I t wa s t h e s um m e r o f r e a di n g r e a l l y we i r d c o nt e nt . It
w a s a na t ur a l j u m p f r o m th e a d vi c e c olu mn s t a rge te d t ow a r d s m i d dl e a ge d m u m s t o w e e k l y h oro s c o p e s f e a t ur e d o n t h e s a m e w e b s i t e s . I a p p r o a c h e d t he m i n a s c e pt i c a l m a t t e r s o i t w a s f i n e . I ’ d b e e n l o o k i n g a t A m r i t B ra r ’ s a l t e r na t i ve ho r o s c o pe s s i nc e I w a s a b ou t s i x t e e n, s o I k n e w ho r o s c o p e s we r e j u s t a n o t h e r l a ng u a ge o pe ra t i n g i n t h e w o rl d . I ’ d fa l l e n s o i n l o ve wi t h A m r i t B ra r ’ s i l l u s t ra t i o n t ha t I a s k e d t he m t o d e s i gn a t a t t o o f o r m e . A f t e r ge t t i n g t ha t bi g m e rm a i d s ke l e t on o n my t h i gh , my s e c o n d l a rge s c a l e t a t t o o w a s e x p l i c i t l y z od i a c t he m e d : b l i n d - f o l d e d L a dy J u s t i c e c l ut c hi n g h e r s c a l e s . My na m e i s C l a i r e a n d I a m a L i b ra . T h i n k i ng a bo u t a s t ro l o gy m a d e m e p ut my s e l f fi r s t , t h i n k a b o u t w h a t i m a ge s I w a n t e d e t c he d o n my s k i n f o r e ve r, re fl e c t o n h o w I a p p r o a c h e d e a c h w e e k, a n d w h a t s t re n g t hs a n d w e a k ne s s e s o f my pe r s o na l i t y a r e s o no r m a l a n d h um a n t ha t t h e y c a n be di s t i l l e d i n t o on e of t we l ve z o di a c s i g n s. I a m
i mm e n s e l y c o m f o r t e d by s t a r s . I d o n ’ t n e c e s sa r ily n e e d y o u t o s ha re t h i s i nt e re s t . B u t , i n t h i s fi n a l m o nt h of 2 0 1 7 , w h i c h w a s l i v e d ou t m o s t l y u n de r re t r og r a de M e r c u ry ( 3 r d - 2 2 n d D e c e m b e r ) , I c o l l e c t e d s u b m i s s i o n s f o r T h e Zo d i a c Zi n e . T h i s i s t he re s u l t a n d I t hi n k i t ’ s f u c k i ng g re a t . S e e y o u i n t he i n t he ne xt r e v ol u t i o n o f t hi s pl a ne t a r o u n d t h e s t a r we c a l l t he s u n ! c l ai re s o s i e ns k i s m i t h
- emrys travis
- joel james
WITCHCRAFT UNDER LATE CAPITALISM We need to be aware of buying into a commodified, consumer-friendly spirituality. The commodification of spirituality often benefits young white entrepreneurs while using the practices of native populations, the diaspora of these cultures, and other approaches to holistic living such as yoga or meditation from the global south. It becomes a debate about cultural appropriation or appreciation, how we navigate a diffuse and transient global society. The holistic approaches to living found through spiritual teachings prioritize increased awareness. So don’t flake out when it comes to attuning yourself to a critical approach of whether what you engage with helps or harms the people who created the content in the first place. Be aware of where your money goes if you are choosing to invest in expensive spiritual practices. Be aware that you do have to pay/trade for spiritual practices: you can’t get tarot readings for free, because it’s labour that should be respected. Tarot comes from a card game first recorded in courtly France, so is not culturally appropriative, but the work of readers needs to be respected. An awareness of where and how you operate in the power dynamics of how people in affluent places learnt about New Age spirituality is essential. I’m still in the process of educating myself on this history, which can be violent and incomplete. Layla Saad on her blog Wild Mystic Woman says “If your spirituality is restricted to only help ing you and the people who can afford your services to ‘ascend’ and live better lives, then your spir ituality is self-serving and dripping in privi lege. […] It means that if your spend hours of your day doing all the spiritual practices that get you
