In a recent newsletter (see link below), I explored how the South Node currently being in Leo aligned with the increasing lack of pleasure, play and romance in our culture.

But to leave you there, revealing the problems but refusing to offer a counterbalance, is not in my nature.

It is not in the nature of the universe either. The South Node, place of shedding and clearing, is always opposite the North Node, a hungry mouth injecting our lives with a massive, psychedelic dose of desire and materiality. Currently, this point of increase is found in Aquarius, sign of the disciplined rebel, the friend to all who belongs to no one.

As a Leo rising, I crave Aquarius energy. They can be universally friendly as opposed to my more selective form of relating but have a detachment from praise and centrality that I aspire to, while still caring deeply for humanity as a whole.

In this essay, I will explore a few new ways of thinking and being that works against the current strangling of eros in our culture through the lens of the North Node in Aquarius.

I hope it gives you the weird, egalitarian fuel to make eros your own— the only way it can survive.

Slow Your Life Down

Aquarius is ruled by Saturn, the slowest moving planet visible to the naked eye. They rule toil, time and prolonged effort. The sign of the water bearer brings out the freedom and independence of Saturn to build their own worlds outside of consensus reality while also embodying the inherent limitations and struggles that come with being out of step with convention.

The sign of Aquarius asks us: where can we do the work to think outside of the box?

So, in a world that is increasingly about making our lives as quick and efficient as possible, embracing the time and labor of being alive is a balm, a way of bringing back eros. One article I saw speak to this idea that came out earlier this year is called “In 2026, We Are Friction-Maxxing”. As Kathryn Jezer-Morton puts it, “Tech companies are succeeding in making us think of life itself as inconvenient and something to be continuously escaping from,” mirroring the increased push in making our bodies, our homes as streamlined and our relationships as instantly gratifying as possible.

But the author argues that the vagaries and inefficiencies of life is where the living actually exists. Friction-maxxing, as she calls this mindset, boils down to “building up tolerance for “inconvenience” (which is usually not inconvenience at all but just the vagaries of being a person living with other people in spaces that are impossible to completely control) — and then reaching even toward enjoyment”. Friction-maxxing proposes that we accept, maybe even enjoy, the mundane, necessary parts of our experience.

The first rule of existence is there is suffering, the Buddha tells us. And while we are not here to suffer, discomfort is inevitable, whether that be waiting for the bus, having a disagreement with a partner or spending months being bad at a new skill (and we’re extremely lucky if these are the worst of our problems). As Jezer-Morton suggests, to “friction-max” is to embrace what it means to be a human around other uncontrollable humans. It is on the long, toilsome road that doesn’t avoid contingency or strife that we can root more deeply into our lives.

Our lives are often made inconvenient by the quest for the perfect chocolate cake, the trip that takes us away from our work, the relationship that doesn’t let us move on autopilot. Desire is the original friction-maxxing. So is the act of thinking for ourselves and taking the time to articulate our own ideas. There is an erotic charge in the desire to know. As Onya Solomon put it, “the decline in pleasure, the decline in play…is directly linked to the rapidly declining literacy rates. The reason why people don’t flirt…is because people don’t read, especially fiction”. Exploring the self through reading and writing and thinking is how we develop empathy, openness and connection to others. When we refuse to outsource the tedious task of thinking to AI or say yes to the date despite our trepidation (and the work of going out instead of staying in) we are not just engaging with our lives we are growing and strengthening our inner discernment.

Saturn abhors a shortcut. With the North Node in Aquarius, taking the long, independent route or letting things take the time they need to bloom is how we make good on the romantic relationship we have with our life. Jezer-Morton muses that such dedication to staying with our appetites and labors is “an opportunity to think more clearly than we ever have about what is interesting and essential about being human”.

So ask yourself: what is one small way you can slow down? Maybe make coffee at home instead of going to the cafe? Or maybe get your coffee from the cafe but spend twenty minutes people watching or trying striking up a conversation with the barista. Take a walk instead of drive. Write something in longhand instead of on the computer. The key is to do it your way, as the Aquarius archetype so embodies. It is this Saturnine slowness that gives eros the opportunity to catch up to us.

The Intimate Unknown

Saturn rules ignorance. The unknown. The shadowy parts of life we will only know through great toil— if at all. And while we are often taught to fear what we can’t fully grasp, I think of an adage one my Buddhist teachers taught me: not knowing is most intimate.

To bring more eros into your life, you have to court the mystery.

One way you can accomplish this task is through how you treat your relationships. The main thesis of Esther Perel’s book Mating in Captivity is “that partners can keep the erotic alive by accepting that they will never know each other completely”. When we first encounter a crush or establish a new connection, we are often ravenous to learn everything we can about the other, to map out their likes and dislikes and not just satisfy them but know enough to feel safe. If we understand our romantic other completely, we unconsciously reason, then there will be no nasty surprises, no chance of being hurt. But, as psychoanalyst Adam Phillips argues, we may be forfeiting our own desires in the quest to fully understand the other. Part of what attracts us to someone in the first place is the possibilities this new person brings into our lives. In his essay, “On Love,” Adam Phillips calls this our “versionality” or our capability to envision and embody diverse sides of ourselves.

But when we wish to capture the other person fully in our mind, “people are not suffering from their knowledge, but from losing a more ruthless capacity for self and/or other reinvention. It is not the truth that they have gained but their versionality, so to speak, that they have lost”. To rid our relationships of any uncertainty or to turn a partner into conquered terrain is to rid them of the erotic charge that brought you together in the first place.

Yes, this lack of control inherent to relationships is painful. But as Perel puts it, “if you open the door to the uncertain and unpredictable, you let in suffering along with joy. The erotic isn’t what comes after pain; it’s a way of living with it”. I think of how the word “passion” comes from the Greek πάσχω "to suffer, to be acted on". What a Saturnian concept! (and why I spend my first Love Magic Class talking about the importance of Venus and Saturn in cultivating the erotic). That what moves us the most is also what hurts us the most. But unless we wish to solely be jerked around by hollow yearnings that harm us in the long run, we have to sit with our lack of control when we go out dancing, ask someone on a date, tell someone we love them.

If you’re in a relationship, the solution here isn’t to try and create distance with your partner but “accept that it already exists,” as Perel puts it. Isn’t the idea that there will always be new things to uncover about someone exciting? That requires being present, attentive not just to the image of our lover that we have in our head but to who they truly are today.

To do: be curious about your crush without reducing them to an idea. Ask someone out instead of agonizing over how you just know that they would never say yes. Go to a new bar or club with no expectations (meaning that if it sucks you can also leave whenever you want). Be excited and tantalized when you discover a new hobby or facet of your partner rather than threatened (or desiring to insert yourself into every facet of their life).

Fuck Around

Embracing the unknown also means fucking up. It means making a fool out of yourself and falling for the wrong people or hooking up with someone you never want to see again.

While a lot of these “mistakes” can feel unfortunate in the moment they are unavoidable, in my opinion, in a life fully lived, fully romanced.

Director Gregg Araki would agree. His most recent movie, “I Want Your Sex” focuses on a torrid, ultimately doomed affair between a man in his early twenties, played by Cooper Hoffman, and the older woman artist for whom her works, played by Olivia Wilde. He made the movie partially in response to reading a study on how younger generations aren’t having as much sex or as many relationships as in the past. Araki can sympathize:

Because of social media, because everybody’s being recorded, there’s this real fear of making a mistake. They don’t want to be publicly humiliated. If you get drunk at the party and throw up all over the place, then it’s all over Instagram or something. It’s hard to get private moments anymore.

We are more at risk for our personal moments to be scrutinized or judged— often, we stand outside our own bodies and do it ourselves absent of any actual voyeur. And yet, at a certain point, giving into what a hater or a stranger thinks of you is a fool’s errand. Saturn, the ruler of failure and the iconoclast, would agree. Quoting Wilde’s character, Araki reminds us that “Making a mistake is what being young is all about”. Ideally, while we know ourselves and our limits as we get older, that experimentation doesn’t stop. And going with the Aquarius of it all remember: Saturn gets better as we age, which means that the follies of youth are part of the package. The sign of Aquarius is less concerned with being seen as universally unimpeachable and more concerned with following their unique rhythm, regardless of what the faceless masses value. We miss out on becoming the people we are meant to be when we only wish to make a life that everyone else could approve of.

We can also take a page out of Saturn’s book in their relationship to queerness and other forms of non-normative relating. Just as I’ve found Saturn is easier on those whose sexuality and gender exist outside the cis heterosexual binary, Araki, a queer man himself, points out that “[e]ven just “coming out” and announcing that you’re queer takes this level of…being out…if you’re a queer person who’s had to be like, oh, I am attracted to whatever I’m attracted to, you’ve obviously done the self-exploration and have thought about sex and what your desires are”. Being queer already pushes you outside of the narrow idea of what successful relating looks like in the conventional, socially-sanctioned sense.

Once the cloak of normative respectability is shed and we relate in a way that feels good from within (rather than what looks good from without), infinite possibilities open up.

This is a key lesson of the sign of Aquarius: it may feel risky or lonely to forge your own path, but it is where the erotic lives. Just as romance thrives when the other is allowed to be multiplicitous, mysterious, it also thrives when we have that same relationship to ourselves. You contain multitudes that the conventional ideals of success can’t capture.

To do: ask yourself what you really want and stick around for the answer. Kiss someone for the heck of it. Date not solely to marry but to discover more about yourself. Figure out your turn-ons and entertain them in whatever way they manifest.

Until next time,

Love,

Chloe

The Disembodied Politic

GLP-1’s are a class of drugs that make you less hungry. Due to their resembling the same GLP-1 hormone our bodies produce it “triggers insulin release from the pancreas, suppresses glucagon secretion, slows the rate at which food moves through the stomach, and signals the brain’s satiety centers to reduce hunger”. While originally designed to treat those with Type 2 diabetes, this drug’s many iterations— Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro— have also become prescribed for heart disease, long covid and, of course, weight loss, a natural side effect of whittling down one’s appetite. It sounds like a fantasy my younger, body dysmorphic self would conjure in her most desperate moments: an injection, or more recently, a pill, that could make me stop craving what blocked my from my dream body. I am surely not the only one who would have felt this way: Currently, 18%, or roughly one in five, adults have taken some form of GLP-1. As of November 2025, 30 million adults are currently taking the drug. Prescriptions for them have tripled between 2020 and 2025.

As more people inject themselves with this drug, our collective psyche and our affect becomes impacted too. According to writer and theorist Lauren Berlant, affect theory posits that “affective atmospheres are shared, not solitary, and that bodies are continuously busy judging their environments and responding to the atmospheres in which they find themselves”. We are always feeling in the context of. We are always feeling together. So even if you’re not taking Ozempic, you’re living in the world Ozempic has shaped.

We see this impact in how we design our homes and even how we relate to pleasure as a whole. The Architectural Digest reports that interior designers are seeing a move away from “big, big kitchens” and seeing them “transition to a secondary space rather than the social hub or heart of the home”. We no longer see the kitchen as a place to gather over lavish dinner parties or holiday feasts. Instead, people seem to be gravitating towards kitchens as “lighter-use spaces that prioritize speed, efficiency, and small-scale preparation over high-volume cooking”. How we eat is becoming streamlined to accommodate smaller meals and a sort of “food is fuel” mentality that this drug seems to engender.

II. Pleasure Famine

We are treating our bodies in a similar, streamlined manner: Christiana Mbakwe Medina rightly predict The Sculpt body trend last year, which combines vigorous, often extreme, exercise with surgical intervention to create a body that is paradoxically slender and muscled in the right places. More and more we can mold our bodies like a video game character, focusing on how it looks from the outside more than how it feels to be one.

Pop Syllabus

Goodbye Thin. Hello Sculpt.

Welcome to Pop Syllabus 101. It’s been a delicious few months for us students of pop culture…

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a year ago · 492 likes · 55 comments · Christiana Mbakwe Medina

This emphasis on body modification often comes at the expense of pleasure. Take this article written by Allison P. Davis for New York Magazine. The author, a self-described “hedonist” began the drug in February 2025 and by the summer, noticed that “more things started feeling ‘just fine’”:

A trip to the Rockaways was “just fine.” I published a story and felt nothing of the accomplishment. I needed new pants and realized I had no desire to buy them, despite being a documented impulse shopper. I had no motivation to date. Suddenly, I felt about Feeld the same way I felt about ordering takeout on Seamless: Nothing sounded especially appetizing, so why bother? I bought a beige sectional. Which was fitting because my brain felt swaddled in a beige blanket.

As Dr. Sera Lavelle, clinical psychologist, puts it, “If you’re dampening” your body’s dopamine system, as Ozempic does, “what else does it dampen?” Our hungers, our desires, our appetite for pleasure and risk, all arise from the same place. But it would be limited to blame this phenomenon on the individual. We are all trying to live a comfortable life in a world marked by unending war and genocide, ICE agents kidnapping people from their homes, staggering inflation and a shrinking job market. Who could be blamed for not being moved by the thought of abandoning the little pleasure they can find: “Between the endless stream of soul-destroying bad news, giving up post-dinner cigarettes, endless app-matches, the slow creep of middle-age malaise, falling into a stupor after watching The Shining in 37 parts on TikTok instead of going to a movie, and any of the other seemingly endless ways to disconnect from pleasure — maybe it doesn’t matter so much anyway”. The world is increasingly making eros hard to find. Taking a drug that makes existing in a fatphobic world easier is certainly worth the love of beige, right?

The current affect of our era seems to be one of anhedonia, downsized efficiency and predictable sameness over passionate riskiness— the exact vibe of the South Node in Leo. Leo, ruled by the Sun, signals a warm, life-giving vibrancy. It is the energy of celebration, vivid self-expression, and whatever lights you up. Leos love birthdays, karaoke, dance nights, any form of partying, which could literally just be an outfit or a fancy meal. The South Node hollows out whichever sign it touches, stripping away its creature comforts to arrive at its barest essence. We are being tasked in this moment to both examine our relationship to pleasure, to embodiment while also being aware of the larger social forces that make us come to the conclusion that being as small productive and risk-averse as possible is the optimal way to order your life.

—

III. Mating in Captivity

We see this inversion of norms (and reification of others) in another way: our current relationship to sex. America has long been a puritanical culture. But with the rise of right-wing party increasingly aligned with fascist ideals entwined with a prevailing surveillance culture, there is a national feeling around pleasure and eroticism that is shaping how we are and aren’t intimate with each other. In her article “Gen Z is Ruining Sex— for Everyone” Magdalene Taylor explores how our constant lack of privacy, whether it be the Flock cameras on every block or the viral recordings of strangers making out, is making us turn the watchful gaze inward, to our erotic detriment: “We’ve become so cautious about being watched and the possibility of our innermost desires being broadcast to the world that it’s inhibiting our ability to seek connection and pleasure — instead, we’re consumed by policing other people’s pleasure”. We see this dynamic in the deriding of sex scenes in movies and in the very movies themselves.

