Hello sweet reader. Happy Mid-Spring. Happy almost Gemini season.

We are in it. The last day of Taurus season is floating in the New Moon vibes mixed with Venus in Cancer and Mars in Taurus. It feels like an excited unknown. A fast year. And maybe in these past two weeks a little sweet. Taurus energy can give us moments and doses of this. Gemini season starts in a few hours, ready to help us communicate, elevate and delegate with confidence.

This is your gentle reminder to pause, breathe, and take a moment to root into the lessons and blessings of the season so far.

The energy is like a rest before the charge. Laying in the grass, gazing out the window. Watching trees dance in the wind. Delicious snacks. Appreciating the atmosphere and tasting it all. It is also a time for planning a trip or making tinctures with your spring harvest. The vibe is lounge. And preparation. Balancing both of these energies. Giggle with your friends. Get good sleep. Send a voice note of appreciation. Get to know your neighbors. Make a wish. Slurp up moments of little connective joy.

How are we holding one another? What excites us? What parts of the journey of this year has been a challenging lesson? Gemini season is our last astro cycle before the Solstice. I believe, the fall/spring equinox energies are different than solstice winter/summer. We move through, transform, plant, excavate, activate and harvest a lot in the equinox months. Solstice months are for deepening, expanding, and sharing the harvests. We restore ourselves and one another.

Taurus season can be a time where we stop working so hard and begin to see the changes we’ve made or the garden we’ve grown. We find our rhythms. We are confident. We know what we want and how we want it. The space of blossoms around us can encourage moments of appreciation and healing. Doesn’t mean there are no challenges. Hopefully we learned how to shift into responsive vs reactive communication. Hopefully we learned about our needs and listened to the needs of others. Maybe we got clear on what we no longer what to take with us. Maybe we started to see all the work we put into something come to life in a new way. We found moments of peace in the chaos of life.

I also know there are seeds metaphorically or physically that did not grow the way you intended this season. We all go through this. Digest these lessons. Accept the blessings.

I hope you taste something delicious and embody the ripeness of the season. Dance with the dandelions. Share berries with your friends. Get organized and informed. Let yourself be seen. Party under the full sag in moon ( Blue Moon May 31st). Make flower essences with your friends.

The current energy can be helpful to ground into what you are desiring right now and what you need to research more deeply. In the 5th Spirit Tarot Deck by Charlie Burgess, The Hierophant (ruled by Taurus) is depicted as a librarian. With this archetype, we put on your thinking caps, ask questions, dig into the details, and digest our analysis. We become more wise. We challenge systems. The light bulbs go off. And we take naps to recharge.

Becoming informed and attuned can help energize our communication, honor our authentic selves and each other in Gemini season. We join the book club. We speak our confidence and embody it. We speak up and ask direct questions. We showcase our art. We publish our paper. We find a new acceptance and appreciation for ourselves. We look in the mirror and love what we see. We understand how we want to be loved. We study and feel into what we want. Who we are. We are wrapping projects up and preparing to share them with the world. We are ending a journey and starting a new one possibly.

Gemini Season Card Archetype: The Lovers

We are in a sense, active.

This year feels fast, at times like a 9 of wands kind of vibe- burning the candle down while amongst the flowers. Im reminding you and myself to slow down. Conserve energy. Stay attuned. Rest to prepare. Read. Go to bed.

Tune in and check in.

What felt juicy and delicious for you? What was challenging? Where did you get stuck? In that stuckness-what did you feel and what did you learn? What was really fun? What is something you are proud of?

How can you celebrate more in Gemini season? How can you communicate more clearly? What do you really, really want to say? Make the phone call. Have the conversation. AND remember to review. pause. respond. AND ask for what you want baby.

These can be questions to write/meditate or talk-it- out- about.

I like to take my time with New Moon weeks, even as the phase changes. Slowly unfurling into what Im casting as an intention. Two energies I’m working with is simple moon wishes and crafting for play.

Moon Wish steps..

Note: This is a great spell to do around the new moon into waxing moon days. Follow your own guides and intuition always, and do your spell when ever it calls to you!

Write down 3 wishes with an action step to activate that wish for each one. Please, do not forget the action step. Yes you can put it into the ether but tbh I believe our wands need a magical activator to make it happen. We are human.

For example: I wish to write a book. Action Step: I will write 3 pages on my book topic each week or I will write an outline for my book by the full moon.

Does that make sense?

Your wishes can be simple. I wish to feel more grounded when I start the day. Action Step: I will do a guided grounding meditation before 10am each morning for 5 mins.

If you need accountability write yourself a sticky note reminder. Ask for a friend to text you or set an alarm.