into alignment, but you won’t spend time speaking out, protesting, volunteering, donating or any other small or big acts of radical action, then you are still stuck in the old paradigm. You’re in the paradigm that says this doesn’t apply to me and this is someone else’s responsibility.” 1 Acknowledge your part in, and commit to undoing complicity in spiritual practices which whitewash complex histories. Yoga, meditation, and knowledge about chakras do not exist outside of the dynamics of privilege and oppression. Neither do we. - claire sosienski smith TL/DR: recognise white privilege in new age spirituality 1
Layla Saad, ‘Rise of the Priestess Activist, 30/01/17, www.wildmysticwoman.com
the stars say you’re obsessed with the zodiac as a misguided coping mechanism, a playlist by claire sosienski smith on spotify
voodoo child (slight return) – jimi hendrix white rabbit – jefferson airplane candle – sonic youth waking the witch – kate bush war drums – SBTRKT, warpaint a forest – the cure the killing moon – echo & the bunnymen i wanna be a witch – julia brown gods & monsters – lana del rey witch – (sandy) alex g starman – david bowie
she wolf – shakira 25 – the courtneys cry little sister – g tom mac witchy woman – eagles disturbia – rihanna burn the witch – queens of the stone age satellite of love – lou reed howl – florence + the machine underneath the stars – the cure hungry like the wolf – duran duran spellbound – siouxsie and the banshees somebody’s watching me – rockwell scary monsters (and super creeps) – david bowie feyd rautha dark heart – grimes black magic – magic wands brujas – princess nokia zombie – the cranberries sacrilege – yeah yeah yeahs soft sounds from another planet – japanese breakfast new heaven, new earth – elvis depressedly ghost town – the specials violet – hole my body’s made of crushed little stars – mitski
the moon – cat power sisters of the moon – fleetwood mac charlotte sometimes – the cure spell – patti smith
cn: depression
“
People are always so keen to criticise astrology and the occult with their arguments coming from a cold and often unrealistic perception of luck, or rather lack of luck. But often the same people keep things like ‘lucky’ objects, such as charms, or amulets, pictures… you name it! And having these seem to indeed make one more ambitious and confident to perform better at tasks like exams, and job interviews. In fact the study of astrology can genuinely provide this self-efficacy in your life too: to paraphrase Andrew Solomon, a professor of clinical psychology at Columbia University, if you read somewhere that standing on your head is a cure for all your problems then if you have a disease like cancer then sure it might make you feel better but not make the cancer go away - but say you had depression instead and standing on your head makes you feel better, then actually you have just solved the problem. Astrology provides both a wide array of continually refreshing goals that might inspire you to keep this self-fulfilling prophecy going as well as the psychological network to make one face difficult issues more easily - as well as being really quite fun!”