Last week, Will Gluck’s film “One Night Only” was released, a romcom for the fascist era if there ever was one. The premise involves two people trying to find love on the one night a year where unmarried people are legally allowed to have sex. How is the government able to police this law? By implanting chips in people’s wrists that monitor their heart rate, testosterone and dopamine levels, of course. The ramifications of this dystopian premise is barely explored, a quirky backdrop for a conventional love story at best, and a tacit endorsement of sex negativity at worst. When asked what their favorite part of sex is, Ally, Monica Barbaro’s character, says the buildup. Callum Turner’s Owen says after the sex is over, like you’ve just shared a secret. So, not the sex. Another character, half in jest, muses that maybe the fascists were right about this, that taking sex out of the equation finally allows us to be intimate with one another. I guess individuals having their own discretion around their sexual choices wouldn’t be a fitting compromise.

Gluck even told the press that he intentionally cut out sex scenes from the movie because “whenever people now see nudity or very adult situations in a big theater, they get uncomfortable”. But sex, connection, intimacy, all of it is uncomfortable. Being vulnerable with another and doing the messy, emotional work of relating to others is work and puts a wrench in the streamlined efficiency our culture so prizes. We often deal with that uncertainty by overemphasizing immediate enmeshment and a prizing of the fairy-tale, love-at-first-sight moments—see the widespread popularity of commitment porn like Love is Blind and Love Island, where viewers become invested in relationships that unfold and often end in marriage over a matter of months.

IV. Domming Uncertainty

Writer and therapist Esther Perel describe how “Two people in heady early love, fearing uncertainty and aloneness, rush to get closer. But in doing so, they smother the spark of mystery that made the other person so desirable in the first place”. We not only get obsessed with how something looks from the outside, i.e. I have been chosen and can officially let others know so and so is my boyfriend, we get obsessed with ridding our lives where of any uncertainty, which is exactly where eroticism begins. In the article “Too Scared for Sex,” Faith Hill interviews a sociologist who notes that the national condemnation of adultery may stem from the fact that

many people are disturbed by the idea that their partner could have needs and fantasies they don’t know about. Cheating is so despised, she argued, because it’s a reminder that no matter how much of yourself you share and how close you are to your partner, you’ll never be inside their mind.

We are drawn to checking out partner’s phones and Instagram followers because we are soothed by the idea that total knowledge of the other will protect us from surprise upset or pain. Sex is a place to be monitored for non-normative, potentially immoral acts and love becomes reduced to a reprieve from the contingencies of the world. And while I am all for having sex exactly how you want and choosing relationships that make you feel safe. But to expect that to come without risk or facing the unknown, both within and without, is to stop living. When we use sex as a site for surveillance and judgment, reduce it so an immoral, contingent act that prevents us from actually knowing one another, what does that say about our relationship to our unruly bodies and desires as a whole?

When all of us live in a world that makes our basic bodily needs be seen as suspect, what is left? The South Node in Leo sucks out the spontaneity, the messiness, the warm glow of living for right now in favor of some imagined doom scenario.

What is the solution to this without reifying the very real issues we have with food and sex, namely diet culture, fat phobia, a supply chain that makes us sick, sex as a site of no agency, or, at worse, actual assault?

That will be in part II where we explore the North Node in Aquarius, the other side of this dialectic.

Understanding the planets is the key to understanding astrology. Though signs get a lot of attention in our current culture, they really get their power and attributes from the planets that rule them, fuel them, shape them. I wrote my series on Embodying the Planets to help people bring that information into their bodies through ritual activities and what I saw as the most important attributes of each planet.

If you don’t know the basic attributes of the 7 visible planets, start there:

• Embodying the Moon

• Embodying the Sun

• Embodying Mercury

• Embodying Venus

• Embodying Mars

• Embodying Jupiter

• Embodying Saturn

But here’s the thing: in charts and in our lives, planets rarely show up by themselves. A rose, for example, may be of the nature of Venus for its color, smell and association with love buts its thorns are of the nature of Mars. You may have a really sweet Cancer Moon, natally or by transit, but if it’s opposed by Saturn, you can’t get the nurturing, protecting qualities of Luna without the scarcity and struggle of Saturn.

Again and again in client consults, I find that by solely talking about the planetary combinations in someone’s chart, you can get to the heart of the foundational dynamics of their heart. And if you start looking around, you see planetary duos, specifically between two planets, show up all over astrology. Lots, or calculated points of fate, are determined via the relationship between two planets in your chart. Signs are defined by both their domicile and exaltation rulers. All fixed stars are assigned a planetary duo that reflects their nature.

By beginning to understand what it means when two planets come together, you see the relationships between them and the common ways they manifest in our mixed-up, varied lives.

In our charts, a planet is considered in combination with another when they are in the same sign, in opposing signs, or in mutual reception (a swapping of rulerships, i.e. when the Moon is in Leo and the Sun is in Cancer. Terms, exaltations and decans count here too).

So today, I begin a series exploring these planetary combinations in part because I find them so interesting. This work is heavily inspired by Austin Coppock’s “36 Dramas: Essential Planetary Relationships” Lecture from NORWAC 2022, so please check that out if you want to learn more! Going beyond his wonderful starting point, I will also include information on the decans, each of which have two planetary rulers when you consider both the Chaldean and Triplicity system, as their dynamics do a great job demonstrating what the planetary combinations look like in action. We will also be examining the fixed stars that share the same nature as this planetary combination to further our understanding.

Other uses for these combinations:

• understanding mixed planetary correspondences

• determining which herbs may help you if they have more than one ruler

• connecting with your holy guardian angel (who is classically of the nature of two planets)

• seeing your chart more clearly

• attuning yourself to both planetary days and hours

P.S. If you want help understanding your own planetary combinations, my books are open for August! Book now to reacquaint yourself with your magic and destiny (no big deal).

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Venus and the Moon: a Summary

Venus and the Moon have quite a bit in common. They are both feminine, nocturnal planets that are varying degrees of cold and wet. According to Dig Bala, the Vedic concept of directional strength, both of these planets find their greatest power in the 4th house, place of home, family and our private lives. When in conjunction, opposition or mutual reception, these planets magnify themes of receptivity, intimate physicality, and a concern for the private. While planets like the Sun and Mars are known for their active, external expression, much of the powers of Venus and the Moon happen beneath the surface, in our bodies and hearts, behind closed doors. They are both attuned to our felt experience of life rather than outward achievement— the form is where they find their satisfaction. While the Moon rules the physical world in general, Venus the lesser benefic, is specifically attuned to the pleasures of the senses. Together, they make one inclined to manifest beauty and enjoyment.

One of the most common significations of this planetary pair across ancient sources is an acuity with pulchritude and commerce alike. The Yavanjataka records that these two planets, when coming together, “produce a man who possesses garlands, perfumes, wreaths, clothes, and prosperity” as well as “an expert in the rules of business who knows about buying and selling”. Of course the combination of these two highly material planets inclines their natives to the finer things in life. Having nice objects, like flowers, sweet smells, beautiful garments and adornment are often essential to Venus-Moon people, not skimping on these pleasures in the everyday. But, just as we often need resources to access these luxuries, this combination also helps one attain such things. That means Venus and the Moon often bless natives with knowledge of business, both in successfully marketing their wares and finding the best deals on the highest quality products. That’s because the Moon is what attunes us to the material world, ruling all physical things on this earth, while Venus helps us understand taste and value. Together, one has the skills to be a shop keepers, a purveyors of physical goods, or even an antique dealer, being blessed with the ability to suss out the best goods hidden amongst unassuming junk.

The beauty of this pair can also show up in the natives’ appearance, as Valens reports that the Moon moving towards Venus makes people that are “handsome and charming and attain the highest position, but all over a period of time”. These are the type of people who, beyond being nice to look at, are nice to be around, which is another key piece in their being successful and attaining promotion. But the more receptive nature of these planets, plus the shiftiness of Luna, makes for a more gradual process of coming to power rather than a more active, sudden ascent of Mars or the diurnal planets. These planets thrive when you can take your time and be open to receiving unexpected blessings from without.

When the Moon is waning and approaching Venus, “she indicates high position, greatest honors, and trappings of great power”. Together, they indicate noble parents who bestow fortune upon the native, though this early promise must often contend with ups and downs.

This brings us to another common these for Venus-Moon natives: inconstancy. Because of the changeable wetness of these two planets, when together, their unsettled nature is magnified. The Moon is known for her changes, for her monthly waxing and waning and Venus, too, deals with pleasure of the more transient sort. One may be able to smell the rose now, but they will not be here come winter. We eat the dessert now, but in a matter of minutes, the sweetness will be gone. This shiftiness can manifest in the changing fortunes of Venus-Moon natives generally, as Firmicus describes them as “constant objects of scandal”.

But we see these ups and downs most manifest in the realm of relationships.

Valens writes that those born with this pair “are unsteady with respect to living together, friendships, and marriage, bringing rivalry and hostility, as well as ill treatment and upset from relatives and friends”. Friends and lovers may not always stay for long or, their warmth may turn to enmity. Through no fault of their own, Venus-Moon people may suffer poor behavior from their loved ones and kin, finding lasting love harder to come by than, say Venus and Saturn or Moon-Jupiter people.

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🌀The first time I took a star on a date was during a waning period. This was in deep winter, a time that felt completely detached from warmth or evening sun. I was especially alone at this particular season, both taking space to process a painful relationship and housesitting in my parents empty house.

Time can move weirdly when you’re it’s just you and your pets in a space built for more than one person. I could shout, sing, hear myself reverberate without worrying about disturbing anyone else. I felt inward, but infinite, perhaps the perfect space to start taking myself, and my chosen fixed star, the star of the flower crown, out on dates. You get to be weird, pulling up ivy and collecting freshwater pearl necklaces from my mother’s jewelry store, when you’re in an expansive, unwatched space. I think it allowed me to hear Alphecca, read her vibe, even if I was still finding the language.

I knew I wanted to prove magic was real. I knew I was sick of love being such a source of pain. This star was connected to the myth of Ariadne, abandoned by Theseus but married to Dionysus. She was a star of love, something I felt sorely unprepared for on my own. So, I made a pact to perform a ritual with Alphecca and take her on a date each month. I was open, at my wits’ end with my own relational patterns, and keen to see what these monthly sojourns could do.

What would I learn about her, about myself, along the way?

What is a Stellar Date?

Put simply, a stellar date is just like any other except, instead of going out with another human, you spend time with a star.

While you can certainly do something magical and powerful in your own home (Alphecca loves a spa night), there’s something special about going out with the star (and yourself!). Our practice isn’t meant to be theoretical only: it is meant to be experienced. Going out feels good and gives our life texture, as well as the opportunity to be surprised. That is where the magic is.

Depending on the star you want to work with, there can be plenty of tasks that star could enjoy. Alkaid, a star of gentle protection, loves coming to an enclosed, outdoor soaking pool with me. Arcturus, the adventurer, only wants to go places I’ve never been to before.

Generally, these dates are performed when the Moon is aspecting the zodiacal degree of the star. To keep it simple, I like monthly dates on the day when the Moon is conjoining the star. The date doesn’t have to be a certain length; only as long as the activity or the desire lasts.

💐The beauty of those first few months was not only me becoming more acquainted with myself, but Alphecca too. After a few dates, I realized: she’s not that hungry. My first date idea was to take me and her out for a nice meal. The places I chose all had superb food, but I would barely nibble at my sardine plates and cheeseburgers until hours later, well after the ritual container ended.

I would always finish my drink though. She seemed to respond to having a drink or smoking a cig and just walking around the neighborhood, taking in the people I passed and looking into dive bars, imagining if all those inside weren’t strangers.

Letting myself romance Alphecca not only helped me understand her nature viscerally, in my heart and mind, it’s what made the magic work at all.

Over time, Alphecca invited others on our outings. As if by good luck, I would have a going-away get together in the park for a new friend on the same day as the moon’s conjunction to the star. My friend happened to schedule her birthday potluck in a rose garden on the evening of another.

Bit by bit, socializing began to feel effortless, enriching. I felt woven into something bigger, thanks to the threads of this star.

Why take a star out on a date?

First and foremost, I have direct experience with this method working. I have seen the labors of this practice bear fruit in myriad ways throughout my life: greater ease being social in public after post-covid anxiety, strengthened friendships, a lovely partner, and, first and foremost, the ability to take time and space for myself, regardless of my relationship status. Because if I don’t find beauty and security in myself, then my relationships won’t be for me anymore, or make room for me.

Something about going out with a star in public helps us understand how they play out in practice. I don’t just want to talk or teach about Alphecca in theory, abstractions; I want to be able to tell my student and clients how she actually feels and what sort of magic she conjures. That’s what the date helps with.

There’s also something about relationship building in here. Just as we take our lovers on dates to get to know them and show our appreciation, taking the time to do things with a star can also endear them to us, thus causing them to reveal their secrets and work their magic more easily.

Don’t understand estimate the power of committed time and attention when it comes to stellar magic. The stars want us to connect to them. Why else are they in the sky each night?

Instructions for a Stellar Date

1. Set up an altar space. For the stars, I keep it to incense, a candle, and any corresponding items to attune to their energy. For Alphecca, I tend to choose flowers and jewelry, for example.

2. Pick out an appropriate activity. If your star is martial in nature, it may like going to acupuncture, the gym or a wood-fired pizza place. If the star is known for wisdom, visiting a library, a bookstore, attending a class or performing research is always a good idea.

3. Figure out the day this month when the Moon is conjoining the star. You can use Astro Seek to determine the zodiacal degree of your star and when the Moon will be at that degree.

4. The next time the Moon conjoins your chosen star, perform your ritual. Light your candle, invoke them and make your petition. What do you want to bring in? What do you want their help with? Any fears or hangups? Share them here.

5. After you’re done, go on your date together. You don’t have to consciously bring them to mind or try to have an experience. Maybe you’ll get an intuition or an omen but no need to worry. You are weaving the magic. You being aware of how is not necessary, and can often disrupt the process. I also recommend you take notes of what you did, what happened, how you felt, etc so you can track the process and learn from it.

6. Repeat monthly. The longer, the stronger the magic.

Any Questions? Need suggestions for date ideas for a specific fixed star? Drop them below? And happy romancing <3

We all have our own personal seasons. A time we go inward. A time we travel somewhere new. A time we hunker down and stay at home and a time we feel ready to Go Out. A time to work hard. A time to rest.

