the week of march 23, 2025 (with beyoncé)

and a meditation on "american requiem"

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all times are eastern

If there was a song to describe the astrology of this week, it’d be the first track off of Beyoncé’s AOTY-winning Cowboy Carter.

“American Requiem” brings us back to Beyoncé’s CMA performance of “Daddy Lessons” with The Chicks, asking to a restless, rude crowd: can you hear me?

This is a song that announces the intention to sing and create in spite of the critics. (Can you hear me? Can you feel me?) That directly addresses the hate — can you stand me? — and pivots into a more communal invitation, can you stand with me? can you stand for something?

That directly asks what it is to be country — to be of a place. What it is to belong. As someone who grew up blue collar, working class between rural farm country Iowa and the northwoods of Wisconsin, and ended up running in academic circles in Boston and then literary circles in New York, the lines Used to say I spoke too country / then the rejection came, said I wasn’t country enough can (and often do) make me cry. When I first moved to Wisconsin from Iowa, my middle school classmates asked what part of the South I’d come from since to them, my country accent sounded Southern. And then when I went back to college in Iowa, having picked up the more nasally inflections of a northern Great Lakes state, my freshman year roommate relentlessly criticized my accent. Same thing happened when I ended up in graduate school in Boston, surrounded mostly by folks from one of the coasts.

For years, indoctrinated by ideas of “professionalism,” I drilled the blend of Iowa drawl and nasally Wisconsin ehhs, pronouncing words like “bay-g, tay-g”, out of my speech — only to find myself far on the other end of the spectrum, where I was in a position of having to explicitly claim my roots, since I was no longer visibly identifiable as “Country.” Said I wasn’t country enough.

Sometimes, the value of those abandoned parts of Self only become clear once we have lost them. The parts of ourselves we try to edit to fit into the box of what seems acceptable in a particular context. The way the emphasis on fitting in and avoiding scrutiny means shaving off that which makes us interesting and unique and specific to a place and time.

“American Requiem” is a statement of purpose. A statement of intent. It ultimately asks, If that ain’t country, tell me what is / Plant my bare feet on solid ground for years / They don’t know how hard I had to fight for this / When I sing my song.

This week’s astrology asks us, as artists, to get clear on what we stand for, what we are willing to fight for.

Whether it’s your art, or your people, or your place: this week is about getting very clear on your intent and desires. The fight is hard, and so the intent must be crystalline.

all times are eastern

Monday, March 24th