”
(from one of my favourite virgos, Fred Bertani)
- caitlin carr
I’ve got tonsillitis and I love you at half one I can take more pain killers: and the surface of my mocha is agitated into blue. the air is freezing, it feels solid on my eyes, the cold kisses my hand scar flushed red as lips move forward and trace my teeth. you always told me the only true pattern was just that, fading red left by tracing fingers flung out in the cold, when the air magnifies marks that heat blurs. and the wild cat never really existed before the wolf and blue hardly knew itself before green. lion rising its muzzle to a goat climbing the steepest rock on the moon, and if you don’t like the goat the lion can eat him, though I think he’s dandy. the time of another has never been more mutual: metaphors innumerable, the more the more succinct, like when Petrarch saw flesh supported in tree and vine only more because I know that already: dual rivers, wine and flesh, coffee and chocolate. I know because I know. nine o’clock at mine: eyelids at three quarters, forty-five degree turns, perfectly positioned to spot a chaos they are certain. and the eyes of a wild cat over foggy dew morning cold and steep no prey this one eats berries but it has to a lot to make its eyes, amber glow. and her, gleeful your unconscious is sun kissed: sun bounces off my freckles and makes a pallid constellation, light brown like a cow and milky. and they say or I suppose I do that behaviours are passed down
like jeans, worn and ruddy but patched up and switched on into familial denim. so when I saw your back arch, I didn’t know if it was just you or your mother, or her mother, or hers, though I’m sure that an act so graceful must be carved in generations. Romeo, we’re a mutual crescendo: just for fun writing out and seeing sparks: paper pas pur, line break hurt a phrase and simile as a wild smile. though the image of you is so beauteous I’m sprawling back over my definitions to find something as comlych as thou, though that came close, soft tongue licked to satisfied mouth pulse and you’re kinda like the time I mixed coffee and chocolate: smooth and alert but not to the point of agitated pacing, sending ibuprofen down a mauve valley itchy throat purrs content, and I see in that folk melody the busker hums out in skits of temporal wild fire my slavic cheek bones stretched into tartan pulled tight around your thighs, strung faint but the lonesome fife in green fields turned blood red and thrashing in the morning, precisely. curiosity killed the cat: though it sent the dog bouncing off the walls and you’re a wild cat so I guess the fall will be a thrill not a kill. and if we could weaponize ecstatic our minds, if we could mouth pulsate out clarity shock off the dust and poetry could be our truths then the stars would align, and our solar dynasty would outshine. - joel james
claire and joel, photo taken by tom andersson
dreamboy my obsession with Lucyszyn my dancefloor date my Romeo Romeo my cowboy guy from head to toe and the only way (for me) to make you mine is to say that you are in my mind you may be my mind wouldn’t it be a wonder-thing if my mind was as beautiful as joel as truly breathtaking as this boy who is a frozen landscape, Norwegian fen crystalline freezer burn, web-weaving ghost when your mate is a triple fire sign and you are an air sign through and through both fuelling and basking in the glow that radiates from his fire sign face wrap arms around me like a vine we are coated: oversized soft space lined with silk tracing lines between forest skies lycanthropic child I see you smile and it puts the heart in my chest on wings oh the breath in my throat careens against lavender air I imagine the space around us aglow like ends of cigarettes in dull winter snow
- claire sosienski smith
bisexual regions of outer space
selected by chay graham
the milky way the last time i saw the milky way was last january, on a beach in south africa. every year my family does its best to congregate in a house we share, and it has been the anchor for our family for a generation. two christmases ago, my grandmother convinced a few of us to begrudgingly join her singing carols in a morning service in a tiny church. the organ player struggled dutifully and we did our best impression of conviction as the prayers progressed, and eventually we traipsed back to the house to get on with the real business of christmas: obscene gift-giving and obscene food. on new year's eve, we all walked down to the beach and, for once, didn't light fire lanterns. there had been forest fires along the coast all through the summer, some of them utterly devastating, and they had very sensibly been banned. instead, along with a few phones and battery powered torches, we padded across the beach in the dark, dipped our toes in the water, and eventually sat and looked at the stars. a year later, my grandmother had just passed away, early in december, and the christmas trip to the house on the beach was terse and fractured. it leeched poison into everybody, slowly and inevitably. still, we treaded over old habits, we shared the house as always, we talked as much as we could bear, and on new year's eve, we went down to the beach again. philosophy of science tries really hard to find a credible difference between science and pseudoscience, and astrology is one of the things shoved in that second category. that argument goes something like: astrology does not produce claims that can be falsified, and if it does, it is no better than
guesswork. on some level i have genuine sympathy for this - i chose to study science because i thought it could teach us something meaningful about the world. i did that at the expense of so many other things that are joyous and essential for my life and continued existence, in full recognition of that fact. the project of science just seemed more significant. and the same can be said for me choosing to do philosophy of science now - where physics ended up draining me of humanity and insight and ultimately my own dignity, philosophy provided a discipline to ask how and what the human enterprises of knowledge production tell us about the world. it still has its own habits of thought as a discipline though, analytic thought being the dominant one. and it leads to some deeply unsatisfactory places: the casting off of the less rigorous sciences in favour of a fetishisation of physics, the undue elevation of the status of science and scientists over other work, the exclusion of anti-colonial, racialised, queer and feminine modes of knowledge production. the expunging of politics isn't a necessary feature of the discipline - some people are deeply concerned with it - but it marks a belief that has achieved consensus, that science is a text that we can perfectly translate from. the language it is in is human action, and the language we arrive at is abstract philosophical argument. my dissertation is going to be about black holes. they are curious, figmentary objects, created at the stroke of a pen and turned into the universe's engines of creation and destruction. they have a fascinating surrounding physics, and that physics has a lot to say about philosophy of science. the central question is one of realism against anti-realism - to what degree do we think our best theories of black
