VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS
New Moon in Aries: On Eruptions, Heat, & the Astrology of Pressure
“Remind me that the most fertile lands were built by the fires of volcanoes.”
― Andrea Gibson, The Madness Vase
ANNOUNCEMENTS:
-JOIN Chthonic AF: Rooting into Myths of Pleasure, Monstrous Fertility, and the Ecstatic Earth Body , a Taurus season experimental course. Enrollment is open now!
-The Radical Book Club for Underworld Readers meets again on Monday, April 20th 12pm ET/6pm Paris time. JOIN US to talk about Mark Fisher’s brilliant must-read book Capitalist Realism. The book club access is part of the paid substack subscription.
VOLCANIC ERUPTIONS
An eruption is the moment when an accumulated force breaks on through.
Per usual, we must begin with the earth. A volcano does not erupt out of nowhere, nor does it erupt all at once. Magma forms deep beneath the crust through the slow work of heat and pressure, rising and moving upward through fissures, pressing against what is resisting until the structure above can no longer hold. By the time anything becomes visible at the surface, the process has already been underway for a very long time.
I am proposing that we take a moment right now, under this Aries-heavy sky, to sit with the image of a volcano. More on Aries later. To think with volcanoes is to think about processes of accumulation. In this case I am thinking about accumulation as the force that gathers out of sight. Perhaps there are signs, hisses and grumbles, maybe some tremors too but for the most part, everything is gathering below the surface.
When it comes to volcanoes, of course we tend to focus on the spectacle of eruption, the drama, the lava, the explosion, the sudden transformation of a landscape, but I would like to have us travel to the moment that precedes the show: the holding, the slow reorganization of matter under pressurized conditions.
What has been cooking below the surface?
What conditions are altering the subterranean layers?
What had been happening before it all turned red, rocky guts firing up at the sky?
And when the eruption does occur, it brings up fragments from deep within the earth, pieces of rock that have been broken and transported upward, arriving at the surface altered by the journey but still bearing the trace of where they came from. A taste of the original, primordial core of the Earth. Geologists call these fragments xenoliths, and they offer one of the few ways to study what lies deep beneath, to encounter the interior through what has been expelled out. What has blown out, been spat out… fragments that carry a record of depth... in that sense, eruption is a method of memory, a way the earth discloses stories it otherwise keeps sealed, offering access through force and through breakage.
Aries: Heat, Dryness, Ignition
The current sky offers us the opportunity to think about these processes in real time.
A stellium in Aries gathers several planetary bodies into the same region, concentrating force. In traditional terms, Aries is hot and dry, associated with heat, combustion, the initiation of movement, which is to say that it belongs to the set of qualities that make change possible in the first place.
Nothing begins without heat, whether we are speaking of germination, circulation, or the creation of life, all of which depend on temperature to activate the processes that sustain or transform them. Heat accelerates and intensifies whatever it touches. In this sense, Aries is a life-giving force.
When that heat is concentrated, as it is under a stellium in Aries, multiple forces are pushed through the same site, intensifying pressure and response. The New Moon in Aries is also occurring in this landscape, marking a reset under some very charged and volatile conditions. Whatever this new beginning is, it comes with the density of what has been building, boiling, pressure-cooking, scratching, swelling.
Aries (via its ruler Mars) is also associated with inflammation, which, in physiological terms, describes the body’s response to disturbance, the increase of blood flow, the rise in temperature, the concentration of activity in a particular area. Inflammation marks the point at which the body recognizes that something has shifted and responds accordingly, often in ways that are uncomfortable but necessary. Eruptions.
Eruptions and Interruptions
An eruption reveals as much as it disturbs, bringing into view conditions that were already in place, making visible what had been out of sight and perhaps easier to ignore. In many ways, Aries is a terrain built for eruptions.
This does not guarantee clarity, since what surfaces may arrive fragmented, altered, or difficult to interpret or hold (often because it’s too hot). It does provide an opening so that the underlying structure can be observed, worked with and even repaired or made stronger. Lets not forget that Saturn, planet of structure and longevity is traversing the aries terrain right now and will meet up with Mars this weekend. Eruptions, interruptions and restructures await.
Below you have some experimental horoscopes to help you see where in your life these eruptions may be igniting.
A Note on Practice and Collective Study
These questions extend into the work I am developing in Chthonic AF: Rooting into Myths of Pleasure, Monstrous Fertility, and the Ecstatic Earth Body. For those who have been following me, this work also continues the line I began in Sinkhole Psychodrama: Persephone’s Descent, where geological and mythological processes converge as ways of thinking of the story of descent and return.
If you are interested in any of this, please take a look at the upcoming course, beginning on April 19th and running throughout Taurus season. I would love for you to join us. You can read more here.
Zodiacal Eruptions
If eruption is the moment when an accumulation of force breaks on through, then the question becomes where that force is likely to surface. Here are some suggestions per rising sign. Use these as you wish.
Aries
Where is your body heating and insisting on presence?
Taurus
What has been building out of sight, compacting under pressure?
Gemini
Where are fault lines forming within friendships or the collective?
Cancer
What is shifting in the public sphere or the direction of your work?
Leo
Which belief is igniting and pushing you toward action?
Virgo
Where is pressure concentrating in shared entanglements?
Libra
What in the relationship sphere is reaching a point of rupture?
Scorpio
Where is your body or daily structure inflamed and demanding change?
Sagittarius
What creative force is pushing outward like magma seeking a vent?
Capricorn
What in the foundation of your life is cracking under weight?
Aquarius
Where is your speech channeling pressure, looking for an outlet?
Pisces
What questions of value are under pressure, asking for immediate response?