About a month or two ago I sold my PS4 and games to a shop that a former work colleague owns. I got a hundred bucks for it and I’ve had the $100 bill in my wallet since. Not sure why it didn’t burn a hole in my pocket, but there it stayed.

In our neighborhood, sometimes there are kids - 8 or 9 or 10 11 12 years old, African American, appear to be siblings - who set up chairs at the busy intersection and offer bottles of water for sale at $1.

It’s cute in a lemon-standy kind of way, but it’s not cute when you think of little kids at busy intersections selling water because money.

Well, you probably can tell where this is going.

The light had just turned red. The young girl, wearing hot pink roller skates, skated shakily up to my passenger-side window holding the bottle of frozen water.

She offered it up to me and I nodded.

I said Hang on a sec, I’m gonna do something special, OK?

She waited while I fumbled to find my wallet.

Do you know what a hundred dollar bill looks like?

She shook her head no.

Well, I said, you do now!

I handed her the bill and her face lit up with excitement. I told her to be careful with it and she skated over to her older brother (I presume) and squealed, “He gave us a hundred dollars!”

Then the light turned green, and I finished driving home.

I’ve been looking for answers. I want to understand what my experiences with musical synchronicity mean. I want to know where it comes from and why it comes. But most of all I want to know what I’m supposed to do with it. Tarot came to mind as a way to connect and explore. I have my own deck of cards, so why not?

I bought this deck, a standard Rider-Waite-Smith set, when I was in high school. Somehow my parents never made me throw them away. Somehow they’ve travelled with me from my parents’ home to dorm room and apartment and apartment and townhouse apartment and rental house and apartment and finally to my first homeowner-ed home.

I’d read somewhere, probably in a book loaned to me by my friend Nicole’s gay half-brother Les, to whom I first came out, that to protect your cards, you should wrap them in silk and velvet. (Or something.) I had access to silk because I loved silk shirts as a teen (and my parents were surprised when they learned I was gay, which to this day I’m still like Really? Silk and rayon shirts didn’t give it away?). I cut the breast pocket out of one of my shirts - a plum color - put my cards into the pocket, and wrapped them in a tattered piece of I-have-no-idea-where-it-came-from black velvet (if you please).

I don’t know if I’ve ever looked at them in 30 years. Maybe once or twice at most.

About a month ago I read a book from the library called _“Radical Tarot: Queer the Cards, Liberate Your Practice, and Create the Future_ by Charlie Claire Burgess. (bookshop.org affiliate link there)

I also had a reading with someone at RavenSongOracles. She gave me permission to record the session, but the app I used failed. I told her about the synchronicity I’m experiencing, and trying to understand if it’s real (it’s real). At the end, she gave me an exercise to try - put a word out there and see if it comes back.

So I did, and it did. Picked from a song and returned in a song. It wasn’t a word you’d expect to hear in two different songs within 24-hours. The song it came back in was a snippet, and a really silly one, which made it all even more winky.

In a follow up email, she told me that WitchLab, our local Occult, Oddities, and Antiques shop, had a tarot reading class coming up. I signed up and finished the 3rd of 3 sessions last Sunday.

I laid out my first spread this morning. Leaving, or being cordially invited to fuck off from, my SMART Recovery group was heavily on my mind, and while I riffle shuffled I talked out loud about wanting more insight into what’s happening with me, why I’m somehow awakened to these musical moments. Why I’m so in tune, if you’ll pardon the pun.

I laid out 3 cards (past, present, future) and a 4th card over them to represent a sort of overarching theme. Here’s what came up and my interpretation.

• Past: 3 of Wands (reversed)
• Present: 6 of Swords
• Future: The Fool (reversed)
• Overarching: The High Priestess

Nutshell Meanings

• The wands’ element is fire, and they represent passion. Threes represent having an extra path available.
• The swords’ element is air, and they represent logic. Sixes represent tending inner growth, letting go and moving on.
• The Fool represents a new, fearless journey. Taking a leap, taking a risk, and going for it without overthinking it. It is also the card I originally chose as my card when I first bought the deck some 30+ years ago.
• The High Priestess represents subconscious knowledge and connecting to insights through your higher self (spirit guides, angels).

