Summer is here!
I’m pleased to report that I feel a buoyant vibrancy I haven’t felt in a good while, full of fresh-start energy, new chapter vibes.
What wonderful lessons 2025 has provided so far…
I’ve continued to deepen my personal philosophies around the value of beauty and meaning-making in my personal spaces. It’s been a joy to create ritual and enrichment in and around my home (I’ll likely have more to share on this soon!).
Many of this season’s Artifice guests have spoken about giving ourselves permission to be truly present in our work – to make what we want to make, to follow our passion, interest, whimsy in both the micro and macro, to allow intuition to lead us to whatever is next, and to cultivate a bones-deep trust in that instinct.
In many ways, I remain a servant to lists and deadlines, but I’ve been carving out spaces for more balance, and am looking forward to continued exploration throughout the second half of the year.
I’ve always been a champion of curiosity, but I’ve recently enjoyed a new angle on the subject – connecting wonder with wondering. There’s something just a bit more senses-forward (perhaps a bit less academic?) about it that has me feeling neuroplastic. Wild curiosity catalyzed specifically by wonder. Delightful!
One true fan Jaron Davis gave me the gift of this lovely reflection: “it feels like you’re really trying to engage with the world and add beauty to it, and understand its beauty in return.” It continues to mean so much to me.
And as my past four Deep Dives have suggested, I’ve also battled with some heavier lessons this year.
My family of origin continues to leave me awash in grief. I learned late in February that my baby sister would be getting married in May and that I was not invited. In many ways, it’s a worst fear come true.
The day came and went with no word from any of the dozens of humans assigned by blood and proximity to love and care for me, people I’ve spent my entire life loving, people I expected to remain bonded with throughout our lives.
I simply wasn’t wanted, and wasn’t missed.
A few things feel right to share here, in the spirit of closing chapters and opening new ones…
First, I am really glad I was able to offer my sister a bridal shower. As it feels like our relationship is coming to a close (at least for the present era, but very possibly forever), I feel peaceful about having sealed it with a wholehearted gift, full of as much magic as I could muster. If there has to be a rupture, this is the closure I choose.
The week before the wedding, I felt lower than I have in so many years. I felt crushed under a mountain of shame, worthlessness, grief. I felt truly, wholly, absolutely unlovable, un-want-able, unconditionally loathsome.
I started therapy in June of 2016 after my body alerted me with crippling back pain and near daily panic attacks that I couldn’t keep ignoring certain hideous truths. Up to that point, the mountain was my constant companion. Carrying all of that shame and worthlessness was all I’d ever known.
Throughout the past nine years, I’ve worked endlessly to remove it slab by slab, but it came back full force during the pre-wedding week. I was shocked by how terribly heavy it felt, but also how familiar that immense weight was…
I’ve spent so many more years of my life under the mountain than beside it. The visceral clench of this realization was genuinely startling. Racking. Wrenching. It took my breath away.
At the end of that week, driving home from Bozeman on a truly gorgeous+mysterious rainy spring day, I felt my body realizing it is finally time to let go.
I have to let this particular hope go.
I’m sure new waves of grief will come, but in this moment, I’m feeling enormous relief. I’m ready to crack open a new chapter.
As luck would have it, the timing is just right.
I know I’ve said it a million times, but Artifice has changed my brain chemistry, it has rewired my heart. This community, this practice, these rituals have been the purest gift. My lessons find me here.
I can’t imagine three better conversations to help me through the end of this season and to send me open hearted into the next.
Darling Olivia. I think she might be the youngest Artifice guest to date (I believe she said she was 21 when we did the interview), but she is full of wisdom and strength.
I hesitate to even mention it (because it’s not even remotely the most interesting or impressive thing about this incredible young artist), but I feel the need to tell you that to the best of Olivia’s knowledge, she is the first professional ballerina IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD to have a limb difference.
I can’t stop thinking about how many excuses I hear (in the classroom, among peers, occasionally from myself) about why this or that obstacle is too big to overcome, so cumbersome that even trying is useless. And I just keep thinking about what bullshit that is. And what a magical badass Olivia is.
