May is a month many of us have been quietly praying toward, whether we were fully conscious of it or not. The Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st opens the month with a deep, necessary emotional catharsis — one of the most potent of the year. Scorpio does not do surface feelings. This Full Moon asks us to look at what we’ve been carrying beneath the surface: the grudges we’ve convinced ourselves we’ve released, the grief we’ve intellectualized instead of felt, the resentment that lives in the body long after the mind has moved on. This is a Full Moon of liberation. What you finally allow yourself to feel this month is what you finally get to put down.

Taurus Season holds the first three weeks of May, with the Sun and Èṣù (Mercury) both moving through this grounded, sensual earth sign, slowing the pace and asking us to come back to the body, to pleasure, to what is real and tangible and ours. On the 18th, Ògún (Mars) also enters Taurus, adding productive, building energy to this season of presence. But what makes this Taurus Season unlike any we’ve experienced in eight years is something worth pausing on: for the first time since 2018, Uranus is no longer in Taurus.

In Yorùbá spirituality, what Western astrology calls Uranus has always had a name — two names, actually. Ṣàngó is the Orisha of thunder, fire and divine justice, a force so electric that practitioners traditionally rise on their toes when his name is spoken. Oyá is his equal in the sky: the Orisha of storms, transformative winds and lightning, his most fierce and devoted counterpart. In the oral tradition, Oyá’s winds always arrive before Ṣàngó’s thunder. She clears the path and he follows with the strike. They’re inseparable, and together they are the closest thing our ancestors had to what the West later called a planet — because they had already mapped this energy long before any telescope confirmed it.

For eight years, Ṣàngó and Oyá were moving through Taurus, the sign of earth, money, land and what we collectively value. The result was exactly what you would expect when lightning meets soil: what was buried came violently to the surface. Conversations about financial instability, land, reparations and the collapse of systems never built to sustain us — all of it was their energy disrupting slowly what needed to change fast. Now they’ve moved into Gemini. And we can finally breathe.

Read your May 2026 scopes for both your Sun & Rising signs below.

For deeper, personalized insights on your patterns and daily transits, explore your full birth chart placements and more in KnowTheZodiac App.

Aries Sun & Rising:

Aries, May 2026 opens with a rare and powerful invitation into your wealth zone. The Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st lands in your sector of shared resources, deep bonds and generational inheritance, and it’s one of the most potent full moons of the year for calling in financial healing. If there are wounds around money, around what was withheld from your lineage, around your relationship to receiving — this Full Moon illuminates them not to shame you but to free you.

Then Taurus Season, with Aries’ Orisha Ògún entering Taurus on the 18th alongside the Sun and Èṣù, shifts your focus toward building security through presence rather than push. The Taurean lesson for Aries this month is counterintuitive but profound: doing less with more intention will take you further than doing more with scattered energy.

The headline of your next seven years, however, lives in your communication sector. Ṣàngó and Oyá — the thunder and the wind, the Yorùbá representation of Uranus — are now in Gemini for the long haul, revolutionizing how you speak, write, teach, learn and share ideas with the world. Over these next seven years, you may find yourself stepping into a new creative voice, building a platform you didn’t plan for, or discovering that the way you communicate is itself a form of power you’ve been underusing. The lightning is in your words now. The Igbo say: Aku na-esi obi ike: wealth makes the heart strong. Let what you’re building financially this month give you the confidence to finally say what you’ve been holding.

Taurus Sun & Rising:

Taurus, May 2026 is one of the most significant months of your astrological life… and you may feel it as both a relief and a reckoning. The Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st lands directly opposite your sign, illuminating your relationship sector and bringing a moment of emotional truth about the partnerships, both romantic and professional, that have been carrying unspoken weight. What needs to be said can finally be said.

And Taurus Season itself, now free of Ṣàngó and Oyá’s eight years of disruption in your sign, feels different: slower, more yours, more grounded in who you actually are rather than who the chaos made you become. Ògún enters Taurus on the 18th, adding productive, intentional momentum to your season of reclaiming.

The second chapter of May lives in your money sector, and this is where Uranus, the force of Ṣàngó and Oyá, now begins a seven-year revolution. In Gemini, your sector of earned income and self-worth, the lightning is asking you to rethink how you value yourself, what you charge, what you offer and how curiosity and communication can become new streams of abundance. This may look like a pivot in how you earn, an unexpected opportunity that arrives through a conversation, or a dawning awareness that your voice and ideas are worth far more than you’ve been pricing them. The Swahili know: Kinywa ni jumba la maneno: the mouth is the home of words. What you say about yourself and your worth in this next era will shape everything.

Gemini Sun & Rising:

Gemini, May 2026 is the month the sky hands you the keys and says: now drive. The Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st moves through your sector of daily rhythms, health and work, asking you to release patterns of over-giving, overworking and self-neglect that have been quietly running your life. Something about how you’ve been showing up in your body and your daily structure is ready for a deep cleanse. Then Taurus Season and the arrival of Ògún in Taurus on the 18th grounds your spiritual life, giving you access to a quieter, more intentional inner world that will fuel everything you’re about to build.

But the real news is already in motion: Ṣàngó and Oyá are now in your sign, and they’re not here to whisper. This seven-year era is a full electrification of your identity, self-expression and the way the world experiences you. You’re being rewired from the inside out. Expect unexpected awakenings in how you see yourself, sudden clarity about what you’re here to do, and a creative frequency that keeps surprising even you, especially once your birthday season begins on May 20th. What feels like disruption is actually activation: the thunder always precedes the clearing. The Yorùbá say: Ilé ọba tó jo, ẹwà ló bù sí: when a king’s palace burns down, the rebuilt palace is more beautiful. Gemini, this month is your rebirth.

Cancer Sun & Rising:

Cancer, the Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st lands in your sector of creativity, joy, romance and self-expression, and it’s asking you to feel everything that has gone unacknowledged in those spaces. Joy you’ve postponed, creative work you’ve started and abandoned, or love you’ve given without allowing yourself to receive. Yemaya — the Moon, Cancer’s ruling Orisha — is calling you home to yourself in a profound way this month. Then Taurus Season and Ògún entering Taurus on the 18th bring financial grounding and practical clarity to your sector of community, friendships and future vision.

Ṣàngó and Oyá are now moving through your hidden sector, the realm of what lies beneath the surface, your unconscious, your spiritual life, your private world. For the next seven years, the lightning will be working from the inside out for you, Cancer. This is less about what the world sees and more about the radical internal rewiring that has to happen before the external can shift. Dreams will become more vivid. Intuitive hits will arrive faster and stranger. Old patterns you thought you’d healed may resurface… not to torment you, but to be fully released this time. The Akan teach: Agya bi wu a, agya bi te ase: when one support falls, another rises. What you release in this era, the ancestors will replace. Trust the clearing.

Leo Sun & Rising:

Leo, May 2026 asks you to look honestly at what has been happening beneath the surface of your home and family life. The Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st lands in your sector of roots, ancestry and emotional foundations, and it’s one of the most cathartic Full Moons of the year for healing what was inherited. Family dynamics, unspoken histories, the emotional ground your life is built on… all of it is surfacing for honest reckoning. Then Taurus Season and Ògún entering Taurus on the 18th turn your attention toward your public reputation and career, where intentional, grounded action this month will plant seeds with long roots.

Ṣàngó and Oyá are now electrifying your sector of community, friendship and collective vision for the next seven years. Your social world is about to evolve in ways you couldn’t have scripted: some connections will be supercharged, others will fall away, and new alliances will emerge that are aligned with who you’re becoming rather than who you’ve been. Your network is being upgraded by lightning. The Yorùbá say: Otu osisi anaghị eme ọhịa: one tree does not make a forest. Leo, the collective you’re building in this next era will carry you further than you could ever go alone.

Virgo Sun & Rising:

Virgo, the Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st activates your communication sector with emotional depth and intensity… conversations that have been circling, things you’ve been trying to find the right words for, truths that have been sitting in the back of your throat, are finally ready to move. This is an important month for saying the honest thing, having the courageous conversation, and letting your words carry the full weight of what you actually mean. Then Taurus Season and Ògún entering Taurus on the 18th ground your energy in your sector of expansion and belief. This month’s about taking a meaningful step toward a vision you’ve been holding quietly.

Ṣàngó and Oyá are now moving through your career and public reputation sector for the next seven years, and for you, Virgo, this is a profound shift. The lightning is landing in how the world sees your work. Expect unexpected pivots in your professional path, a platform that grows in ways you didn’t plan for, and a dawning recognition that the work you do is more revolutionary than you’ve been allowing yourself to claim. Èṣù — Mercury, Virgo’s ruling Orisha — will be moving through these energies too, sharpening your communication and directing your words exactly where they need to go. The Swahili say: Maneno matamu humtoa nyoka pangoni: pleasant words will draw the snake from its hole. Your voice, used with intention, will open every door.

Libra Sun & Rising:

Libra, the Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st moves through your sector of money, self-worth and material security, and the emotional catharsis it brings is specifically about your relationship to your own value. Where have you been undercharging, over-delivering, or waiting for someone else to confirm what you’re worth? This Full Moon asks you to feel and release the financial grief, the scarcity patterns and the inherited beliefs about money that have been running quietly in the background. Then Oshun — Venus, Libra’s ruling Orisha — rules Taurus Season and welcomes Ògún in Taurus on the 18th, deepening your relationship to your own body, your own pleasure and the resources that are genuinely yours to claim.

Ṣàngó and Oyá are now in your sector of expansion, philosophy and higher learning for the next seven years, and this is one of the most exciting placements for Libra. Over this era you may find yourself drawn to study traditions and wisdom systems you’d never previously explored, traveling to places that expand your understanding of yourself, or developing a philosophy that becomes the foundation of everything you teach and share. The way you understand justice, beauty and meaning is being permanently upgraded. The Akan say: Nyansa ne dua koro; obi nko ara ntumi nso mu: wisdom is like a baobab tree; no one individual can embrace it alone. Libra, your greatest chapter is only just beginning.

Scorpio Sun & Rising:

Scorpio, the Full Moon on May 1st takes place in your sign, meaning it’s your annual catharsis and release. Whatever you’ve been carrying in the body, in the spirit, in the depths of your emotional world is rising to the surface this month to be witnessed and released. Scorpio’s the sign of transformation, and you of all signs understand that what’s not fully felt cannot be fully released. So dive in fully… and then let go. Meanwhile, Taurus Season and Ògún entering Taurus on the 18th activate your sector of relationships, so this is also a month where the partnerships in your life, romantic, professional and creative, are asking for honesty, presence and a new kind of reciprocity.

Ṣàngó and Oyá (joint representations of Uranus, the Planet of Surprise), are now moving through your sector of shared resources, deep bonds and transformation for the next seven years, and for Scorpio, this is sacred and known territory. The lightning is now moving through the part of your life that governs intimacy, merged finances, power dynamics and what you share with others at the deepest level. Old entanglements are being cleared and new forms of abundance and partnership are arriving. Oyá, as the guardian of the cemetery gates, ensures that what passes through this portal does not come back: and what is reborn from it is truly new. The Yorùbá know: Àyànmọ́ ò gbọ́ ògùn; Orí lẹl’ẹ́jọ́: destiny cannot be averted; only your Orí holds the final word. You were built for exactly this depth, Scorpio.

Sagittarius Sun & Rising:

Sag, the Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st moves through your hidden sector: the realm of what is done in private, what you carry spiritually, what lies in your unconscious. This is one of the most privately cathartic Full Moons of the year for you, and it may arrive as a dream, a sudden emotional release, a deep meditation or a quiet reckoning with something you’ve been running from. Ọrúnmìlà — Jupiter, Sagittarius’ ruling Orisha of wisdom and destiny — is watching this unfold and asking you to trust what surfaces. Then Taurus Season and Ògún entering Taurus on the 18th bring grounded, practical energy to your daily rhythms and health sector.

Ṣàngó and Oyá are now electrifying your relationship and partnership sector for the next seven years, and this means your one-on-one connections are about to evolve in ways that require both freedom and depth simultaneously. Some partnerships will be supercharged by this energy; others will reveal they were built on too narrow a foundation. What Gemini brings to your relationship sector is communication, curiosity and the willingness to keep choosing each other consciously rather than by default. The partnerships that survive and thrive in this era will be the ones built on honest conversation. The Igbo say: Otu aka lụtaa mmanụ, ọ gbasaa ndị ọzọ: when oil touches one finger, it spreads to the others. Let the right connection elevate everything around it.

Capricorn Sun & Rising:

Capricorn, the Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st activates your sector of community, friendships and collective vision, and the emotional catharsis it brings is specifically about where you’ve been giving your energy to groups and networks that do not truly see or reciprocate you. This Full Moon is a social audit. Who’s been in your circle out of habit rather than alignment? Taurus Season and Ògún entering Taurus on the 18th are deeply supportive for your creative life, your joy and your sense of play, so this is a month where you’re invited to actually enjoy the life you’ve been so busy building.

Ṣàngó and Oyá are now moving through your sector of health and work for the next seven years, meaning the lightning is revolutionizing how you work, how you maintain your body and how you organize your daily life. What’s been held together by willpower alone will be dismantled and rebuilt on something more sustainable. This may look like a radical change in how you work, a health revelation that changes everything, or a complete restructuring of your daily life that actually supports your ambitions rather than depleting them. The Swahili say: Haraka haraka haina baraka: haste has no blessing. Capricorn, your mission this month is to slow down and build something that lasts.

Aquarius Sun & Rising:

Aquarius, the Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st lands in your sector of career, public reputation and legacy, and it’s one of the most professionally clarifying Full Moons of the year for you. Something in how you’ve been showing up publicly, what you’ve been known for, or what you’ve been building in your career is reaching a moment of truth. Let what needs to complete itself complete. Meanwhile, Taurus Season and Ògún entering Taurus on the 18th bring grounded, practical energy to your sector of home and roots; this is a month for tending to the foundation before the next level of visibility arrives.

Ṣàngó and Oyá are activating you this month because Aquarius’ ruling planet Uranus is the very force of Ṣàngó and Oyá in the sky. For the next seven years the power players are activating your sector of fate, true love, creativity and joy. Expect unexpected love stories, creative breakthroughs that arrive like lightning, and a healing of the inner child that frees you to create and love without the armor you’ve been carrying. What you create in this era will carry a frequency the world hasn’t heard before.

Pluto retrograde in your sign also deepens this work at the subconscious level, asking you to examine the beliefs about revolution, freedom and collective change that you hold most deeply. Are they truly yours? Or were they inherited from systems you’ve been trying to dismantle? The Yorùbá say: Ojú tí yóò rí ogun, kì í kú sí ogun: a warrior destined to recount war stories will not perish in battle. Aquarius, what was always meant to be seen can no longer be contained.

Pisces Sun & Rising:

Pisces, the Scorpio Full Moon on May 1st activates your sector of expansion, philosophy and long-distance travel, and it arrives as an emotional revelation about what you truly believe, where you want to go and what meaning you’ve been making of your life. This is a Full Moon of profound spiritual catharsis… the kind that reshapes your worldview in ways that can’t be unseen. Let yourself be changed by what you feel. Then Taurus Season and Ògún entering Taurus on the 18th bring grounding and practical structure to your sector of communication and ideas, after all the feeling, this is where the words begin to form.