Reversals can be interpreted differently, but I like how our instructor (a Good Witch) described them - as indicative of the card’s original meaning being blocked or being held back.

My Interpretation

I had a plan, and it was working. But there was something I wasn’t considering. Something bigger or longer-term. Maybe I wasn’t pushing myself enough to see it. Now it’s time to let go and move on. There’s an adventure to be had, but not letting go and moving on won’t let me get there. Let go and trust my higher-self. My angles and protectors are here with me. Don’t worry so much about why or how. Go with it because I’ll keep connecting with them or they with me.

The 3 Wands (reversed) is telling me that my working plan was going to SMART Recovery meetings with a specific collective of people I adore. I liked the structure, the stability of having a weekly check-in, and I experienced profound moments of healing and growth thanks to it. But there was a different path presenting itself for me to consider as a longer-term plan. A weekly meeting is one thing, but what’s my real plan? Something kept me from seeing it. Now that those meetings are over for me, now that my friends aren’t one big collective that could wrap around me when I needed them, I’m grieving that loss. That’s ok, but the 6 Swords is telling me I do need to let it go, and let it go for good. I need to move on, past the rough seas. I need to rely on logic in order to do it. This is an intentional, logical letting go. The Fool (reversed) (the card representing me) is telling me there’s a great journey to be had. Since it’s my own card, it could mean new methods of self-discovery and self-actualization. But currently something is standing in the way, and it’s probably my own doubts about the future now that my SMART Recovery chapter is over - at least in the setting I’m used to. The High Priestess is telling me to trust and believe in my higher-self. It’s telling me my protectors are present, and together they’re letting me know We got this, kid. Don’t worry so much and just let us show up when we show up, and listen with us when we tell you we see you, and we know you see us.

Our class instructor, Brooke (she/her), and she was indeed quite the instructor. Very tuned-in and just a hoot-and-a-half as a person. I’d love to share this reading and interpretation with her, and with the woman who recommended the class to me in the first place. Maybe later I’ll cross-reference this spread with Radical Tarot.

Or maybe I’ll just let it go as it is, and not worry so much about it.

We got this, kid. We got this.

I love how prolific Peter Gabriel is right now, releasing single after single each with two distinct mixes (dark side & bright side). This one’s from March. Listen closely at 1:10. It’s like magic. A divine and gentle breath to remove and release a residue the residue this is all leaving behind, and a film that no longer protects, beckoning a certain hope to be certainly realized.

🪶 In no particular oder, here are some things I’ve been wanting to write about but that I can’t seem to get ‘round to doing.

• Thoughts about starting Spravato therapy as someone who is practicing sobriety.
• Two perspectives about myself and my me-ness that have been rather profound during Spravato treatment, each linked to a specific song (Flying Dutchman by Tori Amos (this has been the most emotional experience while on the treatment) and 5 Years by Björk)
• Music I’m listening to during Spravato therapy, and why I choose music with lyrics or instrumental music over unfamiliar, ambient sounds.
• A kinda sorta allegorical piece I’m working on called The Industry and The Ocean based on a writing prompt from the writers’ group I sometimes attend. I never write in that style.
• Reflections on my time with the SMART Recovery group I loved, and what it’s been like to lose them.
• Why I, as an atheist, and taking a class on how to read tarot cards.
• Why Harry Potter could be the only wizard the Demarcating Party needs.
• A write-up/photo essay of the Freedom From Religion Foundation convention I attended last year.
• What’s up with the Central Ohio Freedom From Religion Foundation and things I’d like to see us do.
• What it was like accessing a part for the first time using an Internal Family Systems meditation.
• A photo essay/story about the first time I photographed someone experiencing homelessness without his permission (and why it will be the the last time I photograph someone experiencing homelessness without his permission).
• Dear Dad letters that I’ll never send but that I want to write.
• Reflections and notes about books I’m reading or audio reading (which aren’t many).
• Pieces related to lessons learned and observations at work, having spent 20 years in the public sector, without identifying exact agencies, people, or any potentially partisan bias.