Healing Resistance

A Radically Different Response to Harm: My Life & Training in the Nonviolent Legacy of Dr. King

Authored by Kazu Haga, Foreword by Bernard Lafayette Jr. & David C. Jehnsen, Published by Parallax Press, 2020

My cousin bought me this book as a gift in early 2025, as they had their own copy and thought of me while they were reading it. I found emotional validation in this book. It aided the healing of my personal conflicts and confirmed strategic forms that I’ve dreamed about, having tried to implement them alone in the past, unsuccessfully. At those times, I failed to live up to a 100% nonviolent way of presenting my frustrations, but this book affirmed that the violence of others, and their lack of amable strategy, had been a part of what led me to react similar, proving that nonviolence is evolutionary to our DNA, not only revolutionary. Kazu talks about this concept, being that nonviolence is somewhat new to our survival abilities. This book showed me the everlasting goal, adventure, and process of nonviolence as a spiritual journey, and as direct actions of collective strength.

“Maybe this nonviolence stuff isn’t normal. Yet. Maybe it’s in our nature to be violent, at least for now. But I believe that our destiny as a species is to evolve beyond the constraints of our social norms and our biology… If you think you can sit calmly at a lunch counter while people throw pies at your face, call you the worst insults imaginable, and physically assault you and your friends without having trained for it, you are deceiving yourself. For most of us, our natural reactions to violence falls into one of three categories: to fight, fight, or freeze.”

The above example of assault is what people of color had to face and worse, when advocating for the societal transformation to integrate with the “white race” in Europe and the Americas. Our evolutionary psychology is mostly accustomed to fight, flight, and freeze, however, each of those functions can be re-directed with skillful cognition wires. As I state in my Englitch Stigmata article, “the egg came before the chicken like instinct came before intuition” for it is comprehension that affects the future. In May of 2024, I was accused of putting the anti-genocide protest camp in danger, by calling campus police on a counter protester that was breaking our “quiet hours” rules, and called me an idiot for being an Omnist that tries to re-legion to peace. I had shared I was raised Jewish like him, but that peace is the place I was coming from, asking him to turn down the blasting EDM he was playing from his Mercedez Benz at midnight next to people’s tents. I was told by the young people of color that were on watch not to talk to the individual, but chose to use my privilege and shared upbringing with the person, to have a conversation with him instead.

I decided that the people put on watch were not in charge of my actions, that I am a sovereign being and since I had been a part of that camp since it’s first day, I felt obligated. I may not have been a part of the planning of the camp action, but they wanted as many students as possible to join the protest camp in solidarity for anti-genocide, so I did. I tried joining the group that planned it, Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), but it felt like more of a republic than a Democracy. I was cut off from speaking, shut down by the main organizers of the group, and banned for “talking to cops.” I was not there when SDS made the rules for the camp that they invited students too, and they did not say we absolutely had to join them in order to be a part of the camp or their protests, because protesting is a freedom of speech for any individual, regardless of their sovereignty or loyalty to a group. I was not a part of the camp’s rule-making process, but rule number one was “we don’t talk to cops,” and the last rule was “quiet hours: 10 PM-8 AM.” Sleep-deprivation was often an issue in that camp, and so were cops.

“A nonviolent response to conflict is about committing to a path of reconciliation, which means committing to dialogue with the other parties involved. Even if a conflict escalates to physical violence, nothing can be resolved unless dialogue occurs… two monologues don’t make up a dialogue.”

Instead of allowing the man in the Benz bumpin’ EDM continue his 12 AM loner-rave when some people were trying to sleep, and some SDS’ers were in the main tent bumpin’ their own music (breaking their own rule about quiet hours), I too broke their rule about talkin’ to a cop. When the guy called me an idiot before he rolled up his window and turned the EDM back up after I peacefully approached him, I took out my phone, took pics of his plates, and called campus police (not the same as 911). A woman answered and asked me about my emergency, and I told her that there was a counter protester at our peaceful protest camp, and that he was breaking our quiet-hours rules by blasting music while we were trying to sleep. She asked for a description, and I told her “a silver Mercedez Benz with almost expired plates, and a white man blasting Hebrew EDM.” She said she’d send a patrol car over to check. The guy knew what I was doing, so he took off in his car and never came back. When the patrol arrived, they never got out of their car, never talked to anybody, besides calling me to say that they could not find the car, while I told them he had drove off before they arrived.

