her venus is in the twelfth house so she knows the shape of a cage.
she answers the phone for men stuck in their hometowns, their addictions, their own bad luck. she sees the god in them plain as day.

her own body is a map of time, a debt from a childhood of dinners from cans and boxes.
saturn has her now.
in the kitchen, she learns the heft of a squash and the proper way to rinse rice until the water is clear.
she chops garlic into a fine mince.
she browns onions slowly in olive oil.
this work is a quiet promise.
her freedom is the sharp bite of a radish.
her freedom is a bowl of red beans she tended to all afternoon, salting them at the very end.

he was polishing his boots again, the ones he says he'll wear when he finally leaves this place.

my libra mars just wants things to be nice, so i never say anything.

the twelfth house placements in my chart love a beautiful tragedy.
i have a thing for men who build their own cages and call it home.
i used to think i was the key.

he finishes one boot and sets it down perfectly.
he picks up the other.

and i see it.
waiting for someone to be free enough to love you becomes its own kind of cage.
i'm just so tired of being in here.

the 'how not to be a cult' is always the big one.

i think a core principle is everyone having their own damn authority.
your connection to the moon, your body, that's your sacred space, period.
no one gets to interpret that for you.
leadership needs to rotate or be super collective.
full transparency in all the boring stuff too, like decisions and any resources.
people need to be able to float in and out freely, no guilt trips.

historically, some scholars look at how the beguines organized.
they had communal living and spiritual focus without rigid lifelong vows or centralized male authority over their daily lives.
they supported themselves and each other.
individual devotion within a supportive container.
building something that breathes, where dissent is just growth.
actual care for each other is the main spiritual practice.