If the past couple of weeks have been destabilizing, this week asks us to deeply question what is real and what is superstition.

Intuition is never based in fear or anxiety.

Insight never asks anyone to compromise their integrity or safety.

Test out the results you get when you are in a space of personal sovereignty, versus when you are acting out of superstition and fear. This week starts eclipse season and Saturn conjoins Neptune in Aries. Unstable boundaries and belief systems fall. When in doubt listen to what your body needs right now.

Yesterday, Saturn joined Neptune in Aries, which marks a time of structural collapse and confusion around what is real and not real. The last time Saturn and Neptune were conjunct was in 1989. Most notably, this was when the Berlin Wall fell. Saturn/Neptune conjunctions are also associated with spiritual panic and witch hunts (the McCarthy trials and Satanic panic happened under this conjunction).

For many of us, Neptune’s transit through Pisces (2011-2026), has been a time of embracing spiritual sovereignty, whether that means deconstructing Christian and capitalist narratives; embracing personal relationship with spirit through tarot, astrology, or witchcraft; diving into the otherworldly magic of science and technology; or any number of other esoteric and magickal practices.

Massive amounts of people, including me, have come out of the broom closet, outing ourselves as witches.

This week, continuing the energies of last week and even the recent months, tests how we handle chaos.

When we struggle against chaos, it creates more chaos. Then, chaos acts like an undertow, sucking us under the waves because of our struggle.

The fifth Hermetic principle, the principle of rhythm, says that everything ebbs and flows, and chaos is no different. This week tests when we release control and when we struggle. What results do you get with each?

Last week saw Mercury and Venus aspecting Chiron and Uranus, and this brought out release of additional Epstein emails (even though we still haven’t seen all of them) as well as racist and sexist ranting from people in power.

While shifting the way we treat girls and how white people handle the narcissism of other white people are absolutely key to creating safe community, this week in my life, the issue of what happens when the government kidnaps our neighbors was front and center.

I was walking my dog, Pema, on Wednesday, when we came across a very sweet pup, who had no collar and ended up coming home with us. You might remember, last week I had a dream that featured a very stable dog, and so it was interesting to come across one.

EDIT: We found Cleo’s family soon after this! They are a sweet family who loves her! They call her Justice, so either my animal communication needs work or her full name is Justice Cleo. I like to think the latter.

I had a dream last week that involved visiting my family, who had a dog that was just completely reliable, stable, and reassuring. While I was sitting with my family, I looked outside and realized someone had put the room we were in on a semi truck and were driving us away. When we got where we were going, I was annoyed because all of our things were in a warehouse mixed with other people’s things, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to find the dog.

When I went to the warehouse, though, the dog was right there, looking reassuring, and wearing a fancy collar. He was not worried at all. There was a woman who was throwing people’s possessions away, some of them mine, and I started singing a song to her about how much I hated her. In the dream, the song I was singing was a TikTok jingle, and she sang the last line back to me because we both hated each other.

I say this in part because I encourage TikTok jinglers to create a song I can sing when I hate people. I would be forever grateful.

In part, I say this because this week is one that invites us to change our minds and relationships. It brings shifts and invites us to acknowledge the very real, life altering, and harmful instability so many of us are experiencing who are being deported, sent to concentration camps, or attacked by federal agents. In my dream, I had the privilege of being unattached to stability and being present with the dog I cared about. And, still, I hated the person disrupting and disrespecting my life.

In my dream, there was nothing shameful or violent about my hatred. It was normal and natural. And I knew I could be flexible with change.

Imbolc is the Celtic celebration of the goddess Brigid (pronounced “BREED”), who is the goddess of the hearth and fire, healing, smith work, and poetry. Imbolc comes in the middle of Aquarius season, associating Brigid with the energies of Aquarius (happy birthday to those of you with this Brigid energy!). Aquarius energy is associated with social healing, change, and innovation, as well as creative endeavors like poetry. During the time of Aquarius, we move from the depths of Capricorn winter, when structures like homes and social institutions that provide food and warmth are crucial, into the stirring of spring and the hints of newness. At this time, questioning institutions is as important as acknowledging their power to protect.

In one story, Brigid, is said to have lost her son in a battle and gone to the battlefield to keen over his death. This is said to be the first keening over loss of a loved one. In some ways this story is very true to the transition between Capricorn and Aquarius. Capricorn is the good soldier, who upholds the institution, while Aquarius sees the broader picture and the social change necessary for the community to serve the most vulnerable. Aquarius has learned that being a good soldier is not always the answer and often causes the harms it is trying to prevent.

War is destructive, not glorious. Violence is harmful, not noble. Using power to control is abuse, not safety.

Keep these principles in mind as we enter a new 14 year time period of Neptune in Aries, starting Monday, January 26, 2026. This type of time period is marked by idealism and propaganda around what it means to be a good soldier and fight for what you believe in. While fighting for what we believe in sounds noble, this time also creates confusion about what we can believe in and trust.

To have reliable beliefs, and know what we can trust we have to build connection and integrity between our minds, emotions, bodies, and spirits. Most of us have experienced some form of disconnect of one or more of those, whether it is from high control religion, academia, trauma, or other cultural conditioning.

This time invites us to define the boundaries around who we truly are and what we stand for.

Also, I literally watched another person get murdered by the police as I was writing this. And you will probably wonder which one it was because there have been so many. We need to know where our boundaries are and act on them.

Protests are happening around the world right now, in the midst of governments and militaries, led by dictators, committing atrocities. I live in the U.S. and so a lot of the focus I see is on federal agents brutalizing people in U.S. neighborhoods, schools, and businesses, but these events are happening around the world. A lot of people I see in the U.S. are feeling overwhelmed in figuring out where they personally fit into helping their communities survive through this darkness and how to hope for and build a better future.