“So often we have hoped that if we scream “justice” loudly enough, things will magically change. But what we need is to understand the issue well enough to develop concrete demands for changes in policy, procedure, and the law…”

Nobody was hurt or arrested by campus police that night, or because I called them, and in fact, there was a Denver police patrol car posted at the top of the parking lot every night watching over us- just in case there was an active shooter or some other emergency, and perhaps to spy on us, but that patrol car never did anything to the camp as we slept there night after night.The next morning we were going to do an action at the graduation that I was a part of, being awarded my bachelor’s degree in Transformative Advocacy. I was so excited to be a part of the group, but instead I was taken aside by the former colleague-lawyer, and a peer from a course I had the semester before, both blonde white men claiming to be leadership enforcers of the SDS rules, and was told by them that I was no longer welcome at the camp. I was called a counter protester for getting rid of a counter protester. The lawyer said “you make me want to smoke” as if I was in charge of getting that cigarette out an putting it in their mouth- inspiring others in the camp to smoke too. They then commanded a buff white blonde woman to physically block me by using her body, who later destroyed my tent stakes when she was told to clean up my tent/spot when I was not present. The Palestinian activists at our camp did not kick me out nor had the authority to defend me, despite it being their movement (then co-opted by SDS).

“Oppression is traumatic, and hypervigilance and hyperattentiveness are common manifestations of trauma. When we are used to fighting off threats and attacks on a daily basis, we are constantly looking for the next attack, and being sensitive is an effective and important survial mechanism. At the same time, constantly looking for the next sign of danger only perpetuates trauma and does not help us heal.”

In fact, the Palestinian pediatrician that watched me get kicked out, offered me a hug that I turned down while I was crying, and told me that maybe there could be some sort of reconciliation between myself and the SDS leaders. The guy who experiences more global depression, had the maturity and experience to acknowledge my actions and suggest a solution, while the blonde white people “in charge” of the camp were assured I was only and will only be a danger to the camp. In this case, his sensitivity built on generations of Palestinian resilience and his training as a pediatrician supported my healing as I cried over being exiled by a movement that I thought I was a part of, continued to try to be a part of, alone without say. To this day, no reconciliation has occurred or been offered by Denver SDS, as only monologues take up the that space, sometimes entwined with lies about me being a cop and other falsehood accusations.

Many other former members of SDS, and sovereign protesters like myself, have been exiled from protesting with or around any SDS-led movements, even though it’s our freedom of speech to practice our right to protest, regardless of their republic of cop-haters. The morning I was forcibly removed by SDS, the day of my graduation, I wore my Keffiyeh, my anti-nazi hat, and a rainbow stole. I never completely stopped showing up to the protests where SDS and others were marching in the middle of the street, and I would ride up to the front on my bike and be a part of them- regardless of their looks of hatred and despise:

“Our inability to see beyond our black/white paradigm is one of the biggest threats to sustainable peace. I’ve seen this play out in incredibly toxic ways in many circles, including a lot of progressive & social justice spaces in which it seems like saying anything not in accordance with the dominant view of that group is considered the ultimate sin. One wrong comment and you can be viewed as ignorant, oppressive, or “not woke” enough, and it’s probably because you’re a nazi. Things escalate quickly, and there seems to be no middle ground. Rather than give people space to air disagreements or different perspectives, we demonize them, shame them, and shut them down.”

I have been bullied my entire life, by both my peers and my father(s). Boys threw rocks at me in middle school, I had a gun put in my face by my birth father when I was 15, I was kicked out at 18 by my stepfather for not having a job and for calling him out for being an abusive alcoholic- so I went to live at Urban Peak youth shelter. I resonated with Kazu’s personal story there, as he talked about his abusive step father in the book. To this day, I am still not allowed to go back to the childhood home I grew up in and invited my step father to through a facebook reconnection (I got him back together with my mom). I am ostracized and bullied for being a they/them and calling my child those pronouns by my fathers- but thankfully, my cousins accept me for those pangender qualities, and my mom plays both sides. On my dad’s side I have gay cousins that are both trans-masculine with kids via artificial insemination and adoption. I’ve had several female partners in my life, and my child’s other birth-parent is trans-feminine.