Ṣàngó and Oyá are now moving through your sector of home, roots and emotional foundations for the next seven years, and for Pisces, this is the most ancestrally charged placement of all. Olókun, Pisces’ ruling Orisha of the deepest waters, is already connected to the lineage, the unseen and what lives beneath the surface. Now the force of Ṣàngó and Oyá’s lightning brings sparks of change to that area of your life.

Where you live, who you call family and the emotional foundation your life is built on is entering an era of necessary and unexpected transformation. What cannot hold you anymore will fall. What was always meant to be your home, in the physical, emotional and ancestral sense, will become clear. The Swahili say: Kujikwa si kuanguka, bali ni kwenda mbele: to stumble is not to fall, it is to move forward. Pisces, every disruption this era is carrying you somewhere your soul already knows.

I have been building at the intersection of culture and commerce for twenty-five years. CRWNMAG was the proof of concept. What I learned inside it — about how cultural signal moves, who captures its value, and why the infrastructure to retain that value has never been built — became the framework for everything I am building next.

I wrote it down. It became a book.

Analog Algorithm: How Culture Makes Markets is seven essays on the mechanism that determines what markets adopt. The introduction is below. A preview of the full manuscript is available here.

On These Essays

Every idea has its season.

I have been a creative entrepreneur since 1999 — long enough to know that being right about something and being right about the timing of something are two different skills, and that the second one is the harder one. I have been wrong about timing more than I have been wrong about ideas. I have launched things into headwinds that should have been tailwinds, built infrastructure for a moment that hadn’t arrived yet, and watched the market confirm what I already knew on someone else’s timeline.

I have also learned what it feels like when the timing is right. When the wind is at your back. When the friction that normally attends building something new is reduced because the conditions are aligned rather than opposed. Those moments are different in a specific, physical way — the work still requires everything you have, but the environment is moving with you rather than against you.

I have been watching for that opening for five years.

It is here now.

I am a student of history and a reader of the whole board. Not out of academic interest — out of operational necessity. Global economics and politics, technology, art, pop culture, food, the movement of capital and the movement of culture. I take in signal daily and analyze it for pattern, for direction, for the openings that form when multiple systems shift simultaneously. This is how I have always built — not by reacting to what is already visible, but by orienting toward what the pattern suggests is coming.

The pattern I have been watching for twenty years is the one this book describes.

Culture has always determined what markets adopt. The selection layer — the human network of people and environments that detect, filter, and legitimize signal — has always operated upstream of the formal economy, shaping demand long before capital recognizes it. I did not invent this mechanism. I observed it, built inside it, watched it extract value from the people closest to it, and spent two decades working toward the conditions that would make a correction possible.

Those conditions have arrived.

The technology shift is real and its implications are significant. But the deeper shift is structural: the gate between cultural origination and economic capture has come down. The people closest to where value forms now have leverage they have never had before. The infrastructure that should have existed all along is finally buildable.

This is the opening I have been waiting for.

I have built without partners for most of my career. Not out of preference — out of the nature of what I was building and when I was building it. Early-stage cultural infrastructure, before the category had language, does not attract conventional capital. You build with what you have, you move when the conditions allow, and you learn to be self-sufficient in ways that become both asset and habit.

What I am building now is bigger than what I can build alone.

For the first time, I am inviting equity partners into the work — and that means doing something I have never had to do before: explaining the play before I make it.

I am not a person who pitches. I am a person who builds. The pitch is not natural to me and it is not what this is. What this is, instead, is an attempt to make my partners see what I see — to share the framework I have been operating inside for twenty years precisely enough that the people who come in with me understand not just what we are building but why this is the moment to build it, and why the approach is what it is.

This book is that explanation.

I am also more interested in leaving breadcrumbs than in keeping trade secrets.

The leverage in this next chapter comes from organizing people around a shared understanding, not from hoarding insight. The people who build with me, invest with me, or walk in the same direction need to see the board the way I see it. These essays are the most complete version of the framework I have been operating inside all along — named precisely enough to be useful to the builders arriving at the same place from different directions, and to the investors who understand that the most important positions in a category are taken before the category has a name.

The analog algorithm has always been running.

Now we build the infrastructure that owns it.

Analog Algorithm: How Culture Makes Markets is forthcoming in print as a limited edition collectible and in digital form. A preview of the full manuscript is available now.

Our very first issue of CRWNMAG in 2016 featured a powerful piece from doula educator Latham Thomas on the power of the womb. At the time, I was a 30-year-old single woman in NYC, working around the clock to bring this vision to life — more Khadijah James than Clair Huxtable.

Like all of you, so much has shifted in the years since. For me: marriage, motherhood, grief, joy, expansion… My three birth experiences called me into birth work — and eventually into building Borne — even leading me back to train with Latham herself. The creation of Borne, and the release of our first print zine, Birthing While Black: A Hospital Guide, is quite the full circle moment. And it’s been a long time coming.

Get the Hospital Guide

Like many of you, I’d heard the terrifying maternal health stats. I prepared. And still, I felt completely unprepared — especially when my attempted home birth shifted into a hospital C-section. It wasn’t so much the change in plans, as it was what came with it: coercion, normalized medical violence, even criminalization.

When I left the hospital, I knew in my bones that 1) This was ‘bout to be a lengthy healing journey, and 2) I had to learn how to help my loved ones and our CRWNMAG community avoid what I had just experienced.

The solutions to this maternal health crisis must be varied: legislation, access, advocacy… Everyone doing what they can, where they’re at, with what they got.

We believe one of the most immediate levers is increasing our agency in pregnancy and birth — by defining more holistic standards for care, and by informing women and families of their options, rights and how to navigate the hospital as an institution, if that’s where they choose to give birth.

Because family-centered care means everyone has a role to play — in the birth space, and outside of it.

We’re grateful to our partners, BLACK Wellness & Prosperity Center, Tre Borden /Co and the James Irvine Foundation for helping us to bring this life-saving guide to life, in print.

The zine is now available, and shipping immediately.

Get the Guide

Learn more and read excerpts from Birthing While Black: A Hospital Guide, below:

Borne

Birthing While Black: A Hospital Guide (now available)

I’m so happy to share that Borne’s first print zine, Birthing While Black: A Hospital Guide, is now available…

Listen now

a month ago · 6 likes · 3 comments · Lindsey Farrar and Borne

Borne

What to Know About Interventions in Hospital Birth

Many people assume interventions begin with IVs and monitors — but they often start much earlier, in subtle and routine ways. Knowing this helps you spot patterns, ask better questions and stay rooted in your preferences before decisions are made for…

Read more

4 months ago · 5 likes · 4 comments · Borne

Borne

Birth Education: Know Your Rights & Options (Hospital Edition)

This piece in an expert from our print zine, Birthing While Black: A Hospital Guide, created in partnership with the BLACK Wellness and Prosperity Center in California, Tre Borden /Co and the James Irvine Foundation. The zine is NOW shipping…

Read more

3 months ago · 8 likes · 6 comments · Borne

Fam, we made it through the eclipse portal. Our African ancestors understood something that modern life often forgets: before you move, you must first arrive. As we step into April — the first full month of the astro new year — one of the most powerful things you can do is begin with an energetic ritual that roots you before the sky asks you to rise.

In the Yorùbá spiritual tradition, our Orí (our divine head and inner compass) is sacred and must be consistently tended to. One way to honor it is to place your hands on your head each morning, give thanks for the day granted to you, send blessings to yourself and your loved ones, and consciously clear your energy before the world rushes in. This is not superstition but rather maintenance of the most important technology we carry.

April opens with a gift that doesn’t come along every month: all planets are direct. No retrogrades. The cosmic roads are clear. Mercury — whose archetype lives in Èṣù, the Orisha of crossroads and communication — is now moving forward, which means the confusion, delays, and internal loops of the past several weeks are beginning to dissolve. This is your prime window for making moves. April’s first three weeks belong to Aries Season, which is ruled by the warrior energy of Ògún, the Orisha of iron, labor and the clearing of paths. Where you’ve been hesitating, April is asking you to act. The month opens under a Libra Full Moon, and even amid all this fire, balance is the first conversation. Libra is the sign of reciprocity; it lives in the space between giving and receiving, and asks the same question this Full Moon is presenting to all of us: where have your relationships fallen out of harmony?_ This isn’t about drama or cutting cords for sport. It’s about a quiet audit. What dynamics are you willing to carry into this new astrological year, and what needs to be lovingly, firmly released?

Then comes the fire. Mars (Ògún), Mercury (Èṣù), and the New Moon gather in Aries on April 9th, 14th, and 17th respectively, joining Saturn (Obalúayé) and Neptune (Olókun) who are already holding court there. This is a powerful stellium: an alignment that calls every sign into greater visibility and leadership. Water and Earth signs, this energy may feel unfamiliar, even uncomfortable at first. But the discomfort is the invitation: you are being asked to stop shrinking, to stop waiting for the perfect moment, to let yourself be seen in a new way. Fire and Air signs will feel more in their element, but be mindful of burning through your energy without direction. Intensity without intention is just noise.

April shifts again on the 19th, when the Sun enters Taurus and the season slows to something more sensual and grounded. A few days later, Oshun (the OG Venus) moves into Gemini, creating a beautiful tension: Taurus wants roots, Gemini wants options. Together, they invite you to hold your intentions with steady hands while remaining open, expressive, and playful in how they unfold. Let yourself get a little flirty with life. Then, on April 25th, the sky delivers its most significant announcement of the month:

Uranus enters Gemini for an eight-year stay. In the Yorùbá tradition, the electric force of Ṣàngó and the transformative wind of Oyá are two of the most powerful energies that exist — and when they move together through a new sign, the world rumbles. This is not destruction… this is reinvention. Gemini is the sign of duality, of the twins, of becoming, and what we are about to witness collectively is nothing less than a revolution in how we communicate, how we move, and what we’re willing to fight for. The thunder is ringing and the lightning has arrived. Our collective rebirth is here.

Read your April scopes for both your Sun & Rising signs below. For deeper, personalized insights on your patterns and daily transits, explore your full birth chart placements and more in KnowTheZodiac App, (free on iOS & Android).

Aries Sun & Rising:

Aries, April 2026 is handing you the torch, and your ancestors didn’t carry it this far for you to set it down now. The Aries stellium floods your identity zone with the energies of Ògún (Mars), Obalúayé (Saturn), Olókun (Neptune), Èṣù (Mercury) and the New Moon all gathered in your sign, making this one of the most activating months of your astrological year. You’re being crowned at the start of a new cycle, and the Universe is not asking whether you’re ready — it’s asking whether you’re willing. As Taurus Season arrives on the 19th, let that earth energy anchor what all this fire has clarified about who you’re becoming.

Then on April 25th, Uranus enters Gemini and begins an 8-year electrification of your communication zone. The archetypes of Ṣàngó and Oyá — Orishas of thunder and transformative wind — are now moving through how you speak, how you’re heard and how your ideas travel in the world. Your voice is about to evolve in ways you didn’t plan for, reaching rooms you haven’t yet imagined. The Yorùbá say: Ohun tí a bá fi ẹnu ṣe, ẹnu ni yóò gba: whatever you speak with your mouth, your mouth will answer for. This April, speak accordingly.

Taurus Sun & Rising:

Taurus, April 2026 is asking you to go inward before you go anywhere else, because what you’re about to build next requires a foundation only stillness can reveal. The Aries stellium illuminates your solitude and spirituality zone, where Ògún (Mars), Obalúayé (Saturn), Olókun (Neptune) and Èṣù (Mercury) are all quietly stirring the depths. This is your month to tend to your Orí — to give thanks, clear your energy and let your inner compass recalibrate before the world starts pulling at you. Then on April 19th, the Sun enters Taurus and returns you to your body, your worth and your season.

Uranus enters Gemini on the 25th, beginning an 8-year reinvention of your money and self-worth zone. The force of Ṣàngó and Oyá entering this space means the old structures around how you earn and how you value yourself are no longer built to hold you — they’re built to be broken open. What feels like financial instability may actually be your liberation from an abundance ceiling your ancestors never agreed to. You cannot pour from a vessel that was never truly yours… This April, it’s time to claim a new one.

Gemini Sun & Rising:

Gemini, April 2026 is the month the sky makes its most important announcement directly to you… and it has been building to this for years. The Aries stellium first energizes your friendship and community zone, activating the networks and collaborations that are finally ready to move forward. Èṣù — Mercury, your ruling Orisha — is direct and sharp, helping the right words reach the right people at exactly the right moment. Let your community see what you’ve been quietly building.

But the real news arrives April 25th, when Uranus enters your sign for the next eight years. The archetypes of Ṣàngó and Oyá — the thunder and the wind that clears the path — are now moving through your very identity, your self-expression, the core of who you are in the world. Tower moments are coming, yes, but Gemini was born knowing that every ending is a twin birth. The Twi say: Obi nnim ɔberempon ahyeaseɛ: nobody knows the beginning of a great person. You are that person. This April, let yourself be remade.

Cancer Sun & Rising:

Cancer, April 2026 is calling you out of the depths and into the light… and what rises from Yemaya’s waters when the fire hits is not destruction — it’s power. The Aries stellium activates your career and public reputation zone, gathering Ògún (Mars), Obalúayé (Saturn), Olókun (Neptune) and Èṣù (Mercury) at the very top of your chart. Think of it like a volcano beneath the ocean: immense pressure building below the surface, and this month, it crests. A new level of professional visibility is available to you, but only if you stop waiting for permission to be seen. Taurus Season on the 19th helps you ground this momentum into something sustainable and real.

On the 25th, Uranus enters Gemini, sending Ṣàngó and Oyá’s electric current through your spirituality and solitude zone for the next eight years. Your inner life — your dreams, your ancestral connection, your relationship with your own intuition — is entering a radical rewiring. What you thought you knew about how Spirit speaks to you is about to expand beyond any framework you’ve previously held. The river does not fight the rock. It finds a new way through. April is the month you let your knowing evolve.

Leo Sun & Rising:

Leo, April 2026 is expanding your horizon, and your Orí, your divine head, is pointed toward a version of yourself you haven’t fully allowed yourself to believe in yet. The Aries stellium lights up your expansion zone, gathering fire in the part of your chart that governs travel, philosophy, higher learning and the beliefs that either set you free or keep you contained. The Sun — your ruling luminary — moves through Aries Season amplifying your natural radiance, and the invitation is clear: think bigger, reach further, shed any worldview that has been quietly asking you to shrink. Taurus Season on the 19th grounds the vision into something actionable.

Then Uranus enters Gemini on the 25th and begins an 8-year revolution in your friendship and community zone. Ṣàngó and Oyá are now moving through the part of your life that governs your network, your alliances and the collectives you call yours — and not all of them will survive the lightning unaltered. Some connections will deepen in surprising ways; others will reveal they were built on proximity rather than purpose. The Yorùbá teach: Wúrà tí yóò dán, á la iná kọjá: a piece of gold that wants to shine must pass through fire first. This April, let the lightning show you what you’re made of.