But those inner epochs may or may not coincide with the physical season we’re actually moving through. Though impacted by the lengthening and shortening sunlight and the changes in weather, we may hurt ourselves by thinking our energy levels need to adhere to what the outer season alone dictates.

We see it in the friction: while most people may feel inward or slow down January, that may be the time where you feel most energized and invigorated. Or, conversely, peak sun in August may be the worst time for you to make something happen.

Astrology can help attune to this inner timing.

How to determine your seasons, according to astrology

You will need to calculate your birth chart with an accurate birth time for this technique!

Because it’s all about the ~rising sign~ which doesn’t just determine the primary sign that describes you/your path in life but also how you relate to every other topic in your life!!

Whole sign houses are preferred for this technique as it gives every sign one house, no interceptions or uneven house cusps. Remember that the houses are where things happen: they describe topics and areas of our life. They tell us which part of our experience is impacted by a given planet or transit.

If you’re born with Cancer rising, for example, your houses will always correspond to these zodiac signs in this sequence:

It’s important to know what house a certain sign falls in so we can better understand our experience around certain topics and seasons. Some houses, for example, are less fortunate than others, which can be important to know! Leo corresponds to the 6th house for all Pisces risings, so if this is your ascendent you may experience Leo season as a time of labor, health issues or managing problems. That’s because those are 6th house topics and whenever a planet transits the 6th house, those issues will arise.

You can see in the above diagram that Scorpio, an often prickly sign ruled by fiery Mars, corresponds to the 5th house, the place of joy, children, romance and creativity. Thusly, Cancer risings may have more artistic inspiration and romance in the midst of chilly autumn (when the Sun is in Scorpio) that one would normally expect.

Astrology, in other words, helps us give language to our subjective experience of time.

The easiest place to begin is follow the movement of the Sun.

Each year, the Sun spends roughly 30 days in each sign and always around the same period of time. Cancer season always begins at the end of June and cease at the end of July, for example. The Sun brings visibility, attention and focus to whatever sign it occupies. We can use the Sun’s transit through the zodiac to better plan out what we need in a given season and what is really going to satisfy us from summer to fall and beyond.

Look at how my friend, , plans out the general shape of their year according to astrology:

They begin their year at the end of January, their birthday, when the Sun is transiting their 3rd house of friends, short journeys and daily life. They tend to throw a party here, do various rituals with nearby folks and work on house stuff, as it is not yet the culmination of their efforts, which comes at the peak of their autumn, when the Sun is in the 9th house, place of long-term plans, long journeys and big execution. They also use this time to take a big trip, as aligns with the externally-oriented houses the Sun is transiting in their chart during that time.

You, too, can plan out your own seasons and embrace your particular annual flow of energy with astrology.

Sundrops

field notes on creation & experiential theology

By Hawk Grubb

Steps for Planning Your Seasons

1. Cast your natal chart with an accurate birth time and switch the House System to “whole sign”

2. Note which zodiac sign corresponds to which house in your chart.

3. Make sure you know which month corresponds to which zodiac sign! Here is an easy list of this year’s Solar Seasons:

   

   1. For Cancer risings, for example, their chart would look like this:

      

4. Read the house descriptions below to get a sense of what that month will generally bring for you.

5. Spend time reflecting on what those months generally bring you. How do they seem to align with the house topics they light up? What do you generally feel like doing during each month of the year and what sort of activity feels supported? We can use our personal experience and how astrology impacts us to better follow our rhythms, planning accordingly.,

There are a million nuances and exceptions to these broad strokes but know this is a solid start!

Major Themes of Each House

1st House: Season of you. Coming back to yourself. Bringing your personal path forward. A month to focus on what you, particularly, want to do with your time and helps you come back to your individual contours and journey.

Read more

Today, I want to offer you the concept of Summering.

Summering is any devotion to enjoying the hottest, bright time of the year, no matter how small the moment.

Summering is taking the idea of a lunar win and applying it the peak time of the Sun,

It is a way of helping us (me) remember to get back down to earth amidst a season that can feel ripe with expectations and pressure.

Is it just me??

I am someone who loves the dark. Who loves to see people but has a highly variable social battery. Who likes to feel like she’s Making the Most of the passing of time without forgetting to stay present.

When relaying these hangups, and my lack of seasonal plans, to my friend Ruby, the phrase “summering” was born, making summer a thing you can continuously do, even in smaller intervals. As in, have you summered today?

As an astrologer, I love to look at the celestial weather of the season to give us a clue as to the building blocks of summering.

We know that each year, the Sun passes through three zodiac signs during summer in the Northern Hemisphere: Cancer, Leo and Virgo. Each of them holds a key part of the magic of summering.

Cancer Season (Late June- Middle of July)

This month starts off with the longest day of the year and then marks the days getting shorter. We are in peak Sun but Cancer is ruled by the Moon, nocturnal luminary, holder of substance, private life, the people. There is a mysterious, mundane quality to this time of year. Cancer itself is a sign of protecting what is precious, the labor of nurturing, and how to seed abundance. We see Cancer season reflected in rejuvenating activities, those that bring us to water, help us feel it all but also cool down and find comfort.

Leo Season (Late July - Middle of August)

Leo season is where things get bright and crunchy— literally. The heat has been barreling down for over a month now, so a lot of the more finicky or temperate plants have become brittle and brown while, interestingly, so many of the remaining flowers are yellow, mirroring the grand splendor of the Sun, ruler of this season. Leo exalts the true self made manifest in the form of visibility, power, glamour and generosity. This season brings a radiating quality to summer in the form of going out, making/consuming art, or simply being outside.

Virgo Season (End of August- Middle of September)

The last part of summer is a threshold— the transition from the fruiting of the season to the winnowing necessary to save the bounty so we have enough in the colder months. Ruled by Mercury, the earthy season of Virgo is concerned with the details, with the perfecting of what is always in process, and how to connect to the material world in a refined, skillful manner. The season is aligned with the nourishing aspects of summer, or whatever helps us enjoy the fruits of the earth, hone our skills and reflect on what is actually working for us.

In summary, the three main vibes of summer are rejuvenating, radiating and nourishing.

Some ways I have been summering lately:

Visited the Dave Hockney exhibit at the Portland Art Museum (radiating) and bought a sticker so I could add it to my taste journal (nourishing).

Made a slab pie from my parents’ blueberries (nourishing) which I shared with them along with fig leaf ice cream made by my mom (rejuvenating)

Regularly drinking a rose- st. John’s wort infusion (rejuvenating) and reading a new book I got for a summer read (radiating).

Letting myself have some cathartic cries (rejuvenating)

How to Summer

Of course, you are free to make a bucket list or vernal aspirations in any manner you choose.

But if you wish to use this summering framework:

Make a list (physically is preferred) with three columns, one each for Rejuvenating, Radiating, and Nourishing

• For each one, listen to music that reminds you of each. Or, just listen to my zodiac sign playlists:

  • Rejuvenating:

  • Radiating

• Nourishing:

Let yourself sink into the listening. Ideally, play the music loud enough to block out most thought, like you’re being consumed by a movie soundtrack. What memories, desires or images comes up as you listen? Could those be formed into activities or practices that feel exciting for you?

In listening to my Cancer Season playlist, for example, I come across “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” by The Stooges, one of my favorite karaoke songs. I already have a date to karaoke with my friends later in the week. Before that I listened to “No Tears Left to Cry” by Ariana Grande, a song I bumped all summer in 2019, when I would drive out to the butte on the edge of town, write poetry and cry. Maybe a long drive? Sitting outside in sunset summer heat, not doing anything in particular? And crying, of course. Room to be in water, to let it wash off rose face masks and fill jars that I empty.

Record whatever inspiration comes to you and which activities sound compelling for your particular definition of summering right now.

How do I Implement a Summering Protocol?

Sometimes, you have to be disciplined, even about pleasure. It’s so easy to squeeze the enjoyment out of life when everything feels more pressing. It’s easy for everything to feel more pressing when we implicitly act as it pleasure doesn’t matter, or is sinful, even. But remember: who actually benefits from you spending all your time accomplishing or achieving something? How many poems and fairy tales have been written about the souls who make the mistake of thinking they can take their wealth or their accolades with them?

I’m not presenting a practical solution so much as a philosophical one. What place does enjoyment hold in your life? What is the difference between what must be done in accordance with the seasons, the earth, one’s natural cycle versus what must be done according to constant busyness or “maximizing” your time ?

That also means being mindful of when we turn summering into a chore or looming to-do list. As Oliver Burkeman writes in “Four Thousand Weeks”

“There’s another sense in which treating time as something that we own and get to control seems to make life worse. Inevitably, we become obsessed with “using it well,” whereupon we discover an unfortunate truth: the more you focus on using time well, the more each day begins to feel like something you have to get through, en route to some calmer, better, more fulfilling point in the future, which never actually arrives. ”

We can do a million things but still not become relaxed or really enjoy them. That’s why, in my opinion, summering shouldn’t necessarily be an elaborate affair. Maybe summering means getting yourself a lemonade from the corner store. Maybe it means taking a walk outside or texting a picture of a flower to a friend. Regardless, it should actually be something that feels exciting to you right now, rather than something you think you “should” do this season.

When you have the urge to summer, ask yourself: do I need rejuvenating, radiating or nourishing energy right now? Consult your list for the corresponding vibe and pick whichever makes your body tingle with interest.

And bit by bit, summer will pass. And you will have been there.

P.S my Books are Open for July

tips and rituals for meeting the moment/ur highest becoming). get messages from the stars straight to you.

see yourself in the heavens. in the roses. in a peach.

book a natal , timing, fixed star or creative practice consult with me now by clicking the link in my bio

the stars and i would be honored to have you 🦚🌹🍑🪞⛲️⭐️

Book Now

much love,

Until next time,

Chloe

In my last newsletter, I outlined a theory on Lunar wins, the quiet moments of achievement in between the big, visible “solar” ones that not only make the big wins possible but are what make our lives meaningful in the first place.

Today, I wish to give you two ways of concretely bringing the lunar more firmly into your life, making it a lifestyle of sorts that isn’t solely focused on external approval, oppressive metrics and self-comparison.

Why cultivate lunar wins? As I wrote in the previous newsletter:

To cultivate attention towards the lunar wins— towards not just the money in the bank but the smell of a flower or a private look between friends— is what allows us to actually be present in our lives. It does not preclude our big wins but gives us the inner sense of which big wins even matter to us rather than what is done for hollow appearances. It is through being able to focus on the minor moments, the attention to the task at hand, that we shape and manifest the big wins.

Lunar wins feel like magic. Yet they happen every day.

Two approaches:

1. Focus on Daily Lunar Wins

2. Treat Yourself to a Lunar Day

Focusing on Daily Wins

The first one is more incremental, regular, while the second route has you loading up on as many Lunar wins as possible.

For both, you must make a list of activities/accomplishments that make you feel good first and foremost rather than what looks impressive to others.

Ask yourself: what moments in the last week gave you the most joy, sense of quiet victory or relief?

The cool thing is, though you can certainly come up with your own, you can also consult your natal chart to best understanding the flavor of your unique lunar wins.

Look at both the sign and house placement of your Moon will tell you:

• the vibe of lunar wins that will “feel right” to you

• the part of life on which to focus your lunar wins.

You can look up keywords for the signs and houses to drum up ideas or you can use the following lists to help you attune to your specific type of wins:

Lunar Wins Through the Signs

Aries: mini moments of bravery; eating spicy or intensely flavored food (think Hot Ones), high intensity exercise; acupuncture, saunas or “extreme” forms of self care, sticking up for yourself; trying something new, running ahead of the pack

Taurus: balancing comfort foods with what makes your body feel good, maintaining regular rituals; gardening; embodied crafts like pottery, dancing, weaving, etc; smelling the flowers or buying yourself a bouquet; finding the perfect sweater, baking tray, bicycle; standing your ground

Read more

a few years ago, I put words to a feeling:

The tweet reads:

we tend to celebrate solar accomplishments only (career, public relationship launch, awards, visible things so i am here to celebrate lunar wins— really good meals and rests and convos with loved ones; a beautiful flower or a new walking route

As a night chart, I have long been preoccupied with the moments between the visible peaks; all the living that leads up to and away from graduations, job shifts, relationship changes; the quiet moments not apparent from the instagram feed or newspaper headlines that nevertheless allow those major moments to happen at all.

Not the book announcements but the light in my parents’ backyard as I wrote my proposal to my editor; photographing the garden of eden-themed rest stop on the way to my self-appointed writer’s retreat and my friends’ favorite coffee shop in Albuquerque when I got there.

It is staying tethered to those moments, I realize, that keeps me tethered to life itself.

I am someone who get can get easily caught up in future-thinking (worrying) and a frantic anxiety that I need to be in complete control of my life’s unfolding. But those are just my mind’s ideas; they do not bring into the actual substance of my living like tasting the first blueberries of June and learning how to cart wool do.

So this newsletter is a guide, an assay of sorts, to explain the idea of a “lunar win,” why pay attention to them at all, and how to begin cultivating your own lunar wins

What is a Lunar win?

Simply put, a lunar win is anything that brings us joy, feeling, and/or a sense of accomplishment in an intimate, often private way 🌙

You may post an instagram story about a good pastry you had or tell your friend about a new emotional realization, but the pleasure and meaning of these experiences do not rely on outside affirmation. The point isn’t the visible attainment or outside praise, though the increased panoptic eye of social media may confuse us along the way.

The point is the experience itself, even if it has positive ramifications for the future. You are meant to feel lunar wins.

A lunar win could be:

Some recent examples for me:

• learning how to make my first basket with ivy I harvested myself

• laying out in the sun with my feet on the grass, watching a bee kiss a st. john’s wort plant

• remembering to put my hand on my heart and say “ow” whenever my inner critic rears up (a lot

• eating the infinitely easy-to-make and infinitely tasty caprese sandwich multiple times last week

• got my friend a birthday gift they loved

Why care about Lunar Wins?

We live in an increasingly diurnal world. What do we do during the day? We work. We are seen. We see other people, have meetings, run errands, go shopping, conduct business, go on park dates when we aren’t ready to trust someone with our nights. Commerce and promotions and weddings happen during the day.

Those activities are necessary for our lives to move forward, for buildings to be built, classes held, plants to be cultivated, etc.

But while our ancestors were ended their labor when the sun went down, today we are expected to always be On: checking our emails, continuing our work at home, posting curated images of our down time, checking our behavior in public in case someone else is surveilling us.

(for more on sect, sun cult and diurnal vs nocturnal)

With this sun cult mindset comes a concern for the appearance of things rather than the feeling.

