Listen to this month’s offering as a podcast

I’m writing this amidst a cold snap following a couple days of balmy, springtime weather. March in the Catskills is like this, and it feels like the coldest part of winter…I wonder how late-winter is finding you?

I sometimes hear from people, “By the looks of your newsletter, you seem to be thriving!” And while that’s true—creating this newsletter contributes to my thriving as much as it reflects it—it also feels important to normalize not “doing well” all the time under the conditions + crises we’re living through. I believe it’s possible to live a full + meaningful life while not thriving + feeling great all the time. So yes, I would say that on the whole I am thriving, and also: life is a lot + I struggle, too.

I’ll be teaching Tarot 101 on Wednesday, March 16th + as well as a session of the Let’s Talk About It: Appetite series on Spiritual Appetite Saturday, March 26th at 11am. I’d love to see you there!

My books are open for readings this month…

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

• My friend Ben Ehrlich wrote a book called The Brain in Search of Itself: Santiago Ramón Y Cajal and the Story of the Neuron, and it’s coming out on March 15th. I’ve already pre-ordered my copy, along with…
• …my friend Sophie Strand’s forthcoming book The Flowering Wand: Rewilding the Sacred Masculine!
• Job search virtual co-working with Finn Schubert: “This is a little community-building experiment I'm doing. Job search can feel so disempowering sometimes but it doesn't have to be!”
• Feeling down about the world? Localize your solidarity + canvass with me for Sarahana for NY State Assembly. Sarahana is super inspiring + her campaign is super fun! Can’t canvass? The campaign is 100% people-powered—a donation in any amount helps a lot.
• I finally made it to a SURJ New Member orientation + even though I’ve been involved for awhile now, I learned so much + got to connect with people from all over the country. Orientations happen every month!

[Republicans] are betting you won’t pay attention — or maybe even that you can’t. They are betting on the erosion of your compassion, and on your sense of inevitability, which has probably always served other people more than it serves you. They are counting on your cooperation. They do not need your approval. They just need your silence and your inaction.

—Kelly Hayes via Movement Memos episode “Trans Youth Are Facing Right-Wing Attacks and a Solidarity Shortage”

What’s Inspiring Me Now

• I spent a lot of February crocheting sweaters while I listened to audiobooks on the history of textiles. It’s all there: the history of science + technology, modern chemistry + computing, slavery + settler colonialism, labor history, the history of gender + class, the expropriation of land + ecocide—we wear it all on our bodies every day. Of all of them, Sofi Thanhauser’s brand-new Worn: A People's History of Clothing was just right: gorgeous writing + impeccable storytelling: “Some argue that the reason spinner goddesses were made responsible for making life is that it looks like a spinner is making something from nothing when you watch her work, just like a baby seemed to appear out of thin air to the ancients. An everyday, ordinary miracle.”
• Beyond the Blueness: The light and dark shades of Aboubakar Fofana’s indigo. “The end result of colonialism is always a cheap, violent, banality masquerading as history, beauty, and skill. The colours may be superficially the same, but the practice and the impact can never be.”
• I learned about artist Jessica Farrell’s Wilderness Diary series on a recent episode of Kaatscast. I was so moved by these paintings + the stories that go with them + the power of art in general to be a lever for storytelling, advocacy + healing. This series is showing at Roxbury Arts Group through March 4th.
• WOJNAROWICZ. I wept through the second half of this documentary about artist + activist David Wojnarowicz: “Dreams are an example of how the imagination can break all boundaries.” And from his friend, the artist Marion Scemama: “AIDS was revealing exactly what society was about. [David’s] illness became a weapon against the politics of society.”

Thank you to those of you who continue to send me your inspirations!

Six of Pentacles

Moon in Taurus | material harmony, reciprocity, giving + receiving

What does it mean to have an adversarial relationship with vulnerability?

This question came up in a class I’m taking with other white women + genderqueer folks, and pertained to the challenge of knowing + naming our needs. One of the facilitators told a story about a group of white women she gathered with to do mutual aid after the pandemic began. Everyone was ready to do + give, spreadsheets locked + loaded. But when she asked, “What are your needs?” the group went silent.

Many of us recognized ourselves in this scenario: a desire to help + do good—to be a “good person”—with very little idea of what our own needs are. As I am now beginning to understand more deeply, mutual aid is a framework that requires interdependence + meeting each others’ needs. This means that everyone’s needs need to be present + named. Charity, on the other hand, is a framework that, while doing some good, ultimately reinforces a system that produces small groups of people who have way more than their fair share.

Pamela Colman Smith’s image in the Six of Pentacles has always made me squeamish. Who are we in this image? The one weighing who deserves our charity? The one on their knees receiving charity? The one on their knees no one’s even looking at? Maybe that’s some of the squeamishness: I’m up here + you’re down there, so I don’t really have to see you as fully human, like me. Here’s some money. Now my obligation to you is finished + I can feel good about myself for “giving” + go back to my life, where my resources are mine + I don’t need to depend on anyone for anything. Because being “needy” is so embarrassing, so humiliating.

Who benefits from my believing + enacting this narrative? White supremacy culture + narratives of middle class success + upward mobility have not prepared me to have a healthy + generative relationship with vulnerability, either emotionally (see last month’s offering) or materially. Success, within a middle class worldview = not needing anything from anyone. It means being the one who does, achieves, who gives. It means never, ever being that person who is dependent on others’ “kindness” + charity. What are the costs of such a view?

I’ve been asking myself: what are my needs? And if they’re not financial needs at this moment, then what are they? Are they things that I can even name for myself, let alone ask for? It’s much easier + more comfortable for me to consider what I have to give. My years in formal spiritual training certainly pressed a thumb on that side of the scale. “Bow + serve” was held up as the ultimate spiritual activity. I took a vow of selflessness when I ordained. But what do I need? And what do I long for?

I’m starting to see that one thing I very deeply long for is a community of relationships where we can show up with our needs. Where our value isn’t just based on what we have to give + offer, but on the depth of our interdependence, on mutually cultivating a different relationship to vulnerability. Where we recognize that we are deeply, unfathomably dependent on each other—not just for our survival, but for our joy, our spiritual + creative fulfillment, our liberation—and that our practice reflects that recognition.

As we live through the decline of the state + corporations more fully take on the role of the state—forever “optimizing” for maximum profit + wealth accumulation—who can we depend on when the power goes out? When we get laid off from our job? When our chronic illness flares up? When we’re in a mental health crisis? When we need childcare? Eldercare? When we are lonely? Longing for touch, or attention?

If the life I’ve lived up to this point has taught me anything, it’s that everything can be practiced. And that practice rooted in the deepest desires of my heart is a ritual, a liturgy. And that having people in my life to practice such things with is not only a most precious resource, but the fertile ground out of which ordinary, everyday miracles can grow.

Find out more about my tarot work

WHAT’S INSPIRING YOU NOW?