Virgo Sun & Rising:

Virgo, April 2026 is pulling back the curtain on something you’ve sensed but haven’t yet fully named, and Èṣù, your ruling Orisha, always reveals the truth at the crossroads. The Aries stellium activates your transformation and shared resources zone, bringing Ògún (Mars), Obalúayé (Saturn), Olókun (Neptune) and Mercury together in the part of your chart where power dynamics, emotional inheritance and deep entanglements live. A financial situation, a complex relationship or an old wound connected to trust is becoming impossible to ignore. Let clarity arrive without forcing resolution… Virgo’s discernment is sharpest when it isn’t rushed. Taurus Season on the 19th brings grounding and practical next steps.

Uranus shifts into Gemini on the 25th and electrifies your career and public reputation zone for the next eight years. The archetypes of Ṣàngó and Oyá are now in the space that governs how the world sees you professionally, and the path you thought was settled is about to get creatively disrupted. What looks like an unexpected detour is actually a redirect toward work that carries your real name on it. A knife does not know its own sharpness until it meets the work it was made for. This April, your edge is being revealed.

Libra Sun & Rising:

Libra, April 2026 begins with the Full Moon in your own sign, and the sky is holding a mirror directly to you, asking you to finally see yourself without softening what you find. This Full Moon in your identity zone is not about your relationships for once… it’s about you, alone, unfiltered: what you’ve been tolerating, what you’ve been performing, what version of yourself you’ve been shrinking into to keep a peace that was never truly mutual. Then Oshun — the OG Venus, your ruling Orisha — enters Taurus, moving into her most self-possessed, sensual and grounded expression. She’s not asking you to give more, she’s asking you to allow yourself to consistently receive.

Uranus enters Gemini on the 25th and begins an 8-year expansion of your philosophy and worldview zone, with Ṣàngó and Oyá’s force moving through the beliefs you’ve built your understanding of fairness, love and justice on. Some of those beliefs were inherited, not chosen — and the lightning is coming to show you the difference. The Akan teach: It is when you climb a good tree that others will push you higher. April is your season to stop waiting for permission and start climbing.

Scorpio Sun & Rising:

Scorpio, April 2026 is the month Ògún picks up his blade again, and after months of moving through fog, you’re finally ready to use yours. Mars, your co-ruling Orisha, shifts out of Pisces and into Aries this month, activating your health, work and daily rhythms zone alongside the full Aries stellium. The dreaming season is closing… The passive processing, the behind-the-scenes moving, the waiting — it’s over now. Your body wants direction, your work wants structure, and the clarity you’ve been circling is now available to act on. As Taurus Season grounds things on the 19th, channel this activation into daily practices that actually match your ambitions.

Then on the 25th, Uranus enters Gemini, sending Ṣàngó and Oyá’s electric current directly into your transformation and shared resources zone, and for Scorpio, this is sacred and familiar territory. Oyá has always been your archetype in the deepest sense: she governs the clearing that makes new life possible, the storm that comes before the bloom. With her force now amplified by Ṣàngó’s thunder for the next eight years, the reinvention happening in your intimate bonds, your finances and your deepest emotional contracts is seismic. The Yorùbá know: Oyá does not warn before she arrives. She only asks — afterward — what you were holding that you needed to release. April is the month where you already know.

Sagittarius Sun & Rising:

Sag, April 2026 is lighting your creative fire so brightly that even you can’t look away from what you’re capable of making. The Aries stellium floods your joy, creativity and romance zone with Ògún (Mars), Obalúayé (Saturn), Olókun (Neptune) and Èṣù (Mercury) all camping out there at the same time. This is your permission to create without a plan, to pursue what genuinely excites you, to let yourself be magnetic and uncontained. Then Taurus Season on the 19th arrives to help you shape what this fire has sparked into something the world can actually hold.

Uranus enters Gemini on the 25th and begins an 8-year revolution in your partnership and relationship zone. Ṣàngó and Oyá — Orishas of thunder and transformative wind — are now moving through your one-on-one connections: romantic, professional, creative. Some relationships will be supercharged; others will reveal they were built on versions of you that no longer exist. Gemini energy brings curiosity and communication to love, and what this era is asking of you is the willingness to rewrite the story mid-chapter with honesty, not just optimism. Two people walking toward the same fire will always find each other. This April, trust who stays warm and breathes life into your fire.

Capricorn Sun & Rising:

Capricorn, April 2026 is shaking the ground beneath your feet, and Obalúayé (the OG Saturn), your ruling Orisha, has never shaken anything that didn’t need to be tested first. The Aries stellium activates your home, roots and emotional foundations zone, where Saturn has already been doing quiet, rigorous work. This month, with Ògún (Mars), Olókun (Neptune), Èṣù (Mercury) and the Aries New Moon joining that conversation, what was underground comes to the surface. A living situation, a family dynamic or the emotional infrastructure your entire life rests on is asking to be seen honestly. As Taurus Season arrives on the 19th, you’ll find the grounded clarity to begin rebuilding on truth.

Then on the 25th Uranus enters Gemini and begins an 8-year rewiring of your health and daily rhythms zone. The force of Ṣàngó and Oyá moving through your routines, your body and your everyday structures means the systems you’ve relied on to stay productive are due for reinvention, not optimization. What your body needs in this next chapter looks different from what got you here. The ancestors teach: when the roots decay, everything above it follows — and when the roots are tended, everything above it flourishes. April is the month you go back to the root.

Aquarius Sun & Rising:

Aquarius, April 2026 is daring you to let the world see just how far ahead of your time you truly are… because the sky is clearing every obstacle between your mind and its audience. The Aries stellium activates your communication zone, where Ògún (Mars), Obalúayé (Saturn), Olókun (Neptune) and Èṣù (Mercury) are gathered, and with Mercury direct and sharp, your words are landing with unusual precision and power. Say the thing you’ve been sitting on, launch the project, and have the direct conversation. Then as Taurus Season grounds things on the 19th, turn your most visionary ideas into tangible plans.

But your real headline is Uranus — your co-ruling planet, represented by the force of the Orishas Ṣàngó and Oyá in the sky — entering Gemini on the 25th. This is personal for you in a way it isn’t for every sign. This 8-year shift electrifies your creativity, romance and self-expression zone, and what begins to emerge from you in this era: the art, the love, the radical acts of self-revelation, will carry a frequency the world hasn’t heard before. The Yorùbá say: Ọjọ ́ tí Ọlọ ́ run bá dá ni lórí, kò sí ẹni tí ó lè bà á jẹ ́ : when the divine ordains someone, no one can change it._ This April, what was always meant to be seen can no longer be contained.

Pisces Sun & Rising:

Pisces, April 2026 is the month Ògún steps out of your waters and into the fire, and he’s taking you with him. Mars, your co-ruling planet, moves out of your sign and into Aries this month, shifting from the dreaming depths of Pisces into the decisive fire of the Aries stellium, which activates your money and self-worth zone. The visions you’ve been holding quietly for months — the ones you’ve been afraid to price, afraid to claim, afraid to build in public — are ready for real-world action. Taurus Season begins on the 19th and deepens this grounding, helping you assign concrete value to what you’ve been treating as intangible.

Meanwhile, Uranus enters Gemini on the 25th and begins an 8-year reinvention of your home and emotional foundations zone. The archetypes of Ṣàngó and Oyá are now moving through your most private, ancestral space: the roots, the lineage, the place inside you that holds what was inherited and what is yours to transform. Where you live, who you call family and what you’re building your emotional life on is entering an era of unexpected and necessary change. Olókun, your ruling Orisha of the seas, has always known: What lies at the bottom of the ocean does not fear the storm above it. You were made for this depth, Pisces. April is the month you let yourself go there.

The first time I recognized love was in Alima African Hair Braiding.

It was there that I witnessed womanhood — but most importantly, mothers mothering each other.

The smell of Pink Lotion and Blue Magic.

The singing of blow dryers and flat irons.

The harmony of children running between chairs.

Mothers sharing stories.

Nollywood movies playing in the background.

Everyone eating a meal of their choosing. Women entrepreneurs stepping into the shop to pitch their businesses, pulling out notebooks to record who bought a dress, jewelry or a plate of food.

Mothers would come in with all the money they had budgeted for their children to be beautified.

Sometimes neglecting themselves. Sometimes bargaining for themselves.

And of course, one of the aunties would say, “Let me give you two braids. It’s okay.”

This piece is part of Our Mothers Are Many, our series exploring the expansive nature of motherhood — how we are nurtured by villages, mothered beyond biology…and how we mother ourselves and our communities in manners both visible and unseen.

Have a story to tell? We’re accepting pitches for this series. To be considered for publication Submit here.

The family would be bundled.

As she sat for those two braids, she would begin to explain herself. Why she couldn’t afford more. Why she came in late. How she was struggling to learn to do her children’s hair on her own.

They let each other in.

They wept together.

They laughed together.

The shop was where they unwrapped themselves and allowed themselves to be seen.

Unknowingly — or knowingly — these mothers were mothering each other.

Staci once came into the shop after dark and asked for braids so she could secure her wigs. But she demanded it be done in the bathroom. She didn’t want anyone to see that she was experiencing extreme hair loss — alopecia.

She cried.

One of the aunties agreed but told her gently, “Hold your head up. We all come here to look better. No one is here to judge.”

To share the moment, another aunt removed her own wig and showed Staci she was not alone.

After that, whenever Staci returned, she went straight to that aunt. They would have the shop to themselves — in their own universe.

The shop was where all the children belonged to all the mothers.

Where mothers and mothers-to-be became sisters.

Where little girls who once came in for cornrows with beads now return with their own children for knotless braids.

It was where a frustrated customer once asked to speak to the manager, and every aunt turned in unison and said, “We’re all the manager and owner of this establishment.”

The shop was girlhood.

Womanhood.

Sisterhood.

Love.

But most importantly —

Motherhood.

Who I Am & How I Read the Skies:

My name is Dossé-Via Trenou, and I am an African astrologer, author of Signs & Skymates and the founder of KnowTheZodiac. My work is rooted in a simple but radical truth: astrology did not begin with the Greeks or the Romans. It began in Africa (specifically Ancient Egypt and Mali), where our ancestors tracked the stars, the planets and the lunar cycles as a sacred technology of liberation long before Western civilization claimed it as its own.

The Dogon people of Mali knew about Sirius B — an invisible white dwarf star so dense and faint that Western astronomers couldn’t photography it until 1970 — long before any telescope confirmed its existence. They called it Po Tolo, described its 50 year elliptical orbit around Sirius A, and understood its extraordinary density with a precision that continues to baffle mainstream science to this day.

The Greeks studied at the feet of African scholars. And the Yorúbà people (part of my own African ancestry), descendants of ancient Kemet who carried this wisdom with them through forced migration and genocide, preserved these cosmic teachings in the form of the Orishas — divine forces of nature that I’ve traced back to the very planets we read today.

In my evolutionary astrology framework, I restore those connections: before there was Mercury, there was Eshu (Èṣù), the Orisha (òrìṣà) of crossroads and communication. Before Venus, there was Oshun (Ọṣun), the Orisha of beauty and love. Before Saturn, there was Obalúayé, the Orisha of discipline, consequence and transformation. For the full history of how our ancestors shaped the stars we read today, I invite you to explore Signs & Skymates. But for now, let’s talk about March, because the sky has a lot to say.

What February Revealed

February 2026 was a lot. Eclipse season kicked off, Mercury went retrograde in Pisces, the conjunction of Obalúayé and Olókun — ancient representations of Saturn and Neptune — shook the foundation of everything we thought we understood, and the Fire Horse year arrived and closed out the shedding we’ve gone through during the Year of the Snake. The astrology of this month is deeply activating, reflective and at times uncomfortably illuminating. With Èṣù, Mercury, now retrograde in Pisces for the first three weeks, and eclipse season bringing major revelations around our priorities and values, we cannot run from what must be faced. The lesson will repeat itself until it is learned. That is true personally, and it is profoundly true collectively.

The Reckoning

The conjunction of Obalúayé and Olókun in Aries — Saturn and Neptune — is one of the most significant astrological events in decades. Obalúayé brings accountability and structure. Olókun rules the depths, the hidden, the vast unconscious. When they meet in Aries, the sign of the warrior and the individual, they ask us collectively: are we willing to see clearly enough to act? We’re living through an era where the illusion is dissolving and corrupt structures are being exposed. And Aries tells us the response cannot be passive.

Shango (Ṣàngó) — Uranus — the Orisha of thunder, revolution, and electricity, is also in the final weeks of an eight-year journey through Taurus, the sign that governs money and what we collectively value. These last weeks of Ṣàngó in Taurus are asking us to be strategic with our economic power. Boycotts work when coordinated, and collective divestment is most effective when sustained. The Fire Horse year rewards bold, decisive action — and Ṣàngó reminds us that one of the most revolutionary acts we can do is be intentional about where our money goes and who it empowers.

What March is Saying

March also carries deeply personal medicine alongside everything happening in the world — and the two are more connected than we often acknowledge. The 3/3 Lunar Eclipse in Virgo is asking all of us to look at where we’ve been overextending ourselves in our relationships, our communities and in the emotional labor we perform for systems and people that do not reciprocate. Oshun, the OG Venus, enters Aries on March 6th for four weeks, asking us to step out and show out in how we care for our bodies, our routines and our sense of self-worth.

And Ọ̀rúnmìlà — Jupiter, the Orisha of wisdom and destiny — stations direct on March 10th in Cancer, unlocking expansion and possibility that has felt just out of reach. The Pisces New Moon on March 18th is a rare and beautiful window to set intentions around healing, creativity, love and self-expression right before the astrological new year begins. And on March 20th, the Sun enters Aries and Èṣù stations direct at 3:33pm EST, a portal moment that marks one of the most energetically significant days of the year. Eclipse season officially closes, the fog lifts and we step into a new chapter with our eyes open.

Our ancestors tracked these same movements. They built civilizations by aligning with these forces. We are their descendants, and that wisdom lives in us, so let’s embody it.

Read your March scopes for both your Sun & Rising signs below.

Learn more about all things astrology (and find out your birth chart placements for free) in the KnowTheZodiac app, available on iOS and Android.

Aries Sun & Rising:

Aries, March opens with the Universe asking you to do the one thing that doesn’t come naturally: slow down. With Saturn, Neptune and Chiron all in your sign, you’ve been carrying the weight of a major personal reinvention for months now — restructuring who you are, what you stand for and what you’re building from the ground up. That’s not light work, and your body knows it even when your mind is still pushing. The 3/3 lunar eclipse in Virgo lands in your health and wellness zone and brings a revelation that you may have been running on fumes and calling it discipline. Something about the way you’ve been treating your physical self — your rest, your nervous system, your daily rhythms — is being illuminated and it’s time to listen.

