The body as a contract with time
At some point, usually while stretching a sore neck that ~absolutely did not hurt~ yesterday, you realize the body is not a forever home.
It’s more like a long-term lease with extremely specific clauses, with no refunds and regular maintenance required.
Welcome to memento mori: remember, you will age. Remember, you will change. Remember, time is not your enemy, but it is definitely your boss.
The goal of this diary entry isn’t to scare you, by the way. The goal here is more to remind you to put yourself first, just through a more unconventional topic than usual.
Astrologically speaking, this realization belongs to Saturn. And Saturn feels the most comfortable in (clipboard in hand, glasses low on its nose) Capricorn.
Capricorn doesn’t sugarcoat, and it doesn’t promise eternal youth. Capricorn simply says:
here are the rules. Let’s see what you do with them during your lifetime.
The body, under Saturn’s watch, becomes a contract with time
Signed at birth and enforced daily.
Saturn rules Knees, joints, backbone, bones in general, spinal muscles, patella, tendons, ligaments, and spleen, the structures in our body that hold us upright and together.
Saturn basically governs what lasts and supports, and what bears weight.
Bones don’t ask if you’re emotionally ready to face gravity; they just do their job, right?
And over time, they remind you (sometimes loudly, though) that everything solid requires care.
Capricorn energy understands this instinctively
It moves through life with an awareness that effort compounds.
So, what you neglect now will invoice you later. Sleep debt, stress fractures, burnout, they’re simply receipts. Saturn never yells, because Saturn documents.
That’s why memento mori isn’t actually morbid here, at least from my POV. It’s actually practical.
Remembering you will die one day pushes prioritization.
Capricorn & Saturn ask together: if your time is finite, what’s worth building with it?
Saturn doesn’t want you to panic about aging, it wants you to take responsibility for being alive!
The body marks time even when the mind pretends otherwise. Knees remember every staircase. The spine catalogs years of posture, labor, and avoidance, and so on.
Capricorn and Saturn store accumulation. Every choice leaves a trace, and every habit becomes architecture.
Saturn gets an unfair reputation as the cosmic killjoy
But Saturn is the reason anything meaningful endures!
Without limits, nothing has shape.
And without time, nothing has value.
The body ages because it is doing something. Living costs something. Saturn simply insists you pay attention, to love yourself more, and to be more mindful of yourself.
Capricorn wisdom is knowing that discipline can be an act of love
Stretching, resting, saying no...
Choosing long-term stability over short-term thrill is the key.
And please don’t mistake these as ‘boring’ choices, because they’re devotional ones.
You are honoring the contract that you signed before you came here. You are acknowledging that the body is not a disposable vehicle but a sacred structure meant to carry you through decades within this lifetime.
Give yourself permission, a poem
Give yourself permission to remember that care is not a reward for productivity.
Give yourself permission to stretch without needing a reason, to rest without justifying it, to drink water like it actually matters—because it does.
Give yourself permission to tend to your body not as a project to perfect, but as a companion that has been keeping time for you this whole while.
Remind yourself to be gentle with your limits.
To be consistent rather than extreme.
To move in ways that feel sustaining, not punishing.
To eat, sleep, breathe, and pause as acts of respect, not indulgence.
To choose consistency over extremes.
To listen when your body whispers, so it doesn’t have to shout.
Memento mori, right? But also, memento vivere!
memento vivere means remember to live.
The body doesn’t betray you with age, simply because it collaborates with time to teach you what truly, genuinely, absolutely matters.
If you decide to work with your clock.
To stand tall in a body that has lived, worked, loved, and endured, and to say (quietly + honestly): I knew this wouldn’t last forever, but I built something real anyway.
That’s the goal of the contract, and that’s the lesson. And Saturn, ever patient, signs off with a nod.
Until the next diary entry,
your astrologer Ang Kay x
