It doesn’t take much, yet it takes time. One innocuous moment becomes the chamber of all the deception you’ve put yourself through. It will thud on your chest on a random Tuesday. His toothpaste in his drawer of electronics will suddenly be seen as the abomination that it truly is.

While he drives his vintage Miata, your head will turn to the city, scouting benches and stoops to have The Conversation. The calm moments will feel like walks through a desert—obstacles, almost, to your new life. Yet, you have no interest in striking a quiet room with lightening. So you’ll wait, instead, on bated breath for his final, unendurable offense.

He will lose his temper over a badly peeled egg. You will not break up with him. You will sleep next to him, crying like every ghost does to the view of the Hollywood sign. You’ll hope to wake up with a miraculous, new perspective. Like the one that trapped you in—seemingly—irreversible attachment in the first three months. But misery will score your dreams like a Philip Glass deep-cut. The Etude will thump around in your ear wax. You will grow fiercely impatient of this.

You will rehearse the breakup in your head. First, on your painstaking Taxi rides home from his Beachwood cottage. Then, in a continuous, kaleidoscopic state—merging with breakfast, sex and insipid phone calls. It will never not be on your mind.

The Conversation will happen on some pathetic, triangle of dead grass zoned as a public park.

The Etude will cease.

You will finally hear the ravens and the wrenched lawnmowers. Life is not more beautiful without him, but it returns to you. The thought you’ll have while holding his hand for the last time is: LA has such bad urban planning. You’re not heartless. Three years have slowly emptied you of all of your grief.

A car is honking aggressively outside my apartment. You’re learning with me that the car blocking my narrow neighborhood street is my roommate’s friend’s car.

There are heavy, rapid footsteps in my hallway—hers—approaching the window that faces our street, “I hope that’s not me! Oh shit! Oh shit!" Her soft Russian accent echoes through the vestibule as she slings three, big bags of clothes over her arms. The honking continues. I wonder if it’s him.

I imagine grabbing my untouched copy of BE HERE NOW, stomping downstairs in my neon pink Ugg’s and slamming it against his precious car window.

I don’t have the open-heart of a mystic, clearly, but my rage cannot be felt without doubt. I know it’s a disguise for some elusive struggle I have with myself. One that has been handed off in the night by weary ancestors and made unavoidably present by this breakup. Also their plan, I assume.

Whatever message I have for him, is really for me first and it’s been collecting dust on a bookshelf for the length of this miserable relationship.

The point of being with him was to learn how to break up with him, which is about breaking up with myself. The euphoric break up made an old, lint covered coin reappear. It’s engraved with a message: we are not really separate.

You blink and you are in the public bathroom of APORIA. Separate flesh. Separate histories. The meeting. The end. It seems like you and him are different. It seems like he did something to you and you have many feelings about it. You will catch the glimpse of a strange, unnatural reflection in the mirror. It will be you on a mountain. Not with him, but with some shapeless shame-pain-blame-thing.

Shapelessness is much harder to work with. It is much easier to give your controlling boyfriend temporary agency over it. It is much easier to feel woefully blocked, which is really just a form of arrogance. What if it was your beautiful life and not his extrinsic anger that put some age on your skin?

Even his anger belongs in your beautiful life and your beautiful life belongs in your skin. But some mysterious horn will blare loudly about the smell of a leash. Birds will scatter ominously through the mountain sky. There won’t be a holy man, just some devil who got his hands on a sacred trumpet.

Even in his absence, you are tempted to believe that it was because of him that you suffered.

You remember life before him, and life now and laugh.

How untrue.

Be perfect. Like the statues. Like the young girls. Like the piano. Like the pastures of Northern Italy. Like that house in Architectural Digest. Like the dresses in the vintage Balenciaga archive. Like the ancient Mesopotamian amulets. Like the heartbreaking words of that dead, shit-head poet. Like the coiled parts of a baby vine. Like my mother’s big, adoring hands. I am actually so sad. I am actually so fed up. I am actually so fallen apart.

Do not lock eyes with misery. I met it at Du-Pars on Fairfax when I was sixteen. There were five dollars in cash on the table for a twenty dollar meal. The boy I ate burgers with ran off and the cops were called. I was on a lot of Xanax. An adult paid off the balance and the rest of the night was the worst of my life. I am sad about it, I still am. Like I am sad about any girl in the news. Most girls in the news have had bad things happen to them. Our miserable eyes see nightfall as the last vestige of ordinary life. There will be a big explosion one day and the night will disappear too. But right now, I am a lucky bitch with a past and a running mind.

There’s a home, a family, a body. The street is just downstairs. My lover is in Inglewood making beats. The ocean is West. The mountains are East. There are gluten-free cinnamon buns in a bakery off Beverly Blvd. Honestly, there are better ones at the Hollywood farmers market, which I’ll go to next Sunday.

Sometimes I think I’m evil, because I’m tearing that shit apart when I close my eyes. Spitting and hissing and shitting all over everything. Buying my cinnamon bun. Taking my clothes off. Signing every petition every fucker there is trying to get me to sign. AND STOMPING AWAY ONTO ONCOMING TRAFFIC.

Traffic is a good place for something to die. It will die as fast as a flashing north-bound middle finger. If you are an obsessive maniac you might stalk the man who cursed you and forget about your funeral. Follow him down every street he turns. But the air will start to cohere into some strange, seductive shape. Is that…the most beautiful woman in the world? Behind that tree on Cochran ave? She’s vaping near the donut store where the pigeons shit. WAIT, THERE HE IS. He parked his car by your favorite cafe that just re-opened. Can you really kill a man in front of a place that serves macro-biotic bowls?

Ugh. Life is so empty without your girl. You need to sleep, you’re hallucinating. Come, there is a special place called the Missy Market. It’s ungooglable, but it’s an industry term allll the girls know about. Every day that you wake up, you are an inch closer to those glass doors. There is a banner and a team waiting to manage you. They are biting their nails in anticipation till you become the most perfectly ambiguous woman anywhere from 45-65 years old, so they can sell America the #1 dentist recommended toothpaste! But first you need veneers and a facelift.

They don’t know that in your twenties you contemplated getting top surgery to become a boy. They might think that’s really funny. You should tell them, so you have conversations to replay as you lay in your bunk bed. Occasionally, you will dream of her. They will pay you $40,000. It won’t matter. You’re just a Missy. When your contract is up, you’ll get to be a boy. Thank heavens.

The push and pull will leave the earth like a forbidden fire! Time is also a room, many beings rejoice there. Don’t ever forget how good time was to you, all of you. In the end, there will only be one, crawling on hands and knees into the hole in the Earth. Then only two things will exist. What was endured and what was enjoyed.

I’m starting the month with an intention to make a sugar jar because I want a novel experience. A sugar jar is a luck spell, I’ll tell you about it later. My brain has been running in the same circle for a long time. And even though a great mentor told me that sometimes the medicine is in the circle, I want to step out. I’ll loop Memories of Green by Vangelis—enclosed, at the very least, within a protective sonic circle—as I venture impulsively into the realms of magic. You can listen with me:

It’s April Fool’s Day. The Fool is technically the first, but unmarked, card of the major arcana in the tarot. And it’s Aries season, the first sign of the zodiac. Both are about the beginning. Play time. Magic time. Birth time…all of it is very messy. Being born is not neat or clean. There are no rules. There aren’t even words. Guttural sounds. Pitchy laughs. Crying. Hiccups.

When babies talk, we are left with a lot to decipher. Some things are more straightforward, others are a complete mystery. Babies make the language barrier an emergency. It’s very easy to panic. But Aries leads into Taurus, a sign that’s very hard to move or influence. Taurus will be our anchor this month, because there’s a bit of a tantrum in the sky.

Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Neptune, and Chiron, along with the sun and new moon, will all be in Aries this season. Mars rules Aries, which means it’s the host of the talk show. Mars will square Jupiter and conjoin Neptune and Saturn. Mars tears you open, Jupiter puts a wish in your throat, Neptune gives you weak limbs, and Saturn creates untimely traffic. That’s kind of like having your water break. The moments before something new comes are not easy or painless.

The Libra full moon is squaring Jupiter in Cancer. Big memories are hard to carry. Getting stuck with a couch against a treacherous flight of stairs requires some problem solving. The past is not always a thin, precious petal. Sometimes it’s your grandmother’s vintage futon. Yet, it seems like the past can save us—those Memories of Green, better times, especially when the present feels like an assault.

Even though Jupiter exalts in Cancer, it’s tipping the scales in the direction of nostalgia, a place that’s not real. There is discomfort in the sky, and the two benefics, Jupiter and Venus, are trying to provide emotional and material comfort. But the Libra full moon is not interested in heavy relics. It yaps about snowflakes and feathers and other things that float weightlessly through the sky.

Venus, the dispositor of the lunation, is sitting in its embodied home of Taurus and squaring Pluto. Taurus likes sweet things. Pluto will never return what he’s taken. He hoards death like a poet hoards sadness. We know the dead need an afterlife and sadness finds its home in the obscure, so what is the purpose in all that you attract and obsess over?

Obsession does not have a stomach—so you can eat without getting full. Venus in Taurus loves to eat. Having no stomach means having no gut feelings, no awareness. Write down your obsession over and over and over again until it makes you sick. Seriously, do it until you can’t. Physicalize the intensity of your mental compulsions. Make them conscious and unbearable. Un-cling to tap in. Magic can pour like sap from a tree. Life presses out of holes, so stop filling them with unnecessary things.

Make a sugar jar instead. It has sugar, water, and a wish. Or ten wishes. You put it by a window so the sunlight and moonlight can touch it. Every day you shake it and think about your wishes. After seven days you pour it into the ocean. This can be a nice thing to do while Jupiter is in Cancer and Venus is in Taurus and the rest of the planets scream. I think the best time to start something like this is in a waxing moon phase, after the Aries new moon on the 17th.

The Aries new moon is a tricky one, because Mars, the dispositor, will be very close to Saturn. These planets have competing interests. Mars wants it now, Saturn says later. A push/pull means we need more clarity. That’s why it’s okay to put a lot of wishes in the jar. We want a lot of things, but one path isn’t meant for all of them. It’s important to give yourself a place to start and trust that the other things you want will emerge or fade in ways you are not yet able to imagine.

