Rebecca Scolnick's Blog, page 9
January 24, 2025
1/24: The Friday Five
It’s Friday! Venus’s day! How is your heart? Have you engaged with beauty today? What about pleasure? Sea foam or the forest floor? What about righteous rage? Deep despair? It’s a fucking mess out there!
A huge thank you to everyone who’s shared, liked, commented, or otherwise reached out about my latest, Getting Sick as the Empire Falls. I am so honored to hold the health and hospital stories of those who’ve generously shared, and I’m sending love and solidarity to all of those navigating illness, both obvious and mysterious. To quote Andrea Gibson: “There isn’t a healthy body in the world stronger than a sick person’s spirit.”
Today, Friday, January 24 is a 16/7 day in a big way (1+2+4 = 7, 7+2+0+2+5 = 16, 1+6 = 7). Seven in the tarot is The Chariot, and sixteen, The Tower. These are massive energies that are equally forceful as they are misleading. The Chariot doesn’t have any wheels. The Tower is struck by lightning, but it’s the King who’s falling to his death. If the news cycle of the day is all-consuming, take a break and a breath, for keeping one’s wits about them during this moment in the cyclone of time requires fierce discernment and discipline. To quote (who was writing about 2025 and The Moon, but it feels apropos): “It’s the difference between independent thought and conspiracy theory, reasonable suspicion and paranoid confabulation, spirituality and escapism, seeking and following.”1
But also, let’s get back to joy…
ICYMI:❤️🩹: Resources & Mutual Aid Requests from Los Angeles
🌀: Welcome to 2025, a Nine Collective Year
💍: Marriage By the Numbers: Planning Your Wedding Using Numerology
📆: DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers
🎧: Call Your Coven is back! Listen to January 2025: Shedding Season
Here’s what’s gotten me through this wacky week:
Season Three of The Traitors US — I fucking love this show. It’s another one that I love in every colonial part of the world: US, UK, and AUS… But while abroad they like to use everyday folks, in America, each group of faithfuls or traitors to sit at the infamous round table are reality television stars. So every season is like an All-Stars version of MURDER! And don’t even get me started on host Alan Cumming and his immaculate diction and wardrobe. Even his dog is killing me softly with fierce lewks this season. Anyway, not saying you have to be like us and make Traitors Thursdays a thing, but also do it, it’s so fun!
SPOILER ALERT - There she is. My favorite housewife, gone way too soon…The Internet Lore Tarot — This is my new favorite deck and it’s taken me completely by surprise! Rolled out as a new year gift for all account holders, The Internet Lore Tarot by the geniuses behind Moonlight is a near-perfect deck imo. It’s deep, it’s funny, it’s relatable… Just zoom into the below version of The Devil, which features a head of lettuce wearing pink sunglasses, alongside the phrase, They’ll never guess I used to be normal. Iconic. But seriously, I am loving this deck and it’s so easy to just hop into a digital room and take it for a spin. So far, I’ve used it for myself, for clients (both live and recorded), in this week’s weekly forecast, and to help flesh out some new characters for a creative idea that’s wiggled its way between my ears. If you try, let me know which cards are your favorite!
These are 10 of the 12 months of my year… PRAY FOR MEDeath Wish Co.’s Dark Roast Coffee — If you read about my hospital stay, then you already know I confessed to drinking Starbucks while admitted. But once I got home, you know I was loading up my coffee machine with Death Wish Coffee Co.’s Dark Roast, which is a much more values-aligned choice. According to their website, they follow strict grading requirements, source USDA Organic and Fair Trade Certified™ beans, and maintains rigorous standards that protect the environment and the livelihoods of coffee farmers! We love to hear it. And I love to drink it! My current recipe is a splash of sugar-free Salted Caramel syrup and a decent pour of oat milk. Delish!
Doesn’t it make coffee look so heavy metal?Book of the Month — IDK if you knew this, but I’m a BFF of Book of the Month. That means that I’ve stuck around this monthly book subscription service long enough that I now get cute perks like a tote bag, a free book on my birthday, and more! And the below denim hat, which rightfully announces that READING IS SEXY, was my free gift for completing the 2024 Reading Challenge! It was waiting for me when I got home—along with my January pick, The Favorites by Layne Fargo—and I love it so much I have worn it while just laying on my couch. If you’re a BotM member, please come scream at me about your current pick, and if you’d like to be a BotM member, please use my affiliate link so we can both get free books! YAY FREE BOOKS, MY FAVE!
Sorry for sending you this cleavage shot! Hope the hat can distract!The Soup™ Discord Server — Is this cheating? Maybe! But this is my Friday Five list and I’ve been having the best time in my own server this week. We’ve chatted about new email platforms that aren’t owned by bozo boy billionaires, we’ve considered our numerological yearly cycles and how to best work with the SITS weekly forecasts, I’ve pulled cards from the Internet Lore Tarot for whoever was interested (What can I say? I really do love it!), we added a new channel for sensitive topics, and more! I’m so grateful to everyone who’s swimming around in there, and I also hope you’ll join us if you feel called!
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Happy Friday! Let me know what’s gotten you through your week, and/or if you love any of the things I love! <3
Until next time, just keep swimming!xx, bee1Burgess, C. “A Year of Soul-Searching, Authenticity, and Service.” Queerly Devoted. 17 January 2025.
