WE ARE MADE OF STARS AND EARTH…
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Greetings! My name is LiZhen (they/them & she/her). I am an astrologer, facilitator, and food-grower based in Taipei and Huchiun (Ohlone territory also known as Oakland). I have been a consulting astrologer since 2014, and in 2020 I started the Astrology for Social Movements project. My research focuses on the planetary patterns undergirding movements for abolition and collective freedom. I also teach a program called ON PURPOSE: An Astrological Discovery of What You’re Here For.
I found my own calling while doing youth and community organizing… but in a roundabout way. For years, I worked on campaigns that included: ending police abuse of Asian refugee youth; fighting against a major gas + electric company; and most intimately, mobilizing my nonprofit coworkers for better working conditions. In doing that, I discovered my superpower as an organizer lies in my ability to build relationships that can reshape power dynamics. Transformative relationships continue to be the focus of my work today.
But, while I was championing social justice, I often felt a painful gap between our stated values and our actual behaviors. Over and over, I felt heartbroken and disillusioned when the admirable goals we talked about were undermined by nonprofit exploitation. Where was the community care that supposedly undergirded our work? Why did it feel replaced by pressure, blame, and shame? I longed to reconnect with the original spirit that motivated activism in the first place.
And thus began my spiritual path.
In my heartbreak, I started looking for solace in the earliest of places. I returned to my ancestral traditions — Buddhism, Daoism, and astrology. Slowly, bit by bit, I healed my broken heart. I realized that so much within me, and my comrades, was still broken. We could not help but create in the world a mirror image of what was broken inside us. As I grew and healed, I was invigorated to find that spiritual practice can transform how we do activism. Spirituality roots social movements in greater integrity. It leads to deeper transformations personally and collectively.
Since then, I have co-founded the Block Build Be retreat, an annual gathering dedicated to harmonizing the wisdom of spirituality with the power of social movements— and that centers Black, Asian, and other POC, and strives to embody Disability Justice.
I got deep into astrology in 2008 and have been a practicing astrologer since 2015. My teachers include: Deborah Singletary, astrologer and artist in Harlem; Demetra George, the great Hellenistic astrology teacher; Jonathan Tenney, creator of The Motherpeace Playbook: Astrology and the Motherpeace Cards; Alan Chong in Malaysia, and Yu Meng Hua of Tiger Eye Astrology.
I have been a trained peer counselor since 2016. I am currently in my final year of a 3-year training program as a Whole Life Doula, certified by the United States Association for Body Psychotherapy.
I offer my work humbly as a gift. Working in the gift economy is essential to my purpose — creating a world in which we connect to each other with generosity rather than greed, where we share rather than sell. To learn more, you can read my reflections on planetary shifts and how they impact us here on Earth.
