Hello bbs!
This Friday (Venus Day) is def feeling a lot different than last week, huh? Venus is now in Gemini where (as I discussed on last week’s pod) she likes to flirt via nerding out and prefers quality time to physical touch. As this note reaches your inbox, Venus is separating from her square to Saturn—an aspect that can speak of working hard for the art’s sake, but also feeling like the ideal artistic form is forever out of reach. It’s an aspect of creative blocks and boring dates and feeling ugly in the mirror. Not cute! But—even with a cool and distant waning Aquarius moon—things should feel lighter and sweeter as we head into the weekend. Next week is Eclipse season and the beginning of Mercury retrograde so it’s all about to change again.
My plan is to spend the weekend laying low—cleaning my apartment, attending a few spring baby birthday parties (most of my friends are born in April), eating well (including ingesting every possible thinkpiece before the new episode of Succession on Sunday) and generally minding my business. This is definitely the time to be minding one’s business. (If you’re not sure anyone needs to know then, trust me, no one needs to know!)
In the spirit of minding one’s business, I wanted to share a piece from the archives this week. I AM GOOD I AM CHAOTIC I AM PURE (or, Songs for Aries) was written for the moon missives print journal in Spring 2018. I’m including a recording of me reading the piece as well for those who prefer audio / I’m becoming addicted to sharing the sound of my own voice.
I also want to share a few opportunities to commune in person (!!) with me in the coming weeks:
-THIS COMING MONDAY 4/17, 6-8pm— my dear friend Chloe Kernaghan and I are back with another moon moment at Live the Process (102 Franklin St in TriBeCa). Come hang with us in Live The Process’ beautiful loft space where I’ll give you the astrological download for the coming weeks, Chloe leads us in a spirit-opening movement practice, and then we do some journal prompts for processing. Bring your pen and paper! We have a lot of fun! Get your tickets here!
-NEXT SUNDAY 4/23, 2-5pm — I’ll be doing readings at the Market of Dreams at Brick Aux (628 Metropolitan Ave in Williamsburg)! Drop-in appointments (20 min for $44) are available, but respond to this email or DM me on Instagram (@jaimeallycewright) if you’d like to reserve a specific time.
also, yes, Eclipse Season is here and Mercury retrograde is about to be so if you want to know what this means for your chart specifically, you can book a reading with me. If you’re local to NYC and we know each other (or you know one of my friends), I’m open to arranging something in-person- email me!
xo Jaime
I AM GOOD I AM CHAOTIC I AM PURE / SONGS FOR ARIES
How are you feeling in ancient September
I am feeling like a truck on a wet highway
how can you
you were made in the image of god
I was not
I was made in the image of a sissy truck-driver
and Jean Dubuffet painting his cows
“with a likeness burst in the memory”
Apart from love (don’t say it)
I am ashamed of my century
For being so entertaining
But I have to smile1
-Frank O’Hara, an Aries, who spent his life thinking he was a Cancer.
I have big ambitions for this.
Something about Aries makes me want to write concisely, in neat paragraphs like Mary Ruefle. I want to say my piece in just a few words, convey my love in a phrase. This isn’t to say Aries are neat (they usually aren’t), but they give compact gifts.
My friend Allison has a party every year on March 20: the Spring Equinox. Allison is a Pisces, like me. In 2015, the party was on the day of a total solar eclipse at 29º Pisces. By day’s end, the moon blushed into Aries. So did the sun. Spring! But there was a blizzard. I bought a bouquet of flowers at a bodega on Broadway. Because it was spring. I walked through the snow with my bouquet. I forgot winter. We all did. We all brought flowers to the party because it made us feel good. We made flower crowns. There was nowhere to go but up.
You say that everything is very simple and interesting/ it makes me feel very wistful, like reading a great Russian novel does/ I am terribly bored/ sometimes it is like seeing a bad movie/other days, more often, it’s like having an acute disease of the kidney2
-Frank O’Hara
Aries are at their most powerful when they are at their most explicit
and most urgent.
