the new moon in scorpio for writers
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Today’s New Moon arrived this morning at 20* Scorpio at 4:27am Eastern. So begins a week bookended by powerful seedings: we launch with a New Moon and continue to climb with Saturday’s incredibly potent Mars cazimi.
2023 has been a difficult year. Here in the US, we are in a recession. Nearly everyone I know has been battered by ongoing health and financial difficulties. By the cognitive dissonance that comes from being in community with people who strive for a more just and humane world while those in power are so profoundly flippant about others’ humanity. No, there’s no chance of a ceasefire, says our president, as if he’s not seeing the same images of children stranded in hospitals that we are. Oh, we’ll just wait out the union until they are housing insecure, said the film executives. (Which did happen—even to Billy Porter.)
As the gap between the ultra-rich — and the ultra-removed from the realities of how the rest of us live — widens, it becomes ever more clear of how the daily lives of people who are actually impacted by their budget cuts and policymaking are an academic exercise to them. A thought experiment. Pawns on a board.
Can the ultra-rich and ultra-privileged, especially, be “out of touch” with people they were never “in touch” with to begin with? There is prejudice, yes, and bias, for sure, but there is also, underneath it all, perhaps the most disturbing thing — a complete lack of empathy, and a simultaneous lack of imagination, in the ruling class.
Scorpio season almost always brings such dissonance in this country to a head. We always have our elections in this season, after all, and this New Moon arrives in wartime. Here at home, it is a year of ongoing union strikes in major industries. Of state-wide referendums on reproductive care. There are stirrings of a Trump reelection, especially amidst Biden’s unyielding support of the ongoing genocide in Palestine.
Scorpio is ruled by Mars, the planet (and god) of war, but also strategy, courage, and conviction. Sure enough, folks are ten toes down on every side, no matter what they believe. The gaps are widening. The intensity and obsessiveness of Scorpio is the backdrop of every news story, every conversation.
And so it begs the question: where does the writing fit?
One thing is also sure, in the midst of all this: It has never been more clear that no, we emphatically do not have the same 24 hours in a day that Beyoncé/Taylor/[insert your fave here] has.
I’m pretty sure Beyoncé herself wouldn’t have spent an hour on the phone with Quickbooks trying to get a refund, as I did the other day. Bless! And I’m pretty sure that she/Taylor/et al. are no longer in the business of doing their own dishes or laundry.
Our 24 hours are not the same, which is to say, our resources are not the same.
Just as the gaps between the haves and have nots have continued to polarize, the fractures in hustle culture have fractured almost beyond recognition.
When I was a PhD student, and then a small business owner, and then an early hire at a NYC startup, I worked all the goddamn time. I had no off-switch. I was on my laptop over breakfast. On my phone while wedged in between dozens of people on the 1 train headed downtown from my Harlem apartment. At the office for 9, 10 hours. And then working on the way home. Constant.
One night, I was out with my fellow queer coworkers at Cubbyhole, a gay bar in the Village, and was surprised when they asked me for a coke hookup, because, of all my vices, drugs are not and have never been one of them. I’m too much of a control freak. How do you NOT do cocaine? one asked me, his jaw on the floor. You are SO productive.
Little did he know, that productivity came at a cost. My mental and physical health. My relationship. My self-esteem.
I was also “productive” (read: doing The Most) because I was, actually, wildly unfocused, and very broke, just throwing shit at the wall and seeing what stuck. I had a job I hated, but money and insurance, you know? I was reading tarot professionally because I was incredibly underpaid at my job — I loved tarot, but it wasn’t something I really wanted to be doing for other people, but it was an easy way to make some quick cash. I was simultaneously running a lingerie boutique I’d launched while still in grad school, which was a passion project, but I genuinely had no idea what I was doing and really only got myself into mountains of debt — I never took a paycheck from that business, and am still paying down debt for it.
In the midst of all of this, I wanted to be writing more, but I was still in the early (early early early early) days of drafting Heretic, and was still very much learning the Craft of Nonfiction.
It would be years before I realized that the more focused and secure you are, the less you confuse “productive” with “filling the entire day with [busy] work.”
It can be hard to feel secure in a recession. Nearly impossible to feel secure when on strike. The material conditions so many of us are in right now are not exactly great for the delicate work of divesting from capitalism.
But then, what is a “right” time? If not now, when?
Working all the time is not advisable nor ideal for our emotional, mental, spiritual, or physical health. We are in the early days of winter, after all. The trees are shedding their leaves here in the Northern Hemisphere, and so are we.
It is a New Moon in Scorpio, with Mars, the super-active planet ruling this moon, sat close to the lunation (at 22*), and disruptive, electric Uranus in Taurus opposed it, and so the inspiration to work (and overwork) this week, especially with that Mars cazimi is high. But the key is intention. Working intentionally. Working thoughtfully. Setting hours. Thinking, in advance, about what is “enough.”
And acknowledging that:
Everything we want to do is not always possible in this exact moment. Sometimes, the work has to develop. Sometimes, we do.
Things take the time they take, as Mary Oliver writes, but also: we are sometimes not as resourced as we should be for the efforts we desire to undertake — which will bear out in the long run.
Pacing is the way to finish the marathon. But so is having trained for it in the first place. And training takes time.
The scorpion of Scorpio season can sting with the truth. But it is also an invitation to longevity.
After all, we’re all in this together.
There are more of us than there are of them. Power in solidarity.
And, on a very personal level, you don’t have to make art alone. The lies fed to us by the institutions — don’t believe them.
Witness the impact of the writers’ and actors’ strikes: A rising tide lift all boats.
Writing Prompts for the New Moon in Scorpio
What are you beginning during this New Moon? What projects, ideas, relationships, commitments feel new, or like rebirths? What strategies or plans are you making? How are you pacing yourself?
Where has your creative energy and attention been these days? If you’ve been consistently pulled away from what you want to be doing, what is the motivation, or fear? (Money is a real reason!) Check in with yourself about where your attention is, and why.
What projects, ideas, or desires have been hanging on by a thread that may need to be let go of?
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oooof this is so relatable. most of my 20s and early 30s were spent working at a startup while hustling on 1-3 side projects. I remember feeling physically ill at the idea of unplugging / being away from my computer for an extended period of time. stepping away from the tech mentality of "growth at all costs" was actually dysregulating for my nervous system at first! I'm so grateful we are having these discussions more openly. it's so validating 🤍