Everything Under The Pisces Sun With Marval A Rex
from Alejandro Jodorowsky to Ron Athey, the multi-hyphenate artist-actor-astrologer-etc TALKTALKTALKS origins & occult inspirations
I met Marval A Rex on NYE 2024, hours after completing a cross country drive from Detroit to Los Angeles. I was excited and delirious and completely bereft of any social etiquette when I asked him to be my astrology friend five minutes into our conversation. It turns out, ignorance is bliss. Had I known the scope of his work as an artist and astrologer, I would have never had the courage to be so bold.
Marval is a trans actor, director, astrologer and cultural producer, whose fierce passion and unique astrological voice has reinvigorated my own practice.
The following interview is a followup to our podcast recording and was conducted over email. Both podcast and written interview are brought to you by the god Mercury, whose magic makes communication across time and space possible.
Enjoy the TALKTALKTALK & listen to our podcast recording HERE. (Please note: these are two separate conversations.)
Vivi Henriette: I know plenty of artists who dabble in astrology and many more astrologers who fancy themselves artists, but, let’s be real, rarely do you meet people who inhabit both of these titles with equal competence. Which is to say, you’re a damn fine astrologer and artist and comedian and whatever other brilliant multitudes are living inside Marval.
How do you manage all of it? Where do these passions overlap?
Marval A Rex: Woof! My first thought is of my natal chart, and the exact semi-square of my sun in Pisces and my mars-Venus-Lilith conjunction in Aquarius. It puts me on multiple parallel tracks that I am equally invested in. To say it simplistically I see the Pisces as the acting and artistry and the Aquarius as the astrology and the occult (8th house- Aquarius). I love the example of Jodorowsky and being a filmmaker and a tarotologist. Gives me hope.
How do I manage? Well I do have help; I have an assistant for my astrology podcast. Her name is Radhika, and she is a blessing in my life. As for my own labor, there is a lot of energy expended every day — and I manage to work out and sleep 7-9 hours most of the time! In the Human Design system I am a manifesting generator and the description of that feels apt: an insatiable amount of energy to build expertise often in a polymath sort of way. I would never be satisfied in one lane, except perhaps in acting where I get to always change characters or roles.
Lots of mutable energy in my natal chart. My Jupiter in Virgo (opposite my Pisces Mercury) makes it so that I am religiously committed to my Google calendar, and my to do list. I am the opposite of a procrastinator — and, for the most part, I am fairly adept at understanding the order of importance for tasks and will then simply execute. I love to check off the boxes on the to do list! I can also, blessed be, sit for hours and do something in total silence. I am grateful for these traits, and they’ve really been lifelong characteristics. That being said, I HAVE to maintain an emotional baseline otherwise my usual output gets compromised, aka I pull a Pisces and end up depressed and sleeping a lot. This also naturally happens because I do have cycles of burnout and… oddly… I will often enthusiastically welcome the depression that sets in as a sign of my soul-body wisdom to slow down and sleep and cry and just be. “The Sacred Sads”
The overlap of my arts practice and astrology is really behind the scenes, but there is overlap. I consistently do electional astrology and watch the VOC moon when making business decisions or taking meetings. I watch/feel into the essential dignity of the moon for my acting classes and when I am on set. (Moon in Scorpio? Okay I’m gonna lean into the traumatic or the morose or the caustic.) For acting, I create a secret natal chart for each of the characters that I play. This helps me character-build and get into the psychology of the role I am embodying. It also helps me lose myself and take on another person’s archetypal energies (admittedly not hard for a Pisces sun Mercury).
“I live for the Aquarius freaks. And there is something to say about being a public figure who is unabashedly an occultist or magician, because people in the West tend to fear or mistrust self-proclaimed magicians.”
Vh: Most importantly, how do you introduce yourself at parties?
MAR: Hehehe, love this. Made me laugh. I usually say I’m a renaissance man or a multihyphenate, but I lead with acting primarily because you never know who is a casting agent or director. I am quite closeted (8th house vibes??) about being an astrologer when I first meet people but in LA. Usually people bring it up, and then I will out myself, and it becomes a whole conversation. I will also sometimes use the term occultist which really makes people’s eyebrows raise, but to me it is even more descriptive than saying I’m an astrologer since I have a background in chaos magic, Thelemic witchcraft, tarot, Kabbalah and other forms of esoterica.
Usually I just say, “Hey, I’m Marval — I am both a noun and a verb!”
Vh: It’s possible I exaggerated the question above. History is rife with examples of people who excelled in art and magic. It’s just that I don’t personally know many of them. The first who comes to mind is the filmmaker/tarot reader/ magician, Alejandro Jodorowsky — when I mentioned his name in our podcast recording, your eyes lit up. Has Jodorowsky had an influence on your career?
