starmilkastro

[starmilkastro]

tarot-strology reflections: taurus / scorpio axis in the current sky

today, april 23, the moon will reach fullness in scorpio. directly across the sky, jupiter and uranus are conjunct in taurus for the first time since 1941.

it's time for something to change, for the walls to fall, for the earth to shift. i think about what's happening on american university campuses today: young people refusing to let the machine continue to churn while their money and resources - the domain of taurus's ruler, venus - continue to fund the genocide of palestinians. putting their physical bodies on the line and refusing to be moved. the bull would approve.

i think about the longstanding norms, beliefs, and power structures these students are challenging. their sureness, their conviction. i think about how well they know their history - how it feels in my body to see photos of today's gaza solidarity encampments alongside photos of that same campus filled with anti-war protestors in the 1960s. i think about how little has changed since then.

i think about what could happen if every one of us committed to stubbornness. if we all refused to let the world turn until the war machine ground to a halt. i think about how we are kept in a chokehold by our reliance on capital. how much it would take to overturn the structures that keep us tame. how much we owe it to the people of the world to try anyway.

the knight of wands is a fitting card for this conjunction. he channels energy into action; he sparks life; he drives forward toward change. his downfall, though, is that he can act without thinking, without taking the time to prepare. he can rush in. with mercury still working its way out of retrograde - in aries, no less - you may want to let your seedlings grow just a little bit more before you send them out into the cold world.

then, the ten of wands. in this pair of cards, we can see a crucial moment in the cycle of liberation. the protagonist of the ten of wands has already struggled, already learned, already created the beginning of something beautiful. there's a weariness in this card, a reminder to share the burden. so, the knight takes up the baton, starting the cycle anew. it is his turn to fuel the fire, to drive forward, to carry the mantle of change.

but no one moves alone. the figure in the ten of wands has already come so far and learned so much; the knight can look to them for wisdom, for guidance, for a deeper understanding of the struggles we all face. before he charges forward, it would benefit the knight to know intimately the road that others have already traveled.

and if there's one thing scorpio loves, it's to know. under this full moon, take time to root yourself in the lessons of your predecessors.

i drew one final oracle card, whose message was: i am a body and a soul. i've never heard a more taurus/scorpio refrain. you are a body and a soul.

how do you know what you believe is right? do you feel it in your body? do you feel it in your soul?

what are you willing to destroy in order to build something new? are you willing to sacrifice your comfort and open yourself up to the depths?

[starmilkastro]

full moon + lunar eclipse in libra

this libra full moon, consider: what got you through the winter? which people, which animals, which plants, which land? what are you doing to honor those relationships? 

venus, who rules libra, is love, but more than that-- it’s also resources, value systems, responsibility. the venus/mars axis brought forward by this full moon reminds us that we owe it to each other to put our values into practice. it reminds us that “love” is a verb. love is an action. 

how do you, as an individual, embody your values through the choices you make and the actions you take? 

the full moon also brings us closer to the peak of a cycle of eclipses along the aries/libra axis that has been unfolding since 2023. full moons illuminate, but eclipses obscure. is there a cycle you can’t complete because you refuse to look it in the eye? have you forgotten that we belong to each other? 

libra is challenged to grow when it is confronted with the moment it must break the peace and say No: no to injustice, no to abuse of power, no to a world that impedes us from loving one another. what is standing between you and No? is it time to knock down that wall? 

[starmilkastro]

[starmilkastro]

what does "last" mean to a pisces?

[starmilkastro]

[starmilkastro]

the myth(s) of pisces

in greece, you'd call the gods aphrodite and eros; in rome, venus and cupid. the beautiful, jealous mother and her love-slinging son. in both stories, the two jump into the water to escape a monster. in some versions, they turn into fish; in others, the fish lead their more-than-human bodies to safety. the rescuing fish are honored for their good deed with a permanent place in the sky. in its glyph and in the stars, the pisces fish are forever bound together.

ancient syria had atargatis, the half-woman, half-fish goddess of love and fertility. in one version of her story, atargatis drowned herself in a lake, wracked with guilt over her role in the untimely death of her husband. the lake transmuted her grief, reviving her as something more than herself, the mother of all mermaid myths. her ending became her beginning; in the moment of her destruction, she was (re)created.

