I'm building sandcastles that won't last.

Maybe permanence isn't really the point.

Hi. I’m Katie. This newsletter is a place for the woo curious to explore spirituality, culture, and humanity in an intersectional way. Here’s what I’m thinking about this week…

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At the end of July, I stepped away from this newsletter. I needed a break.

I packed a suitcase with three swimsuits, a sun hat, a loose dress, and not much else. I drove 12 hours to spend 10 days with 14 other people in a sprawling beachside house on a South Carolina island. Which I realize doesn’t exactly sound relaxing. But it was exactly what I needed.

I needed to be around people who I love and who love me back. I needed to hear the high-pitched laughter of my 5-year-old nieces as they caught crabs in their tiny matching nets. I needed to see a spindly-legged plover darting in and out of the foamy waves, in search of its next meal.

And I desperately needed to sit on the damp sand and build a witch’s castle.

I don’t have the patience for traditional sand castles, or the type of dwelling fit for a king and his court. They require a level of planning, vision and structural soundness that make them a better fit for my engineer father.

Instead, when given the choice, I will always create a gloppy, often lopsided, vaguely sinister castle that looks like a covenstead—a place where witches of all walks gather together to chat about spells, herbs and the barely-perceptible bits of magic that float all around us.

Though I had pledged to take time away from creating, my hands still itched to do something while on vacation. So, one sunny day out on the beach, I plopped down into the sand and began to build.

Witch’s castles are made out of slightly saturated sand that dries quickly once it is exposed to sunlight. They’re easy to build: you scoop up the damp sand and let it drip from your fingers, creating turrets that spiral towards the sky.

Here there be witches.

Witch’s castles are naturally unstable—after all, they’re built on and out of wet sand. My creation was a shapeshifter. As soon as one tower would rise up to an impressive height, the perilously-placed sand would lose balance and crumble, disappearing into the even sameness of the beach beneath it.

Despite the multiple setbacks, I kept building. In fact, the destruction brought an element of whimsy and play to my work. As my fingernails turned into darkened half moons thanks to the wet sand beneath them, I found freedom in the lack of a plan…and more largely, the idea that what I was making had to last.

Because I knew it wouldn’t.

As the sun inched its way higher, my nieces, Olivia and Sophia, came over to examine my work. “Is it done?” Olivia asked, wrinkling her nose as she took in the unconventional architecture.

I looked at the castle. “I don’t think so,” I said, shrugging noncommittally. “Maybe I’ll add more on to it later. If it’s still here.”

I stood up, brushed the drying clumps of sand off of my thighs, and walked towards the ocean with my nieces, ready to jump over the incoming waves with them.

Nothing about my witch’s castle was certain. All of my work could be erased in one inhale and exhale from the ocean, one particularly zealous gust of wind.

As I turned my back on what I had built, I realized that I was strangely okay with it not lasting.

We live in a world that prioritizes permanence.

The jeans I pull on have a tag on the inside that says, “made to last.” The stick of gum that I pop in my mouth while walking out the door comes in a package labeled with the phrase “long lasting.” The bakery down the street boasts that it has been open for over 56 years. The local news runs a story about retiring teacher who worked in the same school for half of a century.

Everywhere I turn, the things around me are touted as being able to “stand the test of time,” to “outlast the rest,” and to stay the same.

This is not a bad thing—I, for one, do not wish for my jeans to fall apart the third time I wear them. I don’t want to buy deodorant that only works for 20 minutes before fading away. In life, there are some things that we simply need to last as long as possible.

But without even recognizing it, I have begun to view the non-permanent bits of life as dangerous. Wrong. Not worth my time. After all, if it isn’t going to stick around, why do it? What’s the point?

I brush past the inherent beauty of the ephemeral in favor of fixating on that which I believe to be permanent.

I talk myself out of hanging up a picture to fill the blank wall in my apartment because, well, I won’t live here forever. I scoff at those who spend hundreds of dollars on brightly-colored fireworks that will explode brilliantly and fade just as fast. I hold potential friends at arm’s length because I can’t guarantee that, when I move, our relationship will survive the distance.

I ignore the fact that, in life, nothing is truly permanent. The jeans will eventually fall apart. The bakery will close its doors one day or turn into an insurance office. Someone else will sit behind the desk in the retired teacher’s classroom. Any claim otherwise is illusion or misplaced hope.

So why am I chasing something that simply does not exist?

I am moving to be with my partner in 61 days. Two flips of the calendar. Two moon cycles. Eight weeks.

I stand in the center of my apartment and listen to the floors creak as I rock back and forth on my heels. I look around me at the blue sofa, the row of potted plants, the hand-carved wooden statue that my parents bought on their honeymoon. I try to imagine the apartment as it was when I first saw it: blank walls. Empty rooms. Dust motes spiraling in the air.

I find it hard to breathe when I think of the idea that this apartment, as it is, will not last. Deep down, I feel a sense of failure—the spiraling tower of hopefully-placed sand that I have built up over the past two years is starting to lean obviously to one side.

It will collapse.

I think of the people I know who are moving into their forever home, the ones who are working in a career that they know they will retire from. I feel jealous when I look at their permanence, forgetting that they, too, are building a witch’s castle, stacking sand on sand.

We all are. Some castles are just more obviously unstable than others.

I leave my living room and walk into my kitchen. I look at the strange embroidered scene that I purchased from a roadside vendor on Hilly and I’s first date back in 2020. I wrap my hands around its edges and lift it up from the place where it has hung for the last 744 days.

As I do so, the nail that I carefully hammered in two years ago comes with it and clatters to the ground.

