Fire, Walk With Me

Aries Full Moon (and almost eclipse!)

TW: Discussions about alcoholism, physical/emotional violence, manipulation, betrayal trauma, SA, incest + spoilers ahead.

The Aries-Libra Axis has a hook into my own Inner Teen lore, its love for a curse to overcome perhaps the spark of the arc. Like the Inner Child, the Inner Teen needs healing, too, though very rarely is this concept noted in psych or social circles. As a teen witchy femme to an androgynous twink for a short time, I was hunted by the eyes of men regardless of presentation, their gaze an air of threat in itself. I found “safety” with a rather effeminate older “boyfriend” whom I dated on and off for 7 years, half of high school and most of college. Though he provided haven from others, he also was an enclosure. His tantrums never became physical, but the toxic masculinity he poised to call out around him was a poison deeply seeped within. Allyship as projection with just better means to hide it… among other creepy cruxes in his coffin.

The soft boy wields guilt like a floral knife…

My “first love” LOVED mind-games, tests of loyalty, sharp but sweet insults undercutting my still-forming sense of self. When we FINALLY broke up, we didn’t speak for 2 years; I hated him for it yet felt an extreme loss as if shaking an addiction. He returned amicable and for a decade we were punks who lunched, seemingly “close” yet his weird periods of isolation a mystery. Over time a more aggressive version of his judgmental self would peek out. He BECAME what he supposedly stood against, a voyeur, a critic, a generalizing jerk not unfamiliar to the colonizers he loathed. His cruel side leaked onto unsuspecting witnesses and it became clear alcohol fueled his tirades.

It was easier to say he was a “mean drunk”, but there was so much more to his cruelty, layered in confusion.

Bringing up painful parts of people’s pasts with a side dish of character assassination, casually presented in front of others in order to humiliate us, became his frequent M.O. He was harvesting our pain, a personal power he held over us. He started collecting internet art girls to love-bomb from afar, idealizing others while blowing up our phones with insults (and being called “fat” or a “slut” by a self-proclaimed male feminist was barely the worst of it). Mr. Hyde and Dr. Jekyll with an audience for each. Though occasionally he was spotted in the liquor store parking lot at opening, he mostly disappeared for days at a time. After one particularly radio silent week, some of his DM darlings were concerned as to why he had not been online AT ALL…

He drank himself to death and died alone, only his records and books and cats around him.

For the last year of his life, I did not speak to him. I do not regret having to put up boundaries to protect myself from being his long-term sacrificial lamb, subjected to harsh psychological toying purposefully designed to make me question not just my own worth but my own mind. Gaslit to the max, his treatment towards me ironically seeped into my own alcoholism. The irony that we got shit-faced at his memorial service… I did not allow myself to truly mourn him until 5 years after his death. This time of year is particularly hard for me as November marks the death-versaries of 3 of my closest friends.

The postmortem secrets uncovered between all the girlfriends, paramours and tour trysts were a shock to process in itself. J lived a double-life, a jealous Fire Sign masterful at psychological manipulation. At the same time, he was not always a villain… Perhaps the memory of a kinder, goofy, creative, extremely talented musician and songwriter that I DID love fiercely once upon a time as a young adult was why I dealt with his cruelty. He was capable of being very tender and generous but something had changed, burning thru his core self, as if he was under a curse. And the incubation of a curse can unfurl in strange ways at strange times.

I do know that curses are part of a longer thread of a story, a cycle. I had become cursed, too. I am still un-doing the curse left on me.

Haunted, refusing to speak of his own trauma that stemmed from a younger age thus becoming intertwined with his own terror... my ex did not know how to ask for support. He was not able to separate from his attack-mode alcoholism. At times it seemed he wished his closest confidantes to be psychic somehow, that part of his tormenting was just to receive a reaction that he was “cared for”. Arguments were, after all, more engagement than abandonment. Unrest lurking underneath, he would not let us in. He would destroy us if we got too close to noting the problem. As remarks raged, fueled by bourbon or a past colleague’s success, his defensiveness overrode the honesty needed to note the root of his illness and get the help he needed.

Hurt people hurt people.

What posed as safe ACTUALLY embodied intrinsic damage and destruction to myself and others, betrayal trauma by definition. Though I understand his cruelty, cloaked in hidden intention, was sourced from inner child (AND teen) wounds, his festered shamed and resentment created Hell on Earth for me, an even younger teen jumping thru hoops to understand him. Early romantic situations or even family of origin relations with shrouded psych-punishment at the core can eventually lodge into the mind; suddenly conflict equates just another part of “love”. The reactions, the “fighting back”, was attention that proved he was still centered by us. Yes, the alcoholism killed his body but it was the rage that destroyed his will to want to be of this Earth, attempting to take down everyone around him in the process.

