July 2024: a mid-year check-in
Joy is an experience of love; grief is an expression of love, and hope is an action of love.
—Charlie Claire Burgess via The Rebis
Listen to this month’s offering as a podcast
Dear Friends,
Here in the Catskills, we had our first heat wave + submerging in the creek was necessary every day. I keep seeing bears + bald eagles along my stretch of creek. After a good rain, the frogs’ songs are so beautiful. Following many years of self-observation, I realize this time of year finds me susceptible to depression…I find this awareness helps me to not give it too much weight. I wonder how the official onset of summer is finding you?
Here’s what I’m up to in the next couple months:
Join me for Tarot 101 on Tuesday, July 23 at 6pm est…here’s what people are saying about the experience
drop-in Online Tarot Circles
In-Person Tarot Circle at Cygnet’s Way in Kingston on the last Thursday of the month at 6pm
Coming soon:
artist Elena Solano + I are starting a new workshop series called The Symbolic Lab + we’re kicking it off with Confusion + Casting Spells: Muddying the Water Together on Saturday, August 3 at 1pm est—we’d love to see you there!
In mid-September astrologer Cory Nakasue + I will begin offering 6-week series on various themes related to Tarot & Astrology…stay tuned for details!
My books are open for readings in July—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
You Might Be Interested
- Jody Hojin Kimmel, Sensei’s online art practice series—especially recommended for the “I’m not creative”-types, but truly this is for everyone. Next session is Friday, July 5 10:30-noon EST
- Martha Crawford’s Discernment and Emotional Function program; recording available for $12. I’ve watched this a couple times now + found it so helpful! Especially the oscillating function of emotions, + emotions as attentional transmitters…
So much of the work of oppression is about policing the imagination.
—Saidiya Hartman
2024 mood board
- Musical moods: inspiration, connection, rage
(support artist Robin Herold on Patreon!) - Visualizing wealth inequality
- “the goal is to have an endless war, not a successful war”
- trying to eat my snacks in peace
What’s Inspiring Me Now
- The Rebis—“a space dedicated to exploring the relationship between tarot and creativity through essays, fiction, poetry, interviews, and art.”
- “This short New Yorker documentary about a Bulgarian tradition of dancing evil spirits away speaks of rituals that are slowly fading, of coping mechanisms and community. It’s a candid portrayal and a reminder that some (many?) things need collective rituals, and some fears need to be explored together.” (h/t Emilia Barbu via Dense Discovery)
- “Somewhere in Rafah between the thousands of tents, a young lad named Samih sat on a chair, played the Oud, and sang a song…” (h/t @KufiyyaPS)
- The work of fourth-generation Navajo weaver Melissa Cody is at MoMA in an exhibit called Webbed Skies
- Cultivating Solidarity: Responding to Political Repression, a webinar hosted by Haymarket Books about a new 5 Questions tool developed by the Community Justice Exchange
- Love in a Fucked Up World: How to Build Relationships, Hook Up, and Raise Hell Together by Dean Spade is available for pre-order! Use promo code F*CKED<3 for a discount…
Thanks to those of you who continue to send me your inspirations!
less pride as in love is love and more pride as in global queer liberation
—Dr. Black Deer
Strength: a mid-year check-in
2024 is a Strength year, + we’re midway thru it!? Thought I’d offer up some more recent thoughts on this arcana…
Strength is the power of learning to love what we’ve been taught to fear, hate + repress. The power of energy renewed thru creativity + self-expression. Of rage transmuted into love-in-action. It is the power of harnessing + focussing what is already present by virtue of our being alive. Strength is the power of a self-sustaining energy source, like the sun. It is the power of a fire fueled by living from our passions, inspirations, enthusiasms + values, out of love for life itself.
The power of Strength is not the same as domination born of + maintained thru fear, which drains, leaks + weakens the heart. Instead, Strength is a power gained thru honest trial + error, of observing the results of wrongly used force. It is the shame of such errors + regrets confronted + metabolized into liberated instinct. It is the power of mastery over our reactions, of working rigorously in the space between our compulsion to react + our ability to respond from a place of deep love, remembering how we ultimately wish to be remembered.
Strength is a wise, hard-won force, made wieldy + mature thru disciplined practice. It is the power of knowing what our deepest impulses can be used for: creating, inspiring, organizing—for disclosing what was formerly flattened + dulled by projection, impatience + immaturity into an engine of radiant eros. The power of Strength unlocks the rigid energy held in contradiction + makes us discerning + effective within complexity, not-knowing + mystery.
Strength is the power of making the first move with a trembling heart. It is the power of bringing light + warmth to dark places, of offering others a place to gather their own strength, to remember the warmth + power of their own hearts, of what they love. Strength is the power of your silence will not protect you.* It is the power of people organizing themselves into unstoppable forces, the power of people insisting on life with their bodies- + voices-in-formation, insisting on a life livable for all creatures.
from 78 Faces of Power, a work in progress
Find out more about my tarot work
I think of beauty as an absolute necessity. I don’t think it’s a privilege or an indulgence, it’s not even a quest. I think it’s almost like knowledge, which is to say, it’s what we were born for. I think finding, incorporating and then representing beauty is what humans do. With or without authorities telling us what it is, I think it would exist in any case. The startle and the wonder of being in this place. This overwhelming beauty—some of it is natural, some of it is man-made, some of it is casual, some of it is a mere glance—is an absolute necessity. I don’t think we can do without it any more than we can do without dreams or oxygen.
—Toni Morrison (h/t Dr. Maya C. Popa)
