moon in review 🌓 october 29, 2025

man, what the fuck. theyre shutting off food stamps?* i dont even know if i can do this today. it's already a day late, and the vibes are just so oppressive. the degree of ripple effects it's gonna have. also, that's how i buy groceries and stuff. i mean, im fine, im totally not in a survival emergency at the moment. i can certainly ride this one out on that level. i actually had kind of a crazy stroke of financial good luck just very recently? its just like, all my friends and neighbors and comrades, somehow or another. and me, just not in an "eating next month" kind of way. anyway, whatever, lets go

*(addendum: theyre not !? theyre not shutting off SNAP benefits. i wrote all this yesterday but literally as i was about to hit send a story crossed my rss reader about how it got blocked by a judge at the last minute. im leaving it for versimilitude but damn !!)

moon in review is the moonly newsletter from me, aloe. i send one out every first-quarter moon. it recounts the previous lunation, from one new moon to the next. this one's the samhain issue, so happy new years to witches :)

something kind of funny happened with this one where, before writing the previous entry i had had the "this moon i read theory" bit cooking on the backburner for a long time, and i was really agitated and writers-blocked (positive) about it; like, side-note, i've been meaning to watch the video sarah zedig links to in this post, about how much of the labor of art work occurs invisibly and ahead of the actual "process" of touching paws to keyboard; but so anyway, lastletter was a classic one of those situations, and now i'm having almost the opposite experience with this one where i haven't been thinking about it at all and i don't know what the hell i wanna say, i'm drawing a true blank. maybe i'll just round up some of the work i've been doing and see if it takes me on any rambles, and if it doesn't then this can just be a short one. that's a lot better than nothing !

🌑 september 21

the first creative thing i really did this moon was fix this powered speaker i have. i wrote the repair up in this blog post later on, but this was around when i actually did it. man i love fixing shit. its so satisfying to reason and intuit and test, and for it to really work in the end. feels like agency! yummy

i was doing this so i could bring the pair of speakers to set up in my new practice space — ive mentioned this in here a couple times, but i answered an ad and joined in a practice space in some building with some other local musicians. it's been so so nice having a place to go and play drums and stuff again. and sing! like really just dig the hell in there and mess around with my voice. i've been using this youtube channel full of different exercises and warmups, usually just doing one video each time i visit, which is about twice a week. too soon to tell if i'm really Improving or anything, but it feels pretty good regardless. (sidenote, i bet a lot of this stuff would help with speaking-voice training for transgender reasons, regardless of any other singing practice.) and it's such a boon having a place to do it that feels as safe and private as this vocal booth; or when it's not feeling totally private, hearing other musicians in the hallway also singing or playing, and feeling like we share a bond of mutual vulnerability. it almost approaches a sense of common purpose, like — we're all in this particular place for similar reasons. if you hear me make a sound like a canada goose, you're honor-bound to a certain degree of understanding.

oh yeah, there's a vocal booth! isnt that great? theres like a whole little control room with a window too; some previous tenants had built it out for a recording studio, so i get to inherit the bones. it's not totally perfect in terms of like, the whole space isn't super isolated from neighbors with varying schedules, and the ceilings are lowish and wood and so on, but for what i'm doing it's a whole lot to play with. and i'm looking forward to dipping a toe into recording some other musicians in here down the line :)

and hey ok, check this out: you know how every time i mention this practice space im like, im getting back on my demo recording, i swear, im gonna have a tape for you next time ... well ! i finally have a tape for you, this time ! this track includes drums recorded in the old garage, bass and guitar recorded in my living room, and vocals recorded at the new spot; a true bridge, a genuine picking-up right where i left it off.

🌕 october 6

so thats cool ! then i got the fuck out of town for a minute and visited my besties and their little baby out in new york state. i love them all so much ... they had a big yard sale and we went for walks and took pictures, and i saw papa's brass band play their chappell roan cover medley arrangement, and we ate big breakfasts with good coffee and talked about everything and listened to records, and read picture books out loud and did all the voices. my heart overflows a little just to recall it

then i reluctantly waved goodbye and ferried myself back home, and promptly got really sick for a couple days, cause i had caught something on the trip. and that combined with the trip itself moved me through some kind of portal. like, you know how going away and coming back tends to encourage certain shifts in perspective, a different angle on one's daily patterns and habits? mash that up with some high-grade convalescence, the kind i later described by saying "wow, it's neat how a fever can be like, kind of a free acid trip that also hurts like hell," and you will be in the vicinity of my early-wane experience. i remember just as i was really recovering, that superhuman adrenal feeling that comes with the still-overdriven immune system, feeling like .. i have to hang on to this, i can't just fall back into my old shit. but wow is it hard mode in this damn collapsing nation.

