Moon Work

or its absence

One of the reasons I have come to love astrology is the way it helps me make sense of time. Measuring a year’s span by corporate holidays, no matter how enjoyable, renders our twelve months in a kind of lurching motion, strung together with quotidian freneticism. By contrast, the astrological seasons have felt connected to my life experiences in ways that allow for both the marking of special occasions (solstices, say) and routine unfolding alike, providing a more regular and regularizing opportunity to check in with the energy of the world.

It makes sense to me that Aries season kicks off the astrological year with its cardinal fire, melting February’s remaining ice. It makes sense to me that moody Scorpio helps us welcome spooky Samhain. I am grateful for this means of parsing out time, constantly running away from our efforts at containment, and for how that act of segmentation helps to ground my sense of what’s going on around me.

That being said, I’ve been pretty much missing Pisces season. I simply have not had the time or space to reflect and to explore my inner world in the way that it invites. It’s also been unseasonably cold this year, even in Missouri (especially in Missouri). It’s been most of what I could handle just to get my work done and get to sleep on time. Which isn’t to say that I haven’t had beautiful experiences in the past month. It’s more that the intuitive and imaginative inner exploration facilitated by the ostensible slowdown of winter’s last month felt out of reach for me in a way that is starting to seem metaphorical, like it means something.

Way back in my very second post, I wrote about the feeling of perpetual disconnectedness that has characterized my first full year in Missouri. At my (amazing, quintessentially Pisces¹) roommate’s birthday party over the weekend, I told someone else (again! Because I repeat my stories) that I’ve moved every year of my life since 2009 except for two occasions where I stayed two years in an apartment. Not only is that true, but this year Hannah and I both moved twice—each of us to St. Louis and Kansas City (respectively) and then within St. Louis and Kansas City (respectively). I am starting to think that I’m incapable of removing the residual feeling of this much moving from my body, even after having settled somewhere.

Part of the reason for this might be because I haven’t actually settled. Each time I commute between the two cities where I live and work, I feel something minor of the moving experience flaring up in my skin as I pack my bags, take stock, inevitably forget something.

Last week, I drove to Kansas City to teach my 4:00 class before realizing I’d left my laptop in St. Louis. Looking at what the week had in store, and knowing that my partner’s car gets 60 miles on a charge if the weather is cooperating, I had no choice but to turn around and go right back (and then go right back again in the morning), twelve hours of driving over two days. When I did get back, I found out that the noise in my car that I definitely should have looked into before now was the result of two loose tire bearings, threatening a major disaster for more than a year.

Maybe next year I’ll have enough calm to sit with the work that Pisces asks us to undertake. In the meantime, the coming Aries season already feels more available to me, more at my fingertips. It is—after all—my moon.

Rec?

In keeping with my time-honored tradition of whining and then also giving you weird music to listen to, here’s a set I improvised with Seth Davis, Kory Reeder, and Paul Rudy last week. Thanks to Shanté for thinking to record it (and then doing so). The ending was a delightful surprise to me both as it happened and afterward.

Rec

Remember when I recommended Hanif Abdurraqib’s end of year list? Unsurprisingly, it’s payed dividends once again, particularly with regard to this album:

I can’t tell you how much I love this record. It’s so fresh, so totally unexpected. It’s effortlessly multi-stylistic, drawing 90s R&B, indie rock, and funkpop into a synthesis that feels light as air. The sensibility is young and multiply queer. The robust vocal harmonies lend everything a polished sheen, making meticulous arrangement sound spontaneous. How can something so clearly accomplished and smart can feel this fun? It’s alchemical shit. Cry hard.

1. Among J’s many other gifts, she is truly the most intuitive person I know, having guessed my big three on her first try. At our first meeting, I also tried out some intuition of my own, asking about her big three from a sense that she reminded me in some ways of my partner. Turns out, their rising signs are both in Taurus.