Astrograms are back!
After a few years of tinkering, I'm so excited to relaunch Astrograms with a few new styles. And for the next few weeks the brand-new Painted Astrograms (pictured above) will be on sale!
Some of you may remember these colorful portraits of your birth chart from when they first launched in 2018. Some of you may be wondering what on earth an Astrogram is.
Short story: When I look at a birth chart I see colors. Each planet, sign, and house contributes to a pattern I see in my mind's eye. It's this beautiful complexity that makes me love astrology so much, and it's the basis for how I work with what I find in the chart. I also appreciate that when we turn to the language of color to describe complexity we can bypass the more prescriptive or judgmental parts of our mind. If you have a lot of Scorpio in your chart and have been told you're "intense," you can look at your Astrogram and see that "intensity" can be breathtakingly beautiful.
So go ahead and see what your Astrogram looks like.
Learn more about Astrograms here, or hop on over to the Astrogram shop.
Hurry, because I'll making this new batch until December 15th and then taking another break. Don't worry, though, this one won't last three years!
We're Hiring! Freelance Social Media and Marketing Support
Flax and Gold is saying goodbye to our beloved social media + marketing support person and looking for help!-----------------------------------------------Thanks to everyone who applied, applications are now closed! I'll reply to all qualified applicants by October 5th.
Creative Coaching
So many of my clients are brilliantly creative. I sit down with painters, novelists, historians, actors, musicians, screenwriters, textile makers, and also so many who don't get paid for their creative work. In astrological readings I follow lines of tension the way a massage therapist does with the body, and I often find a painful knot around deepening into a creative practice.
The process of making art can feel like walking a tightrope over an abyss, with on-lookers shouting "Why? Why are you even doing this?"
That abyss holds both fear and a profound depth of experience, feeling, and wisdom. It is where we encounter our strangeness. It's where we access the ideas, images, movements, and aesthetic combinations that are necessary on a level we can't rationally justify. When we are attuned to this need and well supported in pursuing it, we explore and become curious. We bring new things into the world.But most people in your life will not ask you to do this necessary task. Some may actively block you. You may have learned to actively block yourself. Even those of us who are supported in our art practices may do this. Encountering that abyss where both monsters and treasures await us doesn't feel heroic as we do it. Being in that wrestling, restless, groping, empty, flailing-our-arms-to-balance process can feel daunting and thankless—unlike nearly everything else we do. We get small hits of endorphins all day long from answering emails and cleaning the house, working on social justice campaigns or hanging out with friends, playing games on our phones and checking things off a to-do list. The process of artmaking asks us to sink into a different, deeper mode of being. Who's reminding you that this is also necessary?
Making art is a vital need not just for you, but for our shared world.
I'm personally invested in you making the art that is yours to make, in whatever medium you choose, whether you make money from it or not. My vision of a better world includes so many more of us deepening into our innate creativity and feeling our way, gropingly and bravely, toward something new. I'd like to offer you tools for taking those first steps, and then the next ones. With my Virgo Sun and my Sagittarius rising, I'm skilled at offering both strategies and encouragement.
As a creative coach, I bring my lifelong experience as an artist and an astrologer.
I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil and I've benefited from years of art lessons, graduate-level MFA courses, creative accountability cohorts, and Andrew Simonet's powerful program Artist's U. I've made my living entirely through artwork and astrology since 2015, when I quit my side hustle as a copy editor. I understand the rhythm and risks of artmaking, including the many times I told myself "I don't think I can draw anymore" or "Maybe I'm finally out of ideas" or "Maybe I should go back to a job where I can just be anonymous" during the 14 years my art has brought in a significant part of my income. I also hold a strong anchoring cord rooted into the times when I am in flow, in inspiration, and I am flooded with gratitude for the time and the tools to let the art come through.
If you can make the time, I can help you develop your tools.
I've also been speaking astrology since I was very young. My astrological fluency helps me tap into your chart's creative modes and core talents. Astrology is a fairly good road map for the process of becoming. Looking at both your birth chart and timing techniques can help us understand what's arising for you right now, what change it's asking for, and how to meet that call within the context of your daily life. We often get stuck in grooves of shame or self-discipline that can short-circuit the creative process, which relies on fallow times and failures as much as productive, churning out the work activity. Astrological creative coaching helps you collaborate with your own times and ways of being in flow, and strategize around internal and external restrictions.
Creative Coaching is live in February 2024. If you're interested, you can apply here.
Matchmaking with the Astro Yenta: Want to try it out?
The Astro Yenta Database is now closed! If you want to be in a future cohort, sign up for my newsletter below to hear when I open up applications again. I had a wild idea yesterday and the internet gave me the thumbs up, so here we are! For a limited time I'm offering to connect you cuties to other cuties via the magic of synastry (looking at your charts together). So, for now at least, The Astro Yenta is Open for Service.This is essentially the opposite of a dating app: Instead of scrolling and swiping through infinite photos, sending messages immediately and then getting overwhelmed and ghosting (or being ghosted), you're going to offer me your birth chart and your preferences and I'm going to slowly and carefully go through how your chart matches with a small pool of others. We're doing this in small batches because I'm not a computer, but if you find no good matches in the first batch I'll keep your chart for the second batch (if it happens), and so on. No photos, but plenty of room to describe your preferences. Oh, and I have clients and readers all over the world so no guarantee that anyone will be local. But maybe you'll have an excuse to travel!Not only will I choose what seems like the best astrological fit for you (up to three potential matches), I'll also offer you conversation prompts based on your synastry and your self-descriptions. In turn, if you connect I'd love to hear how it goes! And if you start a relationship, I'd love to hear about that, too!For this beta launch I'm not charging you anything and I, in turn, am not promising anything. I may not be able to match every person who sends in their birth info. The people I match you with may or may not float your boat. I'm not responsible for anyone's bad behavior. Click here for more fine print about this whole deal before you apply! And when you're ready, fill out the form below.You may be wondering: Is this really a good idea or a really bad idea? And the answer is: Who knows? My hope is that only kind and amazing people show up for this and are thrilled to get to know one another, but I can't control that. My hope is that the work involved on the backend will be fun and not overwhelming, but I don't know yet! Let's find out together.This batch of applications will close on March 15th, so act now if you want to be among the first to be Astro Yenta'ed! Will there be a second round? Who knows!
Beyond Compatibility: Better Relationships with Astrology
You’ve seen the memes and clickbait articles: Leos should never date Scorpios! Geminis can’t commit! The internet is full of pop astrology that feeds on our anxiety about intimacy and, while it may seem fun and harmless, actually reinforces a culture of harmful stereotyping. In Beyond Compatibility, we’ll debunk some popular astro myths about sign compatibility and dive deeper into the questions you should be asking yourself and your potential partners. Drawn from over a decade of astrological consulting for all kinds of relationships (partners, lovers, exes, siblings, polycules, collective members), this course will help you take a closer look at your relationship needs and patterns so you can make wiser choices. Open to all levels, and I encourage you to bring a copy of your birth chart!
Coming soon: a recording of this class.
Want to learn with me in 2023?
I'm finally offering new live classes!I always have ideas about what I'm interested in, but this is your space to tell me what you want.Whatever classes I offer, these things will be true:
They will be on Zoom and scheduled to accommodate multiple time zones.
They will be fun! I have a lot of games and exercises for learning.
They will hold a loving and respectful container for marginalized identities and experiences.
They will be accessible to all income levels.
Survey is now closed!