What’s up, swimmers?! Happy October! Happy Season of the Witch!
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I’m so psyched to bring you this conversation with tarotist and creativity coach, Chelsey Pippin Mizzi, whose new book, Tarot for Creativity: A Guide to Igniting Your Creative Practice, is out TODAY! I promise you, you’re going to want to grab a copy.
Did I spend too much time in this episode gushing to Chelsey about how I’ve used her book daily since it arrived? Maybe. But sheesh, it’s generous and expansive and reframes all 78 cards of the tarot through the lens of connecting with your creativity. Complete with write-ups, creative exercises, and a tarot spread for every card. Chelsey’s writing is to the point, but gentle, and incredibly encouraging, no matter where you are in your process or career.
I LOVE THIS BOOK! I HOPE YOU LOVE IT TOO!
Chelsey Pippin Mizzi is an author, tarot reader, and certified Shadow Work practitioner living in Avignon, France. She combines tarot, art therapy techniques, Jungian Shadow Work practices, and her ten+ years of experience working in the creative industries to provide inclusive, supportive, and playful resources for artists, writers, and creative entrepreneurs.
Her work has been published in New York Magazine's The Strategist, The Bookseller, and BuzzFeed, where she was formerly Commissioning Editor for Features. She founded the creativity consultancy Pip Cards Tarot in 2020. Her first book, The Tarot Spreads Yearbook, was published in 2023 and was ranked a number 1 bestseller in Amazon's Hot New Release category.
In her newest book, Tarot for Creativity, Chelsey “teaches us to tap into our imagination, overcome blocks, and deepen our relationship with our creativity, all using tarot as a powerful tool. Whether you're a writer, artist, engineer, chef, or influencer, this guidebook offers down-to-earth advice for honing your voice, overcoming blocks, and cultivating your creative magic.”
Chelsey is the calm, but warm guide we all need right now, especially as we wrestle our creativity out of the jaws of productivity culture. She approaches the tarot and art-making with a grounded devotion, which is as accessible as it is infectious.
Some of my favorite pearls of wisdom include:
On repetition and the creative process: “[O]ne of the things I love about the tarot is we're always coming back to the same lessons again… And because we've productized creativity to such an extent, we forget it's not a beginning and an end. It is the same. It's that cycle. There's not a start and an end point…”
On loving what you’re making: “[B]ecause we're all so understandably rushed to find out if something is worth the money, we forget that creative process that it takes to make it worth trying to make it worth money... If you can't take the time to be in love with the work before you can sell it, it's going to be really hard to get into that cycle of feeling the pressure to sell something you didn't love in the first place.”
On shitty first drafts: “I agree that a shitty first draft isn't always necessary, but I wonder if a willingness for it to be shitty in the first place is always necessary. Like you can't get to the accidental not shitty first draft if you weren't willing for it to be shitty, and like, sometimes it's not… but you kind of have to go—I'm gonna own the fact that it may be.”
You can connect further with Chelsey by subscribing to her Substack, , booking a session with her through her website, or following her on Instagram @pipscardtarot.
Tarot for Creativity with Chelsey Pippin Mizzi