MAR: Ah you see, I already mentioned him! He is a huge influence on my work….I have had otherworldly levels of synchronicity with his work and can relate to him through our shared Hispanic-Euro background. We also are born four days apart (diff year) and I haven’t peeked at his chart, but I’m guessing we have similar personal planet placements. La Sagrada Montunya was the first film of his I saw and my jaw dropped watching it…. The level of freedom in his art making (and the bravery to free oneself in front of others) is awe inspiring to me. He gave me permission, in a lot of ways, when I was a young early 20’s artist already making abstract video art pieces. I live for the Aquarius freaks. And there is something to say about being a public figure who is unabashedly an occultist or magician, because people in the West tend to fear or mistrust self-proclaimed magicians. (I can’t help but think of Crowley.) The occult is happening at all levels of society, particularly high society, and yet those who use it want it to remain hidden, hence the definition “occult.” I am not so sure my life will bend to that wish: I am driven by a desire to bring magic/occult forward into social systems and daily rhythms in a way that brings more species-level cohesion.
Vh: Who has inspired you? Who are some of your mentors and guides?
MAR: He [Alejandro Jodorowsky] is most certainly one. Others include, in no particular order, Paul Preciado, Starhawk, John Lennon, Kate Bornstein, Reed Erickson, Salvador Dali, Chuck Palahniuk, Carl Jung. In the field of astrology: Anne Ortelee, Adam Elenbaas, Austin Coppock.
“Everyone has a birth chart, and it is not dictated by social codes or what is in your pants.”
Vh: In this same conversation, you talk about finding astrology in middle school but not sharing this knowledge with anyone for the first 10 years of your study, referring to it as “a language only I spoke.” Can you elaborate on that?
MAR: I was in Catholic school at the time, in this very repressed environment, and was really in my mercury in Pisces days…the way that water mercury signs can be non-verbal or dictated by the emotional environment. (My progressed mercury is now in Aries, and WOW do I feel that.) I just felt intuitively that so much of myself had to remain hidden in order to survive, and that included my propensity for witchcraft, ritual, prayer, astrology, tarot. It wasn’t what other teenagers I knew around me were interested in. Astrology was weird, queer, taboo, and it could’ve potentially outed me as non-normative at the time. I was a chameleon in a lot of ways, so I put on a palatable caricature of myself to hide my gender. Little did I know I was essentially putting myself through acting school (pretending to be what others wanted me to be at any given moment) to prepare for when I was really going to make performance for others a profession, not a lifestyle. So yeah, I had a preternatural understanding of astrological archetypes, and I used it privately to glean insights into human motivation on a person to person basis. Mostly I used it to obsess further over the crushes I had on girls in high school, synastry charts and things like that. ;)
Vh: What impact did this secret relationship with astrology have on your studies?
MAR: I’m not sure it did have a direct impact. It was something I engaged in separately from the rest of my life…. It felt like an island, a safe place outside of school, church, family, the false performance of self I had going on at the time.
Vh: You also spoke about having “astrology thoughts” like you had “queer thoughts.” Growing up, how did astrology — and magic — help you make sense of the world? Specifically, these “queer thoughts.”
MAR: Well, I think I mentioned this in the interview, but astrology is a form of intrapersonal identity mapping that is not delineated by gender codes based on sex assigned at birth. Everyone has a birth chart, and it is not dictated by social codes or what is in your pants. That in and of itself gave me a chance to understand my identity that felt limitless: a fantastical realm of self-building using 12 sign-based archetypes, 10 mythical planets, and an infinite rolodex of aspects/harmonics/house systems to synthesize it all together. It felt like a fractal of identity, a multiplicity of possible being, a sense of self as a series of unfolding stories that are always changing because the planets are always changing. As Maggie Nelson says, “ Empirically speaking, we are made from star stuff. Why aren't we talking more about that? Materials never leave this world. They just keep recycling, recombining.”
Vh: Your parents are scientists who used tarot and dreams to solve problems. Were they into astrology too? Did astrology feel like something that was uniquely yours? Was this part of the impetus for keeping it to yourself?
MAR: My parents were not into astrology, although my mother is a pisces rising and has always been open to the metaphysical section of a bookstore. She bought me my first astrology book and has always been supportive. She is a huge fan of my podcast. My parents being scientists, I know I have genetically inherited their love of the scientific method: I just apply it to astrology. Think about it: data collection through consistent observation, experimenting with transits, building hypotheses and theories within a larger network of like-minded people (the astro community). The difference here is they are biochemists, and I am an occult scientist. One science is considered legitimate, the other not. That still won’t stop an 8th house Aquarius stellium from collecting data.
