Everyday Woo (Volume 8)
The DL on dharma. Plus, I'm getting meta and writing about writing...and sharing some deeply personal work.
Everyday Woo is a place for the woo curious to learn a little more about tarot and spirituality in a not-too-serious way. Here’s what I’m thinking about this week…
✨ Dharma in Real Life: Purpose in Pop Culture
There’s this episode of Cartoon Network’s Rick and Morty where Rick, a scientific genius, invents something called Mr. MeeSeeks Box, which is designed to placate his needy family while he’s off doing Big Sciencey Adventures. Basically, the box generates a Mr. MeeSeeks, a tall, thin blue dude with orange hair who has only one objective: to help the one who summons it improve their life in some way. Whether you want to be popular (like Summer’s request in the episode) or improve your golf game (Jerry’s ill-fated goal), your Mr. MeeSeeks won’t rest until you are satisfied.
Once Mr. MeeSeeks has helped the summoner achieve their goal, he disappears, blissfully happy at having accomplished his essential purpose in life. And if they can’t do what they were called to the Earth to do? The MeeSeeks become terribly unhappy, angry and even (in some cases) violent. Their very existence is painful--the further away they get from their goal, the more unbearable their lives become.
Profound, right?
I know what you’re thinking. Is she really going to draw some sort of analogy between a deep spiritual concept and a raunchy Adult Swim cartoon? Yes, dear reader. Yes, I am.
The way I see it, the MeeSeeks and their purpose-driven lives are a modern nod to the ancient Hindu concept of dharma.
Sahara Rose, author of Discover Your Dharma, defines dharma as “your soul’s purpose--the reason why you are here.” As humans, we have an essential need to know our why. Without understanding our dharma, Rose describes us as cars constantly veering off of the highway of our soul’s journey, tempted by shortcuts that distract us from our true purpose.
It sounds like a no-brainer: figure out your dharma, and you’re golden.
But that’s actually the hardest part. Most of us are not born knowing what our dharma is. Others may have known what our dharma was as a child but have let life sway our focus in favor of more “practical” paths. Our soul knows exactly what its purpose is--the challenge of our human existence is to remember what our soul already knows so that we can do what we’re meant to do in this life.
As I read through Rose’s book, I realized that my childhood hopes and dreams were something I needed to revisit. When I think back to what I found the most joy in as a child, the answer always comes back to writing. I mean, check out the first book I ever wrote, a thrilling tale of a mouse who had a spelling problem (not to mention that he’s orange…):
As a six-year-old girl, I had vision. I had passion. I had purpose! I knew I wanted to be a writer, and everyone around me knew it too.
What happened?
Imposter syndrome. Fear of not having anything original to say. Stress surrounding the idea that I needed a “real” job, not just one that people in movies have. Lack of a concrete vision.
At the age of 33, I am returning to my childhood dream of writing, but now, I have more understanding of what it looks like. My early years of writing stories and creating meaning let me know that the written word is essential to my purpose.
Through my experience as a teacher, I learned that helping people is part of my dharma. My divorce taught me that healing is another piece to my purpose puzzle. And when I picked up a tarot deck and started reading for others, it all came together: I’m meant to use writing as a way to share my healing experience and help people move forward in their own spiritual journey.
There’s no way I could’ve known that when I was younger. The Universe allowed me to have certain experiences that lead me to this understanding. And I didn’t get it when I was 15. I needed to live a little longer to receive my purpose. And that’s okay.
Whether you’re in your 20s or your 60s, dharma doesn’t have a deadline (except for when we leave this life for the next). Even though society makes us feel like we need to have a life plan, a 401K and a book deal by 25, you can figure out your dharma at any age. It’s never too late to sit down and ask yourself if you feel that you’re living your highest truth.
If you’re feeling stuck, uncomfortable or unfulfilled in your life, this is the Universe’s gentle nudging to look closely at your purpose.
Here’s a few tips for starting your dharma identification journey:
Make a happy list. When you’re happiest, what are you doing? Think outside of the confines of tangible creation activities: you can be happiest being a mother, planning a trip, giving advice, grooming dogs...the cool thing about dharma is that it’s unique to you.
