Wow this year really might end after all

It is December 3rd which means this ridiculous year is actually coming to a close. I can’t even believe it. I want to believe it I do, but man, this year. It seems like every one step forward I took as a person, my body decided to push me back three. For every step forward we took as a society…well, you know. It’s hard to be a person right now. It’s hard to be a person with empathy, it’s hard to be a person with their own problems, it’s very hard to be a marginalized person.

A new year isn’t going to change that.

I’m not a naive “new age influencer” who wants you to banish your bad thoughts. Just the opposite in fact. As we think about closing 2018, we should lean in to our anger and our grief and our sadness. We should let ourselves feel however we want, need, or just DO feel. We should use this winter to think about all of the things we’ve lost and if we even want to regain them. We will all feel motivated and peppy to make plans at the start of the year. For now, we should let ourselves feel the feelings.

In letting myself grieve and be sad for losing basically a whole year, I have already started to feel better. See, psychologists think that if we let ourselves experience peak emotion, there’s nowhere to go but up. We don’t actually get stuck in the well of sadness or pain, we start seeing the light and finding our way out naturally. Choking things down leads to bigger blow-ups later, so you WANT to let yourself lose it in the moment.

As I am slowly turning a corner, I am starting to be grateful again. November was a better month than most and this is actually a pretty chipper end-of-month recap. I do these monthly when I’m blogging to remind myself of where I’ve been and hold myself accountable to my goals. I also do them because I really love personal blogging and personal checklists, so maybe you do too?

Business News!

• ICYMI: I released this Sex & Tarot E-Zine that I like a great deal. It’s over 20 pages of healing work, thoughts on sex and tarot, and spreads to empower your sex life. I’ve got some grounding exercises should you panic before or during sex, and some personal stories too. It’s just $13.99 and a great way to process your end-of-year dating feels.

• My Patreon is off to a strong start! I do this thing community style so everyone gets the same access to my work. I release something on there weekly. This month that meant the next in my “Queering the Tarot” article series, a patron-only spread to tune directly in to your intuition, a Full Moon reading to help you zero in on your intentions for this moon cycle, and a Tip Sheet to help you assess your own relationship to tarot. In addition to this high quality, heart-all-in work, if you sign up by the end of the year you get a FREE workbook or e-zine in my shop around February! Plus I like, donate to charity and stuff.

• Most exciting: my book has a sampler! Queering the Tarot comes out May 1st and in the meantime, you can read the first couple of sections here. Pre-ordering helps debut authors A LOT so if you wanna see me do more books, help me get there by snagging your copy ASAP!

• I mostly read tarot at Eye of Horus this month, and I’m still there through December and beyond! Check me out if you’re in the Twin Cities!

• It’s obviously the perfect time for a year ahead reading. These need a week plus of prep and write-up time, so if you want yours by end of year, now is the time to snag!

• Finally, gift certificate sales are OPEN—but ONLY through 12/22! Buy your best friend a year ahead reading, your mom a short general e-mail reading, or bring your partner IN for a reading in January. E-mail snow.cassandra@gmail.com and I’ll get you all set up to give the gifts of magick and insight this year.

Other Stuff I Did In November

• Northern Lights Witch took a bunch of us up to her parent’s farm where I actually got to relax, sleep amongst creepy dolls (really!) and enjoy the food and company of her delightful parents and several of our close friends. Also a very cute dog and two very cute cats were there!

• I did an escape room set in a “haunted house” for my good friend Troy’s birthday. That was election night and being trapped in a house unable to check my twitter feed incessantly was actually a huge relief!

• I had the sweetest vegan feasting holiday with the same friends as the puzzle room, including a vegan wellington that my best friend made! It was amazing and divine.

Recommendations

Tarot Decks: I’m not sure why I waited so long to get a Wooden Tarot but having this animal-rich deck absent of people has been 100% delightful. The deck feels so good even when I’m just holding it in my hands.

Books: Again, not sure why I waited so long given how much I love her other work, but Alison Bechdel’s Are You My Mother hit realllly close to home in a really good, cathartic way. I also read Saga Vol. 9 and cried a lot. If you haven’t started Saga, now is as good a time as any! Finally I flew through Terry Pratchett’s Monstrous Regiment and it’s surprisingly relevant to today but in a way that is fun and relatable and won’t just remind you that you meant to spend today screaming into the abyss.

Movies & TV: Not gonna lie, all I care about from November is the She-Ra reboot.

Music: Cat Power’s Wanderer is what I have wanted and craved from her for so long. She’s back to haunting in this one. It’s wonderful. I’m also re-stuck on Brandi Carlile’s By The Way, I Forgive You album so if you need me I’ll just be over here crying about aging and life alongside it.