The direct motion of every planet during Aries season means now is a really good time to do whatever it is you’re afraid will make you the outcast. It’s an excellent time to stand out. Be the sore thumb. The black sheep. The wild card. What other idiom am I missing? Astrologers are very excited about the sky sans retrogrades. In May, Pluto will retrograde again. Before then, it could be good to think about what you want to set in motion, what journey you want to begin. Do the thing the Fool does. Once he starts, he’ll meet inevitable hurdles, which you could equate to retrogrades or Saturn and Mars being conjunct or whatever else. There will be rain and dead-ends—they always remind the Fool what he started, and why.

Below I have some rituals for April that might help you harmonize with the April weather.

• Aries: The Ritual of the Feral Tongue

• Taurus: The Ritual of Becoming a Flower

• Gemini: The Ritual of the Forgotten Fruit

• Cancer: The Ritual of Good Company

• Leo: The Ritual of the Missing Link

• Virgo: The Ritual of the Fake Funeral

• Libra: The Ritual of Other People’s Pockets

• Scorpio: The Ritual of the Teleporting Fingerprint

• Sagittarius: The Ritual of Wiggling

• Capricorn: The Ritual of the Nocturnal Revolution

• Aquarius: The Ritual of the Secret Lot

• Pisces: The Ritual of the Feeling Wallet

I have short and sweet horoscopes that are not paywalled on my IG, but I put a lot of time into the more detailed ones below, so I hope you enjoy them!

Aries rising

I want you to go into a kitchen, or any place where a fire happens, and unleash your words. Say everything you want to say so you don’t put your foot in your mouth elsewhere. Or maybe put your foot in your mouth, if you’re in a fetishy mood. I want you to call this The Ritual of the Feral Tongue. Mercury, the communication planet, will be in Aries in your first house. Mars, the warrior, is the dispositor of Mercury. Give yourself something to fight through.

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The solar eclipse occurred on a new moon, and new moons are about beginnings. While the lunar eclipse occurs on a full moon, and full moons are like bathtubs with water spilling out. A full moon is also about the beginning of an ending, like a climax, which is really just a more chic word for orgasm.

Since fall of 2024, our eclipses have occurred on the Pisces/Virgo axis. We’re involved with these signs because this is where the lunar nodes currently sit. The lunar nodes are points where the moon and sun’s paths around Earth intersect. When the moon or sun reach these points, their light gets swallowed, or eclipsed.

The north node is like a jaw, and the south node is like a pelvis. We take things in with one, and eliminate waste with the other. (The north node is said to exalt in Taurus, which is the sign of the mouth, and the south node is said to exalt in Scorpio, which is the sign of our genitals). When the moon, the planet of nurture and needs, comes together with the south node, which discards it, a kind of anemic vibe occurs. With the purifying energy of Virgo, imagine that the lunar eclipse is like a fasting monk.

With Pisces and Virgo, we are treading the fine line between delusion and divination. Virgo is all about hygiene, analysis, and order—the priestess translating calls from the gods and goddesses to the kings and queens—with its ear pressed against Pisces’ mysteries. Its routines and rituals are, therefore, not to be messed with. The north node in dreamy Pisces can also stir confusion. Consider where there might be excess in your life, perhaps a delusional wish, addiction, or escape door you keep running to.

But the two signs don’t make a bad team. Pisces will put on your favorite song and lip-sync in a strange made-up accent, and Virgo will start disinfecting surfaces. These are not two different people; you can be both, at the same time.

Aries rising

Everyone agrees that you need a time out, but you don’t have to wear a dunce hat in the corner. You can simply spend an extra 10 minutes in bed before starting your day. Commit to the non-event. Pause more. Act less. That said, it wouldn’t be an Aries reading without some Martian matter demanding your energy: A conflict will resolve, helping you refine the way you move through the world. And at the end of the month, you can dance and celebrate!

Taurus rising

This is a good month to stick to your own rhythm and stay out of other people’s business. Friend drama may pull you in, so use your compass. Ask yourself, Is this a distraction? Or will neglect lead to a messier crime scene? A profound creative flow will be reached, so put fuel in your tank—you have a window for divine inspiration. Even the confusing, messy bits can go on the mood board.

Gemini rising

Well, that cord is finally getting cut. As unending as some troubles may seem, they always eventually come to a close. Although endings may be sad, they lay down a new foundation, especially in your private life. Your professional world, however, remains less clear. Watch out for distractions, positive or negative. Glitter and tar are hard to wash off.

Cancer rising

You’re being given more and more reasons to celebrate! We love seeing you out in the world, so keep showing us what you’re made of. Big, larger-than-life feelings are here, though behind closed doors, bad spells may unravel. Use this month to refine your routines. Say no to that extra drink, keep rosemary and salt in your pocket, revisit an old creative idea—it could bring a career payoff down the line.

Leo rising

The boundary between you and someone else feels blurry right now. Sharing can be deeply gratifying, but it can also create confusion. What belongs to you, and what belongs to them? These edges are more like blobs, but this month asks you to refine your values and get clear on your expenditures. Debts weigh heavily, keeping you tied up. Still, sometimes you can’t be bothered to untangle the headphones, especially if the music still sounds kinda good.

Virgo rising

Something that has long been part of your identity is no longer there. What does it feel like to look in the mirror and see this strange, new version of yourself? New experiences will fill in the gaps, and before long, your reflection will feel familiar again. It may be time to face feelings you’ve kept buried too: Relationships offer a mirror for deep, uncomfortable reflection, but don’t get lost in ruminating.Your wildest dreams are coming true, while an undeniable hollowness makes itself present. Every emotion gets pulled to the surface, like a good movie.

Libra rising

It’s not fun to swim through molasses. You might daydream about a better time to tackle the hard work ahead, but the time is now. The effort may leave you tired—that’s part of the ebb and flow. The work is silent, unrewarded, or entirely internal, yet the chance to shine and grow is still here, and I’m not just saying this to make you feel better. You are more relatable than you think, so let the world peek into your bubble.

Scorpio rising

Are you really ready for that big, exciting thing on the horizon? Maybe you need a little more refinement, organization, and fact-checking before you strut toward your dreams in five-inch heels; but don’t kick them off just yet, because this month asks you to indulge in the art of flirtation. A crush can heal the soul by turning you into a carefree school kid. And while you may not marry Sam from fourth grade, some light-hearted play might remind you who you truly are in this strange, distorted world.

Sagittarius rising

It is time to confront the ghost in your house. It may knock things over to get your attention, but that is no reason to fear it; it simply has no other way to communicate. As confusing as home matters may feel, meaningful insights will come through if you allow them, hopefully guiding you toward a much needed reset. Something you have put into the world has gained traction. Now it is time to balance your achievements with spiritual groundskeeping.

Capricorn rising

Sometimes our beliefs sit at the root of our problems. This month asks you to shift your perspective, whether you feel ready or not. It won’t be an enlightening epiphany; it’s more like when a friend drags you on a long, treacherous hike and you don’t have the right shoes on. But once you reach the summit, the view is life changing. Your routines may get interrupted, so try to go with the flow.

Aquarius rising

There’s a big ball of hemp string I’m always unraveling when wrapping birthday presents. Loops hang everywhere, and I never know where the thread begins or ends, so I cut in random spots and hope I have enough for the box. Life’s demands aren’t always handled neatly, and sometimes trying to confront them only creates more mess. This month gives you the chance to sort through your entanglements and finally clean up.

Pisces rising

Maybe hold off on the impulsive haircut? It’s wiser to experiment with something less permanent, like clothes or nail art. I’m all for self-expression, but this month carries a higher chance of regret. You are ready for a fresh start, just don’t dive in before testing the waters. Relationships may be closing or shifting into new chapters. The real question is whether everyone involved is truly on the same page.

The Leo full moon is an outburst. It’s the song of a wild animal. Leo is ruled by the sun and the sun reveals what the night obscures. It’s honest and clear. It doesn’t mislead the senses. It provokes an allergy to confusion and inspires undeniable feelings. There is no need for a complicated adventure. Leo spots the whereabouts of truth and sense within itself. The mind is not madly expended, nor is the body excessively indulged. The soul rests, which means the soul laughs and eats. Abstractions will starve and bore us, so let’s make things very clear…

What do you give a shit about? What do you open your mouth for? Why do you get out of bed every day? Treasure and share the wilderness of your heart. Tell us about the glue that tacks the mind to the body to the soul. And if anything has severed these parts from each other, make war against it. Be brave in the face of ghosts and distortions. Do not let them exile knowledge from the heart. The Leo moon can be a passionate kiss or a mouth full of dangerous teeth. Anything you want it to be, really, as long as it’s a successful encounter with fear.

Later, on February 17, we will see a solar eclipse in Aquarius, the polarity of Leo. The eclipse is intense because it is about getting swallowed. There is a Hindu story about Lord Vishnu, the supreme preserver, cutting a defiant demon named Svarbhanu into two parts after he stole the nectar of immortality, drunk on the promise of power. These parts became Rahu, the head, and Ketu, the body. Rahu and Ketu mark two points along the moon’s orbit that intersect the plane of the Earth’s orbit around the sun. When the sun passes these points, it temporarily disappears, giving us solar eclipses. Rahu and Ketu oppose the will of the divine, so the closer the sun and/or moon move toward them, the more they struggle for power and light. On a solar eclipse, the moon is new, and new moons are about fresh starts. Put together, the solar eclipse will be about struggling for—or being surprised by—an unexpected beginning.

Aquarius is a nameless, faceless character, only made apparent by its contrast to convention. It’s just standing there. And sometimes all it takes to antagonize a crowd is to stand there. So what is the crowd doing and why aren’t you doing it? While Leo passionately declares yes, Aquarius unsympathetically maintains its no. Is this “no” your fresh start? What could rejection and defiance be the beginning of for you?

Aries Rising

Hedonism is a bandaid. The closer you move towards pain, the more you learn about joy. Sure, the sadness can feel eternal, until it doesn’t. You know when you’re crying and your friend makes you laugh? How brilliant is that laugh? The world can become something new, just like that.

Taurus Rising

I’m thinking about the heart as a cave. You’re holding a golden lantern up to a spider’s home, an ancient drawing and your muddy shoes. You’re not alone: You’re befriending your mysterious heart, which you realize is everywhere and in everything that makes the world matter to you.

Gemini rising

What if nothing was confusing. What if the dense, leafy maze you’re in was lifted whole, and an open prairie appeared before you instead? The view is a wonderful thing to study. Observation leads to ideas, and we’re waiting to see what you do with yours.

Cancer rising

Some cultures celebrate death, while others avoid it. Think about how you approach mortality, then think about the last time you lost something; it could be as silly as your I.D. card or as serious as a friendship. Give this loss a shape and a shrine.

