Posted by aloe on Dec 04, 2025
im not letting this fade out damnit. the first quarter might have been a work-week ago but the full moon isnt until tomorrow. i actually really like making these...
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.
and phew, i was fielding a full-blown crisis this round, and it's the kind i can't really talk about at all! so, the letter is later than i ever want it to be. and yet ... !
🌑 october 21
and yet, im getting back on this particular horse, and all around me people keep putting one foot in front of the other somehow. SNAP benefits got re-blocked and un-reblocked and appealed up the courts, the ruling class fighting hard to keep food off our tables and rotting in landfills. mutual aid rushed the gaps, filling in all it could, humanity shining; other fissures yawned empty, hungry, widening much too fast. and yet,, people keep on building, moving, pouring in
right after lastletter, i posted another demo of a song — only a week or so after the one before ! this one came together quick, over just a couple sessions. it's not fast, or very technical, or anything like that, which made finishing it just plain easier. in a sense, i was testing what i could get away with, posing a bit of a challenge to my own standards of worthiness. plus, it was a chance to focus on execution, try to get a really clean take of a simpler drum part rather than pushing the limits of what i could play at all. i think this mindset (along with the impulse to add some riffy lead guitar) was helped along greatly in its development by the process of finishing up tracking on the prior panic record, and by working with such thoughtful collaborators on it. which by the way, yeah, we're done tracking ! aaa !!
this demo got a bit more attention than previous ones on socials, maybe since for aforementioned reasons it's just a bit more cohesive and put-together, or because the lyrics seemed to resonate with some people who commented. (if that's you, thank you! seriously, feedback makes this stuff feel worth it.) this put me in that classic funny position of feeling like i had to "follow it up" with the next one in a way that builds on that energy. on the other hand, i also feel like i should make the next one as sloppy and impenetrable as possible, lest anyone get the wrong idea about what i'm after here. the most important thing is to just keep working though, that alone i'm sure of. so, i'm working ! at time of writing i've locked drums for the next one, and maybe they are a little overwrought ...
but my therapist basically told me not to worry about it so much, gently pointing out that (to paraphrase her somewhat less gently) stressing out about the quality of art that doesn't exist yet is a great way to not make any art. i've never been a super prolific musician even when i'm working on album-length projects, and i've long nursed a fantasy of becoming such a font of material that i can finally leave a big mess on the cutting room floor. in my wise old age (editors note, aloe is 34) i'm slowly realizing that goes hand in hand with simply loosening up a little.
and honestly, experimenting with that attitude is what led to this most recent track in the first place, and i do quite like it, for all my theorizing about its accessibility. it's one of my favorites in some ways, in spite of being somewhat less aspirational. so, alright. that's something to work with.
🌕 november 5
then a bunch of stuff happened that i don't really feel like talking about, and it's not super relevant to the letter anyway. but besides that..
my partner's mom was in town for a few days and we all caught a movie and went to dinner a couple times, that was really sweet. i got to see my friend hanna and kick out some jams at the practice space, that always gets some good music flowing. i showed my housemates the elderberry tincture (real ones will recall me writing about the backyard elderbush in here) and funneled us out some dropper bottles for the winter. little treats, silver threads weaving through the challenges, even as they keep on stacking up.
i had a day in here that i spent almost entirely "percieving the vise," as i later described it — just stepping back and taking note of the way the ambient pressure keeps building as ecosystems collapse, weather gets more extreme, christotechnofascism accelerates its local descent and so forth. i think its important to have days like that once in a while, to keep things in perspective, hear out and integrate the part of me that's constantly screaming and losing it, maybe even grieve a little. and, the other side of that coin is that it's important to take note of all the sweetness too, the jam sessions and good food and drinks in good company, and the fullness and gratitude and frankly awe i feel so often in working together with the people i share my life with and helping each other out. i have no grand conclusion to place here, i can only finish where i started; moving forward, one step at a time.
🌑 november 20
your present lunation began with the new moon of november 20th, waxes to the full moon of december 4th, and wanes to the new moon of december 19th. friday, november 28th was the first-quarter moon of this lunation.
just one prior panic gig coming up this moon, tomorrow on thursday december 4th ! its a lovely little bill at the illustrious news cafe — come thru and warm ur chilly bones with us :)
ok, let's pull a tarot card! without further ado,
your card is: the page of wands
you ever get that feeling like a tarot deck is pranking you ? i'm not constructing this order, i swear, these are all perfectly random. so here's our first page, another wand, and a perfect setup to continue our survey of the court cards —
only, this isn't a card of continuation. from rachel pollack's tarot wisdom:
From the Golden Dawn point of view, earth of fire would mean what fiery Wands energy brings into the world, what it produces. If we look at it developmentally, however, as the youngest figure in the court of Wands, we can see it as eager, excited, a card of beginnings. I see the Page of Wands as the first of the court cards (from my developmental approach, the page is the first of each suit, and Wands is the first suit), so that it shares qualities with the Fool and the Ace of Wands.
[...]
A Tarot tradition calls the pages messengers. What might the message of fire be? Maybe to enjoy life, to take chances, to begin something. Some people see this card as a “faithful lover.”
honestly i included most of that because it legitimizes my pet joke-theory that the queen of wands is the fool post-transition. but it is interesting to look at this first court card as part of a "set of firsts" — the aforementioned fool (the first trump,) the ace of wands (the first pip card,) and i personally would argue to include the magician as well, since his number is 1. honestly i tend to place the fool somewhat outside the numbering system entirely, belonging as much last (or anywhere else) as he does first, the cipher card .. i could go on about that, but this isn't a fool reading either.
our page's wand is oriented arrow-straight up and down. we mined relevant symbolism earlier to differentiate the high-minded queen of swords from the king, with his sword bent forward under the heavy weight of use. that lens here does seem to show us more of a fool than a magician; this is not a card of action, which comes next with the knight's wand driving forward, but a beginning that comes even before action, no more than a glimmer in the eye. perhaps the earthy element here, instead of indicating a manipulation of the material world, can be integrated by way of an image: a seed within the soil, a sprout fully entombed but already growing blindly upward, following the single, total impulse that for now constitutes its whole entire life, hungry beyond understanding for its first drink of sunlight.
so what's the message ? nurture sparks, "enjoy life" .. be still, look inward, listen. be an open frequency to those transmissions. don't overthink it ! be open to excitement, joy, motivation. follow where it may lead
thank you so much for reading my newsletter! we're hosted by comradery, a cooperatively-owned support 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 making a recurring donation as low as $1 a month on comradery, or 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 ~