holes encapsulate literal truth about a part of reality we have not seen and have no real hope of seeing. a philosopher wants to spend their mental effort assembling cases and arguments, providing compelling evidence, evaluating and proposing solutions, reaching conclusions along the way. it's not committed to some bullshit notion like objectivity, but it is the product of rational evaluation. another way to frame that problem is a struggle between faith and solipsism. when i shift language in that way, talking about struggles instead of arguments, faith instead of commitment, solipsism instead of scepticism, the emotional core of the discipline bears itself. people want to believe things about the world, and this work is a method of imprinting it into the very fabric of nature. to believe that the world is knowable and tangible is a commitment that comes not just from the argument of textbooks and journal papers, but from a feeling about who you are and what you want to believe. to dismiss the intentionality and emotional heart to these extraordinarily deep questions is to deny their humanity. to accept the humanity of these thoughts is to place them in our lives and recognise their worth, to explain why we care about the abstract and unknowable in the first place. similarly, even the most analytical of answers to these questions needs to, at some point, reckon with the contingency of all our knowledge. there is a leap to be made to get from talk about the way the world is here, to the way the world is everywhere. that kind of leap is by necessity one of human invention and ingenuity. talking about science isn't talk about some magical or divine conduction of inspired knowledge, it's talk about humans. and in that way, science is a place where a human endeavour can start
to bring the questioning of the far, the implausible, the eternal and infinite, into our grasp. it isn't an act of translation, it's a dialogue. we ask questions, and get fragments of answers and new questions in return. when i last saw the milky way, i spent a lot of time explaining. my little cousin wanted to know about the constellations she could see, about the different colours of the stars, about the little pockets of mist just off our galaxy's axis that seemed stuck to the sky. i can give her answers because someone has told them to me, just as someone told them, all the way until the madman or genius who had a truly revolutionary idea, committed it to paper, and convinced those who read it that his work meant something. the milky way doesn't go away when we aren't looking though. it hangs there, plain to all and somehow entirely forgotten; in reach, but obscured by our own light and vibrancy. it waits until we find the right place and time to reveal itself to us again. this december, i will stand on that beach once again and look at the stars and think, audaciously, "all that there is really about us". that is something i've been convinced of for long enough, and hold dear to my heart. just as important is turning around, back to my cousin. pointing out the planets among the splash of stars, maybe even catching a few meteors. grabbing a drink and sitting around a big wood fire and feeling its dry warmth soak through my clothes. clearing a grave marker on christmas day, blasting abba on new year's eve. all that and then looking around me and thinking, just as audaciously, "all this is about something more". - michael davin
1. The Concepts of Good and Bad are Hierarchical
3. This is already putting this into action - just look at this page
2. We should make everything trash
(I am at my best when I don’t care)
- Tom Wadsworth
i painted you a starscape with my bare hands i think i saw you in my sleep your hands were blurry and shaking as you reached for me and i couldn’t tell if they were blurry because of the shaking or because it was a dream but i could tell that your hands were drawn to my waist without decision, without choice, my hands in your hair as we were falling together with the magnetism of the stars pulling us, totally helpless i tell myself these things i tell myself these lies and i cross them out and clear my head and start again but i always come back to you perhaps that’s why i try to convince myself it’s inevitable not a choice of my own because i can’t quite shake you from my head, my skin and i wanted to kiss you that night bottled it, no follow through – but i swear i can still taste you in my mouth. i think i started writing this poem in my sleep, years ago because something of this feeling in my chest is familiar and something about the way you say my name makes me feel like i’m not rooted to the earth with gravity like everyone else and something in the way you look at me makes me forget myself and i’ve never been so scared of heights i walk into a store and buy a box of peaches because it’s spring and i eat one as i walk out of the shop. i walk into a store and buy a bag of coffee and it’s dark when i leave. i walk into a store and i don’t buy anything because i’m too busy thinking of you - s e davis
- chay graham
starry Fade in... listen to the way she's looking from the gutter side, up at the wide starry sky As the cars banally roar by Can you see that hope in her eye? And as you question it she starts to dance Don't you think she deserves a chance? She glides and twirls like a silk skirt unfurling forming a carousel of colour and music She traces waves in the air like rainbows stepping like music notes on a plinky piano the way that bright fire leaves a mark on your retina her red lipstick kisses the fourth wall and leaves a pink stain a lip shape she's an over the top camp laugh and gay chuckle love flows from her and glows up your world.
