demonstrates a new technique and the class is meant to be watching and taking notes, Omon wonders if they perhaps left the flames burning too low. If there are only a few coals still glowing when they arrive home it will require a huge outlay of effort to get the fire going again. If the broth in the pot goes cold they will have no energy source to feed that effort. They’ll end up depleted for days, unable to adequately tend their emotional cropland, setting off a cycle of imbalance and turmoil.

When they realize they’re spiraling into anxious fantasies, Omon drags themself back to the present. They focus on Dale handling the clay and explaining each part of the process. Omon takes in the other students nodding their heads and asking for clarification. One of them has annoyingly held Omon’s interest since the first day of class. The way they talked about their nonacademic studies in art history seemed a little pompous to Omon. But then Omon softened a little hearing them describe their desire to ground their social justice activism in a practice of artmaking that has connected people to the Earth across millennia. Omon felt dizzy with curiosity and irritation as the person continued on, detailing the connections they saw in working with clay and healing our human bodies through intentionality and artfulness. This introduction that went on way too long left Omon rankled, intimidated, and turned on all at the same time. They sensed some of their inner fruit ripen to bursting and felt pissed off that this person was influencing their harvest. Even their name stirred something in Omon and although it felt juvenile they scrawled it into the margin of their notebook: Quarisson.

Image description: a cluster of arugula flower buds - reddish brown pods covered with fine white hairs - protrudes above several opened arugula flowers , each with four white petals veined with black.

Now Omon listens as Quarisson peppers Dale with their cerebral questions. As Dale gets more and more into the conversation their hands no longer demo the technique but wave enthusiastically through the air in accompaniment to their response. Yes, it’s fascinating, Omon admits silently to themself, but have a little self-awareness. Omon huffs in frustration and senses a whole row of crops turning bitter inside them. Dale is now so excited they’re gripping their own forehead and running their fingers through their hair, smearing themself with clay.

Dale laughs when they realize it. “Okay, everyone, enough pontificating. Let’s head to our workstations and give it a try.”

Omon rolls their eyes but shakes it off and approaches the giant slab of clay on the side table where they slice off a fresh hunk to work with. I’m here to enjoy myself, they remind themself. I’m here to focus on me.

Image description: bright red succulent plants grow among brown lichens and sharply-angled tan and grey rocks.

They take a deep breath and settle in at their regular table. As their fingers begin to soften the clay, they feel themself calming. The other students begin working, too, and Dale turns on music, the low notes of a rhythmic guitar track setting a tone of collective focus. Omon sinks into the zone, their hands honing in on their project while their thoughts flow reflectively. They know they can get judgey and angry. They shouldn’t be so critical of others, of Quarisson in particular. Why does this person bug them so much? Quarisson seems so elevated and aligned. It’s alluring and maddening. Omon is a perfectionist but also messy and full of contradictions. Quarisson exudes an air of certainty. The potency of their intelligence fills the entire room. Omon can rarely put their words together so prettily. They’re so emotional and needy. They’re plagued with worries and doubts. They regularly indulge in nasty little fantasies about their own putridity and the ways that other people are secretly hating them.

All of this goes in the pot tonight, Omon chuckles darkly to themself. As the one tasked with tending their inner landscape over a lifetime, Omon has become an expert at gauging the ideal harvest window for the most challenging crops. They wish they weren’t. They yearn for a different way, something less fatiguing, something less painful, even if it could never be completely pain free.

Safe.

The word flashes into their head as they shape the clay and they see the letters that spell the word but also sense the shape and texture and humidity of it, the feel of safe inside their mouth and over their shoulders and within the tunnel behind their lungs where energy flows that Omon has to keep clear of overgrown crops.

How can I make a sculpture of that? they wonder to themself just before Quarisson appears before their work table.

“How did you do that?” Quarisson asks, jutting their chin toward Omon’s hands.

Omon is caught off-guard by Quarisson’s question, not just because they’ve been lost in thought while their hands manipulated the clay, detaching pieces and sculpting them into shapes and scoring and reattaching them in new configurations, but also because they have no idea how they did it, at least not in a way they can readily put into language.

“Um, what do you mean?” Omon stammers. They feel sweat start to drip from their armpits, one of the most inelegant outward signs that an internal crop is nearing its window of ripeness. I should be at the cauldron for this, they think. Why did I think I could spend time away from it?

“The way you have it connected there.” Quarisson gestures to a precarious arch at the top of Omon’s creation. “I’ve been trying to do something like that but I can’t make it stay up.”

Omon’s gaze dips down to really take in their work. “Oh that.”

They acknowledge to themself that it is very pleasing to rake over with their eyes and sense the tensile connections and weights and energies of it. The fact that Quarisson likes it makes Omon’s collarbones tingle. Rows of germinating seeds push through the soil inside their upper chest. The sweat continues to drip.

“It’s kind of like this,” Omon says and begins to demonstrate because words are very far from how they know how to do this.

“I thought this was sculpture for beginners,” Quarisson teases as they watch. “You look like more than a beginner.”

“I started the same day you did back in January,” Omon says, then blushes as they glance up because it feels embarrassing to admit that they’ve noticed Quarisson from the start.

“I know,” says Quarisson with a little half grin. “But you’ve clearly done this before.”

Omon’s face burns. They sense the sweat soaking through the fabric of their shirt.

“I guess, I mean, yes. But I’m not like a real artist or anything.”

“That makes me feel even worse. Dale said someone inquired at the gift shop about purchasing student work and it was because they saw something of yours in the front window.”

I shouldn’t have left the hearth tonight, Omon groans inwardly.

“I’m not trying to sell anything. I’m just doing this for fun.”

“I’m messing with you. I know you don’t have a big head about it. Leave that to me: I make a pinch pot and I think I’m an artistic genius.”

Quarisson laughs and Omon likes how the sound goes with the look of their face: crinkly and uneven and regal and also somehow accessible.

“I mean, I thought your little pot was cute. It would work well as a toothbrush holder.”

Quarisson’s mouth drops open in mock shock. “Okay, I see how it is. Art collectors are clamoring to put your work on display and mine would look good under someone’s medicine cabinet.”

Omon grimaces. They’ve never been good at teasing. They feel like the most literal person on Earth. They wish they could keep up the banter with Quarisson; yes, it’s making them sweat buckets but it’s also making those little seedlings dance in the sudden mist of a sunshower.

“Art collectors need toothbrush holders, too. You know, like, the arty kind.”

Quarisson purses their lips as they pantomime thinking it over. “I can live with that.”

Image description: a split open finger lime rests on a gloved hand. Clusters of pinkish orbs crowd the curved opening in the finger lime.

They flash a playful smile and swish away. Omon lets out a shaky breath. It feels like the sweat has pooled at their waistband. Inside, their fields are flooded. The seedlings under their clavicles unfurl thick leaves. Below their diaphragm a tangle of pumpkin vines pushes out little green golf ball-sized fruits that are already tingeing orange.

Omon knows that with the sudden stimulation the pumpkins’ growth will accelerate exponentially. They’ll be big glowing lanterns within an hour. Omon needs to go home and harvest before they burst open and splatter their seeds all across Omon’s internal landscape. Omon needs to stoke the fire and slosh in their sweat and lug in the pumpkins and process this full cycle that has been generated by one simple conversation with Quarisson. Omon packs up their workstation, knowing that their too muchness can threaten everything. They want to be able to leave the cauldron on occasion, to be out in the world. Next week, they won’t talk to Quarisson or look at them or even think about them. They vow to stay focused on the clay.