collapse astrology
about hummingbird
Hi all! I'm Hummingbird. Collapse Astrology is a body of work that has been in a slow birth since 2017, and I suspect it's only at the beginning. Here's a little story of how it, and I, came to be.
The name on my drivers’ license is Amy. In late 2015, at my Saturn return, I left a high-demand cult in which an important part of the culture was releasing your personal identity to become one with the group. By 2017, I had shaved my head and started introducing myself as Hummingbird. At the time, I had some hippie friends and it just seemed normal and fun to rename myself. But looking back, it’s obvious that in making those changes, I was trying to find and claim a sense of identity.
Around the same time, my eyes were opening to America’s bloody history, and I was also starting to study astrology, in particular the US Pluto Return. I began to have visions of chaos, turbulence and violence coming for Turtle Island. I couldn’t believe that almost no one in the astrology world was bringing this subject forward. I began this project, originally called Activist Astro, in late 2017 to have a public conversation about what seemed to me like an absolutely monumental transit.
As I continued my own education about the history of empire, and my own dismantling of the American mythos, I became a lot less surprised that the astrology world was turning its gaze away from an alignment that ultimately speaks to our downfall. Even today, though it’s become a lot more trendy for public astrologers to incorporate mundane predictions and analysis into their content, the US Pluto Return is a rare mention. And yet, it’s the transit that most comprehensively describes the material, political and spiritual collapse we are witnessing in the United States today.
My coverage has expanded beyond the Pluto Return into lots of other mundane analyses tracking the movement of the outer planets and how they correspond to collective shifts. But the Pluto Return is still at the heart of my mission, because I think Pluto’s archetype has incredibly powerful medicine for us during this cultural moment of death and (hopefully) transformation. You can read my (outdated but still relevant) essay on the US Pluto Return here, or watch a video on historical Pluto Returns here.
I’m a white, cis woman born on Lenape land (Brooklyn), raised mostly on Tutelo land in southwest Virginia, and currently a bit nomadic, searching for where I want to put down roots. I have a bachelors in Political Communications from Emerson College, which is part of the background I bring to my mundane astrology work. In recent years I’ve done a self-education deep dive into history, particularly the post-WWII history of the military-industrial complex / war machine / “deep state”; and the older histories of trauma in the western world that catalyzed the bloody origins of the United States. I think one reason the astrology world missed the significance of the US Pluto Return is because very few astrologers, like very few Americans in general, have an analysis of empire as part of their framework for understanding the world.
You can read a bit of my cult story here, though I have yet to tell it publicly in any real comprehensive way. I’m still figuring out how to articulate the way the experience impacted me. But I was in it about eight years, from age 22-30, in a very community-focused lifestyle that also centered somatic and energetic training. I think on a soul level, I ended up there to get into my body, and to learn discipline. There are parts of the experience I’m grateful for. There was also emotional, financial and spiritual abuse. I carry a lot of deep beliefs around autonomy, leadership and power dynamics that grew out of that phase of life.
Since then, in addition to studying history, I’ve been leaning into the intersection of politics, somatics and spirituality. I’ve learned from thinkers and teachers like Susan Raffo, Resmaa Menakem, Prentis Hemphill, adrienne maree brown and Daniel Foor. I’ve been influenced a lot by Carmen Spagnola’s somatics-based teachings on collapse. My ideas about human potential during apocalypse were formed in the substrate of the fiction of Octavia E. Butler and Starhawk, among others. Collapse Astrology hopes to align with voices throughout history that have unapologetically named the American shadow, while also holding space for love and magic.
The hard political frameworks that undergird my astrological analyses come most directly from Aaron Good, whose book American Exception and academic definition of the “deep state” fit neatly into my analysis of Pluto’s discovery in 1930 and the rise of the war machine soon after. Other political influences include Chris Hedges, Naomi Klein, Abby Martin and F.D Signifier.
In terms of astrology, I’m almost completely self-taught. But I was mentored by Eric Francis Coppolino for a few years early on, and I owe the seeds of my astro-political writing style to him. Recently I’ve tip-toed into learning more medical astrology from Kira Sutherland at Astrology of Health, but aside from that and reading foundational mundane astrology books, most of my study has been on my own, digging into histories and archetypes to flesh out narratives that I hope can help us all orient during this critical moment.
Astrologically speaking, I'm a Pisces Sun, Cap moon and Scorpio rising. Saturn also sits right on my ascendant, which is an important part of my personality: despite the bright colors, I'm a major introvert and I'm basically a doomer. I have Mercury and Venus in Aries—they're really who you meet first in most of my content—and a super slow and steady Mars in Taurus. I'm a self-projected projector in Human Design. And, I have Vesta conjunct Pluto in Scorpio in the 12th house. Iykyk.
My other interests and practices include music, writing, ecstatic dance, yoga, aikido, road-tripping, voice-noting my friends, finding hot springs, being in nature... I am beginning a van conversion project in summer 2026, so look for updates on that.