Consider this a belated May newsletter, however, Happy June!

Let’s jump right in. I was scrolling along the timeline when I came across @millymichelle’s query on criminal histories and house significations; there was a lot of corroborating testimony I agreed with in the replies, but I was surprised at the time to not see any mention of the ninth house, which was my first inclination. So I shared my little thoughts in the forum but continued to mull: if I was drawn to the ninth house due to its implications through derivative houses, what does that mean for the other ten?

While it may be attractive to assign all matters of incarceration to the twelfth house, the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) is a system so pervasively ingrained within the fabric of American society, that it requires and benefits from zooming out—derivative houses help us understand how any given topic functions, who it implicates, and what factors support or hinder its agenda. The astrological chart is a network, affirming the mechanisms of life-sized relationships that already exist into connections we can digest, figure by figure. As well as better understanding a particular topic, derivative houses help us strengthen our astrology, forcing us to gain more intimate understandings of the places and why they signify what they do. It’s a good exercise for any astrologer!

Unsurprisingly, putting the pieces together on the PIC was emotionally taxing given the types of narrative research I consumed to further my own understanding—the smallest of fractions made it in here for the sake of space, time, and digestibility. That said, I would like to turn this work and all I couldn’t fit, along with charts(!), into a lecture for Monday, June 20th, to celebrate Juneteenth in a fulfilling way with my astro-community; I’m putting together a panel discussion to follow—if that’s something you’d be interested in attending please leave a comment below after (or while) reading!

Before jumping into the delineations, if you’ve been thinking about booking a session with me, now is absolutely the time! June and July books are now open.

For the next two weeks only, session packages are now available! These save a good amount of $$$—I encourage y’all to check that out! This is a great option for new and old clients alike who are looking for more consistent check-ins on transits and the future.

Also or the month of June, I have a goal to book 19 redistributed gift sessions for new queer and QT black clients—if you would like to facilitate that, you can purchase a gift session here: https://djennebadrammeh.com/booking OR contribute to the fund here: ko-fi.com/djennybeans. Every $170 raised will gift a session to one of the folks who commented on the tweet below, as well as rescue me from a housing insecurity fiasco I’ve found myself in (Saturn stationing RX in the 4th house problems!).

Last, the sliding scale codes for first time sessions across June and July are: DOMICILE15; DOMICILE20; DOMICILE30.

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OK. Onward.

‘Discipline’ may be identified neither with an institution nor with an apparatus; it is a type of power, a modality for it exercise, comprising a whole set of instruments, techniques, procedures, levels of application, targets; it is ‘physics’ or an ‘anatomy’ of power, a technology. And it may be taken over either by ‘specialized’ institutions (the penitentiaries or ‘houses of correction’ of the nineteenth century), or by institutions that use it as an essential instrument for a particular end (schools, hospitals), or by preexisting authorities that find in it a means of reinforcing or reorganizing their internal mechanisms of power […] or by apparatuses that have made discipline their principle of internal functioning (the disciplinarization of the administrative apparatus from the Napoleonic period), or finally by state apparatuses whose major, if not exclusive, function is to assure that discipline reigns over society as a whole (the police).1

— Michel Foucault, Panopticism

12th House — Bad Spirit

The Twelfth house is where Saturn, the Greater Malefic, rejoices. It is the house of self-undoing; of suffering; of isolation; of exile; of incarceration. It is associated with large, untamed beasts as well as hidden enemies. Incarceration is a twelfth house topic—to be imprisoned is to be isolated from society and caged, quite literally, like an animal. The issue of U.S. arrests and incarceration today is a direct product of chattel slavery, as American policing evolved from slave patrols, first instituted in South Carolina in 1702.2

“if any negroe or other slave shall absent himself from his masters service and lye hid and lurking in obscure places, comitting injuries to the inhabitants, and shall resist any person or persons that shalby any lawfull authority be imployed to apprehend and take the said negroe, that then in case of such resistance, it shalbe lawfull for such person or persons to kill the said negroe or slave soe lying out and resisting.” — Virginia’s 1680 slave codes.3

“The Gray Wastes—our carceral state, a sprawling netherworld of prisons and jails—are a relatively recent invention.”4 Crime is not the single or even most important motivator of America’s uniquely high rates of incarceration, but actually criminal justice policy. 

“And in major cities wracked by the drug war, as many as 80 percent of young African American men now have criminal records and are thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. These young men are part of a growing undercaste, permanently locked up and locked out of mainstream society.”5 In the saturnian Gray Wastes of incarceration, imprisoned peoples are designated as the hidden enemies of society, tucked away for their sentence, and further so when out, liable to being swallowed up again by the social factors (poverty, unemployment, education) that pipeline reentry by recidivism.

“[T]he slave went free; stood for a brief moment in the sun; then moved back toward slavery.”6 — W.E.B. Du Bois

1st House — Helm

In the First house, which is second to the twelfth house of incarceration, we find life itself. The first house is the hour-marker, or helm. “According to Porphyry, some astrologers believed that the soul entered the body at the moment of birth through the Hour-Marker; this is probably why Antiochus called the first place the entrance point into physical life.”7 (Brennan, 232)

The first house is a place of empowerment by selfhood and this is where Mercury finds its joy. Within the house of self, Mercury dances on the bridge between night and day, a mutable creature along for the ride of personal transformation, however erratic or deliberate. As a raconteur, Mercury’s joy speaks to the possession of our narratives; as a griot, “a living archive of the people's traditions,”8 an essential for the preservation of oral histories for a people banned from literacy. The body becomes a vessel for stories, ensconced by hermetic lids of own our discretion. In Toni Morrison’s terrifically and consistently misquoted Beloved, she writes on behalf of Paul D to a bedridden and mourning Sethe: “You your best thing.”9 