I come from a fundamental belief that we all, collectively and individually, hold responsibility for our actions and inactions that contributed to bringing us to this place. I say that not because of blame, but because of power. When we understand that, even though power is disproportionate and unfair in the world as we know it, we each still have power, we can use it intentionally. And, I believe that it is in each of us showing up with our full power and accountability that we shift to a better future.

Someone said to me recently that if he inherited some of his father’s traits, it did not make him a bad person. This is similar to white people believing that because we inherited an unjust, racist system, but did not create it, we are not “bad.” It may be true that we are not “bad,” because that word does not have a lot of meaning. But if we are adults, we are still responsible and accountable for our actions and inactions that perpetuate violence and violent systems through our actions or our inactions.

While each person’s contribution may be different, each person’s decision to contribute, or ignore harms, matters.

I want to talk a little bit about my background related to this, and then I want to go through an overview of astrological placements that you can look to in order to consider your place in the resistance.

What is the difference between faith and superstition?

What is the difference between innovation and destruction?

What is the difference between intimacy and boundarilessness?

What is the difference between propaganda and journalism?

This week, and the era we are in generally, asks us to answer these questions for ourselves and test out the practical impacts of our answers. Here are some suggested principles for this time:

• Faith is a solid sense of reality, on which you base your actions. Superstition is a fear of tricky punishment or sabotage. I have faith that I am sitting on a chair, and this invites accountability. I sit down and know the chair is there or that it is not there. And I want to know. Some have superstition that if I don’t put my body into certain water or say magic words, a vengeful and fickle deity will sabotage me. Some have superstition that if they talk about harm, a vengeful and fickle deity (or person) will bring harm to them.

• Innovation builds toward a vision. Destruction focuses on the thing it wants to undo and thereby often replicates that very thing.

• Intimacy expects both trust and freedom. Boundarilessness says that if I am uncomfortable, you must change your actions.

• Propaganda targets your fears and oversimplifies the benefits you get if you buy into a particular solution to them. Journalism tells you the five-senses reality of an impactful experience, whether it fits into a neat narrative or not.

These are just my answers though, and this week invites you to find your own. Never take my word for what you can test out and find for yourself.

I made a short quiz (click on the image below to access it), which should take less than 5 minutes to access. It asks you some questions to get you thinking about the four cups in your life. Are they overflowing or stagnant and depleted?

This moment is about the chaos and collapse of institutions and how it meets up with the power of community safety, loyalty to those we love, and invitation to return to true security and safety. This time asks us to question our ideals and whether they are reliant on institutions that oppress us.

In some ways this is a collapse of the veneer of peace at the expense of exploited people. In other ways this is a time that is devastatingly filled with violence and loss. The more love we have and the more connected we are to our communities, the more we feel this loss.

If you feel impervious to the violence in the world right now, or protected from it, that experience of disconnect is its own loss. Connection with boundaries brings true safety.

This week is triggering, no matter where you land on these issues.

A spell is essentially an intention spoken out loud. Spells are most effective when they are linked to our bodies and our unconscious belief systems because these are spells we intentionally and unintentionally take action to pull into reality. This is why healing our unconscious programming is important for intentional spell casting. And also, you can’t wait until you’re totally healed to cast spells because you’re already doing it.

This week, we continue to be in the dark of winter in the Northern Hemisphere, and we are entering a new year that has a number of astrological challenges. I say that not to be bleak but because the winter is a time of rest and renewal. It is a time to let your frozen ground lie dormant under leaves the trees released.

If you plan for challenges ahead, my hope is that you take more seriously the chances you have to rest now (assuming they present, and holding the awareness that for some people rest is a privilege). Now is the opportunity to release anything that drains your energy but does not replenish it.

Inanna is the ancient Mesopotamian name for the Goddess of Heaven and Earth, and her story focuses on the journey to the Underworld. Inanna was drawn to the Underworld, ruled by her sister, Ereshkigal, because she heard whispers that in visiting the Underworld, she would learn and grow. Ereshkigal’s husband, whom Ereshkigal loved dearly, had also died, and although none who enter the Underworld live, Inanna wanted to witness his funeral rites.

As Inanna prepared to descend, she armored up, gathering her lapis lazuli armor and jewelry around her, and told her faithful servant that if she did not return in three days, to petition the gods to save her from the Underworld.

How do you show patriotism? Patriotism has never meant blindly following corrupt leadership, but it also does not necessarily mean throwing ourselves or those we love into harms’ way with the hope others care.

This week consider that it may be a deception to completely embrace the nobility of suffering or completely condemn the baseness of comfort. Sometimes, fear is a signal that we’ve been conditioned to limit ourselves, and other times fear is a signal that we’re in danger. Life is a spectrum, and the polarities of either/or are only two points within or around that spectrum.

Consider whether your body is having a different reaction to your circumstances than your mind is and which one (body or mind) is typically more reliable in your experience.

A ritual of protection from the harms of unfair favoritism for whiteness

This is the week after solstice, and we have started the days of Yule. This means the light is returning and the world is still in slumber.

This is time to check in on our neighbors, on our loved ones, and most importantly on ourselves. Where do you need rest? Where have you kept resources you don’t love that you are ready to release to people, animals, or nature that would love them?

All feelings are valid, but the thoughts that create them are often lies. This week, try out the mantras “All feelings pass if I allow them to be present in my body without resistance” and “Moral judgments create trauma, and I release them; boundaries create protection, and I enforce them.”

Hex the Patriarchy

A ritual of protection from the harms of unfair favoritism for maleness

Horoscope Principles for the week of December 15, 2025

Horoscope Principles for the week of December 8, 2025