David Lynch’s theatrical fervor for the duality of Good and Evil was a pointed topic in Twin Peaks. The split between Laura Palmer, the Black AND White Lodge, Leland and Mike re: BOB were all examples of duality incarnate, further explored between the Coopers in The Return. Understanding the “passing down” of hellfire, complexly symbolized through “possessions”, the sexual abuse in Leland’s bloodline, particularly of incest in childhood, is implied to have led to the very same horrors against his daughter. How BOB “takes a host” through familial entities is a subject of intense analysis by TP fans but if any singular concept is clear, it would be that inter-generational abuse is a curse on families AND the people close to the affected.

In the end, Laura Palmer’s self-destruction and willingness to perish relates to the burden on women to end ancestral trauma.

WHAT: Aries Full Super Hunter’s Moon (& ALMOST eclipse)

WHEN: Thursday October 17, 2024 7:26 AM EST

THEME: As the old saying goes, “Resentment is like Drinking Poison & Waiting For Your Enemies to Die”

Anger is agentic; it can move us towards change for better or worse. When we deconstruct our fear of the implications of anger itself, when detach from the idea that anger is always negative, uprooting the shame around it. Anger is a natural response to threat and harm yet meeting this emotion of such a bad reputation becomes an overwhelm regardless of one’s view. The issue is not typically the anger but the externalization OR internalization of it; some outward presentations esp. if violent are, of course, socially shunned. Deeply-lodged pain with intense shame that creates a rage one does not have means to find justice for, such as that stemmed from abuse within family of origin, manifests as a mixture of anxiety and anger and is hard to let go of.

Many people do not know what to do with the experiences they have been inflicted by so they carry this heavy burden without a clue of when they will be able to release it. At some point this curse can temporarily define a person, eating them alive with addiction and risky behaviors as they do for the archetype of such secrecy, shame and pain as the character Laura Palmer represents. As melodramatic and weird as Lynch’s TV work is, we are drawn to Laura’s story is because she, as a victim, exemplified how coping with secrets leads to an intensive duality of her own self-harm and cruelty to others. Laura’s cries for help, laughing it off the next day, is the very dynamic American-culture expects of victims: to deny and deal, privately heal while keeping up the “good girl” facade, shoving down horrific secrets.

Tethering heavy themes in social structures, the entire town of Twin Peaks is somewhat aware of various characters complicit in the abuse of SO MANY women and Lynch puts a shaky yet screaming spotlight on this much avoided topic worthy of examination IRL. One thread so obvious and yet not often discussed about the series is the cycle of abuse: sometimes those who have been abused become abusers, whether to others or to themselves. When we do not have the space to express our truths and therefore move in and out of situations that perpetuate physical or emotional violence, it is no surprise we may cave in on ourselves or easily find ourselves in attack mode, too, constantly activated and on the defense.

Victimization as an identity is not a simplistic subject and I could not attempt to even scratch the surface of it here just as all the other topics mentioned in this post are incredibly brief and non-conclusive. I do know that denying the reality of trauma will come out in many other ways, typically in some kind of illness or behavior that is difficult to navigate. Looking at how resentment does not serve us, yet instead can be like swallowing a pill and hoping for the other party to die… At some point we have to be honest with ourselves and know we have become responsible for our own healing. We can also know there are people around us who can help. In a society that wants us to hide our emotions, the most difficult feelings around long-term struggle are often the ones we bury the most, only for it to consume us in the end.

As Aries energy relates to its ruler Mars, the Red Planet of Combat and Chaos, Cardinal Fire unsurprisingly can stoke the root chakra as it relates to the basic needs of survival: to maintain safety, an underlying motivation of the Aries origin story. Yes, there is divine discovery of the spark, the creative will, the autonomous edge, but the fire itself that allows warmth AND warning to keep the body alive. Aries’ color is Red, a shade highly interpreted in art, psychology and marketing due to its powerful potency. My personal favorite use of this color in pop culture is in The Red Room of Twin Peaks:

“It’s always important to note an overabundance of a certain color in a dream. Red is the color of anger, inner passion and, yes, blood. But adding the red curtains to the mix further defines its dream meaning. The curtains don’t only hide views of the outside to those inside. More importantly, they prevent others from seeing in. If, as stated above, the room represents Cooper’s inner self and the red represents his anger or passion, a red room with curtains symbolizes his inner anger and/or passion that he doesn’t want others to see.”

From The Wrap by Rosemary Rossi

Reactionary behavior can speak heavily to the root of suffering rather than an actual situation.

How our past informs our sense of protection creates a fine line in the building of a wall of judgment. Primal projections drive our insecurities, which also deserve a chance to be deconstructed… as long as harsh truths can be met with accountability. As a time of pause rather than planning, learning to be soft is just important as the ability to be strong. Aries in its shadow side is suffocated by vulnerability and as the perceived picture of destruction and death that fire can bring. Dealing with the Demons inside of us is a battle of the heart.

