What is Feminist Astrology?

What is feminist astrology?
 
I believe that a feminist astrology seeks ways of recognizing, describing, and holding more of our stories—especially those stories that are denied or suppressed within conditions of oppression.
 
Feminist astrology recognizes that the ancient astrological tradition that we inherit emerged under intensely patriarchal conditions, and so it is our responsibility to examine and transform any structures of patriarchal thinking in our practice of astrology.
 
Feminist astrology must be capacious enough to describe and affirm not only the experiences that align with and reproduce the normative expectations of our cultures, but also those experiences that take root in the shadows, blossom at the margins, and thrive in the cracks, the stories that have hardly ever been spoken, the deviant, fugitive parts of our journeys that escape reductive categorization or the definitions given by dominant culture.

Feminist astrology must be capacious enough to acknowledge and value the stories of women, queer and trans folks, Black and Brown people, disabled people, poor and incarcerated people, as well as experiences that exceed the human.

Feminist astrology must be capacious enough to guide us to our truths that exceed acceptability, invite us to speak what we’ve never said out loud, to share what we did not know could be put into words.
 
Feminist astrology must also be able to expand our ability to feel and think beyond the limits of who we were told we could be.
 
These are ancient traditions that we are practicing, in collaboration with a cosmos that moves beyond our human conceptions of time, planets that hold assemblages of archetypes that have been unfolding throughout myriad civilizations. As we inherit and innovate these traditions, it is our role to ask whose lives these archetypes are capable of recognizing and to trust that this cosmos is vast in its variance and its potential to reflect difference.

In offering recognition to more of what we have lived through, who we are and who we can become, feminist astrology has the potential to support us in living otherwise, bringing more of ourselves into our conscious awareness and shared realities, and co-creating a world that is capable of holding and responding to that more and otherwise.

I first started talking about feminist astrology in 2019 when I was a guest on the Queer Skies podcast hosted by by Daniel Bernal and Drew Levanti: ​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS924o9UzMg

In 2020, I was delighted to talk about astrology and feminist praxis with Melissa LaFara on the Energetic Principles podcast: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5qJk9w4erLaQFx450zqola?si=ETs0bpj4QsmZjVgykzae9w

​Also in 2020, I gave a presentation entitled "Astrology Consultations as Feminist Praxis" at the Queer Astrology Conference 2020, which you can download here.

In 2022, I gave a presentation entitled "Feminist Astrology and the Moon: Engaging Ancient Traditions with Feminist Thought" as part of the 54th Annual conference of the Astrological Association, which you can download here.

Also in 2022, I gave a presentation entitled "Feminist Astrology: Mars, Violence, and War" with the Aquarian Organization of Astrologers, which you can download here.

Feminist astrology continues to be integral to my practice, and it is also the focus on a manuscript in progress that I hope will make its way out into the world someday soon.