Internet Astrologer Dossé-Via on Scorpio-isms and Her EP of Mantras
Dossé-Via Trenou is a Scorpio, though she could have been a Libra had it not been for two opposing signs in her family.
For nearly a decade, Trenou, who goes by just Dossé-Via on social media, has been running the popular Instagram account ScorpioMystique, which posts daily horoscopes for Scorpio sun signs. The account started on Twitter, and Trenou launched an Instagram version in 2013 after singer Katy Perry began following the Twitter account, which proved it had momentum.
ScorpioMystique’s Instagram counts 236,000 followers — “sky mates,” as Trenou calls them. Its sister account, KnowTheZodiac, which shares posts geared toward all 12 signs of the zodiac, has amassed 94,000 Instagram followers over the past few years.
Trenou started ScorpioMystique while studying French, her first language, and songwriting at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. She had been “going down the astrology rabbit hole” since early adolescence and was encouraged by two friends to share zodiac-related content on the Internet.
“Astrology is a language. You want to learn how to become fluent,” Trenou says by telephone from her home in Togo in West Africa. “The biggest thing is practice. It’s like a sport or learning an instrument.”
She began educating herself on astrology when she was about 10 years old via the now-defunct online search engine Ask Jeeves. She also picked up bits and pieces about astrology from her parents.
When Trenou’s mother found out she would give birth to her daughter via C-section, she and Trenou’s father, a Taurus, were asked to choose an approximate date for the birth. The couple chose Oct. 24, the birthday of Trenou’s father’s Scorpio sister. That date, however, moved up one day, to Oct. 23, following a misunderstanding between the family members.
“Thankfully I’m still a Scorpio,” Trenou says. As fate might have it, she was born on the first day of Scorpio season with additional placements in Scorpio in her rising, Mercury and Pluto signs.
Though there are more formal paths to becoming an astrologer and various branches of astrology — “dialects,” as Trenou calls them — she is self-taught in Placidus, a “more Western, traditional astrology” that is also the most “accessible,” she says. Lately she has been teaching herself about Vedic astrology and Sidereal, another astrological branch that is “more lunar-based rather than solar.”
For years, she wrote all daily horoscope posts for ScorpioMystique and KnowTheZodiac — 12 horoscopes a day — herself. She has since assembled a team of two astrologers, with whom she now shares writing duties for KnowTheZodiac’s Instagram and web site. Trenou continues to write all ScorpioMystique content on Instagram and its web site.
“The Scorpio page is self-healing for me,” she says. “It started off as a message and affirmation for my own self. It brings me a lot of joy to consistently offer that to Scorpios and the rest of the world.”
In expanding her KTZ team, Trenou found herself able to explore other projects. She began recording an EP of mantras in December 2017, while “under the influence of the Sagittarius new moon,” she says. Called “Dream With Dossé-Via,” the EP will release on streaming platforms on Aug. 8.
“I put things out there that I want to receive. That’s why I created this EP,” Trenou says. “I sometimes feel there’s not enough media content that provides healing modalities. Music has one of the biggest abilities to program our minds. So even if we love sad songs, if that’s all we’re listening to, it doesn’t encourage high vibrational vibes.”
As an astrologer, Trenou often fields questions about compatibility and Sun sign stereotypes. The most common misconception about astrology, she says, is a one-dimensional way of thinking about it.
“I remind the sky mates that it would be doing their own selves and their relationship — or potential relationship — a disservice if they made surface-level assumptions about the compatibility of the relationship based on what they may have read online or heard from their friends,” she says. “I’ve heard too many Scorpios rule out Geminis, Aquarius, Aries because they are afraid they’re going to be stereotypical.
“What’s powerful about our chart is that sometimes, the people who often hate on another sign have a lot of that sign in their own chart or a significant energy that is mirrored back in that chart,” she continues. “One of my goals as an astrologer and creator is to encourage humanity to look at their own selves and the world around them as nuanced beings.”
Trenou was born in Paris and grew up in Texas. She moved to Togo, the West-African country where her parents are from, in June 2018. Six months later, she started an initiative, Magic and Melanin, to fund trips for people of the African diaspora to visit West Africa.
“There has been a lot to handle emotionally, especially in America,” Trenou says. “I feel privileged to be able to have a home in West Africa and know my roots, know my family. It was a no-brainer for me when I moved here and saw what I have access to to create a bridge that helps people of the diaspora come home.”
Magic and Melanin has funded trips for nearly 50 people over the past two years. This year, if the coronavirus allows, Trenou plans to launch a residency program for creatives and entrepreneurs who want to live in West Africa for a period of time. The program, she says, aims to be a healing experience for all involved.
“I want people to be able to breathe easy,” Trenou says. “I feel like I’ve been able to breathe easy more than a lot of my brothers and sisters who are in places outside of the motherland. They don’t even know how much they’re able to breathe easy here. I want them to be able to know this.”
More from WWD.com:
TikTok Influencer Addison Rae Co-creates Cosmetics Company
Patrick Starrr Reveals Beauty Brand, One/Size
Pay Disparity, Tokenism, Bias: Racism in the Influencer Industry
Best of WWD
Sign up for WWD's Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
