the new moon in virgo for writers

on sovereignty, evangelicalism, and ritual

First, some news! We are officially less than two months from the release day of my debut memoir, Heretic, which was just included on Electric Literature’s Most Anticipated LGBTQ+ Books for Fall 2022. Novelist and former Oprah Magazine books editor Michelle Hart wrote, “Within these pages, Kadlec combines revelatory personal narratives with assiduous cultural criticism, Midwestern wonder with intellectual vigor, to explore how some of the social and spiritual functions of religion can be both abhorrent and illuminative of a new path forward.” Insert sobbing emoji here. 

I’ve also got some events coming up! As a former theater kid, I do love a good Q&A, and I especially love meeting new, like-minded people. You, maybe? Would love to see all y’all NYC and Boston folks at one of the following (and Midwesterners, I am hoping to make my way out to you soon!): 

• September 1st: Reading at The Rally with Ruth Mukwana and Megan Culhane Galbraith (in person; vax required). Pete’s Candy Store, Brooklyn, 7-8:30pm EST.

• September 25th-October 3rd: Brooklyn Book Festival (details TBA; in person).

• October 25th: Heretic Book Launch at Books Are Magic, in conversation with Maud Newton (in person and live-streamed on YouTube; mask & vax required). Brooklyn, 7pm EST.

  • tickets required; purchase here

• November 3rd: Heretic reading & conversation at Porter Square Books (details TBA; in person). Cambridge, Mass, 7pm EST.

Content warning: this letter includes discussion of (evangelical) religious trauma as well as mention of some of the more violent rhetoric in the news around LGBTQ+ folks. Take care of you. 

Xx,

Jeanna

---

Virgo energy is sometimes confusing to modern folks, symbolized as the sign is by the Virgin. But, as longtime practitioners of astrology know, the ancients considered virginity a little differently. Virginity was the quality of belonging to oneself. To embody Virgo energy is to embody the quality of Ancient Rome’s vestal Virgins: women devoted to tending the sacred fire, who belonged to themselves and had forsworn belonging to any other. Women who, when I imagine them, know entirely who they are. 

I grew up in a religion that relied on me not knowing who I was. That taught me how to surveil myself as the sky god above surveilled his creation, that named this self-surveillance the “holy spirit.” That taught me that feelings within me which were dissonant with the teachings of our faith — what others may label gut instinct or intuition — were sin. Do not listen to your body; your body is sinful. You are a daughter of Eve, and you bear her curse and her inheritance. 

My body could not be trusted. My mind could not be trusted. Everything must be filtered through the church, through the Bible, through what my mother said was godly. I was a sinner. I had fallen short. I was not worthy. I was depraved. I was a child — four, five, six years old — repeating this. Then ten, eleven, twelve. Sixteen, seventeen, eighteen. Twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two. On and on it went, this denial of self, of intuition, of my own body’s knowledge. 

God knows better. Pastor knows better. Father knows better. Husband knows better. I do not know. I am in college, and I do not know. I am getting a Women’s Studies degree, and I do not know. I am in graduate school, and I do not know. 

So many times, I am sick with denial, my body in hindsight obviously, violently rejecting the ways I tried to break myself into pieces in order to fit into smaller and smaller boxes. Undiagnosed depression and anxiety. Mysterious illnesses throughout college and my twenties that stumped every doctor. A debilitating panic attack the night before my wedding that I cannot remember, but that my mother and sister both tell me I had. 

Until I couldn’t deny myself anymore. 

I filed for divorce, and still, my husband, my pastors, and almost everyone around me insisted that I did not know myself or my own mind. 

*

The idea that a woman could possibly be sovereign within her own body — could belong to herself solely, without accountability to husband or father or spiritual authority or sky god — is not only foreign to evangelical Christianity, the chosen religion of white fascists, it is antithetical to their very belief system. Impossible to consider, that a woman could choose to leave her husband. Heretical, at the bare minimum. And to be queer or trans is to be so outside of the bounds of their god’s purported “plan” as not even be heretical, but flat-out blasphemous.

Understand: there is no space for us within their world. 

There is no reasoning with a people who believe that the simple notion that your body belongs to you condemns you to eternal damnation. 

There is no middle ground with a people who believe that your very existence is sinful.

Evangelicals and Republicans have long since abandoned any subtlety, the conversations about how “sinful” and “shameful” homosexuality was that — when I was growing up — were had behind closed doors or solely from the pulpit to congregations in the days before social media. They have long been laying the groundwork with anti-trans legislation targeting trans kids’ access to healthcare and education, and are now building in hateful rhetoric around “grooming” that has already led to the closing of several public libraries and the challenging of numerous books and even a disturbing court case in Virginia around booksellers themselves. This summer has seen increasing public calls from GOP politicians and their lackeys for the execution of LGBTQ+ people and for the institution of concentration camps without impunity. And the silence of faith leaders is all the endorsement their followers need to hear. 

*

So, the New Moon in Virgo, which is exact at 4:17am Eastern Saturday, August 27th. We are headed into fall, which, here in the United States, means election season. We are preparing. Gathering our resources, as Virgo, so associated with the harvest, does. 

What we tend, as communities and as a nation, is being illuminated. What we prioritize. What we put our energy into. Who we invest in. Who we listen to. Which voices we amplify. It is too often assumed in astrological, tarot, New Age, etc. circles that the world trends “good,” which is to say, what readers agree with. That positivity and acceptance will win out without much effort on our parts. I’m of a mind that energy is neutral, the world is neutral, astrology is neutral, and everything around us can be used for good or ill. Witness plants that can be used medicinally but, in too heavy of doses, are poisonous.

From another angle, intention and good thoughts are all well and good, but — not to quote the Bible here — faith without works is dead. The spiritual must work in tandem with the physical.

This New Moon is an opportunity to mindfully plant seeds around your own sovereignty, around your communities’ ability to continue to belong to itself. Virgo loves a ritual, and so ritual work (solo or group) is absolutely called for here. Rituals don’t have to be elaborate; they can be small. These can be explicitly spiritual in nature. They can also be things like bringing food to your community fridge.

In the United States, we are being reminded, constantly, that our ability to belong to ourselves is under threat, and that we must continue to fight for it. That we cannot take it for granted. 

*

I’m not going to lie: I don’t really feel like doing a ritual today. I’m tired. I’ve had a migraine almost every day for the last two weeks. But if growing up in the church taught me anything, it was that anger is motivating and ritual — however “small” — is potent.

kiki smith’s “lilith”, which features prominently in HERETIC, and which i also have a tattoo of

It is powerful, to become a woman who knows exactly who you are.

It is powerful, to unapologetically become the thing you were taught to fear.

---

Writing Prompts for the New Moon in Virgo

• What are you harvesting? What are you planting? Where/are you experiencing friction between the two?

• If you are American, how are you processing // feeling about // handling the state of the country right now? What has been helpful for you and yours when it comes to absorbing // limiting news? Virgo is also about how we sort, parse, and organize — this may be a good time to re-evaluate how you are sifting through your newsfeeds, inboxes, and alerts.

• How do you belong to yourself? What feels empowering about this? What feels challenging about this? What stories do you have around this?

---

P.S. If you haven’t yet, I would so appreciate you considering pre-ordering Heretic. Pre-orders are an enormous help in indicating general interest to publishers! You can also request Heretic from your local library. <3