A Year of Heart: My Hopes, Not Goals For the Upcoming Year

Tonight is the night, y’all. Midnight is going to strike and 2018 is DONE. I am elated, really I am. Mostly what I feel though, is tired. I am so, so tired.

For me 2018 was a year of a mild traumatic brain injury that it took me the bulk of the year to heal from, and heal is a weird word because I still get symptoms if I get sleepy or overwhelmed. My memory is not what it used to be. I am so, so, so much better than I was throughout spring and summer. I am so lucky that my brain injury was only what it was. I am still someone coping with a brain injury.

2018 was a year where I had my heart broken platonically, where some of the people closest to me were traumatized and went through really trying life experiences and transitions. This is a year that is even ending in injury and illness for some of the people closest to me.

This only scratches the surface. One of my business lives almost fell apart. There are stories that are awful that I am deeply embedded in but are not mine to tell. It is a year that I took a step backward financially (thanks to said brain injury) for the first time since I started full-time self-employment. I am ending the year back under the poverty line and that hurts given how hard I’ve worked through it all.

I am sure that I have learned lessons. I am sure that there are things I have gained. I am so grateful for the things and relationships I do have and that is always true. Normally though, at the end of the year, I do this great program and I revel in my success and reframe my failures. I think about what I learned and where I want to go. I write it all down, and I blog a lot of it. This year though, every time I’ve looked at that great journaling program and written down more goals beyond “produce plays, sell books” I have panicked. I’m not ready. I still need to take things slow. I still need to recalibrate. I am not done healing.

I am not done resting. Not even close. This is the hardest part for me. My last two years of college I slept maybe four hours a night. I had a full load of classes, directed and stage managed plays, celebrated Sabbats with the few other Pagans on campus, and pulled a struggling GPA from my previous school into a 3.7 GPA. I had two jobs and an additional one in the summer too. While sick. I graduated a decade ago and until my brain injury I kept that schedule except added in extra hours of sleep and doctor’s appointments instead of classes. Basically the only thing that changed was I slept more and I called that rest, and a reasonable schedule, and healthy. Maybe it was then. It’s not now. Some people thrive on being busy. I don’t. I write better, read better, create better when I am not running from place to place to place. It took a brain injury to teach me that. I’m sure that’s the lesson. I don’t care. I’m still bitter when I should be grateful.

This is not a normal mindset for me, and it’s been really hard to deal with myself in this process. In my life I have dealt with multiple sexual assaults, Lifetime movie worthy toxic friendships, and the trauma I endured in my upbringing with nothing but hope and love and gratitude in my heart for the things I did have. I have been oppressed because of my gender, my weight, my sexual identity, my health, and poverty and that only made me more determined to create safer spaces and try to make change for others going through the same thing. These things, for all of the horrors that they were (and I would not wish any of them on anyone) did not crush my spirit. My heart remained at the center of everything I did for my entire life. Until now.

My heart is not in anything I have done this year. I don’t know why. I’m not really even interested in finding out why, except to say that I want it back. In spite of my aversion to Unraveling My Year, I did still pull some tarot cards for next year. When I asked what my Word of the Year should be, I pulled the Ace of Vessels. Then, I started sobbing. For the first time in months I let myself mourn. The cards were promising my Double Pisces, Cancer rising butt that I would find me again in 2019, and that made it safe to cry and feel now. I am so sad that I worked so hard and this year made me feel like all of it was for nothing. I am so sad, and I am so tired.

Yet even as I type that I am preparing for a rehearsal process for a dream show and a book release in 2019. Obviously there were gains. I want to be there for them, not only in body but in mind, spirit, and HEART too. 33 is a coming of age year for a lot of people as they settle into what being in their 30’s means. I wasn’t here, wasn’t in myself and yet I can feel that I have changed in positive ways too. I hope to be present and accounted for for any changes or growth that 34 brings. I hope to love again and laugh again and mean it this time. I hope that that Ace of Vessels comes true. I hope that not only do I find myself again, but I find my heart along the way.

Cat Pee, Car Trouble & Looking Ahead

                                One of my many beautiful walks along the river from May

Last week my roommate came home and I was sobbing uncontrollably, absolutely distraught. I felt totally helpless and like all of the work I put into my career, my home, my relationships was completely worthless. Why?

