Dear Dreamers,
God, I don’t even know what to say here. Hello. Howdy. I hope you’re doing okay, wherever you are. Since we’ve spoken last, I’ve been to Baltimore, a city I can’t say I’m quite fond of, though I did have a delicious meal of oysters, crab cakes, lobster gnocchi, calamari, and more at Thames Oyster House and got to spend lots of time with Kayla, Kristen, and Eliana, which made even my horrific experience with American Airlines worth it. I was there for AWP, which you can read more about here, and between tabling, off-site events, and my very own panel on Indigenous representation in fiction, I talked and talked and talked and listened and listened and listened, which, of course, I love to do.
So it’s not surprising to me, really, with the stress of the airport and the other accumulated stresses of living in a world such as the one we find ourselves in, that I am, for the second time this winter, sick. It’s a run of the mill sickness for me, one readers of my other essays might be familiar with. It’s one where I cough and hack and gasp for air between coughing and hacking. Not a pleasant sensation, to be sure, but a familiar one. I’ll be okay, and that, too, is a privilege.
So while I can’t, really, give you any wide reaching mystical advice about surviving your second winter sickness, or just the pains of the heart, I can give you a few practical notes. First, remember social media is not real life, and God, or the Universe, or Spirit, or the ghosts, certainly do not exist there. Secondly, if you can, do something with your hands, your body, even if it’s just staring and contemplating the trees outside your window — listen to what the earth, the wind, the sky, is telling you. Finally, give yourself grace, but not too much. Wallowing is not what we do now. It’s not good for us, or for anyone else. If all else fails, light a candle, and then look into the mirror. Say: I’m going to live.
Sending you good dreams,
Cowboy
A Question for the Tarot
How do I hold it together as the world falls apart?
– Lua
Dear Lua,
Thank you for the gift of your question. It’s such an important one and one that I have been struggling to answer myself as of late, as I’m sure many of us have. In the intro to this newsletter, I noted a few tips that I feel still hold here, but I know you’re asking for something specific, something you can hold.
Before we get to what the Tarot says about your question, I would also like to remind all of us worrying and fearing that life, almost assuredly, will go on. It may look different than we once expected it to, but it will go on. This is the most practical, magical, and hard to digest piece of advice I’ve ever received. I have always clung hard to my dreams and my visions and have disliked when they’ve shifted. But that malleability is how we survive, at least in the grand scheme of things. And, honestly, deconstructing our faith or halfway support (and I’m also speaking very much to ingrained and trained faith) in the crumbling Empire and instead putting that faith and support into each other, into our communities, and into learning valuable and impactful skills is going to be hard, but it will always be worth it.
In your note to me, you let me know that you’re autistic and that everything feels especially intense and present, which is very, very relatable. My anxiety can often be a choking vise with stacking weights. Malleability and shifting routines can also be anxiety-inducing, and so for you, when I asked the Tarot, I did not do so with the intention to turn your life upside down or to add things to your already heaped plate.
Instead, I went forward in mind with things that might bring you peace, or joy, or at least a moment of quiet. For you, Lua, I drew, THE FOOL, which counsels you to lean into the unknown, where you can, in safe doses. And also, when life feels overwhelming, and outside forces are especially negative, to lean back into rest, relaxation, and to things you truly enjoy doing. This isn’t selfishness, no. It’s survival.
See you on the Other Side,
CC
Queer Dream Interpretation
I have this recurring dream where I am a little boy (I am a 28 year old enby AFAB person irl) and I am in a barn-like building. No AC and no power. In this barn with a lot of other people and it feels crowded. We are all wearing matching clothes. Someone opens the door and throws literally one piece of bread on the floor for us all to share. People’s health and needs are neglected.
– Ivy
Notes: is this giving past life/ orrrr <3
Dear Ivy,
Thank you for the gift of your dream. As you know, I truly love a recurring dream. I also actually felt a physical pang when I read your description of said recurring dream. Perhaps it was the barn-like building, the no air-conditioning, much like that haunted house in the woods where I lived until I could live there no longer. Where nothing living should.
This all to say, in this dream, you are unlike the thing you are in the waking world, yes, you are wholly different. A different form, a different life. You, and the people around you, are suffering. In your (very cute) note to me, you ask if this dream is a forgotten memory, a line connecting you to your past life, and, quite honestly, I think it very well could be. I wonder how long you’ve had this dream, and when it began, but in my spirit, it rings true, for what that is worth.
If you weren’t the type to believe in past lives, though, I’d tell you that I think sometimes the suffering at-home and abroad creeps into our dream lives. That this dream, though it comes in a folksy tune, is a manifestation of such sufferings, and isn’t too far afield from things happening to our neighbors, or global neighbors, and those we ought to keep caring about. I think both things, actually, can be true simultaneously.
What I recommend, in your case, is to keep careful note of when this dream recurs. Note where you’re at, what your mood was that day, if everything was normal, or if something felt strange. Are all the details the same, or do they shift and move under your fingers? The stronger your tether to the dream, to the life, the past one, in this realm, the stronger your knowledge and control of it will be as you move forward.
Please let me know how this goes. Write in again. Let yourself explore this place, who knows what it might bring you.
See you on the Other Side,
CC
