An essay on how I am entering this week and this new age. Come with me.

Monday: The Moon

On Monday, November 18, 2024, I attended my Akashic Records course with my teacher, Felicia. I haven’t been participating a whole lot because most of the attendees are focused on business/income abundance, and I’m focused on pulling my energy back and feeling like I have a direction after the last eight months of family and health and travel whirlwind. 

During class, Felicia calls on me second-to-last because I have begun leaving my camera off during the Zoom meetings, and she calls on us in the order she sees us, which is by arrival time and camera use. So I tell her briefly what the outcome of my previous week’s homework was (“to rest” and “to let others’ BS slide off of me and still see their light”), which was successful. Then I tell her that my goal for the coming week is to finish inventorying my dad’s garage and also to figure out how to deal with some of my own financial abundance issues because, even though I have learned not to get scared about my low income, I overdrew my bank account for the first time in decades last week. I had to quickly shift some money around, and draw some interest off of a deep savings account I set aside to purchase land for my commune. But I also knew that it wouldn’t be enough to hold me until my next paycheck came in. Even admitting that I had overdrawn my account made me grimace, but I also understand that money is just energy, so saying it like No Big Deal would help me re-align with abundance energy. 

Felicia, whose abilities include tapping into the Akashic Records in any situation and getting guidance from the archangels (mostly Michael, but also any others who step forward and have healing for a person), suddenly starts fanning herself. This has happened for the last three meetings—she goes through the rest of the 6 or 7 folks in the meeting totally fine, and when she gets to me and my mundane bullshit, she has a hot flash. Except it’s not a hot flash. It’s Archangel Michael standing behind her left shoulder, inflaming her whole body because that’s how he presents. With the heat of the matter. She asks him to step back. Lol. He does. 

And then she grabs her chest and says the words I somehow knew would come next: “There’s a giant spider on my heart chakra.” I laugh. The spiders. They always come for me. We have a conversation about spiders as the inventors of the alphabet, the mothers of creativity. I have learned to love the spiders, even as I don’t want to see them (so there’s still some fear and hesitation in my creative process to address). I tell her she can send the spider over to me. 

As she continues fanning herself, she says, “We need to get to the root of why you’re afraid of abundance, and the state of your bank account, when you know you’re going to have an influx of money coming in soon [from a project we previously talked about].” I shrug.

And then she says, “There’s an ex here.” 

“Damn! Why won’t this woman leave me alone?!” I respond. This is the second time this ex has appeared during one of my sessions with Felicia in the last few months. [Insert story about discovering the energetic root of my Lyme’s Disease, that my ex is an energy vampire, and I now refer to her as “The Tick.” We thought Felicia had already cleared the cords between the Tick and I.] 

Felicia continues, “Did you loan this person money out of your savings?” 

“Yes. All of my at-hand savings. About $4,000 last year.” 

She asks, “Is this the ex you left when you were traveling abroad last winter?”

“Yes. lol. It’s The Tick.” 

She says, “Why is she back?! I thought we cleared her?!” To wit, the archangels do their whispering and inform her that, yes, we did, but there are additional cords to be cut. So she asks them why we didn’t cut them all last time?! And they tell her it’s because we didn’t ask them to. We only asked them to cut the cords related to the Lyme's Disease. :/ 

Lesson: Working with the divine spirits is like working with Scandinavians. You have to be VERY EXPLICIT to get them to do exactly what you need. 

So she asks my permission to cut all the fucking cords, and I agree, and so it is. 

I then return to the issue of the spider. Spiders come for me when I need to write. And I have been thinking for months and months of writing about the $4,000—money I will never get back from her. I've been working on letting it go, but wondered if would be useful to commit the lessons I learned from that relationship to paper, for others to witness and learn from and heal. 

Felicia says to sit on it for a few days and then come back to it, using my tarot, to help me make a decision. So I do. 

Tuesday: 10 of Swords

Trigger warning: Tarot card featuring a death scene and discussion of my death in a past life. Skip to the Wednesday section if you need.

Tuesday is Pluto’s transit into Aquarius, for the first time in 248 years. It's a big fucking deal. I acknowledge that part of my purpose in this life is sharing small bits of divine information I've gathered with people. Not just writing for myself, but writing so that others may read. I start the day by writing a Facebook post: 

Nov 19, 2024—My cobbled together astrology report from many excellent sources is critically important today: Pluto enters Aquarius at 3:30pm eastern time for 20 years. A new age of Aquarius only comes around every 248 years—the last one was 1776, fyi.

The next 20 years is an opportunity for radical love, community-making, and societal revolution. We don’t know what that looks like yet, but it’s time to imagine the BEST possible scenario, and then work to make that happen within our abilities.

