Why Astrology? A Vision of Mutuality
The ideas on this website are excerpts, adaptations, and paraphrases from my book “Revolutionary Zodiac.” They may not be used without permission of the author. If you are interested in pre-ordering the book, please email revolutionaryzodiac@gmail.com.
“The price of your greed
Is your son and your daughter
What you gon’ do
When there’s blood in the water?”
—grandson
A Broken System
Few would argue against the notion that today’s social, political, and economic systems are broken in key respects. Some of these fractures are more obvious than others, but all have been exposed and exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic of recent years. The pandemic isn’t the only massive problem that has simultaneously destroyed and re-formed our ways of life in only a short time. For the first time in decades, the twin scepters of imperialism and capitalism have been fully revealed, resulting in the advent of social media and solidarity movements the likes of which we haven’t seen in decades. Though the world seems to be falling apart, when something is broken, it is often necessary for it to break completely before being rebuilt. Major surgery requires major cuts.
We now have a chance to either take the new knowledge we have gained in these harrowing years and fix our society, or fail to act and herald its demise. The war in Ukraine, the continuance of the Palestinian crisis, the massacre of the Global South with climate-change induced floods and fires, and the abuse, arrest, and suppression of activists, union organizers, women, and trans and queer youths, are all symptoms of a hemorrhaging system, founded on the rotting pillars of inequality and injustice. Anyone who denies this is the type to ignore reality rather than confront it. But when we do confront reality, we have a chance to change it.
From Agonizing to Organizing
To combat the assaults on our liberties, we must organize. Activists have always known this, and the hard work they do every day, which is almost always un(der)paid and unrecognized, is often willfully ignored by a sensationalist, profit-oriented news media. Suffering from burnout, many aadvocates and ordinary people who care about various issues don’t know where to start or how to proceed, against a seemingly nonstop tide of negative news, meant to trigger alarm and generate clicks. In this type of environment, it is necessary to have every available tool in our arsenal, to help us care for ourselves and each other, and effectively sustain social change movements.
As a climate and queer BIPOC advocate, one of the most helpful tools I’ve come across in empowering people is astrology. Astrology is usually used as a tool for self-awareness and self-knowledge. But, we need not limit ourselves to such an individualistic perspective. Using the lens of the collective, astrology offers a creative and useful framework for community organizing.Below, I discuss how astrology can help us address the pressing problems in our society
Organize, or Be Organized
The people at the top of the ladder benefit from ensuring that the people below are disorganized. Disorganized people cannot make a movement to usurp power. Moreover, disorganized people are easier for powerful people to control and even maliciously organize, for immoral agendas. As a species, we are wired to crave social contact with each other; if this need isn’t satisfied, those in power take advantage of and twist it. In higly individualistic places like the United States, everyone is an easy target, and lonely people are the bullseye.
To maintain power, all an authoritarian needs is to hack the natural human need for community, and repurpose it to further their own agenda. One common method is to invoke fear and trauma, then leverage the resulting trauma bonds to organize frightened humans into groups that serve malicious agendas. Without strong self-awareness and intensive psychological work, trauma bonds are almost impossible to break. Because of their education and socialization, men generally make for easy targets for this technique. As men are not encouraged to develop social or emotional skills in the same way as women, they are less aware of and able to fulfill their human community needs. Such unconsciousness is easily manipulated.
Fascist recruiters, for instance, like to frame liberal, diverse college campuses as dangerous and unwelcoming places to white men. Stoking fear and a sense of isolated disempowerment, these recruiters can convince white men to join fascist grups for community. Gangs are also bound together by a code of toxic masculinity that is the result of shared, unresolved trauma, continuously built by killing, robbery, and gun violence. Entire armies have been formed this way, as violence, death, and destruction create incredibly deep trauma bonds. Soldiers frequently cite that the reason they kept fighting was their feeling of obligation to their fellows on the battlefield. This type of camaraderie, unfortunately, prevents all soldiers on both sides to see the greater problem, and leave the battlefield altogether.
As an everyday example, many Americans hate their jobs, but can’t quit working because their only sense of belonging (and hence, value) comes from work, and they do not have a backup community outside of that, which can fulfill their basic needs. This is also made possible through an ableist 40-hour workweek, which dictates that every minute not resting, recovering, sleeping, and eating be spent at the workplace—the penalty of which is losing one’s basic needs, like health insurance. This type of deprivation situation, similar to a bootcamp or war, forces community formation. Such communities are not genuine, as they trap their members in a cycle of violence, continue an oppressive system, and are controlled by a hierarchy of bosses who report to each other in a surveillance pyramid scheme, where the ultimate source of power is unknown.
The organization of these types of communities is conscious to those in power, but frequently unconscious to us. This very unconsciousness is what makes us susceptible to authoritarian manipulation.
Everyone Should Is
Knowing this, how do we create intentional communities? There are two components: the first is to know yourself, and the second is to know others. Communities where both needs are met naturally resist coercive control.
Revolutions fail when either condition is ignored. A common mistake is to assume that “everyone” is the same. “Everyone should be a farmer,” said the Chinese Communists. “Everyone should be a worker bee,” said the Protestant Capitalists. “Everyone should believe in no hierarchy,” said the anarcho-syndicalists.
