poetic protocol for libra season

Ari in Louisville KY in front of a dolphin mural

we are not afraid of grief here. we engage with tension like a plaything. we make ourselves the danger that we laugh in the face of. the only temptation we resist is that of pretense. we do not go over, around, under or run away from what is hard. we go through it. that’s why it hurts.

WE ARE NOT AFRAID OF PAIN HERE. WE ARE MULTIDIMENSIONAL MASTERS OF IT. WE ARE TIME TRAVELERS IN IT.

press your palms into your face and cry. fill your hands with saltwater.

where is here? how do we become different in it?

here begins with the sun in libra, playing Maat for a moment. here ends with the sun in scorpio, olympic deep river diver champion. here is the illumination, whether through the fire or the darkness, six months of aries harvest. here is an empty libra womb, lined with bloody possibilities, contracting into alignment. here is between the beginning of fascism and the inevitable (it must be) Revolution.

inhale love, exhale grief.

what the fuck is going on here? why is it so fucking loud? do you hear that?

it’s like the tambourine of heartbreak being sharply caressed for lifetimes of lifetimes. everyone knows how to play it, if they really listen to how it’s been played for centuries. there are so many of us playing it right now. it’s like being irresistibly tireless while you are certain you could never be more exhausted.

do we keep waking up as if we’ve never slept? does it always stay making broken hearts out of all your muscles, until your whole body throbs painfully? until you are nothing but heart?

I can’t sit here and tell you what you already know. I’m supposed to tell you something different, something brave. but maybe you need to be reminded that the something brave is you. maybe you need to be told what you already know over and over again, until it sounds different. maybe you are something different than what you already know. maybe bravery will make something different out of you?

close your eyes. imagine your nervous system is a crossroads, holding all the crossroads you will ever combust into new galaxies in the center of. imagine your emotions can ebb and flow with the amount of intentional breaths you take.

intentional breath is resuscitation. intentional breath is resurrection. intentional breath is insurrection. intentional breaths are the stars that make up the constellations that create the new galaxies that your crossroads combusted into.

INHALE LOVE. EXHALE GRIEF.

what won’t you let yourself feel or have because it broke your heart the last time you experienced it? what are you angry you didn’t get to have? what did you have to let go of because it hurt you? what hurt you to let go of? what couldn’t love you back? what took everything you had?

it’s okay, young love. there are smooth waters for you, still.

I hope you can take everything back, if it’s truly yours to keep. I hope you only have room for what loves you back. I hope someday what you had to let go of doesn’t hurt. I hope if it does, you get the support you deserve. I hope whatever hurt you lets go, because it’s hurting too. I hope you get to have everything your loving heart desires. I hope you let yourself feel, releasing experiences that broke you so you can break open.

because we have a new world to bear. we have so much work to do. there is so much rest to be rested. we have realities to project, also known as possibilities to imagine. we have so many pleasant surprises to receive and unpleasant surprises to compost into wisdom fertilizer. we have secrets to remember that help us see through the chaos and awakenings to grow into freedoms.

I’ll tell you a secret now: the only thing that is nebulous is how soon our victory is to come, but it is coming. it is on its way. we have already won.

we been already. all ready?

LET GO.

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this piece is dedicated to Breonna Taylor & Black Lives Matter Louisville, Kentucky.

poetic protocol is content provided in the password-protected horoscope space each month. to read your horoscope for the full moon in aries &. new moon in libra, become a member. if you’re already a member, check your email!

oxo

Response-able Movement (includes Donation Update)

personal reflection questions for response-able movement right now:

how is my heart?

is there a ritual I can create or use to process grief (something with water)?

is there someone I can reach out to so we can grieve & rage together?

who can I ask to hold space for me? who can I hold space for? how can I communicate that to them?

what will a few deep breaths to regulate my nervous system show me about my actual capacity to engage right now?

am I valuing every kind of contribution there is to liberation & movement work, including my own?

how can I infuse everything I do with an intention, a prayer, that magnifies the energetic, spiritual, & emotional support and protection we need right now?

how can I participate and remember to rest? how can I rest and remember that is crucial to long-term participation?

how can abolition be a praxis internally & externally for me right now, in this moment, regardless of what whiteness cooperates with?

