The solar system felt full with a little fewer than 20 people on it. Because I was having fun with the idea, I erased that solar system and made a similar diagram with all the creative projects I was working on.

With these, it made the most sense to make the moons collaborators on the projects, if there were any. I noticed quickly that the projects closest to my heart were ones I worked on alone or felt like I had complete authority over. I have known for a while that I need to work on my collaborative skills, but recognizing how I was pushing collaborative projects away urged me into action.

There were a lot more projects than there had been people. I had almost double as many things I was working on or wanted to work on, but I genuinely felt like I was still balancing them all well. That gave me hope that there really was space for more people in my life even without deprioritizing any innermost relationships.

Confident that the model was now useful, I did yet another solar system to represent my sub-personalities, whom I have named. For this system, moons represented people each sub-personality interacted with. I put a star next to the sub-personalities who wanted more interaction.

This solar system was by far the most complicated. I have a lot of sub-personalities, and many of them have made friends or partners of sub-personalities my girlfriend has. And, about six of the sub-personalities were interested in making new connections.

Still, looking at this map didn’t send me into a state of overwhelm. I was excited that so many sub-personalities were expressing social desires. That gave me a tremendous amount of confidence that I could introduce and balance more people in my life.

I found that I was eager to show my solar system to the people closest to me, both just to bask in a mutual feeling of innermost connection and to create an opportunity to speak love to the people I loved most. However, it became very vulnerable very quickly once I moved out an orbit or two because I worried that people would not appreciate where I put them or would tell me they wished they were closer to me. I was very selective about who I showed the diagram to because it illustrated everything and everyone I cared about and exactly how much I cared about them.

Making Your Own Solar System

The solar system as a concept and model to map out interactions catches like wildfire. My partners both felt intrigued and motivated to make one the same day I made mine, and several of my roommates did a few days later. One of them shared about their solar system orbit designations on Facebook, and then the idea started going viral. I’ve seen ink-based solar systems, solar system collages, black-and-white solar systems, digital solar systems. I’ve seen moons mean every variety of thing. I’ve seen elliptical orbits. Which is all to say that it’s easy to customize the meaning and visuals of your own solar system chart.

When you make a solar system for yourself, I encourage you to think about it like a snapshot of your life right now. Obviously, the orbits could shift at any moment since they gravitate in real time, and they might even change as the direct result of making a solar system. I know mine certainly did.

I definitely understand that solar systems can be incredibly intimate and vulnerable, so we invite you to encode yours and comment with a photo below or tag @intuitive-oracle on Instagram if you would like to share yours!