(i also had the strength print in the tarot show at fuller's around here! i was just getting over the sickness then so i didnt make it to hang out, but i did drop by to bring the print and saw all the others hanging up, and it was so sweet to be included in such a fun, lively show with so many different creative interpretations of these archetypes. i cant wait for the deck!)

anyway, as far as what any of those perspective shifts actually were, i'm having trouble figuring out exactly how to write about it, because a lot of it is kind of super-internal. not even in a way where i'm afraid it's too vulnerable or revealing for this venue, primarily, just i'm not even sure how to deliver any of it without frontloading an incredible pile of Context. it may be better channeled into more abstract forms, if art is to be made about it. i'm actually sitting in the practice space right now, in this big red papasan chair i yanked out of the booth when i moved in, so it's entirely possible for me to just put my money where my mouth is and play some drums about it.

in fact i think i just might. i know i've been a bit repetitive about this, but it was extra loud this time around; a lot of the work i've been doing lately is in therapy, or in close relationships, or alone. and i'm not always going to have anything to really say about that on a given moon. when i said the last letter was a big push, i meant it in the most constructive way, and i'm really appreciating the space this project is giving me to do work like that. but i also want it to be something sustainable, and consistent, and genuine; and that means it needs the freedom to morph with the seasons, and the seasons of my heart, and to take the shape it needs from one to the next. there it is, then! a letter, after all

🌑 october 21

your present lunation began with the new moon of october 21st, waxes to the full moon of november 5th, and wanes to the new moon of november 20th. wednesday, october 29th was the first-quarter moon of this lunation.

we got a couple prior panic gigs in the pipeline this time! we'll be playing at daisy cutter on tuesday, november 4th, and at lost bag on friday, november 14th. both shows are in providence, and feature some sick bands both touring and local. check out the links for more info!

with that, we come to pulling cards. or, just one. this one!

your card is: the queen of wands. (pull your own cards at aloe.gay/tarot !)

The Wands throughout this suit are always in leaf, as it is a suit of life and animation. Emotionally and otherwise, the Queen's personality corresponds to that of the King, but is more magnetic.

— a.e. waite, the pictorial key to the tarot

ooh, our first wands ! not our first queen though, so we have all that stuff to build on. i hate to keep bringing up kings, like, let these women stand on their own, you know? but waite started it, so, here's how he describes that corresponding personality: "The physical and emotional nature to which this card is attributed is dark, ardent, lithe, animated, impassioned, noble." sheesh, thats quite a list of adjectives. so that, but more magnetic .. and this is where he chooses to point out the leaves on the wand, as well. one thing i like about this book, it's so dense, like almost every choice is meaningful. you can read pretty deep into details and be rewarded a lot of the time.

remember that chart from the second august letter, where it has all the double elemental correspondences for the court cards? its interesting in light of all this. like, the queens are water, and wands are fire, so we get something like "the watery side of fire" here. you might think this would be one of those "weaker" combinations, or like, at odds with itself in some way. i was thinking about the prince of cups in the thoth deck a lot recently because he kept showing up in personal readings, and crowley minces no words about the flaws inherent to the "firey side of water" there. i actually found it a great opportunity to do some hard work confronting some of the pains and disappointments that are just a part of being a person here on earth, where everything is flawed somehow.

but this read might be less intuitive or straightforward, because by artie's reckoning the water seems like a positive influence, like maybe it tempers a bit of that fire/fire energy that can be well, kind of a lot sometimes. it's also interesting in light of the whole distinction where queens maximally embody the qualities of their suit, where kings leverage them to like, govern and stuff. green wood is wet, it doesn't burn. its energy is all wrapped up in living. the elemental "fire" in this suit (and beyond) often refers to a kind of "spark of life" or motivation, the internal fire of the soul, rather than like, the literal process of rapid material oxidation.

and it tracks that there would be something a bit more attractive about these qualities in the abstract. like, in their purest form, they can be so inspiring; where putting them into practice, they're bound to ruffle some feathers. we may even hope, often, in deadly serious realms like government, for cooler heads to prevail. and that reveals a bit about the distinction between water/fire and fire/water, too — like water is her role and fire is her nature, or something. they're not just two elements added together, they're in specific slots. there's no transitive property.

this is really neither here nor there, but i always thought the rider queen of wands next to the fool kind of looks like a transition timeline. ooh, and while we're doing random details, we got a little black cat for halloween ! what a blessing. this reading is a bit of a mess, but maybe i can forgive it for that. the letter is messy too, so it fits. and it's all pretty thematic to the card, right? like, i can be messy and magnetic, as long as im not acting in a capacity to be in charge of anything. you all probably just enjoy the enthusiasm. this moon, let yourself wiggle :)

thank you so much for reading my newsletter! we're hosted by comradery, a cooperatively-owned platform for artists and community projects. i host all my work that i can online for free; if it means something to you and you want to see more of it, please consider supporting me with a recurring donation as low as $1 a month on comradery, or with a one-time tip on ko-fi. anything helps a whole lot in my effort to build a sustainable art practice and life for myself. my website is aloe.gay, and you can write back to me at aloe (at) aloe (dot) gay. i hope you have a good moon, i'll see you around the next first quarter ~