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Stars and Stars with Isa
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Stars and Stars with Isa is the podcast where we look to the stars above with the stars below. Each week our host and astrologer, Isa Nakazawa, sits with the most talented artists and thinkers of our time to read them their birth chart and discuss their life’s purpose and why they love, create, and walk the world the way they do.
49 Episodes
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adrienne maree brown is always cultivating a garden of healing ideas. Informed by decades of movement facilitation, somatics, science fiction scholarship and doula work, adrienne has authored essential works such as Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, We Will Not Cancel Us and their most recent, Loving Corrections. From the mystical to the earthly, adrienne finds the equilibrium she needs in carefully working with all of the perspective her big three provide. Isa Nakazawa and adrienne discuss the discernment of her Virgo, the underworld of her Scorpio and the risk taking of her Aries. Along the way, adrienne shares their mistakes as generously as their wisdom.
Content creator and authority on all things culture & fashion, Jade Fox is the internet’s go-to expert on androgynous and masc style. Her work has been featured in outlets like Paper Magazine, Hypebeast and VH1. As a Leo moon conjunct Chiron, the asteroid representing wounds and healing, Jade shares how her early relationship with her parents now manifests in her romantic relationships.
Curatorial director at PACE Gallery in New York, writer, and fulltime Leo, Kimberly Drew is a curator of beauty and pleasure. Kimberly has published two books – Black Futures and This Is What I Know About Art. She is also known for her work in arts institutions ranging from the Met to New York Fashion Week. Kimberly’s careful curation of everything in her life, especially her style, screams fire sign, but her earth and water placements reveal a more private side. She and Isa Nakazawa discuss how she has learned to unguard with those closest to her.
Independent singer, songwriter and producer, Madison McFerrin has deep roots in music. Her grandfather Robert McFerrin Sr. was the first Black man to sing with the Metropolitan Opera. Her grandmother, Sara McFerrin, is a classically trained vocalist who toured as a background singer for Sam Cooke. And of course, there’s Madison’s father, Bobby McFerrin, the Grammy-winning jazz vocalist. Yet, Madison has found a way to distinguish herself with a sound all her own. Madison and Isa Nakazawa discuss how after a life-altering break up and growing her career, Madison has learned to embody the soft core of her Scorpio sun.
Sophia Roe is known for her delicious meals, gorgeous plating and blunt honesty. She’s also a James Beard Award winning chef, writer, and Emmy-Award nominated TV host. Her relationship to food is deeply informed by her experience in the foster system and with food insecurity. Sophia’s vision for a more liberated world starts with the stomach. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Sophia to discuss how her Scorpio sun means she’s no stranger to the grin-and-bear-it mentality that helped her reach this zenith of success, and how her Cancer rising is calling on her to lead a softer life.
Diane Guerrero rose to fame in her role as Maritza Ramos in the Netflix series Orange Is the New Black. As her platform grew, she sought ways to make an impact for kids like her – with undocumented parents at the whims of the immigration system. With time, Diane realized that telling her story over and over again was retraumatizing rather than healing. After the death of her father, Diane turned inward to focus on transformation. Along the way, she has discovered how much she just wants to be a weirdo – a true Aquarius moon.
Growing up on the border, Mexican-American singer-songwriter Renee Goust is unafraid to transgress artificially drawn lines. She works within and also transforms traditional Mexican music, writing and singing about people like her, who have historically been left out of roots music. She has written some of the most iconic feminist and LGBTQ hymns in Latin America and the U.S. Renee and Isa Nakazawa discuss how Renee’s Libra rising means she’s moved to action by her sense of justice while her Leo moon ensures her loyalty and attention bring those at the margins to the forefront of the conversation.
Writer and model Naomi Shimada grew up between Japan and Spain in a multilingual family. She entered the fashion industry as a model at age 13 when she was scouted at a local restaurant. As she grew up in the industry, she became known for talking publicly about the dirty secrets behind the plus-sized fashion world. In 2019 she co-authored the book Mixed Feelings with fashion journalist Sarah Raphael – exploring the emotional impact of our digital habits. Naomi and Isa Nakazawa discuss how Naomi has followed the true expression of her soft Cancer sun and knowledge-seeking Sagittarius rising into the study of healing and spirituality.
Jill Louise Busby is affectionately known by her social media handle jillisblack. In 2016 she went viral for critiquing what passed as progressive. But the longer she operated under the social media handle, the more it became a character – cutting her off from her true self. In 2021 she published her book “Unfollow Me: Essays on Complicity.” Today, she is the Artistic Director at Northwest Film Forum and is at work on a one-woman-show and her next book. Jill’s third house Capricorn moon has her constantly seeking to implode hierarchies while her Sagittarius sun creates an urgency in sharing her truth – one that we all benefit from.
Award-winning journalist Tonya Mosley is motivated by deep curiosity and a true interest in understanding people. That’s what informs her work as the co-host of NPR’s Fresh Air program. As a kid her friend’s father nicknamed her “scoop,” and she’s been following that destiny ever since. Tonya’s Taurus Sun and Virgo Rising keep her grounded and put together, but lately she’s been learning to be comfortable with her vulnerability while being a public-facing reporter.
