A Short & Sweet Yule Tarot Spread!

I spoke on my last blog about how important the concept of light is to the holiday season, and though I shifted my focus to something different there I a reading on my Patreon today based on the changeover of a dark winter into a lighter one. It was a simple three card spread, and I laid it out like this:

This deck is the Numinous Tarot & for a short time, you can grab one here!

I laid out the two cards on top (you can do it in whatever order makes the most sense to you) and then the one on the bottom in the center. The card placements represent (in this order):

1) What light is already shining in our lives?

2) What light do we need to let in?

and 3) What darkness can we let dim right now?

I absolutely loved the reading I did for my patrons with this spread. The concept of light in dark times is always important, and that’s true figuratively and literally. For December Holiday season we have multiple holidays that focus on light, most notably Yule and Hanukkah. Even Christmas has it’s hint of it though. The three wise men followed the light of the North Star, and secularly what do we adorn our houses with when we want to look festive? Oh right, lights!

Enjoy your reading, tarot lovers & have a blessed week or so until I see you again.

Blessed Be Y’all,
Cassandra Snow

If you’d like to see the community reading, my Patreon is community style which means you get FULL benefits including this one for as little as $1 a month. I donate 10% to an organization or person in need, and benefits include ongoing Queering the Tarot pieces, monthly tip sheets or worksheets about tarot or spirituality, patron only occult writing, and a monthly spread. Anyone who follows by the end of this month ALSO gets a FREE tarot workbook or e-zine from my shop in a couple month’s time! Support here.

Yule is Coming! Prep time is NOW!

Not my own photo! Provided by Unsplash through Squarespace.

The time of one of my favorite Sabbats is almost upon us! Yule and the December holiday season make me so grateful for snow, coffee, and my loved ones. While I love all of the Sabbats, Yule season is particularly meaningful to me especially when I incorporate what people of all faiths celebrate throughout the holiday season.

Secular Christmas is about gift giving and time with loved ones.

Christmas proper is about the birth of a savior.

Hannukkah is a celebration of light as well as miracles.

Yule is, for some people, a celebration of light returning. For others it's about taking stock of what your harvests for the year looked like. 

It stands to reason then that as we think about light and saviors and gifts and miracles this month, we should also be thinking about what we harvest regularly, how we use those resources, and what we're doing to ensure our continued success. Some simple spiritual things you can do over the next few weeks to focus on ALL of the themes I touched on and usher in your best holiday season yet include:

•  Meditation on what each of the aforementioned subjects means to you.

  • A focused meditation on light can bring you more brightness than you ever imagined.

  • A meditation zeroing in on gifts can tune you in to your law of attraction and boost your ability to manifest.

  • Deep breathing and prayer to any saviors you believe in can comfort you as you things get wet, dark, and cold.

  • Finally, really working through what your harvests looked like for the year can rededicate you to your work and enable you thrive in the new year.

• Decorating your sacred space (home, altar, car dashboard) with cross cultural winter symbols like snow, pine cones, and cranberries which all bring their own reminders and messages for the season. 

  • Snow represents cleansing or coming to peace with darkness, though for me personally it represents fun and cool air.

  • Pine cones correlate to pine trees which can represent longevity and the joy in solitude. Some believe they represent our hopes and fears for the new year too. Wishing spells where you roll up tiny scrolls with your wishes scrawled on them and place them in between the cone sheaths are common this time of year.

  • Cranberries can correspond with our love lives and help us amplify the good and loving vibes of the holiday season.

• Cranberry and peppermint teas will inspire you spiritually through the holiday season. (Peppermint works for almost any magick you’re trying to weave and can soothe our tummies if we overindulge on holiday food.)

• For those who are more metaphysically or witch inclined, a great gift to make for a friend or yourself is a prosperity ornament focused on sustainability. 

  • Take an empty glass ball ornament, and fill it with things that will represent and inspire sustenance. A friend gave me one a couple of years ago full of green ribbon, cinnamon, basil, and pine cone pieces. I made one with dried orange peel, pine leaves, and fake snow for a friend last year. Anything that is meaningful and represents ongoing prosperity energy to BOTH of you will work.

• Make your gift giving personal and significant this season. One year I asked everyone I knew to give me their favorite book from the past year. It was one of my favorite Christmases because I got to really peer into people’s hearts and brains + I got my reading queue packed for the following year! Don’t worry about spending a ton of money this year. Find one thing, however small, that you are sure your loved ones will love. Then find something that represents your hopes and dreams for them for 2019. Gift them both or whichever one you like best. Two small, meaningful gifts can be the hit of the season. I’ve seen it happen over and over again!

• Find a little known tradition that really appeals to you and incorporate that into your season with a loved one. My roommate and I celebrate this every year and it has brought us so much peace the night before a big day.

It’s not exactly hip to get excited when you start hearing All I Want for Christmas Is You in every department store for the season, but I do. I have found so many ways to make the Yule season cheerful and joyous starting with this: I absolutely opt out of the traditions that stress me out. I don’t overspend. I don’t run myself ragged. I don’t let the holiday season absorb my common sense.