Regardless, that former colleague-lawyer still accuses me of being anti-transgender, still refuses to have an adult conversation with me, and still threatens me with a restraining order every time I seek reconciliation with him. Admittedly, I confronted him at the pride parade, and yelled at him, screaming at him to “never call me anti-trans again!,” and stole a rainbow fan from out of his hand as he was using it to cool himself off from the June sun. The whole altercation was a about 30 seconds or a minute long, while I spewed some cuss words at him for spreading lies about me. I was obviously not nonviolent, verbally, and I took his fan from his hands without touching him, and then left the other side of the street to go hold up a banner about anti-genocide with the rest of the group. I tried reaching out to him afterwards, but he simply threatens a restraining order. So, since there is nothing else I can do, I wrote a poem about it, and talked to my counselors about the issue. The groups that he belongs to refuse to speak with me:

“In left-wing politics, there seems to be a prevailing worldview that people who don’t agree with every social justice principle are racist, sexist, classist, and basically just the worst human being.”

To clarify the reason why that man accused me of being anti-trans, is because I posted a de-transition video about a person who was born in a country where being gay is more of a problem than being in a hetero-relationship- even if it’s seemingly fake or transgender. This person transitioned into a female so their family could accept them being in a relationship with a man, because from the outside, they would look like a hetero-sexual couple. They grew up in a family where a feminine man being in a relationship with another man was forbidden, so they transitioned into a woman. Their de-transition could only happen to an extent, since they had the boob job, the hormones; their point was that they wished being gay was allowed in their home country, so that way, they would not have had to modify their body in order to fit an aesthetic description simply to protect a hetero-normative image (which also costed them a lot of money). I also stated that my child was not allowed to take hormones until they were 18, so I was accused of being “anti-trans kids.” However, I also stated that I did not want my kid taking hormones until they were 18 because I did not want them becoming a whore-that-moans until they are old enough to have sex!

If my child wanted to take androgen blockers to prevent them from developing sex hormones, then I’d be fine with that (not the same thing as taking sex-hormones). In fact, I wish androgen blockers were offered to me when I was a teen, because was overly sexual active due to being addicted to porn from the age of 9 (although I did not lose my virginity until I was 14). My pituitary gland was tested as overactive, and doctors did not know why because I never told anybody about my addiction, and parental controls for the internet did not really exist during my youth, while my family either ignored my addiction, or acted like it was normal, since both of my parents were sexually abused at some point prior to raising me- and after I was born. So, even though I was not yet sexually active with a partner, the military doctors prescribed me progesterone-estrogenic birth control to regulate my pituitary gland issues, which increased my sexual arousal, making my promiscuity even worse than it already was AND it increased my emotional sensitivity, causing me to act-out in more dramatic ways, while the reason why I was doing so was never understood by those closest to me.

I have recently found a life-changing supplement for period-hormones that cause emotional breakdowns and heavy flow (PMDD), of which stabilizes my mood and has lightened my flow, even stopping it altogether if I take it consistently. In my youth and early adulthood before I found medicine, I was sent to mental hospitals for my over-dramatic flares of emotion, wishing my father was not a drug addict or an abusive liar, wishing my mother was not passively codependent, wishing I knew why I felt out of control. During first family meeting with the doctors when I was 13, my father showed up on heroin and the doctor said I could not go home, so I went to live with my grandfather for a short time. It was a good break- until I was sent home again. The problem I developed from having my voice silenced by my the men in my family, but being somewhat listened to in hospitals in CO (despite feeling like I was being poisoned by pills), was that I thought sharing my traumas and being as transparent as possible with my peers would help me in the long-run- but I was wrong. Due to the frequent hospitalizations and groups I had been a part of growing up, when I was among peers I’d sometimes over-share, becoming a sad distraction rather than an inspirational leader, within shared spaces:

“I appreciate that I live in a place tht generally acknowledges the need for healing (somewhere in California), but I have seen meeting spaces and healing spaces often get conflated. Sometimes, there is an expectation that people can process their traumas anywhere, which may actually lead to people getting retraumatized. Beyond separating out healing spaces and meeting spaces, it is also necessary to separate healing spaces from direct action spaces. While our individual wounds may be healed by participating in direct action, we should not have that expectation. Taking part in direct actions can be incredibly healing, but direct action is about healing the wounds of society.”