January 22, 2025
Getting Sick as the Empire Falls
I’m coming atcha from a place of holy satisfaction. Today, I have tussled with the beast that is the healthcare system in Los Angeles, California, United States of America, circa January 2025, and I have won! But it is not with ignorant, human hubris that I write these 5,380 words to you. I don’t need to know much to know that next time, I may not be so lucky. For when it comes to structures so unruly, inefficient, and crazy-making as the variety pack of state-run and privatized institutions that create healthcare in the United States, nobody wins for very long, and you might actually die trying.
Thank goodness we’re in a 9 year, where knowledge may not be half the battle, but it’s still power(ful). Knowledge offers agency, a deeper sense of self-trust, and a compass to guide next steps. It’s the light of a lantern in the darkest of woods. And the ruling card of 2025, The Hermit, reminds us that, for better or worse, we cannot stay in the wilderness forever. We must return to tell the tale, and hope that it reaches someone who could use the information to help themselves.
If we’re always just walking each other home, the least we can do is make the trek a little easier. I’m hoping this knowledge accomplishes that mission.
ICYMI:❤️🩹: Resources & Mutual Aid Requests from Los Angeles
🌀: Welcome to 2025, a Nine Collective Year
💍: Marriage By the Numbers: Planning Your Wedding Using Numerology
📆: DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers
🎧: Call Your Coven is back! Listen to January 2025: Shedding Season
I CALL MY STYLE SICK GIRL CHICSince the late summer of 2024, I’ve been dealing with rolling, and increasingly intensifying, injuries that I figured were due to a flare up of my not-officially-diagnosed, but absolutely debilitating, health issue from a year earlier.
August’s aches and pains started when I sat in the grass for too long at a screening of True Romance at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, and leveled up when I was bent over, putting away clothes, and a sneeze took me by surprise. September’s crunch-n-spasm took me to an urgent care in Sherman Oaks, where the doctor all but outright accused me of trying to scam pills. He gave me a generous two-day supply of muscle relaxers, and told me to see my primary care doctor. I did my due diligence and saw her in October, where she told me I was anemic and probably just pulled a muscle. She ordered an x-ray that would die a slow and painful death between the clinic’s referral department and the office of our state-issued health insurance.
By mid-November, I was bedridden. My low back had gone out again, and now I had such intense, painful muscle spasms that I couldn’t stand or walk. Every day was more excruciating than the last. I got a virtual urgent care appointment that resulted in a more realistic amount of muscle relaxers, and hobbled my way back to my primary to see what she thought. She said it sounded like fibromyalgia.
On December 7, knowing I wasn’t improving and that something was deeply wrong, my wife drove me to the ER at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles. An MRI revealed the back spasms and pain were a result of five (5) spinal fractures. More concerning, they were caused by a weakening of my bones due to lesions, which cover my spine, pelvis, ribs and sternum, and are likely the result of a metastatic disease—also known as cancer. I was immediately admitted.
should we watch LOTR as a group sometime?Over the next thirty-six (36) days, I had every scan and blood test known to mankind, and five (5) tissue biopsies, including a full hysterectomy on Christmas Eve. Everyone was on the case: oncology, hem-oncology, gyn-oncology, infectious diseases, rheumatology, endocrinology, and more. One specialist remarked I had the largest doctor team he’d ever seen. However, my body seemed to be like that widely meme’d Frodo moment, “All right, then. Keep your secrets.” My blood work was consistently normal, I was negative for infections, and every biopsy came back either benign, or inconclusive. The only confirmed diagnosis came from my hysterectomy, which produced eight (8) benign fibroids, but also uncovered stage four (4) endometriosis, a mysterious and non-curative disease that will require future treatments.
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Finally, on January 13, on the full moon in Cancer, the hospitalization became untenable, and I went home to be reunited with my soul pup, Gus.
While I don’t have definitive answers about what’s causing the spinal lesions, and I could very well still have advanced stage cancer (a theory the hospital doctors never wavered from despite not being able to locate malignant cells in my body), I know that what I need now is to rest in my own space, recover fully from all of the surgeries and procedures I spent my holidays having, and then follow-up with Cedars, while also seeking a second (third, fourth) opinion.
LOOK AT THIS PRECIOUS ANGEL BOYToday though, my holy satisfaction—my divine delight—comes from a day of successful interactions with medical professionals across numerous healthcare offices. I kept my cool, they all kept theirs, and I was able to schedule all but one of my Cedars follow-up appointments! I also helped to solve an authorization issue for my wife, who put her own medical needs on hold to sleep in a chair beside my hospital bed for the entirety of my stay. When it rains, it pours, baby!
So before you read the 36 things I learned about US Healthcare from spending 36 days in the hospital, you must first know that it is a system designed to not provide you with the potentially life-saving care you need.
Even if the person on the other end of the phone is the nicest, most helpful person on the planet, you are both bound to find yourselves tripped up by some bureaucratic rule, inconsistency, or dead-end. Getting “care” is just an infuriating process. And me trying to impress upon you that you must be the most patient of patients is not altruism, I’m sharing a skill for fucking survival! Especially as we venture further into the end of this, and the beginning of whatever comes next.
Healthcare in the United States is a mess, and it’s unlikely to get any better.
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36 Things I Learned About US Healthcare from Spending 36 Days in the Hospital
Greetings from my first of many hospital gowns, which have more coverage than they used to, but still allowed so many people to see so much of my body…YOU HAVE TO ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF AND YOU HAVE TO DO IT EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY!
