Storms, Shifts, and Standing for Love
My heart has been heavy. The violence in the news lately has been overwhelming – here in the U.S. with Charlie Kirk’s assassination in Utah, the murder of a Democratic lawmaker and her husband (and dog!) in Minnesota, and nearly one hundred school shootings already this year. And it’s not just here – lives are being lost in Gaza, across the Middle East, in Nepal, and Ukraine. Grief is everywhere. I mourn for those lives lost across the globe.
I didn’t share Charlie Kirk’s values; in fact, most of his words stood in direct opposition to my own. He dismissed empathy, defended violence, and spoke in ways that harmed. And yet, the darkly ironic whisper of karma my Scorpio heart can’t help but notice: his death by the very weapon he championed is both sobering and – dare I say – fitting. Still, it is a life lost, a family grieving, another turn in the endless cycle of violence.
What this moment reminds me is how urgent it is to live into what we believe in – to double down on connection, on safe spaces, on beauty, on radical self-love. To create communities where we can rage, grieve, hope, and remember that revolution doesn’t have to mirror the old scripts of violence. It can look like clarity, compassion, and courage.
Astrology as Context, Not Cause
Astrology can provide context to help us make sense of events – to glimpse the energies alive beneath them. Not prediction, not excuse, but reflection.
In mundane astrology (the collective view), the sky reflects upheaval:
⚡ Pluto newly in Aquarius – breakdown and revolution, the death rattle of old systems built on domination and fear.
🌊 Saturn retrograde in Pisces – unfinished lessons, the work of healing what dissolves and what endures.
🔥 Neptune in early Aries – the blurring of illusion and inspiration at the threshold of action.
🌬️ Uranus in Gemini – disruption in how we think, speak, and connect.
All four outer planets are clustered between 29° and 2°, aspecting each other – mirroring the intensity we feel, and the profound shifts shaping both our personal and collective lives. Add Mars in Libra – acting as a trigger, sparking conflict and pressing us to reckon with justice, peace, and partnership.
Collectively, we’re in a storm of breakdown and revolution. These are revolutionary times, and not in the abstract – we see it in our headlines, our streets, our nervous systems. The death rattle of old systems is real – but so is the possibility of new ways of living, new structures, new ways of being together.
Astrology doesn’t dictate what must happen; it’s a mirror of the possibilities available to us. In the same way, these collective transits don’t force outcomes – but they do ask us to choose how we engage, both individually and together.
The Personal Within the Collective
As my father often said: Mundane interpretations are applicable worldwide. They are for all of us, but not each of us. We live within the mundane sphere, “the space in the world,” as well as within the counter-currents – the personal eddies shown by our own charts, often of more immediate concern.
This is where personal astrology comes in. The collective transits may set the weather, but each of us experiences them differently – through the houses, aspects, and stories of our own charts. Naming where Pluto is reshaping your life, or how Saturn is calling you to grow, can shift the experience from chaos to clarity.
✨ This is why I practice astrology: not prediction, but participation. A way to navigate the storm with more awareness, more agency, and more hope.
You Witch Your Way
Last weekend, at a Deep Body Temple retreat with my dear friend Michelle of NeuroSomaTransformations, I was reminded of the wisdom of trees: life is a process, always evolving. Always cycling through season and change. No final arriving, no perfect turning out. Only absorbing what you need, blooming when it’s time, bearing fruit, letting go, resting, beginning again. Roots reaching down, branches stretching upward – nourished by light and dark alike, from above and below, within and without. Trust that wherever you are in your process is perfect.
“You witch your way” isn’t just a cute phrase. It’s a way of life. It means honoring your own rhythm, your own path, your own truth, as long as it harms no one. A core principle. It means listening for wisdom wherever it comes – even from the oaks.
And let’s be clear: not everything counts as “truth.” You can believe strawberries are the key to enlightenment if you like. But Chad, white supremacy isn’t an opinion. Intolerance, oppression, tyranny, misogyny, patriarchy, racism, Christian nationalism – these are not valid paths. They are the very things we must refuse space for if we’re serious about love and liberation, for ourselves and the world.
What matters is this: your life doesn’t have to look like anyone else’s. Love who, and what you love. You don’t have to follow every trending portal date or cosmic fad. You can dance in your kitchen, sit in silence, cry at your desk, or listen to the whispers of the oaks . What matters is that it’s yours – your rhythm, your truth, your magic.
And in times like these, it matters even more to turn toward what sustains us: to seek joy, beauty, and connection. To love our people fiercely. To lean into family and chosen family. To dance and sing. To make art. To let the earth ground us.
A Line in the Sand
At the heart of it all is love and acceptance – of self, of each other, of our messy, miraculous humanness. We don’t have to fit in to belong. We belong because we are here. You are valid because you exist.
That is the line I draw in the sand, the truth I will defend like a mama bear protecting her cubs.
With love and magic,
Jinnifer