Mars, your ruling planet, is in Pisces all month long, moving through your spirituality and solitude zone, and this is actually a gift, even if it feels like friction. Mars in Pisces slows your natural pace and redirects your energy inward, toward your intuition, your dreams, your connection to something bigger than the grind. This is the month to pray, to meditate, to sit with your ancestors, to let yourself be still long enough to receive the downloads that only come in the quiet.

The Pisces New Moon on March 18th closes out eclipse season and opens a beautiful new chapter in your relationship with your spiritual practice. If you have an altar, cleanse it and refresh it. If you’ve been meaning to build one — one that honors your lineage, your ancestors, the women who carried you here — this new moon is the perfect moment to begin. That practice will become one of your greatest sources of power in the months ahead.

Then March 20th arrives and Aries, the Sun enters your sign, officially opening your solar return season, and Mercury stations direct at 3:33pm EST on the same exact day. Your revolutionary spark returns with direction and depth it didn’t have before. You’re one of the signs most energized by the call to action that this political moment is demanding, and in the coming weeks and months you may find yourself at the forefront of organizing, speaking out and leading the kind of uprisings that actually create change. The Fire Horse year was made for you. But don’t forget to direct some of that fire inward too...because the most radical thing an Aries can do after a month this transformative is love themselves as fiercely as they fight for everyone else. Happy solar return, you royal being.

Taurus Sun & Rising:

Taurus, the first three weeks of March have Pisces Season and Mercury retrograde stirring up your friendship and community zone, which means the group chats are giving drama, your social media presence may feel off and you’re quietly reassessing who actually belongs in your inner circle. Let that process happen without forcing resolution.

The 3/3 lunar eclipse in Virgo lands in your fate and creativity zone and brings a revelation about joy — specifically, whether you’ve been allowing yourself to actually have any. Between the weight of the world and the grind of daily life, somewhere along the way fun may have become a luxury you keep postponing. The Pisces New Moon on March 18th closes out eclipse season and invites you to begin a new relationship with pleasure and the parts of yourself that exist outside of productivity. This is your permission slip to play.

Then on March 20th, Aries Season begins in your spirituality and closure zone, a deeply internal activation that asks you to release what is no longer aligned before the next chapter begins. And Taurus, this lands with extra weight because Uranus is in the final weeks of its seven-year journey through your sign, leaving for good on April 25th. You’ve been through more unexpected change, reinvention and disruption than most people will ever know, and this final stretch is asking you to channel that revolutionary energy into one last bold act of truth-telling, whether that means doing something completely unexpected for yourself, using your platform to name harm that’s been normalized, or honestly examining where you may have caused hurt and choosing accountability over defensiveness. Uranus in Taurus has always asked: what are you truly made of? March is your answer.

Gemini Sun & Rising:

Gemini, March is pulling your attention in two powerful directions simultaneously — home and career — and both deserve your full presence. The 3/3 lunar eclipse in Virgo lands in your home and roots zone, bringing a revelation or moment of closure connected to something that began around September 2025. This could look like a shift in your living situation, a family dynamic finally reaching its resolution or a deeper reckoning with the emotional foundation you’ve been building your life on. Let whatever surfaces breathe.

Meanwhile, Pisces Season, Mars in Pisces and Mercury retrograde (Mercury being your ruling planet) are creating a significant concentration of energy in your career zone all month long. The retrograde isn’t here to stall your professional life, it’s here to make you revisit, refine and get honest about whether the direction you’ve been moving in truly aligns with what you actually want to be known for. The Pisces New Moon on March 18th closes out eclipse season and plants a seed in this same career zone. Set an intention around the work that’d make your ancestors proud, not just your LinkedIn.

Then on March 20th, Aries Season begins and Mercury stations direct, and the energy shifts decisively into your friendship and social network zone. Your voice, your wit, your ability to connect dots and communicate what others are feeling but can’t articulate... all of that gets a green light now. Use your platform with intention this season, because the combination of Aries’ revolutionary fire and your natural gift for reaching people means you have real influence in shaping the conversations that matter. The right connection made between March 20th and the end of the month could change the trajectory of what you’ve been quietly building all year.

Cancer Sun & Rising:

Cancer, you’re ruled by the Moon, so you’ll feel the 3/3 Virgo lunar eclipse in your body before you can even name what’s shifting. This eclipse is sharpening your mind and your mouth — revelations around how you’ve been communicating, what you’ve been leaving unsaid and the conversations in your immediate environment that have needed closure since last fall are all coming to a head.

Meanwhile, Pisces Season, Mars, Mercury retrograde and the Pisces New Moon on the 18th are all activating your expansion and belief systems zone, making this a deeply philosophical month where you’re questioning what you truly believe about the world, and about whether the path you’ve been on still reflects who you’re becoming. With Jupiter moving direct in your sign on March 10th after months of retrograde, something that felt stalled in your personal growth or opportunities begins to move again.

When Aries Season opens on March 20th and Mercury stations direct, the energy shifts into your career and public legacy zone and Cancer, this is not the time to stay quiet about what you know and what you stand for. The combination of Jupiter direct in your sign and the Sun moving into the most visible part of your chart is essentially the Universe putting a spotlight on you and asking what you’re going to do with it. This is your season to step into a more public role, speak on the issues that matter to you, and make moves professionally that reflect the depth of transformation you’ve been through.

The Fire Horse Year rewards those who show up fully... so show up and show out.

Leo Sun & Rising:

Leo, the 3/3 Virgo lunar eclipse is shining a bright and unfiltered light on your money, income and self-worth... and what it’s revealing is that the two have always been connected more than you’ve admitted. A revelation around what you’ve been undercharging, undervaluing or tolerating financially is likely around this time, and it’s asking you to close a chapter that began around September 2025 around how you relate to your own worth.

Meanwhile Pisces Season, Mars, the Pisces New Moon and Mercury retrograde are stirring something deep and transformative in the intimacy and shared resources part of your life — this could be a reckoning around a financial entanglement with someone else, the terms of a partnership, or the emotional walls you’ve kept up that have been quietly blocking both deep connection and abundance. This is not light territory but it is necessary, and this month is your invitation to release the old story around what you deserve and begin a new one.

Then Aries Season arrives on March 20th and Mercury stations direct, and Leo, your mind opens up like a window that’s been stuck all winter. This activation brings a hunger for expansion — travel, higher learning, new philosophies, bigger audiences, bolder ideas. The revolutionary energy of the Fire Horse Year is a call to broadcast your truth more widely and more fearlessly than you’ve been. Whatever you’ve been learning and transforming through this year so far, someone out there needs to hear it from you specifically.

Virgo Sun & Rising:

Virgo, this is one of the biggest months you’ve had in a while... the 3/3 lunar eclipse is taking place in your sign, which means the cosmic spotlight is on you directly, illuminating who you are, how you see yourself and how you’ve been showing up in the world. And since your ruler Mercury is retrograde in Pisces — sitting directly opposite your sign — that spotlight is being refracted straight through your closest relationships. What this creates is a powerful and sometimes uncomfortable mirror: the ways you’ve been shrinking yourself to keep the peace, over-functioning so others don’t have to or losing the thread of your own identity inside a relationship dynamic are all being surfaced right now whether you invited that conversation or not. A relationship shift of some kind is likely around this eclipse — romantic, professional or with yourself — and the one with yourself may be the most significant of all. Closure that’s been six months in the making is finally within reach.

Pisces Season, Mars, and Mercury retrograde continue to activate your partnership zone through March 18th, when the Pisces New Moon closes out eclipse season and asks you to plant a new intention around how you want to show up in your closest relationships going forward: with clearer boundaries, a stronger sense of self and the willingness to ask for what you actually need instead of intuitively meeting everyone else’s needs and hoping they notice yours.

Then Aries Season begins on March 20th and Mercury stations direct, shifting the energy into your intimacy and shared resources zone. This is where the real transformation gets activated — financially, emotionally and in the power dynamics of your closest bonds.

Virgo, the eclipse handed you back to yourself. Now Aries Season is asking what you’re going to do with that.

Libra Sun & Rising:

Libra, the 3/3 lunar eclipse in Virgo lands in your solitude and inner world zone, surfacing things that have been operating beneath the surface. Old wounds, hidden anxieties, patterns you’ve been managing privately that are now asking to be properly addressed and released. This eclipse isn’t loud or public for you, but it is deep and what it closes out from the past six months has everything to do with what you’ve been carrying alone that you no longer need to.

Meanwhile your ruler Venus enters Aries on March 6th and joins Saturn and Neptune in activating your partnership zone for most of the month, so even as you’re doing this quiet inner work, your closest relationships are very much in motion. Pisces Season and Mercury retrograde are also moving through your health and daily routines zone, asking you to honestly reassess the habits, work dynamics and self-care practices that are either supporting your wellbeing or quietly depleting it. The Pisces New Moon on March 18th closing out eclipse season is a powerful reset point. Set an intention around a routine or wellness practice that actually nourishes you rather than one you adopted because it looked good from the outside.

Then Aries Season begins on March 20th and Mercury stations direct, and everything shifts into your partnership zone with a new clarity and boldness. Libra, you’re known for seeing all sides and keeping the peace, but the Fire Horse year and the revolutionary energy of Aries Season are asking you to get clear on whose side you’re actually on, starting with your own. The relationships, collaborations and alliances you invest in from March 20th forward should reflect your values, not just your desire for harmony. Who you choose to align with publicly and personally right now carries weight, so choose with intention.

Scorpio Sun & Rising:

Scorpio, first of all, please acknowledge yourself for making it through February, because that was genuinely one of the most astrologically charged months in recent memory, and you’re still standing. March opens with the 3/3 lunar eclipse in Virgo illuminating your friendship and community zone, bringing clarity — and possibly some necessary endings — around who’s truly in your corner versus who’s simply been benefiting from your proximity. Before you start auditing everyone else though, check yourself too: are there people who genuinely love you that you’ve been neglecting because you were too focused on the ones who weren’t showing up? The eclipse cuts both ways.

Meanwhile Pisces Season and Mercury retrograde are moving through your romance, creativity and inner child healing zone all month; meaning blasts from the past are likely, creative blocks are real and the nonlinear nature of healing is something you’re being asked to accept rather than fight. The Pisces New Moon on March 18th closes out eclipse season and opens a beautiful new chapter here, so set intentions around the love and creative expression you actually deserve, not the watered-down version you may have been settling for.

Then March 20th arrives and everything shifts at once: Aries Season begins, Mercury stations direct at 3:33pm EST and the astrological new year officially starts. For Scorpio, this activation lands in your daily life, wellness and momentum zone and it’s going to feel like the Fire Horse finally woke up from a nap and is ready to move. The karmic lessons eclipse season put you through around love, boundaries and self-worth were not wasted on you... they were preparing you for exactly this moment. Step into the astro new year knowing that the version of you who came out of this eclipse season is more grounded, has better boundaries and is more magnetic than the one who walked in. The love, the opportunities and the connections headed your way are going to reflect that upgrade. Trust it.

Sag Sun & Rising:

Sag, the 3/3 lunar eclipse in Virgo is landing directly on your career and public image, and whatever’s been building professionally since September 2025 is reaching a turning point. A revelation about the direction you’ve been moving in, a shift in how you’re perceived publicly or a moment of closure around a work situation or authority figure is likely around this time, and as uncomfortable as it might feel, this eclipse is clearing the path for something more aligned with who you’re actually becoming.

Meanwhile Pisces Season, Mars, Mercury retrograde and the Pisces New Moon are drawing your energy inward toward home, family and your emotional roots all month long. This isn’t the most outward-facing stretch for you, and that’s intentional. Something in your foundation — a family dynamic, a living situation, an ancestral pattern you’ve been carrying without realizing it — is asking for your attention and your healing. A new relationship with your sense of home and belonging, is beginning to take shape.

Then Aries Season arrives on March 20th and Mercury stations direct, and Sag, this is where your legendary spark comes back. This activation lights up your creativity, romance, and joy and after weeks of deep internal work it feels like finally coming up for air. Your ruler Jupiter also stations direct on March 10th, loosening up resources and intimate connections that may have felt stalled these past five months. Let yourself play, create and fall back in love with the parts of life that make you feel most alive. The world needs your optimism and your fire right now... especially the kind that’s been refined by everything this month put you through.

Cap Sun & Rising:

Capricorn, the 3/3 lunar eclipse in Virgo is expanding your world whether you planned for it or not, landing in your expansive zone, it’s bringing a moment of closure or revelation around a philosophy, educational path or long-held perspective that no longer holds up under scrutiny. Something you were taught to believe about success, about your place in the world, about what’s possible for you is being outgrown in real time, and this eclipse is making that impossible to ignore.

Meanwhile Pisces Season, Mars, Mercury retrograde, and the Pisces New Moon are all activating the way you think, communicate and connect with your immediate world all month long. Conversations you’ve been avoiding, ideas that have been stuck in your head without an outlet, and dynamics with siblings or close community may all surface for examination. March 2026 is your invitation to plant a new intention around how you use your voice — not the polished, strategic version you present to the world, but the raw, honest one that actually reflects what you think and feel deep inside.

Aries Season begins on March 20th and Mercury stations direct, shifting the energy toward your home, roots, and emotional foundation. Your ruler Saturn has been in Aries all month alongside Neptune and Chiron, quietly dismantling and rebuilding the structures underneath your life, and this is where you’ll start to feel that work becoming tangible. For Capricorn, revolution doesn’t always look like marching in the streets.

Sometimes it looks like restructuring the emotional architecture of your private life, breaking a generational pattern, or finally building a home environment that reflects your values rather than your survival instincts. That kind of inside-out transformation is just as radical — and in the long run, it’s what makes everything else sustainable.

Aquarius Sun & Rising:

Aquarius, you’re still in the first tender weeks of the new chapter that the February solar eclipse in your sign ushered in, and March is asking you to keep going even when the ground still feels unfamiliar beneath your feet. The 3/3 lunar eclipse in Virgo lands in your shared resources and intimacy zone, bringing a revelation or moment of reckoning around a financial entanglement, a power dynamic in a close relationship, or an emotional debt — given or received — that needs to be settled. What someone owes you, or what you’ve been quietly funding with your energy or your money without full reciprocity, is coming to light.

Meanwhile Pisces Season, Mars, Mercury retrograde and the Pisces New Moon are drawing your attention toward your income, self-worth and personal values all month long. The retrograde here is asking a pointed question: do the things you’re spending your time and money on actually reflect what you say you value? This month is a powerful reset, so set an intention around building wealth and self-worth on your own terms, not the terms that were handed to you.

When Aries Season begins on March 20th and Mercury stations direct, your voice and your local community come alive. Aquarius, you’re one of the signs most naturally wired for collective action and systemic thinking, and this activation is putting that gift to work, in your neighborhood, on your platforms, in the rooms you’re already in. Your ruler Uranus is also in its final weeks in your home and roots zone after eight years of quietly revolutionizing your foundation... whatever that long chapter dismantled and rebuilt in your private world has been preparing you for a more public expression of who you’ve become. March is the month where that starts to show.