The Learning Curve is STEEEEP — You have to become an expert in medicine, hospital culture and administration, insurance, etc., and you have to become one IMMEDIATELY. No matter how many people walk and talk you through things, you must somehow learn decades of schooling in a single moment, and move forward with a preternatural ability to receive and synthesize complex and horribly distressing information at the drop of a hat. Oh also, no one’s going to explain or walk you through anything, and you will spend most of your time inferring meaning through what’s not said.
What a Hospitalist Is — The hospitalist is essentially your primary care physician at the hospital. They’re the quarterback of your care team, responsible for gathering information from the different specialist teams, delivering or consulting on test results, fielding questions, ordering medications, and more. Sometimes they’re incredibly engaged and a driving force forward, and other times, they clearly have more important things to do, and are just doing the bare minimum of checking in with you daily. (Yes, that last bit is my opinion, but I am speaking from experience!!)
What a Specialist Team Is — A specialist team is fairly self-explanatory, but they’re the experts on a particular branch of medicine. These are your oncologists, neurologists, endocrinologists, rheumatologists, etc. They perform consults and physical exams, order diagnostic testing, work with radiology and pathology—the teams that read your scans and do lab work on your tissue—to consult on test results, nail down diagnoses or next steps, and determine treatment plans. Specialty teams tend to stay on your case until their forte has been ruled out, but even then, some will continue to monitor a patient’s chart for future findings.
What a Supportive Care Team Is — Also known as the Palliative Care Team—which is the name my hospitalist horrifyingly introduced them as on DAY THREE OF MY HOSPITAL VISIT—the Supportive Care Team is a group of social workers and physicians who act in service to your physical and emotional care needs while in the hospital. I’m not sure if every hospital has this team, but I really benefited from having these gentle doctors be there for me when test results came back, order additional medication to have on hand, and otherwise ensure I had advocates on my side and in my corner.
What a Case Management Team Is — During the truly insane flurry of the first week, I also met an internal team of social workers who were helping to manage my case. They help with filling out and filing important paperwork, like Disability Insurance and paid Family Leave. They make sure you know you can buy a pass at the parking office that will save you some money during a longer stay. (The fact that you have to pay for parking at a hospital honestly should be its own item on this list, but oh well, now you know!) They assist with insurance approvals, and connect you with the hospital’s financial department. And when you’re preparing for discharge, they also help to facilitate follow-up appointments and other scheduling needs.
The Members and Schedules of A Nursing Team — The nursing team is made up of the Shift Nurse, the Clinical Partner, and the Charge Nurse. The Shift Nurse is in communication with your doctors, manages the scheduling of your scans and procedures, delivers and administers your medications, changes dressings as needed, and otherwise handles your daily needs. The Clinical Partner takes your routine vital signs, changes the sheets on your bed, refills in-room water jugs, and more. The Charge Nurse is the supervising nurse. In over a month at the hospital, I never met a single one, but I’m fairly certain Stacey exchanged words with one when she tried to force us to change rooms with no warning, at 10:30 PM. The nursing team changes every twelve hours, and works no more than three days, and three shifts, in a row.
Hospital Doctors Rotate Every Week — Doctors on both the hospital staff and specialty teams rotate throughout the hospital every week. This means that by the time I left the hospital, I was on my sixth hospitalist, and no one from any of the specialist teams had been there for the entirety of my stay. In my humble opinion, this leaves a major gap in the continuity of care one receives while hospitalized. It is absolutely emotional labor to have to explain your situation every week to a new group of people, who now hold your life in their ever-changing hands. Plus, it can be dangerous to your safety if the new addition doesn’t know, or isn’t taking into account, what’s already been done. The only two teams that remained with me for the duration were Supportive Care and Case Management. Small lifeboats in a churning, pitch-black sea.
Lack of Communication Between Hospital Teams Means Conflicting Information for the Already Overwhelmed Patient — In addition to the constant shifting of doctors and nurses, another huge frustration of mine was the lack of communication between the teams. Information in the hospital really does change minute-to-minute, but in a perfect world, the teams would discuss plans between themselves before addressing the patient. I would regularly have a discussion with one team, get myself all psyched up for the next step, and then hear from the following team that what the first team wanted isn’t actually possible, safe, or happening. If they’d talked to each other before coming to see me, I would’ve been spared the additional loop-de-loops on the emotional roller-coaster.
Sometimes You Have to Remind Doctors to Read Your Chart — It might sound obvious, but unfortunately I did have to request the addition of the rule that any medical professional coming to talk to me about my care had to read my chart first. It’s chilling that I had to make that demand, but it was better than having to explain all that I’d been through to every single doctor that joined the case. Slash some nurses too, who would come on shift and get curious, only to say goodbye and good luck! a mere twelve hours later.
Photo by insung yoon on UnsplashIt’s Very Hard to Sleep at a Hospital — Between the fluorescent lights, the incessant beeping, the middle-of-the-night med deliveries, and the taking of routine vitals, it’s incredibly hard to get deep, uninterrupted sleep at the hospital. Then you factor in early morning visits from specialty teams, who literally wake you up to deliver terrible, life-changing news before “leaving you to rest,” and you may truly never sleep again! Thankfully, there are meds they can give you. I went on melatonin after a particularly sleepless weekend, thanks to my neighbor blasting Mariah Carey’s “Hero” all night long.