When the world goes dark and falls away from us, we remain, left with ourselves. The first house belongs to itself while supporting the place that it succeeds, a relationship of proclaimed ownership. When a person is incarcerated, their life becomes (more obviously) an asset to the state, politically by prison gerrymandering10 and by physical labor, sometimes literally picking cotton11. The second place “is called the place of bios, which in this context means “livelihood,” “means of living,” or “manner of living.” (Brennan, 353).12

2nd House — Gate of Hades

The Second house is third from the twelfth house of incarceration. As mentioned above, this house is responsible for that which sustains us. For incarcerated peoples, communication with the outside is designated a luxury; communication on the inside becomes pertinent to survival. The third house relationships forged in the tangible twelfth house space are responsible for one’s livelihood and protection, as lonesomeness here is a liability. Incarceration is a third house experience onto itself, given a term of imprisonment is spent fenced in on a campus—an artificially produced community. Locality becomes the world; the world becomes liminal.

Poverty, or a lack of second house resources, is the state-manufactured gateway to prison. I talk about this more in the fourth house delineation.

3rd House — Goddess

The Third house, fourth from the twelfth and where the Moon rejoices, is the house of Goddess. The third house is responsible for local matters: neighborhood; regular communication; administration; primary and secondary schooling. We find the school to prison pipeline here, an amalgamation of practices and policies (suspensions; cops in schools; zero-tolerance policies) that disproportionately disadvantage black students to the end that they are more likely to enter the criminal justice system.

Grassroots and community organizing live in this nocturnal space, guided by the Moon’s nourishing and progressive nature. The Underground Railroad and its conductors, white and free black abolitionists, ushered enslaved folks from safe house to safe house across county and state lines in shrouds of secrecy—while the destination was largely a ninth house venture (far north in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean), the methods of travel were distinctly third house in nature. Riders of the Railroad mainly traveled piecemeal on foot or by wagon. Abolition’s dependence on community networks to succeed exist in stark contrast to ninth house systems of law and order, which function in a top down capacity. The modern prison abolition movement takes its cues here with a focus on grassroots on-the-ground organizing efforts.

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4th House — Subterranean

The Fourth house, fifth from the twelfth house, may easily be regarded as Saturn’s other joy. It is the anti-(mid)heaven and is the deepest, darkest area of a chart, providing the foundation and structure for which it may rest and be supported. The fourth house signifies lineage, patrilineage furthermore, inheritances, and property. It is also literally about homes themselves. “Since housing equity makes up about two-thirds of median household wealth, excluding black Americans from establishing equity during a time of unprecedented rises in home values locked in and exacerbated wealth disparities.”13 The fourth house, being so largely about heritage, land, and housing, can be understood as indicative of generational wealth.

Broken windows policing is a practice popularized in 1990’s New York City, which holds that areas with visible signs of crime, such as broken windows, must be more severely policed, as crime will increase without this interference. Historical and contemporary redlining barred Black Americans from access to homeownership and therefore wealth building; broken windows policing along with Stop and Frisk are exemplary of the criminalization of poverty as engendered by black economic equality. In Winter 1865, Maj. Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman issued an order under Abraham Lincoln’s authority:

“The islands from Charleston, south, the abandoned rice fields along the rivers for thirty miles back from the sea, and the country bordering the St. Johns river, Florida, are reserved and set apart for the settlement of the negroes [sic] now made free by the acts of war and the proclamation of the President of the United States.”

…each family shall have a plot of not more than (40) acres of tillable ground, and when it borders on some water channel, with not more than 800 feet water front, in the possession of which land the military authorities will afford them protection, until such time as they can protect themselves, or until Congress shall regulate their title.”14

Following Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, Andrew Johnson as his successor overturned the order by Fall of the same year, returning the land to the white Southerners of South Carolina, Georgia and Florida.

“In 1910, black Americans owned at least 15 million acres of farmland, nearly all of it in the South, according to the U.S. Agricultural Census. Today, blacks own only 1.1 million acres of farmland and are part owners of another 1.07 million acres.”15 

5th House — Good Fortune

The Fifth house, sixth from the twelfth house of bad spirit, is where Venus finds her joy. Venus is an abolitionist. The fifth house is about making pleasure from scratch (art, wine, sex, pregnancy, children) and the sixth house is about health, labor, and displacement. Venus’s joy(s) exists in disconnect to the themes of the twelfth house, as these houses construct an aversion. This fifth house is about wellness and the pains to attain simple, elusive pleasures—it is also about the overwhelming love and yearning for the future; as eleventh from the seventh house of romantic partnerships and family, the fifth house signifies children as hope for a better tomorrow, which is also, of course, an immigration issue.

The aversion to incarceration here illustrates the separation of families as much as it does the joys of being free.

6th House — Bad Fortune

The Sixth house is seventh from the twelfth, and the place of Mars’ joy: the house of subjugation, labor, health and physical injuries, military and police officers, and “changing from place to place.”16 Known as the house of the enslaved, this delineation remains relevant still for contemporary time.

The Sixth house of slaves and slavery overcomes the ninth house of government by square, informing the motivations and conditions of law and order, the justice system, and social policy—culminating a system of rule predicated on and allegiant to racial stratification. The United States, born a British colony on stolen indigenous land and the stolen labor of enslaved Africans and their descendants, operates in service to this history still; as the axis goes, the twelfth house is the house of imprisonment while the sixth house is the house of slavery. The Constitution’s Thirteenth Amendment reads: “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”17 So, per the constitution, slavery in the U.S. remains legal, though singularly as a government mandate; slavery by reinvention and rebrand: not only legal, but punishment deserved.

