April 2025: alone with our mind
Birds born in a cage think flying is an illness. —Alejandro Jodorowsky
Listen to this month’s offering as a podcast
Dear Friends,
Here in the Catskills, the crocuses + daffodils are up, the copper-edged teal ribbon of the creek is running with snowmelt, the birds are everywhere, nights are still cold but the light grows. I wonder how the unfurling of spring is finding you?
I am selling artwork (+ some other special goodies!)…check it out
Here’s what I’m up to in the next couple months:
- I’ll be offering Asking Good Questions this Saturday, April 5 at noon est, here’s what past participants have said about it
- A new Study Tarot Series cohort starts in May ⭐️ read what people have said about the experience. Do you have a friend who would enjoy doing this with you? Register with them + you each pay half the suggested donation amount!
- Elena Solano + I continue our online arts-based research project with Trust in Change Saturday, April 26 at 2pm est—we’d love to see you there! Read what participants had to say about the first session!
- In-Person Tarot Circle at Cygnet’s Way in Kingston returns this month! Sunday, April 27 at noon
My books are open for readings this month + it’s also easy to purchase gift readings for the people in your life.
Thank you to all of you who continue to support my work in so many amazing + generous ways 🙏🏻💚
Love + rigor,
shea ✨ in the catskills
you might be interested
- Dream Work as Praxis with Martha Crawford: “Propagandists, PR firms + advertisers work very hard to manipulate our instinctive responses to archetypal images. Dream work is healthy praxis in an era of lies + distortion. It keeps us connected to our personal mission in the face of collective distress.” I just finished this pay-what-you-can series + folks: 13/10 recommend. Also check out her Mortality Workshop + the Group-Group—both of these are also pay-what-you-can + amazing
- Grief as a Catalyst: a conversation between Jessica Lanyadoo + Malkia Devich Cyril at Oakland Museum of California: “When something is disorganized it has the opportunity to be organized.” +: “Grief is the healing of trauma, not the trauma itself.”
- me.to.me to you: A Mutual Aid Show via zoom on Friday, April 4 at 7pm est: robin herold will perform an hour of original music under the title .me.to.me (from her home studio!). Proceeds from the gathering go toward supporting three of her (+ my) beloved friends who are facing financial crises: Elena, Aurora, & Jay. Mutual aid is not charity—it is one way we can all support each other in difficult times
resistance + refusal
There’s a coup happening in the USA:
Here’s what you need to know
- people are pissed + the media is out to lunch
- people are refusing
- people are brave + courageous + creative
- people are getting it done
- communities are creative
- people ask why I’m still masking
…We have to start from a place of recognizing that most of us are just ordinary people who aren’t going to be courageous unless we cultivate conditions that foster collective courage.
—Kelly Hayes
what’s inspiring me now
- THE MOOMINHOUSE
- people who are obsessed + use materials in unconventional ways
- painter Chantal Joffe: All I’m Seeing Is the Beauty: "Living in my mind, through making things: that's being an artist. It was all consuming and intoxicating and kind of a high. Forever since then, I've always chased that feeling of immersion through making and narrative."
- What if We Ran the Economy? by Andrewism: “The library economy can be the bridge to an entirely new world of human flourishing.”
- Dean Spade in conversation with Thao Nguyen about Love in a F*cked Up World: “a resounding call to action and a practical manifesto for how to combat cultural scripts and take our relationships into our own hands, so we can stick together while we work for survival and liberation.”
- Minimally Invasive Positive Fictionalization Gossip from the Middling Substack (thank you, Robyn Love!): “I suggest engaging in positive gossip. For some reason people seem to have less motivation to tell people when good things happen to others or about how they appreciate some quality in another person, even though doing that can improve feelings and thoughts for everyone involved.”
- The Hydrant Directory: “a free design resource created from public infrastructure. Each hydrant has been processed into color palettes for free use by artists and designers”
- Wikitok: a TikTok-style interface for exploring random Wikipedia articles (h/t Dense Discovery)
alone with our mind: 9 of swords
As promised, I’m going to share some musings on the tarot’s Minor 9s now + in the coming months, as we live into this Hermit year…
The power of the 9 of Swords is a mind locked into its diabolical logics, attacking itself, damaging our spirit + perspective. It’s the power of once the mind gets ahold of something, it all makes awful sense, even if it’s not true.
The 9 of Swords is the power of the mind acting on a single input, making a chaotic + frightening picture out of sparse or distorted information. It’s the power of alone with an anxious, racing mind + all the fear + suffering that entails.
The power of the 9 of Swords is also ferocious curiosity, an ability to ask in the midst of our mental momentum: what else is true? The power of being onto ourselves, getting wise to the particular sharp shape of our most dreaded mental routines. It’s the power of approaching our mind like a film we’re watching + being more curious about the process that’s unfolding than the scary content being generated.
The 9 of Swords is the power of the mind to inflict great harm + suffering on ourselves + others. The power of telling ourselves the worst stories, + it’s also the power of remembering where these stories—not good enough, not belonging, alone in all the world—come from: the dominant culture + the stories it encodes in us to ensure that we’re obedient, compliant workers + consumers, ever-hopeful that if we’re good enough we can be safe + secure. The power of anxiety, insecurity + fear to ensure that we show up for work. It’s the power of these self-perpetuating, harmful stories transmitted generation to generation.
The 9 of Swords is the power of revelation, finally seeing the pattern, how we participate in + adorn it in our own idiosyncratic style. It’s also the power of realizing that yes, we + every single living being we know + love will die, + in 100 years, very little if any trace of us will remain. It’s also the power of the curiosity generated by such a revelation to impart meaning + beautiful texture + liberated action to our life.
The power of the 9 of Swords is the mind generating worst-case scenarios, to think the absolute worst about things that haven’t happened yet, or to ruminate endlessly, sickeningly, on the most painful moments of our life. It is the power of mental activity in isolation, without other inputs to counter our harrowing proliferations.
The 9 of Swords is the power of psychological warfare conducted thru mainstream media + chaos agents working together. The power of doom scrolling to freeze us out of remembering what’s right in front of us, who we’re connected to, the meaningful synchronicities of life outside the algorithm. It’s the power of despair + cruelty to make us numb + terrified.
The power of the 9 of Swords is using that same sharp edge of the mind to pry open + cut thru the terror with a single question that causes all the demons to scatter. The power of reaching out to invite in another trusted perspective.
The 9 of Swords is the power of remembering. Remembering to ask, in the midst of panic + spiraling anxiety: who benefits from my being in this state?* It is the power of breath—deep, conscious breath—to pull the brake on our mental operations. The power of remembering that we have hearts + bodies + feelings + relationships, too. It’s the power of carrying the charms of questions + connection to ward off the psychic terrorism that a crumbling empire thrusts upon us.
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from 78 Faces of Power
Find out more about my tarot work
May all of us be well. Have mercy on us all. Heal us all. May everything be made well. May we keep the lamp burning even in the darkness, and may it never be extinguished.
—Martha Crawford