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those of you who purchased Holding Both: Emoceanal Support for Response-able Movement when the replay was available contributed 50% of the proceeds ($250) to Black Lives Matter: Louisville General Fund yesterday. I was unable to email the recipients of the replay directly because not everyone selected to get on the mailing list & receive the PDF. I sent this payment via venmo to that BLM chapter directly because it was over the amount accepted on the site’s payment processer. because this is a dangerous time for private information of activists to circulate, I don’t want to publish the receipt publicly but am happy to send it to anyone who participated in the contribution if you reply to this email with that request.

oxo
Ari

Pluto Direct: despair & urgency to rage & agency

pluto in capricorn is direct! it’s been retro since April. outer planets like pluto, neptune, uranus, & saturn actually spend a lot of time retrograde. retrogrades are not all the same; we’re not thinking in terms of the mayhem that often accompanies mercury retrograde or the relationship adjustments of venus retrograde. pluto retrograde has hopefully pulled us deeper into the process of purging our psyches of the internalized oppressions we suffer from under toxic power structures & socio-political paradigms. internalized patriarchy, capitalism, racism, classism, ableism, etc. pluto direct brings our focus to the external & collective processes of transforming oppression into healing & power. it becomes easier to make structural adjustments in the area of our charts that pluto is visiting. pluto will also be directly square (tension) the new moon in libra next week.

pluto is death work, pluto is rage, pluto is transformation. in capricorn since 2008 until 2024, societal structures (jurisdiction of saturn, ruler of capricorn) have been undergoing what may sometimes feel like more & more rapid change. collective consciousness is slowly shifting, accountability feels more relevant than ever for many, & tolerance for “the way things have been” is low. this is the birthing of rage that rebirth us. because rage can eliminate toxicity & keep us from neglecting our healing in ways that are detrimental to the collective. pluto does not perform, pluto cannot pretend. we are committed to destroying abusive systems & building restorative ones or we are not.

pluto direct is a reminder of choice. do we despair at the overwhelm of our collective needs for healing? do we rage recklessly as the only retribution we feel we may ever get? do we start outside in or inside out? how do we reject what is everywhere? how do we generate what feels impossible? CAN WE DO IT ALL?

there are no binary answers because context is everything. what I do know is: we can no longer stay comfortable in these systems. neither can we stay comfortable in despair because while it is an acknowledgment of the immensity we are holding, it is not a response-able approach. because our individual & collective transformation are matters of life & death. to despair is to diminish our capacity to generate what we want to be possible, what we believe we can grow. despair can look like rage because we’re displaying our anger, even as we retreat deeper into ourselves, forget that some version of what we rage against also lives in us, or neglect to offer our most resonant, necessary contribution.

we cannot rely on urgency to give us a sense of agency. because a pattern of only showing up when it feels urgent gives power to something else- the system, the to do list, the speed of performance- rather than to YOU. we need humans who are able to respond & stay present in the long term. we need humans who are living a personal rejection of the oppression we’re claiming to reject as a collective. we need humans who rage to transform, rage to heal, rage to change. rage generates rebirth & that is where our hope, power, and agency lives.

people often prefer despair to rage because despair is easier & you get to stay comfortable. rage is uncomfortable & unpopular and means you have to be accountable for directing it into generative work. people prefer urgency to agency for the same reasons. urgency is easier & more comfortable than the accountability of agency. the redirection from despair & urgency to rage & agency is the work of living in dying systems. it is long, slow, uncomfortable work. it is the work of pluto in capricorn.

oxo
saltwater & stars

feel free to share & quote public content with credit to Saltwater Stars. if you want to find out more about how pluto in capricorn is showing up in your life, you can work with me anytime.
image from @elijahsad on Unsplash.

fuck the kyriarchy

NEW MOON IN CAPRICORN
JANUARY 16 | 9:17 PM EST
26 DEGREES 

from my instagram: "there’s a new moon today. new awareness of needs. new layers revealed. new opportunities for recalibration, planting, hoping. capricorn—as structured, streamlined, & serious as it gets. grounded by ambition, attention, & a love for the reliable. resist the temptation to operate under pressure & urgency. instead, lean into micro-strategies & consistency. we love you." 

