When Intuition Strikes...

Divine timing can be a challenging lesson to learn as a human. We want to logic things to our wit's end, and that's never beneficial for our well-being. As an academic, I relied on my ability to logic my way into and out of all sorts of career responsibilities and moves. And then, one day in 2017, everything changed. My logical brain was forced to take a back seat to the intuitive journey for which I was meant.

I've been documenting what I have been calling my soul journey for nearly five years, not even realizing when I started earnestly journaling again in 2018, and for the first time since I was a teen, what a soul journey was. I didn't know what an awakening looked like. That these notes, and later audio recordings, would turn into memoirs and other forms of writing was a surprise even to me, the person with TWO creative writing degrees that she has supposedly never put to use.

And then all of that changed, too, in the summer of 2022, with a series of revelations that writing (and speaking) was my way of teaching, of healing, of serving others. And that sharing my writing, even before it takes the shape of a book in your hand or a page in your Kindle, is crucial to my service to the world.

But, again, as an academic and as a cis-gendered woman, I was taught that service should be given away for free, and piled on, until one's back breaks. Service is a lifetime(s)-long problem that I have been working through, and every time I feel the weight of adding one more thing I don't realllly want to do, I am reminded of the 10 of Wands in tarot. I cannot help but be grateful for the learning journey that accompanied my awakening, which has included a heavy dose of studying tarot with some fantastic teachers I will post about later.

The 10 of Wands card comes up a LOT when I or others are on the edge of too fucking much. Among other possible interpretations, it's a reminder to lay that shit down. We don't need to take on more than we can, and some of those wands don't even belong to us. 10 of Wands reminds us we're at the end of that burdensome journey, and it's OK to drop it all like pick-up-sticks and see where things fall.

I've done a lot of laying down of burdens, things I've told myself I need to carry for myself or others, over the last two years. And it has been a delight to re-learn how to say no and actually mean it. At the same time, my intuition has spiked, and I've been able to tap into my creative aspects over and over, in ways that excite me. When I tell a story from this journey, others' reactions range from amused to mystified.

It reminds me of an exercise I had to do a year ago for a business course I was taking, in which the incredibly smart and woo-woo instructor (Go Laura! Go Laura!) asked us to email five of our contacts/friends and ask them one simple question: "What would you say my top five personality traits/quirks are?" and my friend Megan replied with some of the most insightful responses ever. She wrote:

High Ambition/High Achievement: Your expectations of yourself are just as high as your expectations of others – probably higher! Sometimes this looks like publishing six books a year and having a 37-page (as of 2017) CV; sometimes this looks like planning a mostly spontaneous, covert, cross-country, child-wound-healing road-trip/spirit-journey/memoir-formation-horse-therapy-business-quest, carrying only the things you can fit in your Ford Escape (including a box full of magic) and pulling it off!

which made me laugh, because true. But it was her take on my ability to, as she called it, "long-view storytell"—a trait that other friends have lovingly remarked on, but not quite with the pinache of Megan's talent for beautiful wordcrafting:

Obviously, as a creative writer and extrovert, you are good at keeping folx captivated with the [often absurd] things that happen to you – a hornet in the mouth for example. But you also have an uncanny ability to see the story’s origin, which many times is lurking decades or even lifetimes away, then connect it to a future dot, even if its ultimate destination is still obfuscated. This is the thing that makes the stories so compelling. It is never actually about the hornet in the mouth. To believe otherwise is to miss the point. It is also what makes you a great leader.

I mean, who doesn't cry when they read something like that about themselves?! I am honored to have friends like this. And their seemingly simple words strike deep to remind me that sharing my gifts with others is a key component of my own healing, my own journey, my own higher calling.

I've been planning to release a public, membership-based site for my memoir and other non-fiction writing, and I kept putting it off. Guilt crops up when 'putting things off' feels like procrastination, and we have been taught to chide ourselves for such lack-of-bootstrap bullshit by cultures (white supremacist culture, to be specific), religions (white supremacist-based religions, such as Christianity, to further clarify), and economies (you get the gist here, I'm guessing; i.e., capitalism is a white-supremacist shit-show). I've been slowly—and in some cases, quickly—undoing these and other cultural and ancestral beliefs over the past few years.

And it's that journey, those journeys, that I want to share with you on this site.

When Intuition Strikes is a name that came to me today, as I was finally starting this website, and I listed a bunch of random titles. When I jotted down this one, I glanced at the clock: 11:11. Syncronicity. Great awakening. Divine timing. All possible spiritual meanings for that exact time of the day. I can't say I'm stuck on When Intuition Strikes, but it suits for now, which is all we can ask. It doesn't have to be my forever title; just my right-now, divine timing title.

In this website/newsletter, my goal is to post in-progress drafts of several books I'm working on, including my soul-journey memoir, stories about leaving academia (it's not quit-lit, I promise!), living on the road, being a professional house guest, and more. Some of this work I will release publicly via open posts, but much of it will be released to members of this site, via a weekly newsletter.

So, if you are into long-view, scenic storytelling, told in nonlinear, serial fashion, where each post points to a dot in our collective future, I would love to have you join me. A basic membership is free and additional tiers offer monthly or weekly bonuses, including in-person (virtual) tarot readings, so please check out the offerings and let me know if you have any questions! I would be delighted to hear from you (which you can do by Replying to this email or posting in the Comments).

Much love,

Cheryl