Hey babes,
Happy new year! Today marks Aries season, the vernal equinox, Nowruz, the first day of the year on the zodiac and Solar Hijri calendars.
I feel like this is the perfect time for an astrology reading. Things are shifting, clarifying messages are rolling in, and new situations are materializing. I wanna help to identify what this means for you, friends. My calendar is open!
Last year I put a version of this essay out for Aries season and THIS year, I have added some new ideas, because i am all about evolving documents, and there’s also an AUDIO component :o featuring Aries rising and moon, Erica Joy. It’s like a reading of this essay with some additional commentary. We had to take a break in the middle of recording, and apparently you can’t just hop back in, so that’s why there are two diff clickables up there.
ALSO last year, for the new moon in Aries, Erica Joy and I facilitated our FIRST Cosmic Healing event to re-envision an anti-hegemonic Aries together, welcome in the astro new year, channel the Aries energy wisely, and chat it up about some of the themes in this very letter! This year, we’ll be digitally gathering again(!) on this upcoming Sunday, the 26th. If you’re already getting Cosmic Healing updates, then you’ll get the zoom link in ur inbox. But if you’re not yet in the CH community and wanna stop by, jus lemme knowwww. we’d love to see u.
I’m still in the process of my zodiac series of re-envisioning. An exploration of different readings of the zodiac signs that may better serve the folks I hope to work with through this practice. There’s a lot missing in the astrology teachings that dominate the convos, community, and discourse. My writing is for and centering marginalized people: when I say you, we, us, I am speaking to Black people, disabled people, indigenous peoples, muslim people, trans people, the immigrants who were displaced by imperialism and/or tricked by the propaganda. I’m speaking of the land, the other-than-human beings. I’m speaking with the spirits who speak with me. I’m speaking to the soulselves, the energetic bodies grated upon by these harsh, unsustainable frequencies. I’m deepening, still, into an anti-hegemonic astrology practice, and I am happy to have you bear witness to and take part in this journey.
Collectively, we’re not in any place to deepen into (fixed sign work) or adapt to (mutable sign stuff) the hellscape that’s taking place now, that’s lasted far too long, that should’ve never started to begin with. And I don’t use the word “should” lightly. We, the people, need something new. Something entirely different. And what better than Aries energy to locate where to begin? It’s easy to forget, because we are continually distracted, but the revolutionary part of abolishing oppressive systems and structures isn't the deconstruction itself, but the visions and implementation of new systems that center and fulfill needs. Mashallah, Aries is great at both destruction and imagining.
There’s a beauty in how fresh and honest cardinal fire is, right out the gate. When I think of Aries, I think of:
a spark—an idea,
a flash—emotions that come and go in an instant,
a lighter—a means of igniting another,
a torch—to light the way forward
Aries is the baby of the Zodiac. The ram. And what is a baby ram but a lamb, the picture of innocence?
🥺🥺
Ar(i)es is often touted as a god of war, but in a society without an obsession with war, the sign is given the freedom to do more. Creation, action, honesty, impulse, beginnings, vitality, bravery, and pure life force all fall under this energy. The Aries archetype can be channeled in numerous directions, but to provide a few umbrellas: the self, the soldier, and the revolutionary. I break these down through the planets that have a special relationship to the sign: The Sun, Mars, and Saturn, respectively. Planetary dignities, as they’re called in Hellenistic astrology, while by no means as cut and dry as the Hellenistic tradition proclaims, can provide enlightening context to the signs and planets when you shake up the unnecessary connotations, and look into what’s really going on here—the patterns, I’m all about the patterns.
The Sun ‘exalts’ in Aries, because we’re dealing with pure ego. Simply, the self. Aries teaches self-determination, which can look like experimenting with defining yourself outside of the white delusions of grandeur (WDG) that forcefully dominate the collective consciousness. If you live life in opposition to WDG, what would it feel like to breathe more centrality into your experience? Centrality that starts with YOU—not representation, acknowledgement, or recognition. What are your existential needs—as a soulself, as a divine being having a human experience? Remember that your needs are specific to you and ever changing! What emotions flash when you bear witness to how your needs have been met? And when you breathe into the ways you’ve been failed? or listen into that which you’ve ignored for far too long?
Practice the art of self-satisfaction, in many senses of the word, like finding ways to satisfy your wants and needs without doing harm to others, doing something that you’re mf proud of, or simmering in the joy of being pleased with yourself for any and all reasons. Centering yourself does not mean fulfilling your every wish and whim, but it does mean getting into the practice of considering what those are, before deciding how to move forward. knowing them even just so that you may be able to decipher a want from a need, a trigger from a reaction, a wish from a wound.
If you are a beneficiary of interlocking systems of domination, what does it mean to bear witness to that in each and every interaction? What does it mean to consciously, consistently de-center yourself and your wants + needs for the benefit of others while realizing you will never attain any sort of innocence while these systems remain intact? How does it feel to make someone else’s burden lighter? When’s the last time you did so? How soon can you do so again? Transforming societally induced self-centeredness into radical self-awareness, self-accountability, selflessness, it’s all within reach. Try it, maybe! It’s fun. Want help figuring out how, thru the lens of your natal chart? Book a session w me.