in all of these stories, the protagonists turned to the water in a moment of desperation. they sought escape, refuge from the Bad -- as pisces is often tempted to do. in all of these stories, the water transformed and immortalized them, asking nothing in return.

pisces is the water in our bodies and our oceans, the water sent from jupiter to sustain life on earth. as the last sign in the sequential zodiac, pisces is a culmination, a history of lives lived, a collapse of linear time, a reminder that none of us exist without each other.

pisces' ability to see through time and jupiterian predisposition toward good luck lends it a relentless visionary optimism, a steadfast belief that the Good will prevail in the end. in its journey to find this perfect destination, pisces can veer into escapism; this is why you may hear people say that piscean people are prone to addiction, to dreaminess, to living just a little bit left of reality.

for all its proclamations of collectivity and wholeness, pisces can forget that pain, fear, discomfort, and grief are all part of the tapestry. it can forget that, in order to move toward the Good, we need to be honest about where we are now. we cannot look away or give up when things are ugly.

the story of atargatis -- at least, the version i choose to believe -- came to a head when her deep grief over the death of her husband drove her to the water. when her fish-woman descendants made their way into greek stories, it was as sirens who lured countless husbands to their own watery graves. perhaps there is a lesson here: when we run away from our grief, we don't learn the lessons it has to teach us, and the cycle repeats.

so, this pisces season, this is my invitation: do not look away. be a steadfast witness to all the ways in which we have failed one another. let the state of the world open oceans of grief in you; trust that the water will transform you, if you are willing to let it.

[starmilkastro]

aquarius and the fourth house

as the sun, mercury, mars, and pluto convene in aquarius, i've been spending a lot of time reflecting on the fourth house, where aquarius falls in my chart (and, if you're a scorpio rising, in yours).

alice sparkly kat tells us that the fourth house is the father, it's the bunker, it's where the bodies are buried. i will enter my fourth house profection year in june, shortly before the first anniversary of my father's death.

if the fourth house is loss and fathers, what is left for this return to take? i'm afraid a year could be the lifespan of a remembered voice, the point at which i forget the punchlines of his jokes and his bedroom stops smelling like leather and old cigarettes.

in the time since my dad died, i've learned more about him than i'd ever thought to ask when he was alive. a high school friend of his printed out articles he'd written for the school paper and brought them to his funeral to give to me. his mother, who died just months before he did, left behind a collection of photos, letters, and other memorabilia that helped me piece together the truth of him. my father was very sick for very long, and i think i had almost forgotten that he wasn't always as tired and angry as i had come to know him. in death, he was funny, vulgar, thoughtful, smiling back at me from the page with that face that looked just like mine. in death, he became someone i understood, someone i could find in the mirror and be happy to see.

this aquarius season, i've been warming up for my fourth house profection, stretching the muscles i'll need to excavate my telltale heart. i started tracing my father's lineage, digging into birth records and old newspaper articles for hints about the people whose lives paved the way for mine. i've found things to aspire to and things for which it feels like my duty in this lifetime to atone.

to me, this is what the fourth house is about. it's the people and the dirt and the depths that allow us to exist not as singular beings but as the result of an unending line stretching forever in all directions. it is the responsibility we hold for the pasts and futures that we create and that create us in return.

i wish i could ask my dad about these people and their stories. i wish i could find out whether or not he knew his grandfather was charged with sedition for badmouthing the president, whether he would have thought he was guilty or framed (i think he was guilty, and i love that for us). i doubt he would have told me the truth; he rarely did. but i would prefer his embellishments anyway. with death and distance, i can see how i've warmed to what i always thought of as his flaws, how i hold them close to me in the bunker of my heart.

i used to want to change my last name, to sever the line that led from a german milkman to my father to me. but aquarius in the fourth house reminds me that, for better or for worse, we can't change where we come from. it reminds me that my responsibility to humanity - to witness, to love, to tell the truth - has to begin with those closest to home.

it might be a lot to hold, but the water-bearer is built for holding just as much as it's built for pouring.

in the last few days of the sun's trip through aquarius, i challenge you to think of yourself as an ancestor.

how are you building a foundation for the future you want to see?

how are you atoning for the sins of those who came before you?

when your descendants dig into the truth of your life, what do you want them to find?