The first millennials, now 36 - 38 years old, are in the midst of a Nodal Return with the January 2022 Lunar Nodes ingress into Taurus and Scorpiol. Depending on the angularity of the nodes’ house placements, and close conjunctions with the Ascendant, Midheaven, inner planets or fixed stars, Venus (Taurus) and Mars (Scorpio) themes from 18 years ago, will feel like a familiar sigh. Who did you think you were going to be at 18, and who are you now? What have you learned (or not learned) about love and courage? Who is still in your life from that past time? Nodes in fixed signs challenge our ideas about what’s worth keeping and what’s meant to last. What old things are worth fighting for? What are you better off releasing — for good this time.

Inspired by Sigmund Freud’s essay “On Transience,” this is a playlist for the 17 January 2022 Full Moon in Cancer, & the Venus & Mercury retrogrades in Saturn's signs. Featuring music by Moses Sumney, Elle Shimada, Labrinth, FKA Twigs, Tori Amos, Mo’Ju, Something for Kate, Sugar Hiccup, and more.

Ever the shape-shifter, Mercury rules mutable signs Gemini and Virgo. At ease with ambivalence, Mercury teaches us to honour our complexities. Inconsistency has its virtues. The stories we tell ourselves about ourselves are better when we don't paper over the things that don't seem to 'fit.' 

The moon is in Pisces. I’m grateful for all the times I didn’t swallow.

Jupiter in Pisces, its home sign, calls us to release the urge to control all things. When you make space for your own ambivalence, and the other's, what possibilities open up?

Your rock-bottom longings according to your Sun and Rising Signs.

A then-senior lecturer agreed with my marks but cautioned me, “Don’t say this next time. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.” This is a person who has talked people off the ledge in the past.

Sometimes the stars know what you most adamantly refuse to admit to yourself.

Libra knows that contrary to white Western capitalism & the cult of personality, it’s not all about you.

This Venus-ruled cardinal air sign is the sign of the sun’s fall. That’s not a bad thing.

Theodor Adorno’s arguments might have been right for his moment, but they fail to capture the whole picture today. Astrology is, but more importantly, astrology does. What is it we do when we do astrology?

When I eat hotdogs on buns I ask myself questions about the act of receiving. RuPaul says “if you can't love yourself how in the hell are you gonna love somebody else” and I'm not sure I want to “Amen” that anymore.

Mercury rules Gemini and it shows. Kanye West is a Gemini. So was Marilyn Monroe. I don’t know what that says about Geminis. I suspect Marilyn Monroe in 2021 would have had mad Instagram game, like Emily Ratajkowski (also a Gemini BTW). Jacqueline Rose wrote of Monroe as a tragic but brilliant figure, limited by her circumstances, but no less committed to the task of thinking through femininity, feminism and artistry.

Scorpio in our birth chart shows us what we keep buried, possibly by choice, though more often than not, without our knowing. Scorpio is who we are when we’re not posturing for social media, or flexing at a conference. Scorpio is who we are when the lights are off. Scorpio suns and risings call this privacy. They feel secure in their mysteriousness. Scorpio moons want to be discovered, slowly, as an unfolding – but only if it’s on their own exacting terms.

Animal dignity. Taurus is animal dignity. The evolutionary astrologer Steven Forrest wrote these words, and this is still the best way I know to express what Taurus offers. Taurus is ruled by Venus, the planet of art, connection, and grace. “I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself.”

What's important is to own the fear, not be owned by the fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Give your mind a break.