Internet: I really loved this piece on Armenian diaspora and writing. Here’s a cuter, lighter piece about drag queens and the children’s books they love. This piece about how white supremacy, fatphobia, and colonialism are linked has been making the rounds for very good reason. Yes and Yes ran this piece that has me a little bit shaken up about my own life and habits. To end on: a really sweet piece about home and tarot.

That’s it for me this month! Please, please feel free to share some of your favorite moments from the month in the comments or on my Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, especially if you have recommendations. (I love recommendations!)

Blessed be y’all!

That's A Wrap on June!

Happy July, friends!

This June we saw Litha, a summer Sabbat best used for thanks and resets. My closest friends and I did a simple spell with roses, the lake, and our deepest wishes. The lake was as wonderful as she should be and the city's reflection reminded us we were home. That is my place to reset: a large body of water, still night air, and lots of thanks to give. Before we made our wishes we thanked our dieties and spiritual energies for the gifts we already had that would enable this next phase of our lives. I am so grateful for my friends and loved ones, my own love of love, my work ethic, my careers, and my magick and gods themselves. I needed room and time for thanks as much as I needed the clarity or the energetic reset. One of my friends bought the most beautiful light purple roses to make our wishes on, and we watched them float away in the water as we breathed in hope and renewal. It was perfect for anytime, but the best Litha I think I've ever had.

So...what else was I up to this June? Uh...kind of a lot.

Tarot Stuffs!

• As mentioned in my last end-of-month post, I have not one, but THREE classes lined up for August and September at various venues! I can officially reveal that on August 17th, I will be revamping my Queering the Tarot class at The Future, a really quirky, unique, very Minneapolis witch store and event center. You can reserve your seat here. I'm pumped. The OTHER two classes will both be...Sex & Tarot! I'm so excited to take my joyfully slutty view of the tarot and teach others to read that way. I'm premiering this one at The Smitten Kitten on August 20th (and then moving it to the Future). It's FREE at the Kitten, so definitely save the date!!!

• I'm still at the Eye of Horus from 11:30-6 on Sundays and 3-9 on Wednesdays. I've been so happy (and busy) the past couple of months, so I'm strongly suggesting appointments if that's where you prefer to read for me.

• If you prefer coming through just my business, that's great too! I'm reading Thurs-Sunday 1-6 P.M. And Monday 1-6 P.M. Or, and the reason I'm writing this when it's clearly visible elsewhere on my site, is that I've been working hard to promote my e-mail reading service and I've been doing some really wonderful readings that way. E-mail snow.cassandra@gmail.com if you're interested.

Things I Wrote

• My review of the radical Urban Tarot by Robin Scott is up at Little Red Tarot. I got some great feedback from the deck creator herself and am so tickled with this deck. If you go back a little deeper on the site, you can also get some Queering the Tarot action.

• Over at Thecolu.mn I'm still covering Queer Arts Must Sees in Minneapolis, giving a needed spotlight to worthy artists, and advancing the Queering the Tarot series.

• Right here on my own blog I wrote another handy, easy tip for learning tarot and let my friend Abbie from Northern Lights Witch take over my Multi-Passion Diaries for the month.

Theatre Life

Photo courtesy of Jessi Hiemer/ @gluestickgeek on Instagram

Okay, so this is where most of my life got away from me this month. In fact, it doesn't even deserve separate bullet points because it was a wild ride where Gadfly was concerned and it's all connected. First, we DID very successfully open and close our annual one-act festival. My play was HILARIOUS, and I'm so proud of everyone's work. The tech week process though? Kinda rough tbh. Our air conditioner broke, we had an actor just straight up not show up for tech rehearsals, and we were tech-ing six shows, some of them fairly artsy, with only a week to do it. You know, with no A.C. And a missing actor. Yet the festival was marvelous, all actors were accounted for during performance, and we closed on a very full, happy audience. Then...as a company, we made a tough, sudden decision. We had applied for several major grants for placemaking, and when they all failed to come through, we decided to let the lease on our art gallery run out instead of battling with another rent increase while still having a non-accessible restroom. This decision also meant a very, very fast turnaround to get out, and basically I've spent the last week cleaning an art gallery. This has been a really emotional turn and change in my life. A very good friend used to run the space, and we took over her lease. It's been queer run for six years. It's been magic this whole time. I met my current closest group of friends there. I fell in and out of love incredibly hard each way in this gallery. I created some of the best work of my life. I made some of the most important, notable connections of my personal and professional life in this gallery. It was a heartbreaking decision that we didn't take lightly. I am hopeful for these next steps. We ended on an incredibly high note. The support as we close up the gallery has been almost overwhelming. My business partner and I are more platonically in love than ever before. We will find a new space--the right space, in the right time. In the meantime? Well, season announcements are coming soon and it's going to be a breathtaking season of queer, feminist art. It's going to be one of our most rad seasons to date, and I'm antsy to reveal info soon...not immediately, but soon.