Once you’ve got your happy list, see if you can infuse those happy-making things into your life in a regular sort of way. For example, writing and sharing it with others makes me happy. So, I started posting snippets of personal essays on Instagram. And people vibed with it--a good sign that you’re living your dharma. If you’re in it, the majority of people respond positively to what you’re doing.
Call in opportunities to share your happy with others. See how it makes you feel. The Universe loooooooooves when we’re paying attention to our dharma, so often, it’ll send us people and opportunities to use it. Keep your eyes peeled for these connections, but also seek them out yourself. If you’re feeling called to take that pottery class, sign up! This might be the push you’ve been looking for.
Reframe how you look at resistance. I mean, if you go counterculture to just about anything, there will be folks who rain on your parade. It’s worth noting that people who aren’t living their dharmas will be put off by the energy of those who are. As Biggie says, “haters gonna hate.” Let ‘em. In a weird way, it’s confirmation that you’re on the right path. You’re living your truth, and that’s what matters.
I’m a dharma newbie in the sense that I feel like I’ve only recently begun to really figure it out. But when I tell you that things will start to fall in place once you’ve figured out your purpose, I’m not kidding. It’s not always in the form of job offers, public recognition or going viral. Alignment can be subtle and small, like the genuine message of gratitude that you receive or a small wink from the Universe.
Last week, as I was writing down some spiritual journey thoughts while sitting in my car in the grocery store parking lot, I saw a guy, around my age, leap on the back of his shopping cart and sail all the way to his car, just like I used to do when I was a little kid. It was such a blissful moment of stolen joy in the midst of a mundane task.
I knew it was the Universe’s way of saying, “you’re returning back to your inner child through your writing. Keep going.”
And I plan to do just that. 🌻
Looking for a unique way to welcome in the new year without abandoning the lessons of 2021? I launched a new, intimate offering on my site called the windows + mirrors reading. It’s a cool way to reflect on the past year and to look forward to the exciting energy 2022 holds for you. This live call opens with a guided visualization practice, after which we’ll use tarot cards to channel messages for the past year + what’s ahead.
As part of my commitment to accessibility, I am offering this reading on a sliding scale. No questions asked. You can book at the following rates: 45 / 55 / 75
I have a limited amount of space for these readings, so grab one today if you’re interested. And if you want to gift one? Reply to this email and we’ll work it out!
🌙 Writing to Heal: Using Words to Transmute Pain
Part of naming and claiming my dharma involved hitting the rewind button and examine how my writing purpose has changed over the years.
When I was younger, I wrote for the sheer joy of telling a story and using my imagination. Just ask my mom—she has the entire Mousekin series stored away somewhere in a box that will somehow appear in my house at some point without me knowing (anyone else’s parents always trying to get you to take that random box crammed with your 4th grade art projects and 3rd place ribbons from field day at school? Just mine?).
Throughout school, I’d start and stop random stories, typed furiously on the old Dell PC in my family’s basement. Through the haze of my teenage angst, I pounded out dramatic tales of drunk driving accidents, crushes gone sour, and, strangely, scripts for plays that always ended up sounding like unaired Dawson’s Creek episodes.
Somewhere around the time I was in college, I realized that my attention span was too short to write a full-blown book, so I began to experiment with the confessional style of writing, sometimes referred to as a personal essay.
My purpose here was simple: I wrote to make sense of feelings that I was experiencing, which were often painful ones. Break-ups. Feeling misunderstood. Grappling with my transition out of organized religion. These experiences became fodder for my pieces, which were like journal entries turned up to 11…with metaphors thrown in.
Today, I’m coming to understand that this intensely personal writing is meant transmute my pain. It’s my special brand of alchemy that lets me transform these experiences into a meaningful part of my growth. When I write, I blend the creativity of my childhood with the emotional intensity of my teens and early 20s. My 30s have brought a maturing perspective to my work—I’m finally able to ask the question, “why?” and arrive at an answer of sorts. All because I write about it.
Recently, I realized that the final step in this writing process is sharing. I need to share my work with a wider audience because I find that final bit of solidarity and resonance that I crave. It helps me to not feel so alone—every time someone reads what I write and finds a piece of themselves, I am reminded that our human experience is so beautifully intertwined.
The essay that you’re about to read centers around an abusive relationship that I experienced shortly after my divorce (so proceed with caution if any of that may be a trigger for you). This is my story, my pain, transformed into deep understanding. I hope that my healing helps you on your own journey.