How Early is Too Early for a Blood Draw? — The answer? The limit does not exist. Based on my experience, a phlebotomists’s favorite time to come in, stab you with a needle, and suck your blood into various bottles and tubes is between 4-4:30 AM. Why? Who knows. But there they are, and all you can do is cover your eyes, turn on the lights (so they can see where they’re poking you), and brace yourself. Also worth noting is that it’s never too late in the day for them to swing by either. In fact, one day, I had my blood drawn in the morning, afternoon, and again at night. Thankfully, I’m an easy poke! *wink*
Just How Often You’re Going to Have to Talk About Your Poop — I swear on everything, a nurse’s favorite subject is poop. They might refer to it as “number two,” “a bowel movement,” “a BM,” or other alternative phrase, and some even say it in a sing-songy voice: “Did you take a poooooooo-oooop?” But it all still means poop, and they’re all going to ask. Repeatedly. All day, every day, for as long as it takes you to finally fess up and say you took a shit. Even more alarming is all of the reasons why you might not have regular bowel movements while in the hospital. But don’t worry, if that happens to you, they have plenty of options to get things going again! Shout out to Milk of Magnesia!
Just How Many Pills You Can Swallow At One Time — Depending on how many medications you’re on at the hospital, you might find yourself taking a whole bunch of pills at one time. I think at one point, I was up to 7 or 8? And while you can totally take them one-by-one, there is something thrilling about grabbing that tiny pill cup and just taking them all to the gullet. Swishing around a little bit of water, and sending those babies down, down, down to work their magic. Anyway, don’t choke! You’re only in a competition with yourself, and it’s only so you don’t get totally bored and go fully insane.
The Tenacity of the Food and Nutrition Team — The Food and Nutrition team is by far the team that visited my room the most during my stay. They come upwards of NINE TIMES A DAY—to take your orders, deliver each meal, and then come back to pick up your trays. Let me tell you, that’s at least six times too many. Every time someone opened my door, no matter the time of day, there was a high probability it was going to be Food and Nutrition. Of course I’m grateful to them! Sustenance is a huge part of care-taking! But it was constant, always at the worst times, and even when you said you weren’t going to order because you were having food delivered to the hospital, chances are a tray of random goodies would still show up to your room.
The Foul Nature of Most Hospital Food — Now, when I said goodies, I may have misspoke. Hospital food is objectively terrible. When you can’t decide what’s grayer: the chicken, the gravy, or the mixed vegetables on the side—you know you have an issue! I found breakfast, which was just single-serving packages of brand name foods, to be the best meal of the day. Followed by lunch, but only if you got a PB&J (and even then, sometimes you’d order strawberry jelly and they’d bring grape). Never eat the dinner. At the very least, eat from the café downstairs. Otherwise, it’s the gray combo plate!
The Moral and Ethical Dilemma When Starbucks is All That’s Available — I know that it is a trash company, their coffee is always burned, and their pastries now come in the plastic wrap they once pretended wasn’t a part of the production process. But when your whole life gets stripped away, and it’s Christmas, and you’re cleared to drink a morning latte and eat a cranberry bliss bar for breakfast, I’d like to see you hold out. PLEASE FORGIVE ME!
The Joys of American Health Insurance — Spoiler alert: there are none. The only joys are when you somehow manage to get something approved without a fight, or the bill comes and confirms that you really are just on the hook for the co-pay. Not that I would ever assume that to be the case for my lengthy hospitalization, but a sick girl can dream! Anyway, again, this is a system that is designed to make you crazy and keep you from getting the care you need. If you can acknowledge that at the top, you might have a fighting chance, kid.
YOU HAVE TO ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF AND YOU HAVE TO DO IT EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY!
Photo by Jair Lázaro on UnsplashThe Pitfalls of an HMO Plan — An HMO is a type of insurance plan that stands for Health Maintenance Organization. According to Forbes, “HMOs are known for their provider networks and lower costs. They are also restrictive and don’t cover out-of-network care unless it’s an emergency.”1 It’s also the type of plan we had while in the hospital, which is great because our ER co-pay and yearly deductible were both low. However, the insurance was offered through an employer, and we had to change jobs due to the hospitalization. During our shift to Covered California, we quickly learned that the best hospitals in California don’t necessarily accept state-issued HMO plans. We also were aggravated to learn that all post-discharge, follow-up appointments had to be authorized by your primary care provider (PCP), which is a real pain.
What To Do if You Hate Your PCP — If you really hate your PCP, the only thing to do is switch providers and hope the next one is better. But be aware, if you’re on an HMO plan, a PCP will be assigned to you. You can switch to another one, but the change might not take effect until the first day of the following month. Oh, sorry, this is about hating your PCP, not hating your HMO plan. The only other option is to get a PPO insurance plan, and hope to not have to deal with your PCP outside of your yearly physical.
The Benefits of a PPO Plan — A PPO is a type of insurance plan that stands for Preferred Provider Organization. According to Forbes, “PPOs offer more flexibility and allow out-of-network care, but that type of care typically comes with a higher cost.”2 This is the type of insurance plan that we are switching to as of February 1. For us, the additional cost in monthly premiums is worth having the freedom to see specialty doctors without prior approval. We are also going to find a PCP in private practice, whose office won’t be so bogged down. It sucks, but more money really does ensure better care.
There Are Certain Scans and Procedures That Are Outpatient Only — Alright, this is a funky, stupid thing that makes zero sense and is infuriating: there are certain scans, like a Mammogram, PET scan, or DEXA bone density scan, that you can’t get while in the hospital. You can only get them once you leave the hospital. This also applies to certain blood tests. Why? Who the fuck knows. They’re literally all in the same building. It’s purely red tape.
