It’s time that you stopped being so available to everything and anyone.

In their book Glitch Feminism, Legacy Russell writes that “to glitch is to embrace malfunction, and to embrace malfunction is in and of itself an expression that starts with “no.””

Therapist and writer Nedra Glover Tawwab has a mantra that she shares on her Instagram:

“I can say no without feeling guilty. But it starts with me believing that I have the power to say no. Saying “no” is not mean. It’s a way to be assertive for myself. I cannot assume how others will feel as a result of me saying no. I cannot predict how saying no will cause damage to my relationship. Saying no is a way to claim my boundaries.”

When Milena Popova writes about sex-critical approaches to consent in her book Dubcon: Fanfiction, Power, and Sexual Consent, saying that sex-criticality deconstructs dominant ideas around sex and explores “how they have a direct impact on what we think we can and can’t do” as well as “how they limit our ability to meaningfully give consent.”

Venus is out of the Sun’s bounds in November. She’s unresponsive, maybe. She doesn’t hear when she’s called. She has her phone on silent. She’s lost in the woods. 

November holds the New Moon in Scorpio, that beginning of winter, and an exalted Full Moon. It’s still Scorpio season until the 22nd and Mercury chases the Sun after its retrograde. Mercury moves into Scorpio and Venus into Capricorn on the day of the Scorpio New Moon—the 5th.

It’s time that you stopped being so available to everything and anyone. It’s time that you, like those refusal-smooth Scorpios that you know and Venus, turned off your phone. You don’t need to know everything that is going on and nor do you need to check your email before you sleep and when you wake. You don’t need to go to any gathering that you don’t want to go to, even if you’re already halfway there. At least check in with yourself to see if your tummy hurts first.

It takes power to say no. When consent is manufactured, we are unable to say no to the choices that we don't have access to. We are unable to control what choices we do have access to. Celebrating our “no”s is also about celebrating our power. If you’re feeling any guilt, at least feel it not towards those who can afford your refusal but towards those who do not yet have access to your choice.

Scorpio

What is the easiest “no” that you have ever given in your life? Is it to friends who understand you and want to support your homebodiedness? It is to relationships where you know that you have not broken any agreement because you want to refuse? It is to coworkers who ask you to cover a shift and genuinely have a backup plan if you refuse?

Figure out exactly what happened in those easy no situations that made the “no” so easy. This easiness is not the norm but the exception to the norm. You can celebrate those “no”s because it took effort and trust to earn them. Protect those “no”s. Treasure them. They were earned in collaboration with those who want to protect you.

Sagittarius

The hardest person to say no to is yourself. Saying no to yourself involves a tremendous amount of patience because you must deal with rejection as well as refusal. You give yourself control when you refuse things that you have become used to that you no longer want.

Control can come in steps and days instead of grand gestures and resolutions. Often, saying “not today” is better than saying “never again.” Sometimes, refusal can take years. There are choices that you know you want that you know you don’t have yet. Give yourself the imagination that it takes to at least imagine these choices.

Capricorn

Saying no is about integrity for you. You’re no one’s savior and you’re not supposed to support anyone through your refusal of them. You cannot be there for an old boss after you quit a job and you cannot be there for an ex partner once you have said goodbye to them.

Integrity is about intactness. You are most whole when you contradict yourself. You are allowed to change your mind when you refuse. You are allowed to withdraw consent after you have given it. You’re allowed to quit once you have started. You’re also allowed to say yes once you have refused once.

Aquarius

Sleeping well means that you refuse well. Being well rested means that you are also well refused. You’re irritable and angry when you are tired and when you are unable to say no. You start to wonder whether you are betraying yourself.

Choosing rest means that you have a choice between labor at rest. Unfortunately, for you, you are employed at will. This means that there will be times when you are unable to afford your own unemployment or that you will be more afraid of being unemployed than employed. Get past just the fear and ask yourself what you’re scared of. Find the choices that the corporate buzzwords try to hide from you.

