January 2024: Entering a Strength year
Listen to this month’s offering as a podcast
Here in the Catskills, it is cool + damp, clumps of mist clinging to the bare treetops, the sky a thick, cottony gray. The sound of tires coming + going on wet pavement punctuates my days, quiet blanketing my nights. I wonder how this season of heartbreak + the onset of 2024 are finding you?
Here’s what I’m up to this month:
- Tarot 101 is happening Saturday, January 13 at noon est; here’s what people are saying about this workshop
- I’m now offering two drop-in Online Tarot Circles a month—this month we’ll be talking about the Air element in tarot…I’d love to see you there
- Altho I won’t be starting any new Study Tarot Series cohorts till next spring or so, there is still room to join the Saturday morning or Tuesday evening cohorts-in-progress!
My books are open for readings in January + 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
“Just acknowledging the observable facts of the moment places you on the fringe of US politics.”
— @babadookspinoza
You Might Be Interested
- Artist + group host Elena Solano invites you to apply to the grief room—a virtual, twice-monthly gathering space grounded in practices + processes of liberation…cohorts meet for 12 sessions over 6 months, + Elena is currently accepting applications for 2024 cohorts. Elena + I have been doing grief work during this season + I cannot recommend her offerings enthusiastically enough. You can also view her visual portfolio on Instagram or TikTok
- I got to be in conversation with Ki Martinez about things that are hard to talk about, somatics, sexological bodywork, embodiment, liberation, pleasure, desire, living a life in alignment with your values + the importance of naming the culture we live in as a source of suffering + site of radical intervention—it was pretty great!
- I’m doing more writing about tarot; you can sign up to receive it directly in your mailbox
“It’s more important than ever to recognize that there are innumerable ways to resist the oppressor. Some of us resist by speaking out, some by boycotting, some by calling reps, some by educating ourselves and others, some by praying in isolation, some by finding pockets of joy in the mundane and holding Palestine in our hearts simultaneously. Try not to spend much time comparing / shaming yourself for how you’re resisting; we need all forms right now.”
— Jonathan Louis Dent
What’s Inspiring Me Now
- the mesmerizing art of Richard Tinkler
- An article about female reindeer + the spirit of the solstice by Danielle Prohom Olson: “Many winter goddesses in northern legends were associated with the solstice. They took to the skies led by a bevy of flying animals.”
- I read several excellent novels last month:
The Dance Tree by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
The Vaster Wilds by Lauren Groff
Against the Loveless World by Susan Abulhawa
Salt Houses by Hala Alyan - Betty Martin, who developed the practice framework Wheel of Consent, was recently on the For The Wild podcast: “What I want to know is, does [your spirituality] make you more compassionate? Does it increase your integrity? By which I mean taking responsibility for yourself. That's the kind of spirituality that I'm interested in.”
- The CUNY Graduate Center Program in English created a beautiful memorial to Palestinian poet + professor Dr. Refaat Alareer, who was assassinated by the Israeli Occupation Forces on December 7, along with his sister, brother + 4 of his nieces + nephews. The document includes translations of his poem “If I must die, let it be a tale” (here read by actor Brian Cox at the Palestinian Festival of Literature) into 40 languages. + here is a TEDx talk that Alareer gave in 2015 called Stories Make Us.
Thanks to those of you who continue to send me your inspirations!
2024: A Strength Year
With the turning of the Gregorian calendar, we all enter a Strength year: 2 + 0 + 2 + 4 = 8. Major Arcana 8, in most (tho not all) decks is Strength. Also called Fortitude or Lust in other decks, this arcana invites us to recognize the potent, sometimes conflicting, forces within us, + to appreciate + employ the power that comes from not being in conflict with ourselves.
2023 was a Chariot year, for exploring the ways our intentions + desires move us in the world. Strength begins our journey inward, to get a look under the hood—at what compels us, stalls us out, causes us to misfire.
Many images of this arcana show a human + a lion. The human figure wears a crown of roses, usually with an infinity symbol hovering above. This is our first tip-off that something magical + inexhaustible is at play. The figure has their hands on the lion’s head—sometimes in its mouth—+ the lion looks up at them; they love each other. How does this come to pass: a human + a wild animal relating in such a way?
The Strength arcana is the place in the Fool’s Journey where we begin to wrestle with our internal environment, especially our instincts + contradictions. As Laetitia Barbier says so beautifully about this arcana: “Strong mastery means establishing a connection, not using suppression in order to gain power” (emphasis mine). Where the Chariot invited us to exercise our will, Strength calls us into the power of being in patient, loving + trusting relationship with our wild, undomesticated instincts + impulses—the very ones that when shut away, denied, suppressed or repressed wreak such havoc in our life.
The white Western, European conception of a human—or, let’s be real: a man—entails mastering ourselves, overcoming our “baser” instincts. It means to be “above” animals—to, in fact, have dominion over their lives + bodies, + over the lives + bodies of “lesser” humans. Creatureliness, wildness + animal instincts + appetites are outsourced onto so-called “others” thru absurd, simplistic + contradictory narratives. And violence.
What are these powerful energies, exactly? Our instinct for survival. Our rage. Our appetites—for food, life, enjoyment, pleasure + potency. For aliveness. These energies correspond to the fire element in the tarot, + this arcana is linked to Leo, ruled by the sun—an inexhaustible source of energy, giver of light + warmth + life.
The Strength arcana calls us to acknowledge, explore + be in conscious, intentional relationship with this instinctual power source. To begin to employ + enjoy it. When not tied up in trying to control it + not misdirecting it in reactivity or projection, Strength is like a banked fire that we can call on to connect with the raw power of aliveness. It can help us remember the potent intelligence of our animal nature, + animals can be important teachers for us in the use of this energy.
I keep having an image of this energy as light + fire, habitually scattered, dimmed + fragmented by a culture of distraction, division, numbness, dysregulation, pointless conflict + a struggle to survive under precarious conditions. In a Strength year, we are called to gather this energy when + where we can into a focused beam, to gather that beam with others, + to direct it toward building power for the world we want to create.
- When do you feel your most creaturely?
- What activities/experiences have put you in most direct contact with your raw, instinctual power? E.g. childbirth, sex, sports, art-making, fighting, dance, being in nature?
- What did you learn about your appetites—esp food + sex—when you were growing up?
- How do you feel about your current relationship to your appetites?
- How do experiences of abandon + shame show up in your relationship to food, sex, rage + creativity?
- What does this energy feel like when it’s bound up? When it’s liberated? How do you know?
- Who can you combine your energies with to create real power?
Keywords for this arcana: flourishing under adverse conditions, patience, tenacity, fortitude, trust, holding tension + contradiction, soft power, self-mastery
Find out more about my tarot work
Idea
I will enjoy this life. I will open it
like a peach in season, suck the juice
from every finger, run my tongue over
my chin. I will not worry about clichés
or uninvited guests peering in my windows.
I will love and be loved. Save and be saved
a thousand times. I will let the want into
my body, bless the heat under my skin.
My life, I will not waste it. I will enjoy this life.
— Kate Baer