Pisces Sun & Rising:

Pisces, this is your season! The Sun, Mars, Mercury and the New Moon are all moving through your sign this month, making this one of the most personally significant stretches of your entire year. With Mercury retrograde in Pisces for the first three weeks, your birthday season is less about external celebration and more about deep internal reckoning. You’re reflecting on who you’ve been, who you’re becoming and what version of yourself you’re ready to leave behind as you step into a new year of life.

The 3/3 lunar eclipse in Virgo strikes directly opposite your sign in your partnership zone, bringing a major relationship revelation or turning point that’s been building since September 2025. Your co-ruler Neptune is in Aries all month, simultaneously dissolving the idealized version you may have held of a person or partnership, and replacing it with something more honest. This may sting at first... but Pisces, you already knew. You felt it long before the eclipse confirmed it. So trust what you know. Your annual new moon on March 18th closes out eclipse season and helps you prioritize your rebirth. Over the course of the next six months, you’ll be stepping into the fullest expression of who you are.

Your planetary ruler Jupiter stations direct on March 10th, unlocking a flow of joy, creativity, and romantic possibility that the retrograde had been tempering. Pisces, the theme of your solar return is simple and non-negotiable: you’re not here to make yourself smaller so others can feel more comfortable. The eclipse just showed you the cost of that. And once Aries Season begins on March 20th and Mercury stations direct in your sign that same day, the energy shifts toward your income, self-worth, and what you’re truly ready to claim for yourself financially and energetically. Cha-ching baby!

On a recent visit to the new (and spectacular!) Studio Museum in Harlem, I picked up an essay collection titled BLACK ART NOTES. Published in 1971, it was an early proclamation of what Black artists wanted Black art to be outside of the constraints of a white-dominated art world and society. Art FUBU, in a nutshell. The collection was edited by Tom Lloyd, an artist and organizer whose experimental light sculptures inaugurated the Studio Museum’s first exhibition in 1968 and are featured now as part of the museum’s stunning relaunch. It is a beautiful full circle moment, and I was curious to see what he and his peers were thinking over fifty years ago. I’ve been looking to the past a lot these days. Partly to hunt for clues that might light our way through this darkness, and partly to remind myself that none of this shit is new. I’m rarely disappointed by what I find.

In one of the essays, “The Role We Want for Black Art,” by artist and AFRICOBRA co-founder, Jeff Donaldson, he says the following about the role of Black art:

“Art or knowledge that does not serve the cause of the Black struggle is a waste of valuable time and creative energy. Black artists and Black scholars who do not respond positively to the cause of Black mental and physical liberation will be considered irrelevant by their grandchildren.”

WHEW! A word. Jeff, we are on the same page! Over my many years of producing art projects and trying to discern my own practice, I have gotten the chance to see many, many shows and exhibitions and studio visits. I’d be lying if I said there haven’t been times I’ve looked at something and said…why need this be? Lol. There is surely a place for art that has no obvious connection to current events, but in times of extreme turmoil and strife, I personally gravitate toward artists who are saying something urgent in the most honest and compelling way possible. Energy is finite, and when the stakes presented are our very lives, my priority is to find others who are concerned with the truth of our Black humanity and how that clarity can lead to us thriving, no matter what.

I have been energized recently by many shows where Black artists are taking this charge seriously and are showcasing beautiful work that also has a lot to say about who WE are, where we’ve been and where we may go from here. In this post I’ll talk about two (one that just finished and one that is up until the Spring), but I’ll add in others of note you should check out at the end.

Kerry James Marshall, The Histories at the Royal Academy of London.

Without a doubt, Kerry James Marshall is one of the world’s most technically-proficient painters. His technique is undeniable, as is evidenced by his use of various Black pigments to depict Black people. This itself a brilliant and bold artistic choice.

He is also a brilliant examiner of our society, and is not afraid of tackling some of the biggest and most complex periods of our history and the absence (or inclusion) of Black bodies in its artistic record. While familiar with his work, I had never been to a Kerry James Marshall exhibition, so when I heard that his biggest European showcase ever was happening at the Royal Academy, I managed to get to London right before it closed last month.

It was phenomenal. The Histories is a massive show taking up eleven galleries with themes that range from epochal periods like the Middle Passage and the Civil Rights Movement to how Blackness is represented (or not) in the western Art Canon, to an intimate scene of a couple lying in bed (rendered all in black), to beautifully rendered scenes within a Black barbershop or a Black beauty school. Most of the works are large scale and many are unframed hanging from the wall like in progress studio works. In a space as grand as the Royal Academy, which historically would have been one of the main perpetrators of anti-Blackness or at least Black omission, seeing this show is profound for some, disorienting for others. It was definitely one of those situations where most of the people were older and white (British!), and I prayed no one tried to make conversation with me.

There was a beautiful room of paintings with collage that depicted salons and family rooms focusing on memorializing important cultural and political figures that was very moving. It felt like a glimpse into a room in your grandmother’s house you’re not allowed to sit in, and it was mesmerizing.

Most of the galleries were curated around past works, but the one gallery tackled a subject that deserves its own article. Titled, “Africa Revisited,” it depicted moments in African history that “are not often depicted” aka THE QUIET PART. Several of the paintings show vivid scenes of Africans kidnapping or selling their people into slavery in exchange for coveted European goods. In one pair of paintings I am still haunted by, one shows a canoe captained by an African kidnappaer with hostages being delivered to slavers out of scene; in the next painting the gleeful crew returns is shown returning to shore with all of finery and booty they got in exchange. Yiiiiiiiiiikes. This conversation is so radical and important, and it had the electricity you feel when you see family business being made public. A feeling we need much more of.

While the show is over, look for it to be restaged somewhere soon as I cannot imagine we’ve seen the last of this incredible showcase for one of our most vital living talents.

MONUMENTS, Various artists.

MOCA GEFFEN and The Brick in Los Angeles

MONUMENTS is a very different show about American history taking place across two exhibition spaces in Los Angeles. At MOCA, decommissioned monuments, many of which honor “Lost Cause” figures, are placed throughout the museum removed from their pedestals and their reverent contexts. Artists were given access to the monuments to melt into ingots, carve into sculptures or incorporate into new works. Some are still pristine, with figures that seem unaware of their missing pedestals, while others are retain paint and graffiti from the protests that preceded their de-installation.

Aside these relics are contemporary works that grapple with who and what is celebrated in America and what is omitted. The show continues at The Brick where Kara Walker reverses Lost Cause hagiography by making a monster out of Stonewall Jackson. That statue, up for a century in Charlottesville, came down following the deadly nazi rally in 2017 after much public debate. The shows are a powerful and, in this era of obsequiousness, brave rebuke to those who would sanitize deplorable Americans and snuff out depictions of a truer, multicultural reflection of our shared heritage.

One of the most successful commissioned works in the show was produced by our friends at Monument Lab. Their work, a high-tech visualization of data from their groundbreaking Audit, tells a story of who and what this country has historically celebrated and who has been left out. Unsurprisingly, it is damning and depressing data, but seeing it laid out so clearly and engagingly is still moving. It also couldn’t be more timely as the landscape appears to be getting worse, not better.

Another standout is the short film, “Homegoing,” directed by Julie Dash. Ms. Dash, of Daughters of the Dusk renown, shot on location at Mother Emmanuel church to memorialize the parishioners slain there, and to commemorate the ten-year anniversary of the massacre. The film features a haunting, soaring rendition of, “Let it Shine,” by opera singer Davóne Tines which you can hear echoing throughout the museum. It is heartbreaking. At the opening Davóne was on hand to christen the space with the Black National Anthem and it was so powerful.

The show is up until May 3rd in both spaces, and it alone is a reason to come to Los Angeles.

Other Shows to Note:

Derek Fordjour’s Nightsong at David Kordansky (Concluded in October 2025). See my post here.

On View Now:

Tavares Strachan The Day Tomorrow Began at LACMA

Amoka Boafo Bring Home With Me at Roberts Projects LA

Freedom Must Be Material

If someone is talking about freedom and it isn’t material, they’re playing in your face. Freedom is not a feeling. It is not something you march for and wait to be handed back to you.

Freedom is autonomy.

Autonomy over what feeds you. Autonomy over what heals you. Autonomy over what educates you. Autonomy over what employs you. Autonomy over what informs you. Autonomy over what governs you. Freedom is the ability to shape your lived experience without begging broken systems to behave.

This was made plain in 1984 when Neely Fuller Jr. laid out the blueprint: oppression operates as a system — coordinated, structured, maintained. Not random. Not accidental. And an uncomfortable part of his analysis was our participation in perpetuating it.

If the architecture of domination is systemic, our counter must be structural.

Progress is not enough. Symbolism will not save us. Infrastructure built by a radical Black imagination just might.

The Institutions Are Exhausted

We were handed a dream we have never actually seen. The America our grandparents believed in — stable, upward, secure — is not the one we inherited.

This is not random chaos. It is structural transition — what we explored in our Fourth Turning piece — a cyclical moment when old institutions strain, legitimacy erodes and new systems are forced into being.

The institutions we were told would carry us are visibly buckling:

• Education no longer guarantees mobility — it guarantees debt
• Medical systems do not produce equal outcomes — especially for us
• Food is engineered for profit, not nourishment
• Media manipulates attention more than it informs
• Labor has historically been leverage and now automation and AI are rewriting that leverage in real time.

These systems are not simply corrupted. They are exhausted.

Exhaustion at scale creates rupture.
Rupture is dangerous.
Rupture is also an opening.

When institutions weaken, the possibility and necessity of autonomy expands.

Systems Survive on Our Participation

Here is the uncomfortable truth.

Systems do not float above us. They are fed by us.

And here is where the cognitive dissonance lives.

We will say without hesitation that the criminal justice system does not serve us. We will critique policing. We will critique sentencing. We will critique incarceration.

But then we walk into hospitals almost reflexively — compliant, uncritical, conditioned by fear and unfamiliarity. We fill our carts without questioning whether the “food” is even food. We deposit money assuming protection. We send our children into school systems assuming they are being educated, not conditioned.

We recognize bias in one arm of the machine and suspend that recognition in the others. Our conditioning makes it difficult to accept that the same machinery that glamorizes criminality could profit from mass incarceration. That a system could engineer sickness and then monetize the cure.

We were trained to compartmentalize the harm — to believe corruption is isolated instead of systemic.

But a machine does not grow a conscience just because we move to a different department.

Every structure we complain about runs on four inputs:

• Our labor
• Our consumption
• Our belief
• Our permission

Without those, they stall.

Many of the systems that disadvantage us require our participation to survive. They need our bodies, our dollars, our attention, our compliance.

We participate not because we are foolish, but because we were trained to.

We were taught how to navigate systems. How to outperform inside them. How to survive them. We were taught to be patient inside them.

And when patience failed, we were taught to fight them.

Navigate or resist. Endure or protest.

Both responses keep the system at the center.

What we were rarely taught is that participation itself is leverage.

Labor has always been leverage. Boycotts, strikes, work stoppages — history proves that when labor withdraws, systems feel it.

Consumption is leverage. Attention is leverage. Belief is leverage.

And leverage means choice.

No one told us that we could opt out. That we could withhold our labor. Redirect our dollars. Refuse to legitimize what exploits us. Build parallel structures and slowly starve what does not serve us.

Withdrawal is not weakness.

Withdrawal is strategy.

And strategy begins with imagination.

Radical Imagination Is a Design Discipline

Freedom in this era requires radical imagination.

Not reforming what is collapsing.
Not nostalgically patching what was extractive from the start.
But re‑designing each domain of life around values that actually sustain us.

That begins with interrogation.

Who told us success meant proximity to institutions that barely tolerate us? Who sold us hyper‑individualism as strength while we forgot we are a communal people? Why did we trade wellbeing for productivity, ownership for consumption, stability for prestige?

Institutions are fracturing because they were built on extraction — growth without reciprocity, scale without soul. When the values rot, the structure cracks. Leaving failing systems becomes easier the moment we stop revering the values that built them.

That is fundamental divestment.

To be real, divestment costs and freedom ain’t free. The price is comfort, convenience and proximity to prestige. It may cost income, approval, even belonging. Not everyone is willing to pay that price.

Some prefer the predictability of captivity to the responsibility of autonomy. Some are comfortable being fed by the system — even if it means, eventually, being food for it.

Radical imagination is not for the passive. It is for those willing to endure temporary instability in exchange for long‑term sovereignty.

If that feels heavy, it’s because it is. Freedom is not a theory to debate. It is a line you either cross or you don’t.

Crossing that line forces us to examine the defaults we treat as non‑negotiable.

If public schools are graduating children who cannot read fluently and preparing them for a labor market automation is already dismantling, why are we pretending that model is viable? Radical imagination means training our children to build the world we want to inhabit.

If a staggering percentage of women end up with unplanned C‑sections, and Black women continue to face disproportionate maternal mortality, why is the hospital (where 98% of us give birth) the unquestioned default for low risk births? Radical imagination resets our standards for maternal care.

If the highest office in the land is occupied by a convicted felon, why are we still treating legislation as our primary path to remedy?

Radical imagination asks a dangerous question: what if the default is not destiny? What if we are allowed to replace what does not love us back?

Everything — Including Borders — Is on the Table

Vote with your time. Vote with your attention. Vote with your dollar. Vote with your feet — and your passport.

Borders are political decisions, not destiny.

Where you live determines what you can access, what you must endure and how hard you have to fight for baseline dignity.

Geography shapes legal protections, capital access, safety, mobility.

In moments of structural fracture, relocation is not betrayal. It is leverage.

Radical imagination refuses inherited limits.

Everything — including borders — is on the table.

Autonomy Requires Cooperation

Individualism will not carry us through structural collapse. Autonomy at scale requires cooperation.

Group economics is not a slogan — it is survival math.

When institutions wobble, collective infrastructure becomes the stabilizer: cooperative ownership, pooled capital, shared land, community governance. Not charity. Not vibes. Structure.

And now labor — the engine that powered capitalism for centuries — is being destabilized in real time by automation and AI.

If labor is entering crisis and the dollar itself feels unstable, wages can no longer be our primary strategy for security.

Mass uprisings are not the strategy. This moment does not require millions moving in perfect sync. It requires small, high‑trust groups working with clarity, discipline and repeatable frameworks.

Where We Have Leverage Now

This post opens a series.

Over the next installments, we move from rhetoric to construction — focusing on the systems where we actually have leverage.

Not the ones that require permission from the state.
Not the ones that demand mass mobilization.
The ones where small, disciplined groups can withdraw and build immediately.

We begin with five pressure points.

1. Media & Information
Easiest to exit. Highest psychological leverage. We can redirect attention today. Own platforms. Control narrative. Starve distortion.

2. Education
The credential monopoly is weakening. Pods, apprenticeships, skill networks — we can redesign how we prepare the next generation without waiting for institutional reform.

3. Food & Health (Preventative)
Daily consumption is a vote. Buying clubs, local sourcing, maternal autonomy, preventative care — partial sovereignty is available now.

