on the new moon in cancer and the fall of empire

and the necessity of hope

Before we get into today’s newsletter, a quick announcement: I am having a major surgery this coming week. This surgery, which I have mentioned in passing previously, is going to lay me out for pretty much the duration of July; I won’t be able to see clients or do much of anything. (I have pre-written and scheduled a number of newsletters, so don’t worry — you’ll still be getting astrology in your inbox!)

It’s very much been a month-to-month year, income wise, and while this surgery is desperately needed in order to improve my health (and general quality of life), it could not be coming at a worse time. So, if you get a lot out of this newsletter and feel moved to send a little something my way, it would be incredibly appreciated (the link is for PayPal; my Venmo handle is jeanna-kadlec). And of course, you can always upgrade your subscription to this newsletter!

washington crossing the delaware b. emanuel leutze / a decidedly hagiographic portrait of america’s revolutionary mythology finished a mere decade before the civil war broke out

The New Moon arrives at 14* of Cancer, at 6:57pm Eastern on Friday, July 5th.

Bearing a few marked similarities to the United States’ birth chart, and occurring during the 4th of July holiday weekend, this moon had already attracted attention as being significant for the nation before… everything that’s happened in the last few weeks.

This New Moon promises to be incredibly generative and supportive for our artistic practices (it sits closely to artist-lover Venus, who is also in Cancer), but that is not what we’re going to be talking about today. Rather, I want to take a step back and talk about where this fraught moment finds us.

In times such as these, it can be tempting to reach for astrology and other divinatory practices in an effort to mitigate the overwhelm of doom-scrolling. I’m seeing it everywhere: on Twitter, on Instagram and Threads, on TikTok. Astrologers and other occult practitioners are frantically making predictions, trying to ascertain if the “worst” (the reelection of the 45th president) will happen this November. Who will win the election? What will the outcome be for our country? People are understandably desperate for a sense of control.

But the thing is, you can’t use astrology to predict your way out of pain. 

It’s not that I don’t think astrologers cannot forecast the cosmic weather with some accuracy (if I didn’t, I wouldn’t offer my own electional work). Rather, it’s that the outcome of the election — no matter who wins, no matter if Biden is replaced as nominee — does not change the fundamental course this country has already taken.

“i want a dyke for president” b. zoe leonard (1992)

Empires do not fall overnight. From Ancient Rome and Mongol to more recent examples like 19th century Great Britain and France’s ancien régime, history shows us that the collapse of empire occurs gradually. An erosion of power; an increase in internal, untended divisions. By the time the Goths and other non-Romans invaded ca. 376 CE, the pieces on the chessboard of Rome’s fall had already been set. Years of plague (including the devastating Antonine Plague, which lasted nearly two decades and killed millions), the rise of an already End Times-obsessed Christianity (which Constantine converted to in the early 300s CE), and a failure to maintain military and political stability in the region are only some of the major causes most often cited by historians. 

Epidemics. A rise in religious extremism, fueled by a famously “my way or the highway” religion. Prolonged, decidedly ineffectual political infighting. A failure to manage the sprawling military, its resources spread too thin as it faced protests and uprisings across the region.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. 

The pieces have been in play on this chessboard for a long time, too.

What this country needs, and has needed, is systemic change. And systemic change cannot and does not happen with one event or one election. How individualistic, to pin our hopes on one presidential candidate, or one moment in time, as if collective and shared action are not the answer. Everyone screaming “vote” seems to forget that we voted last time, and the time before that, and the time before that — to no avail. Voting is a palliative, and a poor one at that. A Democrat in the White House is enabling and supporting the genocide of an entire people. Democrats’ motto: don’t worry, we’ll keep the fascism abroad.

There was root rot in the American system of governance from the start (e.g. the Three-Fifths “Compromise”). The mask is not suddenly “off” within this country, nor was it suddenly off with the 2016 election. It has never been off. Not for Black people, not for Indigenous people, not for communities of color who have immigrated here (witness the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882). Not for queer and trans people. Not for poor and working class white women. And over the last few decades, Republicans, energized by an evangelical base, have told us exactly what they planned to do in order to capitalize on these fractures. Overturn Roe. Put the Bible back in schools (as Louisiana and Oklahoma are currently doing). Turn this into a theocracy rather than a democracy. I know what they have been saying, because I grew up in it. Their “vote Republican for the Supreme Court” agenda was never hidden; I remember hearing my dad talk about the importance of securing the Court for conservatives when I was a child. 

While I absolutely believe that the Republicans and evangelicals fueling this are morally bankrupt, I find myself, just as I was in 2016, far more frustrated with the so-called “liberals” who have heard the call coming from inside the house and done approximately nothing. The white moderate — in politics, in the media, in the pulpit, in the classroom — has deliberately obscured and masked the danger, has ignored what marginalized communities have been saying for years. Has refused to reckon with the root rot in the foundations of this country, lest they be uncomfortable. As Martin Luther King Jr. said in his 1963 “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,”

I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. 

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. 

Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

A Biden win will not save us. Replacing Biden will not save us. Astrologers who “correctly” predict the outcome of this election are not, actually, offering us the tools to fight back, to spiritually fortify ourselves so that we might be of service to our community. 

There is no predicting our way out of the pain that is living through the fall of empire. There is no salvation from the consequences of our own complicity, no savior god riding in on a white horse.

There is only us, knowing that we are far stronger together than we are in isolation (or expatriation). Knowing that there are already efforts to resist on the ground, that the lie of individualism only works as long as we let it. 

In times such as these, hope is not only possible, but essential. And not the kind of hope that aspires to assimilation through the American Dream. The kind of radical hope that reimagines a system, that dares — on the 248th birthday of this nation — to prophesy what is possible. 

And that is the role of the artist, of the writer: to articulate and carry the hope of a people. To disseminate it widely, so that through song and word and image it transcends the one-to-one and becomes boundless, ringing through the collective unconscious. That is the reason artists are often the first to be put down by fascist regimes and usurping kings: because of our ability to translate what the many are feeling.

In times such as these, our art is more necessary than ever. It is a resistance to the ruling class, to throw off the mythologies they inculcate in us from birth. If you experience marginalization, your art is resistance, and so is your joy. If you are a member of various dominant classes in this society, then your work has a direct line to decision-makers, to people in power, who (bluntly) are more likely to hear it from you than from the actively oppressed.

The artist gives voice to the many. We are the Vestal Virgins, keeping the flame lit, stoking the fires of hope. And that is essential work.

Don’t stop. If you tire, tap someone else in. We are, none of us, alone. Which is the message of this New Moon in Cancer: embrace community. Embrace reciprocity. Embrace each other, for we are all we have.

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A few resources for you, to connect you with community on this New Moon in Cancer: 

Mutual Aid Hub can help find mutual aid networks near you, and Mutual Aid NYC and Mutual Aid LA.

Here’s Indivisible’s Resources guide, which includes pre-set emails for Congress about Palestine, reproductive care, and more. Also: Jewish Voice for Peace’s Take Action, with ideas and resources and campaigns.

Here’s a link to Project 2025, and here’s a breakdown of it from GLAAD.

Subscribe to The Sick Times for COVID and Long COVID updates. Numbers are up right now. Wear a mask!

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