34: a list of words I used a lot last year 📓
lovers year lessons, chariot year transitions (january 2023)
Iteration #34 of this monthly letter full of feelings. This issue's theme is: ✶ reflections & transitions ✶
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2022 gave me a lot of lessons in self love & gentleness. Something about numerology & tarot says that is was the year of The Lovers. It isn’t so obviously about romantic love, but the connection to self, personal power, and choice. When I would try to think positively or simply just softly about myself, I would feel deep discomfort in my physical body. I confronted the desire to punish myself.
I worked on allowing ✧ e a s e ✧ with my work and my life, not second guessing things that come easily, trusting myself, not assuming work has to be inherently challenging at all times. Rejecting the patterns of self sabotage and throwing myself under the bus, second arrowing. Allowing space for surprise when I release control.
There has been so much…stickiness. Icky feelings stuck to me, abandonment wounds creating scarring so itchy. Stagnancy. Waiting for the train to come back around this way. Beating myself up for not being at the right place at the right time and simultaneously learning to accept where I am, learning to love the coziness of each moment and trying out ✿ optimism ✿
2023 is the chariot year. In tarot, the chariot urges us to focus on the journey, the travel, the process; transitions, transformations, movement, looking forward. Being held by the chariot of your intuition bringing you where you need to go. This little container of trust. It’s literally a vehicle. Saturn exits aquarius + enters pisces this month and I think that means my ~saturn return~ is coming to an end. I’m unclenching my fists around everything I held onto too tightly and clearing the corners of my life for things that click, that don’t feel sticky. I’m choosing to think of this year as a sacred transition, moving into the next big chapter (and maybe I don’t know exactly what that is but I’m making space). Shedding, transporting, connecting, blossoming, boldness, forward momentum.
I made a playlist to get into the ~spirt. It’s part manifestation, part pick-me-up, part reminder. For where I want to go, for getting back to versions of myself I thought I lost, for imagining futures. Can you tell I really want to buy a house?
I also made an ins + outs list, the new year’s hottest social media trend. I can’t deny that I love a good list. Lists are an art form – one of my favorite art forms. I drool over a really thoughtful list, a synchronistic list, one with charm. Show me a raw list of thoughts, to dos, human experiences, reminders. Gathering and sorting information as a gift to yourself. Collecting data is self care. Lists are a love language.
What were you feeling this time last year / what are you feeling now? I’m feeling more hopeful than before. It might have something to do with being on Prozac now. 🙃 The star became a big symbol for hope and optimism for me last year (so much so that I got it tattooed on my chest). I’ll keep carrying that through the next.
“Recent” can be taken with a grain of salt here. January has mostly just been for catching up on 2022 work. In the spirit of reflection, I was going to come up with some sort of “favorite images of the year” or something, but as I was combing my hard drive I found (as I often do) that I’ve had so little time for archiving and organizing, I mostly just have a lot of dusty scanned contact sheets. So here are 5 little strips of dusty film from 2022: ins and outs and both/and ins and outs.
Don’t you love people that are like a weird little secret door ✶ 2022 was the year of trying ✶ a ~bereal~ moment I loved in january when karolena just showed up one afternoon in kingston ✶ a 🕯️ photograph by justin j wee ✶ let us attempt softness by nathaniel russell ✶ jessica dore (author of tarot for change) on the star ✶ gottesss on the chariot ✶ aliza kelly on coincidence ✶ sweet friend svetlana text that reads “maybe it’s too noisy around you and you need to whisper to be heard instead?” + group chat goodness “you contain multitudes”
What are your ins & outs for 2023? What brilliant lists have you seen or made? What were you feeling this time last year & what are you feeling today? Now? Lately? In the last second? This second?
PS: happy friday the 13th!
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This newsletter was written in & sent from the Munsee Lenape & Schaghticoke territory. To learn more about the unceded land you occupy, visit native-land.ca ⋰