4. Labor & Ownership
Labor has always been leverage. Now that automation is destabilizing wages, equity, cooperatives and shared enterprise become non‑negotiable.

5. Housing & Geography
Harder, but transformative. Land, co‑living, strategic relocation. Where you live determines how much you must struggle for baseline dignity.

These are not theoretical domains. They are leverage points.

In each piece, we will ask:

Where are we captured?
Where is our leverage?
What can we withdraw from?
What can we build instead?

Freedom will not be solved in theory.

It will be constructed — system by system.

This is the Work Ahead

We do not need permission to reimagine our lives. We need alignment, leverage and the courage to withdraw where necessary.

The systems are shifting. The only question is whether we will drift with them — or build something sturdier while they do.

Freedom belongs to the builders.

The world does not feel recognizable in the same way it once did for many.

Whether it is the weather, the pace of daily life, or the general feeling of the moment, unfamiliar conditions tend to draw the body back toward what it already recognizes, in search of warmth, comfort and steadiness.

In moments like this, focusing on small ways of bringing ease back into the body can be grounding. Familiar forms of comfort help steady us when the world feels unpredictable, reminding us that the remedy is already there.

These are the same kinds of practices our grandparents and ancestors relied on, sometimes prepared differently, sometimes named differently, but rooted in the same simple ingredients and approaches that have held up over time.

They tend to center around a few basics: warmth, breath, water, and the air around us.

Breath

Steam is one of the most immediate ways these elements come together. Steam often benefits from something familiar added to it, like a scent the body recognizes or a balm made from plants that have long been used to support the breath.

For me, that often looks like Vapor Magic, a balm made for Marché by Sandra Edmund of Bree and Melly, an independent, women-led brand. Sandra is from Grenada, often called the Spice Island, a place deeply connected to herbs, roots and plant-based remedies. That relationship to plants and tradition is present in how this balm was created. It was made intentionally, using natural ingredients, with the understanding that breath, warmth and rest are closely connected.

I use it simply. A small amount on the chest or under the nose. Sometimes paired with steam. Sometimes before bed, wrapped up and resting. The point is not the ritual itself, but the way it supports breathing in and out more fully, allowing the body to soften and settle.

It works because it stays close to its purpose. It supports the breath, offers warmth, and does not try to be anything more than that.

Water

Warm water has a way of asking the body to slow down. When paired with salt, it does even more. Muscles soften, the nervous system settles and the weight of the day begins to lift in ways that feel physical rather than abstract.

For soaking, I reach for the Exfoliating Bath Salt made for Marché by Samantha of Ayiiko, a Brooklyn-based, Haitian women-led brand rooted in plant knowledge and ancestral care. The blend brings together natural salts, herbs, rose petals and eucalyptus, ingredients that feel familiar to the body and supportive while soaking.

Used in warm water, the salt helps release tension while the eucalyptus opens the breath and the roses soften the experience. It is the kind of bath that feels supportive rather than indulgent, offering a way to ease tired muscles, rinse off stress and come back into yourself without asking for too much effort.

Like so much of this care, it works because it stays close to warmth, water, plants and time.

Balance

Moisture is another place the body looks for comfort. Cold air, frequent handwashing and constant exposure tend to show up first on the skin, especially on the hands and lips. Reintroducing moisture is often less about treatment and more about restoring balance.

For that, I reach for simple, nourishing products like the Whipped Body Butter, Salvation Hand Balm and Lip Love from Marché. Each one is designed to soften and protect without feeling heavy, helping the skin hold onto moisture and feel more at ease.

Applied slowly, warmth returns to the skin, hands relax, lips soften and the body registers care in a direct, physical way.

Warmth

Warmth from the inside matters just as much as warmth on the skin. When the body has been exposed to cold, stress or constant stimulation, hot liquids do quiet, steady work. Tea moves slowly through the system, bringing heat inward and signaling a different pace.

One blend I return to often is Amour Tea, one of the unique tea blends from Café Rue Dix. Its ingredients draw from Ayurvedic traditions, where spices and herbs are used to support digestion, circulation and internal warmth. Cardamom, ginger, cinnamon, fennel, licorice root, saffron, rose and lemongrass come together in a way that feels balanced rather than overpowering.

Drinking tea can feel like a form of steady support. The warmth settles the body, and taking a few minutes to drink something hot can slow things down enough to feel manageable.

Air

For a long time, cleansing the air was part of everyday life. Our ancestors burned resins, plants and herbs to clear spaces, support rest and create a sense of calm before sleep or gathering. It was a practical response to the environment, a way of shifting the feeling of a room and allowing the body to settle.

Frankincense has been used this way for centuries, valued for its grounding scent and its ability to support the breath. Burned slowly, it releases a warm aroma that helps soften tension and steady the nervous system, especially when the air feels cold or dry. Copal has a similar history, particularly in Mexico, where it has long been burned to cleanse spaces and create clarity. Our copal sticks are made there, and when burned, they offer a lighter, brighter scent that helps the air feel clearer without being overwhelming.

Alongside resins, herbs have also been used to calm the body and prepare it for rest. Dreamland, the herbal cigarettes we carry at Marché from Curandera Remedies, are part of the same lineage. The blend is made from plants traditionally used to support relaxation and ease, offering another way to slow the breath and mark a transition into quieter moments.

Together, these practices work gently on the air and the senses, helping create an atmosphere that feels lighter, calmer and more supportive without requiring much effort.

When things feel unfamiliar, there is comfort in returning to what has always been close at hand. Warmth, breath, water, herbs and scent have long offered ways to steady the body and soften the edges of the day. In a moment when so much feels uncertain and out of our control, these small, familiar practices offer practical ways to care for ourselves and move through the world with a little more ease.

Stay cozy friends ❤️

Nilea Alexander is the owner of Rue Dix Brooklyn, a Senegalese-rooted lifestyle space in Crown Heights where food, beauty, fashion, and culture come together. Through Café Rue Dix and Marché Rue Dix, she creates experiences shaped by Brooklyn energy and a commitment to community, craft, and everyday life. She writes about continuity, wellness, and familiar forms of care on her Substack and through the work at Rue Dix.

Visit the café, shop, and salon spaces online at ruedixbrooklyn.com.

📍1451-55 Bedford Ave, Brooklyn NY 11216

If you haven’t strolled along with me in Crown Heights, Baby, what are you doing? Watch here.

In this Crown Heights episode of Sunday Stroll, I popped my West Indian Day parade cherry and stumbled upon the best curated Black-owned concept store and salon, Marche Rue Dix. I was immediately immersed in all of the things that made me tingle deep on the inside. There were nails, coffee table books, home goods, fashion, accessories and more! A true feast for the senses.

In case you can’t get to the boutique in person, here are a few #TWPApproved top pics from their online shop.

Note: Get the store if you can because there’s more! So much more.

Accessories

Bantu Cuff by L’Artisane
Mchanga Clip On Earrings
Yellow Jasper SS Split Top Disc Ring- Chee Lee x MRD

Fur-Trimmed Leather Gloves
Large Red Tassel Pouch
Chunky Necklace

Apparel

Senehart Chess Chore Jacket
Boss Zee Zee Striped Pants
Rue Dix Tee Neon Yellow

Tiffany M. Battle is a NY-based Creator + Founder of The Werk! Place. A proud Howard-educated engineer turned entrepreneur. She hosts Sunday Stroll featuring fashion-forward walks through vibrant neighborhoods inviting you to ‘Get yo’ stroll on!’

222 FORGOTTEN CITIES

“Cold Summer” Brownsville, Brooklyn, 2015

Cold Summer is a pure example of New York culture in the summertime.

In Brooklyn, drinking water from a fire hydrant is sacred. It is not random. It is a ritual. When the heat rises through the concrete, the hydrant becomes a flowing altar of relief, a public baptism, a reminder that joy is still allowed to exist right here in the middle of everything we have had to survive.

I documented this photograph on a summer day in 2015 while navigating through Brownsville, Brooklyn. During my six years living in New York — and as someone from Deep East Oakland, California — everywhere I document always feels like home because my people are there. I never feel lost, confused, scared or out of touch. It always feels like one big family reunion of my people that I have not seen in a while. That is the energy I enter each community with. Each soul I activate and reflect with carries the energy of remembering.

Summers in Brooklyn are my favorite. The cookouts. The deep laughter. The feeling of being comfortable in our own skin. Being nurtured and held in our culture without having to perform. Being left alone to be in joy and not apologize for it. Dominoes playing. Double dutch ropes hitting pavement. Fish fries. Women braiding hair. Hoop games. Elders sitting and observing. All of this nourishment and returning home to ourselves happens through each spirit interaction. Pure spirit activation.

Brownsville is not just a place defined by headlines. Its history is shaped by community power, cultural vision and grassroots care.

In the late 1960s, Brownsville, especially the Ocean Hill section, became the heart of one of the most important educational liberation movements in New York City. Parents, elders and organizers fought for community-controlled schools, demanding that melanated youth be educated by and for their own communities. This movement was rooted in self determination, cultural pride and the belief that melanated youth deserved to see themselves reflected in what they were taught.

One of the key figures rising from this lineage was Jitu Weusi, a Brooklyn born cultural nationalist, educator and freedom organizer who helped shape African-centered education, language and cultural consciousness throughout Central and East Brooklyn. Through community schools, cultural spaces and organizing circles, Jitu Weusi and those around him worked to re anchor melanated youth in ancestral history, dignity and self knowledge. Brownsville was part of that spiritual and educational corridor of awakening.

At the same time, organizations like The East and the Uhuru Sasa Shule Freedom Now School created African centered learning spaces, cultural hubs and community-run education models that nurtured melanated youth not just academically, but spiritually, artistically and culturally. These were freedom schools before the world had language for what that truly meant.

And that spirit is still alive.

Today, Brownsville continues to heal and build itself through projects like the Brownsville Student Farm Project, where empty lots become living classrooms and melanated youth grow food, leadership and connection to land. Through spaces like the Brownsville Green Community Garden, neighbors gather to nurture food, peace and collective care. These are modern extensions of the same lineage of self determination, stewardship and cultural remembering.

So when I say Brownsville is spirit, I mean it is a lineage site.
A root chakra of Brooklyn.
A place where culture did not just survive. It was protected, shaped and passed down.

Cold Summer is not just a moment in Brownsville.
It is Brownsville remembering itself.

I was filled with that energy when I documented Cold Summer. I felt held by the community, liberated & SEEN, that feeling birthed both me and the moment of this young king. I have always felt a responsibility and accountability to my people once I gained knowledge of self, especially for the children. Their innocence is something I want to protect, and when it has been stripped away, I want to give some of that back in the moment.

When I approached him, I complimented his skin and his crown, something I always do. I love to highlight not only the beauty of melanin, but the importance of it. I call our hair our crown because of the power it holds. I also complimented him on his Jordan 11s, (one of my favorite Jordans!) and the way his socks were pulled high, both deeply cultural expressions in our community. We started talking about how dope Brooklyn felt at that moment, and as we were speaking, he dropped down and got nourishment from the hydrant right on time. Drinking from a water fountain in Brooklyn is deeply cultural. At that moment, I had to document it.

Most people do not know this, but one of my sacred practices is something I created called Spirit Shooting.

I created this because I did not want to conform to standard photography practices rooted in someone else’s rulebook, a rulebook that has historically been written by a Caucasian gaze that dictates our value. Spirit Shooting allows me to document from a lens of love, not trauma. It requires me to be deeply in tune with myself so that spirit activation can happen between me and my people.

The camera becomes a mirror.
In this moment, me and this young king are reflections.

My documentation is a contribution toward changing narratives that have suffocated melanated existence, leaving no room for breath. Seeing melanated kings through my eyes is an acknowledgment of the bravery they embody and the unapologetic revolutionary flame that cannot be extinguished.

Healing your inner child is not soft work.
It is ancestral repair.
It is how cycles of hardness end.
It is how wholeness returns to our bloodlines.
It is how joy becomes safe again.
It is how laughter stops feeling like something we have to earn.

Cold Summer is a reflection of the inner child that still lives within all of us. It is the innocence that has been stolen from melanated youth and melanated kings across the world. It is the visual interpretation of water that heals the flames burning within us.

This Photograph Says:

Liberation is law.
Remembrance is ancestral.
Returning home to self is a BIRTHRIGHT.

Since its release, the limited edition Cold Summer print has been purchased and now lives in the homes of art collectors across the country. Many were drawn to this photograph because of the Brooklyn summertime culture it represents. Many were also moved by the importance of seeing a melanated young king honored and highlighted within their personal spaces. Melanated people are masterpieces, and this work exists to reflect that truth back to the world.

Each time this print is purchased, it is more than an art transaction. It is an act of homage. It is recognition. It is someone choosing to place respect, dignity and melanated presence on their walls in a world that too often withholds acknowledgment from our youth.

If you feel called to anchor this truth in your space, you can become a collector at brittsense.com.

I offer extreme gratitude to every collector who has chosen to hold Cold Summer in their home. Our collectors are living archives of this work. You are the keepers of these moments, the guardians of these stories, and the stewards of remembrance. Because of you, these stories do not fade. They live. They breathe. They are remembered.

Melanated people deserve love without struggle first, because:

We are the gatekeepers of the world.
We are the builders of the world.
We are the wisdom of the world.
We are the principle of the world through every condition.
We are the Light.
We are the Liberation.
We are the Ritual.
We are the SPIRIT.

Our neighborhoods and our communities are the Meccas of the world through every condition.

Brittani Sensabaugh, widely known as Brittsense, is a Deep East Oakland–born documentarian whose photography explores place, lineage and cultural remembrance. She is the creator of the 222 Forgotten Cities series.

There’s a Twitter proverb that resonates so deeply I had to really sit with it and write about it.

“The strongest man you know is a first born daughter”

I am first. I am eldest. I am the only.

Thus, I must possess three times the strength of the strongest man.

I care. I care deeply. From a young age, I knew the care I desired would not be available to me in my childhood or adolescence. The tender, gentle nurturing I saw on television screens or in other families was not my reality.

I only ever wanted to be wanted. And the only way I knew how was to be of use.

Please use me. I am good enough to be used and still be enough.

In this, I became the sister that mothered.

I also simply wanted to help my mother. We’d just moved from Burkina Faso where relatives were always at arm’s length to now being in Brooklyn with no aunties, no cousins, just creating family by the friendships of our parents. Their friends became the aunties and uncles, and their children became the cousins. But by blood, it was just us.

This piece is part of Our Mothers Are Many, our series exploring the expansive nature of motherhood — how we are nurtured by villages, mothered beyond biology…and how we mother ourselves and our communities in manners both visible and unseen.

Have a story to tell? We’re accepting pitches for this series. To be considered for publication Submit here.

I always knew I was the quiet backbone of the family. My excellence in academia gave my parents praise. My silence which was often mislabeled as obedience became mirrored for my brothers. But they were still boys and they played rough. Oh how I wish I had the opportunity to play.