I DO work closely with my gods, let myself get inspired, and take the extra opportunity to show my loved ones how much I love them.

As always, feel free to leave your favorite traditions or spiritual proceedings in the comments. In the meantime,

Blessed be y’all!

My Pride Plans, Litha Spell & Fave Links As Of Late

Happy Pride Month (& weekend for many of us,) y'all!

I started the week on a bit of a downer. My super queer, radical theatre company decided to let our lease go for the art gallery we've been running, primarily because of the disconnect between accessibility and pricing on the space. We've grown a lot in the space though, and having a place where people could find us made our business a million times better so this was a hard decision and is a very sad (although necessary) decision. It does feel empowering to know we could have kept going in the space. We were doing well with renters, and even if we increased rates a little we would have been fine--but there are key issues in the space itself and it just wasn't the best place to pour our resources into anymore. That decision and announcement felt like a rough start to Pride BUT we've got lots of great queer art planned for next season, and it is going to be a fabulous weekend regardless. One of my favorite theatres is running Queertopia 2017 Revolting Bodies * Beyond Flesh. It's always a mind-blowing experience that I'm hoping to catch. I always have very mixed feelings about the actual Pride festival in the park. I have trouble stomaching major corporations that just pulled out of funding major arts events to err on the side of conservatism tabling like they're so radical and queer friendly. This year though, Twin Cities Pride has scaled back on police presence in the wake of the heartbreaking Philando Castile verdict as much as they legally can. Tons of my friends are performing on various stages throughout the festival. I might even be jumping in for a quick improv set on Saturday. On top of that I've got two great shows to see outside of Pride: The Funny by Raw Sugar and Tease by Little Lifeboats. Not Pride related but featuring tons of LGBTQ+ artists and perspectives. I'll be ending the week then on notes that feel exciting and gay and radical as humanly possible, and I am grateful for that. 

I'm feeling even more excited and hopeful after my Litha ritual with my closest friends last night. We had a private spot in a wooded area, a secret beach, and a beautiful bouquet of roses to wish on & with. It was the witchiest I've felt in awhile, and I'm so full of love and thanks for the people in my life and the trajectory my life seems to be on. We created beautiful magick, both aesthetically and spiritually.

I've stayed off the internet more than usual over the past couple of weeks. Some of that was related to being so on-the-go busy as opposed to "I have a lot of clients coming in and deadlines coming up" busy that I couldn't physically stare at the internet a lot. Some of it was to save myself energy. I've been watching the news, reading personal Twitter accounts, and taking part in direct action and creations instead of reading endless thinkpiece about how screwed up everything is. I've been taking friends to lunch to celebrate grad school graduations and birthdays instead of voraciously reading their stuff online (though I do keep up). So we're a little quicker today for the monthly link round-up. I also just felt like the series was a little too lengthy the past couple of times, so I wanted it to be quicker for y'all too. I did read some really fabulous things though, so here are some of my favorite links from the end of May and June.

On Resistance and Transformation
Pollen Midwest has a wonderful piece on successfully confronting white supremacy in the workplace that originated on the Twin Cities Daily Planet. 

Teen Vogue continues to crush it with their take on lack of police accountability. 

Some bittersweet musings on Pride that I relate to a gajillion percent. 

One of the number one ways to create substantial change is to VOTE. AND in these next few elections, there's a couple of candidates worth your attention. Teen Vogue talks to four trans candidates running for office. (Two of them in my city and looking good to win!)

Alternatively, one of the reasons I'm losing even more faith in the system. Democrats don't care as much about pro-life legislation as they used to. Meanwhile I continue screaming into the abyss.

Tarot & Magick
There are a lot of scam "psychics" out there, and I do feel myself defending my field and my craft a lot. But what happens when you, as a tarot reader (or any small entrepreneur) get scammed?

HUGE SOLAR ECLIPSE IS COMING AND I'M BESIDE MYSELF. 

Struggling to learn to read tarot? Jess Carlson has some lovely tips for you.

Similarly, Jessi Huntenberg talks about How to Give Awesome Tarot Readings here.

Over at The Tarot Lady, tarot deck creators delve into their creative processes for us.

If you're having trouble at work, Llewellyn has a great list of protective crystals to utilize.

Another easy to follow list, this time from The Witch of Lupine Hollow, and on starting your first magickal toolkit!

Getting Your Life Together
Zen Habits is a great beginner's guide to simplifying your life and incorporating Eastern philosophy in. This guide to "How to Love Your Dark Side" touched on a lot of recent conversations I've been having lately. 

Sarah Von Bargen has a frank post about the choices you make (and how they create the life you lead) here. 

I love quick quote round-ups and I love business advice from people who. have. been. there. This list of launch lessons from When I Grow Up Coach is both, and features some really high profile bloggers and solopreneurs.

Another great Tarot Lady post, this time on her writing process. This one is pretty juicy and full of tidbits for your own writing process. 