Name dropping.
Singing from the gut.
Sometimes, Aries forget to listen. It’s not that they don’t want to listen, or that they don’t find you super fascinating. It’s just that “It’s reallllllly crazy and hard and fun to be on this journey that is life sometimes and I need to run! I need to write a song! or a poem! or make edits! I have something to say! Feelings are so beautiful! Wow! Now I need a nap, but I also need to learn! to! cook! Mangos! Tahini! Sesame seeds. Sweet & fresh! Smooth but also crunchy. Textures! Sigh. Hm?”
One day, I walk to the G train, high on Xanax. I am going to MoMA PS1. It’s not quite spring, but I’m wearing a short skirt with no tights for the first time and my legs feel good in the open air. I pass the coffee shop, Marcy & Myrtle, and I notice that the logo of the store features two rams. Horns intertwined. Twins. This makes me contemplate whether Aries—like Gemini (the twins), Pisces (the two fish), or Libra (the scales)—is a sign of duality.
Purity and Chaos. That’s the Aries duality.
Aries come in pairs. Best friends, usually. Two Aries together will depend, never co-depend, and if they do co-depend, it soon will end. Two Aries involved romantically is a disaster. With the power dynamic of sex and the ram competition invoked, the rhythm will never settle. Two Aries can be lovers for a short time. Aries can sweep each other into the next dimension of their mutual lifetime! This is what happened between the artists Max Ernst and Leonora Carrington. Carrington was nineteen when she ran away with Ernst, a much older man, twenty years her senior. (Related question is: can an Aries every really be an old man?) It was a very brief affair which ended with Ernst in prison, and Carrington in an asylum. No surrealist exaggeration. But while they were together, they made sculptures of their guardian animals, played pranks for breakfast. Utopia.
Purity and Chaos.
So many born in the spring are songwriters and poets. And what is a song? Minutes that convey lifetimes. Melodies that distill in order to expand.
Aries are prolific. Frank O’Hara spun one million lunch poems. Greta Kline who calls herself Frankie Cosmos—Frankie after her obsession with O’Hara—wrote one million songs before she turned 20.
Aries obey their inspiration which comes in bursts. Pure bursts.
Is purity chaotic? Or is chaos pure?
Aries sing of water.
Aries sing of mountains.
Love feels like a cannonball dive into the ocean:
skin quenched in salt water, and victorious palms in the cool air.
Aries have nowhere to go but up.
In her song “Sinister,” Aries Greta Kline sings,
Sometimes I get sinister / can’t always be like Arthur3
In his song, “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song,” Aries Robin Pecknold sings,
I don’t know what I’ve done / I’m turning myself into a demon4
These are Aries confessions of darkness. Kline is sinister, incapable of being as pure as Saint Arthur Russell. Pecknold is a demon: lost, wandering aimlessly. I don’t think Greta is sinister and I don’t think Robin is a demon. Their songs speak of stillness. But to an Aries, stillness is what’s demonic and sinister.
Aries are effusive. They lift with their affection, and carry with their criticism. Everything is a kick in the pants. An invitation forward. Aries want to climb the mountain. And they don't want to do it alone. They'll always take you along for the ride. Aries encourage.. They want to do well and do good. They'll help you do well and good too.
Richard tells me I’m intuitive.
Deepali tells me my aphorisms are songs.
Kelsey tells me I am a powerful star witch.
These are things I cannot tell myself.
As a Pisces, these things seem both too obvious and too aspirational.
How can I be anything?
How could I aspire to be something so pure?
How could I embody something so chaotic?
I’m not an Aries but I think I get it sometimes when I just wanna send someone I love 1 million green heart emojis. Because what else matters?
💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚💚
“Naphtha” by Frank O’Hara
“Yesterday Down at the Canal” by Frank O’Hara
Frankie Cosmos “Sinister”
Fleet Foxes “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song”