What To Say When You Have More Questions Than Answers

Like so many parents, I've been talking with friends (endlessly) about what's going to happen with school this fall. 

That’s how I started a Facebook post on my personal profile earlier this week. I accompanied the semi-lengthy post with a photo featuring the word “(re)imagine.” Not offering any answers, I described how we’re swimming in the questions, searching out ways to imagine, again and for the first time, solutions that diminish risk, offer support, and maybe even add joy to education.

But wait, this is not a post about my thoughts on reopening schools. 

Instead, it’s an exploration of what to write about and how to show up right now - particularly as a writer/entrepreneur/transformation professional who has more questions than answers. 

This post is also an invitation to decide what topics you need to write about publicly and how you want to use your voice when  you’re journeying through the great unknown. (And there are a hell of a lot of unknowns right now.)

Before I go one, in case you are wondering:  I want to see my kids back in public school, yes, but I also see the countless flaws in the system. I’m not particularly interested in fighting to seat my kids inside a crumbling, potentially contagion-filled institution (and I don’t mean our local system specifically) when our innovation and energy actually need to be spent on how we truly educate kids, support working families, and ensure that the most vulnerable are safe and fed. Again, I have no definitive answers, just a lot of wondering, worrying, researching, and trying to sort out how to be part of the solution for my own children and for this whole generation.

What do you say when you don’t have an answer, a recommendation, or even a “hot take”?

“We live in an age of uncertainty” is a cliche at this point, but it is also true.

We’re all being forced out of the comfort zone, and out of the zone of our own expertise. And that’s not an excuse for inaction or ignorance. No matter how uncomfortable and clueless we may feel, there are big, life-changing situations that we need to understand, manage, and make decisions about. Now.

We no longer have the luxury of not having an opinion and trusting we can just go with the flow.

As one friend described it, we’re all latchkey kids who realized the phone is dead and there is no one to call when things get hard. And there are so many hard things... 

Perhaps you’re a parent struggling with if/how/when to send your kids back to school. Maybe you’re trying to transform your business model in this age of closures and restrictions.  Maybe you’re a white person who wants to take what you’ve learned in your research of racism and become a true ally to BIPOC. Maybe you’re a person of color who shakes your head when you hear your wish-they-could-be allies are finding all the reading and empathizing to be so difficult.

There are so many important issues affecting your life right now, and so many of them are outside your wheelhouse. How do you know if it’s helpful and smart to sit down and write about your opinions, ideas, and perspectives?

Here are four questions to ask yourself as you wade into the online conversation about the topics of the day...

Question One: Is this topic worth my time as a writer?

If you instantly have “a topic” in mind as you read this post, it’s worth your time.

Writing down my thoughts about the school situation was definitely helpful. After much conversation and silent rumination, something shifted when I put my ideas on a page. 

When you give yourself the time, space, and permission to take the jumble of wonder and worry swarming your mind and put them into some sort of linear order, you are practicing self care and healing. (No matter how tangled your argument, that act of translating the wilds of thought into the structure of language is a powerful, worthy act in itself.) 

Question Two:  Is it worth the attention of the reader? 

This one is trickier. Writing for oneself is healing and helpful, but posting and publishing adds a whole new level of complexity. 

When we talk about being worth a reader’s attention, we’re not talking about your worth or the worth of your ideas. Instead, you’re invited to consider whether you’re able to make a contribution to the conversation right now or whether you’re better served by sticking with your journal for a while longer.

Let’s look at my example: Parents everywhere are looking for answers, for a plan, for a sense of security and normalcy. My post offers none of that. But then, as proven by friends’ and strangers’ comments, there are many who, like me, are present in the uncertainty too. 

When we’re all in an almighty wrangle with the vast unknown, it’s enough to hear that someone else is naming the struggle and living the questions. 

It’s helpful to express a message that conveys “you are not alone.” You open readers to admit their own uncertainty and that, in turns, moves more people toward new approaches and solutions.

One way to decide whether it’s time to take to the public square (AKA the FB feed): You’re not looking for anything from your audience. You’re clear and grounded in the fact that you’re simply using your platform to think out loud. And, while you don’t just need to spread “love and light,” your contribution is basically constructive, searching out a solution on the other side of the mess. 