For me, it was always made clear that I am the example by which they will lead. I mastered being the perfect daughter—silent, excelling in school. I washed dishes, cleaned the house, helped with laundry, and picked my brothers up from school. I was inquisitive about their being. I became a therapist. I became the point person when they got in trouble because I was also the translator of the house. I even helped save money.

They learned freedom as recklessness.

I learned freedom as discipline.

My being a mothering-sister didn’t really bother me until I also wanted to be the child that I am but was not given permission to be that. I wanted to be able to get in trouble in school and simply get my ears pulled too. Or go to the park and play all afternoon after school but I either had to babysit or help braid hair in the family African hair braiding salon.

I can never take away anything from my mother as she did her damndest in unfamiliar territory without the help of family either. So, I definitely take pride in helping out in the best way I knew

possible. Being a mothering-sister and making sure I wasn’t one to be worried about. But the little girl in me, she still wishes she’d received softness. Gentleness. And that is why now, I require gentleness.

I have begun to mother myself. I realized recently that the care I always desired—and always gave to others—was care I had available to myself all along.

The ocean never goes thirsty.

It is in me. That is why I have always had the desire.

I have love and give love therefore, I am love and loved.

I require gentleness and I make it known.

I tell Mother Nature everyday, woman, I require gentleness.

I demand kindness of myself to myself and I mother myself for myself. I hold baby me dearly and all that I do now, with love, is for me.

We’re inviting you to reflect on how you have experienced motherhood, mothering, or being mothered—whether or not you identify as a biological mother. This could include caring for others, being shaped by responsibility early in life, nurturing a community, creating safety where it didn’t exist or learning to re-parent yourself. It could include grief, longing, joy, rupture, devotion, ambivalence or transformation.

In your piece, consider reflecting on some of the questions below. You don’t need to answer them all — use what resonates:

• Where did you first encounter mothering in your life? Who or what shaped that understanding?

• In what ways have you acted as a mother, nurturer, protector, or guide — by choice or by circumstance?

• How has motherhood, or the absence of it, changed your sense of self, purpose, or responsibility?

• What have you learned about care, sacrifice, boundaries or love through this experience?

• How do you define motherhood now, in your own words?

Your submission can be personal, reflective, narrative or essay-style. There is no “right” story here — only honest ones. We welcome tenderness, complexity and truth.

This series exists to honor the many ways we carry, give, receive and become mothers — to ourselves, to others and to the world.

Submit your pitch here!

In this new series, we’re sharing some of our tried-and-true beauty recipes that have held us down through every season. Easy, effective and made with ingredients you may already have on hand.

Today’s recipe:

A gentle, hydrating toner that helps restore moisture, soothe the skin, and prep it for serums or moisturizers — especially during these dryyy winter months.

It’s perfect for daily use, particularly for dry or combination skin, but we’ve included tips for adapting it for oily skin too.

Ingredients:

For Dry/Combo Skin:

• ½ cup rose water or chamomile tea (hydrates and soothes)

• ¼ cup aloe vera juice (calms inflammation and deeply hydrates)

• 1 tbsp vegetable glycerin (locks in moisture)

• 1 tsp alcohol-free witch hazel optional) (balances oil production)

• A couple drops of lavender, chamomile, rose or frankincense essential oil (optional, for calming and nourishing effects)

Bonus: If your skin’s feeling suuuper dry, add 1 tsp rosehip oil or jojoba oil. This creates a thicker, cushiony toner that doubles as a pre-serum step — especially great for overnight use on flaky or tight skin.

For Oily Skin:

• ½ cup green tea or cucumber water

• ¼ cup aloe vera juice (calms inflammation and deeply hydrates)

• ½ tsp vegetable glycerin (locks in moisture) —feel free to omit altogether if skin feels greasy

• 1 tsp alcohol-free witch hazel (balances oil production)

• A couple drops of tea tree, rosemary or geranium essential oil (optional, antibacterial + balancing)

• Add 1 tsp apple cider vinegar (optional; helps balance pH and reduce breakouts)

Instructions:

1. Combine all ingredients in a glass spray bottle or jar.

2. Shake well before each use.

3. After cleansing, spritz onto your face or apply with a cotton pad.

4. Follow with your moisturizer, facial oil, or next step in your skincare routine.

Bonus points if you're layering it into your ten-step Korean skincare ritual — or your own intuitive flow.

Storage & Use:

• Keeps for up to 2 weeks.

• Store in the refrigerator for a cooling effect and to extend shelf life.

• Use morning and night for hydrated, glowing skin.

Birth in the U.S. is shaped by institutions that hold enormous power over maternal care — a reality underscored again and again by recent headlines. With nearly 98% of U.S. births taking place in hospitals, most families will navigate labor, delivery and postpartum care inside systems governed by policy, protocol and liability.

Birthing While Black: A Hospital Guide is a print zine developed by Borne to help families enter hospital birth with clarity and agency. It offers language, context and grounding so mothers and families can move through birth with intention rather than default compliance.

The three pieces below are excerpts from the zine and focus on clarifying your birth vision, building your birth team and honoring rest in the “fourth trimester” as essential care.

These are not just reads for pregnant people. They’re for partners, friends, sisters and anyone who wants to show up better for the mothers and growing families in their lives. Share accordingly.

And if you’d like to be notified when the print zine becomes available, comment below.

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Borne

Know Yourself: Clarify Your Birth Vision

Birth is not just a physical feat. It’s emotionally, spiritually and mentally rigorous — and deeply personal. Being clear on your values helps you make confident choices that reflect who you are and what matters most…

Read more

8 months ago · 1 like · 1 comment · Borne

Borne

How to Build Your Birth Team

No matter where you give birth — hospital, birth center or home — the people on your team will greatly impact your experience. Who you choose to surround yourself with can make all the difference in how seen, heard and supported you feel — before, during and after birth…

Read more

5 months ago · 5 likes · Lindsey Farrar and Borne

Borne

Rest is Not a Luxury in the "Fourth Trimester"

Around the world, cultures from Nigeria to China honor the postpartum period — the time immediately after birth — with 30–40 days of rest, nourishment and hands-on support for new mothers. In the U.S., dominant culture prioritizes productivity and promotes “snapping back,” overlooking a critical window for healing and bonding. It’s no wonder that approx…

Read more

7 months ago · 2 likes · 2 comments · Borne and Lindsey Farrar

Wait—what?

On Christmas Day, the White House announced that the United States had carried out missile strikes in Nigeria.

Nigeria.

Not Gaza. Not Yemen. Not Syria. Not the Red Sea. Not Ukraine.

Nigeria — a country most Americans could not place on a map beyond “somewhere in Africa” — became the site of a U.S. military flex, wrapped in moral language and delivered during the quietest news week of the year.

That’s the kind of headline that should stop you mid-scroll.

Not because violence in Nigeria is new — it isn’t — but because U.S. missiles in Nigeria are not normal, and the explanation we were given didn’t quite line up with the action taken.

So let’s slow this down.

What the White House said

Publicly, the administration emphasized the killing of Christians by extremist groups in northern Nigeria.

The framing was simple and emotionally legible:

• Innocent civilians

• Religious persecution

• Moral urgency

This was not presented as a new theater in the War on Terror, nor as a strategic recalibration in West Africa. There was no talk of counterterrorism doctrine, no discussion of regional basing losses, no explanation of why this conflict crossed a threshold others have not.

The message was moral shorthand:

We acted because people were being slaughtered.

That explanation travels well. It fits in a press briefing. It avoids follow‑up questions.

It also obscures more than it reveals.

Why they said it that way

Because the White House was not trying to explain strategy. It was trying to contain narrative risk.

Talking openly about:

• Islamic State network expansion

• Partner-requested kinetic action

• Preemptive sanctuary disruption

raises uncomfortable questions:

• Which legal authority applies?

• Is this a new battlefield?

• Why Nigeria and not elsewhere?

By contrast, religious violence framing offers:

• Moral clarity

• Domestic political legibility

• Minimal legal exposure

It’s not that the killings weren’t real. It’s that they weren’t sufficient on their own to explain missiles.

This was a story simplified on purpose.

What actually happened

Behind the scenes, reporting indicates:

• Quiet coordination with Abuja

• Intelligence sharing

• A single, precision action — not a campaign

Nigeria publicly pushed back on the sectarian framing while affirming cooperation against terrorism. That tension matters.

Because it tells us this wasn’t about saving Christians.

It was about something colder.

The real motives at play

Strip away the moral varnish and a different logic emerges.

Africa is no longer a peripheral concern in U.S. strategy — it is the fastest‑growing geopolitical theater of the next half‑century, a convergence point for security competition, resource access, demographics, and great‑power alignment.

The United States has been losing ground in the Sahel.

• Expelled from Niger

• Cut off from key ISR basing

• Watching former partners realign away from the West

Nigeria is the last heavyweight left.

A strike in Nigeria does several things at once:

• Signals that U.S. reach still exists post‑Sahel

• Keeps Nigeria inside the U.S. security architecture

• Raises the cost of Nigeria drifting toward rival powers

• Prevents militant consolidation without committing to long‑term outcomes

This is not about fixing Nigeria.

It’s about maintaining a strategic floor under West Africa.

Why this venue. Why this moment.

Nigeria is uniquely useful for a credibility action.

It offers:

• Consent without spectacle

• No escalation ladder

• No patron state that must respond

• A civilian government that won’t rupture over one strike

Christmas matters too.

Low attention. Low scrutiny. Congress out. Newsrooms thin. A perfect moment to demonstrate capability without inviting debate.

This was not the boldest place to act.

It was the cheapest.

What this says about the United States

For decades, U.S. power rested on hegemony — others accepted the system because it produced growth, stability, and upside.

What we’re seeing now is something different: dominance maintenance.

When legitimacy declines, power has to prove itself.

That’s why credibility actions increase as confidence erodes.

This is where geopolitics and “late‑stage capitalism” converge.

Late‑stage systems don’t export prosperity.
They export risk management.

They intervene not to build futures, but to delay collapse.

More effort. Less return.

Same curve. Different domain.

The deeper pattern

Nigeria wasn’t chosen because it’s the most important battlefield.

It was chosen because it was:

• Permissive

• Legible

• Low‑risk

• High‑signal

• Non‑committal

This is what late‑empire power projection looks like:
Selective. Episodic. Symbol‑heavy. Outcome‑light.

Wait—what should we actually be asking?

Not whether the strike was justified.

But what it means when a superpower has to remind the world it can still act — and chooses a place like Nigeria, at Christmas, to do it.

That’s not confidence.

That’s maintenance.

And maintenance is what power looks like when belief is no longer automatic.

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Crown Heights is part of the DNA of CRWNMAG. We were founded here, so seeing CRWNMAG Beauty Council alum Tiffany M. Battle strolling up Nostrand Avenue feels like a full-circle moment.

In Sunday Stroll, Tiffany moves neighborhood by neighborhood, following beauty, flavor, and feeling. Each episode blends local discovery with lifestyle inspiration — grounded in community, guided by curiosity, and styled in full color.

In this episode of Sunday Stroll, we’re in Crown Heights. I’m taking you with me to discover things to do in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. We’re going to get into where to grab a matcha, watch the West Indian Day parade, see the people, eat and shop in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. I’m mainly showing you where to walk in Crown Heights, Brooklyn in New York.

We’re strolling along Eastern Parkway and Franklin Avenue, soaking in the sights, sounds, and spirit that makes this neighborhood come alive. From the colorful costumes and island beats to the mouthwatering food and community pride, Labor Day in Crown Heights is more than a celebration! It’s an experience you can’t find anywhere else.

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You may have seen her already — strolling down a block on YouTube, moving at an unhurried pace, letting color and light do their thing. A presence that makes you realize how rarely you actually look at your surroundings. The kind that brings people back to places they haven’t been in years.

That woman is Tiffany M. Battle.

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Tiffany is the founder and digital curator of The Werk! Place, a fashion and lifestyle platform rooted in style, culture, travel and everyday joy. A Howard University-educated chemical engineer turned creative entrepreneur, she brings both structure and sensitivity to her work — a way of paying attention that feels intentional without being precious.

That approach shows up most clearly in Sunday Stroll, her YouTube series where walking becomes a way of remembering, learning and noticing what’s still here. From Fort Greene to the South Bronx to Phoenix’s Roosevelt Row, Tiffany moves through neighborhoods while naming history, style and everyday details that often go undocumented — or erased.

For some viewers, the strolls feel like home. For others, they open a door to places they’ve never been but suddenly want to know more about. People recognize their childhood parks, their grandparents’ routines, their own sense of loss and pride. Others learn something new — about a building’s past, a neighborhood’s shift, or the people who shaped it before redevelopment did.

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Tiffany’s style moves in step with that care. Getting dressed isn’t separate from place or feeling. Color, texture, hair and movement all work together. Not to create spectacle, but to express herself, truly.

We first worked with Tiffany in 2018 through Netflix’s Strong Black Lead campaign for Nappily Ever After. And when it came time to curate our Beauty Council for The Beauty Bible, she was a natural fit — comfortable in her skin and expressive without effort. Living it, not performing it.

Here’s a closer look at the tastes, habits and everyday cues that shape her rhythm.

Getting Ready

Do you dress based on how you feel, or how you want to feel? How I want to feel!

What do you listen to while you’re getting ready for a night out? The ‘Total Radio’ Station on Pandora. The 90s had some of the best music of my lifetime! Those are just the facts.

Beauty Philosophy

What did the women who raised you teach you about beauty, directly or indirectly? To put that sh*t on! The women were raised in a generation of always being presentable when leaving the house. The hair was coiffed, the faces were greased, and they wore the proper undergarments (hello stockings and slips!). So, they passed a little bit of that on to me. I’m not as precious about it. I can oscillate between rough & regular or regal.

Beauty Products

Favorite lip balm? Victoria’s Secret ‘Coconut Craze’ Lip Gloss
Go‑to cleanser? Youth To The People Kale + Spinach Superfood Face Cleanser
What kind of lotion do you use? I’m old school. As for me and my house, we use Vaseline Petroleum Jelly

Skincare + Makeup

What’s your skincare routine like these days? I use a modified verison of the 10-Step Korean Skincare Routine: Oil-based Cleanser, Water-based Cleanser, Exfoliant (2x per week), Toner, Essence, Serum, Eye Cream, Moisurizer, Sunscreen (during the day).

What’s your everyday makeup situation? I can’t remember the last time that I put on makeup! I’ve been wearing my clean, hydrated and moisturized skin lately. If I am wearing make-up, I literally do the same everyday make-up and just switch out the lip depending on the look.

Eye makeup or lipstick — you can only choose one. LIPSTICK ALL DAY!

Hair

Naturalista, lazy natural, or “natural under here?” As of today, ‘natural under here’! I’m rocking a very colorful ginger, copper, mahogany mix sew-in.

What style have you been wanting to try but haven’t yet? There’s a braid style with some very interesting embellishments that I have on my back pocket when I want to pop out during the Summer.

Personal Style

Who would you trade closets with? Tracee Ellis Ross!

