Is Capitalism Hijacking Your Values?

Your Libra Season Ritual Toolkit (and Astro Deep Dive)

This week we crossed over the threshold known as the Autumnal Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere. On one side was the last sip of summer and Virgo season, on the other the welcoming of crisp autumn air and Libra season. And no, I didn’t release this to you the second the sun moved into Libra because here’s the thing about being an astrologer - sometimes I’m too busy living it and breathing it to write about it.

It’s an interesting task to both experience and translate the stars - which is the role of the astrologer imho. There’s lots of both thinking and brooding being done this week, between our grand air trine and our Mars-Pluto opposition, but what I’m really here to dive into is the dynamism of the Libra archetype, understanding cardinal energy and MARS IN SCORPIO!

The Complexity of Venus + Libra

A sign that gets unfairly objectified IMHO - and coincidence that it’s the only inanimate object in the zodiac, therefore easier to objectify? Or maybe I’m just projecting my distaste for incessant patriarchal objectification here. This cardinal air sign ruled by Venus gets portrayed in pop astrology as:

• the flirt

• a big pink bow

• just a girl

• an airhead

• people pleasure

• hot indecisive mess

But what Venus rulership really points us toward is the deceptively difficult task of learning to receive. Not in a passive, pretty-girl-waiting-for-gifts way. In a “holy shit, actually allowing good things into my life without sabotaging them” way.

Venus has two homes - airy Libra and earthy Taurus. In Taurus, I think the lessons of receiving are much more tangible and embodied, whereas in Libra, they are much more subtle and psychological. The act of receiving through AIR really ties back to affirming your own worth, upping your values and self-worth, and taking a hard look at what you actually value versus what you’ve been told to value.

Speaking of values - one of Venus’s primary epithets - I’ve been thinking a lot about this version of capitalism we’re living in and how it’s completely hijacked our internal value systems. Venus asks us:

• What do you actually value?

• What is worthy of your time, energy, devotion?

• What standards do you hold for what deserves support, care, and investment?

But capitalism often beats us to the jump and answers for us: only what generates immediate, measurable profit has value.

I see this playing out in my own internalized capitalism. The way I contend with “am I doing enough?” For instance, this Substack is something I pour upwards of 8 hours into any given week, and I worry that if I skip a week, people paying $8 a month won’t find it valuable. But that worry isn’t coming from my authentic Venus values - it’s coming from a capitalist framework that equates my worth with consistent output. LIKE A MACHINE. Which I am not and do not strive to be (although this is a constant internal battle with a Mars-Saturn conjunction in Capricorn…)

This Libra Season I urge you to ask yourself:

• What do you actually value when you strip away what you think you should value?

• Is it the depth of your work or the speed of your output?

• The impact you create or the volume you produce?

• What slow, meaningful work calls to you that you’ve been dismissing as “not productive enough”?

• Are your daily choices actually reflecting those values, or are you living according to someone else’s definition of success?
  
  

If we’re going to survive this horrific time in American history, we need to get strategic about how we fight within the system. One of the most direct ways is with our dollars - choosing to support what actually aligns with our values and boycott what doesn’t.

I’m constantly watching other mystics and creatives undervalue themselves because they feel people aren’t willing to pay for their services. So, this is your reminder that when you pay someone for an hour-long reading or year year-long class or beautiful piece of art, their work is so much more than what meets the eye. You are paying them for countless hours of blood, sweat, and tears that, to be honest, our system of capitalism doesn’t care about. So, as you reorient to your values, reconsider if your internalized capitalism alarm is going off when you think something is “too expensive” or is our concept of value just fucked? And how do we shift to truly and deeply caring for one another in how we both receive and give?

What would it look like to realign our values with what actually nourishes life instead of what generates profit? How do we create an economy based on care instead of extraction?