I'm not at peace.

And when it comes to big decisions, I'm not sure I ever have been.

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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There’s a workplace hazard sign hung in my brain. It keeps track of how many days it has been since my mind has last caught on fire.

Today, it reads: zero days since Katie’s brain last caught on fire.

I don’t see it coming—I never do. Maybe the full moon, my recently-ended vacation, or the stress of my impending move are to blame. It doesn’t matter. Something flicks a lit cigarette into the dry, dead tinder of my mind. It becomes a wildfire.

I lie in my bed and hope that a mountain of blankets will either smother the flames or help me sweat out whatever terrible energy is swirling in my head. At some point, like I always do when I am in a low, I feel hopeless. My brain spits out anti-affirmations, one after another: I will never leave this bed. I will never feel okay. This time, I will burn alive.

Lesnoi pozhar (Forest Fire) | Aleksei Kuz’mich Denisov-Uralsky (circa 1900).

I call my mother because that’s what I do when I have run out of options. I don’t like to rely on the balm of her voice because it makes me feel weak. But I do it anyway.

She listens to me as I tell her how scared I am about life right now. I tell her I don’t know if I’m making the right choice to move, even though I made this decision months ago. She listens as I recite a laundry list of all of the things I can’t bring myself to do: selling my sweaters, making a budget, giving away my plants.

She tells me to make a different list, one of the things that must be done regardless of how I feel about them. She tells me to just sit and write it all down, to give my engulfed brain something concrete to look at. To quantify what feels as ephemeral and unstable as the flames flickering in my peripheral vision.

I tell her I will. I go to hang up.

She tells me to wait, that my dad has some advice for me. My pragmatic father, a person who is as decisive as I am not. He tells me that, in his life, that he has not been completely certain about any major decision he has made. I let a sigh escape my lungs.

But, he says, I have always felt at peace.

I suck air back in and feel my shoulders tense. Peace? I wonder. What does that feel like?

I stand with the phone pressed to my ear in the center of a copse of pine trees, each a column of orange-yellow fire. I can barely hear the sound of my mother’s goodbye over the explosive crackles of falling needles and groaning branches.

Though I am certain about nothing else, I know that I have never been at peace with my choices.

When I was little, my family went to church every Sunday. I spent two hours sitting in a scratchy pew and drawing in the margins of the weekly bulletin. When that became boring, I stared at my surroundings: the stained glass panels to the right and left. The wooden cross straight ahead.

Near Easter, things got more interesting. On Palm Sunday, people would line the aisles of the sanctuary and wave freshly-cut palm branches as the deacons marched down towards the pulpit, massive banners fixed to golden poles held aloft in their hands.

King of Kings, read a purple banner fringed in gold. Lamb of God, announced another, accompanied by a carefully-stitched wooly lamb.

But my favorite banner was a soft, cornflower blue. It had a pure white dove in flight at the bottom, an olive branch caught in its beak. Its message was short, simple, and meaningful.

Peace.

As the deacons hoisted the banners up to their places on the walls of the sanctuary, I wondered what peace felt like. I imagined still pools of water, taking a nap in the fluffiest cumulus clouds, a quiet room with the sound of harps filtering in gently.

I imagined that dove coming to life, swooping down and scooping me up on its wings, transporting me to a place of serenity. At peace, after all, implies that there is an arrival point, a sign that announces, “Welcome to Peace. Population: You.”

I couldn’t wait for that day to arrive, the day where I could make decisions and be at peace with my choices. After all, I had questioned every single one I’d ever made, right up to the moment when I donned a white robe and my head was dunked into tepid, baptismal water. I asked Jesus back into my heart every chance I got, fearing that my lack of peace was a sign that my decision had expired or hadn’t stuck.

Time passed. I left the church. But I never stopped chasing peace. I still believed that, one day, I would have it.

Perfectionism and peace are close companions in our society, with absolutism not too far behind. A quick scroll through the woo side of my social media reveals a preoccupation with the idea of peace, the sort that feels final.

Seek peace, a popular influencer counsels, flipping her long, blonde hair over her shoulder with a backdrop of trees behind her. Don’t let anyone disturb your peace, a tarot reader advises as she turns over the Empress. Bold text over soothing nature scenes proclaims, if it’s not a hell yes, then it’s a no.

There were so many iterations of this on the Internet, but this one had the least awful font choice.

