🌕 In My Experience… Gratitude for Every Gem
it's a full moon in cancer 🌕
Image Description: Color photograph of a “deskscape” with a foreground of the edge of a wood desk with from left to right a clear quartz crystal, the Bat card from the Animal Spirit deck, a small candle, and a brass bee sculpture; in the background from left to right are plants, an altar with blurred objects, and the lower part of a large framed poster of Hilma af Klint's Altarpiece No 1.
Listen to me read this essay:
Hi friends
Happy New Year! 🥳
I hope you're entering this year with whatever energy and momentum feels deep-in-your-being right for you. Maybe you're ignited with the fiery propulsion of a rocket. Maybe you're barely peeking your head out from a cool, dark cave of seclusion. Or, perhaps, you're a little this and that, stop and start. Please be kind to yourself, however you may be in this moment.
Most of us are still reeling from all that's transpired, personally and collectively — not just in this past year, but throughout these successive dizzying solar rotations. Every astrologer and spiritual teacher I follow is insisting that this January is inviting/demanding that we ease in gently. Like, VERY gently!
If it resonates for you, I invite you to join me in a slooooooow roll into 2023. Slower… Even slower than that… Almost…
Leading by example, I offer you a short newsletter. I will share more about my experiences around this transition next time (for the Lunar New Year). For now, I will say that I spent the end of the year trying my very best not to trash–talk 2022 (some would say I overused the 2022-as-stinky-garbage Bitmoji, and they would not be wrong). What helped me most was really, really (really!) leaning into gratitude. It was not easy, but it was powerful (more on that, also later).
Gratitude, like forgiveness, is easy until it's not. Yes, unchallenging subjects are simple — it's easy for me to forgive what's easy to forgive. When I label something “unforgivable” — that's my real practice. Yes, my gratitude lists are effortlessly filled with all the loveliness in my life (always ridiculously abundant). Can I be grateful for the less than lovely (these past 18 months, also bountiful)?
Yes, dear reader. Oui, je peux.
I am grateful for my beautiful life. I am grateful for 2022.
For this In My Experience… I chose the most recent submission: a question about my favorite newsletters. There are actually far too many to list here, and so I am only listing some from Substack. This may seem silly since I don't even use that service, but I had to give myself some kind of parameters. And, still, this is only a limited sampling. I will continue regularly sharing links from various sources (and maybe I'll do themed roundups like these from time to time).
Thank you for being here. I am grateful for you.
With love,
Sebene
P.S. The recording of Uncoupling from Couple–Dom (minus the final 30 min of sharing) is now available for purchase.
I deeply appreciate your newsletter—thanks so much for the care and commitment you put into sharing your fresh perspective with the world! It makes me curious—what are other email newsletters and blogs that you read and love? Any hidden gems that the world should know about?
Dear Gratitude for Every Gem
Thank you for the kind comment and for the inquiry.
Being at the Miami Book Fair in October reminded me that it's the love of reading that made me a writer. Fangirling over Sandra Cisneros, discovering new writers, nerding out about ideas with other authors… I was rejuvenated in my love of reading, which feeds my passion for writing. Even if it feels like everything has already been said (it hasn't, and never in the ways you will uniquely say it), writers be writing because readers be reading.
In My Experience… I subscribe to many different kinds of newsletters, hyperlinks introduce new-to-me to incredible writers every single day, I have a Subtsack problem, and I am okay with all of this — that sounds vibrating in my ear canals or squiggles spread across a surface can transform into meaning, that words produce images, emotions, and action inside me is literally (said in a Miami accent) magic ✨✨✨ and, you know, I am always down for enchantment.
But, yes, there are a shit ton of newlsetters out there, and that can feel overwhelming. Inbox hygeine has led me subscribe, unsubscribe and resubscribe to the same newsletter multiple times. Also, I have periodic obsessions — seasons when I only want to read about writing or astrology or slow fashion. I regularly Kondo my subscriptions. All reasons I never begrudge people who unsubscribe from this one (again, thank you for being here!).
What's listed below is a snapshot in time. I had fun choosing specific posts to share from some of my favorite Substacks — some is the key word here. There are so many great writers out there and this is only a sampling of the ones that I happen currently to follow. Many of these have been linked here before. I will continue to share more.
May 2023 bring each of us mutliple gems of tenderness, wonder, joy, and love.
Jennifer Patterson's Love What Survives for raw + radical healing (audio version available)
Jessica Dore's Offering for innovating a tarot + psychology mashup (audio version available)
Holly Whitaker's Recovering for the beyond–substance addiction–wisdom
Lisa Olivera's Being Human for the transformational power of transparency
Rob Brezsny's Free Will Astrology for the genius of "pronoia"
Suleika Jaouad's Isolation Journals for creatively reframing “life's interruptions”