April 2024: Love as a way of life
Who can resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from participating in nature’s rebirth? —Edward Giobbi
Listen to this month’s offering as a podcast
Here in the Catskills, spring is unfolding slowly in the midst of a cold snap. Crocuses + daffodils are up, forsythia are on the verge. The light grows + warms, even on cold days. The mountain is quickening… Does this really happen every year? I wonder how this unfolding season is finding you?
Here’s what I’m up to this month:
- two drop-in Online Tarot Circles
- Tarot 101 online—Tuesday, April 17 or Saturday April 20—here’s what people are saying about this class: The most important thing I learned was to listen to my body and intuition…what I see in the cards is just as relevant as what I read in a book
- In-Person Tarot Circle meets at Cygnet’s Way in Kingston on the last Thursday of the month at 6pm
- a new Study Tarot Series cohort starts next month with Operationalizing Desire: the Magician + Aces…read what people have said about this unique group study opportunity
My books are open for readings in April + now it’s easy to book with me thru calendly.
Thank you to all of you who continue to support my work in so many amazing + generous ways 🙏🏻💚
In love + solidarity + collective imagining,
shea in the catskills
The crickets never sleep. All night
they want it.
Love is more real
than fear. Soon we will
give ourselves over to the noise.
—Toi Derricotte
You Might Be Interested
- Are you socially isolated due to an energy-limiting chronic illness? Or just longing for a gentle model of social interaction + help slowing down? My friend Nina Hatfield has a new round of online, facilitated co-resting cohorts starting this month
- In Search of the Goddess, a group art show at the Olive Free Library’s Community Room. It’s such a great show! I have a painting (for sale!) in it…on view thru May 4
Any ordinary day offers an opportunity to practice freedom.
—Toni Cade Bambara
on not looking away
While I endeavor to make my newsletter largely about inspiration, a genocide unfolding in real time, in plain view of the world, funded by our tax dollars, is something I won’t look away from. Free Palestine.
- Dr. Mohammed Subeth on MSNBC: “Nothing that I’ve had in my training could really prepare me for the level of atrocities that I witnessed…I’ve never seen so many dead children in my entire life.”
- @areejakoud’s Silent Prayer: “MERCY from this depraved life that the world has agreed to be okay with”
- Hammer & Hope’s Spring 2024 issue is all about Palestine
Checkout
by Caroline Bird
I think ‘so, this is death’ and wonder why
I can still see through my eyes. An angel
approaches with a feedback form asking
how I’d rate my life (very good, good,
average, bad, very bad) and I intend to tick
‘average’ followed by a rant then I recall
your face like a cartoon treasure chest
glowing with gold light, tick ‘very good,’
and in the comment box below I write
‘nice job.’ The angel asks if I enjoyed
my stay and I say ‘Oh yes, I’d definitely
come again’ and he gives me a soft look
meaning ‘that won’t be possible but thanks
all the same,’ clicks his pen and vanishes.
What’s Inspiring Me Now
- Sweet Tea With Emily Dickinson by Sybil Rosen: “Time upends. The library goes quiet. The walls have contracted, as if the room itself is holding its breath. At that moment, three currents converge: libraries, poetry, and all of us gathered here, living and dead.”
- UK fiber + embroidery artist Nature Nurture (especially this piece!) + UK typewriter artist James Cook (especially this piece!)
- Claire Foy 👑
- a fascinating conversation with a woman who lacks an internal monologue!?!?
- attorney + activist Olayemi Olurin giving this asshole the what-for—more of this please!
- Louise Thompson & the First March On Washington (via Prisonculture’s substack): “There were so many people that Thompson had to find more charter buses and delay the morning departure for Philadelphia until 1 PM. More marchers joined there and in Baltimore, where Bates spoke to a crowd of several thousand.”
- A woman I don’t know in Georgia lost her dog for 5 days + those of us in the twitterverse were riveted. After a mass mobilization made possible only by the internet, sweet Hazel is back home with her mama—a moment of joy #inthesetimes
- eclipse season vibes
Thanks to those of you who continue to send me your inspirations!
The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves, and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. Without this we should be in a state of weariness, and this weariness would spur us to seek a more solid means of escaping from it. But diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.
—Blaise Pascal in the 1600s anticipating my addiction to The Royal Discourse
3 the Empress: Love as a way of life
Major Arcana 3 is the mystery, or secret, of creativity, abundance, pleasure, care + an erotic relationship with life itself. This month, I want to talk about the Empress by talking about two men who were extremely dear to me, one who left this life on the evening of February 28, ushering in a storm that sent the sign at the Monastery front gate crashing to the ground. The other who died unexpectedly on St. Patrick's Day morning. Both of these men embodied the Empress’s secrets—creating + nourishing life wherever they went, deeply connected to the mountains + rivers of this little valley, + loving living beings as a way of life.