Pisces

There’s a big difference between rejecting an invitation and between rejecting a friend. Often, we feel as though we have to reject a person entirely only when refusal is not already built into the relationship. Are you able to refuse a hug without feeling like you betrayed your best friend? Are you able to refuse a hangout without feeling alienated from a group? Are you able to refuse a professional invitation without feeling like you insulted a supporter?

If not, or if consent feels dubious, then stop doing things temporarily. If refusal is not an option, then find your anger. If refusal is easy, celebrate. 

Aries

Saying no to how other people might define success means that you say no to the idea that you are not allowed to define your work. You’re  drifter at heart, a one man pony show, and you know how to do all of the things that you need if it really comes down to it. If you don’t know it, learn it. This will give you more power than you were taught to expect.

If you were never able to say no to the person who your mother wanted you to become, that’s okay. You’re here now, dubious and intact. You have made your choices so that you could arrive today. Refuse the tomorrow that you can imagine and ponder the tomorrow that you are not yet able to imagine.

Taurus

Refusal is about principle for you. It’s a matter of what you believe and when you believe it. Have you fallen into the trap of trying to rescue what you can when there is crisis? Imagine that your activism supports your rest, that it supports your material well being, and that it understands when you fluctuate for a moment.

You need to be able to say no to political work. You need to be able to consent to political work. This means that your principles do not arise in the heat of an argument and nor are they most powerful when you feel as though you have to scream to get a word in. You’re most powerful when you choose when you speak and when you speak with a certainty that you will be heard.

Gemini

You should always be able to refuse obligation. You might also remind yourself that your commitment has felt most full and alive when it has been a choice. Refusal means that you stop conflating what you have responsibility over with what you have fault for. It means that, even when you’re not the one to cause a problem, that you might be one of the ones with the responsibility to understand the problem.

You didn’t cause the pandemic. Big corporations cause climate change. You’re not to blame for your best friend’s fears. But, you’re allowed to choose responsibility for problems that you did not cause. Just make sure that it is a choice. Make sure that you’re not trying to solve all your responsibilities on your own.

Cancer

Much of the time, you are unable to say no unless other people are willing to do the work of refusal with you. At your job, are you able to refuse together? Do you have a system set up so that you are able to refuse together everyday in ordinary tasks? Is refusal integrated into your everyday life? In your relationships, is saying no allowed and understood?

When you empower the refusal of your close ones, you are telling them that you are willing to see them in their fullness. You are not able to refuse things alone sometimes and building networks of refusal means that you are also building a path towards your own willingness.

Leo

Stop arguing with yourself and just say no. If you can’t, for financial or survival reasons, understand that your anger is not a character flaw but a response to consent being taken away from you. When you are unable to consent, you get moody and unhappy and withdrawn. These emotions that you feel are not an identity but information about your circumstance.

What is most important for you right now is to understand that any self blame that results from lack of consent is not yours to carry. True choice is not a balancing act between two evils but the ability to refuse the game altogether.

Virgo

Consent and love—saying no is about love. Love is not a willingness to adapt to those who will never love you. Love knows refusal and it understands that it must coexist with it. This is because both love and refusal can only happen when you are free.

Love is a choice, which means that you must be able to entertain the idea of not loving for you to choose love. You must be able to consider breaking up before you are able to choose someone. You must be able to say no to sex in order to consent. Refusal supports pleasure. There’s nothing tricky about it.

Libra

Do you feel like you have the ability to refuse the person who your father wants or wanted you to be? Why or why not? Does your consent depend on how well resourced and supported your father is or how well resourced and supported you are? What feelings come up for you when you’re thinking about this?

Sometimes, “I don’t know” is enough. Saying that you don’t know means that you are admitting to not having all of the certainty that you need to understand just when you have access to consent and when you do not have access to consent. When you say “I don’t know” next, ask yourself seriously what it would take to change that response to “I don’t know yet.”