I'm not entirely sure what inspired a 3 hour exploration across the internet for various perspectives on astrology, but here we are. This post is not meant to be comprehensive of the complex conversations that surround astrology, but instead serve as a shareable checkpoint in my journey. This is a collection of personal anecdotes alongside quotes from Zainab Athumani's "Astral projections: the influence of racism and sexism on astrology", Alice Sparkly Kat's "Introduction to Postcolonial Astrology", Tabitha-Prado Richardson's "Who Needs Astrology?", Ashwini Vivek's "Astrology: More than a white-washed trend", Mariette Williams' "Black Girl Magic: Black Women Are Looking to Astrology During a Seismic 2020", and Michelle Nguyen's "My Journey with White-Washed Spirituality".

Welcome to Strange and Savage.

As I've spent the last week trying to come up with ideas for content for my store, my mind has been wrapped up in how people can use symbolism and spirituality to express and understand themselves. Astrology plays a big role in my spirituality, using the planets and their positions in zodiac signs to inform timing of different aspects of my craft. I don't use it for predictive purposes, but rather to give myself moments in the future to look forward to, opportunities to celebrate myself or reminders to take a breath. But for as much joy as this journey has brought me, it's also brought up flashbacks of spirituality being filtered through American consumerism, the loss of history and life, and my relationship as a mixed person to my cultural heritage.

For much of my youth finding labels that I could take on for myself was often an uphill battle. I grew up in an environment where I was consistently called the wrong name because it entertained other people, any display of my culture was subject to ridicule and scrutiny because that's not how people imagined "someone like me would/could be". (There are good moments too. :) ) Goth may have been the label that gave me room to express myself, but astrology gave me a way to appreciate myself as powerful and beautiful.

"Astrology shouldn’t be prescriptive, it should be a mechanism for self-reflection; it can be a powerful tool to assess your personality, your behaviours, and your interactions with other people, and can offer a lot of insight. Reducing it to the delusions of people who believe the stars predict your fate doesn’t capture the totality of what astrology can be for different people, meaning that many miss out on the insight it can offer while others aren’t taken seriously for engaging with it." (Athumani, 2022).

But are you a March Aries or an April Aries…

I'm an Aries and I'm good at it. And I know that the things that make me "good" at embodying this particular symbol can also be found in other people and other signs. I know that people will have their own reactions to it (Oh god not an Aries to Yes! I'm an Aries too!) All I've really done is tell you that I am comfortable expressing myself with this symbolism. I love my fiery, enthusiastic personality. I like that it serves as a reminder that I can assert myself and be that bitch. I like that astrology makes it easier for me to share the things I like about myself.

"A lot of people, whether they're millennials or boomers, white or other, queer or cisnormal, have told me they were first attracted to astrology because it seem to o er a way to talk among ourselves about ourselves without having to address the trappings of identity. Rather than talking about ourselves within the typical categories of race, gender, and class, people want to build community around identities that feel authentic and close." (Kat, 2021).

I did catch the "white or other".

There's a long list of attributes that accompanies any description of the zodiac signs. There are different interpretations about how much your Sun sign or Mercury affects how you communicate or express yourself. Or maybe it's your rising, maybe your moon sign that highlights who you are more? Aries are known for their energy and athleticism, but I'm not that big into sports. However, I will always have the energy for roaming libraries. A rainy day with a good book and big cup of coffee is my heaven. I wonder if people would look to my chart to make sense of it or would they accept that I'm an Aries who likes to read instead of run?

The Aries label became a sort of anchor while navigating stereotypes. The first thing that tends to come to mind when people talk about Aries is how loud they are. I like to laugh with my whole body, I have a sharp tongue and the wit to match. But Aries loud and Angry Black Woman loud are treated as two different things. One is often met as understandable, the other is seen as a problem, scary and disruptive. One is something that seems to inspire taking a different approach in charged conversations, the other is expected to internalize stressful experiences as a moral failing on their part. Did you catch the other?

"I realized that, like others, my family and I had been convinced by the White Patriarchy that our culture and practices were wrong; my father fell to the mercy of his own strict, Catholic upbringing, and my mother fell to the mercy of my father’s approval. Our practices have been erased from our own culture just for it to be appropriated and repackaged in the New Age of Spirituality as “wellness” and “mindfulness.”" (Nguyen, 2020).

"Then when people say “astrology is stupid” or that they “can’t believe anyone thinks it’s real,” it disguises an attack on cultures and religions that have been dismissed in America since colonizers first set foot on the land as a personal preference on popular culture. People get to dismiss astrology by claiming that it’s unscientific and unreasonable, and they simply cannot believe in it when it’s a “harmful pseudoscience” without understanding that those beliefs are the very same ones used to dismiss Hindu and Indigenous spiritual traditions. The same beliefs that made me grow up doubting my religion and culture." (Vivek, 2021).

Photo by Nastya Dulhiier on Unsplash

Which way but the witch way…
When I started looking at faith more seriously, I was generally supported in doing so. I felt fortunate to have grown up around a variety of religions and spiritualities; Christians, Satanists, various types of witches, Muslims, Jews, atheists, etc. If I had questions or felt completely lost, I felt confident I could ask for help without being pressured into choosing any specific path. None of the aforementioned labels fit quite right. "Witch" doesn't fit quite right either, but it echoes the same vibe of "other". For me, it works as a placeholder, encouraging self-discovery. And so often with "witchcraft" or "spirituality" in America, it's a lot of repackaged Black and Brown people ting.