I realize that, despite our best efforts otherwise, things will come to an end. Even the deepest nails eventually work their way out.

The past two days, I have been waking up early. I rub the sleep from my eyes, tug on my shoes, and ride my scooter to a local park. Once I’m there, I begin to walk.

The whole city is sleepy at such an early hour. Mist hovers over the tennis courts as the regular morning crew begins to filter in, swinging their rackets and stretching their legs. I pass by people walking their dogs and smile at the lady who has her hands full with three fluffy terriers that are hellbent on sniffing my ankles.

I pick up the pace as I round the corner and pass the butterfly garden, already teeming with life as the swallowtails check out the purple coneflowers and wild roses that are only just starting to fade.

I come up to the copse of trees that is home to perhaps my favorite part of the park, a place where magic seems to float on the breeze. Scattered around the base of the hickory trees are a collection of handmade homes, tiny enough for even the smallest fairy to inhabit if it so chooses.

I’m not sure who started the trend of placing these diminutive dwellings in this particular part of the park, but I love it. Each home is different: some are rough around the edges, built out of raw materials and suitable for a homesteading fairy. Others are covered in delicate, painted patterns and have the sweetest little shutters around the windows.

But what I love most about these beautiful homes is the fact that they are never the same.

Every time I have walked past the fairy houses, they have changed. Sometimes, new offerings of nuts and shells are found scattered outside of front doors. Other times, the hand carved animals near the farmhouse have been shuffled around—a wooden pig is now peering out of a window instead of grazing in his little enclosure.

It’s almost as if, each night, the fairies or the universe or a curious little child comes in and shuffles things around just enough to see who’s paying attention. To challenge the idea of permanence.

To challenge me and my clinging to the unchanged parts of life.

I pause my walk to stand and observe the fairy houses. I take stock of what has shifted and I realize that, in doing so, I am choosing to celebrate impermanence. At its core, magic is all about change—about alchemizing our reality, bit by bit, so that we can become the fullest, brightest expressions of ourselves…and choosing to change, again and again.

My mind drifts to the fairy houses, the witch’s castles, that I have built. The ones that are still standing but will soon fall. The ones I will build in the future.

I think of how liberating it is to say yes to the ephemeral. To welcome in the idea that yes, things will change. When I choose to embrace impermanence, I am choosing curiosity. Freedom. Growth.

Life can be so magical when we let it change.

What’s changing for you in life? And what parts of that change feel pretty stinkin’ magical?

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✨Cards for Humanity: The Wheel of Fortune ✨

Whether you’re into tarot or not, here’s a few things to consider about this weird thing called life.

Normally I share the Smith Rider Waite version of the tarot card I write about, but I really like the Morgan Greer iteration.

When I ride my scooter to teach yoga, I always pass by a St. Louis neighborhood called Bevo Mill, aptly named because there is a giant, 60-foot-tall windmill right smack dab in the center of it next to a biergarten. And it works! It rotates slowly, each of its arms sweeping up towards the sky and then back down towards the pavement. If I hit the stoplight next to it, I enjoy watching it turn, never resting in the same place for too long.

The Wheel of Fortune in the tarot is sort of like that windmill—always in motion. Sometimes, you’re cruising towards the sky, able to brush it with your fingertips, and other times, you’re like that figure tumbling off of the edge of the card, heading back down towards the earth to start all over again. You can always get back on the Wheel—life has given you an all-access ticket—but the one thing you cannot do is to stop it from turning.

The eleventh major arcana card in the deck does speak to the inexorable march of time, but more than that, it invites us to consider the moments where we try to throw a wrench in the Wheel and hold on a little longer to a certain chapter in life. Represented by the number 10, or an X in Roman numerals, the Wheel marks a literal turning point in our personal journey where we must practice non-attachment.

Sure, you can cling to the Wheel and try to hold on as you visit its underbelly, but letting go might allow you to rebalance, dust yourself off, and climb back on when you’re ready to release yourself into the embrace of the ephemeral in life and accept the changes that come.

The dancing royalty on the top of the Wheel represent that which we place much value and emphasis on in our lives—the moments where we feel like we’ve made it, where we believe that we have climbed to the top of the mountain and have all that we need. The Wheel forces us to reckon with the fact that nothing, not even that which we have worked so hard to build, can last forever. Even kings and queens will lose their crowns one day—the Tower, with its tumbling crown, proves that—but the loss doesn’t have to be the end of the story.

The disembodied hand that turns the crank of the Wheel reminds us that there is freedom in not being in total control of our destinies. We do have personal agency—the tarot reminds us of this—but in many ways, the bigger picture is churning along without our consent or influence. That’s kind of liberating, if you ask me.

When the Wheel of Fortune shows up in a reading, it’s time to take a close look at what parts of your life you feel stubbornly attached to—the places where you would like to freeze time and keep things just as they are. What beauty can you find in accepting the turn of the Wheel, even if it challenges your balance?

Growth is on the horizon, but it might require you to lose some of the crowns you wear. But there’s hope with the Wheel—what goes down must eventually come up.

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✨Prompts | The Wheel of Fortune✨

Meditate. Journal. Pull some cards.

☀️ What changes do you struggle to accept?

☀️ What does change feel like in the body?

☀️ Where in life do you need to release control over what happens next?

☀️ How can you find joy in the inevitable changes in life? What would it mean to approach change with a sense of wonder and play?

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✨Weekly Mantra✨

Write it down. Say it out loud. Share it with a friend.

I welcome in change because I know it helps me grow.

Glad to be back and writing again—thanks again for your support while I took a breather. Here’s to the next 61 days before I move!