Good morning!
Welcome to Issue 55.3 of Digestable, your thrice-weekly mouthful of real things happening in the world, minus alarmist pandemic news.
Today’s news, fermented:
Things on my mind at the end of this week:
The Bergen family owned 46 people, and other stories of slaveholders whose names grace NYC streets
Dianne Morales is the only candidate for NYC mayor meaningfully committed to defunding the police.
And later today, Subvert, the podcast I co-host at Corporate Accountability, will be dropping a fresh new episode featuring the badass organizers behind the #ACT4SouthernTowers campaign to keep members of a deeply rooted immigrant community in their homes, just down the road from Amazon’s impending HQ2. The episode will be available on our website and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.
Last but certainly not least, these sweet bears.
~Caro's Tarot~
Good morning and happy Friday beautiful earthlings!
I want to start today’s reading with a quick little personal anecdote on my personal relationship with tarot, and one of my favorite discoveries about my family this past year. I discovered this last year from reading my parent’s cards. Now mind you, I got my first tarot deck less than a year ago (around my birthday last year, so September), so I am still very new to this. I was giving my dad a particularly strong reading, when he chimes in, “You know, la abuela Margara sought out answers from the cards religiously.” I was taken aback...la abuela Margarita believed in tarot!? Miss catholic her whole life, rosary daily, abuela Margara??? Now I never really got to know my abuela too well, she passed away just years after we moved to the US, and at this point, she was unfortunately not fully with us. To discover that someone else in my family had sought answers from the cards filled me with an indescribable feeling of joy and connection to my abuela. It was so cool to think of my abuela actually going to her local psychic or bruja (Tarot is not witchcraft btw, that is a completely separate practice, although it can be incorporated into witchcraft for uses of divination and other rituals), sitting across from them, and asking the universe questions, about herself, her family, the world, who knows!
All of this is to say that Tarot for me and for so many others, is an extremely personal practice., This is one of the reasons why there are so many different types of decks and interpretations of the cards out there! For centuries, humans from different cultures and walks of life have sought answers to the unknown around us through this old, intricate system of storytelling. Even my extremely catholic abuela couldn’t keep herself from seeking answers from the Tarot!
So now let’s seek some guidance for today and the week beyond, let’s pick our card! Today we are asking the cards to let us know what we should be aware of as we go into the weekend, what we should be paying attention to. Now give me a sec while I light my candle…..queue up Good Days by SZA...ok here we go:
The death card...ok now before y’all start freaking out, let me tell you that death is actually not the “big bad” card that most make it out to be. Death marks the ending of a chapter, the start of a new beginning. Let’s tune in and see what Jerico Mandybur’s interpretation of the death card is:
“Death: Death is a card of sweeping change. It represents the end of a cycle -- letting go of old patterns and modes and embracing the new. It can be painful to say goodbye to what no longer serves us, and the ego naturally contracts when threatened; we fear the destruction of our personality. But accepting death (not literal death, but change) means living more fully. It means saying yes to transformative, redemptive energy. Honour your mourning, but let go of what’s beyond your control.”
WOW y’all, this is a powerful card, not just because it’s a Major Arcana card (again, will explain in the future) but because of it’s resonance in this moment. This is a beautiful card telling us that tomorrow is a new day. That we are experiencing the ending of a chapter personally, and sometimes that’s hard to let go of! The cycles of spring come to mind, the ending of a long, cold, dark, pandemic winter being met with the sun, warmth, and opportunities to renew and rejuvenate in the upcoming season. Take time to personally reflect on this, what is your new chapter? What are you personally stepping into this spring, how are you going to live more fully?
While I don’t want to, and I will not, interpret this card for others, I do want to mention that the events that have transpired these past couple of weeks...months...actually years, have led us to this moment, where we are examining these old patterns, these old modes of being. I am directly talking about the police state in this country. I want us to reflect on this bigger picture, to recognize that we are in the process of shedding these old beliefs of how things should and shouldn’t work. We have collectively been demanding the shedding of these old beliefs, and while we have work, and I mean a lot of work to do, we can begin to recognize that as a society we are starting to shift and turn away from these old belief systems and patterns. So yeah, abolish the police y’all, it’s the only answer.
Let’s step into this transformative energy as we step into our weekends. Until next week friends!
DJ M0RO’s low-key Music Show
Last summer I got so stoked about the new Minneapolis venue Auntie’s. And while I don’t expect to be milling about inside with strangers any time soon, it’s fun to think about what it will feel like to dance with randos again. (Though, do check out their upcoming and innovative virtual events on the site!)
Until then please enjoy the very danceable music of Lady Midnight, one of the original co-founders. Her latest track is called Tide Over, and sorry in advance to the disco-is-dead people because this is a certified bop.
Please also enjoy an early-quarantine single from Sophia Eris, who also happens to be a radio host and the DJ for *Lizzo*. Look forward to checking out Auntie’s curated playlists on Spotify with some major 80s/funk vibes. Now might be a good time to confess I’ve been listening to a lot of Missy Elliot lately and I’m very happy about it.