Seth Godin on why you're missing out if you're only hitting greatest hits lists.

Queer Lifestyle (IE Not Politics)
My beloved Wonder Woman's queer history. (Seriously how are constant references to Sappho even considered coded?!)

The Mary Sue pays homage to five great bisexual TV characters from nerd-dom here.

David Sedaris has a new book I haven't bought yet, primarily because I need paperback for big, heavy books. Thanks, arthritis. But here's a lovely Q&A with him leading up to that.

Theatre & Art
If Black Lives Matter, why aren't you disrupting the narrative of white supremacy better? A scathing, important piece from Bitter Gertrude.

I loved this article from Howlround on your basic job as a director: getting out of the way. 

Of Misc. Interest
I adore Halsey not only for her music, but because of her brazen conversations about bipolar disorder, being bisexual, and living an openly feminist life. Here's a great convo between her and complete and utter idol Debbie Harry. 

A thing I relate too way too much from Jenny Lawson: "I'm less sick than before, but I'm also less than I was before."

One of the best things on veganism I've read in awhile. (I identify as "mostly vegan".)

Posters & art for the upcoming Black Panther movie are awe-striking. But some of y'all had the absolute most wrong response to them.

An in-depth history of advice columns and our obsession with them. I loved this!

AND the absolute only piece I read this month that it is fitting or appropriate to end my post today with: Mermaids are Cruel Bloodthirsty Succubbi...and Why That's A Good Thing.

That's it for me y'all! Have a good one! 

Blessed be.

Light, Dark, and Discarded Pieces of Myself

For many pagans, this Thursday marks Mabon, a holiday to celebrate the changing seasons and welcome the second harvest. On this day, also called the Autumn Equinox, day and night are the same amount of time, so for many of us it's a chance to celebrate the necessity of both light and dark, and the joy that the balance of both brings.

This Mabon, I was struggling to figure out what my meditation and ritual should be. My usual celebrations just didn't feel right, and I have had the most confusing few weeks. Finally on a walk along the river, as I admired the leaves starting to turn, I cried out to my gods to cut through my scattered, sad thoughts, and slowly as I meandered it started coming to me. You see, for as long as I can remember, I've almost completely reinvented myself every few years. Often this was out of necessity--when you see the good in everyone, you often overlook the bad so I got my heart trampled on a lot. I've been taken advantage of a lot. And every time I got fed up, I just started over. New friend group, new clothing style, hair chopped off, big steps forward in my career. There were even a few dramatic location changes somewhere in there. In some areas of my life this has served me incredibly well. My multiple careers are streamlined enough to keep me motivated but relatively stable, and I am beyond in love with Minneapolis, my apartment, my cats, my blue and purple hair. Embracing the new--the new day, the new sun, the new light, has always created a multitude of blessings for me.

But with each new version of me, I killed off old parts of myself that I know I was meant to retain, each time losing another piece of my soul and my power until finally, I went through my current evolution--the one where my anxiety went through the roof and I didn't actually evolve so much as got really scared and meek. Of everything. Obviously none of that is working for me, at all and emotionally it has all been hitting a head I didn't understand. I have spent the last few weeks feeling so lost. I have a beautiful apartment, and so many other blessings and I thought when this many things would click into place I'd feel better. Less scared, less sad, less meek. Instead I've spent the last few weeks crying at the drop of a hat and staring off into space, completely unmotivated.

Then a college friend came to see me, and as we regaled my (amazing, not going anywhere) friends with stories of second college me, I felt completely overwhelmed and yet better than I have in months. It felt like I'd been wearing some costume that didn't quite fit and this college friend I haven't even seen in forever somehow made me see how silly I looked without even knowing what she was doing. While I was still reeling from this, I ran into an old rival from a couple of life cycles ago. She has moved on and is stable and content in her life, and was thrilled to see me. Catching up was surprisingly nice even as my stomach filled with butterflies for reasons I didn't understand. I eventually realized that I thought I'd been living in fear of running into her or other people from this phase, but really I've been afraid of running into the version of myself I was then. But I realized during our jovial conversation that this rival wasn't all bad then, and neither was I.

The old, the abandoned, the dark--these are the parts of myself I've kept hidden from all but a few. These are the parts I've kept hidden from myself in spite of glaring evidence that my sass, my cunning, my strength were needed. This Mabon I want to dance in my own darkness and feel it around me. I want to wear it like a shroud and when day breaks I want to keep wearing it still as the sun beats down on my face assuring me that these old versions of me aren't only harmless, but good for me. This Mabon, I want to return from the grey I've been living in and trying to convince myself that this is what light feels like. This Mabon, I want to renegotiate my concepts of light and dark entirely. This Mabon, I want my first spiritual connections to be with the versions of myself I killed off. I want them to know I'm sorry. I want them to come back. And I want the me that willed this apartment, my tarot business, my writing career into being, that fights for my theatre company's success every day, that keeps loving new friends and partners even when it's the scariest thing in the world, to know one thing: she's not going anywhere either.