As one of the declining houses, the sixth is associated with travel, although Mars’ influence by joy colors this signification with shades of exile and displacement by persecution, war, deportation, and asylum.

7th House — Setting

The Seventh house is eighth from the twelfth place of incarceration and hidden enemies. This place serves as the house of open enemies and conflict as well as partnerships and contracts—it is about war, marriage, and family.

In eighteenth- and nineteenth century America, the lives of white women in the United States were circumscribed within a legal and social system based on patriarchal authority. This authority took two forms: public and private. The social, legal, and economic position of women in this society was controlled through the private aspects of patriarchy and defined in terms of their relationship to families headed by men. The society was structured to confine white wives to reproductive labor within the domestic sphere. At the same time, the formation, preservation, and protection of families among white settlers was seen as crucial to the growth and development of American society. In colonial America, white women were seen as vital contributors to the stabilization and growth of society. They were therefore accorded some legal and economic recognition through a patriarchal family structure… […] Unlike white women, racial-ethnic women experienced the oppressions of a patriarchal society but were denied the protections and buffering of a patriarchal family. Their families suffered as a direct result of the organization of the labor systems in which they participated. […] Black men were denied the male resources of a patriarchal society and therefore were unable to turn gender distinctions into female subordination, even if that had been their desire. Black women, on the other hand, were denied support and protection for their roles as mothers and wives.18

Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s 1965 report “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action”19 spoke to the building crisis that was the destruction of the black family as a few hundred years in the making. The report was polarizing in its sensitivity to the realities and impending worsening conditions of the “black community.”

Later that same year at Howard University’s commencement ceremony, President Lyndon Johnson co-signed the findings of the report in his address, saying “[Black family breakdown] flows from centuries of oppression and persecution of the Negro man. It flows from the long years of degradation and discrimination, which have attacked his dignity and assaulted his ability to produce for his family.”20 These ideas were poorly received by white liberals and conservatives alike, for varying reasons, and without a plan to amend the destruction laid out, served as mere platitudes, radical though they might be. With no policies in place to address the dire state of affairs for black communities, an over-correction emerged by way of the emerging Gray Wastes of the 70’s, a carceral over-correction antithetical to Moynihan’s initial intents.

Let’s talk about this more at June 20th’s lecture.

8th House — Idle

The Eighth house of Idle-ness is ninth from the twelfth house, “which conveys a sense of not being in motion or doing anything, perhaps because this is the last phaf the angular triad associated with the Descendant were planets set each day.”21 The eighth house is about what is shared and what is owed: secrets; assets; debts. The eighth’s trine to the place of incarceration reifies imprisonment as the ostensible payment of a debt to society, framed, though not actualized, as redemption. Redemption then is tucked away as a private affair, something to do in the shadows before emerging with declared progress. A society who cannot bear witness to progress will find it hard to believe.

Bail and parole are both eighth house matters—cash bail subjects those arrested for a crime without means to pay for temporary release to lengthy periods of incarcerated limbo, awaiting actual conviction and sentencing. The fourth house of generational resources trines the eighth in a harmonious relationship for the economically privileged—access to generational wealth determines the ability to afford cash bail. A 2021 CalMatters investigation found “at least 1,300 people have been incarcerated in California’s jails longer than three years without being tried or sentenced. Of those, 332 people have been waiting in jail for longer than five years.”22 The crowd sourced efforts of community bail funds is one of the more beneficial significations of the eighth house.

Parole, from the French parole for “word,” as in to give one’s, is liminal in nature. Provisional release submits parolees to general surveillance while attempting to reintegrate to society; because the standards of living and morality are so much higher for parolees, without all the necessary support to facilitate them, parole puts persons in a state of idleness, as there is always the chance that one may transgress and be sent back to prison to complete a full sentence. 

9th House — God

The Ninth house of God is tenth from the twelfth house of incarceration. The ninth house is about power: federal government and the judicial system function in an overcoming square to the twelfth house of incarceration. As tenth from the twelfth, this place functions as the public vestige of what is hidden. There is no formal incarceration without a legal system to facilitate it. In the U.S., those convicted of felonies are excluded from most jobs; cases become matters of public record; they are disenfranchised from the civic duty of voting. The sun, signifying authority, rejoices in the ninth, highlighting the state and federal powers responsible for sentencing; the legal process of catching and defending case; and, by design, the functionally inescapable reputation born of a criminal history.

The type of sight associated with the astrological Sun has both physical and metaphysical dimensions; it represents the literal surveillance of an empire by its rulers as well as the omnipotence of an all-seeing god or eye. […] It is associated with surveillance because its power always emerges through a top-down approach. If the Sun stands for the future, then it also stands for a specific type of future that is carefully engineered, omnipotently surveilled, and designed to break society away from its own histories and traditions.23

The panopticon is a ninth house signification, a surveillance on the carceral structure, made possible by its height and the eye of the sun, both literal and by metaphor.

10th House — Praxis

The Tenth house of Praxis, or the Midheaven, is eleventh from the twelfth house. As the most visible area of the chart, the tenth house is about reputational standing and social climbing (non-derogatory). “Generally, the tenth and its ruler are also associated with how effective or successful the native is,”24 which is clearly influenced by criminal history, given the social and economic barriers it erects long after a societal debt has been “paid.”

While redemption and rehabilitation are pushed to the dark corners of the eighth house by imposing powers, real redemption and exoneration comes in the tenth, where it functions as the place of Good Spirit and reputation in relationship to the place of incarceration. It is the house of praxis, which is to say action, where one may be evaluated by strangers, for better or worse.

