Taylor Moon prophesies a beautiful journey of Black spiritual healing in Chicago.
By Natalie Frazier
(Photo: Isiah ThoughtPoet Veney)
This profile is part of our How a Community Heals series.
If you knew Taylor Moon you’d think of her whenever you conjure an image of the quintessential healer and oracle—although she wouldn’t call herself any of those things too seriously. She tries her best to be as “non-astral-jargony” as possible.
I begin the interview by introducing myself to Moon—a healing facilitator, Reiki practitioner, astrologist, mother and South Shore resident. She immediately asks for my astrological sign. I tell her I’m a Libra. She responds knowingly, as if I’ve confirmed something she already knows. Before I ask her my first question, she requests that I strive to convey her deep thoughts and feelings in my article. I’m perplexed until she informs me that her Piscean tendency (she’s an Aquarius with a Pisces moon) to be overly emotional might obscure those feelings.
A few minutes into our interview, I realize conveying those feelings will require no fabrication from me. Moon’s deep love and concern for her community shine through immediately. Moon is a healing facilitator and counselor at Haji Healing Salon in Bronzeville, although she feels her presence is felt most acutely online on her website where visitors can book appointments for oracle card readings, birth chart readings, solar return chart readings and purchase her book ‘Aquarius,’ an empowering guide to the Aquarius zodiac sign.
Moon, a self-proclaimed mama bear, is all about fighting trauma with the power of the planets—just like her favorite childhood anime, Sailor Moon. In 2017, Moon was in a dark period of her life so she decided to quit her toxic job and revisit her childhood love of astrology. Astrology opened Moon up to transformation and made space for the deep personal care necessary to navigate her devastating brain aneurysm diagnosis. That’s why she believes that astrology is imperative during such tumultuous times because it has the power to heal people navigating pain and uncertainty, just like it did for her.
She recently moved to South Shore after living in Bronzeville and Pilsen. Despite the lack of resources in her community, which was only exacerbated by the pandemic, Moon says she’s happy to be on the South Side. According to a Community Data Snapshots report, more than 46% of South Shore households earn under $25,000 a year and almost 95% of South Shore residents are Black. A 2017 Chicago Reader article cited South Shore as the city’s eviction capital.
“There’s no place I’d rather be right now in the city. I wanna be around my people. I want to be here to support,” she says. The readings, card pulls and “cosmic chit chat” that Moon provides to residents of South Shore and neighboring communities at reasonable prices help them discover themselves and break familial cycles of trauma, she says.
Lately, Moon has noticed more clients approaching her about birth chart readings. A birth chart reading provides insight into personality, motivations and desires by analyzing the planets at the time of one’s birth. Moon says her new clients are people who know a bit of astrology and want to know more. “A switch flips,” she says, “when [clients] learn ‘I was made this way. There’s nothing wrong with me; I just have to work with these energies.’”
(Photo: Isiah ThoughtPoet Veney)
Moon says that solar return chart readings are also popular. Moon uses birth chart analysis and current astral positions to give clients snapshots of their upcoming year. These snapshots provide insights into transitions, evolving relationship dynamics and challenges. After a year of unpredictability, chaos and mass death, intimations of the future and imminent challenges can be comforting for many people.
“I can feel that we’re hurting—as a city, as a nation, Black people specifically,” Moon says of the energy she picks up in her work. This shared pain is why she is pulling out all of her astrological tools to facilitate and guide her community toward healing.
“I believe that astrology can be a foundational tool for self-awareness,” she says, adding that it applies to individuals as well as the Black community as a whole. “2020 cracked something open in us. Collectively [it] forced us to slow down and face ourselves. Going forward we have to pause, reset and decide how we can move forward in a way that feels good.”
Moon believes that the Black community must find a way to decenter white supremacy and violence to address our trauma. The astrologer also believes that young Black adults today have a unique opportunity to address trauma that our ancestors didn’t have because of our expanded access to money, healthcare and educational tools.
Moon’s ideas, dreams and goals are constantly “expanding and unfolding.” Maybe that’s why her next moves feel maktub, an Arabic word for “written in the stars.” She is developing a podcast, completing a certification for embodied social justice and doing some ancestral digging in Mississippi with her mother.
Moon’s healing work, mutual aid efforts around the city, protests and uprisings are all stars in the same constellation: Black and brown people healing and surviving through self-determination.
“We have a beautiful opportunity to go on a spiritual journey,” declares Moon to me.
Our conversation is short, but I feel as if I’ve found some answers and am ready to embark on a spiritual journey with her to find more.
Natalie Frazier (she/her) is an educator, filmmaker, writer and community member based on the West Side of Chicago.
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