Monastic Michael Yukon Grody lived in full-time residential training at Zen Mountain Monastery for decades. I met him in May 2005 when I arrived at the registration desk for my Introduction to Zen Training Weekend. He was the bookkeeper, a job he was emphatically unsuited for. He called his intuitive style of bookkeeping “making spaghetti,” + it took the meticulous + beleaguered financial manager more time to untangle the spaghetti than Yukon spent making it.
He also served as the cook for many years. His grocery shops were legendarily long, + when I started doing the shopping, the checkout people at Adams + the guy who filled the bulk bins at Sunflower unfailingly asked about him, told me to tell him hello from them; year after year they asked after him. Anyone who walked Atlantic Avenue with Yukon knew how long it could take to go just a few blocks, because he was going to stop + get on the ground to greet every dog he saw. His love wasn’t anthropocentric; he took the “all beings” thing very seriously. If you ever met Yukon yourself, you know that he made an impression. Speaking of making impressions, when we were repainting the zendo one year, he took his paint roller + rolled it right across my bottom, leaving a big white rectangle on the seat of the camo pants I wore back then.
When I was leaving the monastery, we had a long talk at the picnic table adjacent the garden—Rudy, the orange tabby, weaving between us—+ I felt that he helped impart to me the possibilities of living a joyfully unpartnered life, of having an erotic relationship with everything: people, animals, land. That instead of tethering that big love energy to one person, or to biological children, I could have it freely available for everyone + everything. He showed me the possibility, a profound gift that I lean on + lean into every day.
Yukon’s dharma was relational, which is why you didn’t often see him sitting at the front of the zendo giving talks. His teaching happened in the quality of the interaction, in the emotional attunement, in the unreserved love he gave. A single look, word, or touch conveyed a sermon of I see you + perhaps most piercingly: I care about you. His dharma was powerful because you could feel it. It wasn’t a performance; it was his very being, down to the marrow. He had known profound suffering in his life, + he knew that right relationship—with others, with life, with one’s own body + mind—could transform that suffering. His teaching was potent because it was right there in the relational space between the two of you.
Yukon also taught me what it might look like to take care of oneself as an unpartnered person: the need for nourishing solitude, for self-love, for attending to the little pleasures. I will never forget spending the better part of two consecutive Rohatsu sesshin sick in his room while he provided coverage at the Brooklyn Temple. It was the greatest place in the world to be sick: a sweet little window looking out over the treetops that lined the Esopus, a wild altar with a Buddha figure carved out of deer scat, everything in its place, + most memorably: a mug-sized, plug-in hotplate to keep one’s coffee warm. That level of attending to one’s pleasures + needs where possible made a deep impression on me.
In his final years, he made the garden into its own meditation hall, where he tended to new green sprouts + to the hearts of everyone lucky enough to be assigned there for work practice. Among his many raised garden beds was one he called The X Box—a place where he let wild things grow: weeds, the undesirable things most gardeners get rid of. He knew the power of wildness given a proper container.
Yukon was a walking clinic in joy + care + humor + playful naughtiness. He embodied what a life could become when all the drag of second-guessing, perseveration + dividedness has been worn smooth: a high-velocity love train. As he was dying, I often thought of what the poet Danez Smith said of bell hooks when she passed in 2021: “what a way to go, you pass on to the next and everybody talking about love, love, love, love, love.” You can read more about Yukon here + watch a short video about him here.
Just over two weeks after Yukon’s passing, my dear friend Kevin Frasier left this life on St. Patrick’s Day morning, unexpectedly. I met Kevin on Christmas Day, 2022. It was eight degrees out, + I was going to skip my walk. But I had to feed a friend’s cats, + by the time I finished, I was bundled up + decided to make the trip up Route 214 anyway. At the base of a tangle of winter-bare forsythia, I saw what I thought was a sculpture. I picked it up + smelled it, + realized it must have just come off an animal: a 5-point antler. I carried this exquisite gift on my walk + soon a white Subaru passed me. A minute later, it came back from the other direction + stopped. Kevin told me he had lived here his whole life + never found one. I almost gave it to him.
He told me that deer shed their antlers every year? + grow them again in the spring? I’d lived up here for almost 20 years + I had no idea. We talked about the holiness of the Stony Clove Creek + this land, sharing our feeling that these mountains + rivers are our church. I learned a bit about his difficult early life.