Leo rising

Your strength isn’t a vanity project, but it’s not hiding under a baggy T-shirt either. A lot depends on you—for yourself, and for other people too. Everyone’s hopes and dreams are in the mix, but management isn’t really your schtick. You’re just hoping everyone can take off in a new direction.

Virgo rising

Where is the “not yet” in your life? Maybe it’s something you’ve been secretly tending to, or an idea yet to be willed into existence. There’s something you’re sitting on, and it’s important to get other people involved, particularly in the hard work.

Libra rising

I was in a room full of people clapping for each other just for showing up. Encouragement goes a really long way especially if you have a hard time acknowledging your own efforts. Actually, fuck effort. I’m just happy you’re here. Celebrate something. Celebrate anything. All the better if you have absolutely no reason to.

Scorpio rising

Burial sites are time machines, so make a time capsule. Put today in it, then put it in the ground. If today was angsty, seal the frustration inside for the future to find. Whether it’s discovered is irrelevant. Use the earth as your telephone: vent to it, confess to it, give it your million-dollar ideas.

Sagittarius rising

I kept my cutlery in a wildly impractical drawer for six years, and then I moved it. For a month after, I kept reaching for the old drawer out of habit. Play a trick on yourself, and make the mundane less predictable. It’s good for your brain. It’s also magic, believe it or not.

Capricorn rising

What do you have? Count it. Sort it. Stare at it for an obscene amount of time. Maybe it’s the food in your fridge. Maybe it’s the cash under your mattress. Maybe it’s the stuff in that box you can’t get rid of. Then use it—maybe in ways that extend beyond the self.

Pisces rising

A long time ago I came upon an abandoned spa in a forest. There were things there that didn’t make sense, like cabins with books stacked to the ceiling. Let the ruins be your playground. When something is half of what it used to be, the imagination runs wild.

Aquarius rising

I once saw a tomato growing from a crack in a parking lot. I was transfixed by this small fruit tangled in litter. A peculiar, unexpected miracle. Make a big ring with your arms and become a pot. Your only job is to host the miraculous friendship between dirt, sunlight, rain, and seed. Exciting change is coming.

It’s a rare-ish case that we are not starting the year off with a Mercury retrograde. It has spent some time in Sagittarius, its detriment. Sagittarius is global and Mercury is local, so the two together was like wearing the wrong prescription lenses. But Mercury enters Capricorn on January 1st, switching up the vibe significantly. Capricorn is austere and realistic, meanwhile Mercury is the trickster, making game of reality. So what does it mean when the two are together, especially as Saturn, Capricorn’s ruler, spends its last moments in Pisces, the sign of illusions and fantasy?

You can think of Mercury in Capricorn as the jaded sibling of a magician, forced to go to yet another show. This is a Mercury that isn’t easily impressed. It’s a Mercury that doesn’t want to take its coat and hat off and be entertained, nor is it a Mercury that will spend hours on youtube learning how the tricks were achieved. People are here for a show, while you sit in your dark auditorium chair embodying a compelling kind of solitude. You’re not depressive or impatient or sitting on a high horse. You’re just kind of there, with your disenchanted self.

Saturn is far away and Mercury is really close, so when the sign of the faraway planet is contacting the close planet, you’re gonna get a fuzzy signal, producing a detached effect. You might think this is more of an Aquarian stereotype, Saturn’s other sign, but Mercury has triplicity in air signs, so it has a lot of energy in Aquarius and less in Capricorn.

Saturn, ruler of Capricorn, is in direct motion all month, so this gives us an opportunity to diligently move forward with our Mercury projects. But Capricorn’s pace isn’t always desirable. Mercury favors hacking and shortcuts to Capricorn’s patience and grind. In this sign, Mercury has no distractions and isn’t after satisfaction. It’s a reserved Mercury that doesn’t play out in the open. It’s a Mercury that knows how to say no and give the Irish goodbye. It doesn’t get headaches over distortion. So at the top of the year, use this configuration to set some silent boundaries. People don’t need to know why you didn’t show up to the party.

Along with Mercury, Mars, Venus and of course, the sun and new moon will be sitting in Capricorn this January. The sun, Venus and Mars will form a triple conjunction, so the question is, does god make good soup? Some unlikely ingredients may go well together, but sometimes you throw the kitchen sink in a pot and the results are…questionable. So let’s go over the ingredients.

Venus has triplicity in Capricorn, so it’s not the worst sign for the planet of love, but everything Saturn touches shrinks. Venus wants to add to life in the forms of love and beauty. Saturn, the ruler of Capricorn, is a denier of such sensorial indulgences…but that’s not always such a bad thing. Many saints have been known to give the shoes off their feet to weary travelers and tread vulnerably on dirt roads in their place. Venus in Capricorn is not a martyr’s Venus, but it is a Venus that commits to its choices, even if there’s big costs. It’s a Venus that endures because it’s a Venus that has integrity. It doesn’t wish things were better or different, it deals with the way things are, knowing the only thing that can change is its choice.

Mars is exalted in Capricorn. A planet can have two favorable positions, it can either be at home or exalted. If Mars is not at home but happy, that can be likened to Mars housesitting for its more glamorous friend. An exalted planet borrows qualities from a sign that it doesn’t inherently possess. Mars is good at starting things, but Capricorn is good at finishing them. The impulsivity and hot-headedness of this warrior planet gets tempered and streamlined into action plans by Capricorn. In this sign, Mars is not only strong, but grounded. It’s a Mars that can keep up with itself.

So, come the new year, noise and frills are eliminated. We’re getting more honest and serious without having to explain ourselves. Elimination phases are usually followed by some silence, but Mars’ fortitude allows us to move on to the next without hiding or downtime. But in the second half of the month all of these planets will move into Aquarius, another Saturn ruled sign that buzzes with mental energy. Together, Capricorn and Aquarius make up the fabric of our reality. Capricorn with the superficial facts and Aquarius with the abstractions beneath them.

Aquarius represents the people, not the individual, so it’s interesting that Aquarius became the stereotype for the unique soul. Aquarius is what happens when groups get really big, which is an advent of agrarian society. Farming is ruled by Saturn, which is easier to associate with Capricorn, our earthy, hard-working sign. But Saturn also rules Aquarius, which means Saturn is about technology to some extent. Farming is a technology that created food surplus which gave people a reason to settle permanently on land, and that gave rise to the societies we know today.

Human beings have existed for 300,000 years before farming came into the picture. So the city and later metropolis are relatively recent experiments. Biologically, we are driven to interact within small groups, as for most of deep time, we have. Aquarius is the intersection of technology and social density. This is where we find strangers and our own anonymity. Aquarius is the sign of social atomization, where strong group ties are replaced by individualism. A unique soul is enchanting for the very same reason that the individual has less responsibility to the group and for the very same reason that many people report feeling lonely today.

Saturn isn’t a friendly sign, so the talking points aren’t sugar-coated. Yet, Aquarius is an innovator, for better or worse. Capricorn eliminates and Aquarius pioneers us in a new direction. Scientists are not always in the business of making sense or making good, and sometimes their trials and errors lead to unlikely discoveries. Penicillin, X-Rays and Teflon were all happenstance. So, the second half of January might be a more cerebral and maddening time. Ideal weather for experiments, but not the most stable or innocuous time.

ARIES RISING

Will this year be about fighting for your dreams or defending illusions? The line is thin and your higher power has popcorn and binoculars. You can’t hide under a blanket, but I doubt that’s what you want to do anyway.

TAURUS RISING

Working a new belief is a serious journey, and when you look behind you, you’ll see your former self. Professional matters are on the rise. Bring your changed parts to the round table and surprise some unlikely people.

GEMINI RISING

Your hunger for more might put a hole in your pocket, while life keeps pulling you away from home. Make sure your guilty pleasures fit in a carry-on. A financial entanglement may be a thorn in your side, but this month, you’ll cut your losses.

CANCER RISING

The spotlight is on you but bright lights cast harsh shadows, especially in the relationship department. Desire may pull you towards familiar comforts and when the relief wears off, reality will set in.

LEO RISING

This month starts with a moody storm, but you can’t sulk for long because workplace and relationship demands increase. There’s gaps in the Tetris of it all, so your needs may get put on hold to sort out the puzzle.

VIRGO RISING

People have been showing up for you and your creative efforts culminate in satisfaction. You’re like an artist staring at a painting you’ve been working on for months, and feeling…good about it. But, it’s not time to relax yet, you’ve got a big to-do list.

LIBRA RISING

Hibernation isn’t the mood this month, as career peaks are reached, but I believe the home is a creature with needs and desires just like us. So what is your home asking you to do for it?

SCORPIO RISING

You’re Mr.Roger with an edge. Who are you without your neighbors, locals and friends? It can be easy to take these familiar faces for granted, but this month your community calls your name. Write, travel and get involved.

SAGITTARIUS RISING

What will catch you if you fall? Don’t worry, there’s no bad omen. You’re our spirited go-getter and it happens to be a good month to foundation build. The end of the month will get noisy, so get to planning now.

CAPRICORN RISING

Even with your tough exterior, things can get vulnerable. This month a relationship has you in your feels. But your main priority is self-redefinition. A personal refresh is long overdue. Investments pay off, so spend wisely.

AQUARIUS RISING

It’s the calm before the storm, but the storm arranges things in your favor. Before electric winds clear out a path, you must silently dive into the darkness. The first half of the month is for reflection and integration.

PISCES RISING

The elevator is at capacity and the cables are working hard to hold everyone up. Group happenings take center stage, so it’s a good time to review whether your people are banisters or heavy weights.

My anger is a bitter rind

sucked on by the sun

forgive me for not cleaning

the party was waiting

but death has come

the ghost is angry too

she guards the feather boas in my closet

and she hates my mess

for her hands of air cannot make change

My anger is a bail of hay

undone by turbulence

it is also the barn

unlatched by the same turbulence

and the meeting of these events

at the exact moment of an animal’s hunger

life is the doer, not me

i’ve been chewed

can I convince you

that I only see the sun

when large teeth open

that I am only ever wet

but will never feel the ocean

that I stink

that I cower

that I am powerless

My anger is the ash of campfire

undone from true danger

once the source of loss

in schools and homes and churches

now thin and colorless

only of matter

insofar the right philosopher holds his

thinking near it

if his heart is full

then the ash will matter

most of all

My anger is the doubt of words

that they could not make pain and beauty one

that this coincidence of parts

the treacherous and precious

will not meet under any circumstance

and to this I will lose my last need in this world

November was honestly a really hard month. I found myself staring at the cracks in the ceiling of my bathroom, wondering if my next steamy shower would make it all cave in. The smallest crack on the surface can make the whole foundation vulnerable, and that’s on Taurus and Scorpio’s polarity. Taurus keeps us stable, but Scorpio distorts. Earth signs are superficial, we can build our homes on their grounds. But water signs are deep and porous. Water is not hard to enter, but it is hard to survive.