- shakes
- Kitya Mark
[CN: money]
CHARITY SHOPPING FOR KICKS / YR NEW WITCH WARDROBE 1. go often 2. take risks 3. don’t settle 4. don’t pay attention to gendered sections 5. don’t overpay 6. try things on 7. get comfortable (literally) with an oversized fit 7.i. buy a good belt 8. follow yr intuition
- claire sosienski smith
AQUARIUS (The Intense Power Difference)
I have this lovely friend at Cambridge University Who stands gracile like a rising sun With a mind formed like Aquarius' pouring water She has long brown hair that sweeps A humble demeanour that stows and minds And when she speaks It is clear as a candescent luminescent effervescence of gaily harmonising voices, yes indeed. This friend of mine has a friend Who I recently spoke to at a get-together And she laughed joyously and told me She wanted to become the leader of the World Health Organisation. So she was applying for a position. She had met the Queen and been seen and awarded medals for being a young medic. Ah yes, it rather reminded me of the time my friend had informed me how she could have been a lawyer but instead chose biology. I found it entertaining how one's dreams can be so flexible. But to flex is a character of a well developed muscle and this muscle has been nurtured and well-fed since birth. For you see, they have been told: that they can lead countries that they can save lives
that they will make a difference and to be what ever they want to be for the world belongs to them. Excel! Whereas I was frequently told in a non-chalant way how I would never amount to nothing, as most people don't, it's a fact of life, plod along, you're no different from the rest of the dirt pile.
(and provided with copious evidence)
They were told they could write, talk and sing. I was told to shut up because I was talentless.
They were involved and rewarded whilst I trod a narrowing road. Their school had a ninety-four percent pass rate. Mine... fifty-seven. Their parents made six-figure digits with spare time. Mine worked eleven hours a day for pittance. It is wonderful, really, that we're still able to be friends. You would think her not with it, or me embittered. Rather, we are free and fun and friendly. Indeed it seems that there's no end to the energy.
Occasionally, she will say something or do something that highlights the intense power difference between us. Often, she is unaware and I am not keen to point it out.