Not even two weeks later, I ran into Kevin at the bank, where he told me that since we last saw each other, he’d found his antler! A 3-point, but still. From the beginning, our connection had a kind of magic in it, mediated by the land. After that, we ran into each other all the time, him passing me on my walks in his white Subaru, grabbing a few minutes of chit chat until a car came + he had to get moving.
When it turned out that I had to move last year, he assured me that it was all going to be okay, + helped me move the things I couldn’t fit in my Prius: my towering fiddle leaf fig plants, a couple pieces of furniture. He came to check out the cottage + approved of its sweetness. He stopped by on Easter to drop off a plate of dinner for me. Kevin was an excellent cook. + he would make a stack of foil-covered plates of dinner for all the people he knew who lived alone. An avid hunter + fisherman, I got to sample venison kielbasa that he’d made.
When I moved back to the Phoenicia house, he met with me to talk about what work he could do to help get the house ready for me. For a ridiculously low “friend discount,” he painted the entire bottom floor, power-washed the exterior, installed my ceiling fan, moved my fiddle leaf figs + furniture back + generally kept me from losing my mind. His presence in the house while he painted was a comfort. We got to talk + know each other a bit more. He was thoughtful + sensitive: “Do you mind if I take my shirt off while I paint?” he asked in the midst of the August heat in my unairconditioned house. I appreciated the consideration.
When he would finish painting for the day, I took note of his liturgy: the way he thoroughly cleaned his brushes + tools, the way he folded the drop cloths + arranged everything to be ready for the next time he would need them. The monks had nothing on him when it came to work practice. He also taught me how to house paint properly (he + Yukon were masters of the angled-brush cut-in), a million tips + tricks, how to use a drill. I will treasure the screwdriver he left here. I’ll never forget when he finally came to install my ceiling fan, after I nearly electrocuted myself trying to DIY after watching a YouTube video LOLSOB. His soft curses as he wrestled with the screw I stripped. Of course he got it done. He always finished the job.
One of my favorite stories about Kevin—one that underscores the magic of our connection—is the morning I had to drive to Ikea in Paramus, NJ, a drive I dreaded (Route 17, IYKYK). As I was walking out the door to get in my car, his orange covered pick-up truck swung into my driveway. He extended his hand out the window, offering me a wrapped up toasted everything bagel with butter: “I had a feeling you were going to need one this morning.” Did I ever.
I was only one person in a long list of people that Kevin checked up on, checked in on, cooked for + did countless selfless acts for. He was the Fairy Godmother of Phoenicia. He knew whose car had just died + remembered seeing something salvageable for a little bit of cash + made it happen. He arrived at pivotal moments to keep people out of trouble. You could find him pulling someone’s car out of a ditch on the side of the road, serving up roast pork at Olive Day, hanging out on the corner where the Phoenicia Supermarket is, talking to friends + passersby. He was happiest when he was contributing to other people’s happiness + well-being.
He dropped off delicious meals for me regularly, meals that would last for days—Thanksgiving dinner, dinner for no special occasion at all. I would grab half a loaf of banana bread from my freezer + give it to him in exchange. When it snowed + he saw that the house wasn’t shoveled or plowed, he made it his business to bang on my front door + check in to make sure I was okay.
Less than a week before he died, he brought over pot roast with jalapeno pepper gravy + salad with Catalina dressing. The Friday before he died, he stopped by the house in the afternoon to check up on me. He knew I was going thru some things. He gave the cat some treats (the Boo Boo loved her Uncle Kevin) + sat on the couch. He was supposed to have a procedure for his heart the following week. He was nervous. We hugged, like we always did, our bodies relaxing into the embrace, his head tilting to rest on my shoulder: “I could stay here forever,” he said, like always. “Go ahead,” I said, like always. But he never overstayed his welcome, not with me + not in this life, apparently. Our last words to each other were what they always were: “I love you.” “Love you too, babe.” Kevin knew I was queer, + I think that helped bring us closer. We could be tender + expressive with each other, show care + affection unburdened by subtext, misunderstandings or awkwardness.
I will miss him terribly, because in-real-life friends who feed you + care about you + think about you + stop by to check up on you are rare + beautiful. I have three trout steaks in my freezer that he brought over last fall. I meant to cook them for us but now I won’t have the chance. He’s already appeared twice in my dreams, still looking out for me. The 5-point antler sits on my studio altar, a magical object forever fused in my heart-mind with Kevin—his care + presence, + the crackling, ordinary magic of our connection. You can read more about Kevin here.
Find out more about my tarot work
