I've just added a new essay to the Field Notes section of the Classroom: The Fifth Step: Tarot's Midpoint of Becoming This began as an exploration and conversation on the deeper meaning of the Fives, not just as individual cards, but the broader perspective of all of them together. The more I sat with it, the more I found myself seeing the Fives not merely as cards of conflict, grief, hardship, or loss, but as the pivotal midpoint of every Minor Arcana journey—the place where growth can no longer continue through momentum alone, and where the traveler is asked to respond to necessary tension. This isn't an attempt to replace traditional interpretations. If anything, it's an attempt to sit with them a little longer, looking beneath the familiar meanings to explore the developmental role these cards play within the larger story of the Minor Arcana. I found that it changed the way I look at the Fives while I was writing it. I hope it offers you something to reflect on as well.

🖐️ Try Your Hand: A First-Hand Experience with Psychometry Our next Community Connect is happening today, and this time we'll be exploring the fascinating practice of psychometry—using physical touch as a bridge for intuitive perception. Whether you're joining us for the first time or you participated in the comments of the original post, you're warmly invited to take part. If you've already completed the exercise once, feel free to bring a new set of objects and see what unfolds. Every object carries its own unique energetic fingerprint, and every experience teaches us something new. What You'll Need Bring up to three objects that you'd like to explore. They can be anything that calls to you—a crystal, a favorite mug, a piece of jewelry, a photograph, a book, a keepsake, or any everyday item that sparks your curiosity. As you hold each object, resist the urge to search for "the right answer." Instead, simply observe. Let your impressions arise naturally, without judging or editing them. Guiding Prompts - The First Impression: What is the very first color, shape, temperature, or emotion that flashes into your mind the moment your skin touches the object? Don't edit or second-guess this first micro-thought. - The Emotional Tone: Does this item feel heavy and sorrowful, or light, warm, and active? What kind of mood or temperament does it seem to carry? - The Timeline Clue: Does this item feel ancient and layered with many experiences, or does it seem closely connected to something more recent? - The Sensory Check: Do you notice a sound (clairaudience), a visual image (clairvoyance), or a physical sensation within your own body (clairsentience) while holding it? As you move through your three objects, you might also reflect on these questions: - How does each object feel energetically? - Does one seem louder or quieter than the others? - Do different objects evoke different clair-senses? Perhaps a crystal brings physical sensations, while an old photograph evokes emotions or mental images.

"I Wrote This Between Lives" I woke where time slips soft and thin, A place where endings first begin, Where silence folds its silver wings, And listens while forever sings. No dawn arrived. No evening died. No stars were born. No worlds replied. The hours had no need for names - Just the light of countless flames. A laugh, a name I almost knew, A sky of gold, a field of blue, A mother's hand, a soldier's cry - They passed as one beneath my eye. I held a promise, worn and old, More precious far than minted gold, A vow I'd whispered, life to life, Through joy and birth, through loss and strife. I watched my many faces fade, The saint, the thief, the queen, the maid. Each wore my soul a little while, Each in their own unique profile. The crowns grew dust. The scars grew light. The wrongs dissolved beneath the night. What once seemed mountains, vast and steep, Were pebbles in forever’s keep. I met the ones I'd loved before. We did not ask what names we wore. We knew each other soul by soul, As rivers know the waiting shoal. Some stayed a breath, some stayed an age. Some wrote a line upon my page. No meeting ever proved in vain; Each joy became another vein Through which compassion learned to flow, From lives forgotten long ago. For every heart I'd failed to see Returned a softening to me. The body is a borrowed room, A cradle first, and then a tomb. Yet neither wall nor flesh can bind The patient hunger of the mind. We dress ourselves in dust and skin, Step through the door, forget, begin. We call it fate. We call it chance. The cosmos simply calls it dance. So here I write where clocks don't chime, Between the quiet seams of time, Before another breath is drawn, Before another borrowed dawn. If ever these small words survive The sleep that greets each earthly life, And someone reads what I once knew, Perhaps those words were meant for you. Should something in your spirit stir - Should something breathtaking occur - Do not mistake it for a dream. You've crossed this silent, shining stream.

Greetings and Blessings, my friends. I decided to share something personal with you all today. In about November of last year, I noticed that I hadn't heard from my older brother in at least 6 months. I tried sending messages, but he had no access to any accounts, so I met only dead air. I spent the next seven months or so trying to find him. I honestly wasn't even sure if he was alive. I eventually made the decision to file a welfare check report in his last known location. I was put on the phone with an officer, who immediately put my fears to bed, saying that he knows Johnny very well, and sees him every day. My brother is homeless, without a phone, and one of his crazy exes changed all the passwords for all his accounts, effectively locking him out. He didn't know anyone's number, so he had no way of contacting family. I have since spoken to him a few times. He's doing ok, working on getting housing. During that year, I struggled a lot under the surface. He was always on my mind, a constant reaching with no response, and I did what I always do - I wrote. My soul is healed now that I've found him, but, for a time, all I could feel was the empty space. I wanted to share a poem that I wrote during my search. For anyone who has experienced the quiet fading of a loved one, or anyone vanishing themselves. Reaching For You I keep calling into the shape you left behind - An eternity of unanswered rooms Where your voice used to lean against the walls— Now only dust remembers the weight of you. The memory of you keeps its teeth in me. I imagine you in fragments: A light that never quite let you rest, A doorway you did not mean to walk through, Streets that swallowed your direction and did not return it. I have called into your distance, And stood in the strange faith of my own echo. I thought to bring other voices - Like sound itself might learn your name and carry it back home - But I am afraid what answers Might be forced by hands that do not know your shape. So I remain here,

I'm listening to Existential Physics. It explores questions such are "Are we in a simulation?" from the lens of physics. It's interesting to see a. honest wrestling of big questions from a scientific point of view.