a creative evolution

I wasn't an artist when I started selling my art. I'm not sure I'm an artist now.

In 2018 I got the very strange idea to create a Tarot deck. 

I say it was a very strange idea because in 2018 I never called myself an artist. I certainly didn’t consider myself an expert on the Tarot.

The artist part was my own social conditioning - truth be told I’ve never really believed I meet my own (invisible, undefined, and certainly ridiculous) criteria to deserve the title of artist. Even now, with my art being sold all over the world, if someone asks if I’m an artist, I stutter a bit, feel my face get a bit red, and brace ever so slightly against - what exactly? The Artist Police? Unsure.

The part about not being an expert on the Tarot was certainly true - while I’d started to read Tarot when I was 13, in 2018 I didn’t know enough to read without a book to guide me, and I wasn’t about to proclaim myself an expert on this. 

So I ignored the idea. 

The thing is, the idea wouldn’t ignore me. I’d frequently wake up in the inky black before dawn, with the words “make a Tarot deck, call it The Somatic Tarot” running on a loop through my mind. Eventually, it became more uncomfortable to ignore this than it was to try doing it. 

So I’d wake up, and carefully make my way down the stairs in the pitch dark, a bit embarrassed to announce my early morning activities to my neighbors by turning on the light. Instead, I’d light a candle at the large table in my living room that my neighbor had made me out of one giant slab of parota wood, and I would listen for the ideas that wanted to come. The jungle would come alive around me in my little open-air house tucked into the trees, and I came to expect visits from certain insects and lizards and birds as I sat for hours at my little table, immersed in these ancient stories that were so very new to me. 

Around the time I finally started listening and making, I had also started a somatic learning community, called Anchor. And so as I started creating this strange new deck called The Somatic Tarot even though there were no pictures of people or body parts, each card made of geometric shapes that somehow wanted to be pieced together with images of sky and mountains and moss, I started sharing them with the people in Anchor. I started with The Fool (because we do in fact need to be a little foolish to begin anything) and I made my way, card by card, through the Major Arcana. 

The people in Anchor loved them, and their encouragement let me know this was worth the hours spent at my table. 

I finished the Major Arcana (the cards that move from The Fool to The Multiverse (or you might know it as The World or Universe card)) while I was visiting a dear friend in the states. I went to a local print shop packed floor to ceiling with boxes of dusty paper and a trusty dog always under foot. I printed a set on basic card stock paper, and what was essentially a zine of writing on each card. I made one rather off-hand post on social media that I had these cards available, should anyone be interested. 

Soon enough, there were 30 orders. Then 60. 

I sent off these sweet little cards with their equally endearing stapled zine of writings, and I went back to the jungle. This was late September, 2019. Perhaps I will continue, I thought. I still didn’t feel like an artist, and I felt like any day now someone would bust me for only pretending not only to be an artist, but to know anything about the Tarot.

Around this time, a publisher saw a post I’d written on Medium on the issues of whiteness in the world of somatics and embodiment. He wrote to ask if I had ever considered writing a book, and if so, would I consider sending in a proposal.

Not only had I considered writing a book, it has been a dream of mine since I was little. My Barbies were all famous authors, my Dreamhouse always had a study where Barbie was working on her next book. So I did what in hindsight seems like the most natural thing in the world when given the opportunity to actually live a dream: I wrote back to say thank you so much, I would certainly be in touch. And then I ignored the email. 

I went back to Mexico. 10 days after I arrived back at my little home tucked into the jungle, there was a catastrophic flood of the entire river valley. From one day to the next, life looked nothing like it had. 

My home was safe, and thankfully my neighbors only lost possessions. Others in the town were not as lucky. 

This was late 2019. By the time we had caught our collective breath, it was early 2020. And we all know what happened then. 

I was still a bit shaken from the flood, and freshly heartbroken, when the quarantines began. I was teaching somatics online to people all around the world, grateful for the sudden collective awareness that somatic skills are actually essential in times of crisis. But honestly I was teaching from an empty cup.

The Tarot seemed like a good way to find my ground when so much was changing and uncertain. And so I would sit at my desk through those long lonely days, watching the birds swoop through the trees as I worked on completing the full 78 cards of The Somatic Tarot. 