Shed any sense of lack of worth or ability and consider your role in light of the many small gestures that make up our collective being in this universe. You being the best possible you is what we need. Let go of what holds you back, and move forward with joy for what you DO love. It’s time.

People I know and love are stressed about the presidential election results—it did not go in favor of queer, BIPOC, women, poor, disabled, and other oppressed groups, of which I fall into several. But I cannot dwell in the disappointment of knowing that some people I love (my birth family) have voted against my human rights. They don’t see it that way, of course. But that is what has happened. This is part of the homework Felicia gave me the previous week to let the BS wash over me and still see the light in people. It is a daily practice. 

I just keep thinking—even though I’ve been distracted by negative energies for the last eight months and thus have taken my focus off my next steps in life: building my queer witch commune—now is the time to begin envisioning the community I want to build anew. Amidst the dystopia we have entered with the election, I need to believe that whatever small cohort I can help create will carry me forward for the next 20 years. (I then assume the Earth will be hit by an asteroid so large it will devastate this current version of our existence beyond anything recognizable, but that’s a different story, and I’d better live this life to its fullest while I can.) 

One of my priorities for Tuesday is to build an altar and take time to envision what my next steps in life are. The dreaming part of the revolution. I have also been putting off doing some shadow work related to my knee pain. I’ve received several forms of guidance from different people trying to help me get to the root cause. Earlier this year, we thought it was related to The Tick, and that is true, but also not entirely. Another of my mentors, Marilyn, suggested that knee pain is about not being grounded in this lifetime, and so I knew that meant a past-life regression might help me get to the root of that ungrounding. A friend suggested that knee pain is often related to fear of moving forward. Yes, that’s definitely been true. So my knee—not diagnosed as having anything wrong with it according to the orthopedic specialist or the infectious disease specialist—is getting hit from multiple metaphysical sides. Sounds about right. :/ And, yet, I’ve basically been putting off doing the internal work to figure out why. It was time. 

After I set up my altar for the Pluto transit, I meditated, during which a giant crystal spider came and sat on my heart chakra, giving me strength and confidence. I then moved into a past-life regression Felicia provided years ago as an audio file that I’ve found incredibly effective in helping me identify root causes of current problems in past-life containers. [There are several stories here worth examining at a later date.] Some of the key elements of this regression include going into it with an intention to visualize the scene that indicates the root cause of the problem, witnessing where I lived, what I wore, where and how I worked, how I died, and how I felt about my death. (One does not re-live their death in an active sense during these regressions. It’s like watching a movie.) The scenes move quickly, and every time I do a regression, I get a clear picture of the past and come to an instant recognition of the root cause, which helps me heal that wound immediately. It’s a powerful metaphysical tool that I use about once a year when I get really stuck, and I am grateful for it. I’ve been able to heal my witch wound, mother wound, and now, my purpose wound. (I don’t know that that’s a thing, but that’s what I’ll call it for now.) 

During this particular past-life regression, I went in with the intention of finding the root cause of my knee pain. I had a more challenging time than usual settling into the past-life scene; it wanted to take me to this current life, but then shifted suddenly to the Middle Ages, where I lived in a wooden tower and worked as a scribe in a library. But I didn’t just re-inscribe books; I also worked along other scribes to create new works of literature, magic, and other forms of knowledge. We were oracle in red robes, revered and somewhat feared by the townsfolk for our ability to create and distribute knowledge—integral parts of village life, with important but unstable standing. I was proud of the work we did. 

And then the church came along and decided we were heathens, spreading misinformation. The local church leader—a man not unlike Trump in appearance, with squalid blonde hair—began preaching in the town square against the library and the scribes, burning our books, and decrying our knowledge as false, scaring the townspeople into believing him. Typical power grab not even worth my time writing about. I stood and watched him deliver inane remarks about our work, dismissing his lies, but knowing what the outcome would be. 

In the next scene, I stood on the gallows, noose around my neck, with the churchy character cheering on my execution by hanging. So it was. The beauty of the past-life regression is that you get to witness your own death, but from a third-person perspective, not having to re-participate in the trauma of that death. You also get to acknowledge the feelings you had at and immediately after your death during that time, and that is where the healing for this life resides. In my case, what I felt from witnessing my hanging in that life was a rush of 

Not this joker again

I would write all of these books again

I do not regret this life, or how I lived it

I don’t give AF who is against me sharing knowledge

Ooooooh, my knee pain is deep-seated fear from still having a tiny part of me give AF about how others perceive me and my work!?

