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Shame, Part 1: The Devil Inside

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“Which is the most universal human characteristic: Fear or laziness?”   Waking Life,  Richard Linklater, 2001     Throughout my life, I’ve been accused by certain relatives of laziness. They may well be right. I have a tendency to procrastinate, to choose comfort over exertion. But in my mind, the answer to the above question is, unequivocally, fear. In my mind, all laziness stems from fear, and in my case, fear of failure due to fear of rejection. As a lifelong would-be perfectionist raised by would-be perfectionists, I don’t believe my disability is autism or ADHD (that’s another post for another time). In fact, I would boldly argue that fear is perhaps the most debilitating disease in all of humanity. It's what keeps us stuck at square one over and over, forever in the first stage of the Fool's journey.   The above image is the Fool Card from the  Modern Witch Tarot  deck (Lisa Sterle, 2019). As we can see, t he Fool isn’t consumed with worry. (If anything, she needs to open
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Retrograde: A Return to Balance

  “Slow down, you move too fast. You got to make the mornin’ last.”   Simon and Garfunkel, “Feelin’ Groovy”   This Saturday, we’re one week into the second Mercury retrograde of the year, this time under the Gemini Sun. It was headed off by a major lunar eclipse under the Flower Moon, and will be capped by a second eclipse. Those of us versed in astrology all know what Mercury in retrograde usually forebodes: Communication breakdown. Misunderstandings galore. Technology gone haywire. Uncharacteristic mistakes (or if, like me, you’re accident-prone, they’re unavoidable.)   In my view, it’s the Universe’s way of telling us to step back and enjoy the fruits of our labor, to give our minds and bodies a chance to replenish and rejuvenate, and to honor everyone’s unique contributions. In the Book of Deuteronomy (Chapter 15), the Israelites are commanded to observe the year of Jubilee. Every seven years, they are to set aside their usual labor and reap the rewards for their effort. The privil
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If Not Now, When?

If you had told me in 2019 that today I would be seeking a career in tarot reading and energy healing, I would have thought you’d had too much to drink. But this was before that most infamous of years, 2020. I was undergoing substantial personal growth after abandoning the faith of my upbringing and immersing myself in the magical world of entheogens. But I still had quite a lot of growing up to do, and the year 2020—a year of many endings—made it sure of this. Naturally, a beginning follows every ending. For something to be born, something else has to die. For a tree to be born and grow, a seed has to be buried in the soil. In short, life is born of sacrifice. Understanding sacrifice is difficult for a society immersed in instant gratification. Many of us are so removed from the world of our ancestors that we forget what it cost them to live and give life. Many of us live away from the farms that source our food. We don’t witness the planting, harvesting, cutting, and packaging of wha
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