Question Three: Is it OK to admit that I know I do not know?

For a personal Facebook post about the unknown frontiers of educating our kids myself (something I don’t pretend to know much about), I believe it hit just the right tone. I wasn’t complaining, blaming, or expecting anyone to solve a problem for me. I was using my platform to say “my friends and I don’t know what we don’t know and no one else does either.”

There’s power in asking the questions, to be willing to say “I do not know yet, I am still in the middle.”  You let your readers and your community see your humanity and your vulnerability, and that makes you interesting, approachable, and worth caring about. 

And it’s not just a strategy to attract an audience: formulating your questions in public strengthens your skills as a thinker and a communicator. The smarter your questions, the more profound your eventual wisdom will be.

Of course, you can’t always tell that world you have no freaking idea what to do next.

My friends who are teachers - who are “supposed” to know more than the average parent even in this moment of limitless unknown - feel they cannot think aloud about education. 

In the microcosm, I can understand that. In small towns, “What Ms. ____ said” can become fuel for nightmarish social media threads and endless whispers in those backyards where all the parents are stressing over September.

When you can set aside local school district politics, however, honesty and vulnerability about the real struggles, stresses, and concerns about the future are immensely helpful fuel for the broader conversation. One voice from the front lines about the questions and the worry can inspire innovation from all sorts of unexpected corners. (My own Facebook post was inspired by an article on a teacher’s blog.)

Question 4: When you’re adrift in uncertainty, can you come back to what you know for sure?

I write to inspire and to inform my readers, yes, but, really, I write in order to know what I think. I say this to remind you that writing is a tool that can help heal and restore you - especially when you’re adrift in uncertainty. 

Consider formulating and sharing your questions about the unknowns in your life, community, and industry.  And, give yourself a chance to come back to what you know for sure.

Standing sure (and Sovereign) in your area of expertise helps your mindset and builds self trust. (We all need more reasons to feel “normal” and trust ourselves.)

It’s vital to offer your audience not just your humanity, but also your expertise. If you’re a transformation professional who offers healing, teaching, or coaching services, people need to be inspired and they need the tools and information that empower them to make real, positive change.

When we seem to have no choice but to follow Rilke’s advice and go “Live the questions,” it’s nice to remember we do have some answers.

Here’s a writing prompt:

List three questions that your ideal clients are asking that you really can answer right now.

Want my quick version of three questions my community asks that I can immediately answer?

Q: How do I stop dreaming of being a writer and actually become one?

A: Commit to a regular writing practice with the help of a dedicated community and a practiced guide. Join the Sovereign Writers Circle.

Q: How do I find some clarity in this midst of this storm when there is so much to create, and yet also so much to worry about?

A: Seek out a different way of knowing. You have uncovered so much in your own writing and soul-searching, but an outside perspective can help you frame your dreams and your struggles in a new way. Book a Tarot as Intuitive Healing Session.

Q: How do I reach the people who need my services in this crowded marketplace during this crazy difficult time?

A: Tell stories. Tell your stories. Tell the stories that enable your ideal clients to say “she sees me, she gets me, she can help me.” Join the Stand In Your Sovereign Story program in September.

You saw what I did here, of course. Yes, all of these answers are a service I provide. I’m in business to solve certain problems for people who my special kind of practical magic. It’s why you’re in business, too.

We tell stories and use our voices for so many reasons - to connect, to heal, to wonder, to problem solve, to serve, to offer, to sell.

To know your “why” in the moment you’re communicating? That can make all the difference.

The Individual, the Collective, and the Toughest Cards In the Tarot

First, a question: does one tarot reading mean anything at a moment like this?

Generally speaking, a tarot reading is only interesting to the people involved. 

That said…

Tarot is a window into the vast realm of the collective unconscious, the place of the mythic imagination where symbolism is a language that everyone can understand and anything is real if it has meaning.

Tarot has a way of blending the collective and the individual, taking the universal and making it personal.

And then (here’s the magic I love best): once you make these big, timeless ideas your own, you’re ready to take that inner transformation and make it manifest so you can do your share of the work that will renew the world.

But before all that fabulous, transformative outer work, there’s someone pouring over the cards, trying to make sense of it all.