"In many ways, psychological astrology’s application is a form of emotional self-help, encouraging reflection and introspection, giving strategies for growth, and sometimes promising to be able to unlock inner power. Much is to be said about contemporary self-help, particularly in the neoliberal age, as it frequently promises happiness and fulfillment without questioning oppressive social structures, individualizing and depoliticizing mental distress and lack of fulfillment." (Richardson, 2019)

I found that I was more comfortable with polytheism (many deities) rather than monotheism (one deity). (Although, I still have mixed feelings about deities in general.) I know that comfort is shaped by real life experiences involving one person being in charge of a community, being expected to take on many roles. This understanding of myself led to more questions about what does it mean to have higher power and a higher self, to put faith in something, or what it meant to heal. I began to apply that level of questioning to other aspects of my spirituality.

"Healing" comes up a lot in spirituality content these days and I can understand why. At a time where unsustainable systems are hitting their find out phase, where people are developing their relationship to themselves, where every morning greets us with another nightmare plot twist, I get it. Spirituality is not separate from the environment around it. The experiences we have within that environment can shape what we celebrate or recognize as familiar, reflected back into what we pray or cast a spell for. It can be where we bury or reinvent, lose or find ourselves. It can be a way for preserving culture through the generations, maintaining a bridge to the wisdom of ancestors.

"Had Western colonization not fractured and destroyed Indigenous knowledges and sciences around the world, we might know many different names and stories for constellations and planets. Like many other disciplines, most of the historically prominent astrologers were men, but the most recent wave of interest in astrology is led by women and LGBTQI+ people." (Richardson, 2019)

"Despite the practice having its roots in Black culture, the majority of astrologers in the Western world are white – particularly those who are popular online and have a large social reach – since those who determine what’s valid in the astrology community are slow to recognize astrologers who practice differently. The qualifiers to entry are many: astrological mentors are hard to find, certification can be difficult and expensive to attain, and most publications have just one legacy astrologer. In a community that seems to be inclusive and welcoming on the surface, this gatekeeping is reflective of the larger patterns of exclusion in America." (Williams, 2020).

Spirituality is not separate from the environment around it.

As I filled out my associations with different transits and found yet another way to plan content and never post it, I thought about what it meant to be doing *this* correctly. What if I wrote down the wrong meanings and that *was* the difference between success and failure in my life somewhere? What if there was a whole other level to all of this and I would never find it because the story had been lost? What if I did find my people and then right when I started to feel comfortable, I would reveal myself to be ignorant of some key fact they all knew?

I think the planets don't mind too much if I'm late for an exact aspect or if I skip a full moon here or there. I think my people would be excited if I showed up with my little blue notebook of optimistic scribbles and shared what I had found before I met them. I think the spiritual cousins would roast me for taking so long or for creating a new tradition and changing it within 10-15 business days because of some magnificent piece of content one of them made. But I only half believe that's possible because I can't delude myself of the reality of this particular point in the timeline.

Spirituality is not separate from the environment around it. Community building is going to be a challenge in an environment that encourages and rewards us for approaching each other as competitors. The concept of trust itself is in a precarious position considering that learning to trust yourself can be a part of your healing journey. Perfectionism coupled with spirituality can sometimes be a way to reinforce the standards of the environment around you more than it will ever assist in you developing a healthy relationship to yourself.

Among the stars…

"Astrology means something different to everyone, so there’s no perfect conception of it on a single app; nevertheless, the increased presence of astrology on social media has provided free, accessible information that in many cases can be transformative and even life-changing. The same goes for TikTok, which has introduced more young people than ever to the practice and its different applications. For example, vedic astrology has seen a huge increase in popularity recently as TikTok users with South Asian heritage are making educational TikToks about the discipline. " (Athumani, 2022).

"I believe sometimes—even if you’re half aware you’re looking up your transits because you’ve been crying for three hours and it’s 4am and you need something to calm yourself down because you have a doctor’s appointment you can’t miss at 11am the next day and you’ve been sleeping in too much and mornings are supposed to be the most productive time of the day and anxious thoughts keep rattling through your brain—a little bit of the magic can filter in, like a slight breeze, when you check your astrology app and see that Jupiter has just moved into Sagittarius, a traditionally lucky and benevolent placement. In that moment, things feel a bit more in place, and I half-know it’s not true, but my heart has slowed down, because I’ve remembered that both the planets and my feelings keep moving." (Richardson, 2019)

The two previous quotes remind me of how connected we are now with the use of social media which I think affects the significance of spirituality in our lives. It's easier than ever to find videos of people like me talking about their craft or faith. It's interesting to see people arguing about the different associations of herbs and crystals. There's also the various ways people come up with to phrase what something means to them with no expectation that other people will feel the same about it.

For me, astrology is a source of comfort and inspiration. It keeps me inspired and gives me something to look forward to. It reminds me to laugh at myself while also celebrating the attributes of my birth chart that resonate with me. My craft is still unfolding but I am excited to share what I find on this journey. I encourage you to check out the articles I've quoted because they offer so much in terms of perspective.

Exploring the Story of the Stars: How Astrology Guides and Inspires

But are you a March Aries or an April Aries…

Which way but the witch way…

Spirituality is not separate from the environment around it.

Among the stars…

Dear Wanderer #37

General Spell Outline