Hi everyone,
Good morning from rainy Brooklyn. Before we get into today’s letter, I wanted to say thank you for the outpouring of support yesterday. One of you generously sponsored a year-long subscription for another trans reader of the newsletter. Everyday kindness continues to flourish in some corners of the internet.
A quick reminder! This is the last week to register for the spring session of Astrology for Writers! The first class starts next Sunday. Payment plans are available. (You’ll be hearing a fair amount from me about the course this week. Course registration closes April 2nd.)
Xx,
Jeanna
Iconic children’s author Beverly Cleary passed away this week at the storied age of 104. Born on April 12, 1916, she was very near her 105th birthday. Initially a librarian, she published more than 40 books which, in her lifetime, sold more than 85 million copies and defined a genre and generations of American childhoods. As one of my best and oldest friends would say: What a life!
Cleary was an Aries who exemplified the qualities of exploration and independence, whose work prioritized the integrity of children’s inner lives. Aries has a particular association with children and youth; it is, after all, the first sign of the zodiac which exerts “I am.” Aries gives us the first archetypal articulation and understanding of the self, as children learn to do when separated from the birthing parent, their own individual bodies and selves outside of the womb. Within the framework of psychological astrology, understanding the concerns of a particular sign/archetype through the lens of human development, Aries offers a framework for individuation and the fiery burst of energy — and uncertainty — that accompanies it.
Like Ramona Quimby. Perhaps Cleary’s best known character, Ramona was a little girl with a lot of energy. She was never one to be left behind or told no, to live life in a way that was orderly or proper. In true Aries fashion, Cleary wrote,
Ramona blew big bubbles and annoyed her big sister Beezus and made the rest of us feel that our big emotions — our “too muchness,” as Rachel Vorona Cote has written — were okay.
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It’s Aries season, which means the Full Moon is in Libra, its opposite sign — more adult, more aware of its place in society, more invested in harmony with others than pure individuality. So it is, perhaps, fitting that I am currently reading a book by a Libra that so details the childhood struggle to individuate, in many ways due to society’s constraints on young girls — Girlhood by Melissa Febos (which comes out in two days on March 30th).
Girlhood articulates the loss, or perhaps repression, of Quimby-like wildness; the rapid and pervasive social conditioning that girls are subjected to so very early; the self-consciousness that creeps in before we have the language that will come later; the desire for something, anything that will help us name what is happening to us and our bodies, seemingly without our consent or control:
My mother brought home a book called The What’s Happening to My Body? Book for Girls. It explained hormonal shifts, the science of breasts and pubic hair. It was not The What’s Happening to the World as I Knew It? Book for Girls and did not explain why being the only girl on the baseball team no longer felt like a triumph. It did not explain why grown men in passing cars, to whom I had always been happily invisible, now leered at me. It did not explain why or even acknowledge that what was happening to my body changed my value in the world. (15)
Febos is one of our most articulate and forceful voices when it comes to the queer femme’s body in public. In light of Cleary’s passing this week and the flood of social media conversation, I can’t help but think of Girlhood in conversation with Cleary’s work:
What happens when the fearless, ferocious Ramona Quimby grows up?
What has happened to you over the years?
What has happened to me?
How have the traumas and pains and doors slammed in your face and people telling you “that’s not acceptable” and “you’re too loud” and “you’re too much” and “you’re not enough” and “womanhood doesn’t look that way” and “queer doesn’t look that way” and “your body is wrong” and and and?
The moon is the body, after all. The body that carries every experience, every sorrow — and also every joy.
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The Full Moon in Libra is exact today at 2:48pm ET. Full Moons are about something coming to a ripened awareness and opportunity. This one might feel especially tender, as it comes with Venus, the planet of love and value, in a conversation with Chiron, the asteroid perhaps best known as the wounded warrior, in the sign of Aries — so often associated with the archetype of the warrior — literally battling like Wonder Woman against the world.
Right now, it feels like a lot of us are having to fight for our value. Fighting to prove to other people that our lives are valuable and have dignity. You might be engaged in your community, fundraising for your AAPI elders or raising awareness for the horrific anti-trans legislation that moved through Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee this week or or or.
I hope it is validating to hear that those battles are reflected in the sky.
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There is the body collective in society, and then there is your body: precious, worthy, beautiful, tender, every part of it.
So often, as writers, the work is in the mind and the heart. But our body carries those experiences. The body keeps the score, as the saying goes. The moon is often discussed as relating to our emotional selves, and it absolutely does, but it also is representative of our physical selves. And what we need.
There is a bit of an irony when the full moon is in an air sign. The moon is embodiment, whereas air signs are representative of the intellect, of communication, of our mental life and those ephemeral connections between people. Libra thrives on connection, relationship, harmony, and love. But Libra is also ruled by Venus — so this is a full moon that, in addition to being in a relationship-oriented sign, is being ruled a planet that craves connection and value. That wants to be nurtured.
It is a lie, that creativity is solely available to the isolated genius in the tower. Creativity thrives on connection. Creativity is birthed in vulnerability; it thrives on breaking down the walls built up by patriarchy, by homophobia and transphobia, by the lies that say you aren’t enough and the American Dream means pulling yourself up by your bootstraps —
Fuck all of that.
Be loud and unabashed and unashamed, like Aries. Love your people and bring others in, like Libra. Apply to your creative life accordingly. And like Beverly Cleary told us, “If you don't see the book you want on the shelf, write it.”