This is the last business-as-usual newsletter I’ll be writing here on Substack. Some folks have asked why I would do this, and the answer is, this is an incredible New Moon to go out on.
However! I have received approximately one million messages asking for personalized next steps re: the newsletter migration, and I would like to preemptively beg your patience as there are thousands of you and I am but one woman. If you’re a free subscriber, the transition to beehiiv is taken care of. I said you have to do nothing, and I meant it! Sometime within in the next two weeks, you’ll get an email from the new newsletter. Bam, done.
Paid subscribers, it’s a little more of a process. Y’all will be getting a more detailed email from me within the next few days.
However, a few important, quick notes:
As of this email, I have officially paused subscription billing here at Substack.
No seriously, you don’t need to do anything. Do not unsubscribe from this newsletter! In fact, I actually need you to STAY subscribed here — at least for the next two weeks! — as the wonderful Théo Pavlich helps me navigate the back-end Excel monstrosities of newsletter migration. (If you already were planning to peace out and be like Jeanna fuck off I never want to hear from you again, obviously disregard this bullet point, and happy trails.)
Probably not surprising, but week ahead emails are on pause until June so that I can minimize steps in content migration.
Would that moving from one platform to another was merely flipping a switch or pressing a button. Alas, it’s not, and Substack has made it increasingly difficult to leave. Rather like an abusive ex, Substack doesn’t want writers intimidated by tech to think we can possibly survive without them.
If you’re reading this like WHOA THIS IS OUT OF LEFT FIELD, I’d encourage you to read yesterday’s missive “after seven years, I’m leaving Substack.”
Okay. Now for the New Moon. Thanks for sticking with me, friends.
I’ve been playing a lot of Stardew Valley lately. It’s the kind of cozy game built for those of us who played FarmVille back in 2009, who find a video game in which we play by doing chores to be soothing rather than stressful.
It is also a peak Taurus season game. Stardew is slow. There is not a “goal” — if anything, the “goal” is to notice and plan for the passage of time. “There is no wrong way to play” is a common maxim in online forums.
If only writers and artists could internalize that there is no wrong way.1
You have one (wild and precious) life. You have one body. That’s it. This is it.
No one is coming to save you. No one is coming to write your book for you.
This life is yours to do with as you will.
As with all video games, Stardew is most fun when you’re playing how YOU want to play rather than what you think you “should” be doing, or comparing your in-game timeline to someone else’s who has made wildly different choices.
Writing is a hell of a lot more fun when you’re writing what you want, how you want, rather than trying to write to the market or copy some famous writer’s routine in the hope that it fixes your self-confidence.
… but writing is also slow, and can take longer than we would like.
It’s why so many wannabes and try-hards are using AI, right? To “write” without the actual effort of writing. To shortcut their way to a finished product, eliding the hours of staring at the ceiling, back-burning, sleeping on an idea, letting the brain do its weird wonky puzzling that eventually — eventually — puts everything together in a way that seems as if it was the plan all along.
The energy and archetype of Taurus is about as anti-AI as you can get.
Because Taurus respects the process.
Taurus knows that results aren’t instant — and ones that are usually come with a bitter aftertaste.
Even in a video game like Stardew Valley, where I am merely replicating the truly grueling work of farming from the comfort of my couch, I’ll still got to buy the seeds, lay down the fertilizer, and water the crops every day to get a pumpkin or a melon or blueberries on the other end. Maybe I’ll get a crop that has a silver star, that is worth more in the game. MAYBE — rarely — I’ll get a gold star crop. (Dreamy!) But I never know until I commit to the whole process, until I witness the entire life cycle of a crop in a 28-day in-game season.
Sometimes, I do everything “right” — buy the fanciest fertilizer, the most upgraded sprinkler system — and the crops are still painfully average. Sometimes, I forget to fertilize and even to water, but the crop still comes out ~with a fancy star~.
All I can do is be consistent and show up to the work.
All I can do is be in relationship with the process.
The book does the rest.
The New Moon in Taurus is exact at 25*, at 4:01pm Eastern on Saturday, May 16th, 2026.
It is co-present with Mercury in Taurus (which has mutual reception with the moon’s ruler, Venus, which is in Gemini). Most notably, the moon is conjunct fixed star Algol. I don’t talk a lot about fixed stars here, although they are a subject of personal interest and research (strongly recommend my beloved for more on fixed stars; their beginner post is here). Suffice it to say that Algol is the star in the Perseus constellation considered to be the head of Medusa. Historically, it has been called “the demon star,” considered the most malefic in the sky.
(Perhaps unsurprising to anyone who has read my memoir Heretic, I love Algol.)
Algol is the transformation of Inanna hanging on a meat hook. The death before the resurrection.
Algol is survival against all odds — and what is transformed, creatively and spiritually, in the process.
Algol rejects the pretty facade, preferring to reckon with the rot underneath.
It is not a star to be taken (or petitioned) lightly — but it is adding a current of Underworld energy to this transformative moon.
Which is to say: this New Moon, don’t be afraid to take the work down to the studs.
Your ego will survive.
You will survive.
Trust the work.
Trust the process.
And if you wonder if the process knows that you’re trusting it, remember to breathe, to rest, to play Stardew Valley.
There’s no resurrection without hanging for three days on a meat hook.
No spring without winter.
No growth without planting the seed — and waiting.
Genuinely — thank you for subscribing to Astrology for Writers. It is an honor to get to do this work, and it wouldn’t happen without your support.
You may receive another email or two from me through Substack as I strive to clearly communicate timeline and transition, but our next business as usual missive will hopefully be coming your way by June 1st from my new home at beehiiv.
Thank you for an incredible first seven years. I’ll see you at beehiiv.