In this episode exploring The Devil card, I talk with Khadi (Khadijat) Oluwatoyin, founder and director of Sober Black Girls Club, an organization that offers support and community for Black women, femmes, and nonbinary folks who are practicing or exploring sobriety.

Both Khadi and I share lived experience with alcohol addiction, a dynamic perfectly encapsulated in The Devil card. We talk about our struggles with alcohol, when and how we got sober, 12-step programs (their gifts and limitations), and what becomes possible when we reclaim our power from substances that may be draining our life force, health, creativity, and Spirit.

But The Devil can also represent a number of other dynamics we experience as humans in this world, and Khadi and I get into those too: overachieving and seeking external validation, overconsumption, internal and external judgement, white supremacy and anti-blackness, instant gratification, denial, illusion and half-truths, choosing "the image" and ego over the real deal, taboos, control and domination, breaking cycles, bringing secrets out into the open, and LIBERATION!

Khadi also shares some important links between America's history with alcohol and racial oppression.

No moralizing or preaching here when it comes to alcohol and drug use (HOW COULD WE JUDGE?!), but this is a beautiful episode for anyone considering sobriety, practicing sobriety, or struggling with sobriety, and a relevant conversation for thinking about where our power lies (with us or elsewhere?) and how we can reclaim it.

Check out (and support!!!) Sober Black Girls Club on Instagram and their website. Check out Khadi's new film 988: A Coming of Self Film. Check out the book Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery by bell hooks.

This episode was beautifully edited by Chantal deFelice, and the logo for this podcast was created by Ami Plasse.

This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:

• Join the newsletter and receive the first 3 journaling prompts from Tarot for Creative Spirits (the workbook).
• Subscribe to Typewriter Tarot's Substack.
• Join the Creative Magic Collective.
• Work one-on-one with Cecily (book a free curiosity call).
• Book a Tarot reading.
• Shop our bookshop.

Recorded on an auspicious Martin Luther King Day that coincides with the inauguration of a new and former extremist US president... in the wake of the LA wildfires and the acceleration of climate collapse writ large, we turn to the novels of Octavia E. Butler, the groundbreaking Black feminist sci-fi writer whose work is rooted in the aspirations, truth-telling, and hopes of Afrofuturism.

In a wide-ranging conversation with two of my favorite Afrofuturists — writer Evan Narcisse and liberatory coach Ebony Isis Booth — we explore The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents, two linked novels published in the 1990s that imagine the world of our present moment (2024 and beyond).

In recent years, Parable of the Sower, in particular, has been bandied about on social media and elsewhere as a "prophetic" text — this novel foretold the use of the phrase "Make America Great Again" and described many of the changes that have come to define this first quarter of the 21st Century. But these references often merely scratch the surface, and we wanted to go deeper, looking into the "prophetic" quality of Butler's Parables and what they can teach us about how to survive the future that is here now, and arriving every day.

Whether you've read the novels, you're curious about them, or you've caught wind of the hype and want to know more, this conversation will illuminate and situate these literary works in our current times, exploring themes of societal collapse, slavery, liberation, technology, community building, self-knowledge, imagination, and space travel.

May this conversation nourish and inspire you as we move into yet another wild and challenging era of change. (Because, as Butler and her main character Lauren Oya Olamina have taught us, God IS change.)

Find Ebony's work on her website, her Substack, and her podcast Ask Me How I Know. Find Evan on Bluesky and Substack.

This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:

• Join the newsletter and receive the first 3 journaling prompts from Tarot for Creative Spirits (the workbook).
• Subscribe to Typewriter Tarot's Substack.
• Join the Creative Magic Collective.
• Work one-on-one with Cecily (book a free curiosity call).
• Book a Tarot reading.
• Shop our bookshop.

It's the year of The Hermit (because 2 + 0 + 2 + 5 = 9, The Hermit's number). And it's sure to be a wild year all around — politically, environmentally, technologically. So, what wisdom does The Hermit have to offer us as we head into the unknown?

In this episode, I share three key themes from the Hermit workshop I hosted last week in the Creative Magic Collective. Presented as Hermit principles or philosophies, I invite you to think about how these might apply to your life in the coming year, and what might support you along the way.

This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:

• Join the newsletter and receive the first 3 journaling prompts from Tarot for Creative Spirits (the workbook).
• Subscribe to Typewriter Tarot's Substack.
• Join the Creative Magic Collective.
• Work one-on-one with Cecily (book a free curiosity call).
• Book a Tarot reading.
• Shop our bookshop.

In this episode, I share how I recently used Tarot to help me make a decision that felt risky and challenging, and how I fell into a hierarchical paradigm with the cards... but discovered later there was more nuance to what the cards offered (like always!!!).

I use this story to share some thoughts about why we might consult the cards when we face big choices, how to regard the cards that show up, the goodness of calling in additional sources of information, allowing for time, choosing according to our own desires and needs, and embracing our agency to choose wisely for ourselves.

I hope you enjoy! If this helped you in some way, if you have questions, if there's more you want to know that I didn't speak to... hit me up at hello@typewritertarot.com.

This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:

• Join the newsletter and receive the first 3 journaling prompts from Tarot for Creative Spirits (the workbook).
• Subscribe to Typewriter Tarot's Substack.
• Join the Creative Magic Collective.
• Work one-on-one with Cecily (book a free curiosity call).
• Book a Tarot reading.
• Shop our bookshop.

To explore the Temperance card, I connected with Natalie Ross, a trauma-informed marketing coach and the creator of one of my favorite podcasts, the now-retired-but-still-available "Earth Speak," which aired from 2016 to 2023.

