Post-Colonial Astrology

Reading the Planets through Capital, Power, and Labor

Authored by Alice Sparkly Kat & Published by North Atlantic Books in 2021

I have been planning to get this review done for over a year now, as I finished the book in late 2023, but sometimes I get in my own way when it comes to mental blockages, and I find that toxic-colonial subconscious mechanisms play a part in that. Reading is a fabulous way to distract myself from the guilt I hold true, wherein the decolonial-historical, metaphysical, indigital, futuristic-ethics, and rhetorical criticism works aid in clarifying my perceptions of self and others. I enjoy the historical context that Sparkly Kat provides to to each major planet and their roles, and I hope that Kat comes out with another book that compares the colonial context of Greco-Roman & Western Astrology to their native Chinese Astrology history, however I understand if that’s not their priority. I’ve highlighted many sentences and keywords that called out to me in my copy of the book, so I’m using those points to guide us through this review, while I will also cite some of them in my book as well:

“Both astrology and race are social constructs and are rooted in the circulations of culture.”

Sparkly Kat starts out by explaining astrology as a “political project,” comparing its study to other forms of scientific research, wherein people are sorted into categories of ethnicity, which is a demographic descriptor that is based on mostly socio-historical mechanisms, of which can play out in political ways, and sometimes correlate with biological patterns- but not always. Confirming racial bias, even when not biologically relevant, is a political act that’s tied to historical oppression, using socially constructed mechanism, such as “all black people have wider hips” or “all white people are superior.” Although Sparkly Kat does not explicitly say this, but people who follow astrology tend to confirm sign-bias as well, such as “all Leo’s have a lying problem” or “all Aries are selfish people.” Although Sparkly Kat does state that even though institutions tend uphold racial and ethnic biases through oppression, claiming them to be legitimate even though they are not- they also tend to denote astrology as a pseudoscience almost always, or more recently, as an outlet for narcissists to justify their personal specialness.

So, although white-supremacy is more easily recognized as racial-narcissism, astrology is more easily attacked and criticized by scientific inquiry within institutions. White supremacy is also usually tied to Christian supremacy, of whom either subscribe to Christianized astrological lores or omit them altogether- such as the likes of Donald Trump, whom pays the pastor, Paula White-Cain (born 4-20-1966), for his “spiritual guidance.” Hitler ( born 4-20-1889) also had his own personal astrologer and “spiritual advisors,” including many of the Catholic church. Sparkly Kat explains that race began as a “magical analogy,” wherein referring people to colors and shades that do not completely characterize their biology in accurate ways, has been taken seriously through cultural oppression and toxic colonialism. Too often, Greco-Roman astrology has upheld racial/ethnic biases too, which has perpetuated sub-unconscious patterns of toxic discrimination and has perpetuated inaccurate ideologies of our species potential.

However, not all Greco-Roman peoples are the same-, for if we assumed that they are, we would be just as inaccurately bias as the perpetrators that use their lore for oppression. The overt use of Greco-Roman astrologies as being the only accurate sources for reading and predicting world wide patterns is also an issue of supremacy, because there’s also Chinese astrologies, Ayurvedic astrologies, Mayan astrologies, African astrologies, and so many more that draw the lines differently between constellations, while also defining stars and mathematical points in different ways:

“The thing is, far from being politically and aesthetically neutral, astrology, like race magic, has been aesthetically connected with classism and the manufactured memory of Roman idealism.”

Sparkly Kat explains that in America, or the “West,” there is a cultural requirement that is not always obvious to people, an that’s a cultural basis founded in Greco-Roman law constructs. For example, the word “Justice” comes from the name of Emperor Justinian of Rome, whom is credited for the Justinian Code of Ethics, of which lawyers learn about. President, John F. Kennedy Jr. (5-29-1917) - (11-22-1963), whom was murdered within 5 years of both Martin Luther King Jr. (1-15-1929) - (4-4-1968) and Malcom X (5-19-1925) - (2-21-1965), had mentioned a Greek law maker in relation to crafting American law in his famous speech to the press: “Without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed, and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker, Solon, decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy, and that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment.”

Despite Native American tribes having had far more power building this country than credited, it is more widely taught that Greco-Roman narratives founded this country- although some sources do cite the truth of tribal politics. Like the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) confederacy’s influence on our constitution, along with other tribes that played a part in crafting American politics; acknowledged when one act-u-ally studies the Native American History of this country, such as the tribal slave owners that fought for their property- including “owning” some Black people (of course, not all tribes had slaves). Sadly, the indigenous truth and their allying historical narratives are only required in some state curriculums, offered as an option in others, while some states have totally banned their truth from the education system (instead allying with misinformation and a type of truth that only instills the white-supremacist founding of this country). Anyways, back to Sparkly Kat:

“Rome is a speculative story, as is the West. If whiteness is a dream, then astrology- with all of its anachronistic and weird neoclassicalism- is one of the languages through which that dream speaks itself into being.”