It’s how we get a man like Elon Musk, the world’s first trillionaire who is also the biggest loser with seemingly no humor, close relationships or sense of joy in his unfathomable riches.

To cultivate attention towards the lunar wins— towards not just the money in the bank but the smell of a flower or a private look between friends— is what allows us to actually be present in our lives. It does not preclude our big wins but gives us the inner sense of which big wins even matter to us rather than what is done for hollow appearnaces. It is through being able to focus on the minor moments, the attention to the task at hand, that we shape and manifest the big wins.

Lunar wins feel like magic. Yet they happen every day.

Why the Moon?

The Moon is the planet of presence. Of substance. Of the magic and mundane of this actual earth. You can see the Moon like a prism: she translates and transmits the celestial light of the heavens onto our planet so we can feel and be impacted by them at all. Some believe we wouldn’t even be able to feel the effects of the transits of Venus and Saturn and all the other planets without her influence. She is both of the stars and heavens, pure, perfect, ideal and of this earth, our lone satellite, dwelling in all matter and all we can touch.

We each have the Moon somewhere in our charts, meaning that we can key ourselves into our unique day-to-day experience by understanding her unique contours in our life. Those with 7th house Moons, for example, may find a lot of wins in conversation or because of interactions with others. The Moon in Libra may gravitate towards experiencing what is calming, harmonizing and charming, giving their wins an airy, sociable tinge.

She is the nocturnal luminary, opposite the Sun, the luminary of the day. She is shifty— half the time waxing, half the time waning. She borrows her light from the Sun and is thus reflective, made up of all the things outside of her. She mirrors back to us that we, too, find ourselves through the foods we like, the routes we walk, the landscapes we live in. We are not here to simply burn our own self-sustaining light, making the world to conform to our desires and our image; we are meant to be touched and shaped by it as well. Lunar wins often feel like moments of being worked upon by the world.

How to start cultivating your own lunar wins?

• Slowness: we do not cultivate lunar wins by trying to overfill our days or avoid the long way. We find them when we are really paying attention to what is in front of us, which requires time. Just tasting your morning coffee. Saying hi to the dog that you notice is wagging their tail as you get closer rather than striding past quickly looking at your phone. Try doing at least one thing today with your undivided awareness. Notice how much deeper and more sharp an experience is when we let it unfold within us.

• Reflecting: similarly, we need time away from constant input to let the significant moments rise to the top. When we need to fill every waking hour with scrolling or a screen, we are often running from feeling. It can be scary to sit with our bare experience and the inevitable pains or annoyances that come up, waiting to be honored and felt before they can be released. When those sharper feelings fade, the details of the day can arise in our consciousness and we can notice the moments that were especially meaningful and enjoyable to us. Then, when we begin to pay attention to what stays with us at the end of the day, we can begin to notice patterns around our lunar wins— and maybe put in effort to cultivate even more of them

• What feels good > what looks good: a primary difference between solar and lunar wins is perspective: while solar wins often have us seeing our lives from outside of ourselves, anticipating how other people will view us, lunar wins plant us firmly in our bodies, looking out to the world while placed within our distinct direct experience. It’s the difference between photographing the perfect summer peach and eating it with your hands, juice dripping down your fingers and chin. To cultivate lunar wins, cultivate embodiment. Following the breathing. Feeling your hands and your feet on the ground. Spend some time each day meditating, walking, doing yoga, lifting weights, swimming, etc where you can fully tune into the lunar frequency.

• Simple Pleasures List: One of my favorite habits is to regularly reflect on what has been bringing me joy lately, dividing it by month. The albums I’m obsessed with, what really works when I hang out with a friend, a new plant ally, the dish I can’t stop making. They act as time capsules, showing past me’s discrete interests and noticings. My eras, if you will. All you need to do to start yours is start a note in your phone labeled “Simple Pleasures,” write the month and the year at the top and take time recalling all that made you happy recently.

  

An exercise: The Senses

At the end of the day, carve out ten minutes to reflect. Put your phone away. Grab a notebook and a pen you like. Sit or lie down in a comfortable position. Feel your feet on the ground. Breathe a few times. Let the events of the day come back to you in whatever way they bubble up. Once you feel firmly situated write down something notable or satisfying for each category:

Seeing:

Hearing:

Smelling:

Touching:

Tasting:

The Head (i.e. a quote, idea, vivid passage from a book)

The Heart (i.e. a piece of art that moved you, a conversation that touched you, how your dog laid their head in your lap)

Do this for a week. A lunar cycle. See what patterns arise.

At the end, take yourself out to dinner or get yourself a new book to celebrate all of these moments. See what paying attention to and honoring these lunar wins does to your daily experience, as well as to the bigger things you are seeding.

But most of all, let lunar wins remind us, like the Moon itself, that we aren’t here to solely do and strive and win; remember that simply being alive is enough.

Until next time,

Love,

Chloe

Two more days to Sign up for my Fixed Star Course!

In this course you not only will become an expert in understanding and delineating the fixed stars, but will have the tools to change your life with their magic

This course is for anyone who wants an introductory, yet in-depth, dive into the fixed stars so they can feel comfortable understanding them for themselves as well as incorporating them into their astrological practice.

To begin, we will get into the nitty gritty of:
- Who are the fixed stars?
- What is their role in astrology/ the natal chart?
- How do they manifest and work with the planets?
- How do you measure if a fixed star is in a nativity?
- What are the heliacal rising and setting stars?
- How were the fixed stars used magically and astrologically throughout history?

You will get everything you need to know to understand how the fixed stars uniquely work and how to delineate them in a natal chart, as well as how to meet them yourself and transform your life with their magic.

You will find information you can’t get elsewhere so you don’t have to walk the path alone and figure it all out yourself like I did!

Cart closes after tomorrow, June 17th :)

Enroll and Learn More

Why the Heliacal Rising Star?

The heliacal rising star is the primary guide to your path and purpose. Your heliacal rising star contains meaning, mythos, abilities and skills are what you are here to embody, to be led by. I compare the heliacal rising star to the concept of the daimon, which James Hillman describes as the holder of your purpose:

The soul of each of us is given a unique daimon before we are born, and it has selected an image or pattern that we live on earth. This soul-companion, the daimon, guides us here; in the process of arrival, however, we forget all that took place and believe we come empty into this world. The daimon remembers what is in your image and belongs to your pattern, and therefore your daimon is the carrier of your destiny. (The Soul’s Code)

Connect with your heliacal rising star, remember your image, your pattern, your purpose.

Also: your heliacal rising star wants to befriend you!! I get such immediate feedback whenever I reach out to mine because they are truly chomping at the bit to connect with us and just let us let them guide us already!!

More on the heliacal rising star:

Why friendship?

Astrology give us a way to befriend the world.

The fixed stars even more so.

Why? Because the stars refuse to be known by words alone. There are fewer fixed star texts out there as compared to planet-based astrology. Just by fact of scarcity, if you simply use your mind to understand them, you won’t get far.

You need to reach out to the stars yourself. You need to befriend them to uncover their mysteries (and unlock your own purpose).

This idea reminds me of Joshua Beckman’s speech on poetry and the concept of friendship. “I feel the poem unrestrained,” Beckman describes to us in fragments, “at its core an exposure of unknowing— complex and unanswered… the freedom that is friendship...that allows the friend, unrestrained, to speak— and to be heard— not immediately designated or judged— but encountered...some ecstatic circuit’s been joined— and that’s how friendship feels”.

Friendship is space. Friendship is being curious enough to drop your preconceptions to truly let the other speak.

This is where the magic happens.

But friendship, like our lives, is a journey.

Taking after Emerson, Beckman calls friendship a “masterpiece,” but one that is “always in flux— temporary” and “can only be recognized fully from the inside”. Even someone from the inside can’t pin it down— can find no unchanging center. But connection is what’s important, not just knowing. Once you decide you know all there is to someone or something, you stop paying attention. Connection and gnosis can only happen in the present, and only when we let ourselves be changed, or recognize that it is so.

What are the Benefits to befriending my Heliacal Rising Star?

1. Self Knowledge: understand your unique success signature, accept the necessary struggles along the way and align yourself with what feels good to you and what the universe needs from you

2. Help on the Path: We don’t walk our journey alone!! Whenever you’re lost or struggling with your purpose, you can call on the heliacal rising star as a friend. They will provide succor and unseen aid.

3. Become Intimidatingly Powerful: the most bad-ass people with the biggest auras are those who embrace their unique powers (and limits!) fully. They’re not trying to be somebody else or copy someone else’s version of success but have honed their flaws and contours and needs into a distinct style. What is for them is able to easily gravitate towards them. That clarity can be achieved with the help of your guiding star.

So, let’s get into the process of befriending your heliacal rising star

Read more

To learn more and enroll in my class:

Find Your Home in the Stars

If you want a taste, check out my free Masterclass! Happening 6.5.26 at noon pst.

In this free class, I show you how the fixed stars shape our soulful journey with in-depth chart examples so you can see the power of the stars.

By exploring the natal charts of Kendrick Lamar and Octavia Butler, you will see how the fixed stars impact and weave their stories with the conditions of our planets.

I will give you a taste as to how the fixed stars play out in a natal chart; how the heliacal rising and setting stars outline our foundational, divine journey; and how the various star and planet connections impact and enrich our mythic quest.

This class aims to give you a taste for the delicious poetry of the fixed stars and how to actually delineate them so you can understand how they shape our lives deeply and potently.

Catch the class live on Friday, June 5th at noon PST. Replay will be available for those who can’t catch it live <3

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81591616342?pwd=AtjulnJRKGccPi9oDXGbXr9yMaX2Vn.1

Zoom link here:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81591616342?pwd=AtjulnJRKGccPi9oDXGbXr9yMaX2Vn.1

The Nature of the Heliacal Rising Star: Antares and Me

Not to be all “bad things are good” about astrology but in my experience:

1. people with strong/prominent malefics tend to have the ability to withstand the hardships that crop up on the path and the compassion to understand when someone else is struggling

2. squares may create conflicting energies but they also force change and ensure those w them in their chart won’t be able to rest on their laurels. they work even at their natural gifts

But of course, on some level, bad things are allowed to just suck.

Even if we can fuck with pain, find the core of pleasure in a good cry or difficult decision or burn throbbing on your hand, we are still confronting something our nervous system is set up to avoid

Pain hurts. But as my Zen practice teaches me over and over again:

Pain is inevitable

We simply create more of it wasting our time trying to get all of our ducks in a row, trying to rid difficulty completely from our lives.

And what astrology shows me is that we are each given our unique of pieces pain to hold. Our malefics show us where, how.

Some things will continually be unsettled. There can be a joy in that too.

But I have also seen that there is a way to lessen our pain, or find it more in conversation with pleasure or another of its opposites.

All of this to say: my Heliacal rising Star, Antares is pretty malefic.

She makes me a student of pain. She makes me a student of pleasure.

As the heart of the scorpion, this star is generally associated with power through trials and personal effort, as well as death, the unconscious and things that hit our vulnerable spots.

But the fixed stars, as opposed to the planets, have more space beyond good or bad.

As Diana K. Rosenberg puts it:

What you get with the stars are not good/bad, right/wrong, benevolent/malevolent, but issues. For instance, there might be an issue of tolerance versus intolerance, or addiction versus abstinence, arrogance versus humility, greed versus generosity, aggression versus working for peaceful solutions, and so forth.

Some have a malefic tinge, like Antares, but even this star deals with opposites. The planetary nature of this star is Mars and Jupiter, balancing the wound with the gift.

As much as you get one aspect in a fixed star you always get its contrast just as strongly:

• Sirius for example, the brightest star, is also symbolized by a black dog, encompassing both the celestial light and chthonic darkness, where spirit and matter coalesce

• Of course Alphecca, the star of true romance, also must manifests as true heartbreak

If there is pain, like with Antares, my heliacal rising star, you also get the great pleasure that comes with facing that pain. The vibe of the stars pairs well with my Zen training, which is always teaching me to sit with my experience until it becomes something else.

And if I sit openly and with patience, it always does.

When working with the stars it almost feels like, because you’re on the long haul journey with them, there will times of difficulty and times of plenty, no matter who walks with you.

In the realm of Antares, there is a deep red cauldron to tend;

she is red just like the flames and the logs beneath her are red and she is hot and she is open

There’s an interesting tension in Antares between her outsize grit and her deep, bloody capacity to feel.

All my life I have been marked “the sensitive one” but was confused by the worried tone in which it was used;

Isn’t my sensitivity my strength? I wondered

How else will I know where to hit?

and where to avoid?

I have long identified with the idea that my aura’s vibe is “scanning for threats,” but not in an aggressive manner, just a low simmering watchfulness.

I think I just viscerally grasped that I could be poked in many areas that would hurt; and because I want intimacy to be a beautiful, warm thing, have developed protocols to ensure I only showed my soft parts to those who could bear to see them.

Easier said than done, of course. But a key piece of Antares lore that is often missed out on is how vital relationships are for these people. It is through deep relationship where we can be vulnerable and share our most tender parts that we learn to let go of control, often our biggest issue.

The struggle to open in a harsh world; to find power in that opening, is a continual Antares lesson.

But she is also a wisdom star. Hermes on the 15 bright stars says Antares “gives men healthy color, grants good memory and intelligence, makes them appear wise, and banishes demons”. There is a deep knowing that comes with facing the dark.

Here is how I see Antares shaping my path:

• Extreme, Independent Drive: I always had strong desires for my life that didn’t match the more “secure” paths available to me growing up. I knew it would involve work to forge my own distinct path but I never doubted I could do it.

• A Deep Eye for Relationships: because I knew I can have such big, pointy, feelings, I have honed a sense of who I think can hold (and rightfully challenge) them. Finding soul friends and lovers who truly see me has been a huge part of my path.

• A Deep Love for the Life of the Mind: Despite alienation in many parts of my life growing up, I always felt at home learning. I did well in academic environments and love trawling for wisdom in books and discussion. Research, writing and using my mind to think about big questions it a vital part of me that feels like a gift from the scorpion heart.

These are just a few way Antares guides my path.

By learning about Antares, I unlocked a deep part of me that the planets alone couldn’t touch. Something soulful, mythic, deep.

I will be explaining more about the heliacal rising star in my free masterclass next week. I’ll get into examples of how to delineate them and how to weave in the other fixed stars in your chart to get a full picture of your divine journey. Find the Zoom link above.

Until next time,

Love,

Chloe

Stellar Magic is available for pre-order

After years of gathering wisdom and devoting myself to the stars, I am so happy to officially announce my new book, “Stellar Magic: Mythic Insights and Magical Uses of Fixed Stars in Astrology” is now available for pre-order.

This book collects all my research and gnosis on the 15 Behenian stars so you can understand their depths and begin working with them yourself.