But I don’t care that I died doing what I loved and needed to do.

I am not scared of death.

It is my soul purpose in this life to continue sharing my gifts through writing.

I need to prioritize this work now! 

Even if that goes against whatever bullshit we’re about to live through in this lifetime. 

It’s time to write. 

The regression was complete, and I woke up, stretched, and made a strong commitment that I could feel in my cells to MAKE TIME to write write write! Not putting it off as I have been doing for the last 18 months. 

Wednesday: 7 of Pentacles

I did not write. 

But I did share this new knowledge about my purpose with several people I am close to. And I met with two friends who will be joining me at the queer witch commune and are helping me plan for it. As three people highly invested in higher education and scholarly communications, one remarked on the new appointment to Secretary for the Department of Education, a female wrestling entertainer. Her one job will be dismantling that department. Instead of throwing in the towel, I told them about our needs to imagine communal futures amidst the destruction that is already happening around us. Let’s get to work on this commune! And imagine how we might hold writing retreats! And that brought us some joy, as well as action items. 

Thursday: High Priestess

I woke up this morning and began a meditation on the High Priestess, my card of the day. It’s been an auspicious week, and I realized the priestess holds a copy of the Torah (in the Smith, Rider, Waite version of the cards)—a scribe who combines Hebraic, Egyptian, Greek, and pagan traditions, a melding of the divine masculine and feminine, of harmony and spiritual enlightenment. One of my favorite cards.

The card reads: 

Our futures are waiting to be revealed, we cannot know fully what lies ahead along the path we have chosen. Influences are at work, not yet ready to show themselves, influences that originate in our psyche, and strongly affect our personal lives. This is the card of the psychically gifted person, the mystic, the dreamer, one who can see beyond the material veil into other worlds and other times. Oftentimes, this card comes to those who, like the Sybils of old, have prophetic gifts. This is the card of artists, writers, musicians, and all those who can feel the wonderful influence of the Divine. The High Priestess is a wise counsellor, for she listens (rather than talks) to the Querent. She is a true and gracious friend. 

I honor this card for how it honors and reflects me. I often say that I’m the Empress on a meh day, and the High Priestess on a good day. I inhabit all of the qualities of the High Priestess in my work and way of being in the world, as often as I can. And yet I also struggle with her mystique—the not knowing. And that’s my burden as a Virgo; one that I am becoming more accustomed to working with rather than against. Being patient (7 of Pentacles). Seeking internal truths (The Moon). Allowing knowledge to come to me in its time. 

I also remember what Felicia said about asking the cards whether it’s in my best and highest to write the story of loaning money to The Tick. I had been holding off writing this story out of concern that writing it might re-attach cut cords. Felicia said it would not, but that whether I needed to write it in order to share it (for myself or others) would come to me soon enough. 

So this morning, once I got my coffee and collected some willow sticks blown into the yard from last night’s storm, I set about shuffling my largest and most earnest set of tarot cards: The Next World deck. This deck screams revolution while offering visions of joy and redemption amidst the scenes of chaos we live within. I love using it when I need deep-cutting moments of insight, a kind slap in the face to wake me from complacency. I don’t use it often. But today I was ready.

The 7 of Wands. Courage. This card makes visceral connections to Jonathan Bachman’s 2016 photo of Ieshia Evans standing her ground against militarized police after they killed a Black man named Alton Sterling, by holding him down and shooting him. We must not look away.

In Next World Tarot, artist Christy C. Road centers the Black women, giving her all the focus and power, and putting the police in the background. This is the future many of us hope for—decentering police and de-escalation of police and militarized presence in favor of giving voice and standing to previously oppressed voices. This woman has No Fucks Left To Give. 

I laughed when I pulled this card, knowing what meaning it would hold for me. Here’s what it says:

7 of Wands (Next World Tarot)

You recently had a vision—you are a priestess, a leader, an energetic plea for peace and justice. You have what you need—the resources, the knowledge, and the revolutionary intent to create something both educational and breathtaking—but a community, an individual, or a system unwilling to comply sits beside you.

There is a system of power that excuses hate violence; this system could run through a police state, a political power, or a lover. Through intimidation, scare tactics, and lies, they urge you to run and hide from your own magic.

The 7 of Wands cultivated a force field that surrounds the space where she creates her elixirs, makes her art, and strengthens her intuition—away from the claws of the oppressor. She asks you to do the same: strengthen your magnetic field, strengthen your core beliefs, and realize that you have this.

And so I write. I build my force field. I strengthen my core beliefs and chosen community. No one, including my own self, will intimidate me from making my art. I sit down and begin writing this story. And I will continue until it is all told.