So here’s the caveat: Since society needs to heal from police brutality, SDS made the rule that nobody in the group is allowed to talk to cops whatsoever (although sometimes they bully/patronize, just like the cops do to members of society/protesters). Sometimes cops view themselves as members of society, sometimes only as members of secret societies, sometimes both, sometimes neither, acting sovereign. There is a person under the suit, be it a murderer, racist, rapist, or somebody who genuinely wants to stop human trafficking and domestic violence. Cops have legal and social privileges that cause them to avoid taking true accountability, which is why people protest them and the system that privileges them. Some people are thankful for some cops, some are hateful for some cops, some are both. I’m both. However, if we cannot have a dialogue with them, how can we change their perspective, or even “know thy enemy,” as Sun Tzu’s Art of War states as a principle? Cops think they have that principle keyed in, because they have spy-technology to look into profiles using a search engine software, but the problem is, what side the key words or phrases that they look for are on, according to their commanders, and how they interpret the laws they claim to enforce.

“Truth is not a zero-sum game, and understanding other perspectives does not diminish ours… In nonviolence, our commitment to healing relationships requires that we listen to opposing perspectives to develop empathy and understanding… In order to change them, we need to understand people’s individual stories and the systems that influence them…”

Kazu also states that when the opposing side refuses to listen to our side by ignoring efforts to discuss actions, then nonviolent direct actions are necessary to gain their attention and demand their listening skills. That’s why the protest camp was erected, and perhaps my peers were projecting their needs to be heard on to me, because I called a cop, and often the cops shut down dialogue instead of allowing it. Before that night, I also tried talking a whole unit of cops out of arresting people at an action in the afternoon into the evening, which actually worked! I did not realize that the chief was looking down from the top of the parking lot, watching me talk down his unit from arresting us while they stood there listening to his orders on the radio. That day, the Denver mayor, Mike Johnson, came to the camp in person, and the protesters were yelling at him to call off the genocide contracts, wherein I was also yelling: “I re-legion to peace” over and over again, a few feet away from him, while the police chief was acting as his body guard.

After the mayor left, the chief went up into the parking garage, and although the mayor commanded him to arrest the campers after they refused to leave the camp and yelled at him, the chief protested the mayor instead that evening. He called his unit into the Tivoli brewing company restaurant, just outside the camp, and gave them all the night off, and bought themselves some beers; calling off the arrest that the mayor was demanding. It was a few weeks after that, after I was kicked out, that the cops finally followed the mayors orders and shut down the whole camp. There were also several arrests on the first day of camp, one of which was one of the blonde male leaders (the peer from my previous semester), so he was not there during the second action (where I convinced the chief not to have his unit arrest people). I don’t know if my peer was ever informed that I did that either, because it simply looked like I was talking to cops, defecting from the SDS plan to chain-link themselves around the campsite, of which they already had enough people doing that day (a perfectly well-done direction action they had done, by the way).

“Whether a loved one is struggling with alcohol addiction and is refusing to have the difficult conversation that would lead to their recovery or a nation addicted to fossil fuels is refusing to talk about climate change, sometimes assertive action is necessary to dramatize the issue, bring conflict to the surface, build power, and force a necessary dialogue.”

I have tried to approach my step father’s alcoholism issue, but due to his lack of respect for me, even if I try to care for him it goes unacknowledged and ignored. I’ve grown to convince myself that it’s not my place to try to change him, my mother’s place, and his children’s place. I am the disowned one, and I must make peace with that. To be honest, even though some people hated me for not following SDS orders (especially those two blonde men and the blonde woman that does security for them), I felt acknowledged when the Denver chief of police purposely sat behind me during a city council meeting, wherein a spoke up against the genocide, letting me know that he recognized who I was from that day.

Perhaps it’s my daddy issues talking, but unlike my peers, he gave me a chance and listened to me talking to his unit. He’s has F.B.I. training, and was given the position after the former Denver police chief, Paul Pazen, who joined with protesters during the George Floyd protests in 2020, and afterwards stepped down to make him, Ron Thomas, the new chief of police- a “black” man. He’s not perfect and has made several mistakes, and while I don’t agree with his accountability plans, I am still thankful that he did not arrest people that day. However, after not reprimanding his officers after killing latino trans-woman, M.Tapia, and not listening to the suggestions of Transforming Our Communities Alliance, I have felt let down by his recent actions handling accountability (after the camp was gone).