In this episode, Natalie and I dork out about the art on both the Smith-Waite and the Gentle Tarot decks, analyzing the visual elements and parsing out themes and messages: earthy-ness versus the celestial, homeostasis and flow, balance, surrender, and peace.

Natalie makes the beautiful connection that TEMPERANCE IS THE LANGUAGE OF THE NERVOUS SYSTEM, and she shares her own journey from wondering "what's wrong with me?" and "why can't I fit into this world?" to realizing that her nervous system was in severe dysregulation and freeze (which prevented her from paying herself even though her business was making money). Through somatic therapy, Natalie found more balance and ease in her body, and now shares somatic healing work with her clients.

We also talk about Temperance's relationship to the Death card, echoes with The Tower and The Star, the dissolution of the commons in Europe and the demonization of witches, accepting that we live inside oppressive systems while also resisting them, and tending to and mending our sense of aliveness. Plus, questions to ask yourself if you're pulling this card an eerie number of times!

To connect with Natalie Ross, and schedule a free curiosity call, visit Natalie.net.

Special thanks to Chantal de Felice, our sound editor, and Ami Plasse, our logo designer.

This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:

• Join the newsletter and receive the first 3 journaling prompts from Tarot for Creative Spirits (the workbook).
• Subscribe to Typewriter Tarot's Substack.
• Join the Creative Magic Collective.
• Work one-on-one with Cecily (book a free curiosity call).
• Book a Tarot reading.
• Shop our bookshop.

For an exploration of The Hanged One, I had to talk to Amelia Hruby, creator and host of the podcast Off the Grid, a show for small business owners who want to leave social media without losing all their clients.

These days, the prevailing logic is that ANY and EVERY successful business MUST have an Instagram account. But Amelia's made it her mission to show us what else is possible — something The Hanged One is in the process of realizing. This 12th card in the Major Arcana is about stepping away to take another look, being willing to change your mind, and the kind of inner work that prepares us to deviate from proscribed paths.

In this episode, Amelia and I explore hanged-one themes of shifting perspectives, doing the thing you think is totally out of bounds, cutting cords with oppressive systems, changing the rules we live by, separation for the sake of private investigation, not needing others to agree with us, standing in our difference (of identity and opinion), and getting upside-down.

Amelia also shares how one of her major Hanged One moments came when she broke up with diet culture, a choice that would prepare her to leave social media later — and start a whole business around it.

We also discuss: realizing you're perhaps "an acquired taste," energetic sovereignty, what happens when your inner child needs "to matter on the internet," letting old crappy beliefs drop out of you like change from your upside-down pockets, starting a project because people keep coming to you for advice about something, staying with a project long enough for it take off, and finding a medium where you shine.

Explore and follow Amelia's work here:
Listen to Off the Grid on Apple, Spotify, and the Internet.
Get Amelia's free Leaving Social Media Toolkit.
Listen to the my tiny tarot podcast on Apple, Spotify, and the Internet.
Check out The Interweb and the Off the Grid Clubhouse.

This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:

• Join the newsletter and receive the first 3 journaling prompts from Tarot for Creative Spirits (the workbook).
• Subscribe to Typewriter Tarot's Substack.
• Join the Creative Magic Collective.
• Work one-on-one with Cecily (book a free curiosity call).
• Book a Tarot reading.
• Shop our bookshop.

CHECK OUT THE CREATIVE MAGIC COLLECTIVE & JOIN THE WAITLIST HERE!

This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:

• Join the newsletter and receive the first 3 journaling prompts from Tarot for Creative Spirits (the workbook).
• Subscribe to Typewriter Tarot's Substack.
• Join the Creative Magic Collective.
• Work one-on-one with Cecily (book a free curiosity call).
• Book a Tarot reading.
• Shop our bookshop.

I've deferred The Hanged One episode briefly (it would normally appear here), because this conversation on the Death card unexpectedly took on much bigger dimensions in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Helene, which devastated huge areas of Western North Carolina less than two weeks ago.

My guest for this episode is Mara June — death doula, grief alchemist, and community herbalist who lives in Asheville, NC. Mara experienced the storm firsthand. In the aftermath they're connecting with and helping neighbors as, together, they navigate loss, try to meet basic needs, tend to their hearts, and cultivate moments of joy and sweetness.

In this phone call recorded days after the hurricane, Mara shares about their experience during and after, and how people are resourcing themselves in this time of crisis. Mara talks about community as human nature, something our life force naturally wants to lean toward. We talk about how plants and animals assist us in our grief, and what it means (and looks like) to relate to Death — and life — with purpose, love, and curiosity.

Follow Mara's work on Instagram, via their website, or Substack newsletter: Grief Spells.

Make donations to support people recovering from Hurricane Helene: @Mara-Pfeffer on Venmo, Beloved Asheville, Appalachian Voices, New Disabled South. And to share mutual aid with people recovering in Florida after Hurricane Milton:

Add more climate news to your Instagram feed by following: @postclimate (Washington Post's climate coverage), @sunrisemvmt, @so.informed, @earthlyeducation, @earthjustice, @itsthegarbagequeen, @sea.trees, @theclimatevote, @gogreensavegreen, @earthrise.studio, @greenpeaceafrica, centerforbiologicaldiversity

For structured guidance around climate action, check out Climate Changemakers.

This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:

• Join the newsletter and receive the first 3 journaling prompts from Tarot for Creative Spirits (the workbook).
• Subscribe to Typewriter Tarot's Substack.
• Join the Creative Magic Collective.
• Work one-on-one with Cecily (book a free curiosity call).
• Book a Tarot reading.
• Shop our bookshop.