How do we change our god(damn) minds?! ๐๐ซ
explore our cards for February and the intersection of Buddhism and brain science!
Welcome to February!
Whatโs up, swimmers?! Weโve survived January. No matter how you fared, take a moment here to close your eyes, take a deep breath, maybe put a hand on your heart or forehead, and give yourself a fucking break, my dudes.
Mary Oliver wrote,
it is a serious thing / just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.
Thank you for being here with me, wherever and whenever this finds you.
Everything has felt so loud lately. Noisy. Inside, outside, online, offline. Just this constant barrage of sound thatโs just above the pitch of white noise, so it never blends. It just makes your brain feel fuzzy and disastrous. Or maybe Iโm just feeling the side effects of plugging back into my center just enough to have to engage with all of those feelings and sensations Iโve been too scared to sit with.
Thereโs been a lot of good noise lately about working towards the world we want. The world we need. The one we cannot wait for any longer. Ceasefire now.
This kind of collective conversation is deep, imaginative work. Itโs world-building. Itโs donning our dreaming caps, and daring to discover whatโs just beyond the plane of practical possibilities. Each of us. Together. Itโs holy work. I am reminded of Octavia E. Butler, who wrote that โGod is change,โ and buoyed by her notion that shapeshifting is the most divine of all states of being. The in-between, the liminal. That which is not one thing anymore, but isnโt yet another. To cross this bridge, as one, is the most sacred of efforts.
But this work also takes focus, strength, courage, and chutzpah!
Last month, we learned that burnout has far-reaching effects on the brain, the body, and the community at-large. Kevin Munhall told us that a sense of safety is key to practicing mindfulness and regulating our nervous systems. We sat with the tender truth that healing takes time, but we also feasted on a buffet of actions we can take every single day to build momentum and regain our strength.
This month, weโre focusing on how to actually make our desired changes, so that we may not only feel better in our own lives, but also be able to show up more effectively and sustainably in our circles, our orbits, our networks, and beyond. So that we may be able to engage further in the deep, holy work.
And our mentors this month are coming in hot with a pivotal pointโ
The most important step to making change in your life is to change your mind.
ICYMI: Weโre doing things differently around here this year at SITS!
The Year of Yearning will consist of twelve topics of study, one for each month of the year. Every Friday, youโll receive a little lesson or a love letter. The first installmentโwhich youโre reading nowโwill be sent to all subscribers, but the full versions of the love letters and the second lesson will be for paid pals only.
Our cards for February 2024 areโฆ
12 - THE HANGED ONE with SHAPESHIFTER
THE KING OF SWORDS with YOU ARE OUR GOD
12 - The Hanged One
Keywords: a new or different perspective, surrender, contemplation, enlightenment, passion, sacrifice, letting go, discomfort, limbo, stagnation
Clearly we are not fully ready to emerge.
If that comes as a disappointment to you, Iโm with you in that feeling.
Still, in true Hanged One fashion, there are many interpretations of this card. Some say this card tells us to pause. To reflect, to explore, to consider. Others insist that this archetype heralds action. But rather than going in the direction weโve always gone, perhaps another method or map may get us farther, deeper, closer to our truth? Maybe the true meaning lies somewhere in the both/and?
Marcella Krollโs The Dreamers Tarot renames this card Reflection (pictured below), which asks us to connect to the bat, which hangs upside down when resting. Bats have evolved in ways that have weakened their back legs and wings, so โa major advantage to hanging upside down is that bats do not need to generate lift to begin flight. They just drop out of their bed, open their wings and off they go.โ1
This month, how might you perceive pauses as an opportunity to embody faith in right timing? Can you consider the aspects of yourself that seem unfavorable might offer you a fortuitous readiness when that right timing finally comes?
Some other meaty interpretations to sit with as we embody the SHAPESHIFTER:
In Tarot For the Hard Work, Maria Minnis writes, โPerfect timing is rare, so the Hanged One doesnโt expect to act gracefully or flawlessly. The work is often rough, messy, and nonlinear, and this devotion compels us to get our hands dirty.โ
Cassandra Snow, author of Queering the Tarot, says, โThe card can be about restriction: to sacrifice something you want now for more success further down the line, to make your point, or to further your cause.โ
In the guidebook for Daliโs Universal Tarot, Johannes Fiebig tells us, โIt is important to re-evaluate your own belief systemโฆ If you have found your belief system to be true, do not hesitate to surrender to it completely. A meaningful belief and deliberate passion are the greatest of all emotions.โ
Plus, some eight year observations:
In our 2024 overview, I wrote about kinks as intimate pieces of self-knowledge and desire. The Hanged One is an ally in any exploratory actions you want to take this month. Consider how the card describes the experience of stretching, of being restrained, of breathing through discomfort, of surrender and submission, and how its artwork often depicts a figure in some sort of bondage.
