January 2022: Entering a Lovers Year
Listen to this month’s offering as a podcast
Here in the Catskills, it’s been warm enough that the creek is still running deep-dark teal, and I even saw the mergansers in there the other day. I often see the bald eagle perched atop her tree on my walk. The sky has been cottony white, heavy against the mountain. This time of Venus/Mercury retrograde + tomorrow’s new moon in Capricorn have me in a reviewing, re-watching + rereading state of mind. I wonder how entering this new year during a dark moon feels for you?
I’ll be offering Tarot 101 on Friday, January 14th at 5:30pm est. Perfect for total beginners, the tarot-curious, or readers who are looking to reinvigorate their practice.
There’s still room in the Monday section of the Study Tarot Series. This month, we’ll be taking up the Emperor + Minor 4s, looking at the structures that help us feel sovereign + secure + stable.
My books are open for readings in January.
Thank you to all of you who continue to support my work in so many amazing and generous ways.
In love + solidarity + collective imagining,
Shea in the Catskills
You Might Be Interested
- Atha Yoga is presenting a new three-part Let’s Talk About It series on APPETITE (scroll down the page for this program), in which I will be facilitating a session on Spiritual Appetite…I am so excited for this!
- In contrast to frameworks in which we’re supposed to go back + heal our traumatized ancestors, Perdita Finn’s Take Back the Magic classes present a way of relating to the dead that is earthy, practical + magical
- My dear friend Finn Schubert just started making the most excellent newsletter. In addition to writing like this, Finn is exceedingly good at helping people find more ease in their work situations.
- What do I pine for? What do I need to feel the way I want to feel? Check out what my friend Anastasia is offering through Spruce NY. And: Anastasia will be offering the Erotic Appetite session of the Let’s Talk About It series!
[Curating is] an act of generosity—you’re sharing what you love and what has inspired you. ... Algorithms, by definition, are based on calculations that treat the viewer as a consumer and nothing else.
—Martin Scorsese via Ann Friedman
What’s Inspiring Me Now
- In the vein of revisiting/re-watching: the 2018 documentary Kusama: Infinity about the artist Yayoi Kusama
- I am also re-reading Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan Novels. Pro-tip for first-timers: don’t try to keep track of who everyone is; they will all click into place eventually
- Yes, I am always putting Robyn Love’s episodes of Small Things Brought Together into my newsletters. That’s because I love this series so. much. And this episode—with Bridget Elmer + Emily Larned, creators of ILSSA (motto: As many hours as it takes!)—might just be my favorite episode yet.
- The Dark Exact Tarot by Coleman Stevenson. This gorgeous + unique deck was a gift—thank you, Roberta!—and arrived on the winter solstice. The auspiciousness! We were ready to chit chat immediately…
- On December 20th, a tweet came across my timeline showing an image of Duane Kearns Puryear (whose birthday was Dec. 20) holding the panel he made for the AIDS Quilt. I found this video about his quilt panel and have been thinking about it ever since. (Article version if you prefer to read rather than listen/watch)
2022 is a Lovers Year
2 + 0 + 2 + 2 = 6, and the Lovers is number six in the Major Arcana. (Keep an eye on the Minor 6s for great 2022 medicine…) The Lovers is not just about love + relationship, but also about mirroring + the force of attraction. It is about what gets generated in the spaces between things, between beings.
Who do we show our true selves to? How do we see + receive ourselves + others? How do we learn who we are through relationship? How are we changing in our relationships? Are our relationships a reflection of our deepest longings? Are we attuned to our deepest longings?
What about the longings that we won’t or don’t or can’t let ourselves name or even feel, or that are buried beneath the survival imperatives of late-stage capitalism? Enter the Lovers’ “teacher card”—XV The Devil. When we miss the mark on the path by daylight, the Devil steps in to make sure we don’t miss it again, and draws us into the forest for a life-detour, just as the sun is going down. While we may think that the way of the Lovers is “better” than the way of the Devil, that is just because we live in a culture that says that the light is good and the dark is evil + scary.
Say what you will about the detour through the forest, if we survive it, its lessons are rigorous + thorough. The lessons we learn in the dark, surrounded by wild things, losing + finding our footing + our way, are lessons that end up stitched into our heart for safekeeping from life to life.
Unless there is no lesson. Unless we don’t survive the detour, and the wandering through the forest is abject suffering + trauma that continues for a whole life, or for life after life. Unless healing + integration aren’t on the table. Sometimes there is no choice, or no good choice. All these, too, are the Devil.
What is our power—within ourselves + with each other? What choices do we have? What do we want? The Lovers calls us to explore + interrogate + practice + discover this from within our own situation. The small exchanges, the unobserved acts, the private devotions + revolutions, practiced over time, have power + impact that can’t be measured. The things we practice together, over time, have even more power + impact, which also cannot be measured.
While the Devil rules over what we don’t yet see, what is restricted, the Lovers asks us to use the miraculous powers we have access to now—thought, speech + action, relationship, imagination, creativity, a question—to nourish the deepest longings of our heart.
Life needs the Lovers + the Devil, and so do we. Here’s to finding our way—together—in 2022, by day + by night.
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