The stars covered are:

- Algol, Eye of Medusa, 26º Taurus
- The Pleiades, the 7 Sisters, 0º Gemini
- Aldebaran, Eye of the Bull, 10º Gemini
- Capella, The Charioteer, 22º Gemini
- Sirius, Major Dog Star, 14º Cancer
- Procyon, Lesser Dog Star, 26º Cancer
- Regulus, Heart of the Lion, 0º Virgo
- Alkaid, Tail of the Bear, 27º Virgo
- Algorab, The Crow, 13º Libra
- Spica, The Maiden’s Sheaf of Wheat, 24º Libra
- Arcturus, The Hunter-Farmer, 24º Libra
- Alphecca, The Flower Crown, 12º Scorpio
- Antares, The Heart of the Scorpio, 10º Sagittarius
- Vega, Orpheus’s Lyre, 15º Capricorn
- Deneb Algedi, Tail of the Sea-Goat, 23º Aquarius

The book is divided into two parts: first comes the theory, where I give you the full, in-depth knowledge on each of the stars to get a handle on their deep power. The second part is all about magic: I lead you through multiples practices and rituals so you can commune with the stars yourself. The fixed stars want to relate to us! It is through direct practice that we understand their fullness and have our lives changed by their magic. I lay out everything you need to begin devotional relationships with each of the 15 bright stars (some of the most powerful stars in the sky), including in-depth rituals for each.

This book is a labor of love, my soul book, that the wonderful editors at Weiser let me run wild with at every turn.

Preorder Here

And if you simply cannot wait until November to dive deep into the fixed stars (and/or want my live attention), then you don’t have to~

My Fixed Star Course is Here

There is a whole universe of stars out there— but where do you start?

The fixed stars are rich, enchanting branch of astrology. They take us beyond the mundane, earth-bound limits of the natal chart and into a world of myth, poetry and magic.

But you wouldn’t know it from the available of literature out there.

You can tell there is so much to these stellar beings but the resources out there aren’t enough!

So, you abandon the stars. How can you take on the hundreds in the sky? Where can you learn more after you’ve exhausted the few sources available?

I would know— I’ve been studying and working with the fixed stars for seven years.

So now, I offer a class that gathers all the information on the fixed stars so you don’t have to.

In this course you not only get a survey of the best of the stellar literature but wisdom on delineating and working with the fixed stars that *you can’t get anywhere else*

This course is for anyone who wants an introductory, yet in-depth, dive into the fixed stars so they can feel comfortable understanding them for themselves as well as incorporating them into their astrological practice.

we will be diving into 15 extra important stars called the Behenians.

Each star will have its own class where I go over the lore and historical takes on this star, plus my own knowledge that comes from my own research and practice with the star. I will also go over how each star operates when connected to the seven planets and Asc/MC so you can see how a fixed star actually plays out in a nativity.

Learn more and Enroll Here

Free Masterclass: “The Power of the Stars: How the Fixed Stars Shape Our Becoming”

Want a taste for how the fixed stars impact our lives/ what you’ll get in my course?

In this free class, I show you how the fixed stars shape our soulful journey with in-depth chart examples so you can see the power of the stars.

By exploring the natal charts of Kendrick Lamar and Octavia Butler, you will see how the fixed stars impact and weave their stories with the conditions of our planets.

I will give you a taste as to how the fixed stars play out in a natal chart; how the heliacal rising and setting stars outline our foundational, divine journey; and how the various star and planet connections impact and enrich our mythic quest.

This class aims to give you a taste for the delicious poetry of the fixed stars and how to actually delineate them so you can understand how they shape our lives deeply and potently.

Catch the class live on Friday, June 5th at noon PST. Replay will be available for those who can’t catch it live <3

Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81591616342?pwd=AtjulnJRKGccPi9oDXGbXr9yMaX2Vn.1

What are the Lunar Stations?

Most simply, the lunar stations are how we divide up the zodiac according to the Moon. The Lunar stations were actually our first calendar. Just as the Moon’s 28-day cycle created our months, it also divides the ecliptic into 27 to 28 segments, each about 13º, the number of degrees the Moon moves in a day. While the Sun takes a month to traverse a zodiac sign, Luna swiftly passes through one of her stations within about 24 hours.

Why do they Matter?

The Lunar Stations were used as a calendar, predicted the weather, and held electional potentials. Each station has unique talismanic properties and is said to be auspicious and inauspicious for certain activities. Though they originated in Babylon, they are now most popular in Vedic astrology, where they are known as Nakshatras or lunar mansions, divided into 27 mansions. The Arabic tradition calls them “manzil,” or “manazil in their plural form. They divide the sky into 28 mansions. The Chinese call them “Xiu”. Sometimes, the meaning of the mansions from different traditions dovetails, other times they diverge in interesting ways.

Just as your various placements are impacted by their zodiacal signs, you can also interpret your planets and angles by which station they occupy.

Though there are many ways to begin to understanding the lunar stations, one vital, underutilized path is the fixed stars.

The individual stations were created by them: we mark the Moon in her station by noticing which part of the sky she’s in, i.e. which fixed stars she touches. The core meaning of the stations come from the fixed stars. But many of the so-called “indicator stars” of the manazil are left unspoken for. Many of the fixed stars that mark the stations are rarely discussed.

This essay is the second in our series, putting the second Lunar Station, and her indicator star, Botein, in the Ram constellation. Read my essay on the 1st Lunar Mansion and the other Ram stars here.

Station 2: Al Batin

Indicator Star: Botein, 21º09’ Taurus

Precessed Tropical Degrees: 7º27’ Taurus - 20º47’ Taurus

Constellation: Aries the Ram

Nakshatra Name: Bharani

Picatrix Description: Talisman for the removal of anger. Spirit name is Enedil. White wax and mastic suffumigated with lignum aloes. For digging streams and wells, to find hidden treasures, for planting a great deal of wheat. For the destruction of buildings before they can be completed. To make firm the incarceration of captives

Magical Potential: Mystical incubation, intimate union, transport to other worlds, creative midwifing, carrying and storing what is precious, the weighing of the soul, righteous rage

The Belly

Botein, which comes from the Arabic Butain, “the belly,” technically lies on the hind leg of the Ram near the tail. Regardless, this star takes us away from the front half of the constellation, where Hamal and the butting ones live. We are moving from the place of force and initiation within the animal to somewhere darker and deeper.

We see this echoed in the lore surrounding this star. The Arabic title for Botein’s Lunar Station is Al Batin, “The Esoteric” or the unknown, while its Chinese Station, Wei, is the stomach. In “A Dictionary of Symbols,” Juan Eduard Cirlot calls the belly “an alchemic laboratory,” a place where not just food can be transmuted into something else deep within our being. Thus with this star we see a connection between the belly and our innermost interiority. “Some cultures may frame this as the underworld,” JM Hamade writes, “Some cultures may frame this as an otherworld or even a mirror world in reversal from that of the living”. The lunar station, and its indicator star, bring to mind the deep riches of the dark: the unconscious, the shadowy realm beyond death, the world lying beneath or behind our apparent one, and the creative void of the womb. Much can arise from this place but we may not know exactly what we get until it arrives.

Those touched by this star, or significant placements in this station, may have more success leading with their gut rather than following their logic too closely. There’s a certain amount of mystery they must contend with and the process, like a pregnancy, must be tended with openness and care.

Read more

If you’ve been following me for a while, you know how much I love the decans. Not only do these subdivisions of the zodiac add so much richness to my understanding of the signs, but they open up whole worlds of meaning that are only just beginning to be uncovered. Decans not only provide specificity to our understanding of our placements, they each come with fantastical images, qualities and magical attributes that satisfy the poetic mind.

For a long time, the only contemporary resource on the 36 decans was Austin Coppock’s “36 Faces,” a ground-breaking, yet sadly out of print book that cemented Coppock as a pioneer in the study of these esoteric sections of the zodiac. Luckily, Kira Ryberg published her own decans guidebook and she and I began our own foray into the decans on her Threads of Fate podcast.

But even this hourlong deep dive into Gemini III is just the beginning. To demonstrate how much exists within each face, I will be releasing my own essay on each decan after Kira and release our podcast episode on it. While Kira’s guidebook and our discussions are great, comprehensive resource, these essays are more intertextual, poetic, weird. I’m less beholden to explaining all the basic details of the decans here and more interested in seeing where my mind and my curiosity takes me.

In this essay, for example, I discuss the music of Chris Isaak and Björk, connection through solitude, and the wisdom of fairy tales, just to name some themes.

Let these expand your idea of the zodiac, yourself, and enjoy.

If you’re sick of being misunderstood, book a session with me to get a deep dive on the decans in your chart :)

Book Now!

Gemini III

Planetary Rulers: Sun/Saturn

Dates: June 10th-June 20th

Zodiacal Degree: 20- 30º Gemini

Deity: Praxidike

Symbol: An Executioner’s Sword (Coppock)

Tarot Card: Ten of Pentacles

Decanic Image: A man seeking for arms, and a fool holding in the right hand a bird, and in his left a pipe; and they are the significations of forgetfulness, wrath, boldness, jests, scurrilities, and unprofitable words (Agrippa).

Contents

• “No One Loves Nobody”

• Forgetfulness, Boldness and Unprofitable Words

• Shared Solitude

• “Just a Very Big Understanding”

• Fairy Tale Logic

“No One Loves Nobody”

Chris Isaak’s most famous song came together in about fifteen minutes. “It's strange what desire will make foolish people do,” he croons on “Wicked Game,” the single from “Heart-Shaped World,” his 1989 album. The song came pouring out of him in the interval between receiving a lover’s call and having her over.

Funny that such a heart-aching song was written in the interval between call and visit, a time where Isaak is utterly alone with the despair of love. Despite the smoldering opening lines, most of the song is about the utter desolation of this connection. Her words are false, he claims. Sweet at the time but poisoned by their mendacity. He is in love, yet alone in it.

What a wicked thing to do
To make me dream of you

This is the line that caught me when I first heard the song. To dream of a love sounds magical, fantastical, but in this instance the scene turns into a rotten fairy tale. How can that oneiric intimacy go so wrong? But then I remember the time I dreamt of a lover when we were both living at a Buddhist monastery. I envisioned us under a white gauzy sheet, not touching, me refusing to talk about “us,” him insisting that we “didn’t have a choice,”; there was an “us” regardless of what I wanted. Love is sometimes a painful inevitability like that.

One night, we met up in the woods behind the monastery. Our meeting was fated, but not because our relationship was. We ended things a few months after he left, him citing his unreadiness to be in a relationship. While our union was not meant to be, I know why I dreamt of it. The awakening of desire he brought up in me jumpstarted my plan to leave the contemplative center. Not because it wasn’t a vitally useful solitude, but because it was time to use that newly-excavated inner space to do what I was born to do, out amongst the world of intimacy and community and entanglement.

Venus was in Gemini III when I had that dream, which is also the decan of Chris Isaak’s Venus, and the decan of the Sun when “Heart-Shaped World” was released. Solitude is a major theme of this Sun-Saturn decan but not without intimacy and union in spite of it. There are private moments stolen, brutal insights revealed, and connection stumbled upon like hidden treasure in this face of Gemini, just as there is on this album. Let’s examine Gemini III’s wicked game.

Forgetfulness, Boldness and Unprofitable Words

To understand the third decan of Gemini, you must understand the three planets that influence this face: Mercury, the Sun and Saturn. Mercury, the ruler of Gemini, is the dextrous trickster. They are the eloquent speaker who can twist their words into any form, for good or for ill. The two decanic rulers of Gemini III are the Sun, the king, and Saturn, the elder. We see traces of these three in the images associated with this face. Ibn Ezra describes “A man seeking arms who has a bow and a quiver, and in his hand an arrow and clothing and golden ornaments, and he desires to play music and laugh and mock in all sorts of ways”. This image fuses Sol’s adornment and celebration with the irreverent jesting of Mercury.

Agrippa says the figures in this face “are the significations of forgetfulness, wrath, boldness, jests, scurrilities, and unprofitable words”. Dour but appropriate, as Saturn, ruler of ignorance, snatches things from our mind and can fritter away the results of our efforts. Nonetheless, the Sun supplies courage, and Mercury is not without their jokes.

While Mercury dabbles heavily in commerce and the Sun likes his riches, Saturn can deny us access to the contacts and visibility needed to make those channels flow, hence the “unprofitable words”. To me, a Gemini III figure is a stodgy academic researching some dead language or remote time in ancient history, writing niche papers to no one. Yet what would the world be without him following his unique curiosities? While the intellectual efforts of this decan may often be done in private or lead us further into the dark, they can also connect in surprising ways. Though it might not be many, there is surely someone out there who wants to know about exactly what this hermetic academic has devoted his life to understanding. The quest for knowledge and the search for Eros often feels the same, as Gemini III Sun, Anne Carson argues in her book “Eros the Bittersweet”:

“I would like to grasp why it is that these two activities, falling in love and coming to know, make me feel genuinely alive. There is something like an electrification in them. They are not like anything else, but they are like each other.”

Both energize us into action, into searching down the unknown path, seeking some other or piece of knowing that we lack. Just as we only desire what we do not have, to know union we must first know loneliness.

Shared Solitude

One common theme of Gemini III is solitude, though not in the way you’d think. Well, first and foremost, it depends on what sort of placements you have here. The three planets ruling this decan are all dry, making them more inclined to, at the very least, periods of retreat. Regardless of placement, Gemini III natives must come back to the sort of deeply-rooted, esoteric truths that Saturn so favors and with which Mercury is all-too-happy to assist.

We see this play out in the life of Thomas Merton, born with Saturn, the Lot of Eros, and the IC in this decan. At age 26, Merton took up residence at a Trappist Monastery, which adheres to a strict code of silence. Merton long yearned for this eremetical form of practice, wishing to sequester himself completely from the “diversion and self-deception” of the collective. Nevertheless, he spent much of his alone time writing, much of which has been shared with the world to great acclaim even while he was alive. Moreover, he did not see his physical solitude as truly isolating himself from the rest of the world at all:

On the contrary, he realizes, though perhaps confusedly, that he has entered into a solitude that is really shared by everyone. It is not that he is solitary while everybody else is social: but that everyone is solitary, in a solitude masked by that symbolism which they use to cheat and counteract their solitariness.

In other words, Merton believes we are brought together in our solitude because that is where we all sink into “emptiness,” a place where everything arises and falls away. Allowing oneself to access this true solitude instills in us “a faith in which a man takes responsibility for his own inner life”. It is how we are able to separate what is ours and what is not and perhaps, truly meet the other. It is by denying this essential solitude, he argues, that we miss out on connection. By denying this internal seclusion, we miss out the unifying power of sitting with this universal experience. Solitude is how Gemini III people are able to meet the world and other people.