A personal favorite comes from The Fifth Spirit Tarot by Charlie Claire Burgess (pictured above), in which the Hanged One is suspended underwater and cradled in a net of intricate ropes that resemble shibari, a Japanese style of binding. As quoted in Cosmopolitan, sex expert Julieta Chiara says that โshibariโs appeal is layered and can be almost spiritual: โItโs the erotic nature, blend of pleasure and pain or restraint, and the immense connection and trust that is built between the rigger (the one tying) and the rope bottom (the one getting tied).โโ2
Outside of the bedroom, itโs up to you to determine whoโs the rigger to your rope bottom. The spiritual path can often leave us feeling stuck or stagnant, left to scream at some guy in the sky and wait for an answer that isnโt promised. The Hanged One offers stress relief, wondering if youโd like to be a willing participant instead? This month, see if you can relax until discomfort becomes pleasure.
In that article on eight (8) energy, I also said that the line between sex and art is fine fine fine, baby. Few would know about that better than Chloรซ Sevigny, whoโs pictured above as The Hanged One in That 90โs Tarot by Kristi Prokopiak. In 2003, Sevigny starred in the film The Brown Bunny, which features a scene where she performs unsimulated, oral sex on co-star and director, Vincent Gallo. She was both praised and chastised for her choice, and it was quite the controversy when the film screened at Cannes!
She, however, didnโt seem phased by the dramatics: "It's a shame people write so many things when they haven't seen [the film]. When you see [it], it makes more sense. It's an art film. It should be playing in museums.โ3
The King of Swords
Keywords: mental focus, concentration, discernment, logical expansion, Philsopher-king, intelligence, truthful authority, leadership, communicative
The King of Swords is a strong card of mental acuity and speaking truth to power. When we embody the Kings, weโre stepping into our divine authority, and tuning into our innate, and practiced, qualitiesโthe ones that allow us to be great leaders, mentors, and models. There is responsibility in this embodying this role.
In Finding the Fool: a tarot journey to radical transformation, meg jones wall writes, โThe King of Swords asks us to utilize our intellect, insights, and observational skills to think beyond existing limitsโฆโ What a magical quality for a King to haveโthe cunning and compassion to wield the sword of reason, logic, and inventiveness before brute force. Perhaps thatโs why Marcella Kroll renamed the Kings, the Dreamers.
The King of Swords rules over the dodgy dominion of the mindโthe most fickle of gatekeepers; sphinxes with the keys to nirvana, if you can only solve the riddle!โand this month, it stands tall beside a powerful and peculiar friend: YOU ARE OUR GOD.
โThere is none other,โ says the guidebook of Morganโs Tarot about this funky card. โThe kingdom of heaven is within, and you can find yourself ever anew in the universe.โ Sounds a lot like the gnostic concept of the divine spark, huh? The fragment of The Creator that lives within us all. And itโs this bit of cosmic dust thatโs going to help us solve the mindโs riddle. But instead of providing us with an answer, YOU ARE OUR GOD says to become the one who writes the riddle.
The guidebook also offers: โHowever, as god you are part of humanity. Thus, the Buddhists encourage infinite compassion for all living beings.โ
That includes you. Letโs be gentle with ourselves as we bend reality, okay?
FEBRUARY 2024: CHANGING OUR GOD(DAMN) MINDS ๐๐ซ
Last month, I listened to a lecture on Creative Energetics by Pea the Feary. The whole thing blew my fucking mind, but I especially loved how she explained the concept that reality is a mirror of our desires.
โWhen you have a desire for something,โ she said, โthat desire is also existing in the external reality somewhere. Whatโs happening in your internal world is also happening in external reality!โ
If that seems a little too good to be true, or like some woo woo bullshit, youโre a) probably not alone in that thought, and b) not accounting for the magical and mystical process that is changing our mind, which does seem to be the foundation of all other physical or behavioral changes.
In a couple of weeks, weโre going to look at a few proven methods to making changes, but today, I want to hang out at the intersection of Buddhism and brain chemistry. There, I hope to illustrate that not only do we have the ability to influence our minds, but that through that process, we can also change the very shape, depth, and inner workings of our brains.