So we do not become what has hurt us in the Past, eaten alive with Anger, we must wade through the negative self-beliefs that only serve to sever us from the Joy of true human connection and above all, connection to ourselves. In grave timing, we gather wood to build a scathing bright fire to burn through our self-doubt and free us (as much as possible) from the struggles we have cycled through, without delusion or denial, moving forward to create a better path, knowing we deserve love and healing. No easy task, but a worthy adventure that could perhaps save us in the end.

Arcs of the Aries Full Moon:

• October 2024’s Aries Full Moon is ALMOST an Eclipse, but not quite. The Earth’s shadow just BARELY misses the moon! Yet similar shadowy tension looms in the near wrap of a year-and-a-half long path. Aries’ last major lunar thread (for a long while) will take place on March 29, 2025 at 00′ for a sensational Solar Eclipse. Winter encourages going inward to sit with perspectives about ourselves AND others as it relates to our own origin stories re: grief, trauma, violence, power dynamics and so on.

• Considering the Aries North Node in the Aries-Libra Axis of Self-Relationship, heightened by its status of nearly being an Eclipse, further subject matter re: how we have defined ourselves in relation to our Past may be a pressing topic as we grow out of this Nodal narrative. What this means to you is incredibly personal and subjective. How have we allowed our experiences with others define how we see ourselves?

• The Full Moon in Aries will be conjunct Chiron Rx in Aries. Independence vs. insecurity is a HUGE wound that may be pressed during this time but great rewards re: deep inner work around shame, humiliation and hurt can result. The Spring Aries New Moon was also conjunct Chiron and our Museletter for that time may be helpful. Feeling silenced or neglecting to tend to a festering wound are both themes that are helped with Chiron’s presence while in the Cardinal Fire.

• Chiron Rx in Aries will end on December 29th. We still have time to continuously work on the aforementioned themes and this Aries Full Moon is NOT recommended for reactionary emo-vom, even though we encourage gentle speaking of truth! There’s just some intensity that one may not be able to undo with these astro-energies - EEK! The Nov/Dec Mercury Rx in fiery Sagittarius will be helpful to further undo some of the damaging narratives and negative self-talk we have held onto. Be on the lookout for the Mercury Rx Guide: Holidaze-edition, available to paid Substack friends and Patrons who keep this Moon Museletter afloat.

• In positive tomes, Aries has a Warrior Spirit with confidence and curiosity unmatched. Occurring about a week after Pluto goes direct in Capricorn, this Full Moon can shine clarity on a fear we need to conquer in our shadow realm in order to strengthen our foundation and sense of Self. There is a need to develop an active “healing” plan to move forward, a series of spiritual steps and mood maintenance to move through.

• In detriment, Aries always unleashes one agreed-upon theme: Anger. Anger not dealt with can find itself doomed to live as a perpetual shield of protection, yet when processed can harbor a wisdom that resonates with compassion even when unwilling to compromise. Anger itself is NOT bad. The front of Anger not explored further, fearing the vulnerable “why”s and “how”s and “when”s underneath, is what becomes the sickness.

• Aries-Libra pushes-and-pulls in its Self-Relationship arc, potential co-dependency, autonomy issues and power struggle flaring up on this Axis. In Libran lore especially, attachment theory and what we do to elicit the response we want from others OR how we act out when we perceive a threat (seen in either game-playing AND stonewalling, aggression AND ghosting) is another aspect to be especially aware of. PROTEST BEHAVIORS have been huge theme for my marriage in the past year and the concept around attachment theory can really make one think. We’ll keep exploring this for Scorpio Season and beyond, but if you’ve not looked into attachment theory yet, highly suggest doing so!

• Venus in Scorpio sextiles Pluto in Capricorn, empowering to go after what we want in a relationship (romantic, sexual, business, pleasure, whatever) situation. Ensuring these shadowy placements in deeply desire-filled planets are up to par with HEALTHY realms of want is half the battle but the Aries Full Moon gives us an extra oomph of willpower to imagine what connection could look like and how our Future could come aglow from alliances that are mutually beneficial with respected boundaries.

• Later in the day, Venus will move into Sagittarius, injecting the last days of Libra Season and much of Scorpio Season with a sense of philosophical high-jinks, relentless fun and cheer-leader positivity. Depending on which way your scale tips, there’s always work to do in the arena of appreciating ourselves and others and Venusian Sagittarius adds an inquisitive exploration with a good heap of good ol’ gratitude to its 3-week period in the Sign.

In honor of the Aries-Libra youth lore as related to teen demon/savior femme fairytales, we have reprinted the AnarchAngel zine. Tis the season! Image above from AnarchAngel by digital artist and Scorpio Sun Cait Lamas. Main collage image, artist unknown, found on Reddit.

Super thanks to Curious Elixirs for a Sober October product sponsorship, providing adaptogenic non-alcoholic options for our upcoming SYMPOSIUM poetry + party with special solo set by Rose Hotel.