11th House — Good Spirit

The Eleventh house of Good Spirit is twelfth from the twelfth house of incarceration. This is the place of social groups and hopes and dreams, themes that become become cadent in relationship to incarceration. Jupiter rejoices in what is relationally a liminal space, dreamlike even; I place restorative justice here. Restorative justice requires community facilitation, an eleventh house process, and functions as a niche alternative, still low in American popularity, to punitive measure. Because the eleventh house sextiles the ninth house of criminal justice, an implication rests that restorative justice has merits in a lawfully ordered society if only the appropriate authorities would consider it. As a succeedent house, it supports the tenth house of praxis and exoneration with the tools necessary for their livelihood. The eleventh house does not sell dreams, it offers an imaginative pursuit of justice; it demands we pursue, hand in hand with our siblings, the world we’d like to see.

I know this was lengthy, thank you for reading through to the end! If you have any thoughts I would love to learn them!

I can’t help but to think about color a lot recently, mostly with respect to our girl V. That Venus, ruler of Libra and Taurus, holds domain over the colors white and green- feels good, feels right. She has her own special ties to purple1, as well as pastels at large; she rules over copper, the metal, which blooms green against the touch of air-flesh; but what of pink, which extends beyond pastels, coming loud in shades of sharp and blister and Barbie and spice? And why white, exactly? Why green?

The way I and a good deal of other smarties see it, the color white very much articulates a cerebral, Libran Venus, where green speaks to her earthbound Taurus manifestation.2

As an artist, when I think of the color white, I am reminded of the myth of impartiality, of not having a point of view. Against our cultural backdrop, white appears to be unsullied by perspective and other intensely human conventions. White provides the common canvas of choice: she invokes Tabula Rasa. Purity. Virginhood. It is difficult for me to divorce these ideas from social conceptions of whiteness, which among plenty things functionally declares itself as default, relegating all outside its pale parameters to Other, or even to take it a step further: dirty or tainted. A splash of Other against white is considered a corruption until spun into gold and decided upon as Art. White is a lot more complicated than it or the world would have us believe; in its perceived lack, it invites projection by way of meaning making and vice versa. 

For me, Libra is very much a sign about ideals and the aspiration toward them. As an air sign, Libra is very much concerned with theoretical conceits, its cardinal nature egging onward toward endless pursuits like “balance,” without necessarily believing in definitive practical application. At any given time, there is too much to consider; ideals do not translate to worldly dimensions.

Whiteness isn’t real in the way that things in our tangible world are, but rather, it’s a conceptual value that can and has been granted and taken over time. In the first scene of Atlanta's Season 3 premiere, a comical (to me) interaction takes place between a couple of fellas fishing under a bridge in the night; the white guy regales his black partner with a haunted tale: years ago, an affluent black town was flooded out by the U.S. government, the very waters this duo eerily floats along. With a particularly ludicrous gravitas, he says of the town’s inhabitants, 

“They were almost white. White’s not a real thing, you know? People just… become white. [...] They thought they were safe, they’d paid to be white. With enough blood and money anyone can be white.”

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Whiteness itself isn’t fixed, it’s aspirational—a term I am unable to encounter without also recalling Academy Award winner (and prototypical Libra) Gwyneth Paltrow’s iconic words to some Harvard Business School students a few years back, “It is crucial to me that we remain aspirational.”3 Dear Gwynnie was referring to her luxury lifestyle banner Goop, however her words (which I gleefully take out of context with frequency) easily translate and speak to the functions and mechanisms of whiteness. Not only is whiteness aspirational, one can never have enough of it. It is a fight to maintain, as its existence and worth is entirely predicated on dogged exclusion. In Michael Oliver’s James Baldwin and the “Lie of Whiteness,” he writes “If and when a (white) psychology is propped up by a notion of false superiority, funded by a lie of (black) inferiority, then what would happen to this (white) self-understanding if the lie is revealed as false? Again, [James] Baldwin puts it perfectly: ‘I am not what you said I was. And if my place, as it turns out, is not my place, then you are not what you said you were, and where’s your place? (Baldwin 2010e, p. 72)’”4

As my colleague Diana Rose Harper would say, “Everything is relationships”5—an extremely Venusian notion. Whiteness sprang forth most clearly in the 17th century as a retroactive logic for the proliferation of slavery, hinging itself on the polarity of good verses evil. For black to be bad, white must be good. Robert P. Baird wrote on this extensively in an article for The Guardian last year, saying “[white identity] had important antecedents that included a growing sense of a pan-European identity; longstanding cultural associations that saw white as a symbol of purity and virtue; and bog-standard ethnocentrism.”6 While the beauty of the white archetype lies in its open-endedness, we find its hazards in the same place. For who has filled in the blanks on our behalf and declared them as law—divine law?

In a world so aggressively shaped by white Christian antebellum principles7, we cannot escape the baggage placed on a white that claims to have no point of view or context of its own. If everything is relationships, white cannot be examined by its lonesome as it must have a context; our personal understandings of color cannot be untouched by the racialization of hues at large. “The rhetorical force of attributing the curse [of blackness] to biblical and divine authority is unmistakable. For if the basis for the claim is social, then it is open to revision. However, if the basis is divinely authorized, then the inferior status of the racialized subject is forever fixed and cannot be changed. In this way, blackness is forever cursed, while whiteness becomes eternally blessed” (Park, 15-16). We learn from young that fairness is about justice is about goodness is about whiteness is also about beauty; to be fair is to command authority on what is true (Saturn’s exaltation in Libra says hello). Fairness then, when used to illustrate appearance, now becomes a euphemism for “white and therefore beautiful.” Mirror Mirror on the whatever, who’s the whitest, most goodest, most perfect specimen of God’s light? Most of us don’t unlearn this. White in its blankness beckons perspective while also claiming it as antithetical to its being. Divinity transcends perspective.