After that quote, Sparkly Kat explains how Greco-Roman astrology is molded after the Roman political system. They explain how the astrological system of “essential dignities” comes from the privilege of placing planets and signs as “benefic” and “malefic” to each other, having certain “rulerships.” So, if a planet is not in it’s “rulership,” or if it is in “exile,” or in a situation considered “malefic” -then it is “thought to not have the resources needed to do its job.” This form of Greco-Roman astrology creates classism through a certain language-gravity asserting itself as a spiritual truth. However, not all Greco-Roman astrology seeks to formulate in this way. For example, in the style I use, I changed the term “rulership” to “guidance” instead, which is shows that one could look to basic guidelines related to the signs traditionally claiming to “rule-over” planets and “houses.” I also do not call them “houses” - I call them “realms.” Not everybody has a house- and I’d rather have guides than rulers. Sparkly Kat’s book has aided my work to decolonize the toxic domination supremacy within Greco-Roman astrology:

“Astrological ideas about where planets are allowed to be at home are also sociopolitical ideas about who is allowed to be at home.”

As somebody who has personally been homeless and houseless, Sparkly Kat’s explanation of astrological classism defined in such an eloquent quote that acknowledges it has been inspirationally heart-warming. I have found my personal journey in astrology as both hurtful and healing, while Sparkly Kat also explains this concept in their book- how it’s generally perceived as a energy-healing modality: “Astrology occupies a healing-role in our communities” -while in other areas its considered nothing but a pseudoscience that some see as a waste of time, or a paradoxical corruption of both religious science and scientific atheism. However, if done in good faith combined with both mathematical & biological insights, astrology could act-u-ally support religious and atheistic sciences, especially when used for the intent of global peace-planning. For example, if folks combined Chinese astrology with Greco-Roman, in good faith, perhaps diplomatic potentials for business, and explorative environmental adventures could be- rather than using it for war.

Too often, people look to asteroid Pallas Athena for war strategy guidance, instead of wisdom. They convolute genocide, theft, rape and oppression with war, when true war is a competition of the fittest. The fittest being a holistic concept of the mental, physical, social, eco-spatial, environmental and economical- to balance the whole of all those areas of takes much wisdom, indeed. Sparkly Kat’s honest explanation of the goddess Athena’s various roles in Euro-colonial history sees her playing different sides of civilization-making in culture. In Greek lore Athena represents the installation of Democratic values within society, and when Rome conquered Greece, Sparkly Kat explains how Athena's selection transformed into a “protector” for the Roman city of “Vienna,” during a time when public executions were transformed into the “penal” and “incarcerable” formats of criminal punishment.

Prior to the Greek lore, Sparkly Kat explains that when Greece conquered Egypt, and before that Babylon, that Inanna is a goddess that precedes Athena and the Roman Venus, of whom was misconstrued over time through the colonial-history and creation of Athena and Venus as a goddesses attempting to replace the truth of Inanna. For example, the myth of Medusa comes from a rape-story, where Poseidon, Athena’s brother, rapes a woman, and when she tried to fight back, Athena cursed her and turned her into a monster with snake hair, that’s gaze turns people into stone. Although Athena was initially predicted as the child that “overthrows” her father, Zeus, (who out of fear eats pregnant Metis, the first wife of Zeus before Hera), so she is instead born from his brow. Despite the prediction, the mythology it does not state that she ever overthrows her father- if anything, she simply gave him a headache. However, in Inanna’s story, she successfully kills her rapist and gains the power to cure and curse. The Greek Athena gave out weapons while defending rapists and turning the talented & beautiful women that defied her into demons & animals.

Although Athena stood for good things sometimes, too often her name was only taken to conduct evil- and today that still happens, with war-ships in the middle East named after her, still promoting the killing or raping of innocent lives today. Enough about Athena. Sparkly Kat compares Saturn to the age and rise of Capitalism, while also mentioning the ancient Roman holiday, Saturnalia (the root holiday that branched off into Christmas), and how it’s consisted of rituals that “yearned for classnessless… a space in which Roman master dressed as slaves,” shifting the roles of time. While they also note that “in Communism, Saturn becomes revolution… (or also) a necessary stage of decolonization.” Sparkly Kat’s revelations about Saturn are truly magnificent I will say, as I’m also an astrologer that read signs and planets as having the potential to express as equal opposites (but beings themselves tend gravitate towards a certain potential more so than the other). They certainly show us how Saturn plays out in its spectrum; while some see explanations of Saturn as Satanic or evil with bloodshed, and being the light of the fallen, Sparkly Kat sees Saturn as a guide for the revolution out of evil:

“Sustainability is the realization that authority isn’t something that disciplines us from above but is what’s given to us from the land. It is the realization that Saturn isn’t what gives us authority over others, but what we give authority to, in an attempt to distribute the resources we have for survival.”