Thankfully, the Scorpio energy is on its way out and Sagittarius, the archer, is taking over. The archer’s arrow makes the shape of a rainbow when it’s released. When I was little I would ask the adults around me where the rainbow began. What waited for me at its outset? I always hoped we were going towards it in my mom’s cherry Volvo. The navigation system was mounted on the window, so I’d crawl to the front from the backseat and spell the word R-A-I-N-B-O-W in the location field. The daydream of our VIP rainbow tour filled rainy LA days with possibility. Hope and possibility are the language of Sagittarius. The centaur aims his arrow at something close enough to see but just out of reach. The rainbow is not a destination, but that certainly doesn’t stop any of us from chasing it.

Sagittarius is committed to the journey. Looking forward to something inspires a very delicious feeling. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, etc. And distance belongs to Jupiter, the ruling planet of Sagittarius. So this month, give yourself something to look forward to. It’s not about instant gratification, that’s our friend Taurus. This season is about winding yourself up for something. Getting excited. Doing all the normal things with a fuller heart that belongs to some good thing in the future. The Scorpio cracks let a thick shadow through, and now you have nothing to lose. The wires and pipes and insulation have all been exposed. Indulge in an adventure and come back with ideas for the upcoming Capricorn rebuild. The arrow of Sagittarius points up at a target, so where are you aiming and why? Sagittarius is all about belief. What do you believe?

Today’s full moon pulls in the polarity of Sagittarius and Gemini. The key phrase for Sagittarius is ‘I see’ or ‘I understand’ while the key phrase for Gemini is ‘I think.’ So the full moon is like…

There’s a lot to think about. Especially all of the Scorpio shit we just unearthed from beneath dead tree barks and ghostly desert rocks. Mercury, Gemini’s ruler, is still in Scorpio after its retrograde. Scorpions are nocturnal creatures who hide and keep to themselves. Mercury wants to express and Scorpio spends time in darkness. So when Scorpio season rolled around, all of our hidden, insecure parts clanked like sour piano keys.

Now, Gemini is busy thinking about the dissonant composition. Sometimes thinking can make things worse, even if the intention is to figure something out. Thinking can be so unwholesome, compulsive and excessive. Gemini has the reputation of being scattered and restless. Like a writer working on a love letter with crumpled drafts and cigarette butts littering his quarters. Yet all of that painful mental energy is helping the writer work out the tension in his heart. If thinking is anchored in the larger Sagittarian aim to see, to become clear, even our worst draft is not useless. Although Sagittarius and Gemini are different, both of them are in the middle of something. Gemini in process, Sagittarius in journey. That’s why both of these signs are mutable, or flexible, they don’t entirely know where they’ll end up. The hope is, whatever Scorpio revealed, helps us get there…maybe to the rainbow.

Aries Rising

Got a problem? Change your mindset. Read a book, take a class, or travel somewhere new. You have the stage to share your big, crazy ideas and chances are, you’ll cultivate some respect for it. No need to sugarcoat. Honesty will lead to payoffs.

Taurus Rising

Someone intriguing draws near just as you’re about to enter a chrysalis. It’s less fabulous, but holds everything you need. The muffled voices of dependencies and attachments may ring outside, but you’re here to transform, not capitulate.

Gemini Rising

You’re pulled between who you want to become, who you are now, and who others imagine you to be. Relationships trigger an unexpected revelation, like catching your reflection in a passing window. Suddenly, your shape is defined against the motion of everything else. How does it feel to honor yourself?

Cancer Rising

Sometimes there’s no clear plot and life is a messy mix of serious and unserious, certain and uncertain. This both/and month asks you to look deeper. Behind duties or distractions, what loss or confusion is quietly shaping your experience?

Leo Rising

This is a great time for creativity, love, and joy. Yet something you want, something that would make you happy, may affect your shared resources and commitments. The month’s end favors responsibility and finishing what you started, despite your urge for freedom.

Virgo Rising

This is a big month for you. A turning point in your career launches you into a period of busyness and excitement. You may wish to break from your home and try to ground in new and unexpected places. A relationship may tug at you as you navigate the unfamiliar.

Libra Rising

It’s a bit of a puzzle when both what is far and near pull at you with equal strength. Do you fly high or clean the basement? At the top of the month you may be called to have a new shiny experience, but by the end of the month your responsibilities back home ask for attention.

Scorpio Rising

Holding on to too many secrets is unsustainable, even for you Scorpio. Let it out. Spill the beans. And see where the chips may fall. Being honest about your needs, even if they seem cringy, may add a lot of unexpected value to your life.

Sagittarius Rising

It’s okay if curiosity kills the cat, because this cat is yearning for rebirth. Information is your goldmine, and something you learn amplifies your confidence and self-worth. It’s a good month to reinvent yourself and get what you want.

Capricorn Rising

You’re no stranger to responsibilities, so expect some busy work at the top of the month. It may be a frenetic time, but you will get the opportunity to reset come the new moon. You’ll be entering the new year with a lot of strength and support, so put your muscle to good use.

Aquarius Rising

You’re overdo for some fun, so congrats, you’re getting it! Let loose, go on a date, buy a coloring book and take the thinking cap off. But by the end of the month you might need a break, and retreat back into your internal world.

Pisces Rising

Your mind buzzes with activity at home, yet the second half of the month asks you to take spiritually meaningful steps in your career and overall sphere of action. You may find yourself in a position of authority, inspiring those around you. Limitations lift, and your reputation strengthens.

while black thunder rolls in the bleached parts of my mind

some things cannot be remembered

but once in a while these forgotten parts throb

and you question whether your heart is in your chest

or behind your eyes

pounding

hoarding blood

as you look for the saline your ex left in a drawer

two years ago

the flood of expired salt

all over my skin

reminds me of the spring

and the black thunder stops for a moment

all it takes is a moment

a bridge between one event and another

two different temperatures

two different parts of the mind

debating what the word world means

is it a place?

in this moment, i’m a comparer

i’m a person who has bone broth slow-cooking on the counter

i’m a person with spider veins

i’m a person without grandparents

i’m a person with thirsty plants

i’m a person who has a view of a wall through my bedroom window, wishing it was a view of a tree

i’m a person who sighs a lot

i’m a person who is sad every day about something which is related to being a person who sighs a lot

i’m a person who spends a lot of money on clothes

i’m a person who has everything

i’m a person who lives in a city

I try too hard sometimes

I don’t try at all sometimes

I used to meditate every day 

now I am tortured by things like flossing

I feel like a fraud

with my floss

waiting for it to feel normal or good or natural

does learning a language in a new country make you feel like a fraud

does being told there’s not enough money make you feel like a fraud

I really wanted to build a hut with palm fronds for the harvest festival

I really wanted my parents to be more devout

I really wanted to be a part of something

I really wanted to be born in America

I really wanted to spell words correctly

I really wanted to be just like everybody else

I really wanted checkered vans

I really wanted to dye my hair

I really wanted to be free like the scene teens on the internet

I really wanted to be taller

I really wanted to be in paris

I really wanted to be exceptional and perfect

what is it even

is it the neighborhood

is it the shoe box

or my lover’s insides

as I press around

or an ecotone to wade through

is it a grain of sand

or the hourglass

or the desert but not now

1 million years ago

or is it the desert

20,000 years ago

or is it a tampon on a shelf

that’s been scuffed by some lipstick

that was opened

when all these things were in my bag together

is it the bag with the desert in it

without the lipstick

without the tampon

at an event

and someone asks me if it’s Fendi

because it’s our religion to be lonely

in a room full of people

it’s our religion to be bullied

in a room with no heroes

I have to go to the bathroom

(because the desert is heavy)

they understand

it’s a line

but I sincerely

pour it down the drain

in a stall

beside some girls

doing lines off the chrome tp holder

I say hello when all the locks unlatch

and they twitch like hummingbirds

I understand it

is it the aftermath on the dance floor

is it the rumination in the Uber

is it the next day

I’m uncertain

My acting teacher told us that when her children were teenagers, she quizzed them on the shows and movies they watched. Details matter and so do the intentions of the writers. But movies are stories, so how we recall them says more about what matters to us, rather than what is true about the film. Her goal was to help her children stay connected to their inner worlds. She’s far from the kind of person who would prepare a powerpoint and give grades…in fact, she’s inherently against those things, a true Aquarius. But her eyes have a penetrating, fear-striking hunger. She desires to deepen everyone’s experience of the world and believes stories are a vehicles for that depth.

As a preteen, I spent hours on the now defunct Quizilla taking quizzes like ‘How Evil are You?’ or ‘Am I Cute or Hot Quiz’ or ‘Are You Goth, Emo, or Scene?’ Which helped me piece together a temporary and unreliable story about myself. My modest parents, unlike my acting teacher, didn’t ask too many questions, so I looked for them online. But in my recurring nightmares, I’m back in a classroom staring at a question I can’t answer, bracing for failure.

Quizzes can be games or assessments, which is where Gemini (the trickster) meets Virgo (the perfectionist), two signs ruled by Mercury. On November 9th, Mercury goes retrograde and retrogrades can be like quizzes. You get a moment to review, synthesize, and catch what you might have missed. They interrupt momentum, like a friend pointing out a continuity error in a film. Asking, “Did you see that?!” and you go, “What?”

This retrograde spends 10 days in Sagittarius, Mercury’s detriment, and then it moves into Scorpio until the 29th. Mercury in Sagittarius tends to be confusing, but not in the entertaining way a magic trick is. Sagittarius’s wandering and bold quality doesn’t translate to Mercury’s domains, which respond better to calculation and finesse. Jupiter, the ruler of Sagittarius, will also retrograde in its exaltation of Cancer, which protracts the bombastic detour Mercury finds itself in. Jupiter in Cancer is about self-trust, and Mercury in Sagittarius is telling a big story. Maybe the personality quiz wasn’t as meaningful as you were hoping for, so you have to go out into the world to collect more experiences, come what may.