Once your wishes are written find a spell corner for yourself. Light a candle (I like white and green or pink) and cast an energetic circle for yourself. Call on your guides and well wishers. Read your wishes with intention 3x. Close with ‘and so it is’ or any other closing incantation of your choice 3x.

You can burn the wishes with the candle’s flame (if it is safe) and send the ashes out the window with an extra blessing. You can bury them in the garden-I like to give a little gift to the earth fairies as a thankyou for carrying my wishes. You can compost your wishes on paper or place them on your altar.

This wishing spell is a suggestion, you can create your own however you practice. My only pushy suggestion is you write it down with pen/pencil and paper.

For example:

I wish to write a book.

Action Step: I will write 3 pages of my book topic each week or I will write an outline for my book by the full moon.

Your wishes can be simple.

I wish to feel more grounded in my body when I start the day.

Action Step: I will do a guided grounding meditation before 10am each morning for 5 mins.

I wish to call my friend/sibling/commrade more (can say weekly if that works)

Action Step: Set a calendar date for your call reminder. Or send a voice note!

If you need accountability write yourself a sticky note reminder, ask for a friend to text you or set an alarm. Your wishes can be communally supported.

Creative Play as an Accessory to Gemini Season

Myself and probably many of you have felt a little constricted and uninspired while yearning for something new. Nostalgia? A cigarette? 2015 IG filters. Art gallery parties spilling into the streets. Pay-phones. Mid 2000’s club looks that seemed so hot. Its like you want a whole new outfit but feel uninspired by anything in your closet.

When people are being caged and terrorized by the govt it can muddle our creative juices. It can be challenging to motivate and feel a little selfish-ick. So many BIPOC feminist organizers and artists I’ve studied made art, agitated, wrote, danced and had lots of great sex in terrible times. They find ways through it together. My queer ancestors have woven this into the fabric of life. We keep cultivating joy. We keep dancing and caring for one another. Even in the saddest of times.

I’ve been thinking about how to re-calibrate our juices using different tools and creative approaches. Loosening expectations. Letting go of an idea and letting something come into me.

We need an accessory approach. It not always changing the whole outfit, it is about adding something fabulous and different into the mix.

Sometimes I get on myself for not making art. Was my peek moment Femme Solitude in 2017? Maybe. Is it silly to think I don’t know what to make or write even when I’m doing it. Capitalism makes us feel like we are never producing enough. As I write this its vulnerable.

I remember Art is always in me and around me.

There are multitudes of things I want to create, and I do create them. Really its my internal teen holding the chords of my vulnerabilities, thinking another missed opportunity gone. A joke. Why try again. Not good enough. Who wants to read this anyways? Don’t be too ambitious. It is much deeper than that, but thats my stuff.

Some days, the restrictive reel blocks me from actually making any art. I wallow in what was and what did not become. I’m terrified of not being good enough and then letting it hold me back. My ocd gives a nice little boost to that spiral reel of nothing is ready or done or perfect. And this is all BS. But a real moment inside my mind and maybe yours too?

Shout out to all my artistic OCD ADHD PTSD babez trying to figure out how to keep on creating and making things that are not always rooted in our trauma.

What I learned wading through the discomfort of not knowing or feeling what to create is when I don’t fight it or overwork it, I get carried in the current to the next place of inspiration eventually. And here I am writing late into the night but feeling free of an expectation on myself.

Spring awakened me. Therapy helped a lot too. Learning to not give an F more and more has helped. Remembering I have been in the void before. Many of us have. Remembering my past does not define my reality. I check in on the judgements I cast on myself. Repetively write the artists way mantra ‘ the world needs my art’ and yours too. I still feel a little bit like an imposter, but I keep writing it. You should too.

Art is anything we shape and put intention into. Art is the way I arrange my flowers. Art is the photographs I take. Art is the clay I mold into balls when Im feeling disassociated. Art is the food I make. Art is the pictures I paint. Art is the outfit I put together. Art is the digital flyers I design for my job. Art is the way I arrange my jewelry. Art is the light I see trickling onto a wall like a beam.

Art can be what we shape and feel, whether we “like it” or not. Tangible or intangible. A song, a movement, a scribble, a brush of paint, a poem, a friendship bracelet, a messy collage, an altar. There is much more to this thesis but I’m not going there today.

I encourage you in these next couple weeks to get a little playful and messy. Channel that inner kid artist that did not give an F.

When I worked with kids for 15 years I made art messes every day. We experimented. Glued, glittered, drew, painted and created just for the joy of creating. Not sharing, not showcasing-although yes sometimes I did hang those scribble scrabble pictures on my fridge because I LOVE what my kiddos created.

I want you to do this for yourself. I’m assigning us homework.