Dealing with Scheduling Outpatient Follow-Ups While in the Hospital — In theory, the case management team will do most of this legwork for you before you leave the hospital. That way, when you’re discharged, you have a plan in place for further care. However, it doesn’t always work out that way. Other complications include what I shared above about HMO plans and PCP referrals. But the biggest takeaway for me is that you’re not likely to see the same doctors outpatient as you did inpatient. Out of the doctors on my hospital team, I’m only following up with one I’ve met before, and I only met him because he was called in to assist on my surgery once the endometriosis was found, and therefore also did some follow-ups with me later that week.
What is the Optimal Length of a Hospital Stay? — Oof. Okay, this really isn’t so much a learning as it is an opinion. I have no way of answering this question with certainty that it’s even something you can measure. Still, I think the optimal length of a hospital stay, besides not needing one at all, is a week or less. Hopefully just a few days. This would mean that a) your medical needs are minimal, or straightforward, b) you will likely just have one or two rotations of doctors (depending on what day in the current shift you arrive), and a handful of nurses, and c) you won’t stay long enough to really peek behind the curtain and experience the major pitfalls of the hospital setting.
What Happens When the Fire Dies? — I sincerely hope that should you ever have to go to the hospital, your ailment is easily diagnosed and treated, and that you never overstay your welcome. At a certain point, all of the support and (almost overwhelming) teams that were there at the beginning start to Peter out. Sometimes, the momentum on your case stalls completely. No one actually wants to be a medical mystery. It’s frustrating and taxing. Should it happen to you, start to think about getting a second opinion. It’s very hard to relight the fire once it goes out, and you deserve attentive, engaged care.
What Happens When the Fires Start… Literally… and Surround the Hospital? — During my last full week in the hospital, the Palisades, Eaton, Hurst, Sunset, Kenneth, and other fires both named and unnamed, broke out and devastated Los Angeles County. Cedars-Sinai is in Beverly Hills, so at one point, we were surrounded by uncontrolled blazes on three out of four sides. I am endlessly grateful to all of the firefighters for their swift, precise work in keeping me, and so many others, safe. I am also grateful to have a home to return to. I am heartbroken for all Angelenos, and also what a fun, new trauma to add on top of all the other trauma…!
Photo by Robina Weermeijer on UnsplashThe Question of Do They Have an Evacuation Plan? — I am positive that Cedars, like most hospitals, and especially those in parts of the country most affected by climate change, have evacuation plans. But according to our nurse the second night of the fires, after the Sunset fire started in the Hollywood Hills directly north of the hospital, an evacuation plan had not been talked about yet. This was mildly concerning to me, a patient who is mobile, out of pain, and in relatively stable condition. I can’t imagine what it would be like to not know the plan, but know you need to stay on life-saving machinery.
The Benefits of Having Your Own Evacuation Plan — Like I said before, my mobility made it possible to come up with our own plan to flee the fires! And the only safe direction to move in was south, so we decided to use a friend’s place in Mar Vista as a meeting place to connect with Stacey and Gus, who were in the valley at our house. So that was that, we’d slap on my back brace, pack up the room, take what we could carry, and leave the rest. Thankfully, we didn’t need to employ the plan, but we did get a head start on cleaning up the hospital room we’d fully moved into. Truly, we brought our own lamps!
At Some Point, You Stop Being a Human Being, and Turn Into a Lab Rat — Okay, back to very sad, but very real business. If you stay long enough and are confusing enough to have multiple procedures, chances are good that you will start to lose your humanity at some point. Doctors mean well! They want the answers! But they don’t always remember that you’re a human being, who’s going to have to go through really intense, and likely painful, experiences to help them get those answers. In my case, I actually told my doctors that I was starting to feel like a lab rat. They looked at me with pity and said, “Yeah.”
What To Do When You Wake Up From a Procedure Covered in Your Own Blood — I sincerely hope this doesn’t happen to you, and I almost didn’t include it in this list, but I made the decision to keep it because it illustrates just how many opportunities there are for care to slip through the cracks. My fifth biopsy was of my pelvic bone. They put me to sleep, took bone and bone marrow, and then slapped a bandage on me and called it good. When I came to, I was back in my room, in my own hospital bed, alongside my mom, my wife, and the nurse. However, it didn’t take long for me to realize that between the procedure and my return to the room, no one had thought to look at, or change, my hospital gown. It had completely soaked through with blood, along with the abdominal binder I had to wear post-hysterectomy. Anyway, it was horrifying, even if it wasn’t intentional.
How to Dissociate Without Losing Your Agency — I was one hundred percent tuned in and present for the entirety of my hospital stay, and I am damn proud of myself. That being said, I couldn’t always stay in my body. Sometimes, I had to have a break. Obviously there are pills you could take that would put you on some other plane, or at least get you floating just above it all. But if you want to keep your agency, I suggest dissociating to Friends reruns on Nick at Night, silly, smutty books on the Libby app, within the pages of a child’s coloring book, in the depths of a box of chocolates, or anything else that let’s you escape for just a second. It doesn’t seem like much, but in the hospital, sanity does truly lie in the little comforts.
What Happens When You’re Unable to Get a Diagnosis — First and foremost, you rage and scream and cry and do whatever else you need to do to release some emotional energy around the fact that it’s wholly unfair and terrible to know you are sick, but not know why or what to do about it. You then weigh next steps and options, and decide whether or not you need to continue to be in the hospital. Next, you make sure you at least know who you’re meant to be following up with and how to contact them to make an appointment. You order copies of medical records, scan images, and test results. And then, you just keep swimming.