“Just a Very Big Understanding”

If you have a wet planet, like Venus, the Moon or Jupiter, in this decan, as Björk does, you may take a less isolated approach. Instead, you may try to to counteract the separating tendency of Gemini III placements and employ the penetrating, patient thoughtfulness of this face towards another end.

In describing the song “Hyperballad,” from her 1995 album Post (which was released when the Sun was in Gemini III), Bjork remarks on how “everything’s geared toward self-sufficiency. Fuck that…For me, the target is to learn how to communicate with other people, which is the hardest thing, after all. What you should be doing is learning how to live with other human beings”. The true test of this face’s acuity, Bjork seems to argue, is not letting this natural solitude prevent us from actually connecting with the other.

One way to do this dance is to make room for the parts of us that are just for us. In “Hyperballad”, Bjork sings of living with her lover on a mountain and waking up early to perform this ritual:

Every morning I walk towards the edge
And throw little things off
Like car parts, bottles, and cutlery
Or whatever I find lying around

They’re little moments of rebellion, ways of honoring “a side of you that you can’t fit into a relationship,” as she puts it. To allow the sweetness and safety of the intimacy to sink in, she describes, “you wake up early in the morning and you sneak outside and you do something horrible and destructive, break whatever you can find, watch a horrible film, read a bit of William Burroughs, something really gross and come home and be like, ‘Hi honey, how are you?’”.

Rather than being a sign of lack of fulfillment, the space for such solitary transgressions is a sign that the relationship is going well for Gemini III people. Makes sense that Jupiter, the planet of inclusion, when placed in this decan, would have to make room for what can’t fit into one container. It is through these transgressions, these minor moments of separation, that a Gemini III person can connect. Take this anecdote from Lana del Rey, born with her Lot of Eros in this decan, about her relationship:

There will always be a part of us that no one else can touch, Gemini III understands. Sometimes, love looks like letting that untamed state run free.

Fairy Tale Logic

There is another way the inner darkness of Gemini III can also be a form of connection: the collective unconscious. We all contain an unknown depth that is shared by all of humanity, just as Merton refers to in his writing. It is in this communal shadow that archetypes live, the universal personae and roles, like hero, hag, mother, child, that each of us contain.

This searching through the dark (Saturn) to illuminate the rarefied selves we embody (the Sun) is typical of this Solar-Saturnian decan. But what makes these inner revelations become a purview of Mercury as well is the certain playfulness in how these deep truths are expressed. As Jungian analyst Marie Luise Von Franz (who has her Saturn in Gemini III) puts it, “every archetype is in its essence an unknown psychic factor, and therefore there is no possibility of translating its content into intellectual terms”. Like a poem or a dream, cannot fully grasp the collective unconscious with your rational mind alone. Though in the sign of Mercury, Gemini III is very interested in where logic and linear thinking break down.

You can, however, Von Franz contends, begin to grok the unique language of the unconscious through fairy tales. She calls these stories, which are told to us since we are young, “the purest and simplest expression of collective unconscious psychic processes”. Whether it’s The Ugly Duckling or The Little Mermaid, they are all reaching towards explaining the same psychic fact: “the Self, which is the psychic totality of an individual and also, paradoxically, the regulating center of the collective unconscious” . Again, we are trying to reach some inner knowing that is unique to us and shared by all.

But the way that fairy tells explain this psychic fact is key. Because the Self is “so complex and far-reaching and so difficult for us to realize in all its different aspects” it takes “hundreds of tales and thousands of repetitions with a musician’s variations are needed until this unknown fact is delivered into consciousness; and even then the theme is not exhausted”. In other words, the true inner self, the shared unconscious, is only accessed in its many different forms and parts, which to us in stories of evil witches, valiant heroes and children touched by the fae. Deep truths are contained in these tales for both the youth and the elderly. One reason for this is the multiplicity and personal nature of their interpretation.

As Von Franz puts it:

Interpretation is an art, a craft actually, which finally depends on you yourself. The class where everyone interprets the same fairy tale is almost a confession. That cannot be avoided. And it’s right, for you have to put your whole being into it.

There is no one, objective “right way” to make meaning out of a fairy tale. Every person, according to their unique predilections, personal associations and journey will have their own takeaway from a given story.

That, in a way, mimics how we connect amidst the deep, dark solitude of Gemini III— not through giving up our sovereignty but through sharing our unique interpretation of the same story and leaving room for the other to share theirs. The way I and you understand the same fairy tale will most likely be different but each one is no less true— just how Gemini III likes it.

It reminds me about the monastery dream I had about that boy. Like a fairy tale, I interpreted the nighttime vision one way, which, while correct, was correct in a way that was different than I thought. Though my solitude was broken, he was not the prize, but, rather, the part of me our connection let me attune to and honor. Here we see a distinctly Gemini III version of the self: one that is multiple, told again and again in different ways (Mercury) but must be uncovered and worked through in the dark of the unconscious (Saturn).This decan may lead you somewhere weird, dark, fantastical, somewhere you could not have predicted, but in the end, through the darkness, twists, and turns, you will always find yourself.

What are the Lunar Stations?

Most simply, the lunar stations are how we divide up the zodiac according to the Moon. The Lunar stations were actually our first calendar. Just as the Moon’s 28-day cycle created our months, it also divides the ecliptic into 27 to 28 segments, each about 13º, the number of degrees the Moon moves in a day. While the Sun takes a month to traverse a zodiac sign, Luna swiftly passes through one of her stations within about 24 hours.

Why do they Matter?

The Lunar Stations were used as a calendar, predicted the weather, and held electional potentials. Each station has unique talismanic properties and is said to be auspicious and inauspicious for certain activities. Though they originated in Babylon, they are now most popular in Vedic astrology, where they are known as Nakshatras or lunar mansions, divided into 27 mansions. The Arabic tradition calls them “manzil,” or “manazil in their plural form. They divide the sky into 28 mansions. The Chinese call them “Xiu”. Sometimes, the meaning of the mansions from different traditions dovetails, other times they diverge in interesting ways.

Just as your various placements are impacted by their zodiacal signs, you can also interpret your planets and angles by which station they occupy.

Though there are many ways to begin to understanding the lunar stations, one vital, underutilized path is the fixed stars.

The individual stations were created by them: we mark the Moon in her station by noticing which part of the sky she’s in, i.e. which fixed stars she touches. The core meaning of the stations come from the fixed stars. But many of the so-called “indicator stars” of the manazil are left unspoken for. Many of the fixed stars that mark the stations are rarely discussed.

I wish to remedy this discrepancy. A few months ago, midway through a stellar consult, the desire to write on the Aries star, Hamal, bloomed. Appropriate, as Aries season was just underway. Soon, I began drawn to all the stars of the constellation. Two of them, Sharatan and Mesarthim, were indicators for the first mansion, while Botein marked the second. It only made sense to continue the thread through the rest in order to engage more deeply with the manazil, a desire of mine for years.

We begin at the beginning today. May it help you better understand the lunar stations and draw you deeper into their mysteries

Station 1: Al Sharatain

Sharatan and Mesarthim

Indicator Stars: Mesarthim (3º33 Taurus) + Sharatan (4º20’ Taurus)

Precessed Tropical Degrees: 24º07 Aries- 7º27’ Taurus

Constellation: Aries the Ram

Nakshatra Name: Ashwini

Picatrix Description: Talisman for destruction and depopulation, For beginning journeys and the crafting of medicines, For creating discord between husband and wife, for making friends hostile towards each other, and for servants to flee

Magical Potential: powerful collaboration, piercing healing, dancing with the void, creating something from nothing, rejuvenating youthfulness, beginner’s mind, creative incubation

Like Hamal, Sharatan and Mesarthim are Mars-Saturn stars. Much of their vibe resemble the headstrong power we see echoed in the alpha star of Aries (which I discuss here). But they occupy their own unique terrain in the Ram asterism. These two are known as “the Protecting Pair,” or “the Butters,” speaking to their place in the left horn of the Ram. One is hardly mentioned without the other.

“Not Independent, but Strong”

We see this contradiction in how their station is described. The Matanga Sutra claims that those born here “[are] skilled in dealing with cattle and horses,” speaking to the immense power Ashwini natives have to handle unruly, wild forces with great skill. In talking about the Chinese Xiu, their own system of Lunar Stations, Malvin Artley says its natives “will tolerate considerable hardship and inconvenience,” are “active and sporty” with “rare displays of violent temper”. The martial side, quick to take up any challenge as well as prone to anger, is evident. At the same time, this station grants one “lifelong friendship,” and “many joys”. Other traits of this station include “defensive of family and friends” and “very forgiving”. Funny, that such forceful sel-driven station also makes one capable of fierce loyalty and reconciliation.

Read more

I feel like some wiser version of me made a pact before I was born: if you practice magic, you can’t be a dumb bitch about it.

I have been engaging in the unseen world for over a decade and practicing astrology a little less than that. My whole life, though, I’ve been drawn to the mysterious forces that bend the fabric of the universe toward our wills.

But I have also seen, in movies, fairy tales, cautionary fables and in real life, how magic can warp you, turning you into a Gollum-esque figure of greed and wrong-thinking. In the astro-magic sphere, I’ve seen petty squabbles, public crash-outs, unnecessary suffering, delusional beliefs as well as those who have exited completely because it became Too Much.

As Shuly so wisely puts it:

I want to stress that we don’t use the term “going crazy” here pejoratively or in jest, but rather as an acknowledgement of the kinds of psychic disruption that esoteric practices can induce. I don’t believe that you have to have some specific level of wellness to engage with mysticism. Madness seems inherent to the edges of this territory. What we’re really saying here is that groundedness and wellness are antidotes to destabilization of the soul and psyche.

Especially in the realm of fixed stars, I’ve seen so many people come and go, almost like they’ve been kicked out of the stellar pantheon and it’s made me wonder: why not me (yet anyway lol)?

I have felt embraced and held by the stars, continually awed by their magic and gifts (see my journey with the Love Stars) but also really, truly, believe they are for everyone. It makes me sad that others have had negative experiences with them !

That’s why I’m so excited to share my and Shuly Rose’s course on Sirius, dog star and brightest star in the sky, which features three lectures plus a grimoire of spells, drawing from our direct experience and practice with this star.

Check her out

We have benefitted immensely from working with Sirius but also understand there’s a lot of fear mongering around this intense star.

So, over the past few months I’ve been examining the practices and mindsets I engage in that allow me to engage in magic without becoming the stereotypical hunched over, anti-social sorcerer who treats the spirit world like a vending machine or a hallucinating llm that just tells me what I want to hear, who is not that fun or pleasant to be around.

New Free Masterclass

In this free roundtable discussion, Shuly and I will be joined by fellow practitioner Ione Richards to discuss the rituals, spirits and skills we believe are fundamental to doing magic while staying grounded, sustainable and on our path. We will dive into what we believe every magician of every stripe should know to approach the mystical and celestial, including:

• Plants and building a relationship with the natural world

• The Power of Words and Silence

• Magic as Relationship Building

• Meditation and Contemplation

• Protection Practices

• Divination and Discernment

• Deities/Plants/Stars to Start With

• Ethics and Values

• and so much more

There will be time for a Q+A afterwards so you have everything you need to approach spirit while still staying tethered to the earth and your own heart.

Replay will be available for those who can’t catch it live <3

Join the Zoom Here

To get a taste of what this roundtable will offer you (and how to do magic with Sirius while staying grounded and easeful), I present these tips to you.

Zen

I knew I was supposed to practice Zen before I understood the first thing about Zen. Fresh from a college breakup and faced with a wide-open summer, I knew I had to take the opportunity to spend month at the nearby monastery, though I had no idea what it would entail.

It turns out: a lot of meditation and being present. Boo. I’m not good at sitting still or being in my body! I was an intellectual. Surely, I was too complicated to gain anything from following my breath instead of following my many, delicious thoughts.

But, hey, this place said we were here to study the nature of life and death. Very metal, very the opposite of all the love and light bullshit I’d encountered in the Spirituality section of Borders (my primary exposure to religion at that point). So, I sat through boredom and discomfort and fears and anxieties. I ignored my desire to process my feelings through my mind and let any visuals or seemingly magical experiences pass by (that’s makyo, don’t you know, self-delusion, or, as it literally translates from Japanese, “the demon realm”).

It’s not that Zen waves away or disbelieves in the magical: it just reminds you that it’s not that big of a deal.

Zen wants you to be enlightened, after all. Though increased intuition and magic is the logical result of intense meditation, it wasn’t the point. We were discouraged from forming an ego attachment to the insights or focusing on them.

The point was to stay present, again and again, through the height of insight and the lows of delusion. Zen taught me that we practice with spirit not to get something out of it but to turn to the wheel, to feel and experience it all and maintain equanimity through it all. Being in your body is being in the only place spirit can reach you. it is where your intuition lives, a crucial skill for navigating magic in a balanced way.

You access that with clear mind. You do that by meditating.

Plants

The first medicinal plant I ever worked with felt like a celebrity to me. In 2020, while quarantining in my childhood home in New Jersey, I finally began my first real foray into herbalism. Being cheap, that meant scouring my parents’ backyard with a plant identification app. There was one plant growing in the backyard with long, serrated leaves and tall, thin stalks of buds where purple flowers bloomed. Vervain. Vervain!! I had just read extensively about this plant in Harold Roth’s “The Witching Herbs” and could hardly believe my luck.

The more I researched this plant, the more stunned I was by how its powers were exactly the medicine I needed. Vervain is a nervine and digestive stimulant. In other words, the plant helps with anxiety and stomach problems, something my Virgo Moon understands all too well. It became clear that this plant wanted to work with me by virtue of our kismet meeting and the great help it offered me.

Plants taught me how to observe, listen and notice when a spirit was reaching out to me.

They taught me that much healing happens not in the brain but in the body. That by letting them work on me on the physical level, much could be solved on the level of spirit without my brain interfering.

A crucial practice in magic is being able to hear a “no”. You need to be able to discern when a spirit really wants to work with you (or not), as well as what sort of offering it desires. Dealing with a physical being like a plant is greatly helpful in learning how to tune into when you should or shouldn’t work with its spirit.

Which leads me to my next tenet:

Relationships

I will never forget something one of my Zen teachers said at the end of a retreat. At the monastery, every sesshin (silent meditation retreat) ends with a closing circle, where each person shares some experience from the past week.

During one, a participant lamented having to go back to normal life with friends and family who couldn’t understand his experience, thus ruining this cultivated clarity.

