WTF is going on here?

Here's an idea

There’s a tidal wave of concrete horrors to face these days— ICE killings, police killings, unauthorized war, the likely ramping up of nuclear proliferation, the millions of people (many of them children) being thrown off of SNAP and going hungry— and that’s just in the United States. I had a student inform me last week that their parent had proclaimed they couldn’t study abroad in the UK (white supremacy-fueled riots, anyone?). Instead, they would be safer in Australia (the fires, the animals that all want to kill you, and the mass shooting on Bondi Beach notwithstanding, I guess).

It’s a lot to handle, which might be the understatement of the year. We each have to find our respective ways to survive, while simultaneously not looking away. In the midst of calling and emailing my representatives in Congress, supporting independent journalism and analysis, spreading the word about issues and actions, and staying abreast of the news, I read fantasy books mostly written by women, myself. (I just finished the latest T. Kingfisher, Hemlock & Silver, which was a hilarious, creepy romp.) I watch tv that celebrates middle-aged women (If you haven’t watched Ride or Die yet, borrow someone’s Prime password like I did and get on that.) And I’m building a cabin in the woods.

But the thing I’m also doing, which I’d argue we should all do, is telescope out regularly from hyper-focus on all the individual horrors, which can leave us disoriented and reactive, and think on a more macro-level about what is actually going on here. There are some immediate answers— white supremacy, capitalism, fascism, patriarchy— but taking it out even a further step, there’s a struggle going on here about the relationship between the individual and the collective.

Putting my astrologer hat on for a moment (stick with me!), what we’re talking about is the Leo/Aquarius axis, which is currently being activated by a variety of different factors (the Nodes, the Sun, and Jupiter to name a few), not least of which is Pluto in Aquarius. Say what you will about astrology (and I’m sure some of you will), it functions as a world clock as much as anything else. When Pluto enters a sign, it burns down everything necessary that is symbolized by that sign to enable transformation. Not because Pluto causes things to happen, but because it reflects what is happening (as above, so below).

When Pluto moved through Sagittarius (symbolizing religion, among other things), all of the abuses of the Catholic Church via its priests came to light across the globe. When Pluto entered Capricorn (symbolizing financial markets, among other things), the U.S. housing and stock market crashed, upending the global economy. And now Pluto is in Aquarius (symbolizing the collective, among other things) until 2044, and all of our collective agreements (laws, political structures, alliances, community commitments and affiliations) seem to be falling apart, and coming together, and fall apart again. On a global scale.

For a comparatively small, not-a-planet, Pluto doesn’t come to play.

Like all signs, Aquarius has an opposite sign. In this case, that sign is Leo. Leo, ruled by the Sun, symbolizes the individual and the King. So, the question at the heart of the Aquarius/Leo axis is, how do the individual and the collective relate? Do they, or can they, serve each other to mutual benefit? Or do they inevitably subsume each other, vying for control, forcing the one to serve at the expense of the other?

Think of an axis sort of like a see-saw. It’s all fun and games until someone gets off one side and the other side crashes down, with no leverage to get back up again. Despite what either side might think or want, the two sides need each other for the dynamic of this particular relationship to work.

Photo by Pascal Bernardon on Unsplash

When I was in my twenties, I went to Cuba a couple of times, which is a host of stories unto itself. But for our purposes today, what struck me at the time, and still strikes me, is that the revolutionary government of Cuba elevates and prioritizes the collective, sometimes to the extreme detriment of the individual. Artists, political dissidents, folks wanting to open private businesses— they all struggled mightily, while the collective was raised up through universal literacy, educational opportunity, and cooperative enterprise. In the United States, in contrast, we worship individual opportunity, and forcefully put down any attempt at collective organizing (sidelining labor unions, attacking civil rights activists, criminalizing protestors, the Tulsa riots/massacre, the MOVE bombing, etc.).

Each system is based on elevating one side of the equation at the expense of the other. Neither one is better or worse, ultimately. They both do some things undeniably well. And they fail— similarly, and ultimately— by coming at the same question in the same way from opposite directions.

Right now, we’re witnessing two prime examples of the relationship between king and collective in Donald Trump and Zohran Mamdani. Trump is weirdly charismatic, in the way of carnival barkers and televangelists. But he imagines himself a king, and exhibits all of the classic failings of that identification. He’s selfish, narcissistic, and corrupt, seeking only power and resources for himself and whoever strokes his ego today. The collective’s only use from his perspective on his golden throne is to serve him, and if its at our expense he does not care.

He doesn’t care about working people, as witnessed by his dismantling of the social safety net. He doesn’t care about the global poor, as evidenced by his dismantling of USAID. He doesn’t even care about individual soldiers in the military, lying that they each proclaimed their complete support of his self-aggrandizing and ill-advised war in Iran. To him, the majority of other people don’t matter. They barely exist, except as pieces on a board for him to move around or kick off the table to serve his own agenda.

Zohran Mamdani is of a different sort. He’s also fantastically charismatic, smiling and laughing constantly, like the sun is shining out of him. He commands a stage and elicits (not just from me) an ardent affection from his supporters. But for all of his charisma and obvious political talents, he always steers the conversation away from himself to the needs of working people. He’s seemingly uninterested in academic conversations about governing strategies, or being seen as some kind of righteous savior. Instead, he is using his personal abilities and access to the levers of power to deliver on the needs of the majority of New Yorkers.

Will he succeed in striking a dynamic and healthy balance between himself and the collective over the long haul? I’m hopeful, I’m not ashamed to admit. He regularly references “sewer socialism”, a pragmatic socialist movement that ruled Milwaukee for nearly 50 years, drastically improving the lives of working people, so he seems on the right track.

Why does any of this matter? Why does it behoove us to step back and see these patterns, or ask these questions? It doesn’t remove our obligation to act in real time in defense of our communities, or to stand up for the vulnerable. It doesn’t, in and of itself, change anything. But, at least for me, it helps me be less disoriented and immobilized. It gives me an analysis, a sense of direction, and a way to set my priorities.

I don’t want to give my precious and finite energy to leaders or policies that elevate either side of this axis at the expense of the other. Even if it works for a time, or because I’m privileged by the side being chosen and the failure may come long after I’m gone. In the end, those leaders and policies will fail, because see-saws don’t work that way, and I’m not interested in failure.

I’m interested in finding the balance point between my needs and the world’s, even if it requires falling in and out balance over and over again. Because balance is a process, not a destination.

I believe the view for all of us whenever we can get to that point together is sublime, and worth the effort.

XO, Asha

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P.S. Word on the street is that Substack is instituting a mandatory AI tool, which scans for AI in order to prove writers aren’t using AI? This is the most ass-backward thing I’ve ever heard. Needless to say, none of this newsletter is ever, or will ever, be written by AI. I can’t even be bothered to use Grammarly anymore, which should be obvious due to my excessive affection for commas.

I’m sorry Substack are such a bunch of capitalist idiots.

P.P.S. It’s been brought to my attention that some of my paid folks couldn’t see the video content in the newsletter last week because Substack had logged them out at some point without asking. Again, idiots. (Substack, not my paid folks.) If you’re one of those people and need help figuring out how to fix this, DM me.