Each week, until the summer solstice, I want us to make something. Anything. A picture, an altar, a paper plane, a ball of clay, a collage, a shrinky dink! Find a way to get your hands and mind busy with creative play. Cut out shapes. Free water color paint. Sketch. Decorate a frame and give it to a friend. Press flowers in wax paper. Take a class if it calls to you! Do art that has nothing to do with your work. This is important.

Make it collective or set up a buddy system for you art making.

My friends and I have been gathering for craft parties this spring. Wine, good herb and a mix of supplies to create as we want with no judgement, just play and accountability to make something. We exercise this creative muscle by not giving a fuck and enjoy the process.

If you need parameters choose one medium or theme and then go from there.

This practice has been personally liberating and activating.

I even assigned to a client I worked with a couple week ago who has felt un-inspired and creatively “stuck”. You can place the page of wands at your art place making table as an archetype to guide you in the creative flow, channeling the child’s consciousness energy if that is helpful for you.

Other things I did that was not writing. Learned to play backgammon, played scrabble, perused zillow just to see the photos of wild big houses and their decor. Reading and watching all of Schiarapelli’s Spring/Summer Resort collection.Organized a library. Researched historical fountains for work. Learned to bind a book. Went to the library. Read fiction. Listened to a lottt of audiobooks. Loved Julia Fox’s memoir on audio. Wrote 3 pages, even if it was nonsense every day. Made a clay snake. Baked a shrinky dink heart.

Coming back to this newsletter and my writing felt like I was dragging a wagon in the mud and rain across a field to find the shed is locked. If that metaphor makes sense then you know.

The amount of time spent ruminating on not making art or not writing takes up so much space and time.

Something magical happens with our ego when we make something that is nothing more than the fun tactfulness of making something. Kids know this. Adults forget. I reminded myself these months to play and read and don’t give a fuck about not writing the piece.

This may not work for everyone but I encourage you to try.

Extra credit: Gather your friends for accountability and do it together. Ask them to bring one part of the supply. Keep snacks and drinks simple. Show up, fuck it up and see what happens!

I promise you this creative play practice will spark something down the road and/or get you in a flow of creating.

If you are looking for a supportive archetype to hold/guide you during this creative process I would suggest working with The Queen of Cups. She can help us soften into a our intuition and transform creatively our stories and emotions. You can also work with The Page of Wands at your art place making table as an archetype to guide you in the creative flow, channeling the child’s consciousness energy and being open to what you discover.

As Mary Oliver writes “ Attention is the beginning of devotion”. Give your attention to a craft and see where the devotional energy brings you. Happy art play making!

The Wyrd Sisters Deck Spell For Abundance + The 5th Spirit Tarot Deck Four Of Wands

Feed Your Magic: Collective Cards

4 of Wands

This card is about balance and appreciation for what we have surrounded ourselves with. Our hearth is abundant, cared for and glowing. We are taking in the blooms of what we have tended to so far this season. They are an inviting us to witness ourselves in appreciation and gratitude. Today is not the day or week to review the regret wheel of what we missed. This new moon wants to put a little spotlight on your highlights.

You are doing it babe! I think of my friend who has tended to their garden since mid winter. Trying new things. Watering, weeding, learning and nourishing their plant babes. Now in mid May we are sitting in the presence of blooms. Displayed in vases and filling our plates. I think of my friend graduating from her MS program this week and allllll the work she has done to get here. And now we celebrate!

This is what 4 of wands is all about. Be proud of what you have grown or built. Present in the here and now.

The 4 of Wands can also acknowledge feelings of a standstill moment or stuckness. Feeling like we can’t go beyond where we are. Or wanting more is too much. We are exactly where we need to be. Take up the space you desire. Trust that you are doing it and you are resourced! Align your intention with your impact. Breathe in your accomplishments with gratitude. Take a moment to feel with all your senses.

Have you been working on something? Maybe it is still in process. You have the start of a body of work that can be seen for what it is growing into. It is living with you, not in you any more. Recognize and remember you are resourceful. You are aware. If you still feel a mix of gratitude and stubbornness I think you are right in it. Know you are still in process. You can begin again and again. You can learn new things. You can ask for help. You can find creative strategies or spells to light yourself back up again (accessorize your creative play practice) into the inspiration of what you want to feel, be and experience.

Do it for yourself. Do it for each other. Do it for your ancestors. Dream big. Know each step is a stitch in the larger fabric of what you are creating. And remember you can always patch, re-sew and reconfigure as we shapeshift, learn and journey.