My gruff, older teacher scoffed. “Your loved ones don’t care about your insights. If you come back from a retreat irritable and reclusive, they won’t necessarily want you to return. But if you come back more understanding, patient and loving they may think ‘Hey, I look at that! Maybe these weeks away aren’t such a bad idea’”.

And that’s the truth: insights are a dime a dozen. We do not impress people by our words and claimed knowledge: they care about how we make them feel.

In other words, our relationships are profound litmus tests. Noticing how my spiritual practice impacts my trusted connections is such a core sign that I’m doing something right (or wrong).

As such, treating our relationship to spirits, stars, planets, ancestors and all manner of the more-than-human, as just that— relationships— has been key to my success. For the first several years of working with the fixed stars I asked for nothing from them other than gnosis, to know their natures more deeply so I could share it with others (and get them hooked on the stars too).

In other words, I didn’t just ask them for things: I offered my time, my attention, my voice. I listen to what they want from me and complete the tasks that arise. The boons they supply— while still maintaining my human relationships with ease and joy— are signs of the health of our connection.

Again, you want more practical, grounded tips on how to have your own sustainable magical practice, check out my free roundtable with Ione Richards and Shuly Rose happening this Sunday at 10:15am pst. Replay will be available for those who can’t attend live !

Until next time,

Love,

Chloe

Today’s newsletter is a deep dive on the fixed star Hamal, found in the head of the Aries, or Ram, constellation. You don’t need to have much technical knowledge of astrology to appreciate the stars. We have been writing stories and praying to them since we have been looking up. This essay is meant to help readers connect more deeply to these divine messengers and better understand ourselves. If you want to know if Hamal touches your chart, see if you have any planets or significant placements within 2º of 7º Taurus. Even if not, you have so much to learn from this fiery, powerful star.

If you want to learn more about how the stars touch and guide your beautiful life, and what your soul is asking of you, book a fixed star reading with me ⭐. You have to feel the magic of the stars yourself to believe it.

Book a Fixed Star Consult

On the Fixed Star Hamal

I have had the privilege, as of late, to spend a lot of time with sheep. The ewes act like how you would expect a sheep to act: timid but ultimately sweet, happy to munch on grass and laze in the sun all day. It is spring so many of their bellies are swollen, enlarging their woolly bodies that are somehow carried by their spindly legs. Though they may back away when you first enter the pen, inevitably one begins to approach you, leaning her soft body against yours, nuzzling against you, letting you touch her heavenly soft snout.

The rams are different. There is one, the alpha, who is responsible for impregnating the ewes. Barring access to fucking, all he wants to do is fight. If you are facing him from enough distance, he will inevitably begin to charge. If you stand on his side, he is sweet and poses no threat as you pet him. But if you stand in front of him, he will lean his head down and attempt to use it to butt you to the ground.

It’s easy enough to bat him away and he is not fighting to kill, but simply following his nature, which is battling and fucking. How else will he maintain his role at the top of the pack?

All of these features and expressions speak to the complexity of the Aries constellation and the stars featured therein. Hamal, the alpha star in the head of the ram, is perhaps the most well-known, but three others— Sheratan, Mesarthim and Botein— are written about the most because they are the indicators stars of Lunar Mansions. To understand the Ram, we must take all of these stars into account, peeling away the layers of this constellation and understanding what aspect of the ram each one embodies.

The first section of this essay will focus on the Aries constellation in general as well as Hamal as the primary star of the asterism.

In the second part, I will dive into the particulars of the other three stars in the constellation— Sheratin, Mesarthim and Botein— to see what different facets of the Ram these stars give their voice.

Approaching the Ram

The image of the Ram comes from the story of the golden fleece. To escape their step mother, Phrixus and his sister Helle are rescued by the aureate creature, summoned by Mercury. Along the way Helle falls into the sea and drowns but her brother makes it to Colchis, where he sacrifices the ram to Zeus and hangs its fleece in the Grove of Mars. Most of the stars in the Aries constellation are given the nature of Mars and Hamal in particular is a Mars-Saturn star. This planetary connection speaks to the dangers, sacrifices and victories found in this myth, raising questions of what we must do to survive and what we lose along the way. Mars is the planet of the warrior facing dangers, but he doesn’t leave the battlefield without scars.

We can see the malefic energy of this constellation emerge: there are perils to be found within its domain and even with help, sacrifice or loss along the way is to be expected.

Read more

In an act self love, I let myself be cut open.

Not just once, but five small incisions were made in the skin of my stomach so a robotic arm could weave through muscle fibers and peel away the masses that have been forming in my abdomen for over 18 years.

Last July I was diagnosed with endometriosis and immediately knew I wanted surgery. Since starting my period in my teens, I had dealt with monthly cramps that made it almost impossible to function (“Almost” as in I inevitably still had to. How was I, a weak young woman, to justify missing school or work because of something as mundane as menstrual cramps?) When I started having sex, I had already internalized that penetration was painful for women and that surely, the shooting pain I felt amidst the yearning was my fault. Without a medical diagnosis, I was sure my agony was a sort of penance for sin: the result of nebulous fears turned into physical clenching, a trick of a weak mind unable to connect with the reality of a safe body. Since my first time was painful, surely my brain was just pre-emptively shutting down the area to prevent anticipated stress; my inability to stop this clenching a further result of my lack of control.

For so long I was mean to myself on top of the pain I experienced because I thought it was the only way I could get what I wanted.

It was strange, then, to have this diffuse “me problem” be so securely tied to an illness. Suddenly, my shooting pains and discomfort with intimacy made sense. There were masses building up inside me, pressing on my organs, for almost two decades. What could rob this situation of blame more than a body imperfectly doing what it knows how to do?

That’s why I like Johanna Hedva’s description of endometriosis:

“Endometriosis, which is a disease of the uterus where the uterine lining grows where it shouldn’t—in the pelvic area mostly, but also anywhere, the legs, abdomen, even the head. It causes chronic pain; gastrointestinal chaos; epic bleeding; in some cases, cancer; and means that I have miscarried, can’t have children, and have a surgery or two to look forward to. It means that every month, those rogue uterine cells that have implanted themselves throughout my body “obey their nature and bleed,” to quote fellow endo warrior Hilary Mantel. This causes cysts, which eventually burst, leaving behind bundles of dead tissue like the debris of little bombs.”

My body was simply obeying its nature.

There is no faulting the body for doing what it is programmed to do. There is no faulting the mind for doing so either.

—

If I had to astrologize, I would say I got this surgery at this time because:

1. I am in a Mars- ruled year, the planet of knives, severing, war, conflict, surgeons and certainly whatever sort of robot removed the 6cm mass that had been throbbing in my abdomen

2. The South node, place of shedding and lack, is currently on top of my Moon, keeper of the body. I thought this transit would mean taking away something familiar and dear to me, not something familiar and painful

Johanna Hedva points out in her essay on kink that care is necessitated by pain:

“Suddenly I become aware that there’s a causality to care, a reason for its existence, and this—the because of care—is pain.”

In all honesty, it was the care, not the cutting, that worried me.

I’m not one to ask for help, a stubborn solitude only afforded to me because of my relatively young, able body.

Surgery makes care a matter of survival, not preference. I couldn’t lift 25 pounds the first week and could barely walk around the block without getting tired, much less stand and make myself dinner, so I needed help.

Well, an inner voice quibbled, I didn’t necessarily need help after getting groggily driven home from the hospital by my mom, a patch behind my ear to prevent anesthesia-induced nausea.

I am almost free of soreness by halfway through the week, and a few weeks out, feel basically back to normal. Nevertheless, the care comes out in gushes, in the form of so many people who want to cook for me and keep me company. I have to turn people away I am so steeped in care, have to take a break from it by spending the weekend alone.

Is solitude a luxury? The illusion of independence, that I have somehow got here solely on my own and could survive without help in perpetuity. Asking for help is vulnerable, I am realizing, because you could be told “no,” or not be cared in the exact right way because other people are not me and don’t have access to my mind unless I actually ask for what I want.

How do I make oneself open to care?

—

I got this surgery so I could fuck better. That is the truth of it. Lessening my insane period cramps was a plus but luckily, my IUD got rid of the worst of it

The one thing that tiny piece of plastic couldn’t do is stop a dick from poking the accumulated mass of misplaced uterine cells and blood. I realize one of the reasons it took me so long to get diagnosed, even beyond doctors’ overlooking, is because I thought it was my fault sex was so painful.

I have begun to see my endometriosis as a guardian against my porous boundaries. Just as a I have trouble accepting help, I have trouble receiving at all, especially when it comes to sex. For a long time I treated it as a form of external validation. It wasn’t about my pleasure but what I had to offer my partner on demand to deserve relationship. I would withstand shooting pains and sore chafing because what would I be if I couldn’t satisfy the other?

My Mars, planet of force and blood and cutting, is in the 5th house, place of good fortune and pleasure. I had to first to learn to say no, stop, when I felt pain during sex before I could experience its pleasure. I had to realize that these boundaries are where connection actually takes place, not from when I suppressed my feelings for superficial harmony.

The endometriosis gave me no choice. Unless I wanted this form of pleasure and connection to curdle into an eternal wound, I had to honor my body’s boundaries even if my mind would have preferred to just give and give until there was nothing left.

Then I had to learn not to simply tolerate, bleed, but cut out what was getting in the way of connection.

I had to see that telling my partner if I’m not in the mood or need to stop is how we learn pleasure together. I can hardly think of a moment more intimate than how my partner winces, concern spread across their face, when I tell them I am in pain.

Though part of me hopes it will be a panacea, leading to great sex from here on out I know the body is never that simple. There’s the mind, still primed to expect pain, and the muscles that have clenched to obey those neural firings.

But I turn again to Hedva to avoid easy endings:

“Fuck that. I don’t want to talk about healing unless we talk about never getting better and staying broken and what to do with all that hurt. I don’t want to talk about care unless we also talk about how messy and painful and unfillable is the hole that our needs make in us. ”

—

“You look more comfortable,” my friend told me the other day after we had ordered our coffee. “Like it’s easier for you to be embodied”.

They knew that I had undergone this surgery but just by observing me in person, noticed a new shape to my being. The phantom twinges I’m used to meeting when I feel into my lower abdomen are no longer there.

During my post-op appointment, my doctor told me that if I “had to have Stage IV endometriosis, this would be the optimal situation”. They were able to remove virtually all of my endometriomas (the masses formed by the rogue bleeding), save for the one that would have damaged an ovary. They rest were relatively easy for her to remove, she said, and left my bowels alone, meaning the conditions are ideal for relief to slowly approach.

If it is my fate to be in pain, but to be lucky in it, to have a useful guard in my abdomen, ready to defend my insides until I was ready to take my time, say no myself, I will choose that pain again and again.

Until next time,

Love,

Chloe

I will be giving you all the juicy details on how to practice with this star and help you benefit from her deep, loving magic.

Register for my course by 3/19!

Enroll Here

Mirach

Zodiacal degree: 0º Taurus

Planetary Nature: Venus

Mirach is found in the midst of the Andromeda constellation. While the head of this princess has mostly been shifted to the Pegasus constellation in stellar literature, Mirach has always been the primary star of the manacled maiden. This yellow star is known as “the Girdle of the Chained Woman,” whose name likely descends from the Arabic mi’zar, meaning a girdle or waist-cloth. Many of her names resonate with this theme, as Mirach has also gone by “Cingulum (Latin for girdle or belt)” or ’Ventrale (Latin for belly)”. In Arabic Fixed Star tables, she was known as Al Janb al Musalsalah, “the Side of the Chained Woman”. Her Manzil, the 26th Al Batn al Hut, is often translated to “belly of the fish”. All of these stomach-related images point us to different facets of Andromeda’s meaning: a hidden protectiveness or imprisonment, a deep intuition (think “gut feeling”), as well as softness or vulnerability (surrendering animals will often show you their belly). But, as the “belly of the fish” imagery implies, there can also be a mysterious, initiatory quality to Mirach’s oceanic churning. I found that the deep sea has a similar vibe to Mirach and speaks to the hidden depths within the youthful princess. There is more to this star than meets the eye.

Interestingly, Mirach’s associated Sieu, or Chinese Lunar Station is known as “Goei, or Kwei, the Man Striding, or the Striding Legs,” quite the opposite to the more immobile, feminine imagery usually associated with this asterism. could this aspect be a mirror to the counterpart or other facet of this star? What sort of movement does her gut direct her towards? We will explore her soft power and movement in this essay as well.

Interestingly, Mirach is also generally viewed as a positive star. According to Richard Hinckley Allen, the star was known for “portending renown and good luck in matrimony,” showing her alliance with the more amorous side of the Andromeda myth.

While I go in-depth on this story in my Alpheratz essay, I will briefly restate its plot. Andromeda’s parents, Cassiopeia and Cepheus, King and Queen of Ethiopia, anger the gods, particularly Poseidon, by claiming that their daughter is more beautiful than the Nereids, sea nymphs. As penance, the king and queen are forced to chain their daughter to a rock by the ocean so Cetus, the sea monster can devour her. Perseus, a young hero on his way back from beheading Medusa, becomes so enamored by this chained princess he has just met.

As a result of his feelings, he defeats the monster, saves Andromeda, and marries her (more on the Perseus myth in my Mirfak essay! also in Vol. II of my Fixed Star Essay Collection). While I associate Alpheratz with her internal freedom and hard-won intellect, Mirach speaks to her being seen and rescued by Perseus, as well as the gentle movements that brought him toward her. Ptolemy writes that she is the nature of Venus and Vivian Robson writes that Mirach “gives love between husband and wife and reconciles adulterers”. Additionally, he claims that this star “[bestows] purity of thought, virtue, honor and dignity upon its natives” but also causes battle with chimerical (wildly fanciful, highly improbable) fears and a tendency to become easily discouraged”. In other words, this star can promise you great romance and love but will also bring out all the monsters to scare you away. These can take the form unconscious fears, traumas, trust issues, past wounds, or anything else that gets in the way of loving and being loved.

We will explore this facet of Mirach, and a multitude of others, in this essay. Let us explore the hidden belly of the maiden.

Read more

There is my life before love magic and my life after love magic.

Now, I want to give the same to you.

What exactly do you get?

Over the course of 6 classes, I give you everything you need to know to begin your own fixed star practice and connect with the stars of love to help you build your dream romantic life, regardless of your situation.

We will begin with a basic introduction on the fixed stars, how to practice with them and how to build a magical practice that is sustainable and grounded. We’re in this for the long haul!! No temporary band aids here.

The next four classes will be dedicated to the four fixed stars that bring love and that I have spent extensive time working with.

