September 2025: steady as she goes...
The answer to “how is this allowed?” is always “who is going to stop it?”
—Sheryl Weikal
Listen to this month’s offering as a podcast
Dear Friends,
Here in the Catskills, the weather has been cool + beautiful. The creek is very low. The light is changing, the darkness growing, the evening light is magic + the nighttime frogs + katydids are an ancient curtain of sound. I wonder how this lead-up to the autumn equinox amidst authoritarianism + collapse is finding you?
Here’s what I’m up to in the next couple months:
- A new Study Tarot Series cohort is starting in December! Meeting on the 2nd + 3rd Sunday of each month at noon est. Applications are open…see what people who’ve had the experience are saying about it…I would love to see you there!
- Elena Solano + I continue our online arts-based research project with Trust in Power Saturday, September 27 at 2pm est. This series is offered by donation, + you don’t have to have attended previous ones to participate. See what participants had to say about it so far
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
PSA: Up through August 18, 2025, WastewaterSCAN shows a continuous increase in SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater levels across all US regions including the Northeast, South + Midwest, with a slight decrease in the West. These indicators demonstrate an ongoing summer surge in COVID infections. —People’s CDC
“…people who are unwilling to consider the possibility of immune damage are perhaps driven by a fear of what those answers might mean. ‘Nobody wants to be the one that says, “Yes, covid-19 causes disability,”’ she says, alluding to the health and economic implications of such a conclusion.” —Why scientists are rethinking the immune effects of SARS-CoV-2
you might be interested
I received a Feeding Your Demons online session with Michelle Teasdale last month. I’d been hearing about this practice for years but knew I was unlikely to try it by myself. Having someone to hold the space + guide me slowly thru the process was so helpful + effective!
I had the absolute pleasure of participating in Carolyn Yoo’s Zine Lab last month: a container + accompaniment, making things alongside other people, the creative encouragement, technical how-to is how I finished my Elemental Zine project so quickly! Get on Carolyn’s amazing newsletter to find out about future sessions of the Zine Lab…
Bodywork via zoom with Cory Nakasue:
Pilates/Somatics on Zoom: Mondays at 10am est + Thursdays at 5:30pm est
Somatic Strength on Zoom—Fridays at 10am est.
Email Cory to get on her list for more details…
resistance + refusal
it can look a lot of different ways…
- LA leading the way
- J.B. Pritzker offering a clinic on what an opposition should look + sound like #inthesetimes
- an oyster farmer gunning for Susan Collin’s Senate seat in Maine; here is Collins getting heckled for being a craven fascist collaborator
- Tarek Loubani was asked to give a presentation at a professional conference about treating patients + training doctors in Khan Younis without mentioning Israel’s role in the ongoing genocide
- Valerie Zink’s statement about why she can no longer work for Reuters
- members of Congress facing a fed-up public
- neighbors telling ICE + MPD to fuck off
Join SURJ this Wednesday, September 3 for a webinar with Jamaal Bowman: Rising Fascism, Rising Resistance…+ then stick around for the Action Hour that follows (I’ll be co-facilitating!)
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I became a hater by doing precisely those things AI cannot do: reading and understanding human language; thinking and reasoning about ideas; considering the meaning of my words and their context; loving people, making art, living in my body with its flaws and feelings and life. AI cannot be a hater, because AI does not feel, or know, or care. Only humans can be haters. I celebrate my humanity.
—Anthony Moser, from “I Am An AI Hater”
a first step to organizing people to do anything right now is just bringing people together for anything—to vent. to eat together. to make art. to remind people we have each other. to ask what we can do together. to keep the despair at bay.
—ashley fairbanks
what’s inspiring me now
- Tatreez: The Ancient Art of Palestinian Embroidery—the indigo dyeing + the mourning embroidery just ❤️🔥
- Andor—big thanks to my Disney+ connect! a kind of revolutionary text about empire, rebellion, insurgency + counterinsurgency. + Diego Luna? 🔥
- Cultivating Audacity: “Comments on a Zen koan from the Book of Serenity (Case 4: The World Honored One Points to the Ground) and how it spoke to me about creative audacity” by Finn Schubert
- How Do I Give Myself a Residency? by Yanyi (h/t Finn Schubert)
- The Victoria & Albert Museum’s youtube channel, esp this Agate Teapot from the How Was It Made? playlist
speaking of playlists: the Study Tarot Series community made Major Arcana playlists last month that are just 🤌🏻 + I’m not playing favorites or anything, but I did have a spiritual experience listening to Erin Rodriguez’s playlist…
steady as she goes: knight of pentacles
The power of consistency, continuity, thoroughness + discipline. Inexorability: it’s only a matter of time. Extreme practicality. Responsibility: taking it seriously, being predictable in an unpredictable world. Routines, rituals + repetition as a lifeline thru uncertainty + change.
Quality control, proofreading, beta testing, run-thrus + troubleshooting. Spreadsheets, timestamps, follow-up, data collection + analysis. Attention to detail. Transforming big, gauzy visions into real-world results. Also: bureaucratic violence. Cryptic systems designed to exhaust, control + oppress. The unhappy, frustrated functionary making life difficult over an incorrectly filled-out form.
Being on time. Working effectively with time, space, money + resources. The one who stays to help you clean up. The killjoy when the so-called “joy” is killing you. The Steady Eddie. Step-by-step, one day at a time. The power of consistent action over time shaping + transforming a life.
—
this is one of the distillations from 78 Faces of Power into the Blended Elements tarot zine, coming later this month…
Find out more about my tarot work
I entrust you with Palestine—the jewel in the crown of the Muslim world, the heartbeat of every free person in this world.
I entrust you with its people, with its wronged and innocent children who never had the time to dream or live in safety and peace. Their pure bodies were crushed under thousands of tons of Israeli bombs and missiles, torn apart and scattered across the walls.
I urge you not to let chains silence you, nor borders restrain you. Be bridges toward the liberation of the land and its people, until the sun of dignity and freedom rises over our stolen homeland.
—an excerpt from the last will + testament of 28-year-old Al Jazeera journalist Anas Al Sharif, pictured above with his children: daughter Sham + son Salah. Israeli forces assassinated Al Sharif, along with 4 of his colleagues, on Sunday, August 10. Just two weeks later, on August 25, Israeli forces assassinated five more journalists, including Al Jazeera photographer Mohammad Salama, in an attack on Nasser Medical Complex in southern Gaza that murdered 21 people. The victims were killed on the fourth floor of the hospital in a “double-tap” strike: one missile hitting first, then another moments later as rescue crews arrived. As of this writing, Israel has assassinated 278 Palestinian journalists in Gaza since October 7, 2023
