Good Horoscope in Review
Good Horoscope in Review
A comprehensive look back on everything that has been published!
Happy new moon in Gemini! In honor of reaching 1000 subscribers on Substack, I’m reviewing what I’ve published on this platform.
Thank you all for your support throughout the years! Let’s look at Good Horoscope’s records in this space of this new moon in Gemini (my moon sign).
The best way to predict the future is to reflect on the past and discern in the present. This is a service I offer, and my calendar is open. Returning clients and paying subscribers of Good Horoscope receive a discount.
Astrological Poetry
I came up with a formula for a time-based horoscopic poetry. I was blessed to collaborate with and publish Sarah Aiko, an astrologer and poet.
Silk Boil by Sarah Aiko
A poetic illustration of the 2023 Venus-Neptune conjunctionA poem for Berlin about the 2022 full moon in Gemini.
A Faithless Season by Sarah Aiko
Written using a chart from the future as a reference material.Boredom and Restlessness
I never told y’all it’s about the Saturn-Uranus square.Coalescence by Mo
An extremely apt description of the new moon in Pisces.
Academic Articles
In 2023 Jodie Marley published her PhD thesis titled The Mystic Communities of William Blake and W. B. Yeats: Shared Spiritual Influences and Legacies. Being able to publish her expert work on William Blake’s views on Astrology was truly a gift. She elevated the Good Horoscope project above and beyond.
William Blake on Astrology: Part 1 by Jodie Marley
William Blake on Astrology: Part 2 by Jodie Marley
While I am not a PhD candidate, I am a professional astrologer and therefore have a duty to hold astrology to a high standard. This earned me a blurb from Liara Roux:
“Fun poetic astrology newsletter with an academic bent”.
Astrological Research
Every astrologer needs to be doing research. Teaching my followers and my clients was one of my favorite parts of my job. When you have the language to experience transits first hand, astrology becomes a more affirming tool for time keeping and reflection. It is a skill that can be learned, in this day and age, by anyone.
I tried to break down different topics in some explainers like:
Presenting research on house division
Wtf is a Mercury pre-retrograde shadow phase?
Basically everything you need to know about Mercury retrograde.What to do when there is no birth time
In which I rectify Jerry Seinfeld’s birth time.
Citations are lacking in our community, to our disadvantage. The footnotes on this article are gorgeous:
“It seems to track so clearly with themes of war and collective crises. Astrologers (and historians2) have researched how Pluto’s cycles have reflected significant world events.”
Against Sun Sign Reductionism
I had a series “You’re a…”. Once a month I would use derived solar houses to express how everyone deserves the complexity of the entire zodiac. I was trying to combat the reductionist evil of sun sign astrology, to show that actually, you are every sign. Every drop of water contains the ocean, and you can’t be a Pisces without also being a Libra!
I like the sun as much as everyone else does, but whatever happened to the night sky? While I was away from Substack, I published an essay in Soft Eis Issue 3 about “what happens to astrology when we’re blinded by the sun.” You should order a copy.
Astrologers in Charity
When it came time to write “You’re A Gemini” or “You’re a Leo” it was hurricane season. Hurricane Ida triggered me. I made a fundraiser to send money home. That’s around when the thick of my Saturn return started. I decided to focus less on making “content” and more on “going to my painting studio to practice what I have spent my entire life studying to do”.
I am very inspired by astrologers who use their work as a means for charity. Astrology and the wellness industry can be narcissistically self-centered. Charity is an excellent way to balance this. It is the only work worth doing.
Astrology Ethics
I still have never taken the infamous astrology test from ISAR, but I did take the precursory courses on Astrology Ethics and Consultation Skills. These certifications have carried me a long way. I have published my thoughts on Astrology Ethics, touching on topics like:
Religion and Astrology
Astrology and ethics naturally lead to religion and astrology. Ethics originate somewhere (religion).
Even before Catholicism became, unfortunately for me, a trendy aesthetic and “post-right” dogwhistle (a current topic that I could write 60,000+ words on if I had a sufficient advance— please, email me), I have found the historical intersection of “the church” and astrology a juicy place for research and writing.
In which I reveal something that Protestants have been saying all this time: Catholicism has pagan roots. But that doesn’t make it pagan! Again, something I could write at least 3,000 words on.
Explores the history of astrology as a taboo and regulated field. Even today, it’s illegal or forbidden in some states, but these laws are mostly ignored.
When did the Church ban astrology
“The Church” can mean a lot of different things. I was listening to a podcast about this recently and had to pause and be like… “they’re talking about The Church of England… not my circus not my monkeys.”
I have some pretty schizoid Christian astrological ramblings which were truly a product of Jupiter in Pisces. They’re creative. I’m not ashamed.