They are:

• Mirach, the Girdle of Andromeda, 0º Taurus
• Sirius, Bright Star of Canis Major, 14º Cancer
• Alpheratz, the Head of Andromeda, 14º Aries
• Alphecca, Flower Crown of Ariadne, 12º Scorpio

I’ve worked with each of these intimately to figure out tangible practices for approach and to suss out what sort of results each star brings to help you figure out which one best suits your current desires.

I will go beyond what the ancient texts say about these stars and draw deeply from my own gnosis and personal experience with the stars to help you understand and connect with their powers.

We will also go over how these stars play out in a natal chart and how they play out according to which planet they are connected to.

To help you build your own relationships with them, I will also provide a guided meditation for each of the four stars that will lead you through a visioning exercise and help you get comfortable making space to receive their power.

Learn more and register by clicking the link below !

The Stars of Love

I used to try and measure my love by seasons. Suspecting there might be a sort of pattern to my cycles of romance and destruction, I would map out my love affairs according to the rising and falling of the sun. Aptly, as an autumn baby, fall was the first that held the promise of a deep, mahogany love, one that lit up the darkening sky with possibility and intimacy. Spring is where old things came to die before becoming new things, making even the brightest of affairs a melancholic tinge— when the day is so happy, florid, where does one put one’s doubts and everyday fears? Suddenly all of light is permeated by an uneasy dread, like a horror film in an endless summer.

Summer, too was often time to laze around, sweating, perfect for nursing a heartbreak. You could only be outside all day or for discrete periods of time to avoid sunburn and copious sweating. But it is also a time of little clothing and staying out all night, making public affection all the more frequent. It’s hard to be two bodies close all the time in its heat but easy to want to be naked.

Winter is a time of crystallization, hence ‘cuffing season’. Everyone stops going out as much and there’s a slowing down of meeting new people in rainy Portland. You hunker down, do cozy things like stay home or get the corner table at a random bar, lit gauzily by tea candles.

Winter is when warmth is most appreciated, a nakedness you can get close to. But you still need time to sit with all your Thoughts, the cold, bare landscape giving plenty of space for a range of sensations to come to light. But you move slower, take your time more, become enamored by the first splash of violet crocuses that appear on the edge of bare soil.

But even those poetic generalizations have their limits. I’ve been broken up with in the fall, pined all winter, had my heart given back to me in spring.

Our own timing is more mysterious that the changing of the seasons, but not by much. It is a gift to give ourselves our own timing. To surrender to it.

I had long been afraid to take my time in anything love related because there was this unspoken fear that I would fritter it away if I wasted any time. Like love isn’t found in the “wasted” time! I had confused the ending of When Harry Met Sally, where he runs across New York to kiss her on New Year’s, with the whole of the movie, most of which involved them getting to know each other for over a decade as friends first. In each season is a version of me to know deeply, and then I have something beautiful to offer the other. what a treat.

This movie could be called a love letter to kairos, both a god and a certain sort of time.

According to Greek myth, Kairos was the youngest son of Zeus and the deity of opportunity. He had a long lock of hair on his forehead, as you could only seize an opportunity when he approached “but once he has moved on not even Jupiter [Zeus] himself can pull him back” so says Aesop. Callistratus records that he wears winged sandals, indicating his swiftness, and that he only had to do with youthful beauty, not what had already withered.

In Greek kairos also refers to a type of time. Unlike Kronos, the plodding march of linear time, kairos was the indescribable moment when everything came together, often used to described when an archer chose just the right moment to shoot the arrow and hit a target. It is the switch from time to timelessness, where the fruit is ripe, the flower has bloomed, and now is the time to pluck it.

I am finding much better luck letting my love follow the shifts of Kairos over Kronos. When I trust it unfolds not according to the effort I put in or the length of the toil but the following of my own seasons, going inward when needed and going out again when the right person is ready for me. When I am ready for them. there is no rush here. No fruits i am missing. I only pluck when it is time to pluck, then i eat.

As Johanna Hedva, writing on kairos, puts it, “fate is simply the weather”.

Food as romance

• i am skeptical of feeding a man too many times

• but i love cooking with a man who can cook

• or cooking for a man who can cook and then he does the dishes while i lie down

• or him buying food for me

• him feeding me

• him taking something from my mouth

• i like cooking elaborate meals for myself.

• i like scallion pancakes and lamb and chile rellenos and rice noodles and egg on rice

• i like when we eat with our hands

Love is Blind Screenshots with Quotes from Sabrina Strings’ “The End of Love”

or, why conventional romance takes us further away from love

“The woman representing one of the earliest and most enduring characters deemed worthy of an epic romance was a wealthy noble, with long (usually) blond hair, a willowy figure, startling blue eyes, and skin as white as snow.

We can easily recognize these features today as those representing the apex of whiteness…”

“That is, it has always served to regulate knowledge about women’s appearance for the purpose of adjudicating their sexual opportunities and men’s sexual priorities. Once used by the likes of Bernier to serve as a geolocator for hot mostly non-white chicks, by the mid-eighteenth century, it served a new purpose: To suggest the diminished desirability of certain types of non-European women. Women with darker skin, larger bodies, and curlier hair were, by that time, unsightly, making them unacceptable as romantic partners for upstanding (white) men.

In other words, whiteness became shorthand for a woman’s romantic suitability.”

“During the 1960s, a vocal cadre of influential men were up in arms about women’s making demands for equality in the public sphere while still expecting to enjoy the rites of courtship in private. It was a situation these men were not poised to accept for long…The move toward equality on the part of largely middle- and upper-class educated white women played an integral role in white women’s increasing frustration while seeking white men as partners.”

Read “The End of Love” now !!!

Until next time,

Love,

Chloe

We live in a time starved for romance.

Love seems to be a universal struggle right now. Loneliness and alienation are on the rise. Dating apps create an endless menu of potential dates but seem to go nowhere. People are afraid of commitment, of romance, of basic communication.

Even if you are in a relationship, you may be struggling to keep the spark alive or find depth in other connections, like friendship.

The world is also falling apart, forcing us to work more for less pay, leaving no space to take our time, feel ourselves and live in the present, the only place romance lives.

What do we miss when we think love is only found in one other person instead of being the fundamental fabric that holds our whole world together?

The solution comes in opening our definition of love, by unclenching out hand and letting love flow in.

Enter: The Stars of Love. My new course all about using the magic of the fixed stars to make the romantic, erotic life of your dreams.

I am the person for the job because I have been there: for most of my life, romance was the biggest source of strife in my life.

But now, after over a year of building my own love magic practice, my whole life has changed.

There is my life before love magic and my life after love magic.

Now, I want to give the same to you.

What exactly do you get?

Over the course of 6 classes, I give you everything you need to know to begin your own fixed star practice and connect with the stars of love to help you build your dream romantic life, regardless of your situation.

We will begin with a basic introduction on the fixed stars, how to practice with them and how to build a magical practice that is sustainable and grounded. We’re in this for the long haul!! No temporary band aids here.

The next four classes will be dedicated to the four fixed stars that bring love and that I have spent extensive time working with.

They are:

• Mirach, the Girdle of Andromeda, 0º Taurus
• Sirius, Bright Star of Canis Major, 14º Cancer
• Alpheratz, the Head of Andromeda, 14º Aries
• Alphecca, Flower Crown of Ariadne, 12º Scorpio

I’ve worked with each of these intimately to figure out tangible practices for approach and to suss out what sort of results each star brings to help you figure out which one best suits your current desires.

You need not be single to take this class! Love magic is for enhanced creativity, keeping the spark, making new friends, getting better at socializing, greater embodiment, self love — anything in the realm of pleasure and beauty.

Just show up and the stars will guide you towards the love that is yours.

Enroll in The Stars of Love

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Want a taste of what my work with the Love Stars can bring you?

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The Alphecca Diaries

To give you a taste of the process of working with Alphecca was like, and some of the places it took me, this newsletter is all excerpts from my fields notes of my rituals over the last year. Beyond romantic partnership, this star has been crucial to me in realms such as socializing, friendship, slowing down, being part of the world.

The work of love magic is truly multi-faceted. It is exactly what you need in the moment. I truly believe that the time it had me spend on my community, my pleasure, myself, only served to make me a vessel for other forms of love.

Read on to get a taste of the magic I introduce you to in my course. Enroll now to make your own life a site for unending love :)

January 2025

The altar setup

usual suspects plus:

• my mom’s pearl necklace

• ivy from outside(1)

• sweet-smelling flowers from outside

• glass of white wine

(1) what’s interesting about ivy is if you pull at one strand you are likely to pull at another, uprooting one with it. they’re all so entangled, connected, labyrinthine.

songs heard during ritual:

• Room Temperature, Faye Webster (”I need to get out more”)

• Xanny Bar, Porches (“I couldn’t help but notice you from across the bar”)

• Get into that Party Life, Little Beaver (self explanatory)

then picked up some joints, made small talk w the cashier and went to Bar Diana in Northwest Portland, where I drank a nice grapefruity spritz and ate some deviled eggs and sardines w bread and butter (not that hungry bc my stomach is bothering me) and practiced opening up my energy

chatted with the bartender a bit while also reading my book and it still makes me a little self conscious but it was a nice conversation and that’s what I really felt tonight— part of it all

but there’s also something to not taking it personally. I log onto Feeld and the dude who asked [me a question] yesterday had already unmatched me!! and no one else new had messaged me. it made me sad even though i know i don’t want to be with someone who asks me a sort of big question and punks out when I don’t respond on his timeline. Dumb! but it still made me sad, tied up with my larger sorrow for my own belief that I won’t find someone who deserves me, who’s good enough for me. but I just haven’t experienced it yet. I’m learning to be open it takes time. I offered up this sadness to Alphecca, seeing her almost like the bodhisattva of compassion, transforming my grief. It’s hard, I guess. It is what it is.

and isn’t that part of Alphecca? living with the pain of those who didn’t pick you, who aren’t for you despite your hopes. of wondering if you’ll ever get picked. I guess I’m reminded of Ariadne on an island, completely alone, truly not a prospect in sight. Theseus didn’t just break her heart— he robbed her of any human contact. In the end, she didn’t need it.

Read more

Seeing how a fixed star actually plays out in real life is my favorite. It’s when I invite them into my life that the theory becomes practice, that they cease to be concepts and start to become actual beings. It is where the relationship begins.

This essay explores how I began practicing with Alphecca at the beginning of 2026. It will explore the actual practices I engaged in and the surprising things I learned about her through my efforts, as well as the path of the fixed stars altogether.

If you haven’t read my Part I and II in my Alphecca series find them here:

• The Plan

• The Thawing

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If you’ve been following this series I’m sure you’ve been wondering: when do we get to the smooching?

Self love and sexy solo road trips and feeling myself are all fine and good but did you actually find a lover? Did the love magic work?

Short answer? Yes, it fucking did. It did in a way that I still can’t wrap my head around because, truly, there was my life before love magic and my life after.

So, as I described in my last essay, I spent the first six months of my Alphecca journey not dating at all. It didn’t feel right. And one of the first lessons this star taught me is that I have to feel ready to receive love for the right love to come to me. To have faith in my own intuition is everything for allowing the world to respond to me in kind.

Finally, at the end of May, the timing felt right. I wasn’t sure why but I figured I might as well get back Out There and see what trying is like. I cast an I Ching divination that told me to gather my attention, to be focused in my execution like a general leading a whole army. This was the first hint this wasn’t a time for accepting something less than the highest the world had to offer.

I made my first night on the apps a ritual. I dressed up in lingerie and my favorite floral kimono, lit some incense and said a little prayer before I opened the app at Venus Hour.

Soon enough, I saw someone whose pictures and well-written profile stirred something deep in me, not a common dating app experience for me. We matched. The next day, he sent me a message on, what else, but romance: I had, kind of riskily, put that I was a romantic in my profile. It would surely weed out a lot of more casual swipers, but I’ve come to see me being super clear on who I am is a sort of love spell:

And, wouldn’t you believe it, that was the first thing he messaged me about. He praised my choice, adding that many seem to avoid such sentimental proclamations. I asked him what was his relationship to romance and, I kid you not, he sent me a 12 point bulleted list on his definition and practice of the concept. Apparently no one else had asked him and he was waiting for the right person to do so. I was floored, enchanted in a way I have never been by a text conversation with a stranger.

Over the next week, talking to him felt like a fever dream — it would take me hours to respond because his texts were so thoughtful and nuanced. I was stunned at his ability to pick up on the subtleties of my disembodied words, the richness of the questions he asked and the deep, thoughtful life his words portrayed. Checking in on his messages each night felt like their own dates both with him and myself— I would put my mirror on my bed, put on sultry records and revel in what he made me feel just from texts. Again, this has never happened to me. I have been known since high school as the friend that doesn’t text and scarcely share anything real over the medium, certainly not on a dating app where most dudes can’t even ask you a question. And yet magic was transmitted in those words.

But we both knew that our connection couldn’t really be proven until we met in person. So, we arranged a day at the river, a bold first date move but one that I knew felt right. Would I really feel comfortable being in a bathing suit in a sort of remote place for a first date? Somehow, I did. There was still a nervousness, a fear that the chemistry wouldn’t be there in person but I reminded myself: my only job is to see for myself if I actually liked this guy. Impressing myself, not him, was the goal.

The first time we met was a warm relief. He was somehow hotter than what his dating pictures portrayed and from there the rest of the date flowed like magic. He had packed a picnic and paddle boards but we spent most of the date talking and talking, swimming in the water, reading, making out while people on boats leered while speeding by. We didn’t care.

That evening, as I drove home, I saw the crescent Moon peaking in the sky, conjoining Alphecca at that very moment.

Our first date was also an Alphecca ritual.

The whole thing feels almost too good to be true. He was the first person you matched with on your first night back on the apps and spending time together was somehow even better than your wild imagination could dream?

Yet this is what Alphecca offered me.

We are still dating to this day and somehow, it gets even better— our connection, our shared freedom, our intimacy, our love. It is so unlike anything that came before that I still get nervous to talk about it or doubt that things could change so drastically. But I am learning to trust the goodness in my life too. The Love Stars help me with that.

Of course, so much happened between the first meeting and our current connection, so much work and growth had to occur so I wouldn’t just fall into old patterns or think that he now held the magic in my life.

That work of love is what the magic is for too.

That is what I want love magic to do for you too: not just open you up to deep relationships but give you the tools to integrate these connections into your life in a sustainable, balanced way.

I am proof that it works, but also that it takes work alongside the magic.

Are you ready for your own plunge? Stay tuned for my Stars of Love offering <3

To get a taste, and diagnose love in your own life, download my free guidebook, “8 Signs You Need More Romance in Your Life”.

Download Here

Do you want another newsletter on the process of sustaining this initial spark? A deep-dive on what parts of the natal chart will unlock your romantic signature? Let me know in the comments below.

so much love,

Chloe