I've been talking a lot about micro-strategies not just because I think that it reduces the pressures of capitalistic/oppressive structures & is a more realistic approach to sustainability as human beings, but because I think it also reduces the possibilities of us getting stuck in our self-righteousness or illusions of our impact. I am seeing more clearly that righteousness acting as structure is a powerful collective tool but not necessarily something that individuals should be required to cultivate, contrary to how we've been conditioned. because righteousness is a combination of beliefs, morality, & ethics that is subjective as much as we want it to be objective. there are areas of black & white but mostly, the grey areas that we are all navigating because context is everything. these are just mermaid musings not certified observations so take it or leave it or add to it in the comments. 

I am also feeling into how this applies not only to our movements for justice, but in our relationships to truth that show up as our spiritual & religious practices. I read somewhere from someone who practices brujeria recently that they were intolerant of the "aesthetic" of millennials claiming brujeria & that they only fuck with the real shit. that's valid & it is important to be discerning. but I was struck by a discomfort because my first thought was that these young latinx/girls are making attempts to reclaim & reconnect to something that actually does belong to them. something that has been taken from them to an extent that makes it is often difficult to find a way back in. it's not just an aesthetic, it's a siren. a call, an exploration. and need we really worry 'bout those who ain't really with it? 

If we really are in a place that we feel sure of our connection to our spiritual sources, is our most natural, kind next step to ostracize or shame those who do not have guidance? I know relatively little about a lot of things that I care very much about & I cannot help myself but to share what I learn because I was that young girl that stayed away from things I knew were mine but  was scared of dishonoring. now that I am deeper into my journey, I am sad that the hierarchal structures have been so thoroughly adapted into our spiritual/religious practices because it keeps people that need it out. it keeps us thirsty & hungry & lost & ashamed.

I am specifically speaking from the context of being with afro puerto rican roots in brujeria/santeria/yoruba. my family was colonized out of our connections to that & finding my way to what always resonated most has been terrifying because we are made to feel that we can't fuck up & forgiveness is scarce (thanks white supremacy!). there is a difference between not knowing what you don't know yet seeking to learn & willfully abusing your ignorance. when it comes to folx finding their way, especially nonwhite/colonized folx, I am urged to be endlessly compassionate & become a resource as I receive from sources.

this correlates to this lusciously grounded & strong new moon in capricorn accompanied by a stellium (group of planets) of capricorn to me because I have seen saturn (ruler of capricorn) energy show up as a temptation to enforce structure by implementing hierarchies. it gives us an easy way to categorize & protect things. I'm reminded of all the laws that act as "fences" to ethics in judaism (which I was raised in). we take this very seriously in many arenas but so often our motivation is actually fear. I think capitalism/oppression is born of saturn.

this is why The Devil card in tarot is often connected to capricorn. because what would happen if everyone had access? what if structure showed up as support rather than obligation? would we really lose power? because isn't that often what we're protecting? so what if power wasn't something that belonged to you (in the context of the collective) but a source that everyone can be guided to tap into? what if our ambitions were driven by trust & openness rather than scarcity? aren't these just other prisons? 

so this jumbled ramble is what I'm thinking about as I figure out ways to practically implement my visions, my needs, my desires, my DRIVE into everyday life (micro-strategies). starting small with waking up earlier after good nights sleeps (when possible), eating what my body needs, & keeping my schedule light & full of love-giving things. this is spiritual because what I am making is SPACE for the path to show up, space for spiritual practice, & space to learn & experiment. and this is what I want us to give to each other too, in our movements & our collective pools of wisdom & connection.

I want us to give each other permission to be strategic & start small. and I am beginning to believe that this is the nitty gritty of the process of decolonization/dismantling oppression within ourselves. it starts with being willing to give up what we believe our sources of power or structure are & get that need met on a more micro level so we can be more open on macro levels. 

so, happy new moon mermaids & starlings. may your intentions be firm & your structures be clear & your ambitions delicious. commune subscribers, your horoscopes are waiting in your inbox. get in touch with me if they aren't. 

oxo
saltwater & stars