Hi All,
This week I’m continuing to read bell hooks All About Love, Sarah Schulman’s Conflict is not Abuse, and Reinventing your Life by Jeffrey Young and Janet Klosko which is a very intense self-help book whose premises I mostly disagree with but am finding interesting nonetheless. I’m also mulling over a talk I attended last week with psychologist marcela polanco as part of the narrative therapy training I’m in.
If you’re looking for ways to support the Palestinian people, I have found this action toolkit from the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights to be simple, trustworthy, and useful. This virtual gathering, Poets for Gaza looks like it will be beautiful and necessary, though I won’t be there because it is after my bed time. This art & books raffle to support medics in Palestine has prizes from Kiese Laymon, adrienne maree brown, Jamila Woods, Yumi Sakugawa, and many more including me.
Below are the daily cards for the week.
Take care of each other,
Jessica
Image description: A hand is holding a tarot card, Queen of Cups by Pamela Colman Smith for the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot. In the image, a person is sitting in a watery looking gown on a throne next to the sea. She is on the shore firmly, but very close to the water’s edge. She is holding an ornate chalice with her two hands at a distance from her body. She is looking at it in an intent, focused way.
October 18 | Queen of Cups | Caring listeners
There are listeners who validate unconditionally and reinforce the thing you came with and there are listeners who ask meaningful questions and take the time needed to cultivate understanding, together. In her book Conflict is not Abuse, Sarah Schulman writes about the responsibility of “the caring listener.” Caring listeners seek unique outcomes and sparkling moments.1 They resist the temptation to uphold a flimsy belief in favor of something thicker. A caring listener wants to know what really happened.
October 19 | Six of Cups | There are infinite views of the moon
Theologian Shelly Rambo has written that “we are tied to what we do not comprehend about each other’s pasts.”2 So much has shaped me that I’ve never considered. So many details I’m not aware of, let alone capable of telling. Every secret is at best a translation. I can vow to be honest. But what does that mean, really, when there are infinite views of the moon?
October 20 | Seven of Swords | Truth’s a tricky concept
What I’m saying is, truth’s a tricky concept. Is it lying if you were lying to yourself at the time? Still, there’s something to be said for the recognition that—depending on the stakes of a situation—not everyone feels that pull to the bottom of things. Sometimes our needs to belong or connect override our desire to know. Very often our need to see ourselves in a particular way—ex. good or bad, innocent or guilty—cloud our vision.
October 21 | Ace of Cups | “Give the actual moment a chance”
In a talk I recently attended, psychologist marcela polanco spoke about the idea that “we are trained to feel.” Though I don’t think this is what she was driving at necessarily, it seems true that we learn to feel certain things at certain times, and to think certain words about feelings. Sometimes big feelings get hijacked by words, so that—in the words of Sarah Shulman—we “don’t give the actual moment a chance.”3