Aries is where the planet Mars is most at home (in ‘domicile’). Mars in Aries is all action and very visceral. Aries energy sparks intense feelings without much thought or any promise of follow-through, so there’s some potential for manipulation in this reactivity. Here we find the soldier; on the colonizer’s zodiac-themed chessboard (lol?) Aries are meant to be the pawns to further military colonialism.
War is a profit machine for imperialist empires, and we cannot be fooled into lining their pockets with our lives any longer. Though much of our media is meant to indicate otherwise, it’s not exactly brave to be aligned with an oppressive military force, and facing traumatization on behalf of a death machine, behind murder weapons, and under the thumb of the oligarchs toying with people’s lives is not empowering. In the pre-existing circumstance that came with the preceding cycle Aries energy is born into, virtues and values are likely to be outdated, out of whatever new alignment that begins with Aries. In our current age, we’re able to witness for ourselves how the virtues of dominant society were constructed without our consent, and how the values are warped before our eyes to serve those without a smidge of bravery to their name. Fighting for the cowards who coerced or trapped you into being their soldier is not an honor, but a travesty.
Outside of a war context, and into that of an ongoing pandemic, I see this archetype playing out as the impulse to act on autopilot, or the myopic desire for stimulation, for a spark that makes life feel like it’s being lived out loud, without care for the body or land (the consideration of both being a Taurus teaching). Aries values life as an idea, rather than an embodied practice of maintenance.
Being on the frontlines of violence is a vulnerable position. Repeatedly exposing yourself to a degenerative virus is a precarious situation. Vulnerability is a virtue, and it’s a mark of a violent hegemony that a glorification of literal self-sacrifice on behalf of the circulation of state currency or the continuation of state violence overshadows vulnerability as a step towards personal healing and self-acceptance. This is a major manipulation of Aries energy. Please be discerning when it comes to how you engage with vulnerability! Bravery is acting on what you choose, and doing so requires listening into who you are at your core, which is an extremely vulnerable action!
Vulnerability begins with the ~self~ baby.
In my experience, being a Black woman who ever moves in a manner that requires others work around my wants and needs rather than everyone else’s—and doing so on my own behalf, not as a tool for anyone, or a mouthpiece for any cause—involves such vulnerability! And is very brave, if I do say so myself. (I do.) It’s giving BLK Girl Soldier by Jamila Woods. Tbh, if you’re gonna soldier, soldier for Black women or just like keep it moving pls
Saturn’s relationship to Aries helps me to locate the sign’s revolutionary potential. Daddy Saturn, the ultimate authority figure of the planetary family, is challenged in Aries. Here, whatever remains of the (dilapidated) structures Saturn’s diligently built (and watched crumble) over the decades-long previous cycle are burnt to a crisp, and a new era is born. Aries does not ask for, but demands that Saturn throw his outdated ass rule book into the fire and start anew. Not all that stands tall was built with integrity. Issa whole tower moment for Saturn, providing the often-sober titan access to rage. Here, we must acknowledge the maturity of a righteous anger that sustains a righteous rebellion. Unsanctioned aggressive action in defense of self and communal preservation is brave. Bravery is advocating for yourself in the face of the oppressive forces operating against you. Bravery is also in quitting when you realize you want no part in perpetuating harm to yourself or others. Bravery is starting anew without knowing where you’re heading. Aries teaches us that an intuitive impulse may hold more wisdom than a corrupted construct.
Independence is a very Aries buzzword, and an anti-colonial understanding of independence begins with accepting the inescapable reality of interdependence. Within interdependence, we can still foster individual agency and autonomy, as well as collective sovereignty and community support webs. This is where Saturn and Aries can really vibe together. We can actualize these things through placing deeper value on our own genuine best interests, those best interests that come before the materiality of Taurus. and taking special care of the collective interests that work against, or altogether outside of, the structures that inflict harm upon us. In this way, we can embody the revolutionAries (hehe). I, along with most other ‘96, ‘97, and ‘98 babies were born during Saturn’s last romp through Aries, and this bb gen is tasked with carrying the torch in recognizing that the parts of us that are bold, bored, and brimming with unbridled emotion are not only brave, but also WISE! I’m very excited for Saturn’s return in 2025, where we’ll all have no choice but to explore this together.
In the immortal words of the RENT cast, the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s CREATION! (hehe x2). Passion and creation are of significance to Aries; we are meant to protect them, and we are meant to witness and act when they are threatened. Anyone without the time or energy to actualize passion and creation is being failed. If we are TRULY living into interdependence, then we can ALL hold and support one another, so that no one is holding too much on their own.
This Aries season, I suggest you allow yourself to feel deeply, without shying away from your most powerful emotions. How are you honoring your existence, and all life—including those who’ve passed on and that which is other than human—during a time of profound devaluation of life itself? Play with some righteous rage and channel it into creating something undeniably YOU, at your most useless to the state. Be shameless, be brash, be brave. Ignore everything I just said and do what you want.
xx kay