“When we use nonviolence to confront violence and injustice, we are not disturbing the peace, we are disturbing complacency. We are disturbing the normalization of violence.”

After the last sentence in the quote above, Kazu says “we are disturbing negative peace.” Due to my transformative advocate work trying to change language, I would never put it that way, but I understand what he intends. There is a study from the National Library of Medicine about an English language behavior that proves it’s often biased through the use of “addition” based language (such as “positive psychology,” or “ads”). The study shows us that “addition-like” functions are used more than “negative” functions, despite the fact that being “negative” on a test for diseases is one of the best things a person could ask for, and being “carbon negative” is act-u-ally a very healthy action for our society to embrace, despite its current lack of popularity. Where we don’t see this trend is in the words “black” and “blessed,” despite their phonetic and spelling ties to “be lack” and “be less.” To lack stupidity or to lack disease is a blessing indeed. Black is blessed. In Spanish, the word for “black” is “negro,” which has the same prefixation as the word “negative” and “neglect.” So, although the user of English may not intend the racial disparity, it nonetheless exists within the systemic function of the English language as it’s currently used (of which can change over time). The study does not talk about the words “black” and “blessed” however, but I do in my studies on Englitch transformative advocacy.

“I’ve come to realize that one of the main reasons why I used to struggle to talk about love is because I come from a culture where our understanding of love is very limited, The word for “love” in Japanese pronounced “ai” has a very limited context- it only refers to romantic love. So in our language, we don’t tell our friends or family members that “love” them.'“

Kazu explains that the language does not have multiple words for “love” because it is a concept that is seemingly unexplainable. While the Greeks have various words to represent different types of love, like “agape” (the love of all things), Japan has various words for “recognize,” “appreciation,” and “acknowledgment,” words that are related to loving action, also seen throughout their various different schools of Buddhism, teaching types of thankful discipline-ethics. All in all, Kazu’s work is inspirational. His certification in Kingian Nonviolence and life-experience guides much of the book, such as having had been a part of protest leadership (like in Occupy Oakland, Mass Resist, and others), and his early-life pilgrimage that strengthened his practice of Buddhist philosophy and people-gathering; balancing meditations decency, all contributing to this fabulous book on principles and action. His work within prisons and schools also inform his writing, as he remembers some of the seemingly most violent offenders with life-long sentences having had impressed him during reflections about their narratives, after they had learned about restorative justice and gone through personal transformations while behind bars.

“September 29th, 2011 was the day I realized Occupy was going to be big. That was the day United Airlines pilots went to the park in full uniform to show their solidarity. That was the moment it became more than a bunch of radical activists protesting corporate power”

To be continued…

Post-Colonial Astrology

Reading the Planets through Capital, Power, and Labor

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

I’ve 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 more of 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 sign-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, 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.” Sparkly Kat does state that even though institutions tend uphold racial and ethnic biases through oppression while claiming to be legitimate (even when 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, while ignoring how racial/ethnic/gender bias is an epidermal/religious/sex-based narcissism.

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 omits astrology 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 the “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 change 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/houseless myself, 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 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 narcissistic 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 better- rather than general ignorance.

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 was an archetype of 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 when Greece conquered Egypt, and before then Babylon, that Inanna is a goddess that precedes Athena and the Roman Venus, of whom was misconstrued over time through the colonial appropriation of historical cultures, as the creation of Athena and Venus as a goddesses were 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), but 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 When we read signs and planets/aspects as having the potential to express as equal opposites within a spectrum, we give more potential to astrological accuracy, knowing that beings themselves tend gravitate towards a certain potential more so than another. Kat certainly shows us how Saturn plays out in its spectrum; while some see explanations of Saturn as Satanic or evil with bloodshed, or/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 (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 the new terms for the plan-its that we need to reach a more ethical space. 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 psycho-social, cultural formulation of star circles anyways.

Further, Sparkly Kat explains Mars’s equal opposite terminology when it is too often associated with the energetic states of being, being that it 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 those codes). From referring to the Black Lives Matter movement, to Disney’s Wall-E, and 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!