Because I came home and my cat had clearly peed in the front hallway, making my whole large-but-still-an-apartment-sized-apartment reek of cat pee. In truth, that was obviously not the real reason. I woke up in a bad mood because of PTSD-fueled nightmares all night. I was exhausted and stressed out. Money was hemorrhaging due to car trouble much quicker than it was coming in and it'd been a whole day of dealing with said car trouble instead of being productive. And...the cat pee caused my already poverty-trauma laden brain to flash back to growing up with a million animals with no one disciplined enough to properly care for them around, and certainly no one with enough means to care for them coming by. I have spent my entire life scratching and crawling my way away from that life, and to have a day where money was leaking everywhere coupled with that familiar smell, I lost it, completely. Then I lost two more days because of PTSD--some related to my upbringing, some related to the sexual assault reminders coming in while I was trying to sleep. 

My Virgo roommate (who also did not have a lot of pets growing up) handled my hysterical breakdown as well as anyone could have, and came up with solutions like strategically placing cat food, toys, and treats where they like to pee so they won't anymore. Knock on wood, it's worked for almost a whole week! So I went into writing this post feeling like May was a wash--but really I've accomplished a lot, had a lot of shenanigans, and am very happy about all of the great things coming up this June. The biggest takeaway from this experience though is how everyone in my life treated me. My Eye of Horus fam totally left me alone in between clients because what I needed was rest and quiet. My roommate/queerplatonic partner came up with solutions and was totally understanding about the reasons for the breakdown. My best friend talked me off a cliff about my professional concerns. It was a reminder of what I'm building outside of my professional life: a community, a home, a nest of love & safety. The things that make life worth living when the sun goes down are all here even when I'm freaking out over cat pee. And that feels pretty damn good.

My end of May wrap-up then, actually looks pretty good and gives me (and you!) even more to get excited about! So let's jump in:

Tarot Stuffs!

• I have not one, but THREE classes lined up for August and September at various venues. Info is incoming about those but if you like sex & love queers you're going to be elated to find out what I have up my sleeve.
• I received a review copy of this beautiful deck. Review still pending but this deck is beautiful. I am so attached to it already. 
• I am actually on in-person tarot reading hiatus except for Eye of Horus shifts and e-mail readings until June 12th because of overload, spoons, and practicality. But you can sign up for the latter half of the month now, snag an e-mail reading or visit me at the store anytime.

Things I Wrote

• Queering the Tarot updates are here and here. I love how much this series has taken off and become such a core function of both my tarot business and my writing. I want to write it forever, but, of course, I will run out of cards eventually. In the meantime, book mark one of the two sites to see updates!
• I started a pretty happening queer arts calendar at The Column, so if you live in or near the Twin Cities, I'm so happy to report that there's this easy go-to for you to find radical entertainment.
• I'm back on Siobhan's Mirror slinging Tarot 'Scopes this month!
• My friend Sarah McPeck put together a wonderful storytelling show to benefit Clare Housing and I told my always raucous story of getting a really aggressive period at a really fancy dinner party. That story might be told at a much bigger outlet pretty soon, so I am very excited for that.

Theatre Life

• Eek! Opening THIS weekend are some plays I wrote. I, unfortunately, can not make it to the shows because I'm scheduled for reader shifts and I need them, but I am very happy with my pieces and so sad to be missing the show for the first time in quite awhile.
• Gadfly has this queer, feminist, geeky one-act fest opening NEXT WEEK. Ahhh! I'm so pumped--my show has a talking penguin and a non-binary knight and the beautiful princess gets to eat the whole time. The whole festival is something I'm really proud of though. Our shows, casts, directors are absolutely stunning. 

                   My really great cast for Sky's The Limit as part of our one-act festival.

• The Big Queer Garage Sale was a hit! It was a little slow on all days, but we made some decent money anyway AND got rid of a bunch of super space-consuming stuff. Plus some of my favorite people walked away with fairy wings and mysterious capes!

Recommendations

• I can not recommend Hasan Minhaj's comedy special on Netflix enough. It is, as many have said, storytelling at it's finest. I also laughed harder than I have in a long, long time. As a bonus, here's Minhaj talking more about politics, married life, and other stuff.
• I read A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman and cried inconsolably for like an hour and a half. I also loved Animals Strike Curious Poses, a book of essays by Elena Passarello about animals we (humans) have immortalized.

Other Shenanigans

• I got to help Northern Lights Witch set up for her business birthday rompus and ended up winning two BEAUTIFUL and DELICIOUS teas from Asali Earthwork. 