Now, hereโs the part where I try to make literal brain science digestibleโฆ
Can positivity really change our minds?
Buddhism is the study and practice of the teachings of the Buddha, who was born Prince Siddhartha. After venturing out into the world and feeling horror over the suffering that he witnessed, the prince faced his own mortality for the first time in his life, and sat in contemplation, underneath a tree, for forty days and forty nights. When he returned to the town, he did so as the Buddha.
Buddhist philosophy is built on a numerically pleasing foundation of Four Noble Truths:
All existence is suffering.
The cause of suffering is desire, or craving.
The end of suffering can be found through the end of craving.
The path to the end of craving, and therefore suffering, is an Eightfold Path:
Right View
Right Resolve
Right Speech
Right Action
Right Livelihood
Right Effort
Right Mindfulness
Right Concentration4
At first glance, these principles seem quite cynical. But upon further examination, theyโre just speaking to what Pea was talking about in her Creative Energetics courseโour mental relationship to the mirror of reality.
Take the first step of the Eightfold Path, Right View, which can be explained as the true understanding of how reality and suffering are intertwined. By the principles of energetics, when we desire something, that reality then exists out in the world. Itโs the distance between where we are and what we want that causes suffering.
The good news is that there are actions to take to close the gap. The bad news is that we first have to believe that the reality we want already exists. We have to trust that getting what we want is possible! This takes brave, and oftentimes blind, faith, and we humans arenโt very good at this. We are sensitive little creatures who need a lot of positivity to offset adverse experiences, so we have to set intentions, recite mantras, cast spells, and engage in all of the other steps of the Eightfold Path to end suffering.
The silver lining? Those things actually work!
In Buddhaโs Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love & Wisdom, Rick Hanson, PH.D. and Richard Mendius, MD, use brain science to prove how Buddhist practices are positive for mental health. By breaking down the brainโs neuroaxis, which supports both intention setting and motivation, into four main levels, they also come to some interesting conclusions about brain function and positivity.
โThe key is to have wholesome intentions without being attached to their results,โ they write. โAs you weave positive inclinations more deeply into the different levels of your brain, you increasingly push the Three Poisons [greed, hatred, and delusion] to the margins. Itโs important to nurture good intentions at all levels of the neuroaxisโand to cultivate the strength to carry them out.โ
The more we can engage with these actions, the more changes will occur in our brains, which will then make it easier to access these positive places in the future, so we wonโt have to work so hard at constantly changing our minds!
And how do we know we can do it? WE ARE GOD. Weโve already done it, and weโll do it again and again for the rest of time. Change, adaptation, adjustment, shapeshiftingโitโs our most natural state of being and doing.
Buddhism is considered one of the worldโs largest religions, but Buddhists donโt believe in God. Buddhist spirituality doesnโt attach itself to an object of worship at all, but rather an earthly interconnectedness, and a shared pursuit of happiness, joy, peace, love, and contentedness. Each of us are holy, and we all contribute to the holy work, regardless of who is or isnโt watching over us.
In his aptly-titled book, How to Change Your Mind, which explores the intersection of psychedelics and mental health, Michael Pollan writes about this agnostic attitude, concluding that a belief in the divine isnโt even necessary to put Buddhist-like principles into practice.
โYou go deep enough or far out enough in consciousness and you will bump into the sacred. Itโs not something we generate; itโs something out there waiting to be discovered. And this reliably happens to nonbelievers as well as believers.โ5
If youโre still reading this, you probably believe in something, so your work this month is committing those beliefs in new and intentional ways; to make them so real in your life that you canโt help but take the next steps to getting what you want or going where you want to go.
How can you support your mental health this month? How are you engaging with positive intentions throughout your day to day? And how do we ensure that weโre going deep enough that our minds will aid us in the success of our goals, instead of standing in the way of them?
Just rememberโyou are God. I am God. We are God. There is no other.
Until next time, just keep swimming!
xx, Rebecca
Why do bats sleep upside down? by Amy Edwards for La Trobe University.
Sevigny explains graphic sex scene in new film by Michael Euler for USA Today.
What Is the Eightfold Path? by Lionโs Roar Staff for Lionโs Roar: Buddhist Wisdom for Our Time
The 6 Stages of Change: The Transtheoretical, or Stages of Change, Model by Kendra Cherry, MSEd for Very Well Mind.