A Goodness Not My Own
on Venus in Pisces, sacred work, and the Tarot Year Ahead Spread
So this is the new year but I don’t feel any different! That old cliche. The days are still continuous grey where I am and I am now getting over a cold. Though I enjoyed my New Year’s, I spent the first few days afterwards in a sort of purgatory; how should I be spending my time, especially as the rest of the world is still adjusting. The beginning of 2025, it seems, started not with a bang but with a whimper. The Moon moved between Capricorn and Aquarius, the two Saturn-ruled signs, while not much else happened to enliven the mood.
On Friday, however, we got a taste of the sweet life. Venus moved into Pisces the night before, making the perfect excuse for all manner of indulgences. I, for one, will be stocking up on pasrties from the bakery near my house and drifting through my work with a mixture of focus and a fertile looseness.
Something I’ve been thinking about with my practice is how all of it — writing, art, astrology— comes back to spirit, or making room for something other than my own efforts and ego. Something wiser, perhaps. Sometimes, ironically, the hands-on work, like writing these newsletters, marketing, emails, etc is the easy stuff. Sure it takes effort but it’s most my own. I know that if I sit down and write, eventually the essay will begin to take shape, something will move.
Following the muse, the spirit of Venus or Fomalhaut, or any other divinity, — that is where my true work seems to lie. It’s not enough to read about what a planet or a decan is about, I want to experience them directly, have them shape and guide my life with intimacy. I believe, and the history bears out, that astrology is a sacred art, one that allows us to discern the celestial influences in our earthly life and re-enchant our seemingly mundane lives with their meanings.
I made my creative practice an altar the other day. After doing some warm-ups and prep, I sat in front of the sacred space and asked my muse for help: what does my creativity need? After plenty of waiting, I got an answer: more of these pregnant pauses, these open silences. Less worrying about usefulness or “getting” something with each meditation or creative session and more simply being in relation to God.
One way that I feel this call of spirit through astrology is the exhortation to slow down. Listen. Meditate. Create space for the divine or Mars or Deneb Algedi to find you. And, I will tell you, it is this direct experience with the divine through which astrology begins to change my life. My wisdom and creativity is so much stronger when I don’t merely effort or forcibly think my way through things but pray, take walks, light candles for ancestors, leave an offering for a star and then sticking around to see what they have to say.
Perhaps this is what I am sitting with this Venus in Pisces season, realm of intimate oneness: leaving space for goodness not my own. Believing good things come to those who wait, especially in a state of reverence and curiosity. That it’s not all my doing, but through grace that the love comes in.
Thoughts on the Year Ahead Spread
One way I am making room for spirit this coming year is using divination in my planning. I have so many ideas and projects and collaborations for the upcoming year but I want to work with the skies and the omens rather than solely serving my own internal agenda. How can my will marry the larger spirals?
So, to help me organize my projects over the year and see any potential opportunities or paths to go down, I pulled tarot cards about it.
Specifically I pulled cards for:
The Central theme of the year as well as one for how I should act in accordance with it
A card for each month and quarter, answering the question, “What should be my career focus for this period of time?”
I chose this wording very intentionally. Rather than asking “how will this month go?” I asked how *I* should comport myself and my work during a given time period. This choice makes me less concerned with forces outside of my control and more concerned with my own agency: how does my will best interact or merge with what spirit has to offer? That way, I can begin slotting in my yearly plans according to the larger unfolding.
I also chose to focus only on career: sometimes, knowing too much about how my life will go generally discourages me or makes me afraid for the future. I’d rather focus on what’s in my hands, making paradise or a nice place to lay, even when things get hard.
The other key thing in my process is really engaging with the cards. I find that pulling them provides a nice dopamine hit but if I stay with just that I don’t get the full potential of the cards’ messages, especially the tricky ones. What does it mean to focus on the 5 of Cups in an astrology and art practice? This is one of the questions with which I sit and engage with each card.
I started my notes on the year by writing down my initial thoughts on the cards or what I thought they could mean for my work: 3 of cups? Intimate Collaboration! Protected Creativity! Fertile wisdom! I also draw on the interpretations from my faves, specifically the wonderful decanic essays by T. Susan Chang. I chose the tidbits that really speak to my soul and could apply to my specific query.
From the notes I compiled, I created action points. Which of my projects or steps or practices or spiritual goals therein fit with the energy of the card? I write those down to refer later.
From there, as the new year has begun, I’ve taken to keeping the card of a month in a prominent place, staring at it in idle moments in case more of its wisdom reveals itself to me.
I’ve also found a method for honing in on what daily activity can help align me with this larger monthly goal. Inspired by my friend and colleague Shuly Rose, I have taken to shuffling the deck and then finding the location of my card of the month. The card that comes after it becomes my goal for the day. Sometimes, the cards even help me to be more diffuse if needed. One day, the card I pulled after my monthly, the 3 of Cups, was the 5 of Pentacles, a card depicting two beggars walking in the snow in front of the illumined window of a church. In that moment, it felt like the cards saying: plan as well as you can but don’t devolve into worry. Don’t put too much pressure on being explicitly on task all the time. Remember, we’re trying to leave room for magic <3
🌀What’s the Vibe? Sale🌀
We are now fully into the first week of January. Immersing ourselves into the New Year need not be tedious or difficult: What’s the Vibe? 2025 is here to help.
This guide is meant to help give you the language for why next Friday will be good for a party or why yesterday’s phone call with your boyfriend was unexpectedly weird. It’s here to help you plan which week in August is best for a vacation or when to focus on your business for a month. This guide, like astrology, affirms that we do not exist in a vacuum. Rather than existing as an isolated consciousness in a cold, dead universe, the study of the stars affirms that our personal desires and interiority are always impacted by the cycle of the heavens. We never act alone or without a context.
This guide gives you that context and shows you how to work with the larger influences that impact us.
What you get:
Each of the 12 sections in this guidebook contains a detailed breakdown of the important planetary movements for each month, week and day. That means you get the download not just on the significant shifts and specific days to watch, you also get to understand how the larger vibe breaks down within a given week.
Going even more granular than that, I also provide low-downs on the vibe of each particular day, as well as providing certain tasks or activities that would allow you to move with what the universe is currently conjuring
For each day, I also include activities for each day that the vibes would support, ranging from rest and chores, to a hot date and dream work. This way, we can meet the day on its own terms and channel our energy into avenues that work with it rather than against it. .
Now, you can get my daily predictions for 2025 all at once.
If you purchase now, you can get this guide for 25% off.
Get your vibe right this year. See how you work in tandem with the universe.
Until next time,
Love,
Chloe