When the decks were ready I once again made a rather uncommitted post on social media letting people know. And this time, there were over 100 orders. Small, indie to the core, but it felt big to me. 100 people want my art? And were willing not only to pay for it, but to pay and then wait patiently, as the pre-orders funded the cost of printing the decks. I was astounded. Do they realize I’m not really an artist? I wondered. In all honesty, sometimes that wonder was a panic - will they hate it when the package arrives?

If you, dear reader, have never struggled with this sort of existential dread, then I both applaud you, and wonder if we’re the same sort of human.

Even with all this, I started giving readings and letting my somatic teaching be more and more obviously guided by the Tarot. I printed another edition, and then another. There were 200 orders, and then 500. There were people asking if the decks could be shipped to Asia, and Europe, and New Zealand, and all throughout North America. 

And in amongst all of this, the publisher reached out again, and asked if I had perhaps given the idea of writing a book any more thought. 

It seems unwise to say no when a dream comes to your doorstep twice. So this time, I made myself face the fears of what it would mean to actually write a book. It still took me 3 more years to build up the skills and the courage to actually do it. 

I wrote my book. It’s called Returning Home to Our Bodies: Reimagining the Relationship Between Our Bodies and the World. It comes out with North Atlantic Books January 9, 2024.

And while my upcoming book is not about the Tarot, the Tarot and the ways these stories have helped me understand the world is woven into everything I make and do, and this book is no exception. 

Writing a book was astoundingly hard. I’ve seen many people say that writing a book was the hardest thing they’ve ever done; I know I’m not alone in that struggle. There’s the cold truth that writing a book with unmedicated ADHD is a huge challenge. And I just didn’t know what I was doing, or how to do it, and the learning curve is steep and slippery. But more than that: I hadn’t thought of myself as an artist, and that made creating The Somatic Tarot a bit trickier. At the time the publisher reached out to me, even though I’d been earning a living through writing, I still didn’t consider myself a writer. Which made the heavy lifting of actually writing a book far more challenging. It was like trying to pick up a bundle of bowling balls, and deciding to grease them all in butter before even trying.

I’ve been thinking about my challenge to accept the title of artist and writer a bit more in these last few weeks, as I record the audio for my upcoming book, and see my book on sale all around the world, and make constant trips to the Post Office to ship my Tarot and Oracle decks. I will say I have gotten a bit more comfortable with the title of writer, but artist still eludes me a bit. When I use that word, I feel ever so slightly like I’m trying on someone else’s clothes, and they fit in a way that everyone can tell they aren’t really mine.

Which is, dear reader, a real shame. We’re all artists. Of course we are.

I know this. If you were to ask me if you deserve to use the title of artist, I wouldn’t even need to see any of your art to immediately respond yes, of course you are an artist.

And this isn’t me fishing for a flurry of responses to this post saying “you’re an artist!” I know I am. What I’ve been thinking about in these last few weeks is what sorts of beauty we miss out on because the title of art, and being an artist, are put on a glass pedestal, too slippery to climb up, too big to simply reach.

In some ways, these titles as a professional qualifier do make sense. When I meet other professional writers and artists, we can talk about things that people who write for fun or pleasure might not fully understand - the ins and outs of the industry, the pure existential dread of creating something for the public eye, and the intensity of paying our bills from our own creativity, especially during a record-breaking inflation. It helps to know who can understand this, at the visceral level.

But I’m also so tired of the ways we police our own creativity. Perhaps I should say: I’m so tired of the ways I police my own.

Meanwhile, I’m going to continue to make art: shitty art, beautiful art, and art that hopefully sells since capitalism as a concept doesn’t seem to be going anywhere. But more importantly, I’m going to continue to find those places in myself that feel like I need to somehow deserve the title, and encourage them, lovingly, to fuck off.

I hope you make the things your heart is calling for.

If you would like a copy of The Somatic Tarot, I do encourage you to order soon! I recently printed a very small edition to help generate funds for my upcoming book tour. While I am sure I will print more copies of this much-loved deck at some point, I honestly have no plans to do so in the near future, and there are currently only 8 decks available. Here’s the link to order.