Think MLK Jr.’s light, his authority in the revolution, a Capricorn, Saturn-Guided Sun; the Captain of Nonviolence in North America. The Standing Rock No DAPL water protector and Peace Chief of the Tetistahs (the Southern Cheyenne), Donald Beartrack Sr.’s birthday, is only one day away from MLK Jr.’s- on Jan. 16th. The quote above on sustainability being in tune with Saturn, truly leads our future generations into new terms for the plan-its. While Sparkly Kat also refers to the Moon as a symbol “controlling the market borders” and Mars as symbol guiding the borders (or borderlessness) of nations, Sparkly Kat gives us very relevant references to the circumstances of politics today. They compare the actions of I.C.E. and Homeland Security to being in a perpetual state of war: “In a neoliberal state, war no longer has to be declared.” Of which makes complete sense in Greco-Roman Western astrology terms, because the Mars-guided Aries is considered the “first” realm of the wheel; the Rising state of being… When we rise, we are at war- at least that’s how it seems in this formulation of star circles anyways.

Further, Sparkly Kat explains Mars’s equal opposite terminology when too often associated with the energetic state of being, as it is also what drives the degenerative states of being too. If Mars is associated with war, it is tied to “famines, wandering, and exile… a metaphor representing not only biological degeneration, but also moral and social degeneration.” The belligerent degenerate rapist or murderer is being cleared of prosecution within the military expectation of so-called “warfare,” with a pious prophecy of New World Orders. Using the word “war” as an excuse to conduct these evil ways of greed and toxic control is deceiving the good power that war can be; an art of true peacekeeping- if only the gravitational faith of the people shifted their resources in such ways to eradicate the evil; by taking actions of sustainability and ethical authority- changing history instead of making it more easily repeatable with new weapons of mass destruction (when the end result is still destruction, instead of the healthy transformations we truly need):

“Like Saturn, which ruled the literal soil, Mars and iron were associated with toil, labor, and the social classes that had to toil and labor. Like Saturn, Mars was associated with farming. The difference is that, while Saturn is the Earth itself, Mars is the iron instrument that manipulates the Earth… If Saturn is the soil, then Mars, as iron, is the blood that shapes the soil.”

When Sparkly Kat explains the “Etymology of Mercury” they refer to it as the “extractive trickster-mimic” archetype that fuels a formula “for the institution of slavery” when it seeks to try logically defining “what is human and what is inhuman.” Sparkly Kat teaches us that Mercury, the Roman version of the Greek god Hermes, is known for an ability to basically talk a being out of being its true self, or convince it to be true to something other than what it was originally true to being. Generally lauded as the communication and intellectualism symbol, the metal itself has been used for a toxic legacy of mining due to its ability to meld into gold so easily. Billions of beings are affected by the pollution of mercury mining, while at the same time, privileged groups of humans like us use it in our computers to discuss some faux spiritual sensation of intelligence while being social & commercial:

“The internet is Mercurial because it is a technology in addition to it being a society. As a technology, the internet has occult roots… The binary system that all code is based on is a direct result from Liebniz’s 17th century fascination with the I-Ching & Chinese Divination. The yin and yang yao, which formalize the world in terms of broken and unbroken lines, was translated by Liebniz into 0’s and 1’s.”

We’ve been so misconstrued from the truth of our physical reality and potential. Robots & A.I. should’ve replaced the mining industry first, while being used to create solutions to mining pollution (such as mining asteroids and seeking alternatives, reducing human labor trafficking, aiding us in cleansing our air and the environment & teaching us less greed) - but no, A.I. and robotics are rarely used to to improve such efforts. Sparkly Kat explains how Mercury is associated with technology and its purpose for cyberculture with metal & labor extraction, so one can learn how mimic through both observation and trickery on the internet- similar to what deep fake A.I. does when copying humans (although not necessarily acknowledging man’s creation as equal within codes). From referring to the Black Lives Matter movement, to Disney’s Wall-E, HBO’s Westworld, and the movie Ex-Machina, Sparkly Kat gives us plenty of pop-culture and historical references to explain the logic of their reasoning for Mercury’s traits.

After Sparkly Kat explains each planet’s etymology in separate chapters, they also have chapters on how the Luminaries of the Sun and Moon work with Saturn, how Venus and Mars work together, and how Mercury and Jupiter work together, while introducing the concepts of their book in the first chapter, and summarizing them in the conclusion chapter. The book is not only well organized, but you can tell Sparkly Kat is well read themselves, having many references to account for their reasoning. Although I did not explain much about their first chapters- the etymologies of the Sun and the Moon, I highly suggest you purchase your own copy to explore Sparkly Kat’s concepts of these luminaries, and see all their other brilliant points I did not cover. They don’t explain Pluto’s context in astrology, yet beautifully revealed power mechanisms within the traditional planets, and I appreciate this because one cannot see Pluto with the naked eye. The farthest planet one can see looking at the sky with bare eyes into space is Saturn, so the astro-lore that’s pre-space tech-imaging has been mostly based on the planets that our ancestors could see: Mercury through Saturn.

“Astrology is time magic. All astrologies are tools that deal with change… it frames and reframes temporality… Astrology changes because the histories of emotion change. The way we see the present changes not only how we see the future but also how we imagine the past. History is a power struggle. The power struggle decides whose memories are allowed to be remembered.”

*If you are interested in learning more about the book, Alice Sparkly Kat was interviewed by Chris Brenner of The Astrology Podcast on YouTube, and you can watch the interview by clicking on the picture below. You can also visit Sparkly Kat’s website and signup for their workshops & astrology e-mail list!