Early in our conversation, Olivia told me she has a fear of failure. And I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a fear of failure…
But as I pressed her for a bit of clarification, Olivia floored me with her own whimsical twist. Rather than fearing criticism, rejection, or a lack of validation, Olivia’s fear is rooted in the possibility that she might not experience the satisfaction of seeing her vision come to life.
Olivia’s fear of failure is wholly removed from external gatekeeping or approval. It’s empowered. It’s kinetic. It propels her. She needs to bring the vision to reality.
Olivia told me – “sometimes I imagine corrections I’m going to get before I even do the step.”
I love this so much. It reminds me of one of my favorite lessons to give my students who struggle with “perfectionism.”
I believe in two kinds of perfectionism. There’s the sort that paralyzes you – you won’t even begin a project unless you’re certain it’ll be perfect. And there’s the perfectionism that won’t let you stop trying until it’s perfect.
For all of the “fear of failure,” Olivia has no fear of correction. Before she even takes the step, she sends herself into a little daydream about what could go wrong—not to weigh her down, but to inspire her very best attempt. The sheer bravery of this…it astounds me! She’s envisioning the path to success, envisioning potential obstacles, and going for it every time.
And of course, she’s ready for any corrections that may come. They aren’t threats. They are welcome lessons, little gifts from trusted coaches. We need more of this sort of eagerness. It’s growth mindset personified. It’s creativity distilled to essence.
As Olivia puts it, “I love to find meaning in the littlest things.” She’s looking for profundity in every corner. She welcomes every hint of it. And of optimism and hopefulness, she says “I love when I feel this way.”
It’s a hard amen for me, sis.
Katharine and I bonded over similar joys, and similar insatiability.
There’s very little I love more than coming across a fellow human who is willing and able to meet me in warp-speed, tangent-saturated, passion-charged, roller coaster conversation. It’s one of life’s best drugs, if you ask me. And I suspect Katharine feels the same way.
There’s so much to learn! So much to share!
As we discussed Katharine’s myriad mediums and areas of focus, she reflected “the throughline here is exploration – which is vague and all-encompassing – but more than anything, the one feeling that’s super consistent for me is just this profound hunger to understand.”
She continues, “I was just hyper aware that anything I heard, any kind of information I could glean, or any insight that I could grasp would be a tool for me.”
I relate so deeply to this. It’s another level of curiosity. Again, insatiable!
When you have this kind of hunger for information, it won’t matter what the subject is – you just have an instinct that any little nugget might be useful. And I suspect (based on my experience) that you’ll probably even go out of your way to find a use for it.
This also feels like creativity distilled to essence. There’s a sort of alchemy about it.
It’s like the information itself is a medium. What starts as disparate factoids becomes philosophy, perspective, movement. Conversation!
In Katharine’s words, “I am only experiencing a fraction of what life is, and there are so many different experiences out there. How can I possibly write that off? How can I possibly not want to empathize with more people? I want to be able to understand more people. I want to be able to speak to anybody at their level.”
And in a true mic-drop moment, Katharine dropped this absolute 🔥…
“I will sacrifice my ego for knowledge any fucking day.”
Cut. Print. Put it on a shirt. Tattoo it on my body.
And isn’t this the same thing Olivia is doing (re: correction projections)?
This is pure magic to me.
Or, as Katharine puts it “stubbornly optimistic or delusional, one or the other.”
Honestly though, I’ll take either. I’ll take them both. Again, I think there’s alchemy here.
And speaking of magic, I have to share one last gift Katharine gave me in this conversation. She dropped it with zero fanfare. I had to pause upon re-listening to google and dear lord am I glad I did. I truly hate the idea that I could have gone another day without this treasure…
Katharine gifted me a new word, a word I am absolutely meant to have.
✨ transmogrify ✨
: to transform in a surprising or magical manner.
We don’t need “art” in verb form. We have this.
I first came across Andrea’s work in the form of an Instagram ad sweeping across my screen in an insomnia-fueled wee small hours doomscroll.
My heart immediately alight, I followed the link to a Kickstarter for Andrea’s new oracle deck and pre-ordered two sets without hesitation (one for me, and one for Olivia C. #bestie).