Mercury in Sagittarius doesn’t know where it’s going, but that doesn’t stop it from getting in the car or speaking its mind. The weather is clumsy, permissive and unfiltered. But messy adventures will nudge us to re-examine our locus of control. Control is one of Scorpio’s favorite words, who is determined to rely on itself and be resourceful. Where Mercury in Sagittarius digresses, Mercury in Scorpio deliberates. They move inversely in relation to one another, Sagittarius across the surface area, Scorpio peeling the layers beneath it. When Mercury shifts signs, the Sagittarius experience will lead to Scorpio’s evaluation.

On November 20th retrograding Mercury will come together with the Scorpio New Moon, which will form a grand water trine with retrograding Jupiter in Cancer and Saturn in Pisces. Three planets in water signs, all retrograde ushering in this new beginning! ‘Retrograde’ and ‘new’ aren’t exactly synonyms, as retrogrades tend to bring up the past, but this contradiction will likely release us from some old emotional burdens. An opportunity leading into a generous Sagittarius season. The new moon will also oppose Uranus, which looks like a tail amid the grand trine. This rare configuration is called a grand kite. Uranus has the reputation of a madman, with good and bad ideas that pave the way forward.

The word quiz has uncertain origins. One story credits an Irish theater manager named Richard Daley, who bet he could invent a new word overnight. He paid local children to write quiz on the walls of Dublin, and by morning, everyone was saying it. Whether true or not, the story captures Mercury’s trickster spirit. The word quiz also connects to question and inquiry.

So during this time, pay attention to the games you play and the questions you find yourself asking. Which ones are easy to answer? Which ones are impossible? Which ones do you want the answer to, and which ones are you afraid of the answer for? How do these questions help you connect more deeply with the world? What is this quiz helping you learn—or actualize?

Aries Rising

Adventure has this exciting ring to it. But excitement holds a little fear, a little risk and a lot of curiosity. Embrace unexpected detours, as they demystify the unknown. This is a good month to try new things and speak your mind. Noise can be useful, but don’t pull the fire alarm if there isn’t an emergency.

Taurus Rising

What is a relationship? It seems like a simple question, but as you answer, you may realize it can represent many things we crave that are missing from society: generosity, vulnerability, loyalty, intimacy. Ex’s may come back into the picture. This month is about nurture and how much of it exists in your life.

Gemini Rising

When is the last time you screamed really loud? You’re overdue for some spiritual catharsis… and maybe a doctor checkup too. The top of the month is for the most luscious, time-defying day off, but the hard work continues. Expectations are high. Call a friend who can just listen.

Cancer Rising

Horizons have expanded since June, and your inner narrator is changing its story about a long held belief. Think of yourself as a writer, and the unfolding events in your life as rich material. A good plot has tension and it takes perspective to appreciate it. Right now life is about making meaning, not forcing outcomes.

Leo Rising

When the heart longs for home, it’s because the heart needs relief. But do our fundamental instincts get us there? Sometimes homes are noisy, lonely or tense, and making peace could be an awkward or unfamiliar challenge. This month empowers you to redefine your home, but you may confront yourself along the way.

Virgo Rising

It’s taken years for the pieces to come together. You’ve been in a long, sobering process with relationships, and now you’re seeing give and take more clearly. Letting go doesn’t reveal what’s next, but empty rooms can stir the imagination. Important messages may arrive, both from friends and angels in the sky.

Libra Rising

It may feel like you went to bed with a teddy bear and woke up clutching a spreadsheet. Where did all these responsibilities come from, and do you have the resources to handle them? There’s no right or wrong answer. It’s simply a good time to take inventory and assess your managerial skills.

Scorpio Rising

It’s time to spend, or use, what you’ve got. The foundation you’ve built may change, but building is a courageous act that teaches you about the fragility of structures as you continue to raise them. Be brave with the resources you’ve conserved and liberate yourself from restrictive circumstances.

Sagittarius Rising

You are hot, dangerous, and a little…emo? You’re riding a high of verbal and physical energy, but your internal compass wavers. You’ve likely convinced people that you’re doing great, but what’s really going on beneath the surface, when the buzz, excitement and change inevitably dissipate?

Capricorn Rising

There’s sweetness at the top of the month, but a fork in the road lingers in the background. Friendships may be under review. Exertion of effort may result in fatigue and fatigue is important information. Who are you simply just…tired of? I would hold off on decisions, but definitely take mental notes.

Aquarius Rising

Your values define your actions, and actions shape your reputation. This is an important month for work, as your choices carry greater weight than usual. The domino effect is at play. Does your work matter to you, or is it a means to an end and if so, what end? Society doesn’t just exist, it’s built by people like you.

Pisces Rising

Think about all the things you love that never had to prove themselves to you, and place yourself in that same category. When you let go of the need to prove yourself, motivations take on a more authentic tone. This month, faith and ego vie for attention, and the clumsy three-legged race ends in spiritual victory.

October is packed with Libra and Scorpio energy, two signs that don’t have too much in common. Libra is ruled by Venus, a planet that likes to get pampered, learn, socialize and indulge in pleasure. Venus studies and appreciates the world, which gives Venus great taste and a big appetite for beauty and sensuality. So Venus prefers environments that foster ease and connection. But Mars, the ruler of Scorpio, knows that life isn’t always pretty. There’s things to stand up for and push up against. It thrives in contest, in the grit of struggle, and has the battle wounds to prove it. Mars doesn’t need to feel good, it needs to use its energy. As George Bernard Shaw said, “I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work, the more I live.”

Both Venus and Mars will be at home this month, pulling us between their opposing directions. The Sun in Libra and this month’s Libra new moon are ruled by a domicile Venus, while the full moon in Aries and Mercury in Scorpio are ruled by a domicile Mars. Pull up your chart and check which houses fall in Libra and Scorpio. Your Libra house shows an area of life that benefits from tact. Your Scorpio house shows an area of life that responds to effort. Remember, Venus and Mars need each other. When you push your body, adrenaline surges first, and then endorphins are released to ease the strain. But without any rest, your body will produce cortisol, a stress hormone, which interferes with the body’s endorphin response. Warriors don’t sleep on beds of rock, they need to lay on cotton and feather clouds.

Aries Rising

Keep your motives in check, because your magnetic field is the size of a football field. Getting what you want may require a game of chess. Winning depends on whether you take calculated risks or engage in snap reactions. Your moves carry weight, so tread carefully. Read the fine print, as relationships and contracts demand your full attention. You’re building long-term stability and handling your spiritual and material debts.

DO: Detective work • Be fearless • Honor agreements

DON’T: Be shady • Cast a spell • Pick fights

Taurus Rising

This month feels a little like trying to sprint through molasses. The work and relationship kettle is hissing and when you pour the tea, it tastes bitter. Being the “bigger person” can mean compromising something valuable. In some cases, it’s worth holding your ground and parting with things that drain you. But you may be up against much bigger forces, where resistance works against you. Pick your battles wisely. Life is demanding, so grab breaks whenever you can. You’re not a machine.

DO: R&R • Pause • Protect your peace

DON’T: Overextend • Force things • Lose your temper

Gemini Rising

With trick-or-treat season rolling in, you’re riding a sugar-rush crush that feels like an MDMA high. This month invites you to delight in all the innocent and sweet things, but obligations may weigh on you. Focus will keep you on track. Temper your ego, and you’ll have less to worry about. Own your duties, recite the serenity prayer, and get your flirt on. It’s a classic work/play balancing act…use your heart and your muscle.

DO: Be playful • Claim your locus of control • Tie up loose ends

DON’T: Be messy • Burn bridges • Have tunnel-vision

Cancer Rising

You are in the spotlight in all your rawness, but your nest holds its own trove of shiny things to admire. Give yourself downtime to reflect on what you truly need, regardless of what you show the world. The call of home, family, and memory pulls you inward. Even with an audience, the most fun, real and fulfilling moments happen backstage with your ride-or-die VIPs.

DO: Gain emotional closure • Refresh your space • Fill your cup

DON’T: Act out • Overdramatize • Cling to outdated roles

Leo Rising

You’re itching for more and ready to break out of the box. Restlessness is your fuel, and you’re done letting limiting situations weigh you down. On the home front, a tricky issue may call for strategy. It could be time to consider a move or finally address the drama under your roof. This month, your words are persuasive, so lean on your tact even if you’re secretly craving an escape plan. You’ve got the chance to smooth things over with the needle sliding in your favor.

DO: Stay true to yourself • Be diplomatic • Squash beef

DON’T: Settle • Drag things out • Run away

Virgo Rising

You might be trying to find a quiet moment to reflect, but jackhammers are going full rat-a-tat in the background. Yep. This is a test. Some things are out of your control, and letting go feels like a caffeine withdrawal. Luckily, discomfort is data. Prickly, messy but very revealing. This month hands you a 1,000 piece puzzle that requires patience. Reward yourself with beauty and socializing, even if a few pieces stay mismatched.

DO: Dig deep • Treat yourself • Go with the flow

DON’T: Run the show too hard • Spiral • Obsess

Libra Rising

The start of the month asks you to see things clearly in your agreements. This is not about putting yourself first, and it isn’t about yielding to keep the peace either. It takes integrity, finesse, and imagination to help everyone, including yourself, feel seen and accounted for. Avoid risks and be resourceful. Venus in your sign makes it easier to get what you want and look damn good while you do it. This is your moment to gain favor with others and glow up.

DO: Show face • Refresh your look • Watch your wallet
DON’T: Overshare • People-please • Be idle

Scorpio Rising

You want to keep a low profile and stay in a bubble, but life is pushing you to charge full speed ahead. Mars isn’t here to waste your time or speak in riddles, while the Sun hides in the shadows, making you more MIA than usual. But just because people don’t know what you’re up to, doesn’t mean you’re twiddling your thumbs. It’s a month of big pushes and big wraps. The victory will make any lingering fears totally worth it. The end of the month gives you a nice boost and will clear up any fog.

DO: Finish the race • Laser focus • Keep them guessing
DON’T: Give up • Dissociate • Be complacent

Sagittarius Rising

This month starts off with an applaud for creative effort. You did that! Phew. The calls and invites are coming in but put the phone on DND and hit the sensory deprivation tank. I’m not saying to disappear completely. But you brought something of value to this world, so now relax a bit. Listen to your voicemails and balance the creation with integration and some well deserved attention.

DO: Unplug • Keep it in the lab • Celebrate
DON’T: Ghost • Spill tea • Miss details

Capricorn Rising

This month, you’ve got the keys to the city and everyone wants to know what you’re up to. But the dirty dishes and stinky socks are piling up, and whatever you’ve left unaddressed in private is about to rear its head. It’s not the time to sort through all your emotional clutter, but you can’t keep your feelings stuffed at the bottom of last year’s Christmas stocking. Deal with them in small doses, as doors open, the group has its drama and you’re turning heads.

