Hi friends,
THIS IS IT! Last call! The spring session of Astrology for Writers: How to Make Your Writing Work for You starts meeting this weekend, and today is the last day to register.
Specifically, the class’ first meeting is on Easter Sunday. I did not plan this. I mean, I did plan it, but my now thoroughly heretical mind didn’t even clock that the first Sunday in April coincided with that old Christian holiday that takes its name from a Germanic goddess — I was too busy trying to find an 8-week expanse of time for the spring session that wouldn’t include more-difficult-than-usual astrology.
Easter was a big deal in my house growing up. While we avidly celebrated Christmas, even my evangelical family knew that the timing of the holiday had been ripped off from what our pastors called a “pagan” holiday; we had only to read the Gospels to see that Jesus clearly hadn’t been born in December. And so Easter had a particular gravity to it, since Easter, coming at the end of the Jewish Passover, signified, for Christians, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter is what actually gives us the reason for the season, my mother would say; the celebration of Christ’s resurrection from the grave three days after his crucifixion — his triumph over Satan, over death, and his promise of eternal life to all believers.
A promise that held little for me when I came out while in a straight, decidedly evangelical marriage.
My divorce and coming out were both the cause and effect of my loss of faith, and subsequent loss of nearly my entire community. I had been quite a successful Christian, because without Jesus at the center, everything collapsed. That life had, in fact, been built on solid rock, and I bulldozed it on purpose. After, there was precious little left to take into my new life — few physical belongings, few relationships, few beliefs. “The center cannot hold,” as Yeats once wrote. I was no longer the solid rock of faith, but the wave that crashes upon it, destroying itself — its molecules scattered and dispersed, desperate to reform into something, anything, only to be pulled back out with the tide and cleansed anew.
But as anyone who has gone through a catastrophic metamorphosis knows, rebuilding a life takes time. Jesus might have done it in three days, but for the rest of us, resurrection is a slow process.
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Astrology was not part of my resurrection process — at least, not right away. Tarot was the gateway drug, as it were, something I quickly sparked to, journaling with the cards simply to understand my own thoughts and desires, so buried under decades of repression.
But eventually, I started to dig into astrology, and wondered at the language it seemed my mind and body already knew. I wasn’t looking at my chart for answers — I’d had my fill of dogma that offers the concrete and fully knowable — but for permission. To continue to excavate new ways to discover my own agency, the agency I had really only been living my life with in the wake of leaving the church. To hear that I was okay the way I was. That my choices were and could continue to be my own.
To hear that I was, in fact, fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14).
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It’s been almost ten years since I came out, got divorced, and left the church. And yet I know what all of us who have survived coming out, trauma, and cataclysmic life events know: That it is possible for one life to die and another to be born even as you are still breathing. A mother of dragons from the pyre; a phoenix from the ashes.
New lives require new languages. New frameworks. New methodologies. Astrology is one of mine — and the one that the universe has made clear over the last few years that I am to share with others. With my new, chosen communities.
This class is about creativity, not discovering new kinds of spirituality or reckoning with religious trauma. But it is about learning how to use astrology to choose yourself. About saying “yes” to yourself as a writer, over what society or your family or God has told you; about confronting those buried, suppressed myths and lessons you imbibed long ago; about setting yourself free to do your good and honest work.
For me, astrology is not a belief system, but rather, a framework that gives me yet another language of freedom.
And this Easter Sunday, it feels like the sweetest synchronicity that I won't be in a strict, conservative church but, rather, teaching a taxonomy of self-liberation.
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The tl;dr of the class: We’ll spend 8 weeks in April and May on live Zoom calls (with follow up office hours every week) going through foundational pieces of your birth chart and connecting those insights to your writing routines and practices. We’re in this for the kind of transformation that leads to real-world results — and a more grounded, confident approach to your own work.
Here are some genuinely lovely things that course alumni have said:
“Jeanna is a thoughtful and generous teacher and an astrologer steadfast in her commitment to rigorous self-examination and loving acceptance of whatever it is you uncover. Her course helped me reconnect with the writer within and will shape my work for years to come. ” - Eleanor Cummins
“Astrology for Writers is the perfect blend of stardust and ink. Jeanna created a magical space that not only inspired and supported our creative muses, but also provided tools for practicing craft-entered goals and understanding the values we can build on as authors. The class environment was full of creativity and wit that left me laughing and eager to engage with my writing with fresh eyes!” - Lakin A.
“Jeanna was patient, sensitive, and compassionate and she had such a wild amount of astrological knowledge. I have completely revamped my way of working now that I have figured out what my chart needs. ” - Lal J.
“I loved this class! Jeanna is a warm, engaging, super knowledgeable teacher. The writing lens she introduced illuminated the birth chart in new ways, particularly the financial and professional sensibilities that drive us. A welcoming environment, even over Zoom, with thoughtfully planned readings and many practical takeaways — highly recommended for writers and editors.” - Deb M.
“‘Astrology for Writers’ affirmed my passion for writing, storytelling, and astrology and I’m so glad I took it. The work I’ve done in this class has prompted invaluable and critical self-reflection on my life as a writer. Jeanna’s expertise and guidance have helped me to feel more confident in my voice, and more unafraid of speaking my truth.” - Roslyn Talusan
I hope to see you there!
Xx,
J