• My homegirl took me out for diner food after my storytelling gig, and me, her, and my QPP ended up just sitting in her car and laughing over nothing for a couple of hours. That simple night really helped me get back on my feet after a rough week. A true sign of solid friendships is that while we still kill it as drag show and burlesque audiences and get a little too wild on the dance floor, a Saturday night at a diner and an hour of laughs in a car are every bit as restorative as "losing control."
• Are you aware of Lotus candles? They do not work, but they are fun. Actually let me rephrase: they work fine. They do not stop working until your queerplatonic partner peels off every petal, rips off the top and crushes the music box that has been running an instrumental "Happy Birthday" for literal hours. 
• Finally, the Bisexual Organizing Project put together a show called Bi-lesque: Gender Anarchy earlier this month and it was the queerest, sexiest, most fun show I have seen in ages. I'm not sure if there's anything like it coming down the hatch, but you can follow BOP on Twitter to find out. 

I'm going to end this entry on two PSAs today:
1) I went to an ENT specialist last week, and it turns out the ENT will make you snort numbing spray and then shove a camera up your nose and down your throat. It is not fun, and I was completely unaware of this procedure until I got there. I just want to save you the same shock and, also, complain a little. 
2) Sometimes your bank gets shut down from the FDIC super suddenly so you have to take a day to visit 10 different banks and drink all the complimentary coffee, and anyway, if you have a decent credit score, credit unions are the way to go for free coffee and better banking. Technically there is still a bank where my money from my old bank sits (for now). It is forty minutes away in a suburb with no public transit there, so...

Anyway, that's it for me! Coming up in June:

• Northern Lights Witch is going to take over my Multi-Passion Diary for the month, 
• You'll hear more about my upcoming tarot classes, and...
• There will be even more Queering the Tarot's in the world!
• Plus, you know, this totally small, not at all time-consuming one-act festival I'm producing.

Blessed be y'all! 

Spring is Here--Sort of? Maybe? But March Definitely is!

While February is hands down my favorite month, I am elated every time March hits as well. My oldest younger sister was born in March, the mainstage work I do for Gadfly Theatre is usually in March, and while I like winter, the seasons changing in general tends to help me hit a reset button. Granted, this year the latter hasn't been quite the steady rise I had hoped, but everything else stands!

February was wonderful, busy and hectic, but wonderful. I'm still in the middle of putting together a mainstage show about queer homeless youth and victims of sexual abuse. It was my birthday month which took me out for Mexican food and my favorite drag show with so many of my favorite people. That Pisces energy is hitting me pretty hard though, especially in light of the New Moon and eclipse and everything else. My PTSD is having some issues, but I'm also working through some emotions positively too. I'm a lot more in touch with my sensitive Pisces soul than I have been in a long time. I don't feel the need to play tough anymore, and I'm ready for real again--real feelings, real relationships, real, deep love of all types. I find myself welling up out of joy and gratitude AND fear and sadness at least a few times a day, but I'm letting myself have and experience that even though I've been trying to shove it down for the past couple of years.

Other things I've been up too:

• Tarot Stuff: I've got this really short but powerful mini e-book for sale. It hasn't quite gotten the attention I'd hoped for, but everyone who has snagged one has loved it--so maybe you want to be one of those people? I'm still down at Eye of Horus on Wednesdays, and come April I'll be picking up Sundays too! After letting a good friend crash with us for a few months because of some work hubbub, I have my at home tarot studio back! I also got to read for some of the absolute cutest, sweetest people this month, saw a small boom in my e-mail business, and am talking to a few potential students for my newly revamped coaching package. See my services page to grab your own slot in any of that! I also had new headshots taken! Wheee!
• Writing Round-Up! I really love some of what I did on the blog this month--plus the aforementioned e-book. My favorites beyond that are here and here. Additionally, some Queering the Tarot goodness--the Ten of Wands and Knight of Wands on different sites showed up, as usual. I also got to highlight one of my very favorite artists and get more insight from what drives her. I also got to research, write, and explore the beginning and growth of ball culture in the U.S. for Gadfly's latest Drunk Queer History. Even though a drunk storyteller doesn't quite get word perfect, I was really pleased with how it came out.
• Theatre (and beyond): In addition to the hinted at work above with Gadfly (see our site for more), I'm in a WTF improv class at Huge Theater right now. I was absolutely terrified and super caught up in "OH MY GODS WHAT AM I DOING?" But I wanted a foundation to improve my storytelling, the quick one-minute play style of theater I love doing so much, and even just to learn some new tricks as an instructor and director. All of that happened and is happening, but I, um, think I've been bitten by this improv bug I was warned about...
• Life Outside of Work! (That's a thing, sort of?): Because this has been a pretty emotional month, I'm a little all over the place in terms of goals like "reading a book a week" and doing things like squad hangs, but I had a few fun adventures. My birthday party at Lush was one of the most fun nights I've had in months, and I'm so grateful for the people in my life and that Lush like, exists and does such wonderful LGBTQ+ nightlife.
  • Favorite things I read: Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica by Zora Neale Hurston has lots of rich myth and culture about the oft misaligned voodoo. It reads as easily as any of her other work too. I also devoured Octavia's Brood, a speculative fiction collection inspired by Octavia Butler, mostly writers from marginalized communities. 
  • Favorite Things I Watched: Moonlight winning the Oscar for Best Picture was SO SO important to me. And that's the part I choose to focus on. Swiss Army Man was even weirder than I anticipated. I loved it.
  • Other Things I Loved: My hair went even bolder in it's purple, blue, and teal glory this time and I loooove it. Two of my best friends are obsessed with these tiny hands and overly large hands and any time they get broken out to play it's a good time. I finally tried Glam Doll NE thanks to some birthday fun, and they have some unique to that branch flavors and this ridiculous couch (pictured below) that I'm in love with. My brother sent me this deck for my birthday. It's stunning. I also worked some pretty hardcore magick this month (hence the first photo).