Why tarot, why now?

In the best circumstances, a tarot reading opens a series of paths and portals that are both deeply personal and speak to the entire human condition. Each of the 78 cards is a reflection of the human experience - a prism that is at once universal and yet so very intimate.

A reading offers you a map for a journey you’ve always been on, and then invites you to approach and understand in an entirely new way. The cards inspire you to look deep inside so you can make the small shifts as well as the huge changes that determine how you’ll make your mark on the world.

But, before you can do the alchemy and turn the insight into action, describing your own tarot card reading is like offering someone a magnifying glass and saying “would you like to gaze in my navel while I read the last 23 pages of my journal aloud?” 

As someone who has used the tarot cards to figure out my shit for the last twenty-five years, I get that. But bear with me. The specifics of the latest reading I did for myself don’t matter to you, but the dance between the personal and the collective and the way those two constantly flow together? That just might have some significance to you, dear reader, and to all of those you’ll touch in the wider world.

When a tarot card is more than just a tarot card

I shuffled my tarot cards (Chris-Anne’s Light Seer’s Tarot is my go-to for personal readings right now) and I did a traditional Celtic Cross spread (I’ve been cozying up with Rachel Pollack’s seminal tarot text, Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom, and really appreciate her approach to this well-used form).

You know the movies in which the young heroine visits the fortune teller? If it’s a rom-com, she gets The Lovers, The Sun, and the 10 of Cups all at once.

My current life is certainly full of love and occasional bouts of hilarity, but I’m definitely not playing the role of sweet young thing these days.

Plus, it’s 2020. Those happy, blessing-laden blissed out cards haven’t been removed from the deck, but they seem to be stuck in the bottom of the box because the deck got soaked in tears after the last reading. 

Instead, I’m in the kind of place in life where I pull Death, The Devil, The Tower. Then The Wheel of Fortune and The World appear, and they are both turned upside down. 

Since I’m not actually starring in a slasher film, there is clearly a hell of a lot more happening than “beware evil men who will kill you and tear your entire life asunder!” (Again, it’s 2020. There’s more than just one bad guy in this scene and this year’s plot couldn’t possibly fit into one movie anyway.)

The first question when I ask when I see all of those big, scary seeming cards, of course, is: holy hot damn, is this all about me?

Is this carefully balanced life really that precarious? Will I lose everything that I hold dear? Did I marry the wrong man? Are we going to lose the house? And wait, everything is quiet... Have the children been kidnapped?

Panic ensues. Or at least that kind of disquiet that has you wanting to reshuffle the cards and ask for a do-over since you clearly got the reading intended for an ax murderer in another dimension. 

Resisting the urge to sweep it all back into the deck, I get up from the cards and eat Nutella straight from the jar and snuggle the cat excessively until he bites me and then jumps on his brother’s head, causing the cat tower to fall down.

As with everything, it’s essential to take a deep breath and look beyond your first reaction

Yes, these cards are deeply resonant and relevant to my own unique circumstances. 

When I can pull back the lens to see the bigger picture and look at all of the cards in conversation with one another, I can get curious and find the insights that shine on the other side of reactivity.

I get to keep exploring the question of whether my marriage is destined for a huge disruption or whether all the work we’ve been doing lately is transformation-in-action. I get to ask whether I’ve compromised my values for the sake of comfort and materialism. I get to ask whether I have been talking about change but resisting it through my actions.

But then what?

Is this all about me, or is this reading all about all of it?

I hear the guides whisper “both, dear woman, it’s always BOTH.”

We’re always in a dance between the individual and the collective. Right now, that’s more obvious than ever before.

I’ve long been taught that the healing work you do for yourself or for one other person is also in service to the Greater Reality. One act of renewal or transformation always ripples forth in powerful, unseen ways to bring growth and healing to the Whole.

Of course, this can quickly become a path to self-absorption and spiritual bypassing, but it doesn’t have to. When you pair your desire for personal healing and conscious evolution with your desire to be the change you wish to see in the world, you become the sort of integrated force for good who really is open to creating collective renewal.