DO: Own the room • Rise to the occasion • Say yes
DON’T: Neglect emotions • Be shallow • Play pretend

Aquarius Rising

It might sound cheesy, but a good book, lecture, or thoughtful conversation could really shift your perspective in the middle of the month. Don’t keep what you’ve learned to yourself. You have the chance to pass the baton and influence how those around you think. You’re putting something out into the world, but you might be staying behind the scenes. The spotlight isn’t your favorite place this month, so let your contributions speak for themselves. This is a good time for note-taking and trips with confidants.

DO: Share your ideas • Teamwork • Travel
DON’T: Hide in plain sight • Stay silent • Go it alone

Pisces Rising

The first week of the month could bring unexpected news that has you feeling rebellious, stomping on expectations with steel-toe boots. You’re hard to influence and need to be left to your own devices. Some instability may spark frustration making you crave a break from the tried and true. By the middle of the month, things stabilize with a bit of material support. You’re shedding old skin but please trust and try to work with the people in your corner.

DO: Get vulnerable • Accept help • Be patient

DON’T: Push people away • Be a provocateur • Self-sabotage

My mouth is fat with words

And my mind is fat with thoughts

About the pastel storm of love and fear

You put me through

It’s hanging in a museum behind glass

Next to a painting about Christian shit

And all the things you couldn’t say

How’d the artist

Teleport from his grave

Into your heart like that

Time travel

Through anger

Through wonder

Through melancholia

Like that

He drew the dove under god’s command

500 years ago

And now God is an iPad with your

Pharmaceutical prescription history

Sitting unlocked on a desk in your therapist’s office

And you are a

Medicated cyborg

Looking through an iPhone

At the plexiglass

Wondering how on earth

You’re feeling anything

But that’s all part of the technology

Your feelings are a Time Machine

Begging the scientists to go to bed

And stop building something that’s already here

Let them lay for a little

With their children and a picture book

While you enjoy

The software update

Martyrs are dangerous. When you are alive you have your humanity and your humanity is in the grip of change. Change is unreliable. It makes you fickle. Change corrupts ideals. Change destroys perfection. Yet no man steps in the same river twice. Change is the only constant.

Pharaohs commissioned granite statues of themselves and placed them in their tombs. These statues were meant to last forever and help anchor the king’s soul in the afterlife. Ancient sculptors used a canon of proportion that made funerary statues look similar across vast dynasties. I’m sure when you imagine a pharaoh you get an image in your head, so what they did really worked. The idea wasn’t to capture the likeness of the pharaoh, but to evoke his eternal power through the ideal form. Young, muscular, unexpressive and symmetrical.

Death is powerful because it is out of our control and it enforces change as the only constant. Humans become preoccupied with ideals, perfection and archetypes to make sense of this ineffable part of life. When a child dies a terrible death that child becomes the face of innocence. When a man dies at war he becomes the face of evil or heroism depending on your side. Charlie Kirk was in charge of who he was and what he stood for and that will continue to live on despite his death. But now that Charlie Kirk is dead, he becomes whoever we want him to be. And there’s a lot of people who profit from shaping what Charlie Kirk’s dead body means to the world, but especially to America.

I am personally ambivalent about his death, as he, in his lifetime, engaged in what I perceive as a sad betrayal of his own humanity by denying so many people theirs. Hatred only really happens between one and oneself. Hatred is a deeply private affair. And the prison it builds inside us forces us to turn on the world, and if we use enough power, create real tragedy. Yet my lack of grief here is not an admission of joy. As Shahid King Bolsen said, I neither grieve nor celebrate this. Death is not something I celebrate, no line of logic can get me there.

I see a lot of people, and honestly, a lot of people I know, cheering on his death as if it is some sort of “karmic” event that he deserves. The moment he died, a person died in Gaza, Ukraine, Congo, and on our streets in Los Angeles. If Charlie Kirk got his karma, what did all those people get? I simply don’t believe that some people deserve it, because then I’d have to spend a lot of time figuring out why good people die everywhere, every day. And I will never get the answer. Death refuses moral order. It always will. No amount of historical or political literacy will put this existential question to bed.

Principles tied to my relationship with God prevent me from celebrating murder, but they do not prevent me from understanding the forces behind violence. We live in a violent world, and Charlie Kirk contributed to that violence. I recently read a testimony from Dr. Stacy Patton, who was watchlisted on Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk’s conservative nonprofit. The organization maintains a publicly accessible database of college professors it claims “discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” She described how mostly white men left racist and misogynistic voicemails and, “overwhelmed the university’s PR lines and the president’s office with calls demanding that I be fired. The flood was so relentless that the head of campus security reached out to offer me an escort, because they feared one of these keyboard soldiers might step out of his basement and come do me harm.” This is one example of Charlie Kirk’s negative impact on the world. People have a right to see justice served when agents of chaos and hatred fall. And as a kind of rule of thumb, when hateful people mobilize terror, those subjected to it may have no choice but to respond with their own force.

There is a lot of irony in his death, given what his platform was built on. Like this quote of his: “I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

Irony makes stories interesting. Charlie Kirk seems to have been written by Shakespeare. A real tale of hubris. But irony is not my castle or penthouse. I will not look down upon human life because of it. I see him as an enemy of himself and therefore an enemy of humanity. But he lived thousands of years ago, and will live thousands of years from now, precisely because everything he stands for is so, very human. Hatred is so human. Being at enmity with oneself and with each other is human.

and laughed with me through some of my life’s best moments is now my lover

Over the years, I have developed an easy love for this person

discovering a profound sameness —

You could say

I feel seen by them

This is something I have wished for,

diffidently and always

But it matters in this particular moment

because I am finally starting to see myself

and that wasn’t always the case

To be seen when you see yourself is perhaps the only way it can happen

and this is something I couldn’t have known

in prior, more starved states of wanting

‘I want to be seen’ is said so much

by people to their parents and lovers

and society at large

and when something is said so much

it gets deflated

It becomes a catch-all because it is about something universal, yes

but behind it there is a private dream of some kind,

a story only the asker knows about

Right now I am in Paris

looking out the window

and seeing simple squares

and half circles making another window

rectangles and lines making the blinds

the ornate shapes of the iron railing,

which are my favorite

and the sun reaching its peak

casting hard shadows that look like a work of art

fated to alter, nonetheless

What we see is what’s real, indisputably in the moment

Yet sometimes we see something ugly

and we look away

Sometimes we keep looking

and disgust or rage or sadness fills us

There is nothing easy about it,

yet it reveals something

Ugliness can teach us about our values

We can see war and injustice as ugly

and this can inspire dreams of change

So ‘to be seen’ is not merely to be at the center of attention,

as clarity itself is our dispassionate existence—beholden

To be seen as we say it,

has a quality of goodness, ease and relief

To be seen means to be the beautiful view

Like a mountain or a sunset

amid the sometimes ugly reality of things

It is to be the awe, contradicting the wretched

Sometimes I talk to beautiful flowers

I swear I could hear their voices in my mind

They are squeaky and childlike

and when I call them gorgeous they all say,

“I knowwwww”

but they are not self-righteous

They are simply nothing else, but beautiful

How silly would it be if a flower instead said,

“really? I had no idea.”

The next time you pray, thank a flower

for it gives so generously in its short, humble life

Then it will be you who is like the flower

The subject of goodness in the world

To be seen is an invitation to appreciate yourself

Sometimes I can’t remember how

I had the courage to get a cup of tea down the street just the day before

When all I can do is lay in bed

and cry about the mistakes I’ve made

I can’t even listen to my favorite song

or eat my favorite food

But then my friend

tells me to get dressed

and have breakfast with them

before they head out for the day

I have to think about pants and t-shirts

and since I am on a trip,

all my favorite things

have been considered

and brought with me

I think about my favorite pants

instead of my worst mistakes

We walk to the bistro and get an omelette

with ham and cheese to share

Then we pray together

and they tell me that

I save the world by being alive

and that today is a beautiful envelope sealed with wax unfolded

and that I am their favorite person

I kiss them and it conquers the ugliness

The reason to live

is for this spontaneous kiss

I searched for the reason

And here is this prayer

And here is this kiss

And here I am and here they are

The sunset and the mountain

The first house is referred to as Horoskopos (ὡρόσκοπος) or “hour-watcher.” It contains the sign rising over the eastern horizon at the moment of your birth. It also metaphorically represents the sunrise, lifting forms out of nocturnal obscurity. The rising sign is the most responsive, dynamic and unique part of the chart because it changes every two and a half hours. The first house and rising sign govern the visible parts of self like our physical appearance, body and identity. Despite their importance, these parts are changeable—we grow and age and change is a key theme of Mercury.

Mercury completes roughly four revolutions around the sun in the time that it takes Earth to make one. So it moves fast much like the rising sign. Mercury is a relational and cerebral planet. It represents the aspects of society that depend on exchange like trade and communication. As the only planet without gender, it occupies a unique refuge, free from the extremes and overt qualities that gender imparts. This mildness is advantageous in commerce, analysis and delivering news. However, Mercury’s inherent queerness was viewed with suspicion in ancient times, and seen as deceptive or ambiguous. The origin of its enduring reputation as the trickster…

Mercury does not confront, it negotiates. It attains not by force or sex appeal, but through cleverness. The first house signifies our emergence into the social world, while Mercury represents interaction, exchange, and participation within society in an active yet featherweight way. In traditional astrology, success is measured by conformity to the prevailing status quo and Mercury embodies a subtle yet potent form of influence that transmutes as much as it attracts. It can “break the rules” without getting caught. There’s something present yet imperceptible about it, much like the sun moving shadows through the day.

While this correspondence between Mercury and the 1st house makes sense and tickles me, pop astrologers moved away from ancient orthodoxy and popularized a simplified blending of signs and houses. I think this simplification, made in good faith, intends to make astrology less deterministic and more symbolic. But catch-alls are easy to sell, so the distortions we see aren’t entirely innocent. They are part of what make astrology profitable.

What was once a precise language is now the stuff of digital litter. Vastness tends to draw in waste and while the internet’s clutter is invisible, it is closer than we think. As we increasingly merge with technology we become what Donna Haraway calls “chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs.”

The rise of waste and consumptive excess alongside minimalism and modulation defines our times. And this ethos reshapes how we understand symbols and language, therein affecting the language of astrology. When there is little specificity, there is no clarity. And confusion is the currency of domination. Mark Fischer says, “Capitalism is what is left when beliefs have collapsed at the level of ritual or symbolic elaboration, and all that is left is the consumer‑spectator, trudging through the ruins and the relics.”

