La Estrella is an astrology storytelling series created, written, and lived by HWIC, Brandi Amara Skyy. The series can be read at any time but is particularly most potent during the sign’s season (both solar & lunar) as well on the zodiac’s planetary day of the week and the 2 1/2 to 3 days of the month the moon falls in the respective sign. 

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🌞 Season: April 20th – May 20th

🌚 season: April 30th – May 29th (ish)
📅: Friday (Venus)

Out of all the zodiac signs, i know Taurus the most intimately. 

i grew up with a (very) Tauran father and married a (very) Tauran woman.

Taurus has haunted my friend’s list, my creative collaborators, literally everywhere i turn there’s a Taurus.  

And, yet, despite all the Tauran medicine around me, it is the medicine i’ve swallowed the least–probably because it’s representational of all the things i’ve pushed so hard against.

Taurus, in the tarot, is the Hierophant–the traditionalist, representational of the system and institution of religion. Really institutions in general–academia, government, anything that has systemic structure and worships a singular authority.

As a star, Taurus is old school, old fashioned, and deeply committed to holding fast and clear black and white lines. Stubborn. Rooted in their ways. Unmovable. There is no grey. It is this way only and no amount of evidence, argument, or persuasion will deter a bull once their mind is made up. It’s the sign of the absolutists, the “i’d-rather-break-then-bend” mentality. 

But they are also fiercely protective (almost too possessive) of the things they love, the material things that are theirs. 

Earlier this month, Taurus medicine came for me…hard. 

In all honesty, i’ve never really been good at protecting myself. Shielding myself or holding pieces and parts of me back. i’m an open book–always have been. i love everyone i meet without needing a reason; i believe and give everyone the benefit of the doubt; i see and connect all sides of an argument and can talk my way into believing all sides at the same time.

So the first time i was met with the hard reality that someone had plagiarized my work in my book How To Be A Drag Queen, i let it go. Have let it go. 

The Taurians around me went into an uprising. My Tauran wife shook her entire system in disbelief and abhorrence and no expression of my side–” it’s too much work”, “it’s only a $4 amazon e-book”, “not worth my time”, “i’m good”, etc. etc.–convinced her otherwise. 

But when i received a DM on April 5th (the same time that C was recovering from her strokes) from a fellow witch friend sharing a snap of an Instagram account with my company name WOKE MAGIC (only this person added the K at the end), i knew in my gut that this was something i couldn’t just let slide. 

This was something that would require me to swallow, digest, and alchemize the Tauraun medicine all around me and take immediate solid action.

The term WOKE MAGIC was gifted to me back in 2020 during an inner temple meditation i was journeying through. At the time, i was doing a lot of inner, magical, and medicine work on myself trying to decipher and determine once and for all what was mine to build via my creative gifts. 

And there in this meditative state the words “WOKE MAGIC” breached the surface of my consciousness–as if the Universe reached out their hand and said, “This is yours to birth.” 

In that moment, the rest of my life was born. 

And as i began the legal process of naming WOKE MAGIC as my LLC company, another voice spoke in me.

You need to trademark the name. 

Immediately, i felt my heart sink. Trademarks are expensive. Trademark lawyers are even more expensive. Even more than that, i was faced with the conundrum of buying into this system of ownership, legalities, and laws that i deeply opposed. 

But i also deeply wanted to protect all current and future art shared under the WOKE MAGIC umbrella because i knew the moment i received those two words that i had something…magical. 

Reluctantly, i found a trademark lawyer, saved the $800 to pay her, and in June of 2021 began the everlong trademark process. 

So when my witch friend sent me that other Instagram account, i bowed in deep gratitude for having followed my intuition–despite how painful and crunchy it was–to trademark the name. 

But i had to approach the situation and do the trademark infringement process my way. 

Because how can i claim to be and practice WOKE magic, how i can claim to teach others a different way of doing business, if i am not first modeling it and actioning it myself? 

So instead of just slapping this fellow entrepreneur with a generic cease and desist letter from my lawyer (god, that feels so awkward to write), i wanted to reach out in solidarity, support, and benefit of the doubt first. 

It took me a moment to craft the letter i would eventually send (Kismetly enough, i sent it on the exact day the Sun entered Taurus on April 19th).

Because it wasn’t just a letter i was writing–it was a dismantling of an entire belief system i had forged in myself–The Tower come crumbling down. It was years of raging against the machine crashing into my very real need to invoke these same systems on my art’s behalf. It was an unraveling of my 20-year-old linear way of thinking that there’s only one way to fight the system into the growing pains of a new way that still honors my integrity, values, and who i am in the resistance while embodying and modeling a different solution for myself and others.

And that’s exactly what an evolved Taurus asks us to do–to honor our own traditions, values, and beliefs and hold our ground–while also openly tending to the possibility that there could be, just might be, other ways to proceed.

But/and/also to fiercely protect your (he)art when all said possibilities have been exhausted. 

Because as artists, creatives, healers, magic and cyclebreakers, it is imperative that we not only protect ourselves but also our creativity, our gifts, our voice and vision. Especially when we are marginalized and not privy to generational wealth and or systems that easily allow us the funding to protect our creative “property.” We have to find, create, and tread our own ways.

Because i’ve seen one too many stories shared on Instagram of how indie artists of queerness and color are being ripped off by big named companies. And that shit has got to stop. 

Taurus can show us how we can protect our work and selves while also holding true to our values…if we let Taurus medicine in. (This is very much more a note for me than it probably is for you–i’m stubborn in that way 😉.) 

Look to where Taurus sits in your chart. Better yet, look to your Tauran friends, family, partners, and celebrities (Grace Jones is my personal Taurian of choice whose medicine i return to again and again. If you have the WOKE MAGIC Grimoire, i share my favorite Jones quote in the Taurus Dark Moon lesson.)

All the medicine you ever need is right there. 

But in true Taruan fashion, the bull demands an answer: Are you courageous enough to use it?

May all our bodies reverberate with a deep resounding, “yes.”

And so it is 🙏🏽

PS. The other entrepreneur eventually did send an apology and compliance letter back to my lawyer. But as i said in this Instagram post, it’s all still fresh. It’s an event that i’m still unpacking and whose medicine is still unfolding. 

i’ll keep you posted on its sweetness and stings.