These ideas are at the heart of Sovereignty, too. Here’s a passage from Chapter 1 of my book The Sovereignty Knot:

Each one of us moves through the knots of Sovereignty each day. We are independent, Sovereign beings, each here on our own personal quest. And yet, we are all in this together, our fates forever bound to the fate of the collective. We constantly move between caring for the self and caring for others, balancing our own needs and desires within the great web of creation. We are Sovereign souls living one great, interconnected dream. 

Back to the reading: what are the “big cards” saying about this particular moment?

Death, The Devil, The Tower. The Wheel of Fortune and The World both appearing upside down… This is not business as usual.

To assert that we are not going through a period of massive disruption when the old systems are crumbling and the old ways are dying… That would just prove that you’re not paying attention. (In a way, you have to wonder about the veracity of any tarot reading at this moment in history that doesn’t include these big, “scary” cards.)

These cards are reflecting the truth. Immense disruption, uncertainty, and transformation are coalescing to form the strangest, cruelest, and most possibility-laden year we’ve seen in memory. If you’ve learned to take the cards at more than face value, you know that all of these explosions and implosions are there in service to peace and growth.

Just as I looked at the cards in relationship to my own life, we’re all called to see them as an invitation to look deeper, to understand where we are in relationship to internal and external change.

Remember: there’s nothing to fear in a reading full of cards like these, but the Devil is the one you need to stare down.

I read The Devil as offering a seductive invitation to go back to sleep. He offers what might look like the easier path. He’s whispering the most insidious lies: forget the racial justice movement because it’s no longer on the front page; this race conversation isn’t really about you; it’s not important to wear a mask because things “aren’t so bad” in your part of the country right now.

The Devil is one advocating for the status quo and “the bad old days.” He preys upon the sense of defeat, resignation, and disengagement that have become so endemic in our over-connected, yet ever-so-disconnected world. This guy revels in our complacency and habitual fear.

It would be his pleasure to erode your personal Sovereignty so you forget you’re meant to be part of the glorious cycles of disruption and evolution happening around us all right now.

These cards are yours, these cards are ours

Imagine this were your reading and half the cards spoke of destruction, irreversible change, and maybe even a spate of bad luck.

Breathe into that. Understand that the cards don’t necessarily predict a bleak, set future but instead reflect the energies that swirl about you right now. Understand that if this is as “bad” as things can get, you’re already stronger than you imagine. Understand that you’re a Sovereign being who can redirect these energies and be part of a great renewal.

And, understand that this collection of cards is for all of us. 

When you read between the lines of the chapter of history that’s being written right now, the chapter that describes some of the greatest changes in contemporary human history, we’re all in it. As diverse as our experiences and origins might be, we’re all walking together through this moment of falling and rising, of death and rebirth.

There’s no single way to “do transformation right” in 2020. Just keep in mind: on the other side of this (perhaps when you’re standing at the doorway to the next life since there’s no telling when this era of cataclysm and transformation will end), when someone asks you about the story of your life and how to navigated the 21st century, just be sure you’ve got more to say than “the devil made me do it.”

What’s in the cards for you? Book a Tarot As Intuitive Healing session now.

Listen Deep, Speak True: On Being a White Writer Writing About Race

It is a time to listen, and it is not a time to shut up.

It is always a time to listen. It’s never a time to shut up.

Ok, sometimes it’s a good idea to just stop talking, but let’s meet here as writers, storytellers, and people who wish to heal with their words. Let’s meet as writers who are trying to write about race.

Specifically, at this moment, I am a white writer and storyteller speaking to other white writers who want to use their words to heal the wounds, both ancient and brand new, caused by institutionalized racism and this white supremacist culture.

As a writer, it’s never the right time to mute yourself

You write to know what you think. You write to discover the deeper feelings that lie beneath your immediate reactions. You write to decode those feelings so you can dissolve emotionality and get to a truth that exists before and after your conditioning, your worry, your fear of what others think.

Damn. We need that more than ever right now.

Now is the time to keep writing, to keep delving, to keep looking for the story that informs the story you tell yourself about “the way things are.” 

That opens us to the next question… is this a time to share your words with the world?

That’s an entirely different question.

Or is it?

Right now, our country (and the world) mourns the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many Black lives, and takes to the streets to protest police violence. It is time of deep listening, deep introspection, and direct action.

