12/27: The Friday Five
a Very Special Hospital Edition 🚑
Happy final Friday of 2024! The next time I make one of these lists, it’ll be next year! But today is December 27, 2024, a 12/3 day, which when added to our yearly number of 8, gives us an overall core value of 20/2.
The twentieth card in the tarot is Judgment, a beacon of reflection, awakening, and revolution, and in some cases, a literal calling card from the heavens! In combination with narrative-driven three, and the Topsy-turvey twelfth card of the tarot, The Hanged One, today feels like a potent invitation to check out your year in the rear-view from a place of compassionate honesty.
What can you forgive yourself or others for? How can you tend to yourself in the space of disappointment between expectation and reality? Are you in need of any gentle or radical re-frames? What genre would you say your year most closely resembles? What growth arcs did your character evolve through? Are there any stories that are still in progress as you shift into 2025?
Most of all, two is the number of love, kindness, and compassion. Show yourself an extra dose of all three, here at the end of an arduous year. You deserve it.
A few announcements before The Friday Five:
Call Your Coven will return on Monday, December 30th with our January 2025 forecast. While we were on break, we surpassed 5,000 downloads! Thank you to everyone who has tuned in during our inaugural season. We’re thrilled and excited to get back into your earbuds!
It’s not too late to prepare for the future with DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers. Early reviews say it’s “such a beauty,” and “SO COOL,” and you can snag it immediately for just $9.99!
Until the end of the year, you can subscribe as a paid pal here at SITS for 25% off forever! In 2025, your investment will bring you weekly numerological forecasts for your yearly cycle number, and quarterly insights from the tarot on the solstices and equinoxes, in addition to first dibs on future offerings, and access to The Soup™ Discord server (which opens back up on Sunday!)
THE FRIDAY FIVE 🖐️
Today’s installment of The Friday Five is a bit different, but hopefully no less comforting, seeing as they are all items that have brought me joy in the hospital, where I’ve been since the day after I sent the December 6th list!
In the last twenty days, I have had six scans, which revealed five spinal fractures, followed by three biopsies, and a Christmas Eve hysterectomy that doubled as a fourth biopsy, to try and diagnose the cause of seemingly metastatic bone lesions and other damage. Next week, I will likely undergo a second surgery to get a more concrete diagnosis, which will then likely lead to an extensive treatment regimen.
I am incredibly grateful for all of the caretakers who have shown up for my family and me during the scariest days of my life. My wife is a fucking rockstar, our mothers are angels (who also decorated our room with a tiny glass Christmas tree and a crafty paper cup menorah!), our friends are endless wells of love and support, and my medical team is large, lovely, and committed to figuring this out.
Still, I’m ready for my medical anomaly era to be over!
Here’s what’s gotten me through these wacky weeks:
Esmeralda the Unicorn Balloon — I am so fucking lucky to have the greatest support system a girl could ask for, and to have received such an abundance of love and gifts from far and wide. Esmeralda, who was sent by one group of beloveds and named by another, has brought such joy, not only to me, but to nurses, doctors, and hospital volunteers alike! She’s deflating a bit now, but she’s still got some life left in her (just like me hehehe).
See’s Candies — A childhood slash forever favorite, we’ve housed not one, not two, but three boxes of See’s Candies in however many days we’ve been here. While my favorite box is the Soft Centers, the Assorted Mix, the Milk Chocolate, and the Truffles have really come in handy when the news was upsetting and/or the waiting proved torturous. (Edit: We opened the fourth box last night, after I was cleared to eat a regular diet again!)
Illness and the Myth of Strength by Andrea Gibson — This piece, by the incomparable Andrea Gibson, dropped into my inbox at exactly the right moment and has held me throughout many more since the first reading. Specifically the line: “There isn’t a healthy body in the world stronger than a sick person’s spirit.” Amen, amen, amen.
BeWell IV Zip Hoodie — Genius idea alert! Made by a fellow “chronie,” BeWell’s slogan is Products that make living with a chronic illness a little easier, and this hoodie (also brought by my mother-in-law) is the perfect example of just how much they’re succeeding at their mission. It’s soft, it’s bright and cheery, and it zips down both sleeves, so you can stay warm and receive life-saving treatment at the same time! BRB, buying a whole new wardrobe!
Anatomy of Lies — Perhaps an odd choice for me to watch under my current circumstances, but this three-part documentary series on Peacock about a Grey’s Anatomy writer who faked spine cancer (among other things) was a truly wild ride from beginning to end! Based on a series of Vanity Fair articles written by Evgenia Peretz in 2022, the falsehoods of Elisabeth Finch are sure to shock, awe, and enrage you. If you’re into that sort of thing!
Happy Friday! Let me know what you think of this ongoing segment, what’s gotten you through your week, and/or if you love any of the things I love! <3
Also, if you’re an avid fan of Grey’s, who is now seeing certain storylines in a whole new light post-Anatomy of Lies, I WANNA TALK TO YOU!
Sending love and many thanks for your lovely newsletter xxx
Love the breakdown of numbers into tarot cards 🃏💚