Recommendations

• Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times is the first book in a long time that took me a long time to finish because I wanted to ruminate and absorb it in a way that was as unique as the book is. I can not recommend it enough to activists who love good prose.

• J. Selby's in St. Paul has some of the best vegan food I have ever had in my life. I do eat mostly vegan, but this was truly special. Half comfort food, half gourmet, all delicious.

• Manny and I dealt with our moving day blues for the Gallery by heading to Daddy: A Queer Variety Show and Dance Night, expecting friends and fun. We got those things, but it was also one of the most affirming, queer, warm spaces we've been in in a long time. Normally one of us likes an event more than the other, but we both felt totally at home and totally enthralled. They're doing it again on Thursday, August 10th at the Icehouse. It's so good. Don't miss it if you're a Twin Cities queer!

Other Shenanigans

• My queerplatonic partner and I reached total queerplatonic partner peak this month as we spent our weekly date night on a beach eating pizza and laughing about all the bad sex we've each had with romantic and sexual partners. After a sad day of starting the gallery exit, it was the best thing we could've done for ourselves. Whoever you love or need the most right now, grab a pizza and a beach and hunker down for the night. You'll be transformed.

• Northern Spark, Stone Arch Festival, and in spite of my issues with it this year, Pride all provided what I needed at the time: bonding with friends I already love, some quality solo time, and connecting with people from my community I hadn't seen in awhile, in respective order.

• My darling friend Kate who runs the 318 Cafe did a really sweet gig for charity where she sang with her husband, and then several of our friends joined in for a few songs, and eventually her youngest child took the stage and blew us away with her voice and ukulele skills. It was music and love and giggles all around.

• Goose teenagers at the park. Goose. Teenagers. At. The. Park. I was in love. Until they all started heading towards me at once and then I was kind of scared. But still in love.

That's a wrap for me on a wild, somewhat unpredictable but ultimately beautiful month. This July I'm dog-sitting for a week, then my AMAZING sister is coming down for a week, and in the meantime I've got pieces to write, cards to read, and art to get set on dates and locations. I'm ending the month like I started it: bursting with love and gratitude.

Blessed be, y'all!

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! 

On Lizzo, River Walks, and Gearing Up for April

The river is rushing, wildflowers are starting to bud, and my eyes won't stop watering. It must actually be full-on not-a-joke-this-time Spring! Normally autumn is MY season. Fall is when I come alive, when I feel my dieties working with me, and when I get excited about the year's transformations in my life. That's still very true—nothing like an October chill to reinvigorate me—but this Spring feels really fresh and exciting to me too. As we jump into warmer weather, here's how I spent my March when I wasn't here:

A beautiful Spring day driving past a beautiful spot in Minneapolis.

• Tarot Stuff: As some of you reading have already discovered, I have picked up Sunday day time shifts at my beloved steady gig, The Eye of Horus! I'll be there from 11:30-6 on Sundays in addition to evenings on Wednesdays. In more mundane news, I've started using my Modern Spellcaster's deck in readings, and I've gotten into a lovely e-mail reading groove with a few of you too! You can find out more about my e-mail readings here.

• Writing Round-Up! I did a major big kid writer thing this month—I applied to not one but TWO emerging writer's grants to finish a manuscript for a memoir about finding laughter in traumatic circumstances. There's also some Queering the Tarot action here and here, and a profile I got to capture on a poet I just adore here. I'm also working on a second e-book for y'all. This one is a little more substantial but I hope to finish up this month. You can grab my first, a mini e-book about using tarot for healing here.

• Theatre (and beyond): Oh, you know, just performed improv and front of people for the first time, thus finishing my improv class with a bang. Plus a Drunk Queer History my company organized, a mainstage show I directed, and I dunno, something about us getting a grant for our summer one-act festival. Keep up to date by signing up for Gadfly's mailing list!