You may well need to pull back, to make more room for quiet contemplation, for long reading sessions, and even longer journaling sessions.

Do those things privately, and allow this inner work to influence your public discourse.

It is not the time to fall silent, change the subject, or to utterly disappear - especially if you are someone who has an online presence and a community that is accustomed to looking to you for insight, inspiration, and information. 

(And if you’re thinking that you don’t want to mix “politics” with your professional work, I invite you to think even longer and harder about how the privilege of white identity gives you that option.)

But… I thought I was just supposed to listen?

When I talk about this urge to fall silent, change the subject, or disappear into the audience, I speak of it as a white woman who knows all too well that sense of, “I know I am going to say the wrong thing, so I am just going to shut up.”

Though I have spent the last few years reading and listening to Black writers and trying to do the work of understanding my own whiteness and interrogating the racism that was baked into me in our white supremacist culture, I have generally stayed quiet about it. 

Yes, I was afraid of doing it wrong and showing my ignorance. I admit I have been repelled by “hey, white people!” posts by white colleagues and acquaintances, and swore I wouldn’t be so awkward and sanctimonious.

(The jury is still out on that one, of course. Some of those posts might have actually been performative and legitimately obnoxious. Some surely just cut too close to the bone and caused me to put up my defenses and strike out with judgement. Silent judgement.)

Instead, I decided I would (quietly) be the change and model anti-racist thought rather than lecture and shame people into looking at themselves.

(The jury is still out on whether I have done a good job of addressing my privilege in my writing, or whether I have been avoiding tough conversations and burying the conversation about race and the need for racial equity beneath other ideas I feel more comfortable writing and talking about.)

All of this is to say, I know what it is to awaken, to be outraged, to be uncomfortable, to start thinking deeply, and then to look up and realize I have so much to say but so much trepidation about whether it’s mine to say.

But what if the only way through is through conversation?

As Robin DiAngelo, author of White Fragility says in an article titled “Nothing to Add: A Challenge to White Silence in Racial Discussions”:

…in practice, my silence colludes with racism and ultimately benefits me by protecting my white privilege and maintaining racial solidarity with other white people.

I understand the urge to watch and listen and tell yourself you still have too much to learn. The only way to evolve in terms of your understanding of white supremacy is to look deep within, after all. But remember… You’re not doing all that observing and learning to become some enlightened being bound by an oath of peaceful silence.

You do the work of awakening and inner (r)evolution so that you can make meaningful changes and be part of the bigger conversation.

It’s Always Both/And

Wednesday, in a town hall conversation offered by the My Brother’s Keeper organization, President Obama said: 

I've been hearing a little bit of chatter on the Internet about voting versus protest, politics and participation versus civil disobedience and direct action. This is not an 'either or' — this is a 'both and' — to bring about real change we both have to highlight a problem and make people in power uncomfortable.

Now is the time to listen. And, it is the time to speak. Even when it makes you uncomfortable. Especially because it makes those are comfortable with the white supremacist status quo uncomfortable.

To begin, speak to the pages of your own journal. Then, speak to friends who are trying to do this inner work and to change the way they move through the world.

Throughout… listen. Follow Black journalists and support Black activists, authors, and artists. (Here’s a strong collection of resources.)

Next, use your online spaces to share and amplify Black voices. (And I dare you: can you go deeper than quotes by Martin Luther King, Jr. and Maya Angelou? Those are powerful and important, of course, but can you go on a quest to find new, lesser known lines and learn from their context?)

And, as your reading progresses and you start to turn listening into understanding, frame Black creators’ art, thoughts, and resources with a statement about why this matters and what you hope to achieve by sharing. 

Throughout… listen. Understand that you may not be praised for doing this work. You may not get likes or shares. You might get pushback and attract the trolls (both the unknown monsters and those people from high school).

Listen to your own breathing and to your own strong inner voice that knows you’re not doing this for accolades or attention. You are not doing this to build your brand, to score points in some “good white people” contest (there’s not such thing), or because you’ll say something new.

You are listening and learning and writing and putting your words out there because you must be part of the rising anti-racist tide.

Silence is complicity. Your voice has a place in this moment.

