A: I’ve always been interested in astrology, but my deeper exploration of the archetypal world actually began through tarot. At a very difficult point in my life, studying tarot became a way of accessing unconscious material, and eventually led me to deep dives into astrology. It helped me understand myself differently and, quite literally, helped me turn my life around. Once I experienced the power of working with archetypes, I wanted to understand that world more deeply and eventually share it with others, particularly women and marginalized communities.

This eventually took me back to school, where I earned my degree in Gender and Women’s Studies from UC Berkeley, where I began recognizing extraordinary connections between feminist theory and the archetypal world. Thinkers like Gloria Anzaldúa showed me that these ways of knowing did not have to exist separately from rigorous intellectual and political thought. Astrology eventually became my primary practice because I came to understand it as a kind of map to the archetypal world. It can help us recognize unconscious patterns, psychological complexes, and the deeper forces influencing how we understand ourselves and the choices we make. For me, becoming conscious means developing enough awareness to recognize when these patterns and complexes are operating in the background, so that we have greater agency in how we engage with them and the world. Astrology also opened a doorway into an enchanted world that I believe dominant white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchal culture has worked to discredit and suppress. Reclaiming practices like astrology is therefore deeply connected to feminism because it offers another way of knowing ourselves and relating to the world.

A: One of my favorite things about astrology is knowing that I will never know everything there is to know about it. I could spend every minute of every day studying astrology for the rest of my life and still continue to discover something new. There are thousands of years of history, techniques, traditions, symbols, and ways of interpreting the sky, and the deeper I go, the more expansive it becomes. Astrology requires humility. There is no point at which I get to declare that I have mastered it. I can become more skilled and knowledgeable, but there will always be another layer to uncover or another way to understand something I thought I already knew. That endlessness keeps astrology alive for me.

But if I had to choose one specific thing astrology has taught me that has changed the way I live my life, it would be that things are never simply “good” or “bad.” What initially appears "good" can lead to a challenge, and what appears "bad" can open a path toward something wonderful that we could never have anticipated. One illuminates the other. Astrology has taught me to resist making immediate judgments about an experience simply because I cannot yet see where it is leading. Mercury retrograde is a simple example. Popular culture treats it as something inherently bad or something to fear, but I don’t experience it that way. It's an invitation to slow down, review, reconsider, and pay attention. That doesn’t mean difficult experiences aren’t difficult, it just means I don’t necessarily know where that experience might ultimately land me. My Indigenous Purépecha mother has said to me throughout my life, “Let go of the grass on the banks of the river. Just float and see where it takes you.” Astrology has helped me understand what she means. More than anything, it has taught me surrender and trust: to pay attention to what is happening without needing to immediately decide whether it is good or bad, and to leave room for meaning to unfold.

A: Honestly, I choose a different one every day, or sometimes layer two or all three at once. And I’m not just saying that because they’re ours. I genuinely choose which one or two or all three to wear based on what I feel I need that day. When I need energy or courage, I reach for Mars. When I need to communicate clearly, whether I’m writing, singing, giving a talk or lecture, or sharing something publicly, I reach for Mercury. And when I want to feel beautiful, sensual, relational, or spend time with the wonderful man I love, my partner Chris, I wear Venus. I experience each of them differently. When I was finishing grad school, I was completely burnt out and felt like I had run out of words, but then I sprayed some Mercury and suddenly found myself writing until four in the morning. Mars makes me feel courageous. And when I wear Venus, let’s just say my husband notices. That is actually what I love most about the perfumes. For me, choosing one is an intentional way of engaging with a particular planetary archetype. I ask myself what I need that day, what energy I want to connect with, and then I get to wear it on my body.

This is also why I think Jenna’s original vision for Planets Perfumery is so brilliant. We talk a lot about wanting to live in a more peaceful world, and I believe part of getting there requires greater awareness of ourselves and greater intentionality about how we move through the world. Planets Perfumery introduces that practice almost secretly, and is, in a way, a beautiful delivery system for consciousness. Folks don’t have to know anything about astrology to stop in the morning and ask: "What do I need today? Courage? Clarity? Connection?" That moment is an act of awareness; paying attention and consciously choosing how to meet the day. In that sense, the perfume becomes a kind of portal into intentionality. Someone may initially be drawn to Planets Perfumery simply because they love the fragrance, but embedded within Jenna’s vision is an invitation to become more conscious of themselves and their relationship to the world around them.

A: My relationship to mythology and magic is deeply connected to my relationship with astrology. I understand mythology as one of the ways human beings have always made meaning of experiences that are difficult to describe. Myths give form to the archetypal patterns we continue to encounter in ourselves, our relationships, and the world around us. The stories may be ancient, but the archetypes are very much present and alive. Magic, for me, is intentionality, attention, and participation. I don’t experience the world as something separate to observe from a distance. We are in relationship with it. When we consciously engage an archetype, through astrology, ritual, scent, tarot, or another esoteric symbolic practice, we are choosing to participate in that relationship with greater awareness.

For me, this is also where feminism enters the conversation. I’m interested in ways of knowing that have historically been dismissed as irrational, superstitious, feminine, primitive, or unserious because they do not conform to the dominant Western idea of what constitutes legitimate knowledge. Myth, magic, intuition, divination, the body, and the senses have all occupied that contested territory. Part of my work has been asking what becomes available to us when we stop automatically dismissing those forms of knowledge. Perfume is especially powerful because scent is immediate and embodied. You can intellectually study the archetype of Venus for years, but smelling something that evokes Venus creates an entirely different kind of encounter. The body responds before finding the words for the experience. That is where mythology, magic, astrology, and perfume meet for me. Each offers a different doorway into the archetypal world. And perhaps that is what I understand magic to be: the moment when something that seemed invisible or abstract becomes perceptible enough that we can enter into relationship with it. Planets Perfumery allows us to put that experience on our skin.