• Life Outside of Work! (That's a thing, sort of?): I managed to have a really spectacular month in spite of having three careers, two of which required grants due and one which I produced multiple major events. Most notably, I ended the month at a Lizzo concert with three of my very best friends, brought to tears at a hip-hop show for (I think) the first time. The show has me mulling over self-love and what loving your body truly means. I adore my mind, and I'm a genuinely kind, sweet person and love that deeply about myself. I'm also incredibly fun. Yet for all of my body and fat positiviy and attraction to women and genderqueer people of ALL sizes actually loving my body the way Lizzo raps about is so hard for me. She has completely re-inspired me to take on self- love exercises to help me get there though

  • Favorite things I read: I started the month by breezing through Neil Gaiman's accessible, fun take on Norse Mythology. I got super sucked in to Murakami's weird world again with The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. I devoured Fisher's Princess Diarist and Mara Wilson's Where Am I Now in approximately a day and a half each. That's a lot, I know but it was a really good book month!

  • Favorite Things I Watched: I went to see King Lear at the Guthrie, not for research or review but just to go. This was the first time I'd gotten to do something like that in a very, very long time and the show was wonderful. The eye gouging piece of the play was SO well executed, and the rest of the show was pretty great too. Alternatively, Manny and I also binged Season 1 of Supergirl in about a week. I am completely obsessed and dying to get my hands on Season 2 even though it's still happening. I saw Get Out in the movie theater and OH. MY. GOD. Even with all the rave reviews I was surprised by how good it was, because it's that good. I don't even like scary movies but I'm raving about this one still. As just a guilty pleasure thing, I've also been watching Trial and Error on NBC. I love John Lithgow and this one is really silly and fun.

  • Other Things I Loved: Manny and I have spent several afternoons or evenings walking along the Mississippi River just chatting about ourselves, art, and the river itself. I'm so overjoyed that we're back in “hanging out near water” season and these escapes have helped my mental health so, so much. Now that it's warming up, if you're physically capable and live near a large body of water—go! What are you doing reading the internet right now?!

One more view of the river before we head out for today!

That's it for me and my theatreific, booktastic, Supergirl-swamped March! Please tweet or Facebook me about your own adventures!

Blessed Be, y'all!

In Comes November

Unless you're here for the first time and know nothing about witches, you know by now that October is my absolute favorite month. This one was a little rougher than most, but in true October fashion it all came together and created a stunning bigger picture for the season and I am so happy with how it all came together. Here's some snapshots for the month as we move into November. I often forgot how lovely November can be too. This year I might have some fun semi-surprises going on in my personal life, and will have some events/press/etc. going on that I'll probably talk about here. Here's where October took me:

• My Tarot Practice: took a bit of a hit this month, and after a real rollercoaster year in my creative life, I struggled to find spiritual and emotional centeredness, eventually getting there by the end of the month. I've decided to shelve my push to work events for awhile (inspired in part by this post), if not forever. I was shocked when that decision resulted in a new burst of individual client work, potential writing and collaborative opportunities, and a few exact ideal events (but not an overwhelming amount) cropping up. Sometimes you have to kill something that's been stressing you or bringing you down to achieve the greatness you know you deserve, and that's a core tenant of my life, yet I am always surprised by how quick that turnaround was.
  