When you build the courage and the muscle to not only click share but also to speak about why this matters, why you know Black Lives Matter, you’re helping to shift the narrative.  White supremacy needs to be dismantled, brick by brick, word by word, by white people who perpetuate it and benefit from it.

Listen well and remember that hundreds of years of white silence got us here.

Dare to be part of the BLM conversation and keep getting braver about addressing systemic inequity and oppression. Not because it’s all about you and not because it’s trending, but because your voice matters and you must take the risk and be part of the mix if you’re going to part of the healing and renewal this society needs so desperately right now.

Connect With Your Creative Cycle When the World Turns Upside Down

Cycles. 

Of the moon and stars. Of the seasons. Of the calendar. Of the body.

All of these cycles influence the cycles of creativity. Some of these cycles we can rely upon. Some of the cycles we’ve grown to rely upon are so out of control that they’re utterly unrecognizable. 

I want to call you into an exploration of your own cycles. 

When the world has gone mad and time has ceased to have meaning, you need to find yourself within your own meaningful cycle.

Understanding where you are within a greater pattern will  provide you the structure to continue to be creative. It’s what will help you stay sane. It’s what will help you gather the strength to take appropriate action to put the world to rights.

But first, a bit of context... 

Each Wednesday at noon ET, the Sovereign Writers Circle gathers to write. (By the way, this reliable weekly cycle transforms “I wish I wrote more” laments into “I’m so glad I wrote today” smiles.)

We always begin with a brief meditation or visualization. Then, this community of healers who write and writers who heal begin to put words on the page.

I always offer two prompts that invite creative, emotional, practical, and magical exploration. Sometimes, the writers are asked to respond to the events of the day. Since many of our members are entrepreneurs, we occasionally explore matters of livelihood and how writing can support a business. 

We always wander into the vast territory where heart and mind and imagination meet.

Picture yourself there with the Sovereign Writers Circle this week. This is how we opened our session…

It’s the end of May. We find ourselves on a planet where a year is divided into twelve glorious months, so we get twelve remarkable chances to sum things up and plan anew. 

Leave room for that to matter. Let May - one of the longest, shortest, strangest, scariest months - to have shape and meaning. Or, leave room for another cycle to matter.

We moved through the energy of a New Moon in Gemini last week. I know my heart lifts when I see that first sliver hanging in the evening sky as I water my gardens after a long, unseasonably hot day. 

Be in the sickle cup of the moon as she moves into her first quarter. Remember what you felt when the sky was dark and when the last full moon filled the sky. Imagine what’s coming in the weeks ahead as she waxes and, inevitably, wanes again.  

Maybe the cycles of the Zodiac help shape your experience and your energy. Perhaps you want to write yourself into the stars and find guidance and illumination there. We find ourselves in the sign of the celestial twins right now. This is Gemini Season, the time of creative expression, the time to celebrate the vast, flexible power of the mind. 

It might be time for you to find yourself in the cycles of society (if you can find any that give you comfort). We marked Memorial Day just a few days ago. What does that mean when it comes to the national and social heartbeat? What does a day of remembrance and the unofficial start of summer mean in moments like this? 

Or, maybe you find yourself drawn to the tides of your own body. If you’re a woman who still bleeds, you may feel called to tune into your own menstrual cycle, but our miraculous bodies offer so many other rhythms and beats.

There’s magic in the grand and the subtle cycles constantly being enacted all around you. Be with them and flow with them.

Unless you just can’t.

Perhaps you feel like none of these cycles matter enough, none are palpable enough. It’s a great big, broken world, after all. The heavens seem too far away, the traditional calendar has been rendered meaningless during the pandemic, the social fabric is in tatters, and the murmurs of your own body seem too mundane.  

And so, when none of the existing structures hold you, you can begin at a true beginning. Offer yourself a blank slate, a clear space, a new place to create.

It can feel hard or intensely liberating to feel like you’re starting with nothing. (Maybe you feel like both are true at the same time.)

Try to inhabit the power of the author - of the authority and the Sovereign of your own life. You get to make up the chapter. (You get to acknowledge that we are all being called to start a new chapter. Knowing this early will make the transition into the new normal a wee bit easier.)