In W.E.B. DuBois’ 1920 essay The Souls of White Folk, he put forth: “This theory of human culture and its aims has worked itself through warp and woof of our daily thought with a thoroughness that few realize. Everything great, good, efficient, fair, and honorable is ‘white’; everything mean, bad, blundering, cheating, and dishonorable is ‘'yellow’; a bad taste is ‘brown’; and the devil is ‘black.’”8

I say this a lot, but I am far less interested in reframing pain points toward positivity so much as I am simply invested in critically examining idealistic structures presented as absolute. None of us are capable of being totally objective, each of us shaped by our experiences, exposure, indoctrinations, cultural allegiances, and more. I believe Libra is hyper-aware of this. This is a good thing—we should honor that we are not robots, cannot feasibly pass as one. This also makes justice a fool’s errand, for at least from a white lens, ironically, there will never be one true truth.

While white intimates and raises questions of what purity can be, allowing us to discern judgment as well as subscribe to pre-existing cultural notions, green I believe tells us where we can already find purity thriving.

I spent my 4/20 evening this past week ushering in Taurus season with a couple of badass Leos—Pao Rodelas and Mack the Zodiac—for a cabaret themed astrology night produced by the good pal Mercurius George. I did most of my prep on my way to the venue, jotting down my Taurus thoughts in Notes while making sure to appreciate a view in flux. I caught life bursting and my thesis emerged with the same thunder: confirmation of life. The fecundity that Taurus ushers in, at least in this northern hemisphere, demands attention to creation. “April showers bring May flowers” is a Venusian exercise in life affirming showmanship. What pray tell, is more “pure” than that?

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Would you believe that I set out to write about pink and simply became distracted? To close, I’d like to draw our attention back to last week’s Pink Moon, as it was our last full moon before we found ourselves zapped to the current eclipse season. She was ruled by an exalted Venus in Pisces who will take reign again this weekend for the lunar eclipse in Taurus (while conjunct Jupiter at the exaltation degree, aaaahh!)—I posit that Venus, supported in Jupiter’s purple Piscean waters, gets to be pretty in pink here. An exalted Venus gets to divest from ideas of who its supposed to be, divest from any ideas at all. Venus gets to show up and allow that to be enough. She gets to vibe and be slutty and live free and bold. She gets to decide her colors and make them from scratch, as authentic or artificial as the mood requires. She deserves that freedom. She deserves that whimsy. She deserves her own terms.

With the moon recently moved into the Pisces party this morning, I leave y’all with these fiery pink words: “I stood at the border, stood at the edge and claimed it as central. l claimed it as central, and let the rest of the world move over to where I was.” — Toni Morrison, Pisces moon.

Reflective Pink Moon horoscopes for paid subscribers ahead—

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In anticipation of Venus’ grand sashay into Pisces yesterday, I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about the unique relationship between exaltation and fall. As of now, we find ourselves beneath a sky absolutely laden with exalted and domicile planets: Venus and Jupiter in Pisces, Sun in Aries, and Saturn in Aquarius, to say nothing of the Moon in Cancer in just another day or so. That is a whole lot of privilege and power to go around at once.

Without getting too deep in the etymology of it all, the Latin exaltare brings ex- and altus together, meaning “from within” or “out of,” and “high,” respectively. Exalted planets are ones that can be seen, observed, understood, believed; they are quite literally highly regarded. But what of planets in fall, their counterparts? I don’t believe in reframing absolutely everything, however, I do very much believe in working with what you/we have. Predictive astrology, I may practice; a fatalist, I am not.

“As above, so below” feels especially prescient when considering this particular facet of essential dignity. Whichever sign a planet finds its exaltation, its high honor, it then finds its depression in that sign’s sibling. An axis is indivisible, functioning in relation to itself—axes cannot be halved and properly evaluated piecemeal. Venus who finds its exaltation in Pisces therefore has its fall in Virgo. The Moon who exalts in Taurus, must fall in Scorpio. It’s symmetry. But is our general collective understanding of this symmetry reductive? I think so.

Planets in fall work from ground up, instead of top down like their zodiac partners. They are as supportive as the earth beneath our bodies, often silently so. They are a bed, a chair, something to lean on; they are the surfaces that beckon us to take a load off and allow ourselves to be carried. The more I’ve come to understand fallen planets as under-perceived and so, under-appreciated, I’ve also come to realize that a lot of the worst, most common vitriol levied at plenty of the signs can be very easily connected back to the planets and significations that sink deep into these wildly lush cushions—accusations of what a sign can’t do, or does poorly. Let’s take a look:

Libra, the fall of the Sun: inauthentic; collection of borrowed identities

Scorpio, the fall of the Moon: brooding, impenetrable lockbox; paranoid

Pisces, the fall of Mercury: gibberish monster

Virgo, the fall of Venus: professional nagger; hyper-critical, even in love

Cancer, the fall of Mars: conflict avoidant cry baby

Capricorn, the fall of Jupiter: soulless; unfeeling; faithless suit

Aries, the fall of Saturn: shortsighted; zero regard for future or consequences

Boring. Low hanging fruit. Uninspired. Barf. Is Pisces a gibberish monster, or someone who magics new language and meaning when expanding beyond the stock tongue provided? What I love about where my studies and observation have been leading me, is that it’s not exclusive to fallen planets. I am thinking about the impact of this particular debilitation and how it manifests within signs at large, regardless of the planets that may or may not be within them. It is not possible to “not have a sign” in your chart. In the whole sign house system, each one of these 12 babies is responsible for a particular domain. I want to spend more time paying attention to these areas and placements specifically, unearthing nuance and superpowers and affirmations people may have had trouble finding elsewhere, especially in the endless slog of online astro negging, where most of the astro-curious get their information.