  My tarot highlight of the month was reading at the anniversary party for the Eye of Horus--I had such a lovely time and got to read for a store regular dressed as Rose Quartz from Steven Universe! I love my work family so much. They have been so supportive of my tarot career inside and outside of the store and I really feel I've grown as a reader and a witch in ways I never anticipated when I nervously went in for my audition gig. I'm so grateful and so happy for such a celebration of their 13th year.
• Things I Wrote: While I kept up with my steady writing gigs and am happy with the (sparse, few, but lovely) things I posted here, one of my best memories for the month (and year!) was featuring at Story Club, a local storytelling event in which I talked about one of my worst and least talked about trauma sources. The crowd was perfect and I feel such an intense relief--and an intense eagerness for more storytelling opportunities!
• Theatre Life: GADFLY KILLED IT THIS MONTH. I am beside myself. Our first mainstage show at the Gallery sold out it's entire closing weekend, and in fact oversold one night (which was stressful in its own right, but the right kind of stress). In addition to that, we welcomed long-time queer art icon company Patrick's Cabaret into the space for regular events, and got to see some of our all time favorite performers at Outspoken queer open mic's third anniversary.
• Other Things I Loved: Manny and I's queerplatonic partnership turned 13! Exciting stuff. We met right around Halloween--we didn't get to celebrate until just barely into November, but it was marvelous nonetheless. Our Samhain ritual with another friend was very special and really magick (and unexpectedly invigorating). Other fun things from the month:
  • All of my friends' Halloween costumes were so cute! Manny went as Tina Belcher, and I spent time with a Ghostbuster. Those were my faves, but everyone rocked it this year. You can see some on my personal instagram. I also do a (mostly daily) free promotional reading to help guide your day there.
  • I saw Chastity Brown in concert again, this time on her own! Her voice alone brings me to tears, and the intimacy of the space we were at made everything extra evocative.
  • I guess I live here now? A couple of my favorite nights of the month were spent with a fancy overpriced OR really crappy beer, long intense games of oversized Jenga, and some very hostile (on my end) pinball. They have them in more places than just Minneapolis, so see if one's near you if you aren't living here!
  • Walks along the Mississippi never get old, and Pokemon giving us extra candy and ghosts made that extra true. I also love just sitting by the dam and listening though, and there's usually a busker I really love right nearby.
  • I did try to go to the Luke's Diner pop-up because I am an unabashed Gilmore Girls fangirl, but the place I was at ran out of everything! I was so disappointed but consoled myself with Tiny Diner because it's also amazing.
  • Book recommendations! Even This Page Is White by Vivek Shraya left me unable to move or even blink in multiple places. One of the hands down best poetry books I have ever read in my entire life. Buy it right here. Just do it. In lighter news, Spider-Gwen took me awhile to get to. It was on my comics list, just not high priority. I'm glad I delved in though, it's pretty rad. I've also been plowing my way through 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I'm not finished, but I'm super into it. King is a bit of a guilty pleasure for me--I don't love his protagonists most of the time, and plotholes exist pretty plentifully in his world, but this one is really absorbing and a great offset to a hectic, tumultous, but ultimately good month.
  • TV & Music Recommendations: This season of How to Get Away With Murder is seriously heart attack inducing. I just want my big dumb babies to be okay. I also hopped on the Steven Universe bandwagon late in the game but I'm ridiculously here for it. I already talked to you about Chastity Brown but WOW. Her CD and EP will cut to your core. It didn't get much notice, but Rufus Wainwright has a CD of Shakespeare's sonnets set to music. It's not for everyone--but it is amazing if you're into that sort of thing.

That was my month! I hope you all had a marvelous month of spoop and celebration and witchery. Feel free to tweet at me, leave comments, etc. to tell me about your own month or chime in about my recommendations. Until next time,

Blessed Be.

Welcoming August (and Lammas) with Open Arms

Lammas (which is tomorrow) is generally a time to welcome a harvest with open arms, celebrating the growth and fruition of all the seeds you planted. The reality of this year is that a lot of planted seeds that sprouted only to wither or die or never got off the ground in the first place. This too is a gift, it's just one that takes awhile to process the lessons and gifts off. My preferred method of this is to count my blessings of what DID harvest, or what blew in in lieu of one while I journal through my darker feelings. I do not expect anyone to be able to match me in this--we are allowed to grieve when our dreams die and if wallowing is what you need then wallow like no one ever has before. For me personally, it helps with the grieving to honor the good in that time. SO with that in mind, here's my blessings list/July wrap-up.

• Outdoor Tarot is consistently a high point in my life, and while me and my favorite decks didn't have any huge adventures, we did go out to a hippie farm up north, out to my yard on countless days, and to a beautiful cabin (that one of my best friends owns) in the cutest small town in Wisconsin.
• Things I Wrote: Still in love with my turn at Little Red Tarot, and over at TheColu.mn I published this huge write-up of Queer Fringe pieces. I was thrilled to hop over to Abbie's blog to talk about my favorite writer and what tarot IS to me. I also talked about the importance of taking a break, how to support Black Lives Matter, and a relationship check-in and advice spread on this very blog.
• Theatre Life: Gadfly is moving into an art gallery! I'm sure I'll post more about this, as creating and changing an environment is a spiritual and creative endeavor in and of itself. As such we are genuinely elated for this opportunity, as well as the opportunity to offer low cost space to other queer and marginalized artists. I also took part in the One Minute Play Festival which really reignited my love and joy of theatre outside of Gadfly again.
• Other Things I Loved: playtime with my cat babies (even if they are a suburb over from me right now :( ); boat rides in new lakes, game nights (so many game nights!), the most fun night ever at my new favorite bar/old school arcade, an all POC version of my favorite monthly show, OutSpoken, and too, too many trips to my favorite dive queer bar and corresponding diner across the street.
• Recommendations: The Art of Money by Bari Tesler which I will have MUCH more about coming soon. Juliet Takes a Breath by Gabby Rivera. All of the Saga and all of the Lumberjanes. Season 3 of Bojack Horseman and Stranger Things, both on Netflix. Pokemon Go, obviously. The card game Gloom (so silly-macabre and fun). The Linestrider tarot (official review coming soon!).

I hope those of you celebrating harvests this Lammas get to keep on rocking and those of you grieving missown or bum seeds have a better fall. Blessed be. XO.