This season is a reminder to ground into the abundance that is in and around you. Cast spells and plant seeds of attention to the bodies of our collective wellbeing. For our abundance is connected to all. You and I are deserving of juicy, feel good moments. We are deserving of peace and security. We are deserving of dancing with the flowers and living our lives guided by love, trust, exchange and care. Fill your basket and share it. Cast a spell for the appreciation and mindfulness of our full bloom potential. Share and care, our wishes are all connected.

The Wyrd Sisters Deck Says…

3. Spell For Abundance

Message: Imagine a great feast set out for you and all your loved ones. What is being shared? Who is enjoying the field of plenty laid out for you? Envision this and know that all this abundance is accessible to you-and for all-for it is well deserved (pg.48)

Spell Ingredients:

Homemade bread or cakes, abalone shell, blessed wine, pearl, a dreamt-up song

(pg.48)

Venus In Cancer Invites us to..

Work with The Queen of Cups

Water our gardens

Adorn Our Home space like a living altar

Welcome people in

Kiss Flowers

Write love letters

Psychic Tune-Up's

Love all our tender parts

Talk to the Moon

Stay up all night dancing

Write/Read Poetry

Channel Muses

Make Art with shells

Be in Bodies of Water

Heal maternal lineages

Have vulnerable conversations

Take solo art dates

Do somatic practices

Commit to BDS

Embody Queer Liberation & Erotics

Dance outside

Make flower essences

Bed Rot with joy

Cook Soup

Book A Session With Me

Moon Food to Feed Your Magic: Spring Cabbage Lemon Bean Soup and Other Ways to Nourish Yourself:

There is an abundance of deliciousness in bloom right now. Strawberries, Arugula, Artichokes, Escarole, Nettles, greens, spring onions and carrots! I’m including a couple faves of the season below from Moon Food to try if you want.

Taurus is all about delicious comforts of the moment. Reminding us to be still and take it all in. An offering to ground into what feeds our pleasure.

What tastes good. What feels good. What do we want more of?

This recipe is an invitation to indulge in what we love. Take our time. Give yourself something delicious with out a lot of effort. Life is hard but it can still taste good. A reminder in sad times- the berries are still plump and juicy. The leeks are still sweet and savory. The cucumbers are still crispy fresh. The spinach is sweet and earthy. And cooking stewed beans is a dance with time, slowly softening under the surface. Enjoy the messy process of making something special while being in this world. Taste it. Feel it. Share it.

This recipe is an invitation to enjoy seasonal moments and new cycles. A slow cooked spell for joy in our bellies. Flavors deepen into each other over time, especially when re-heated the next day for lunch :) Your kitchen smells like lemony herbs, calling you back to the magic of the moment. Holding you in the here and now with an aroma that makes you want it.

Taurus/Spring energy guides us through a slow process of paying attention to our senses. Taste, touch, smell, feel and sight are portals to presence. Taking your time to be with something, feel into it, smell it, witness and taste the layers. Channel your awareness to the season and intentionally be with the sense you are tuning into. Take your time indulging. Sit with the flowers and let their essence fill your aura. Carry this into Gemini season gatherings.

Slow cook this soup.

Pause.

Breathe in all that you are creating.

We can utilize these moments of stirring, cutting, waiting, pausing and tasting as practices of disciplining our attention to the present. Does this taste good? Do you want more? Are you chewing? Dill, french herbs, lemon slices, leeks and sweet spring spinach are the elements for our moon food recipe. I recommend having a little moment with each ingredient. Use your senses and get connected to your ingredients.

Things To Do This Season

Work with The Lovers Card

Cook soup- Try Moon Food Spring Cabbage Soup

Craft with friends. Play. Make something that channels your inner kid or teen.

Clean your kitchen

Take a ritual bath-salt, oils, and a blessing for you <3

Go for a walk in your neighborhood and thank the plants you pass by

Plant wild flowers

Add a little glitter to something

Golden Hour Walks

Read 1980’s lesbian poetry-Adrienne Rich and Dorothy Allison

Read Kimberle Crenshaw’s new memoir Back Talker: An American Memoir

Read Grace Jones Memoir (One of my faves ever)

Dance it out to disco

Try one new accessory you have wanted to wear

Go see art somewhere out in the world. Or spend 1 hour researching a type of art. Write 1 page descriptive essay about something you saw that you did not like and why. Hint-take notes:)

Read LA Defensa’s Voter Guide

Book A Tarot Reading With Me-Friday’s are open now!

Water your garden

Walk barefoot in grass

Make a zine

Caress Moss

Make a Flower Essence

Dance To Wild Spring Playlist

Spray rose water on your pillows before bed

Drink Lemon Balm Tea

Love on and protect Trans People

Read This Essay by Dorothy Allison that I found in an email thread from 9 years ago. Still relevant and inspiring.