“Everyone should” does not work because everyone is not the same! Any ideology that unilaterally claims that a person should be something other than their authentic selves is bound to fail. Rather, an ideal society functions because people want to contribute, because they are incentivized to exercise prosocial aims rather than antisocial ones, and because there is a natural alignment between individual and collective needs. (In astrological terms, I refer to this as the Leo-Aquarius polarity.)
Unfortunately, today, we are still making this mistake. In too many activist spaces, people are assumed to contribute in similar ways, and their behavior is judged accordingly. As a simple case, introverts cannot attend protests as easily as extroverts. Stressful counterprotests scheduled at 8 am take into account neither the needs of the easily triggered nor night owls. Even something as simple as the idea that some people are naturally lazier, have lower energy, or are more motivated by the positive than the negative, does not make it into activist circles. Nuance is dismissed in favor of sweeping, prescribed aims, which someone came up with on behalf of everyone else, without necessarily asking. How is this a better condition than the society we are claiming to reform?
Activists cannot continue to operate in a black-and-white, shaming, blaming, and guilting manner. Instead of expecting adherence to some one-size-fits-all formula, we must be cognizant and respectful of the varying needs and personalities of individuals. Instead of asking people to fight their own nature, we need to work with the gifts they already bring.
Astrology as a Tool of Acceptance
While many activists have developed tools to account for these personality differences, these tools are newfangled and, unless you’re a learned activist or part of a book circle, you won’t know what they are. Why not use, instead, a tool that’s already popular?
Astrology is one of the few tools in personality theory that has both a storied past and a bright future. Unlike other systems, like the Myers-Briggs, OCEAN, and the Enneagram, astrology is relatively freer of moralistic biases that have accumulated over time. As a system, it avoids being either too scientific or too spiritual. Since astrology has an ancient origin and has been around for thousands of years, its popularity is timeless.
At the same time, astrology welcomes critique. A bad astrologer is an astrologer who sticks to stereotypes and assumptions, who does not question their own discipline, who fails to perform continuous research into their own practice, who accepts anecdotal evidence and falls prey to other logical fallacies. There are hundreds of techniques and practices in astrology, refined over thousands of years, that make it almost equally logical and intuitive.
We are also witnessing a revolution of interest in astrology in the 2010s and 2020s from people who have been historically marginalized: queer people and people of color. It already means something that oppressed people find so much resonance with this art. Part of this is that astrology is not gatekept; you do not need excessive formal education or a certification to practice it, and it is not dominated by any particular group. Though tropical astrology’s historical origins are Western and therefore carry issues of class, race, and gender, its current iteration is constantly under collective scrutiny and development.
How do we take advantage of the meaning people find in this system, and the meanings they continue to create, to build a better world?
Your Contribution to the Revolution
Collectively, we’ve examined how some of our great political questions and organizing concerns can be freshly conceived of in astrology. So, how do we apply this on a personal level? How do we make our planetary placements work for us?
That is what Revolutionary Zodiac is about. Again, as an Aquarian astrologer, I don’t take the typically Leonine astrological approach, where I tell you when you’ll get married or how you’ll grow your business. I can do that, and I do offer consultations where I use these techniques. But my primary interest is how astrology benefits the collective.
I call your potential contributions to revolution and mutual aid your “activist potential.” I believe that everyone has one, because we are all on this earth together, and we all have an ability to leave it better than we found it. Astrology helps us uncover that potential, and my goal is to help you map this authentic part of yourself.
What If I Don’t Believe in Astrology?
That’s ok. You don’t have to believe in it for it to be useful for you. My work is for people who are at least open to the idea that astrology can be useful. Take what resonates, and leave what doesn’t.
At the same time, I’ve found that people who don’t believe in astrology usually either don’t relate to their sun signs or have never met a competent astrologer who explained its magic. Astrology is an incredibly deep field, so saying you don’t believe in astrology is like saying that you don’t believe in an iPhone because you don’t know exactly how it works. iPhones still exist and are useful to people, including potentially you, whether you believe in them or not!
Of course, astrology is far from the only answer to our problems. It’s a pretty good answer, though. If you approach anything with an open mind, it may astound you by showing you truths you’d never suspected.
How this Book/ Site Can Work For You
There are two components to this project: this website, and my upcoming book, which is way, way longer. This website is for people who are curious to know some very basic things, like how their top three signs can help them understand their activist potential. The book discusses houses, transits, and aspects, whereas the website does not.
You are free to share the ideas you find in here, but please do not copy my work without permission. It has taken me years to develop. Come up with your own ideas! Only you can make them.
Disclaimer
Finally, Western tropical astrology is not the only astrology there is, nor is it more valid than any other system. Vedic astrology, which is just as old, is a fascinating discipline. In India, in fact, you can even get a university degree in it! Chinese astrology is the oldest astrology system and worth studying especially by those interested in TCM or feng shui. Aztecs and Mayans also had complex systems which have been erased by colonialism. Almost every culture has developed its own method for plotting the stories of the stars.
For the purposes of this book and website, I only explore Western tropical astrology, because that is the system I use, with only casual references to these exciting other systems. But, I highly encourage the curious reader to explore the many paths that astrology has taken, throughout the world.