All of the Ways to Receive Gifts and Care Packages at the Hospital — I know this is a funny place to put this one, but I think we could all use a hug and a treat right about now! The good news is, there are many options for hospital deliveries! If the hospital has a gift shop, chances are they’ll have an online shop where people can pick flowers or gifts to send up to your room via a hospital volunteer. Food delivery places will also drop things off at the hospital entrance, but someone in your party has to go down and fetch them. Most external flower or balloon deliveries, or other kinds of shipped packages can also be received at the hospital. These are also brought up to your room by the lovely volunteer staff, and then housekeeping will take the empty boxes.
At Some Point, You Have to Remind Yourself That Medical Professionals Are Humans Too — I saved this one for last because I think it is the most important takeaway, and also the hardest to fathom. When you want an answer, and you’re dealing with “an expert,” it can be super difficult to remember that this is a person with flaws, blind spots, and things they just don’t know. Doctors make mistakes. They don’t always know what to do next. They don’t always consider your feelings. But I suppose that’s just part of being a human having this confusing, faulty experience. And again, it’s not like that knowledge solves everything or is easy to employ, but it doesn’t make it any less true. We’re all just figuring it out with the tools we have.
YOU HAVE TO ADVOCATE FOR YOURSELF AND YOU HAVE TO DO IT EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY!
Thanks for reading swimming in the soup! This post is public so feel free to share it.
To say the last few months have been an ordeal would be an understatement. I would not be writing this today without the unwavering support of my friends, family, and community, and definitely not without my incredible, show-stopping, saint of a wife, who helped me walk, and again, slept in a chair by my hospital bed for all but a few nights. Thank you all, I love you all. Community saves lives.
Anyway! HAPPY HOLIDAYS HAPPY NEW YEAR HAPPY EYE OF THE STORM FOR ME. I am currently being held together by a sick, new back brace, a multitude of pills, and a sheer will to live. If you have good, healing energy to send my way, thank you, I receive it, and I’m sending love and solidarity back your way. (If you have medical advice or experiences to share, I just ask you that you really consider the impacts before reaching out!) Thank you for reading all of this, and for being my pal—whether it be online, irl, or a combination of the two, it all counts in my big, ole heart. ❤️🩹❤️🩹❤️🩹
Masterson, L. What’s The Difference Between PPO And HMO Health Insurance? 19 December 2024.
2See 1.
January 19, 2025
Week #4: January 20-26, 2025
It’s the fourth week of 2025, and on the face of it, it may be the year’s most straightforward week yet.
This is, in part, thanks to the banning of TikTok in the United States, which is a clear example of the Empire (4) shutting down a wide-reaching community space (9), a case of government regulations (4) on a foreign entity (9), and also the use of safety and security fears (4) as a means to make decisions for, and control, a population (9). We’re also sure to see the next steps of a tenuous ceasefire and hostage release deal (4) between the violent, ideologically-opposed factions of Israel and Hamas (9), and the first day of the week, Monday, January 20th, will witness the inauguration of President Donald J. Trump, who is on a 4 life path.
Again, in a 9 collective year, every single daily, weekly, and monthly number is amplified. Due to the fact that 9 can essentially be canceled out in any reduction calculation it appears in (truly, try some out, i.e. 1+9 = 10, 1+0 = 1), every core number this year becomes more of itself. Magnified, and polarized. Embodying both sides of the coin at the same time.
Meaning for this week…
ICYMI:❤️🩹: Resources & Mutual Aid Requests from Los Angeles
🌀: Welcome to 2025, a Nine Collective Year
💍: Marriage By the Numbers: Planning Your Wedding Using Numerology
📆: DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers
🎧: Call Your Coven is back! Listen to January 2025: Shedding Season
Photo by Ian Parker on UnsplashFour is the number of steadfast support and sustenance. It rules the foundations, the roots, traditions and beliefs, systems and structures, and the spaces that house, contain, hold, or cocoon us.
Ruling the bones and the lungs, four is what keeps us upright and breathing, ready to harness all of the creative energy of the number three, and build it into something long-lasting. Four gets organized, pays attention to the details, and as long as there’s a practical plan, isn’t afraid to get in there and earn some sweat equity. It’s also the pregnant pause. A time-out, a safe space, a brief respite, a minute in time to plant your feet in the soft dirt of freshly tilled Earth, or breathe in the damp-sweet smell of the floor of the redwood forest, or surrender to the relentless rhythm of ocean waves, “beat[ing] on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”1
The combination of four’s archetype of The Salt of the Earth and nine’s The Humanitarian feels capable, yet restrictive, especially in light of current events already unfolding. Watch out for continued conversations and actions around censorship and surveillance, truths coming to light, and swift endings that seem almost impossible to comprehend. This week, protect your peace, but know that sometimes you are a participant in the planetary play whether you like it or not.
subscribe as a paid pal for weekly numerological forecasts for your yearly cycle number, quarterly insights from the tarot on the solstices and equinoxes, first dibs on future offerings, and access to The Soup™ Discord server.
Photo by Thomas Verbruggen on UnsplashJanuary 20-26, 2025 for Your Yearly CycleTo find your yearly cycle number, add the digits of your month and day of birth to 2025, and reduce until you reach a single digit. For example, the calculation for my birthday of July 7 looks like: 7+7+2+0+2+5 = 23, 2+3 = 5.
Please note that I reduce doubled digit numbers like 11 and 22 to their root numbers when working with yearly cycles, so please calculate and read accordingly.