This dynamic does not go away even in the day-to-day. As time plays out, I am sure we will be pulled afray. For it cannot be erased, this gap, this imbalance. On either side of it we are separately shaped though we may manage to run side-by-side for a year, a month, another day. I will stay as close to this friend with all I have - as far as each tick of time sublime with subtle pain - flame from fire from
I can manage internalised free radical damage. - shakes
- stella swain
Time is declarative: ACT! don’t think There is change that needs to take place and progress required for the future
Instead, live by the moon Do not break the cycle but break free from the blinding advance Linear to cyclical Time is still declaring: ACT! But i change and i act yet I am still
- anon
YR CLAIR(E)VOYANT IS IN THE BUILDING
Tarot readings are deeply personal so I’m not sure if I should share the intricacies of my reading with strangers. But, to offer an insight into how interesting tarot can be, here’s a short run-down of the Celtic cross spread I pulled for myself on boxing day. I was feeling deep in my shadow self: my skin was hurting, I’d taken a bath and it hadn’t helped, I couldn’t tell if I was hungry or sick to my stomach. That kind of mood. Pulling the Celtic cross helped. The Celtic cross is the classic card spread. You pull ten cards. I’ll run through them as I explain what appeared in my reading. First you pull (which is just a word for taking the card and placing it onto the surface you are reading on) card number one, ‘the heart of the matter.’ Mine was the two of wands, which appears a lot in my readings in the place of myself, like now. Two of wands means determination, direction and that kind of illuminated successful mood. I feel quite connected to the wands suit at this time in my life because it’s about creativity and passion. A question that the two of wands asks is what thought patterns you
have around yourself and your actions at this time of doing things: are you being kind to yourself ? The second card you pull is the ‘opposing factors’ card, which is what is getting in the way of you achieving or seeing the clearly the heart of the matter. Quite literally, this card is placed over the first card, so you can only see part of it. A Celtic cross reading is about working out how you can turn this second card from its inverted position across the first card to its rightful straight-up position. My ‘opposing factor’ was another card familiar to me: the son of wands. I actually have someone in my life who this card has made me think of since I started reading the tarot in earnest. Bakara Wintner calls the son of wands the fuck boy of the tarot. In the classic Rider-Waite deck the son of wands is a beautiful knight on horseback. The son of wands/knight of wands (I like thinking about the court cards in the deck as a family rather than royal household) is charming, adventurous, but hard to know. Their perfection, like all perfection, is an illusion. My third card is the ‘root cause’ which is the basement of the house of the first six cards, and I pull the five of swords, which means selfdestruction. It says that your selfishness and desire will lead you to defeat. Get off this ride. The fourth card signifies the past and mine is the five of cups, which is not a good card either. It involves smashed cups signifying grief, sorrow and disappointment. This is a grief that has persisted a long time, unlike other cards in the deck about immediate sadness. The five of cups can ask you to assess what expectations you place on others, and how realistic they are. For my fifth card, the ‘goal’ position, I got a good one: the three of cups. It signifies friendship and joy, the rare kind of connection you get with people who you can really be yourself around. Hey, I love my friends. The sixth card, which was the four of wands for me, stands for the future. Four of wands means completion and celebration, literally some tarot reading guides mention graduation. It means you’ve done it.
These six cards complete ‘the house’ of the cross. Then you get ‘the staff ’, which is like what you carry with you to help you resolve the heart of the matter and its opposing factor. The seventh card signifies ‘you.’ I pulled the eight of wands which pretty much means a sudden change, news, clarity. A readiness to travel. The eighth card is external influences which can be distractions: mine is the sixth of cups which corresponds to the five of cups (which was in my ‘past’ position), and stands for memories, childhood and joy: a looking back and getting lost in your memories of home, like an overly nostalgic movie montage. Card number nine is ‘hopes and fears’ and mine is the devil, also the only major arcana card I pulled in this reading, which places the other cards lower down in the interpretation. The minor arcana cards (anything that isn’t the named cards) are read in relation to a major arcana card. I pulled the devil in this position during my last Celtic cross reading. The devil means addiction and negativity. This ninth card position links closely to the opposing factors card (card number two) and what is stopping you from getting to and resolving the heart of the matter. I won’t go into more detail about what this means to me, but the fact that I’m not surprised that the devil keeps appearing in my spreads means something… and it’s not great. But hey, the tenth card is the final outcome, which is what is likely to happen, like the concentrated version of the future (card number six). My ‘final outcome’ card is the nine of wands. This card says that the journey is nearly over, but you’re growing weary. It says to rally your confidence, realize how far you’ve come and keep going. Lift your eyes, take the last few steps, and soon all your hard work will pay off.
So there’s my unsynthesized tarot reading to show you how to do your own. The next step is to interpret how the cards relate to each other and your situation but I’ll spare you those details. Happy readin’ - claire sosienski smith
aquarius constellation
- marina scott
- flic kersting
all work is the property of the contributors credited at the bottom of each piece contact: zodiaczine17@gmail.com