A very niche exploration of a Christian zodiac
Mother of God, it’s Taurus season
Basically I get into Marian symbology, the moon, and how the moon is exalted during Mary’s month.
Is the moon in Gemini forbidden fruit?
Piggybacking off of the month of Mary, mother of God, being the month of the moon’s exaltation, I argue that the moon in Gemini represents the dualistic human/divine nature of Mary. I use visual astrology and Mariology to create Catholic astrological correspondences based on the sign in which a crescent moon appears. I think Pavel Florensky1 would be proud.
How do astrologers experience astrology?
I even have published more personal posts revealing how astrology showed up in my life. A transit diary with essays about how astrology did or did not serve me.
How learned to stop worrying and love the retrograde
The art of letting go at a rave in Ukraine.
I didn’t use astrology to choose when to travel
A followup on why you actually don’t need to elect literally everything in your life. Also, a travel blog on my trip from Berlin to New Orleans.
Personal thoughts on astrology and spirituality.
Astrology skill showcase
I also used Good Horoscope to show off different astrology skills in hopes that people would book me for a consultation, which is discounted for paid subscribers of Good Horoscope.
Horary astrology is the astrology of answering a question based off the judgement of the chart drawn for the moment that the question was asked. This is how I learned astrology. In this post I write about how I used horary astrology to tell my friend that she’d get her purse back, which she did.
I didn’t feel like explaining how or why I made these predictions for 2022, but I did put “Crimea” on the list just months before the war in Ukraine escalated. This was the last time I had any desire to make predictions. What use is this party trick, a looking glass into contrapasso hell.
I went in on Mick Jagger’s birth chart! His birth time is correct and he has a very impressive stellium of planets in Leo.
I decided when to leave the house so I could have the smoothest trip across the ocean.
Weekly Horoscopes
Every week I sent the outlines of my weekly horoscopes, which directed to my fully fleshed out weekly horoscopes for Vice, which was my main source of income for six years, gone too soon.
I would make the art for them too. They’re quite pretty images, but I’d prefer to have less screen time in my creative practice.
I worked in media as an astrologer for six years. Horoscope columnists take no breaks, they simply get another writer to keep the fire burning. I wrote weekly, daily, monthly, yearly horoscope columns. Zodiac personality traits. Explainers for every planet. Mundane astrology articles. Product placements for your sign. What movies you should watch for your sign. How current cultural moments are reflected astrologically. I was a machine and at one point one of maybe three or four astrologers that any online media outlet knew about, which led to me writing up to 80,000 words a month at a time at one point. Imagine if I was writing auto fiction instead…
I’m currently looking for more paid writing projects so if you want a professional writer with lightning fast turnaround time and a superhuman verbal IQ please don’t be shy. I am completely original and organically talented. I would never use AI or steal other people’s ideas because truth be told I have a pathological individuality complex and technology slows me down.
Do you ever look back on horoscopes from years ago? Days ago? What happens to our archives? I have a .zip file of every Vice horoscope ever written: a decade of horoscopes written by professional astrologers, just begging to be processed into some AI software. I’d consider selling it, if the offer was right.
My inbox has 6 different weekly horoscope newsletters shipped in every week. My new moon wish is to create a different way of being an astrologer so that my colleagues can have some dignity, despite the historically constant wavering of popularity of astrology in the mainstream. I would like to contribute more to the field of astrology and I hope any astrologer reading this is inspired to do the same.
History in review
Retrospection is more valuable than speculative predictions. We must learn from history. What is recorded in the sands of time provides an objective look at the quality of time. That’s astrology at its best.
At the beginning of 2023 I asked Catherine Leigh Schmidt to review of 2022:
Many Waters: A year of disillusionment
2022 was about speculation.
You cannot predict the future if you do not study the past. Any 10th grade history teacher can tell you that.
Eclipses are my favorite historical markers. For Good Horoscope, I researched historical events that aligned with eclipses. Through this technique, I was able to predict that NATO would expand and the conflict in Ukraine would escalate:
Writing about Gemini/Sagittarius eclipses and their correspondence with censorship and government surveillance.
I’ll continue to use my Substack to send out updates, writing, and research. Do I resent my intellectual property and my data being used to fund yet another tech platform while I get virtually nothing but false promises in return? Absolutely. But I’d like to girl boss harder and maybe I’d like to gate keep a little better so that I can at least earn some money off of people who steal my 6th house Gemini moon ideas.
See the essay “Celestial Signs”
tysm for the shout out, it happens to be my birthday today too, a fun coincidence 🩷🙏 I'll be in touch by the end of summer with another idea. (Also hi Liara Roux I read your memoir last month & loved it)