Here’s a brief example of some of my writing and perspectives on the fallen planets, an excerpt from my contribution to the CUSP App on Venus in Virgo:

Offerings

I've a new consultation offering called Falling Signs and would love to talk with you about how you grapple with both hidden and salient unorthodoxy and why, exactly, that is so fucking amazing. Everyone is eligible for this session, as you do not need to have any fallen planets for it to work. Book a Falling Signs session.

If you do have a fallen planet natally, I also have a reduced rate offering where that placement and its antics are literally all we talk about. If you find yourself saying things like, "I don't know what my Scorpio moon in the 9th means," or “I don’t know what having Saturn in Aries means for me,” book a Fallen Planet session.

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My books are now open for May and there are still slots available for April. May’s sliding scale codes are: flowers15; flowers20; flowers30. You can book with me here.

I’m releasing a co-tutoring offering with E.Y. Washington for the month of May, which I’ll share details on soon, but that means with regards to May, the only solo slots I have available are on Thursdays.

On Episode 1 of my new podcast Twelve Questions (it would mean the world if you gave it a listen btw), I sat with Zodiac Buzzed co-creator Déjà Lewis-Nwalipenja over Zoom and talked about her project’s Kickstarter campaign (successfully funded over the weekend!) but also a lot of pretty heady topics. TQ is not an astrological podcast! So far, I’ve recorded conversational eps with documentary filmmaker Sabaah Folayan (Whose Streets, Look at Me: XXXTentacion); staff writer at The Atlantic, Hannah Giorgis; comedian-actor-astrologer Odinaka Ezeokoli (Easy, Brown Girls); and astrology community saint, actor, and writer, E. Y. Washington. These episodes will be rolling out biweekly so stay tuned and please subscribe!

If you want to support the newsletter, feel free to sign up for a $5 subscription—paid subscribers receive weekly horoscopes and updates, free subscribers will continue to receive the monthly letters. If you’d like a subscription but can’t swing it right now, shoot me a quick message and I’ll add you to a comp list, no problem.

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I wrote wellness horoscopes for Buzzfeed again, this month. These scopes were my favorite to write in a while, but I think I’m still struggling with the loss of meaning that results when poetic language is edited for mainstream palatability. For now, I let that conflict lead me to song and lyric—please enjoy!

Twelve Questions for April, in Song
Read for your Sun, Moon, Rising, Mama, whatever—

Aries
Exalted Venus in the 12th

I walked across an empty land/ I knew the pathway like the back of my hand/ I felt the earth beneath my feet/ Sat by the river and it made me complete/

Oh simple thing, where have you gone?/ I’m getting old and I need something to rely on/ So tell me when you’re gonna let me in/ I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to begin/

I came across a fallen tree/ I felt the branches of it looking at me/ Is this the place we used to love?/ Is this the place that I’ve been dreaming of?/

Oh simple thing, where have you gone?/ I’m getting old and I need something to rely on/ So tell me when you’re gonna let me in/ I’m getting tired and I need somewhere to begin/

And if you have a minute, why don’t we go/ Talk about it somewhere only we know?/ This could be the end of everything/ So why don’t we go somewhere only we know?/ Somewhere only we know

— Somewhere Only We Know, Keane  

Taurus

Exalted Venus in the 11th

How does it feel being in these arms?/ What’s it really like to be loved?/ I’ve been alone now, how long/ Have you ever loved the way that I have?/

And I have often wondered who/ Who could love you the way I do?

— Call Me When You Get This, Corinne Bailey Rae

Gemini

Exalted Venus in the 10th

Look what the cat hauled in/ Me and a couple friends/ Don’t need to settle down/ My body don’t know how/ Right there I see you looking/ Sure hope that you’re not tooken/ Don’t get lost in the crowd/ This place just so damn wild/ Go ahead and floss your ice/ Go ahead do what you like/ I’m feeling just as fly/ Do you hear your song tonight?

— Dance Tonight, Lucy Pearl

Cancer

Exalted Venus in the 9th

Didn’t cha’ know, didn’t cha’ know/ Tried to move, but I lost my way/ Didn’t cha’ know, didn’t cha’ know/ Stopped to watch my emotions sway/ Didn’t cha’ know, didn’t cha’ know/ Knew the toll, but I would not pay/ Didn’t cha’ know, didn’t cha’ know/ That you never know where the cards may lay/

Time to save the world/ Where in the world is all the time?

— Didn’t Cha Know, Erykah Badu

Leo

Exalted Venus in the 8th

Winter’s cold spring erases/ And the calm by the storm is chasen/ Everything good needs replacing/ Look up, look down, all around, hey satellite/

Satellite headlines read/ Someone’s secrets you’ve seen/ Eyes and ears have been/ Satellite dish in my yard/ Tell me more, tell me more/ Who’s the king of your satellite castle?

— Satellite, Dave Matthews Band

Virgo

Exalted Venus in the 7th

Ready, set jet/ But she never gets far/ Listen to your skin/ From the seat of my car/ Two centipedes stuck/ In one glass jar/ The longest wave/ 

Waiting on the wind/ To tell my side/

Whatcha want?/ Whatcha need?/ Do you love?

— The Longest Wave, Red Hot Chili Peppers

Libra

Exalted Venus in the 6th

Pop quiz/ Tell me where we first kissed/ Tell me where my spot is/ Tell me if I like it, love it/ Or could it be/ The the stranger is me/ Have I changed so drastically?/ Is it I want more for me/ And you remain the same?