This week’s forecast includes tarot pulls from the Internet Lore Tarot, made by the creators of Moonlight, a new online social space for tarot, where you can start your own virtual room with (or without) friends, as well as book me for a live or recorded reading.
January 12, 2025
Week #3: January 13-19, 2025
Welcome to the third week of what’s already been a startlingly ferocious year. When looked at on their own, the dates this cycle—the 13th through the 19th—will take us from Death to The Sun. May we keep our weather(ed) eyes on the horizon towards brighter days ahead.
On Friday, I shared a list of resources and mutual aid efforts for those affected by the still-blazing fires in Los Angeles. If you haven’t already, please consider sharing it with a friend or family member, your social media or newsletter audience, or whoever might be in need of that information, or is in a position to support. And again, if you know of funds or resources that need a signal boost, send them my way and I’ll be sure to include them in my next missive.
I also want to put one more on your radar—The Displaced Black Families GoFund Me Directory, most of whom are from Altadena, which was ravaged by the Eaton fire, but is not receiving the same media coverage as the Palisades fire. This spreadsheet lists the names of the family, the link to their GoFundMe, the current amount raised, and their end goal. It’s also color-coded according to how close each campaign is to meeting its goal, and is updated hourly!
Sharing resources to various networks via newsletter emails also seems like the perfect way to ring in a week at the intersection of 3 and 9 energies!
Especially because in a 9 collective year, every single daily, weekly, and monthly number is amplified. Due to the fact that 9 can essentially be canceled out in any reduction calculation it appears in (truly, try some out, i.e. 1+9 = 10, 1+0 = 1), every core number this year becomes more of itself. Magnified, and polarized. Embodying both sides of the coin at the same time.
Meaning for this week…
ICYMI:🌀: Welcome to 2025, a Nine Collective Year
💍: Marriage By the Numbers: Planning Your Wedding Using Numerology
📆: DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers
🎧: Call Your Coven is back! Listen to January 2025: Shedding Season
Photo by Aaron Burden on UnsplashThree is the number of creation and communication. It’s the smallest digit to encompass the whole of the journey, which you can see in the shape of its numeral, 3, which curves from the beginning, to the middle, to the end.
Some call three the magic number, as it’s connected to the witch-deity Hecate, often called the triple goddess, and the Greek messenger god Hermes, via the legendary figure of Hermes Trismegistus (a combination of Hermes and the Egyptian god of writing, wisdom and magic, Thoth), which means “Hermes the Thrice-Greatest.” Three’s archetype of The Communicator then furthers these associations through the writing principle of the Rule of Three, also known as the comic triple, which suggest that groupings of triads are more satisfying than any other numeric set, and often employs three’s quick wit, rhythm, and knowledge of tension and release to create a surprising and rewarding result.
Still, the number three reminds us that the twin of creation is destruction. Birth is bloody. Making is messy. Oftentimes we must tear things down in order to rebuild, and there is immense and illogical grief in this process. Three is the smallest of the mental numbers, ruling the lips, the tongue, the teeth, the jaw, the throat—the very apparatuses of the primal scream—where 2025’s collective number of nine is the largest lover of logic, and rules the electric meat machine that is the human brain. The central hub of knowledge and function, the one who calls the shots, even though as a species, we still don’t fully understand how exactly it works. This week, remember you can’t think your way out of pain.
Keep reading for some food for thought based on your yearly cycle number!
subscribe as a paid pal for weekly numerological forecasts for your yearly cycle number, quarterly insights from the tarot on the solstices and equinoxes, first dibs on future offerings, and access to The Soup™ Discord server.
January 13-19, 2025 for Your Yearly CycleTo find your yearly cycle number, add the digits of your month and day of birth to 2025, and reduce until you reach a single digit. For example, the calculation for my birthday of July 7 looks like: 7+7+2+0+2+5 = 23, 2+3 = 5.
January 10, 2025
1/10: The Friday Five
Hello from my hospital bed in Beverly Hills, where I’ve been for the last 34 days, and the entirety of the current wildfire disaster that’s blazing its way through the hills, canyons, beaches, and neighborhoods of Los Angeles, and the countless communities of people who live here.
Despite the grave stressors of living through compounded personal and collective traumas, I am greatly relieved to share that I am safe, as is my mom, my wife, my dog, and the home we rent in the valley. All of our beloveds, and their homes, are safe as well. But beyond our inner circle, we know so many who have lost homes, businesses, and livelihoods, and everyone here has lost cherished landmarks, schools, safe and sacred spaces, priceless pieces of history, and any sense of safety or security.
A huge thank you to the ever-growing number of firefighters putting everything on the line to battle these devastating fires, including the companies of incarcerated men, whose efforts are barely rewarded monetarily, and who will not be allowed to keep their heroic careers going after being released. The speed and precision at which they’ve been able to respond to quickly spreading and multiplying blazes, while contending with truly unimagineable dry, windy conditions, is nothing short of miraculous.
Whether you’re in Los Angeles, been here once, or couldn’t even find it on a map, I’m sure you’ve heard about this ongoing tragedy by now from various viewpoints: class, colonialism, capitalism and collective economics, race and identity, politics and city budgets, ecology, land stewardship and the climate crisis, apathy, inhumanity, and much, much more. While not every tragedy needs to be met with immediate analysis—especially when lives are still at risk and it’s nowhere near being over—these conversations are important, galvanizing and activating.
The truth is: It’s all of the above. Do not overlook the intersectionality at play here on the largest scale. We are attempting to survive the results of hundreds of years of corruption, greed, exploitation, theft, and violence. And the only way we’re going to get through it is together.