The Moon
“Come here. I want to show you something.”
You stood by the river, swollen with rain. Your hand reaching towards me. An invitation I could never refuse.
I stood by you. The river, urgently beating against rocks slick with moss. Me, unsteady in my gait, looking hard at the churning water. Trying to see whatever it was that you saw.
A crayfish. It clung, desperately, to the edge of the rock we stood on, moments away from being swept into the chaos of the river. It looked pitiful, as if it was fully aware of its fate yet determined to stave it off for one more moment.
You stood there and watched it struggle.
I imagined how to save it.
***
Seasons passed, and memories of you faded, replaced by a soft ache where my fingers bumped up against the places where the grip of your hands had left bruises.
My thighs. My breasts. The softest parts of me, long since healed, still remembered what it felt like to be twisted and pulled by you. I always told you that I loved your hands. Traced the whorls of your fingerprints, memorized the creases in your knuckles. I loved them even when they hurt me.
I tried to forget that part, the hurting. But you came up, again and again. The cards always reminded me. The 3 of Swords. The Devil. The 5 of Cups in reverse.
But mostly, the Moon. When I asked how to heal from you, it was always the Moon, rising above the horizon and peering down at me, a giant, unseeing eye lolling back in the head of the sky. I withered under its gaze. The bruises bloomed once more across my skin and the static in my head became deafening. The Moon brought me to my knees, again and again. I could not see past its deception. Under its ghostly light, I saw frightening parts of me resurrect and careen towards the cratered surface.
I saw you in the Moon, skimming your hands across the river, stirring up what lay beneath. Bringing my pain to its surface. “Come here,” you said, again and again. “I want to show you something.” And there it always was, right at the bottom of the card.
A crayfish, crawling out of the water, clinging to the banks. Forcing me to look at it.
***
The river beat its way forward that day as if trying to escape away from us as we stood at its edge. The air was heavy, damp with coming rain. My hair curled at my temples, and you watched me as I tried desperately to rescue the crayfish.
I held a stick in my hand. A careful easing towards the prone body. A plea to stay with me.
But the rush of the water was too much. The crayfish let go. It slipped back into the stampeding current, where it was tossed against rock after rock until I could no longer see it. Gone.
“Sometimes, nature has to take its course,” I remember you saying dismissively. “Maybe it was meant to end that way. Some things can’t be saved.”
***
Much later, I would think of your hands and be able to see them for the claws that they were. But for a long time, I could not stop looking for you. I would watch, horrified and intrigued, as you emerged in the stillest moments, slick with water. I would see the disturbance of the ripples that you created as you clung to the edges of me. Still, I reached for you.
Under the illusion of the Moon, I strangely longed for your touch in the moments right before falling asleep. I felt you crawling up my thigh. Dragging your spiny legs across my skin.
You reminded me of the ugliness that crawls out of the deepest parts of me.
***
With time, the cards change. The Star. The 8 of Cups. The Empress in upright. The Moon falls below the horizon.
Nature takes its course. Your grip finally loosens. I still remember your hands, but I see them clearly now.
I am once more at the edge of water, this time an ocean. My skin damp with saltwater, a pair of fins dangling from my hand. I had not waited for the depths to come to me this time. I had gone to them, plunging beneath the surface myself.
I stood next to my partner, who holds a lobster in his hands. Droplets of water cling to its back. I watch the slow open and close of its claws. I see its spiny legs peddling in the air, its body so much smaller than it seemed underwater.
I see the crayfish, nestled within the lobster. I see the outline of bruises too in the mottled spots on its back.
And I see myself, reflected in the moonlight-dappled shell. She is beautiful.
A river roars up within me, cracks through my heart and crashes forward, drenching my skin and releasing the last of the crayfish’s grip.
Finally, the water sweeps you away.
I love it when my writing resonates with others. Let me know what you think, either in the comments or by sending me an email (just hit reply if you’re reading this from your inbox).
Mantra for the week: I blend my past with my present and celebrate the unique cartography of my experiences.
Go write something.* Even if it’s like three sentences, and even if it doesn’t make sense. You might be surprised what comes out.
*grocery lists totally count. We all gotta start somewhere.
Thank you so much for supporting my writing. Truly, it is wild to me that people actually want to read my words, so I am grateful for you.
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