Andrea’s work hits me in that rare and precious direct-to-soul sort of way. I was so happy when she agreed to do the podcast. Our conversation was a balm to me.
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been mindful about rediscovering and reconnecting to the most wild and tender parts of myself, the ones I left behind in childhood (they weren’t safe in the environment my parents built for me).
I know I was a magical child. I came into this world with a deep intuition. I was attuned to my senses, full of wonder, full of imagination, full of a wild inner freedom.
Of course, I never lost these powers completely. But I wasn’t allowed to wield them in the open.
Andrea helped me put words to one way I know I have been able to reach those inner parts…
She said, “the way I think of escapism…it wasn’t ever to get away from what was happening, it was to dive within to find whatever resources and power [I had], and kind of bring those up to the surface. I was escaping inward so that I could show up outwardly.”
I mourn the loss of early flourishing I would have (should have) experienced had my full resources and power been permitted to show up outwardly, but I know this was my secret method. I siphoned and filtered my little magics into sanctioned expressions, or into hidden pockets of my private mind and heart.
Eventually, they brought me here.
Some of my magics have been allowed to grow so strong—curiosity, creativity, resourcefulness, determination, ye olde stubborn optimism. I cloaked them in “Straight-A Student” long enough to get myself to safer spaces.
I felt around in the dark. I gathered up little bits of light until I had enough to see another door, then another, then another.
I think now I’m finally finding enough light to see the parts of myself I had to leave behind, or bury.
Andrea says:
“Creativity is the deepest resource for getting in touch with your own sacred nature.”
and
“We don’t have to have evidence that we are magical to know we are magical.”
These words soothe my abandoned, buried parts. They feel like pixie dust.
I interviewed Andrea in November, but waited until Christmas to open the Gaia deck (I wanted to give Olivia her deck before spending time with it, myself 🧚♀️).
To be clear, this was a brand-new experience for me. I’ve had dear friends pull cards for me a few times in the past, but I’d never had a private moment with an oracle deck.
A few days before the new year, I pulled a single card…
CAVES
Although she appears isolated in her subterranean hall, the goddess is not sorrowful. She is cradled by her fellow crystalline creations and wrapped in a string of cave pearls gathered from a nearby pool. Here she can excavate her depth and experience her true essence.
It is in exploring the shadows of our self, society and universe, that we can truly begin to live authentically and honestly. Holding hands with the darkness and bringing it into the light, so that we may reconcile, heal and experience wholeness.
***
The message didn’t land with me right away – I was feeling sorrowful. I didn’t feel cradled or wrapped. I didn’t have the energy for excavation.
But I wanted to give it some time.
I have such a belief in Andrea’s deep goodness, wisdom, and beauty, and such an honor for the chosen sisterhood I share with Olivia (knowing we have a sweet connection with this deck); I decided to trust that I would find the magic I was looking for.
Over the past five months, I’ve kept the CAVES card in my nightstand, pulling it out occasionally to hold it, take in the artwork, pour over Andrea’s careful words.
Around the start of April, it began to sink in. I felt myself starting to prepare for a new chapter in my reconciliation with lost parts of myself. I started to see those crystalline creations—some of them my own works, some of them gifts from fellow travelers.
As I relistened to my conversation with Andrea at the top of May, having forgotten truly everything we’d spoken about in November, I discovered another uncanny treasure…
Speaking about a harrowing chapter of her own past, Andrea shared a message she’d given herself:
“You are going through some really shadowy caves, and you’re going down deep, but you do have this lantern. Your creativity will light the way when you want it, and when you’re ready for it…I had to go through that [shadowy cave] to find myself in a vibrant state again.”
And today, at the surface as I am, the blessing of my first Gaia card feels complete.
This, like all magics (I believe) is made of faith, hope, loving kindness, and the choice to see and create beauty and meaning wherever we can.
I’m so grateful for every Season 11 conversation and the lessons therein. I’m grateful for true friends and chosen family. I’m grateful for the resilience of my personal magics.
And I’m so looking forward to the next chapter.
Season 12 starts in July!
Love,
Emily