January 2021
My darling, you learned so much in 2020: moved through so much, endured so much, and (yes, too) came in contact with so much joy. All these lessons are yours to keep. From these precious materials you have laid a firm and solid foundation from which to build—from which to grow to heights beyond the earthly limits of your imagination. You made it. You’re here. Sweet thing, just take a look at where you’re standing: you’ve come home. This home is you.
And now the work begins. With everything cleared that needed to be cleared and having taken this magnitudinous first step, you’re ready. You’ve arrived to the work that focuses on the process over the end results. We’re through racing to the finish line, through measuring ourselves against the red letter grades on our test papers. We’ve come to care less about comparisons against a status quo and more about the lessons and the process—the simple, sometimes labored, and monumental acts of moving through: of trying something new, of getting uncomfortable, of practice and refinement. These are the themes of 2021, this the diligent work ahead. You’ve learned to mix and lay concrete. Can you do it again? Where else and how else can you do it? Now that you have the experiential knowledge, what else can you rebuild? Where can you continue to clear out more space and deeply root into the foundations you now know how to build. Gone are the days of “practice makes perfect”: the process itself is perfection. Give yourself the leeway to make mistakes, to stumble and blunder, learning all the while. Discomfort is here to stay; make your home in it. Remember the structures that you built within and around yourself in 2020. Build them again. Continue to rebuild them. And build them once more. These repetitions will bring you into a mastery of care and tending that will enable you to enact the fullness of what is possible. Roll up your sleeves, it’s time to break in your new tools.
“Apparition: A Spirit Speak Tarot Deck” by Mary Elizabeth Evans