Astronomical Easter Eggs Revealed for Taylor Swift’s Tortured Poets Section
Her Royal Highness Taylor Swift, the Sagittarius queen of writing religious songs, morbidly burning, and mining the sins of ex-lovers, is back at it with the release of her 11th studio album, “Tortured Poets Oath.”
Reflecting on her strained relationship with heartbroken British boy Joe Alwyn, with lyrical forays into her ill-fated relationship with Matt Healy, her beef with Kim Kardashian and some nods to new man Travis Kelce, the album dropped on an auspicious day, leaving a whimsical trail of astrological Easter eggs.
Can you find them all? Read on and see how I did.
Mercury retrograde
The highly anticipated release comes amidst the thick heat haze of Mercury retrograde in Aries, a time when the precession is emphasized and we reimagine the past, review our self-concepts, and revisit the mire and swamp of failed relationships, to discover grains of wisdom buried in the burned-out buildings of romantic desolation.
In Essence and Ashes, this album is the stillbirth of a doomed love story.
Aries is the sign of fierce exclusivity. Through these songs and during this transit, our girl is affirming who she is inside and outside of the relationship and loudly declaring what she will no longer stand for.
Bless him.
Aries is also the sign of the unambiguously and unapologetically extra, so he’s tracking that Swift will complete the drop with “The Anthology,” a secret 15-song companion album to “TTPD.”
Swift released her opus while the sun was at a risky 29 degrees of Aries. This degree is known as the anaretic degree, and is the last moment before the planet changes signs.
Also called critical point, 29 is famously unstable. It is urgent and must simply express the essence of the archetype in its entirety. In Aries, the drug is volatile, even pungent. We should take it out, play it loud, and then burn it.
Check, check, check.
Venus/Mercury conjunction
Swift’s latest release was released just hours before the love planet (Venus) and communication planet (Mercury) unite in the cardinal cauldron of Aries. Conjunctions combine the energies of two planets. Given the prevailing influence of fire, the results here are incendiary.
Under normal circumstances, this connection enables us to own and express our desires, but during retrograde and in Aries, our desires and our language around desire and connection take on a different level of intensity—let’s call it dialectical attraction.
It’s about wanting to hear someone but wanting to be heard more than anything else, themes that are very much a*sociated with “TTPD.”
Swift’s double album was released just hours before the love planet (Venus) and communication planet (Mercury) joined in the cardinal cauldron of Aries.
Brilliant astrologer Colin Bedell of Queer Cosmos explains that in this conjunction and during this retrograde, we are reimagining the role of the individual in relationships.
“Our relationship satisfaction is largely determined by another partner’s self-sufficiency. We are attracted to others when they are in their element. When they are pa*sionate about something…when they are radiant, when they are expressive, when they are fully defined,” Beadle said. .
“TTPD” is T. Swift at her wildest and bravest, in her grind and in her element, having gone through the fires of a wise baptism of love and loss — and with new pain for the flour mill, turning what hurts into what heals.
Rewriting the book of love during Mercury retrograde? We’d love to see her tay tay.
Biddle suggests that this connection begs the question: “How much life force and self-sufficiency do I bring to romantic relationships?” Swift’s long list of ex-lovers is full of names of men who couldn’t hold onto her life force or support her degree of self-sufficiency — she won’t suffer fools anymore.
Perhaps with blossoming Libra bro Travis Kelce, Swift has finally found a lively match. A safe place to land and a suitable person to hang her desires, dreams and choruses on.
Rewriting the book of love during Mercury retrograde? We’d love to see that, Tay Tay.
Astrologer Reza Weigel researches and provides irreverent reports on planetary configurations and their influence on each zodiac sign. Its horoscopes integrate history, poetry, popular culture, and personal experience. She is also an accomplished writer who has profiled a variety of artists and performers, and has extensively chronicled her travel experiences. Among the many interesting topics she covers are cemetery etiquette, her love of dive bars, Cuban Airbnbs, a “girl’s guide” to strip clubs, and the “weirdest” foods available abroad.