“ I saw myself in the sculptures, I saw myself even when they slumped over or cracked or bloated in the kiln. Clay teaches you that it is often the imperfections of the process that reveal its true genius, you just have to succumb to the process.”
Vh: Did your esoteric studies offer you a community — a place among your people?
MAR: Esoterica brought me to certain intersections of the fine arts world, including working with Ron Athey, Sheree Rose, Martin O’ Brien and others who use occult imagery and magic in their performances. But I didn’t meet anyone who was as into astrology as myself until I began connecting with youtube astrologers, and now am connecting with LA astrologers IN PERSON (THROUGH YOU!!!) and that has been one of the most healing things for me in this journey thus far…our growing LA cohort of astro geeks!
Vh: I’m going to attempt a timeline: You were raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. You moved to Arcata, California for University where you studied political science and ceramics. After college you stuck around Humboldt county, where you lived out of your car for a year to trim weed and save up for top surgery. Your first stop out of California was an artist residency in Rochester, New York. At that time your art practice was centered around clay, a medium which you’ve referred to as “inherently queer.”
Tell me more about that — the inherent queerness of clay and your ceramics practice.
MAR: Clay is a medium that is so close to performance art (where our body is medium). You can see this in the way it is spoken of/understood using highly anthropomorphological language. There are “lips” and “necks” and “mouths” of vases, there is “the body” of clay, there is “wetness”, “dryness”, the body can slump, can bloat, can crack if too dry. It is uncanny to me how alive the material of clay is. How not so different it is from our own bodies. I think of the Jewish mystical lore surrounding the Golem. It is all there.
I was able to build my identity in a much more somatic way through the laboring over the clay body, the building, the firing, the successes, the failures, but I kept on building. I saw myself in the sculptures, I saw myself even when they slumped over or cracked or bloated in the kiln. Clay teaches you that it is often the imperfections of the process that reveal its true genius, you just have to succumb to the process. So too is the nature of human embodiment, I suppose.
Vh: What am I missing from this timeline?
MAR: I moved to LA from NYC after being scouted by USC for a masters in performance art studies and performance theory.
Vh: You tell this story about how an instructor, at this same artist residency, observed you working in the ceramics study and suggested that you pursue performance art. That there was an artist inside you that needed to emerge. How did it feel to hear that? What do you think they saw in you?
MAR: Usually my first response to someone really witnessing me (especially in those clarion call moments where time seems to stop and I hear the words in a vacuum) is to reject it wholesale out of what I can only describe as a Pisces-Sun-level fear of being seen. And then, the foreign statement works its way into me like a parasite (!!!), and I slowly begin to revolve around the statement, around the penetrative thought, until I start to see the Godliness of the whole thing, the reason behind my affronted response.
I had the same experience when my now-partner told me, years and years ago, that I would make a great actor. I was like, “Ha, no. Actors are stupid.” Little did I know….
In terms of what they saw in me when it comes to acting, performance, comedy, I always draw back to my natal Chiron in Leo. It is under a heavy barrage of pressure from my Aquairus stellium which includes both traditional malefics, Mars and Saturn. There are certain charts (mine being one of them) where I believe Chiron takes on extra significance. I know not all astrologers are on that trip, but I see it so clearly in my chart and in certain clients' charts. And for me, because it holds extra significance, I lean into the medicine of Leo, in my first house in Placidus, which says: THIS IS ME, I AM WEIRD, HEAR ME ROAR, I HAVE SCARS, I CAN HELP THE WORLD HEAL, I AM JOY ENCAPSULATE.
Vh: Your first performance involved stripping down and injecting yourself with testosterone before an audience, a gesture that reads, from this perspective, as a powerful act of control over one’s body and narrative. Or, read another way, an alchemical act or ritual.
Do you see your performance art as an extension of your magical practice?
MAR: Yes, yes, yes. Performance art, when it is coming from a place of great inner urgency and authenticity, is shamanic ritual and/or magical practice. All of my works have come from that place — meaning, I have never done a performance to “virtue signal,” to make the audience happy, to gain social strokes. I have always done performance because of some deep inner sense of being possessed by a supernal force. And this is where words fall short.
Vh: How can people keep up with and connect with you?
MAR: Folks can find me on social media @marvalarex and via my websites: marvalarex.com and marvalarexart.com. You can tune into my weekly podcast The World of Rex, the linktree is:
And my awesome weekly newsletter, edited by Radhika Rajkumar:
Folks can book a one on one session with me here: https://calendly.com/marvalarex
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