— Stranger In My House, Tamia

Scorpio

Exalted Venus in the 5th

There’s something about the look in your eyes/ Something I noticed when the light was just right/ It reminded me twice that I was alive/ And it reminded me that you’re so worth the fight/

My biggest fear will be the rescue of me/ Strange how it turns out that way/

Could you show me dear/ Something I’m not seeing?/ Something infinitely interesting?

— Echo, Incubus

Sagittarius

Exalted Venus in the 4th

I know there’s a big world out there like the one I saw on the screen/ In my living room late last night/ It was almost too bright to see/ And I know that it’s not a party if it happens every night/ Pretending there’s glamour and candelabra/ When you’re drinking by candlelight/

What does it take to get a drink in this place/ What does it take, how long must I wait?

— This Place Is A Prison, The Postal Service

Capricorn

Exalted Venus in the 3rd

Do you need some love in your lonely world?/ ‘Cause I believe you’ll like it where the moon/ Twinkles on the watery horizon/ How do I get you there? So so ashamed to be lost for the words To let you know that I’m sincere/ The pleasuries are all on Treasure Island/ How do I get you there?

— Treasure Island, Azealia Banks

Aquarius

Exalted Venus in the 2nd

Just how deep do you believe?/ Will you bite the hand that feeds?/ Will you chew until it bleeds?/ Can you get up off your knees?/ Are you brave enough to see?/ Do you wanna change it?

— The Hand That Feeds, Nine Inch Nails

Pisces

Exalted Venus in the 1st

I’m in the hall already, on the wall already/ I’m a work of art, I’m a Warhol already/ On another level, on another plane already/ H-O-V I got my own lane already/ I done cooked up the rock already/ So why the fuck can’t y’all get hot already?

— Already Home, Jay Z

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I wish I had a more interesting intro this week, but I think I’ll save her for the April monthly letter—I realized the other day that your girl has four (4) jobs, three of which keep me on this screen, one of which keeps me on my feet. It’s an adjustment! Anyhow, because of all the busy, weekly TQ will now be a Wednesday release which I think makes even better sense considering these are not so much look-ahead scopes so much as they are ones for ~contemplation~. So why not read em while you’re in the thick of it?

This week I included a little more information—I’m still working out how I want to these beef up with supplemental goods so on this go I decided to pull cards from the Hollow Valley Tarot Deck by Davis Carr and Erin Alise, which I am very extremely obsessed with. Extremely. Beautiful deck! I also included which particular transit I had my eye on when forming these questions. Of course, the astro weather is constantly moving, and there are any number of transits to focus on, but I went with where my attention was drawn the most. If you have any ideas for what you’d like me to include in future formats I’m all for it, let me know! I hope these q’s carry you well. See you next week.

questions for march 21 - march 27

aries. mercury ingress aries

What’s been stewing in your mind’s maze that are itching and clawing to be free? Who needs to hear it? Quickly?

king & queen of swords

taurus. mars square uranus

Where do I need to relax my position and acquiesce, nay, accept change? What areas could use a little more pressure, a little more force, a little more ferocity?

wheel of fortune

gemini. mercury separates from jupiter

Have I said all that needs to be said? What must I rely on community to help carry for me that those too close to see me cannot?

death

cancer. mercury separates from jupiter

How do I plan on extending myself the validation I’ve been waiting for?

two of swords

leo. sun in its joy

Where do I need to put my ass to the proverbial fire, the one I’ve lit exclusively for myself? When am I going to make the fucking move?

two of wands

virgo. mercury separates from jupiter into the dark

What do I need from myself that I’ve not gotten from others? How do I meet my own self where I’m at, when the world has yet to catch up to halfway?

the lovers

libra. venus besieged

What if I just choose to love anyway? Not as a fix, not to convince, but simply because I am love embodied and need it/her/me to survive?

queen of cups

scorpio. domicile art, exalted labor

If not a project, where might I direct all this bursting creative energy before it implodes and wreaks collateral havoc?

five of wands

sagittarius. mercury separates from jupiter

What needs to be synthesized before I dive into making magic of my excavations, my histories? Have I given myself time to breathe before moving onward?

nine of wands

capricorn. mercury enters the bright dark

Where or what can I slow down that I haven’t been willing to let go? What balancing act can become sacred holding now, if I let it?

two of pentacles

aquarius. mercury separates from jupiter

What needs space to be mourned? What are the outlets my grief deserves, the forgotten divots and collections that camp out in my body?

five of cups

pisces.

What are the new values I am allowing to emerge for my ever shifting self?

the devil

Just letting paid subscribers know that now I’ve picked up part-time work on weekends (yay/eek?/my feet hurt), weekly horoscopes are moving to Wednesday to protect my little brainbody. That’s all! I will see you tomorrow, with treats —dj

Read more

The last week of Pisces season is upon us! Going out with a bang with the full moon in Virgo on early Friday morning, this week’s questions take a peering eye at what’s happening in your Virgo house, how Mercury and Jupiter’s impending union are manifesting, touching a little bit on poor little Venus and her besiegement by the malefics. Feel free to read for your rising, your big three, or frankly the whole zodiac. While they’re tailored for the signs, I think there’s a little bit of something for everyone!

This week and next week’s scopes will be public—reminder that if you are interested in a subscription and can’t swing it, just send me a message and I’ll take care of it. All my luv, til next wk

March 14 - March 20

Pisces

What does being touched with honor feel like for me? How do I honor my own personhood amidst commitment to other people and things?

Aries

What does holding space look like for loved ones in compromising positions? What does showing up look like when most of me would prefer to fold back into myself?