I understand and share the instinct to move away from rigid traditions. When I open the Phaladeepika, a Hindu text written likely 800 years ago, and read, “When the Sun is in the 7th [house] at birth, the person concerned will suffer from the wrath of the king,” I’m like, k…Astrology should change because people do and thanks to global cultural exchange we can now explore those evolutions.

So why is the Sun said to suffer “the wrath of the king” in the 7th house? The 7th is Dusis (Δύσις) or “descendant.” It opposes the 1st house of self, and can therefore represent the individual’s open enemies. It’s widely known as the house of marriage and relationships, so relational planets like Mercury and Venus may fare well here, provided they’re in good condition. But the Sun can struggle, because it is inherently dominating, while the 7th house asks for cooperation. Metaphorically, if the Sun rises in the 1st house, it must set in the 7th. That sunset symbolizes the Sun falling from its peak, lowering itself to the ground of what is shared, negotiated, and common. It’s also the end of the day, and the beginning of the Moon’s dominion over the sky. Night, after all, can be likened to death.

Some reject traditional astrology, but dismissing it entirely overlooks the opportunity to consider diverse perspectives. We now have the luxury to synthesize different, intersecting insights, and this blend makes astrology vital and relevant today. Although the wrath of kings is a scary vibe, it’s a threshold that helps us understand the sun in the 7th house outside of pop culture calling it “relationship oriented,” which is a half-truth anyway. There are effective ways to radicalize astrology without eroding its complexity…and honestly, its beauty and perhaps this approach can cut through the symptomatic nihilism of our times.

I’d like to offer this model instead of the popular shorthand. A cross, orienting us in Chōros (space) and Chronos (time), the dual structure of material reality. I see the angular houses as two overlapping coordinate systems:

1 ☍ 7 & 10 ☍ 4 — The Angular Houses, The Four Directions

• 1st and 7th houses: time — birth and death

• 4th and 10th houses: space — ground and sky

And rotated again:

• 1st and 7th houses: space — self (here I am) and other (there you are)

• 4th and 10th houses: time — origin (our roots & memories) and legacy (our actions & how we are remembered)

When I began my studies, most of my exposure came from the internet. I would encounter ideas like “the 10th house=career” but the resources I found rarely explained why. Thoughtful insights exist but, again, are often obscured by an excess of uninspired, consumptive fodder. And a consumptive consciousness does not introspect upon itself, so many, even advanced texts, rarely remark on how capitalism has shifted the meaning of say, the 10th house, which is explicitly predicated on economy and class.

As I got deeper in my studies, I began to see the chart as a clock. The houses representing different stages of the sun in the sky:

• 1st House — sunrise: bright, rising

• 7th House — sunset: dim, declining

• 10th House — noon: bright, blinding

• 4th House — midnight: dim, invisible

The 10th house, at the top, represents the blinding sun at it’s highest, most exposing point. It’s the worst time to take a photo because the harsh light overexposes and bleaches everything. This overexposure is like fame and reputation, conditions that erode and make headlines out of private affairs. Vedic astrologers call the 10th house the Karma Bhava, or house of actions, while Hellenistic astrologers refer to it as the summit, mesēmbriā (μεσημβρία), or “mid-day.” In short, it is the house of career, action, reputation, legacy, honor and upward mobility. Like a tower being built into the sky.

Aspects tell us how houses relate to one another geometrically. The 10th house forms a trine (a 120° angle) with the 6th house, the domain of labor and obligations. It can be confusing for one house to represent career, and the other to represent work. If we have jobs we don’t like, the 10th house can feel like this ambiguous thing we have to solve in order to get out of our shitty 6th house jobs.

In astrology, trines are harmonious aspects. They represent flow between parts of the chart. In Platonism, mathematical proportion is the basis of beauty. Hellenistic astrology was a kind of “beauty-as-math” project for ancient thinkers. Trining houses always contain signs of the same element. For example, if your 6th house is in Capricorn, your 10th will be in Taurus—both earth signs which click together.

Studying the dynamic between the 6th and 10th houses can reveal how ideas of purpose shift in relation to the economy. Today, these houses describe the relationship between productivity and achievement. The 10th house, associated with public status and authority, relies on the labor of the 6th, which traditionally governs hard work, domestic animals, servitude, and enslaved classes. This trine, then, also speaks to the relationship between power and exploitation.

In Vedic astrology, the 6th house is considered an upachaya house—a place that improves with sustained effort. The exertions of the 6th can lead to the fulfillment of the 10th.

Ancient texts did recognize careers as a theme of the 10th house. But only to the extent that they were accessible and permissible with the sociopolitical structures of the time. Besides, who were natal charts being cast for? Who was time kept and recorded for? Certainly not for ancient working classes.

Alice Sparkly Kat sheds light on the hyper-militarization of the ancient ruling classes, “There is an aspect of the tenth house that is about the state. I know that, when we think about the modern career, we are often thinking about a bloated private sector. However, careers weren’t always about the corporation. They used to be about maintaining the state.” In today’s imagination, there is a divide between education and the military, but they were in fact much more intertwined, forming the intersecting ways by which men attained and held status. The ideal citizen was both a thinker and warrior, defender and lover of the homeland. I was talking to someone recently who said the American Dream is only attainable for the military class, who get free healthcare and education if they serve. I suppose things are not so different today.

Status is vertical and measured by institutions. It is not inherently self-determined, yet contemporary culture often conflates status with purpose, though purpose, by contrast, arises from a self-determined place. I don’t mean to be all V for Vendetta, but we have been sold the illusion that purpose as defined by and achieved within capitalism will fulfill us. But this is a hedonistic myth. Buddhist scriptures teach that craving and desire lead to dukkha (suffering), and true fulfillment arises from letting go and cultivating contentment or humility. This is entirely different from what modern life demands and what the 10th house has come to represent.

The 10th house is indeed about praxis, action in the public world, but that action may or may not be connected to anything fundamentally personal. It could reflect purpose shaped by the state, as in ancient times, or by capitalism, as in modern times (not that these are mutually exclusive). How we define purpose reveals our worldview, our values, and the degree of our self-authorship. Where do our aspirations come from? Who models them for us? The 10th house can represent any authority, encompassing the celebrity to military pipeline.

When viewed as a tool for self-actualization, astrology invites us to approach the 10th house introspectively rather than prescriptively. A useful question to ask is: if you were a character in a movie, what role would you want to play? It’s not that you must play that role, but it offers insight into what you perceive as powerful, whether a supervillain, an ethereal girl, an animated cat, or perhaps whether you even think much about power at all. How much of your fantasy of action is determined by you holding power?

To radicalize our conception of the 10th house, then, is not to reduce it to purpose, a vague and often ambiguous term, but to understand it as a reflection of our relationship with institutions and ideologies of power. The pervasive expectation that everyone must find purpose through a career is a distorted promise that limits the scope of what the 10th house has to offer. Now that knowledge is more democratized, we can define astrology outside of and in response to the status quo, rather than from within it.

The other day, a woman on TikTok, who’s video I didn’t save so I can’t properly credit her, said true icons have an intimacy with boredom. They embody the existential, which gives them a unique signature. Something real to be famous for. She contrasted the mainstream vibes of Addison Rae with the elusive aura of 2hollis. Despite her contrast, I think they have similar nostalgic signatures. Addison channels Britney while 2hollis riffs on Crystal Castles.

Nostalgia has become a smokescreen for late capitalism. The past is recast as fiction, from which an arbitrary and endlessly renewable crown of authenticity is mined. I feel like I’m putting myself in a bit of hot water by bringing up two people I have one degree of separation from, but I am developing adult-onset allergies to celebrity culture, so fuck it. I will say that both of their music slaps.

Her idea strongly evokes the relationship between the 4th and 10th houses: the place of mystery and the place of exposure. Though the 10th house is bright and sovereign, it can feel uncomfortable because it’s karmic, as in, it is about results, good or bad. The unsteadiness and actions of the 10th oppose the steadiness and privacy of the 4th, creating a vital axis in astrology.

The imum-coeli, or nadir of the chart, can fall anywhere between the 3rd, 4th and 5th houses, which gives us insight into what our foundation might be. The 3rd house represents spiritual rituals, interests and the courage to express one’s skills. The 4th house represents ancestors, property and respite. The 5th house represents creativity and children.

The 4th house is the Hypogeion (Ὑπόγειον) or “under-earth.” It is a cave of invisible things and the osmotic thickness of endings. It is your brief and unexpected affair with an old postcard at a flea market. Your affair with a man’s unintelligible handwriting and the image of the sky he picked out for his wife, long before you came to notice, long before his privacy became your epiphany of absence.

The 4th house cannot be invaded. Desecration only hurts humans, not souls or ancestors. Ancestors are the eternal glass of our humanity, reflecting back with the same force with which we have acted. Nothing gets lost or slips away here. Even if you do not see it, it is there. It is the house of history yet is it not the house of proof. It is the house of feelings and feeling as proof enough.

This mystery is the currency of art. Mystery comes from myein, "to close the eyes or lips." It implies secrecy. In astrology, the Sun and Moon are called luminaries because they illuminate. Art offers a little confession, without completely undoing the mystery from which it came. Leonard Cohen, who is a quintessential man of mystery said something like, “If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.” The 4th house can be thought of in this way.