Shannon Shaw’s signature is to channel her layered feelings into her art. As the founder and vocalist of the indie punk band Shannon and the Clams, she has shared about some of the hardest things in her life through her music. Earlier this year Shannon and her band released their latest album: The Moon is in the Wrong Place. Tasked with the uniquely difficult need to express and explore the various stages of grief after the shocking death of her fiancé, The Moon is in the Wrong Place is a vulnerable and honest journey filtered through the band’s signature garage-soul sound. Isa Nakazawa discusses how Shannon’s Capricorn rising serves as the catalyst to explore her artistic expression despite being told music wasn’t for her. While her Gemini Sun knows how to move fluidly between ecstasy, despair, grief and eternal love.
Chef and creator Nasim Lahbichi grew up eating Puerto Rican meals with his mom, learning Moroccan recipes from his dad and eating Italian dinners at his childhood best friend’s house in New York City. Now Nasim cooks and shares recipes with millions of people online. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Nasim to discuss the deep appreciation his food expresses for the variety of cultures that raised him, how his Gemini rising embodies the energetic intensity of his city, and how his Taurus moon keeps him grounded in the sensuality and beauty of the meals he “yes chefs” into being.
Gabby Rivera is a writer, podcast host, and storyteller. Her young adult novel Juliet Takes a Breath was critically acclaimed and she is the first Latina to write for Marvel comics, bringing superhero America Chavez to life. Gabby’s work often combines experiences from her own past, the political realities of present-day America and the future she envisions for her queer kin. The stories she writes work to correct the lack of narratives like her own – growing up queer within a religious, Puerto Rican family in the Bronx. Isa Nakazawa discusses how Gabby’s Aquarius moon eventually led her to embrace a radical softness and vulnerability that now defines her personal life and writing.
Self-described “Black Feminist Love Evangelist,” Alexis Pauline Gumbs has been widely praised for her incisive thought and inspired prose. The author recently released her new book Survival is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde. Alexis is the first researcher to explore the full depths of Lorde’s manuscript archives, and the book illuminates Lorde’s understanding of survival on a changing planet. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Alexis to discuss her and Lorde’s relationship to their fathers, what it means to mother and how her chart reflects the same breadth and depth as her writing.
Actor and producer Johnny Sibilly is known for his roles in the hit show Pose, the reboot of Queer as Folk, and the award-winning HBO show Hacks. As a pre-teen, stumbling across the original Queer as Folk on his family’s TV helped him to understand himself more fully, and ever since Johnny’s carried a commitment to the fullness and mess that real representation requires. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Johnny to talk about how his Virgo sun makes him a powerful study of character, and how his Gemini rising expands his vision beyond binaries.
Vanessa Benavente currently plays none other than Mary, the mother of Jesus herself, on Netflix’s The Chosen. Vanessa describes the years that led up to this role as “the typical overnight success that takes 15 years.” Working on the show has been more than a career highlight, it’s expanded her views on spirituality. Isa Nakazawa sits down with Vanessa to talk about how her Sagittarius sun has allowed her the flexibility to take bold risks, while her Aries moon propels her to action and passion.
As an award-winning poet, writer, and performer, Danez Smith’s words are always right on time. This year they released their latest poetry collection BLUFF, calling out the dualities and contradictions alive in all of us, including themself. As one reviewer wrote, they demonstrate that we all contain “protest and police, cowardice and commitment, money and kindness, looting and food drives.” Isa Nakazawa sits down with Danez to talk about how their Leo Sun keeps them grounded in childlike wonder of the world, while their Sagittarius rising drives their endless curiosity.
DJ, producer, and musician Jahi Sundance’s Cancer Rising allows him to build sonic and emotional worlds for his listeners. His Cancer’s sensitivity balances his more angular earth placements in the house of Gemini, which Isa Nakazawa says could make the birth chart of a “con artist.” But Jahi is anything but as his star map also provides equilibrium. Isa catches up with Jahi at the Blue Note Jazz Festival, and together they discuss how his Capricorn Sun and Virgo Moon have steered him through the business of being a working artist – helping him to build stability where none exists.
Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is the award-winning author of two books: her nonfiction debut, The Undocumented Americans, and her latest, a novel called Catalina. Catalina follows a Latine senior at Harvard who feels stuck between the opportunities an Ivy League diploma offers and the limiting realities of being undocumented in America. Though Catalina may be loosely autofiction, Karla deftly gives her readers what they think they want, while, as she says, ‘making them regret it.’ Isa Nakazawa sits down with Karla to discuss how her Cancer sun shines through in her ability to write storylines that reflect a more honest and messy set of realities.
A writer, therapist, and political organizer, Prentis Hemphill moves through the world with the intensity, depth and the tenderness of their Scorpio moon. Host Isa Nakazawa spoke with Prentis shortly after the publication of their deeply moving book “What It Takes to Heal.” The book is full of the learnings from their time as Healing Justice Director at Black Lives Matter Global Network and from their own life-- from childhood to parenthood. With a questing, playful Sagittarius sun and a rhizomatic rebellious Aquarius Rising, Prentis lives out their star map in all of its generative abundance.
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