I think about the major choices I’ve made in my life: my divorce, leaving an abusive partner, moving away from the Midwest. Were any of them a hell yes, an unequivocally affirmative roar? Had I ever been in this meditative state of peace when deciding what to do next? Had the dove ever arrived to take me there?

I know the answer is no.

Back in June of 2019, I was standing in front of a lake in the city of Lyon in eastern France. I was alone.

In the middle of the Parc de la Tête d’Or, as it began to rain on a gray day three years ago, I made a decision that would forever alter the course of my life. I knew, in that moment, that I needed to end my marriage.

I remember watching the still, smooth surface of the water in front of me turn to static as the rain fell. I began to cry. I wrapped an arm around my waist in a gesture of protection.

The lake in Lyon.

Around me, life teemed. A family of ducks clustered near the muddy shore. Two lovers shared an umbrella as they walked across damp grass back towards the path. I watched these signs of hope as I lit a match and touched it to the timber of my marriage.

The rain began to fall harder, creating a staccato beat against my umbrella. I stood there for a long time, burning in the middle of a rainstorm.

Once again, I find myself staring at a body of water, this time an ocean, as I make a choice.

I am not at peace with my decision to leave behind the life I have built here in St. Louis. I cannot truthfully scream a hell yes to the heavens. But I don’t believe that this idea of a perfect state of peace is required.

It is likely that I will burn a few more times before I leave this city for good. I will question, worry and cry again. There will be moments of peace. And there will be moments that are anything but.

I choose to show up for both. Not at peace. But somewhere near it.

What’s your take on peace? Is it a destination, a state of mind, or something else entirely?

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✨Cards for Humanity: The Eight of Wands ✨

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

When I was a kid, we’d often go over to my adopted grandma’s house for holidays and the odd Sunday dinner. Precious¹ always had plenty of games and activities to entertain us while the adults chatted in another room--Old Maid, that funny little fish-catching game, and a tube full of colorful pick-up sticks.

My sister and I would occasionally take a break from our normal routine of playing cards and break out the pick-up sticks. To set up the game, I’d gather all of the thin, wooden rods in my hand like a bundle of dry spaghetti noodles. On the count of three, I’d open my hand and let them fall to the carpet. Gravity took over, and how they landed determined the difficulty of the game, the objective being to remove one stick at a time without disturbing the other ones.

When I see the Eight of Wands in the tarot, I always think of the game of pick-up sticks, specifically that moment when we release our grip on the sticks and let them go. It’s almost like this card is a snapshot of that instant between the letting go and the landing: that fleeting but exciting feeling of the unknown. It’s not clear how these launched wands will land, but it’s really thrilling to imagine what will happen next. The number 8 itself, when turned on its side, makes the sign of infinity. Quite literally, anything is possible.

The wands, which link to the element of fire and our passions, energetic output and ability to orchestrate our own destiny, seem to be falling into a place of alignment and purpose in this card. They all point the same direction. Some unseen force has propelled them forward—this card is one of the few in the deck that does not depict a human—and one has to hold their breath and wait to see how these sticks, or wands, land. Either way, the choice has been made to take flight.

I don’t see this card as one of peace and certainty. Though the Eight of Wands does speak of forward motion, alignment and a sense of things working themselves out, so much remains to be seen. It’s hard to feel peaceful when life is so up in the air, but the message of this card is more about celebrating the choice to launch and the headiness of deciding to take a chance on growth and movement. Eventually, the wands will fall, and the real work will begin.

When the Eight of Wands shows up in a reading, it’s time to let the sticks fall from your hand and to make peace with the lack of peace that comes with choosing to do something so explosive. This card propels you forward in spaces of creative output and urges you to take action in places where you feel unsure. It reminds us that, at some point, we cannot wait for peace.

Once the arrows are pulled from the quiver and launched from the bow, it’s all but impossible to stop what has been set in motion. It’s nerve-wracking to watch them arc through the air…and it’s not exactly peaceful. But life has a funny way of making sure that we land exactly where we are meant to.

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✨Prompts | The Eight of Wands✨

Meditate. Journal. Pull some cards.

☀️ What needs to be launched out into the universe in your life?

☀️ How has perfectionism held you back from growth?

☀️ What would it feel like to seek peace without the expectation of arrival?

☀️ What new shapes might emerge when you allow the wands of your creativity to take flight?

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✨Weekly Mantra✨

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

I do not expect peace when I am changing.

1. I feel the need to clarify that my adopted grandma had this nickname long before the Lord of the Rings movies came out, and yes, I feel weird telling people that that’s her name.