Taurus

What parts of me desire recharging and tending and effort and joy? What are the places that become depleted when I lend so much of myself to others? When is the last time I experienced intimate ecstasy?

Gemini

What does it feel like to touch the fever dream of commitment? How does it light up and radically alter my world when I do?

Cancer

After all the travel and the projects and the soul searching and the visibility, what does coming back down to earth look like? Is it enough for you? Is it just right?

Leo

How will I make space for myself to be supported even when I can feasibly do it all myself? What areas of my life could use some relaxing, a helping hand?

Virgo

What changes within the quality of my relationships when I allow myself to be the prize?

Libra

What is the absolute first thing I need to do when I finally catch a fucking break? How am I hoping to feel when I do?

Scorpio

What’s it going to take for me to make joy a public affair? When is the party and how bad do I need it?

Sagittarius

What opens up for me when I demand answers? What mysteries have been aching for me to unearth and expose and bring me peace?

Capricorn

What stacking tolls of emotional and bodily labor require expressing out loud? What is the best that can happen when I am honest about my needs and further commit to them?

Aquarius

What good fortunes will I bestow this week, pouring into others as they’ve poured into me?

First things first, to address the obvious, we’re here right now because Flodesk (the service I’ve been using to send emails) is taking me to the cleaners—

Hello!

Last month at the Full Moon in Leo, I posed the question, probably while crying: “Who will spill their light into me after I’ve already lit their way through the dark?” If you’re one of the people this struck a nerve with, I’m sorry! Kind of!

As I branch out and begin to write horoscopes for other platforms, I’ve been considering how to restructure direct offerings in a worthwhile way, without regurgitating what I’ve already said elsewhere. As SUCH…

Welcome to Twelve Questions, a new horoscope newsletter that has none (ok, a few) of the answers, but all of the questions. Each week, I’ll mine the stars for prompts steering each of the signs back on track or respectfully off of it—I encourage anyone reading to bounce around with them! So, feel free to read for your major placements, put all the pieces together and thread your personal narrative for the week and beyond. The questions posed will work well with journaling, creative non-fiction, short story prompts, and more. You can lob the Q’s to your tarot deck. You can ruminate and store the ongoing musings at the back of your mind. Sometimes the answer to a question just invites more questions. I think that’s okay. This is astrology for self reflection and extraspection.

Weekly horoscopes are part of the $5 a month subscription; my monthly scopes (these will also be questions) will remain free!

If you previously subscribed to my Substack before I had the chance to fully realize what the hell was happening here, you hopefully probably noticed that I refunded you shortly after, and paused billing. I’ve since cleared all paid subscriptions so we can start from scratch. A lot can change across financial situations and interest in general within a year. So if you want to subscribe again feel free! If you are interested in the weekly horoscope offering but can’t swing the cost, send me a message and I’ll comp you a subscription, no problem.

Subscribe now

Let’s jump into some updates and thoughts. This month’s sliding scale codes for booking a session with me are also below—

• My March horoscopes are over at Buzzfeed, feel free to give em a little look-see especially if you found yourself missing my monthly email the other week.
  

• I had the very distinct pleasure of guesting alongside Diana Rose Harper and Kelsey Rose on Episode 8 of Kirah Tabourn’s podcast The Strology Show—we talked about archetypal fire and the signs. You can listen to it here or where ever else you get your podcasts.

  

  I’ve been thinking about fire’s relationship the other elements since recording this, namely air and earth, deadly culprits often gone unremarked when we are able to point our collective finger at obvious wreckage left by raging flame. I’ve been thinking about smoke and soot. I’ve been thinking of jinn who were born from smokeless fire. Still thinking. I’ll share when she’s cooked.
  

• If you follow me on Instagram you probably already know that I’ve been having a fantastically bad time! It’s hard for me to imagine evening at all without the life-affirming messages (and thoughts and vibes) I received earlier this week. I’m incredibly grateful (and frankly, surprised) that in a moment I felt I had nowhere to turn, I kept looking. I’m so grateful that when I did run around that bend, people were there. So to follow up on that, I just want to share: if you’re reading this and in need of sliding scale therapy, consider checking out Open Path Collective. OPC has online and off-line therapists available in the fifty states and Canada, and their sliding scale rates run from $30 - $60.
  

• Why is Dave Matthews staring at you from the top of this page? Well, my friend!! As stated earlier, it’s been A Week. Those weeks tend to call for a few spins of Busted Stuff (in the shower, where I can’t feel my tears, just the way I like it!). Anyway, the lyrics to Where Are You Going have been milling around in my head for a few days now, kind of holding my hand as I conceptualize the new horoscopes coming. I’ve not minded the company—

  Where do you go?
  Are you looking for answers
  To questions under the stars?
  Well, if along the way
  You are grown weary
  You can rest with me until
  A brighter day and you're okay

  — Dave Matthews, singer-astrologer

  The video for WAYG is also a movie tie in for Mr. Deeds (2002) which… sure!

• OK, I made a lot of updates to my website recently. Have you seen it yet!!

  

  

• My good pal E.Y. Washington launched their Substack, No More F@ggots, last night with a two-part post on heterotopias (h/t Foucault) and cruising. E.Y.’s writing is the purest manifestation of Jupiter and Mercury fucking with abandon! I encourage you to read, subscribe, all of the things.
  

  

• My books for March and April are open. I do a terrible job of announcing these things! Sliding scale codes for April are: gimmespring15; gimmespring20; gimmespring30; gimmespring40. As always, the numbers indicate percentage off of a first time session with me. You can book with me here.

I think that’s all. Weekly horoscopes start Monday! Catch you then.