#9: aries season (2024)

eclipsing

Apr 18, 2024

Hi! Thanks for being here. Spring has sprung! We’re through the eclipses and Taurus season starts tomorrow — chiller vibes incoming. Here’s a collection of takeaways and faves from Aries season this past month (Mar 19th - Apr 19th). You can find an overview of Taurus season’s upcoming astrology at the end of this newsletter. If you haven’t subscribed or would like to upgrade your subscription, you can do so below.

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I cried when I saw the total solar eclipse in the summer of 2017. I took off my solar glasses in the darkened parking lot of a rural middle school, and a few tears rolled down my cheeks as I stared up at the moon, the sun’s corona shining around it. The temperature dropped and the light on the horizon looked like a sunset in every direction. I saw stars! In the afternoon! I had read about what to expect and seen photo after photo of total solar eclipses, but to actually experience one for myself was fucking incredible. I was an astronomy girl long before I was also into astrology, and that solar eclipse was the most amazing astronomical event I’ve seen, before or since.

I really wanted to travel for last week’s eclipse. I kept having dreams about it in the weeks leading up to it, which felt like a sign — and I love a sign. And how could I ignore a sign from the universe about the universe? I don’t live close to that eclipse’s path of totality but I kept looking at flights I can’t afford to the major cities it crossed through. The Midwestern city I’m from is coincidentally about the shortest drive from me. I haven’t been back since I was a teen — I haven’t wanted to or had reason to — but I couldn’t ignore the poetic nature of a return visit for the eclipse. A friend of mine who I met here but who also grew up in that city was planning a trip back there with her girlfriend. I asked about being their third wheel and had that request politely and understandably turned down.

Otherwise, things were not aligning for me for a trip to see this one — before I caught a cold and was too sick to travel anyway, I was supposed to have work the day before and after that would’ve made the almost eight-hour drive there unrealistic. And I found out today that my car couldn’t have even gotten me there regardless. That trip sounds like a ludicrous thing to even consider, let alone half-plan for. It would’ve been worth it though if I could’ve pulled it off and had a good view. Maybe I’ll go to Montana in August 2044 for the next one visible in the US, who knows.

It was still so exciting to witness a partial solar eclipse for the first time though. I checked in with a couple friends in the morning about whether they had glasses and if they wanted me to come by so they could check it out if not. They were all set though, so I went to a park nearby and journaled, taking occasional peeks up at the sun. We were blessed with a cloudless sky that day where I live. When the max eclipse time got closer, I went to this parking lot I knew would be empty to watch from there. I saw a lot of people outside together all along the drive over, and it was a little thrilling to feel connected to all these people in our shared excitement over the moon.

With about 80% of the sun covered at the eclipse’s peak where I was, the afternoon light was dimmer and the air felt cooler and breezier. It was spooky to see the sun as a small reddish crescent getting slowly covered by the moon, in its only phase that isn’t visible to us. It’s so wild that we live on this big rock that’s being swung around in the nothingness of space by invisible forces! And that our moon and the nearest star occasionally align in just the right way to cast a shadow across a swath of the planet! And that being in that path can be a deeply moving experience!

I went for a long walk afterwards on a trail nearby, delighting in all of the eclipse shadows through the trees along the path. I thought about where I was at the time of the last solar eclipse I saw almost seven years ago, compared to where I am now. About how I live in the same city, which part of me feels settled in and part of me feels almost ready to leave. I’m aware of how all of this sounds, trust me, but after being sick and feeling down for the days leading up to it, I was grateful that I started feeling better that day. Nothing like a rare astronomical event to shift your headspace and shake things up energetically. And nothing like taking a quick peek at the sun without the glasses and finding out a bunch of your friends did the same to make you feel connected to the pals you wished you could’ve watched it with.

Anyway:

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into action

A friend recently sent a text that started with Thank you so much for thinking of me. I wanted to respond with what I was thinking, which was Of course I was thinking of you! I am thinking of everyone I love at all times, everywhere I go! I only included the first part of that in my response, but themes of friendship, community, and interconnectedness have been very present for me over the past few weeks. Aries is in my eleventh house of friends and groups, and with all of the Aries activity in this past month’s astrology, I felt a push to focus on that area of my life.

A recent Chani app prompt that I received for the Aries season + mercury retrograde combo: What would be helpful to review, reassess, or reorganize, particularly regarding your friendships, social circles, or group projects? Processing this in therapy and in my journal helped me realize that I wanted to address the feelings of loneliness and understimulation that I’ve been having, ever since crossing what seems to have been a critical threshold of close friends moving away. I cherish all of my friends here, and at the same time I’ve also been in need of more socializing and companionship than I’ve been getting. It’s hard enough sometimes to even recognize unmet needs; it takes that much more work to also do something about them, to take steps towards more fulfillment.

There’s this saying I came across recently while reading Drop the Rock with my sponsor: Pray for potatoes, but pick up the hoe. I’ve only been doing the former by way of manifesting new friends, as well as by complaining about feeling a little lonely and bored every chance I get. It’s become apparent that in some situations you have to actually take action though, as unfortunate as that is. So this Aries season, I picked up the damn hoe. I started going to more AA meetings in person instead of virtually, I asked a friend to set me up as a friend with one of hers, and I even went to my first cuddle party.