Okay, that was a long one, but many blessings, hope you guys enjoyed it!

fork is on the floor from when my proprioceptive issues acted up again

I set my empty Erewhon combo-meal off the edge of my table

and the heavy fork made luv with gravity

it was bad porn

I’d rather obsessively re-read my poems

I will become the thousands of eyes meant for me

act 2

my brother had a bit of a hard time

swapped meals for ice cream

stayed up late into the night

and overcame his allergy to nocturnal animals

he regrets some things that happened then

but he prayed a thousand prayers

and drew a thousand flowers

in places dusted with a former catatonia

he described it as a novel experience

I wonder if my new nonstop word motion

will make me lose control

act 3

but nothing is ever really new

the deeper inside you get

the more total things become

buddha channeled the DNA strand

2,268 years before Friedrich Miescher

isolated it from white blood cells

and at once Buddha’s identity collapsed

the more we cling to an unheard of life

the more we deify the ‘original experience’

the more celebrities we’ll make

I am repulsed/obsessed with these

cunted identities…

playgrounds of

makeup and fashion

articulation of

wealth and beauty

I like the combustive, spontaneous pain

of not having

when i’m just pricked by the artifice of absence

this pain is a conscious artist’s

biodynamic vegetable

that’s why ice cream is enough sometimes

we have a different food pyramid

act 4

I have my macro-nutrient obsessive days

laundry days

service days

gym days

I do need to fast from the extraordinary trap of mind

but austerity can only be a part of the way

as the artist’s mind makes dreams of beauty

despite the perfect apocalypse defying

sunset-mountain-ocean-union

you, yes you

and me

need to make beauty

act 5

the life of an artist is also about not being an artist

so stop making art

be aimless in the doldrums

i’ve heard people say “art saved my life”

or maybe I read it across a t-shirt in an Etsy doom scroll

but making art is life stopping

time stopping

and the dark-night-of-soul

is a path back to life and time again

the artist’s unraveling vision

has no stake in the artist’s survival

if I die

beauty will be someone else’s hang-up

and the touchstone of nature, anyway

art is a teleporting pearl

you can’t wear it on your neck

it’s not a vibe or a mood

art is that hasty, mysterious

‘did-you-see-that-or-am-I-crazy?’ phenomenon

we’ve always waited for

and my notes app is becoming a public forum again

I remember when twitter was new

and I wanted to write a novel on it

my 10th grade teacher overheard me

and by the time I was a senior

he had proudly tweeted his book

you might say I was imagining things

but if he was a predator he was likely a thief

sleeping with students during lunch time

in the room we all learned about Orwell

pressing himself against the words of dead men

and the groins of young girls who pressed flowers in dictionaries

recently he was fired

he was at it for at least 15 years

my freshman, sophomore and junior years

and the 12 that passed since I graduated

he got away with greedy things

and pedestaled himself

for an audience mandated by the

Los Angeles Unified School District

he stuffed his pants with socks

and watched us watch him

big words, fake cock

it has taken me long to take my words to you

I don’t know a world without cars, telephones and emails

but my journey of expressing tender parts

is an Edwardian voyage

between lesbians across the Atlantic

summoned to make love in the wrong time

but finally they meet at the dock

and my words to you are their resolution

in this advanced parallel time scape

what in your life has taken time

despite the competitive traffic of the hive mind?

where in your life is it slow and confusing

where in your life are there no answers

mystery despite the evolutions of science?

hold your feet to that place for a moment

and you’ll feel my fingers lace through your toes

Land is alive, like you and me, but life is seen mostly through an anthropocentric lens, where time arcs along aging spines rather than in the slow layering of sediment. If land lives, land remembers. I have a million memories from the last thirty years. My first day in America, I stood before the biggest supermarket in the world. A Vons, I think. Nothing will ever be bigger than Vons and its twitching parking lot. Not the patchwork fields of Nebraska as seen from a Boeing jet, nor the swelling ocean unfolding around the bends of the Big Sur coastline. I remember the Russian letter ‘p’ makes an ‘r’ sound, and my lower back holds a knot that, when pressed, stirs the trilled howls of my Ukrainian ancestors.

The land of Santa Fe, the white shell water place: Ogha Po’oge, remembers the crackle between thickset evergreens, the slow revolutions of river paths, and the mortality of all beings. Bliss set against grief, set against return, set against the lithosphere, blends into the memory of transcendence. The land was never fooled by separations. So when I stand on it, I feel a strange break from identity and that emptiness becomes a threshold to a deeper sense of place: to the land’s shape, name and people.

On my flight, I sat next to Dave, who told me about his family. His Tewa ancestors had been living in the mountains long before the Spanish came and renamed Ogha Po’oge to Santa Fe. He oversees demolition projects on nuclear sites, plentiful in Santa Fe, given its Manhattan Project infamy. He said that before Mexico lost the Mexican-American War and ceded land to the United States, his ancestors held thousands of acres. But the U.S. government turned most of it into a national park, allowing his family to keep only a small portion, now held in a trust. A member of his family has been trying to find a loophole to sell a parcel of land that holds a spring, a place that, for centuries, was a migratory site for Pueblo people. Over time, as Indigenous communities were decimated, the spring lost its many friends.

Godfrey Reggio’s film Koyaanisqatsi, Hopi for “life out of balance,” explores humanity’s gradual departure from nature. It’s composed of found, time-lapsed and slow-motion footage of urban life colliding with unadulterated landscapes. Las Vegas strip baristas blink, and the world erupts. Lights flicker inside the remote enclosures of skyscrapers, and then river water floods our broken hearts.

The tractors and mountains and Promethean tarmac at the Santa Fe airport reminded me of Phillip Glass’s haunting score for Koyaanisqatsi. So I played it as I took a video of the scene. An electric organ sustained slow, swelling chords beneath a deep bass voice chanting Koyaanisqatsi….

Koyaanisqatsi….

I held my breath as the organ punctuated the chants. The tractor’s clamor rippled through the song in my headphones. The whole thing sounded like an engine, but also like the gossip of mountains, if they could speak. In my inspired state, I searched the internet for stills from the film and learned that Reggio lives in Santa Fe and that the Hopi are a Pueblo people. Santa Fe evoked a memory of sound that fed back into itself like a boomerang. I hoped I might run into Reggio despite his old age, and share these synchronicities with him.

Alas, the closest I got to Reggio was at an exhibit named after his most recent film, Once Within a Time, which I found out about through my friend Krit, who has work installed there and had been with Reggio the day before, at Santa Fe’s annual art biennial. For a moment, I feared that I missed out by not taking an earlier flight. Regret can be a device of fantasy, and fantasy is cozy. It folds you into a small imaginary moment where everything is perfect. It’s painful to realize that it isn’t in the now, and how the road forked long ago. But upādāna, Sanskrit for clinging, is at the root of much suffering. A monk once told me it’s like walking through a field of sticky thistles. So I focused on what was in front of me—my pandemic ex, Red, awash in orange fog and synths inside of Krit’s immersive installation.

The soundscape had three layers: the underworld, the earth, and the sky. The room became the anatomy of an afterlife, transmogrifying heaven and hell into the organs of an industrial body. The floor was like the textured tongue of a beast, and the ceiling its ridged palate. We caught up inside of it, after many years of not seeing each other.

Red was my ride into Abiquiu, a rural town an hour north of Santa Fe, where both Red and my friend Alison live. They’re artists and gardeners, people from different eras of my life who were called to the same land and became fated neighbors. The town overlooks Tsi P’in, a prominent flat-topped mesa in the Jemez Mountains. Red said this is a sacred ancestral site for the Tewa and Diné people. For the Diné, it is said to be the origin of the universe and birthplace of Changing Woman, the divine mother. We went down to Abiquiu lake for a view and a swim, but winds made the water hostile. So we headed back to Alison’s, where I would be staying for the evening.

We rattled along in Red’s truck for a good while, as there are few paved local roads in Abiquiu. Alison had made plans for us to join her neighbor Betil for dinner. I set down my belongings, got a quick tour of her adobe home and studio, and set forth on foot.

I hadn’t walked sandy paths like that, not within a neighborhood. In Los Angeles, sand is peripheral, a borderland between the ocean and people, or mountains and flats. We lay in it and hike through it after coming to it from within our city’s grid. There’s a tidiness and geometry within a metropolis. But here there were no street signs, no roads, just the memory of a path, common sense and a promise of a good meal.

This walk filled me with a feeling of sovereignty. I had been worried about not having a car out here. I have two fears in my life, cars and worms. I got my driver’s license when I was seventeen, as a coming of age rite. When you’re young, you’re braver, less aware of consequences. It’s a good time to muscle through these things. But my parents couldn’t afford to buy me a car, and life soon pulled me away from the city. I retired driving as soon as I passed my driver’s test. Since then, I have moved from one long-term relationship to the next, all with people who worshiped their trucks and their passenger princess.

Now that I am voluntarily single and in my thirties, I am ready to reconsider driving. Not driving has started to feel like a real limitation, especially in places like this, where public transit is unreliable and in general, within the context of my wanderlust. I would have liked to travel to Taos and White Sands, but my car-less-ness confined me to Downtown Santa Fe. And yet, this walk to Betil’s house got me exactly where I needed to be. It felt both unfamiliar and ancient, like we were wayfarers in a fable.

Betil’s house emerged over the hill. Proof of life amid miles and miles of emptiness. She grilled garlic scapes, pearl onions, and snap peas, poured wine, and carved into a velvety piece of striploin, as her Basset Hound watched the sun set over Tsi P’in.

There were stretches when I didn’t say much during dinner. Betil, her husband, Red, and Alison spoke at length about plants and farm work. I have a habit of running my mouth, so I found it oddly endearing to be quiet for so long. I kept glancing at Betil’s assistant, from New York, who wore the same bashful gaze I did. Later, I told them I wished my life involved more digging, cultivating, and conversations about trees, but that I swoon at the sight of worms, and not in the good way.

Leaving Santa Fe, I felt the edge of an old pattern begin to wear. My seemingly disparate fears of cars and worms share the same adhesive. One demands decisive movement; the other, trust in the unknown. When I avoid both command and surrender, I land in a third place—a thick purgatory, like a psycho-spiritual DMV. I’ve hovered between the two, clinging to control that feels like freedom—floating above the humdrum, snagged all the while on thistles I mistook for atmosphere.

In the world, things appear black and white. Lingering above binaries can feel like a softer path. But separations have lifespans. In their early stages, they’re more stark; in time, they compost. They return to the memory of land, which outlives the mortal mind that once held the binary. What blends is what’s real. And the truest thing isn’t an answer but the unraveling question that lets more and more questions through.

I’m not yet entitled to compost the opposites. There’s still something for me in the risks, the fuck-ups, and the awkwardness of aging into adulthood. I absorb wisdom from elders, ascetics and scholars, but most learning happens through life’s vicissitudes. Upādāna might apply to FOMO for now, but will take on new meaning when my loved ones inevitably start dying.

I don’t mean to flatten my life into irony. I have known grief and the traumatic effects of violence, addiction and early poverty. But life has, on the whole, been more fair to me than to many others.

By California’s legal standard, I’ve been an adult for twelve years, which means I’ve spent more years on this Earth as a child. The process of composting polarities will start when the ratio shifts. But the scope of existence, nature, illness, and war, is indifferent. And it’s precisely that indifference that stirs the ego. Shouldn’t death have something to liberate us from, anyway? Maybe I should offer death a freak-out. Drive to a hill after it rains and watch the worms unearth themselves from the same mysterious land our bodies will one day return to.