And so, as we do before we enter every writing practice (remember, you’re listening in on the prelude to the Wednesday session with the Sovereign Writers Circle), I encourage you:

Deep breath in. Spine straight, fullest extension in your writing chair.

Be in this body. Be grateful for this body and all that she does to hold you as your mind and spirit go on a great adventure. 

And now, let’s write…

Writing Prompt: Find Your Cycle, Find Yourself Within the Cycle

What cycle feels most fertile and familiar to you right now? Write with the moon, the season, the feelings in your own body.

And, if you cannot find immediate truth and solace in one of the many natural and social cycles that give shape to life, embrace that freedom. Trust yourself. Follow your own words until you draft your way into a whole new cycle of meaning and truth. 

Welcome to Gemini Season: Writers, Creatives, Magic Makers All

This, my dear, is a glorious moment.

In spite of it all. Because of it all.

Here, when the new moon is in Gemini and the Zodiac just turned to the sign of the twins, it is a remarkable time to be alive.

This time isn’t just for the lucky ones born in this glorious month that precedes the solstice that sets us in the Northern Hemisphere right at the threshold of summer. (Though truly, it’s an endless delight to be a Gemini…) 

Instead, it is an invitation for all of us to connect the power of intention, the spells we cast with words, and the ability to make magic - simply by practicing the art of changing your mind and consciously shifting your thoughts.

Thought creates action, after all, and action is what transforms your day, your life, your world.    

And, it’s a time to play.

Welcome to Gemini Season, a time of transformation in the face of all that cannot be changed

This moment feels particularly special. It’s as if we are all standing at a great threshold.

We have wandered through a long, dark spring to get here. And no one knows quite what will happen next - other than “normal” will never be the same and this crisis did little to bring the warring factions together. (Certainly there is much to be said about division and separation as we dance with the Gemini twins? Let’s look at that in another post soon…)

This threshold doesn’t bring us back to “easy,” mind you. (If anything, it reveals the illusion that life wasn’t all that easy or OK before.) We’re not crossing into a new realm  where the yucky germs have simply gone away and we can get back to business as usual just because we want it to be so.

No, magical thinking will not eradicate the virus. Acting as if it does not exist will not make it so.

Though I am a fervent believer and practitioner of magic who believes that we do have the power to change consciousness and shift reality, denial never healed anyone.

Instead, this is an invitation to take the world as it is - with all of its dangers and all its necessary precautions - and to thrive and connect and fill ourselves with wonder anyway.

This is a time of innovation and imagination even if we cannot go to the beach. Especially because we cannot celebrate the summer as we always do.

It’s Your Gemini Season, Dear Seeker, Dear Writer, Dear Maker of Magic

I’ll be honest. I need this new moon and this time in the sign of Gemini like a mermaid needs her ocean home.

In part, it’s because I am a citizen of Gemini myself. (I was born on June 17. My mother was, too. I have a unique understanding of what it means to be a twin, and I know it to be full of poignancy and power.) 

I think we all need it though. There’s nothing like a pandemic to silence you, to steal your creative flair, and to make you doubt the necessity and validity of your own voice. 

Gemini Season is the time of the writers, the creatives, the people who play with their words.

Gemini Season is the time of the sun worshippers, the strawberry pickers, and all of us who believe in the kind of magic you can only make on a warm, late spring day.

Gemini Season belongs to everyone. 

Gemini Season is when we celebrate the power of expression and the gift of the active mind. It’s when we embrace spontaneity and everything that’s possible when we look at the world in a new way. 

As my new astrology crush, Sabrina Monarch describes it, this is the time of the Poets, the Priestesses, the Magicians.

Gemini Season is the time to do #7MagicWords

Have you been part of #7MagicWords, the free weeklong challenge that inspires your creativity and invites you to play with your words?

It’s coming back on June 1, 2021.

I didn’t intend to run this challenge again, but this new moon is whispering and the tides of stars will not be denied.

This challenge (I’ve lost count… I think this is the tenth? I first offered it in June 2017) is going to offer the sweetness of strawberries right off the vine and the balm of almost-summer afternoons.

Come create with us.
Come delight with us.
Come make magic with us.

This sweet June, we all need to savor this Gemini Season together.