The biggest way I opened myself up to the possibility of new connections though was by putting up an IG story saying I was looking for more local friends. I listed some of my fav friend activities, shared that I’d be most excited to meet new folks who are also dykes and/or sober, and said that I am a busy lady but I still prioritize friends in that busyness. I’m pretty happy with the response I got! It was largely in the form of affirmation, which reassured me that it wasn’t weird or desperate to post a story like that. Some people did also reach out, and I got a lead for a local rope group to connect with as well, so I’m excited and hopeful about it all.

It brings me no joy to report the takeaway from all of this to you, dear reader: one answer to the age-old question of how to make friends as an adult is... to ask people if they want to be friends. Sometimes one must put themself out there and ask someone if they would like to hang out sometime. Again, I wish I hadn’t found this out. I would rather be here writing that if you just manifest — or complain, like me — hard enough, then the universe will take note and send people into your life without you having to lift a finger. That does seem to happen every now and then, for sure; it’s certainly happened to me before. However, sometimes when you’re outgoing, your local friends are busier (not mad at you), and you wish you didn’t have to go looking for more friends but decide you need to, it’s worth simply asking if anyone wants to be friends. Because sometimes, people say they do.

faves ♡

🎵 “After Hours” - Kehlani

The only year that MUNA hasn’t been my top artist over the past several years was 2022, after an ex turned me onto Kehlani. I was in their top .1% of listeners that year. I didn’t really listen to her music much last year, but we’re so back now that she has a fun new song out that I’m really into. It’s sexy and clubby, and I’m looking forward to the rest of their upcoming album.

🎶 “Devotion” - Arlo Parks

Ok, what the hell — how had I not heard this banger until like a week ago? I got a sponsored ad for her album with part of this song’s music video, and immediately after I opened Spotify to find it. When an ad works it works. I think I do know what happened actually — I started listening to My Soft Machine when it came out last year, but I didn’t want to keep listening after the first two songs. Guess what the third song on the album is. I like a lot of the rest of it, too, now having given it more of a shot! This song makes me want to have a crush, like a real, “come down like a million tons” kind of crush. Don’t mind me, just putting that out into the universe too.

🎞️ Love Lies Bleeding

I came out of that movie theater a changed woman. Straight people are allowed to go see this movie too? Wow. I was not expecting the lesbian bodybuilder movie to be as gory and intense as it was though. I had just heard the sex scenes were hot and that KStew and Katy O’Brian had good chemistry, so stress sweat wasn’t the, uhh, wetness I was anticipating the possibility of. I’m a little bummed that my theater experience wasn’t the dyke cruising event I was fantasizing it would be though. Maybe I’ll try going to a gym.

📕 A Good Happy Girl - Marissa Higgins

More horny content! Oh my god, this book. It’s about this lesbian lawyer who’s grappling with her parents’ recent arrests for a fucked up crime, and she starts seeing another married couple in her latest attempt at distracting herself from it all. She is so messy, and in ways I don’t know that I’ve seen in a character before — especially not a lesbian one. Representation! The fact that she’s like that in her thirties, too, also feels like good representation. I read it in one evening and alternated between feeling turned on and grossed out the entire time. There’s this undercurrent of violence, these intrusive, masochistic thoughts the main character has. I felt like some part of me could relate to her wanting to feel anything else aside from the traumatic shit, whether that was pain or lust or numbness. Also, I appreciated how absent men are from this novel. A few are there, but they don’t have the same interiority or importance that all the women characters do. The book’s description reads, “A Good Happy Girl is interested in worlds without men — and women who will do what they can to get what they want.” Seeing that alone is enough to get me to want to read any novel.

📝 “Total Eclipse” - Annie Dillard

More eclipse content! I saw this amazing essay from 1982 shared on Twitter/X recently. Dillard writes about her experience seeing a total solar eclipse in Washington in 1979, and it’s such a detailed, vivid piece that really captures how surreal the experience is. The part about how fast the moon’s shadow races towards you is so freaky! Again, it’s so fucking cool that we get to experience these. It looks like the next total lunar eclipse — a blood moon — that’ll be widely visible is on Pi Day next year. I’d mark your calendar if I were you!

🌈 lesbian Coachella

My level of investment in Coachella is very minimal — I just watch a few livestream sets then move on with my evening — so I’m learning about the extent of the dykeyness from last weekend after the fact. A lot of sapphic shit went down! Here’s some highlights. Love to see it, and now I’m eager to see what’ll happen this weekend. Between all those public displays of gayness and the collective excitement for the moon last week, lesbianism is really having a moment.

🥨 brewery soft pretzel

Last night, I ate the yummiest soft pretzel I’ve ever had. It was warm and doughy, and my car kind of broke down on the highway forty minutes from home. It had just the right amount of salt on it, and the safest place I could get stranded at was a brewery. The pretzel came with a tasty mustard, and it’s triggering to be around alcohol when I’m stressed and upset and want to drink. I ate it while watching the prettiest sunset I’ve seen in weeks, and I had to wait over two hours for the expensive tow. I wanted to conserve my phone’s low battery so I got some quiet time to sit with my thoughts, and I wanted to conserve my phone’s low battery so I had to just sit there alone with my thoughts. Sometimes when you’re in a hard situation, a soft pretzel can honestly help a little bit.