I have big goals for March: one event is down, but I have And Then They Fell opening. I want to get a second e-book, this one a little more substantial up. I have a couple of new regular series that will hit. And I'm determined to make it to a few shows I'm not directly involved with, in spite of the time crunch. And I can't wait to officially add a few decks to my repertoire, mostly this week or next: the Fairy Lights, Modern Spellcaster's, and eventually the Slow Holler (right now I feel really personally connected to the deck and using it elsewhere feels weird, but I do know it well enough by now), to be specific. I'm also pretty interested in a web overhaul but not promising that within the month.

Until then, blessed be! Feel free to share your own adventures. Love y'all.

My Birthday Wishes

I didn't have candles to blow out this year (which is A-ok by me. 31 + 1 for luck seems like a fire hazard), but I still did my annual birthday reading and intention setting, of course. (I also went to Duluth, so enjoy some silly pictures interspersed to keep things interesting.) In addition to a ton of personal stuff, here is what I'm putting out in the world that I want to percolate on and manifest by the time I'm 32 (and how you can help me with one big dream!) :

• This sounds so wild and out there--but I'd really like to at least be in talks about a book deal for my Queering the Tarot concept and columns.
• A nice three-bedroom space for me and the queerplatonic partner to sprawl out in, and that can more easily accommodate for both of us manifesting adult relationships and other family dreams we have.
• More road trips and travel in general--which I'm kicking off with a trip to LA in March!
• AND speaking of space, my wonderful queer, feminist theatre company, Gadfly Theatre Productions is looking for a small found space that we can turn into a 70ish seat, adaptable space for not only our own work but other queer art and art by marginalized women to thrive. We have an IndieGoGo campaign ready to go here. We're off to a bit of a slow start but have plenty of time so I know we'll get there. Still, every little bit helps, and if we meet our push goals after the $7,000 we can start discounting rentals for other artists besides what's already in our business plan, creating a truly low-cost space to create in. I am so passionate about and excited to actually enter a phase where we can share a valuable resource AND root our own work so people know where to come for radical, patriarchy-smashing queer art.

Look, it's Duluth! One of my favorite places in this entire world. Lake Superior is so soothing and restorative, and there are very few places I would have rather been on my birthday.

Beyond these four (BIG) goals, I just want to constantly be moving forward in my life right now. Last year was a huge year for personal emotional and spiritual growth. Now I want to take that into a year of action where my dreams morph into tangible goals. The Chariot card and the word "Movement"are what I'm holding in my heart for 2016. However, two days before my 31st birthday I was reading this amazing book, and there was a David Mura quote in the beginning:

“Sometimes, you’re so busy surviving, you forget you already have.”

— David Mura

I've had a ROUGH life. I don't say that to garner any sympathy, but so people understand that every single thing I do, every facet on my life, is built on the idea of surviving. I do just enough to get by, because building and growing has never seemed like an option. What if I need to pick up and run again, after all? Well after seven years in a city I love, six years running a theatre company that is the love of my life, a metaphysical store and a ton of clients supporting my tarot business, a writing job I wake up every day excited about, and a truly supportive "squad", I'm done being ready to pack up and go at a moment's notice. I have survived, and I am here to stay and make my mark in this world. (Besides, where else would I go that has this many quality coffee shops I can walk to in any given neighborhood?) I want to move forward, not away. I want to grow taller, not apart. I want to thrive, and for the first time in my life I see that as a possibility. I'm going to become more visible, and that terrifies me...

But never publishing my writing on a large scale? Never being a name in the theatre world at large? Never trusting and fully forming the non-traditional queer-as-can-be family I've always dreamed of? Those things terrify me way more, and those things deserve for my 31st year on this Earth to be one of moving towards them. 

Blessed be (and happy birthday to me!)