New Moon Ritual: July 2025
I want to start this ritual summary by acknowledging some folks aren’t gonna like what I have to say. Some folks might feel called out by this post. Some folks might feel dismissed. If those feelings come up I ask you to sit with them and ask why that is your response to these words.
Despite knowing how the internet can be an awful place, I’m not going to pull any punches in relaying the message that came through. So, let’s get into it.
The first thing we have to acknowledge is that MAGA won. The far-right won. The Christian Nationalists won. The Confederacy, with its new-ish face, finally won.
We had plenty of opportunity to stop them. Folks could have taken things more seriously in 2016. When we briefly managed to claw back some power in 2020 those in positions of leadership could have met the moment with the speed and aggressive decision-making it required. And, finally, in 2024 we had a chance to buy more time to mount a stronger defense.
There are many reasons for this series of missed opportunities and forced errors. There is plenty of blame to go around. I know folks want to find the one person or group to blame because that makes it easy, but reality is always nuanced, complicated, messy, and fucked up. Whatever your personal rationalization for who is to blame and how we got here the end result is the same:
A theocratic Supreme Court for at least a generation.
The dismantling of what little social safety net we had, which will kill and impoverish millions.
A full-on assault on any ability to check the power of Christian Nationalists through blatant gerrymandering in red states.
The predictable capitulation of oligarchs to fascism, resulting in corporate media and Big Tech bending the knee. The end result being increased censorship, disinformation, and erasure.
Increased state-sanctioned violence on minority communities including public erasure and imprisonment.
The consolidation of Americans data to create the most comprehensive and aggressive police state we’ve ever seen in this country in order to directly target political enemies, dissidents, and anyone deemed “undesirable”.
The legislative branch of the federal government has formally abdicated any remaining power to the executive by letting it personally direct the flow of money based on ideological alignment and subservience. s
I need to reiterate that all of this was not only avoidable, but predictable. I’m not just talking about Project 2025, either. The Supreme Court was on the ballot in 2016. But everyone who tried to call attention to these things was chastised, told they were fearmongering, shouted down with claims that both sides were the same, etc.
I’m not laying these things out to gloat in some sort of “I told you so” way. Trust me, I would love nothing more than to have been completely wrong about all of this. I’m laying these things out because one of the things that must happen in this country is for the vast majority of “resistors” to reckon with the reality of where we are.
We are not “slipping” into fascism. We’re not potentially heading towards a constitutional crisis. To paraphrase Captain Barbosa from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise, you best start believing in “illiberal democracy”, you’re in one.
The purpose of processing the fact that they’ve won is two-fold:
It allows you to process whatever feelings you need to process - grief, rage, sadness, etc.
It allows you to start fighting the right battles.
You cannot mount an effective insurgency or build the appropriate defenses if are operating completely disconnected from reality.
And this brings me to the main message that came through last night: We are not promised victory. That is the other reality we must reckon with, the fact that we will lose, and lose, and lose, until we win. There are some folks involved in this fight who understand that and they are overwhelmingly from communities whose history is that of sustained resistance in this country. Black and brown people understand that liberation - from enslavement to civil rights - took centuries and even then every win was immediately contested. Queer and trans communities understand that the long road of liberation was paved with small, local victories. The disabled community understands that every day requires self-advocacy.
The problem now, however, is that fascism in America is beginning to afflict those who have historically been comfortable. And folks used to comfort don’t like to think that discomfort might last a long time. Or, that to overcome discomfort, you might have to stomach even more discomfort in the short-term. One big march doesn’t solve this. Mental and moral gymnastics to justify why breaking a boycott is fine as long as you donate to a non-profit does nothing to challenge power.
The historically comfortable are used to other people sacrificing and advocating and paying the penalty for disruption while also benefitting from the hard won gains. And that hasn’t changed. The majority of Americans are outraged at what is happening if you believe the polls. But they also expect someone else to fix it.
This also translates into spiritual and occult spaces, too, in a way I can only describe as large-scale social spiritual bypassing. For example, folks cling to astrological predictions that a forthcoming alignment heralds massive shifts in society and culture and assume that shift is inherently in alignment with their preferred outcome. The assumption absolves them of the need to take positive action because, after all, our future utopia is written in the stars.
Ask any seasoned pagan, witch, or occultist and they’ll tell you that, at its more basic level, magic is change. But the direction of that change is very rarely preordained. The direction of that change is influenced by those who prepare for and seize the opportunity. The far-right and Christian Nationalists have spent the last several decades preparing to seize opportunities and pouncing when they presented themselves. Meanwhile, those not accustomed to their rights being on the ballot every four years, or having to coach they children on how to survive an encounter with the police, have coasted on the work done by those on the margins. This has allowed them to cling to the belief that positive progress is inevitable instead of won with blood, sweat, and tears.
Until the majority of folks in the United States do what they need to do to process our reality, until they give up the comfort of spiritually bypassing their moral responsibility to have skin in the game, we are not in a position to overcome this regime. I sincerely doubt our ability to preserve the majority of the progress, history, and people these fascists want to erase.
This may be a warning. This may be a plea. This may be rage-venting into the cyber abyss. But this is the message that came through - loud, angry, and demanding to be said.