What’s the oldest thing in your closet that you still wear? I have some jewelry that I’ve had since college (Aww HU!) that I still put into rotation.

Preferences + Binaries

Do you prefer vintage or new? A mix of both. Although, I do find more interesting pieces at the thrift store!

Shoes or handbags? I’m actually a shoe girl.

Fashion References

What is your favorite era for fashion? I find myself gravitating towards the 60s/70s. It absolutely depends on my mood.

Film, Art, + Visual Culture

Favorite fashion moment in cinema? I distinctly remember ‘Sex and The City: The Movie’ sending me directly to the mall.

Books, Music, + Media Diet

What’s the last book you read? “This Could Be Us” by Kennedy Ryan

Who is an artist more people should be paying attention to? I literally just polled my audience about how they’re finding new music! Without the countdown shows like 106 & Park, The Box, MTVJams, or the radio, I’m a bit late to the party for new music. I do like Alex Isley. She’s new to me.

What’s your favorite era for music? Defintiely 90s/Early 2000s. I mean if it the love doesn’t feel like 90s R&B, I don’t want it, amiright?

What do you listen to when you clean? ‘Stevie Wonder Radio’ or ‘Maze & Frankie Bevery Radio’ on Pandora.

Who’s on your baby‑making playlist? D’Angelo (R.I.P.), The Isley Brothers, Jodeci, Maxwell, Carl Thomas, Rome (IYKYK)

Favorite movie of all time? I can always watch Coming To America! I don’t know if it’s my favorite but definitely in my Top 5. I love all the classic 90s movies: The Wood, Love Jones, The Best Man, Boomerang, Brown Sugar. Those are my comfort movies.

Food

Groceries or takeout? I’ll go get groceries and then order takeout. So, BOFFEM.

Here’s the ten-step routine, explained plainly, with room for real life.

1. Oil Cleanser
This step removes oil-based impurities — makeup, sunscreen, pollution. Oil dissolves oil. Massage onto dry skin, then rinse.

2. Water-Based Cleanser
A gentle second cleanse to remove sweat and residual debris. Skin should feel clean, not tight.

3. Exfoliant (2–3x weekly)
Chemical exfoliants (AHA, BHA, PHA) are preferred over harsh scrubs. This step clears dead skin so hydration can actually penetrate.

4. Toner
In Korean skincare, toner hydrates and balances — it doesn’t sting. Think of it as prepping the skin to receive everything that follows.

5. Essence
The heart of the routine. Lightweight, deeply hydrating, and often fermented to support skin renewal and elasticity.

6. Serum or Ampoule
Targeted treatments for concerns like hyperpigmentation, acne, or fine lines. This is where actives live.

7. Sheet Mask (1–3x weekly)
A concentrated hydration treatment. Not mandatory, but effective — especially when skin feels depleted.

8. Eye Cream
Used preventively, not reactively. Gentle hydration for the most delicate skin on your face.

9. Moisturizer
This seals in all previous steps. Texture varies — gel, cream, or lotion — depending on your skin type and climate.

10. Sunscreen (AM only)
Non-negotiable. The most important anti-aging and skin-protective step there is.

What People Miss

You do not need to do all ten steps every day. Korean skincare is modular. Some days are three steps. Some days are seven. The philosophy is flexibility guided by awareness.

You’re listening to your skin — not punishing it.

This approach also explains why Korean skincare often works well for melanin-rich skin. The focus on barrier health, hydration, and gentle actives helps reduce irritation — a major trigger for hyperpigmentation and inflammation in Black skin.

The Real Takeaway

The routine isn’t about excess. It’s about respect.

Respect for skin as an organ.
Respect for time.
Respect for prevention over repair.

Good skin isn’t rushed. It’s cultivated.

And once you understand that — the ten steps stop feeling like a lot. They start feeling like care.

Astrology isn’t just trending — it’s big business. Recent estimates say the global astrology app market is set to triple in value by 2030, fueled by AI, digital wellness and personalization. In times as wild as these, more people are paying for tools that steady the mind, give language to what they’re feeling and offer a little perspective when the timeline spins.

You may already know ScorpioMystique and KnowTheZodiac (especially if you’re a Scorpio!). Behind both is Dossé-Via Trenou — author, founder, astrologer — building one of the only Black-led astrology apps on iOS and Android and growing it with care.

We discuss scaling while staying true to your voice, making product choices that honor culture and community, and turning cosmic insights into daily practice.

Origins & Voice

You launched ScorpioMystique as a USC freshman back in 2011. What did you see in the culture that made you hit publish that day, and what’s stayed true in your voice since then?

When I think of my ScorpioMystique journey, it’s directly connected to the fact that Twitter was booming as a platform back in 2011 — back when niche communities truly thrived. My intention was to dispel myths about my zodiac sign, Scorpio, and upon sharing tweets I quickly learned that thousands of people were hungry for authentic astrological knowledge… the more raw, messy and hilarious, the better.

As I lovingly both dragged and collected myself (and fellow Scorpios) through my tweets and horoscopes, I felt like we were co-creating a healing and evolutionary journey — one that’s stayed true ever since. The ScorpioMystique community feels seen by each other, and that remained my intention as I expanded and created KnowTheZodiac (KTZ). KTZ is here to help skymates feel seen and feel safe to be their ever-evolving selves.

What began as a tweet became an intuitively-led technology — the KTZ App is that same love letter, scaled through code. That’s been my compass ever since: to make spiritual wellness feel like home, and a form of ancestral remembrance.

When did astrology shift from a personal practice to a calling you were willing to build a company around?

My shift into entrepreneurship began when studying and integrating astrology into my life undeniably felt like a secret and life hack that other people deserved to know. I’m so glad I took time to dive into this spiritual practice for myself first, and truly nerd out about it as a child and teenager before making it my profession.

Astrology isn’t just a calling, it’s my inner child remembering an ancient cosmic language, or cosmic code. SM and KTZ were born out of my inner child’s curiosity about the cosmos, and about the infinite layers of my own being, more than anything.

My Moon is in Virgo in the 10th house, so it tracks that I feel emotionally stimulated and motivated by the work I do, and that a core part of my work centers on offering astrological services to help raise the collective consciousness.

Your writing is intimate yet practical. What’s your process for translating the skies into day-to-day decisions without feeding fear or fatalism?

I often think about all the ancestors that lived before us. They, too, experienced eclipses, new moons, retrogrades, full moons… and life went on. The planets are here to guide and protect us, but sometimes it happens in ways that feel uncomfortable. Other times it happens in ways that make us feel ecstatic. Either way, it’s all part of the experience and ebb and flow we call life. We’re all stardust in living form, and astrology reminds us of the fact that being alive, truly as a human being, is the most magical act of all.

As an evolutionary astrologer, I’m here to help you be present with both the discomfort and the highs of life, and that begins with reminding myself to do the same. The horoscopes I write feel like medicine to myself first, and it becomes medicine for the collective too. When I write, I’m not predicting the future — I’m helping us breathe and live through the present moment together.

Lineage, Culture & Responsibility

Your work centers the African and Indigenous roots of astrology. What lineages do you draw from, and what do most people get wrong (or where is there room to learn more) about astrology’s origins?

At this point in my life, I feel most connected to Yorùbá spirituality (my maternal ancestry is Yorùbá), which also has ties to Kemetic and Nubian cosmologies, both of which are some of the most ancient roots of astrology and spirituality. Much of this history has been hidden or appropriated, and that may be why there can be confusion or misrepresentations when it comes to astrology.

At its simplest form, astrology represents our innate curiosity for why we are here, what we are here to do, and who we’re meant to do it with. We nurture that curiosity by being aware of the solar, lunar, planetary and cosmic patterns above us. As above, so below. Our African ancestors knew this — and KTZ exists to help us remember.

In uncertain times, astrology can be a compass or a distraction. How do you design (your app, your approach, your company) for the first and avoid the second?

We’re very intentional with notifications — we keep them minimal, empowering and never fear-based. The app’s design is intentionally calm, simple and easy to navigate. My goal is to help people become their own astrologer, and not become dependent on me or any platform. That’s how astrology becomes a compass, not a crutch.

Magic & Melanin connects the diaspora to West Africa. How has time on the continent shaped your lens as an astrologer and founder?

Being on the continent roots me. There’s something about living on the Motherland that helps me hear myself more clearly as both an astrologer and founder. Key decisions in my life and in my businesses are intentionally mapped out thanks to me tracking personal and collective astrological transits and cycles. I feel like my ancestors are co-creating my dream life along with me, and they create more easeful pathways for me to navigate life because I remember them, honor them and give them offerings.

My rematriation to the Motherland (and creating my homegoing agency Magic & Melanin to help others return home too) is a reminder that my mission with both Magic & Melanin and KTZ isn’t just digital; it’s ancestral. I’m building tools and pathways that help us reconnect to what we already know in our bones, and to help empower us to celebrate, share and express our unique gifts with pride.

How do you speak to church-raised readers who feel torn? Can astrology coexist with faith in a way that builds character, not conflict?

I tell them that astrology isn’t a religion — it’s an ancient language. A big misconception is that astrology and religion cannot coexist. Most religions drew upon astrology when creating their texts because astrology is the oldest form of spirituality known to humankind. In my view, astrology and religion can coexist because I see astrology as a part of God/Source’s creation – like weather patterns or the ocean’s tides – rather than a rival to faith. For me, it’s another lens and tool for remembering the divine order in life, but it’s not something that should control or dictate our lives (just like religion shouldn’t either).

Oftentimes, when someone who has strong connections to their religious faith feels skeptical or torn about astrology, I encourage them to start off by getting a birth chart reading by a professional astrologer, rather than reading horoscopes on a random site online. If they open themselves up to a reading, they’ll often feel seen in a way that helps them better thrive.

Business & Growth

You’re one of the only Black women astrologers with an app on iOS and Android. What did it take to ship that first version — team, cash flow, mindset, etc.?

Whew. It took a lot of risks. It took a lot of personal investment. It took a lot of figuring it out as I went. It took a lot of overcoming deceptions in business due to my own naïveté. The original app came out in 2019, and as a first-time founder I learned some hard lessons about contracts, trust and tech. What felt like sabotage at the time turned out to be a divine redirection — it led me to Aditi Ohri, a Scorpio Rising, Cancer Sun techie and astro-loving queen who understood and respected the vision from day one and helped me rebuild the app through a freemium MVP, which we relaunched on February 28, 2025, the last day of Black History Month and the day of the Pisces New Moon.

KTZ’s astrologers, Adela Dore and Nisha Prakash, have also been intimately involved in helping KTZ grow its database of horoscopes, forecasts and readings tailored to each Sun sign of the zodiac for the past 5+ years, back when we were mainly sharing our offerings on social media. Now that the KTZ App has launched, they’ve become KTZ experts with their own specific astrological domains, such as offering Chiron Healing guides (Nisha) and Saturn Return reports (Adela). I’m so grateful for their long-term love, support and loyalty and thankful for their trust in me and belief in what KTZ could become.

Shantanu, Mack, Ayo (our KTZ developers and IT team), and Dasia and Murthy (KTZ’s social team) help keep the backend and frontend operations of KTZ running. Our team is lean, diverse and aligned with KTZ’s values. It takes a village to grow the KTZ Universe.

When I shared that shipping out the MVP of the app took risks, I mean that as a founder and CEO, I had to decide that transitioning from a free app to one with premium features was the right move. I had to shift my mindset and remember that I deserved this. I’ve written free daily, weekly and monthly scopes for over a decade, and it’s been beautiful to see how powerfully they resonate with the community. But now I’m in my receiving era — learning to balance the scales after seasons of over-giving.

Creating a cosmic container where my most loyal skymates could join and support directly on my own platform — rather than relying on Zuckerberg’s — felt like a necessary pivot in a world of digital censorship and attempted erasure. Creating the KTZ App and stepping into greater visibility and ownership was a reclaiming of my ancestral roots, because the first astrologers were African women.

Now, thousands of users worldwide open the KTZ App daily to reconnect with themselves and the Universe around them, and that’s the real ROI for me. Through daring to keep showing up for KTZ, despite the speedbumps and plot twists, KTZ and its community keeps showing up for me. The reciprocity is felt, appreciated and amplified through each offering we put out.

What’s on your product roadmap in the next year — content formats, accessibility, or partnerships — that you’re most excited to test?

Being able to connect with culturally-rooted platforms like CRWNMAG, and using such platforms to help remind the collective — particularly the African diaspora and local Africans — that we are the root of astrology (and of most forms of spirituality, science, and technology), is one of the most exciting parts of growing KnowTheZodiac. It’s like, we outttt hereee thoooo.

And in this digital age, all you have to do is share more of your story and mission consistently, and more people will know you’re out here. A part of me was getting comfortable mainly promoting to my IG, Twitter and newsletter community since that’s where I primarily first grew my audience. But now I’m ready to spread my wings and be seen and supported beyond what I’ve previously known.

I’m excited to get back to in-person events in 2026 and beyond, because pre-2020 KTZ would often offer live workshops and community gatherings, and it was amazing. I’m noticing a growing shift towards more real-life communities, and the KTZ App can serve as a portal that connects skymates to each other and encourages in-person bonding and match-making.

An Offering

Give us a 60-second horoscope decoder. In what order should readers read Rising, Sun and Moon — and how do they turn it into action?

Always read your Rising sign’s scopes first if you know your time of birth. Then your Sun, and your Moon third. Focus less on following every horoscope to the T, and more on understanding the themes that day’s transits bring up for you. Then trust your inner compass as you stay present and cosmically aware throughout your day.

Three journal prompts for the upcoming Scorpio Season?

• With the Sun, Mercury and Mars all in Scorpio, how can I use this energy to transform rather than implode?

• If my intensity ever turns destructive, can it be to destroy what inhibits my personal and collective freedom? (It’s giving we could go on work strikes to free Congo, Palestine, Haiti — Scorpio Season wants us to go there.)

• Who would I be if I didn’t fear my own light?

Lightning Round

What’s your Sun/Moon/Rising?

Scorpio Sun, Virgo Moon, Scorpio Rising.

Most misunderstood sign trait?

Scorpios aren’t cold — they’re teddy bears and deeply protective lovers with a sometimes tough exterior.

Underrated KTZ app feature people should use today?

The birth chart feature! Yes, our scopes are fire — but your natal chart is too. Take time to click each placement in your chart list, because we share deep insights on practically every planet in your chart.

A book or deck you created that pairs best with the app for deeper study?

The Inner Sky by Steven Forrest is one of my favorite astrology books and was one of the inspirations for my own book, Signs & Skymates: The Ultimate Guide to Astrological Compatibility.

A mantra you return to when you need courage?

“Leap and the net will appear.”

One Black woman in our astro lineage everyone should know — past or present?

Special shoutout to my paternal grandmother, Marguerite Trenou, who was a natural at cowrie divination (and also the first woman lawyer of Togo, and a major revolutionary) — she’s a reminder that magic runs in our blood, and that I don’t have to choose between my spiritual gifts and my more pragmatic ones… they can co-exist beautifully within me and be offerings for the world.