The Radical Book Club for Underworld Readers

FEASTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Dear friends. As the year continues to tilt toward its darker edge and we approach the end of 2025, I want to take the time to thank you for being here and also share some announcements and projects that have been cooking all year long and now are ready for the feast.

We are now in Sagittarius season, and it is indeed the time for the big feast. Jupiter, the ruler of Sag is many big bold things all at once, and BEAST OF THE FEAST is one of them. What kind of feast are we talking about here? Only you will know. When I say feast, I mean the kind of nourishment we make for ourselves after a long tiring year. The kind of feast that steadies the soul. I know exactly what kind of feast I want and how to give it to myself. And so I will. I hope that you will too.

In honor of feasting the way we want to feast and giving the feast to ourselves, I am already toasting to 2025, it has truly been one for the books! I don’t think I could ever forget this one. Even us astrologers, working with the multiplicity of cycles and knowing the magnitude of this year’s astrological promise of change and volatility, could not have known how deeply this year would rattle us. The cracks have cracked. And if we are still left standing, then perhaps it is our responsibility to feast today so that we can steady the soul for the next round that comes in 2026.

To me everything has felt extremely porous. Personally, 2025 has been a time of grief and endings and small triumphs and questionings all at once. An important time of rooms closing and reforming themselves in the dark. The scent of fermentation in the air along with a hiss. Mysterious things are happening behind the scenes, and my only job has been to let it happen. (painfully easier said than done… for the astrologically inclined, I am going through my Pluto Square and Neptune Square simultaneously)

I recently just finished the third installment of Chthonic AF, my signature Scorpio-Taurus axis course. It was absolutely magical and wild. Thank you to all who said yes and made it so spectacular. I have been fondly thinking back at 2024 when I first conceived it. All I wanted to do was teach a class about Scorpio because I thought I would be “good at it” and have plenty to share.

What happened, the way it unfolded was completely out of my control. Turns out, Chthonic AF was the true monster in the room. She kept growing and growing and showing me edge after edge, walking with me past each limit I put inside my frightened mind. When I say monster, I mean it! A monster made out of tentacles and teeth and also so much fucking heart, so much soul, so much tenderness. A mother-monster. Maiden, Monster, Crone.

And now as it dissolves for this season, another shape has been forming behind it. As she recedes, another outline begins to glow behind her.

What is it?

I’ve been feeling the pull toward a different kind of space but still with the bite of Chthonic. A place that’s like a clearing in a dark forest, a study room tucked beneath the canopy where the signal weakens and the world feels a little feral again, a place you can’t find on a map because we will draw this map together. A room with a reading lamp that is always on and is full of all your favorite books, and all the favorite books of all your favorite people. Bliss.

So this month I’m opening something of an Underworld Library, a dark forest space that is lit from the inside by collective inquiry and collaboration. For this concept I have been influenced by The Forest Dark Theory of the Internet as proposed by Yancey Strickler.

It lives inside the paid tier of this newsletter and sustains the work I’ve been building here. And at the center of this new field is the part I’m most excited about:

The Radical Book Club for Underworld Readers

A study circle for reading the difficult things of our time. Texts shaped by the polycrisis and the collective bewilderment of the now. Let’s see how these texts come alive through conversation and collective inquiry. What happens to these texts when we read them through an intuitive lens? an astrological lens? a mythical lens? Pick your lens, bring your lens, show us your lens! I was originally going to call this the Book Club for Radical Mystics, and while that still stands, I want it to be open to anyone and I thought the word mystic may close things off for some readers rather than open them up. But make no mistakes, mystics welcomed!

I have visions of what this could become and who will be here: Silvia Federici, Alice Sparkly Kat, Gloria Anzaldúa, Mark Fisher, Ivan Illich, Frantz Fanon, and other writers whose work entangles myth, politics, and lived experience. There are so many texts I want to sit with slowly, and so many that I want to hear other people think through. We all benefit from this. We need this.

To begin, this one felt like the book that could anchor us to the right here, right now: Richard Seymour’s Disaster Nationalism, just published last year. Rather than telling you about it, I will leave some review quotes below:

“[Seymour] effortlessly joins the dots between environmental collapse, the rise of the far right and the role our desires play in a crumbling world.” Maya Goodfellow, Guardian

“Thrilling, clinical, and profound—a necessary account of the stupefying rise, and grotesque fantasies, of the new apocalyptic right. There is no better guide to this hellish ideological landscape or the social dysfunction which gave rise to it.” David Wallace-Wells, author of The Uninhabitable Earth

“Frighteningly timely. Seymour pushes us to see how the authoritarians of our time play not only on our fears but also on our passions. Urgent reading for everyone dreaming of a world beyond fascism.” Gargi Bhattacharya, author of We, the Heartbroken

“Seymour takes the reader into the dark and disturbing political and psychological underworld of apocalyptic right-wing nationalism.” G. John Ikenberry, Foreign Affairs

Yep! We are going there! We have to. Will you join us?

I’m curious about what will happen when we read this together, the insights, the multiple angles, the disagreements, the recognition. To be honest, I’m doing this book club because I want to read these books with friends. That’s the truth. And I think it is urgent and vital that we create this kind of space for people that are also highly intuitive, spritual, psychic, astrologers etc etc. I have much more I have to share about this and I will at a later time.

We begin in late January and go until late February. Two meetings per cycle with some scaffolding in between. I’ll share the full schedule soon. If you are interested and have questions about, please reach out.

If you are ready to join, all you have to do is upgrade to the paid tier of $10 a month. You can also do trial run. You will also get so many other benefits.

Paid Substack Membership: What You Receive

• At just $10 a month

• The first five people who sign up for the paid subscription will receive a special gift from me in the mail, the physical one!

• Two essays each lunar cycle: myth, politics, ritual, visual culture, and sky-lore held together + creative horoscopes. These will usually be around the the New Moon and the Full Moon.

• Audio notes and seasonal reflections. With a more intimate space, more intimate and personal things can be shared.

• Full access to The Underworld Library: a shared study space and archive

• Radical Book Club participation: live gatherings, prompts, marginalia, and shared descent. A place to talk and be.

• Early access to consultations, upcoming courses and future collaborations.

• A protected space beyond platform culture that reclaims our digital spaces. What I am calling inquiry outside the algorithm, where we can still be freaky and sweet online punks.

• Once a month intimate gatherings/Salon/Study Group

*The free version of this newsletter will stay open. I will still share free stuff, essays, fragments, ritual prompts, announcements, whenever I can. Thank you so much for being here!

A few more things as the year closes:

Year Ahead Readings: There are only a few spots left for the 2026 sessions. Once my calendar fills, I’ll pause bookings. Contact me now if you want one. More info here.

1–1 Online Readings: My online calendar is temporarily closed while I focus on the Year Ahead work and allow myself some winter rest. If we already had an agreement, please reach out! I am open for you.

Holiday Travel Home: I’ll be in Puerto Rico for the holidays and will hold limited in-person sessions. I’ll share exact dates soon, but if you’re interested in meeting in person in PR, write to me. I would love that!

Coming in late winter/early spring: Glitch Humanities: An experimental lecture series exploring the chthonic and the technological underworld: AI, robots, ghosts, hauntings, coded prophecies, machine-oracles, biohacking, mythic infrastructures beneath digital life. My opninion is that it is WILD out there and we need to get into this with a critical and creative lens.

Thank you for reading, for thinking with me, for being part of this strange and cute corner of my world.

More soon.

Much love and respect to you.

-m

Some of the ideas explored here have been inspired by The Dark Forest Theory of the Internet as proposed by Yancey Strickler.