While we’re helping each other out, please be aware and discerning on the internet, especially when sharing resources and taking in triggering or rage-inducing details. Misinformation is a dangerous beast, and these fires starting on the same day that Meta announced an end to their fact-checking efforts and collaborations feels ominous in a way I’m not able to process or make meaning of yet. A few widely spread stories regarding LAFD budget cuts and dwindling water supplies have already been corrected or debunked, so use caution when reposting or regurgitating sensitive, yet urgent, information!
OKAY LET’S TALK ABOUT AID, BAYYBEEE—
SHARING IS CARING! SEND THIS POST TO THOSE IN NEED, THOSE WHO CAN HELP, AND ANYONE WHO MIGHT BENEFIT!
THE FRIDAY FIVE 🖐️Today’s Friday Five is a list of resources and mutual aid efforts for the people of Los Angeles, who are affected by the Palisades, Eaton, Hurst, Sunset, Kenneth, and other fires both named and unnamed, as well as anyone who would like to lend a helping hand to folks in need.
May these missions be fruitful, supportive, and free from the failings of the Empire.
MALAN Fire & Wind Storm Resources — This extensive list of shelters, donation hubs, animal boarding locations, sites with free stuff, and more, spans all of Los Angeles County and the Greater LA Area. The spreadsheet includes the location, name, aid type and address for each site, as well as information on volunteer and donation needs, and additional notes on hours of operations, applicable capacity counts, services provided, potential costs, sign-up forms, contact information for on-the-ground team leaders, and more. You can also follow @/mutualaidla for further updates.
Resource List for Disabled Angelenos — Writer, artist, advocate, and LA resident Kam Redlawsk, shared the information from @mutualaidla, with additions and special attentions paid to disabled folks who may be displaced or in need.
“Disabled people & chronically ill have a list of extra crises on top of any crisis, like lack of access to crucial medications or mobility devices, and power resources needed for mobility or staying alive, caregiving access interrupted, inaccessibility to relief centers or escape routes, and more. With 1 in 4 people having a disability or illness, more needs to be done to include the disabled community, because our ability to escape & seek care matters too.”
— Call/text Disability & Disaster Hotline at 800.626.4959 or email at hotline@diasterstrategies.org
— @unitedspinal opened a disaster relief grant for affected wheelchair users.
— Someone in the comments also suggested reaching out to The Partnership for Inclusive Disaster Strategies (@disastersrat) for additional resources.
Watch Duty — Perhaps a bit late in the game to share this resource, but the fires are still blazing and climate change seems here to stay, so may this interactive and regularly updated map keep you sane and safe, amen. Aside from sharing real-time news alerts and messages from local authorities, Watch Duty also shows evacuation zones, with orders ranging from “set” to “go,” and area flag warnings from white, to pink, to red.
SCREENSHOT FROM WATCHDUTY.ORG2025 Wildfires GoFundMe List : Main Directory — If you’re looking to directly support a family in this time of great crisis and personal loss, there’s a growing directory list of GoFundMe campaigns. Information includes the name of the family (some with locations), their goal amount, how much they’ve raised so far, what percentage of their goal has been reached, and the link to the campaign.
SCREENSHOT OF THE GOOGLE SHEETL.A. restaurants offering shelter, discounts and food to fire evacuees and first responders, LA TIMES — This list from the LA Times’s Assistant Food Editor, Danielle Dorsey, shares all of the restaurants and chefs opening their doors and kitchens to feed Angelenos throughout this major disaster. To be updated as more restaurants join the efforts, this article shares the location, contact information, and any pertinent food details, alongside an interactive map of Los Angeles.
ALL IMAGES FROM LATIMES.COMThis is by no means an exhaustive list, so if you know of additional resources or funds that could use a boost or shout-out, drop them in the comments and I will vet them to include in the free portion of Sunday’s Week #3 Forecast!
Additional resources:LAFD Website for alerts, resources, up-to-date info
Follow on social @LosAngelesFireDepartment
Follow on social @LAFDfoundation
Red Cross LA for local actions across the region and finding shelter for those displaced
Follow on social @RedCrossLA
Canine Rescue Club Website for donations and to foster displaced pets & animals
Follow on social @Caninerescueclub
California Department of Social Service’s Disaster Help Center for access to relief funds
ICYMI:🌀: Welcome to 2025, a Nine Collective Year
💍: Marriage By the Numbers: Planning Your Wedding Using Numerology
📆: DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers
🎧: Call Your Coven is back! Listen to January 2025: Shedding Season
January 5, 2025
Week #2: January 6-12, 2025
It’s the second week of the new year, but the first to plant itself firmly in its dirt, as all seven days take place on the 2025 side of the threshold.
How are you feeling after Week #1? How did your first weekly forecast travel with from one year to the next? If you feel so inclined to share, you can always:
In a 9 collective year, every single daily, weekly, and monthly number is amplified. Due to the fact that 9 can essentially be canceled out in any reduction calculation it appears in (truly, try some out, i.e. 1+9 = 10, 1+0 = 1), every core number this year becomes more of itself. Magnified, and polarized. Embodying both sides of the coin at the same time.
Meaning for this week…
ICYMI:💍: Marriage By the Numbers: Planning Your Wedding Using Numerology
📆: DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers
🎧: Call Your Coven is back! Listen to January 2025: Shedding Season
Photo by Boris Smokrovic on UnsplashTwo is the number of the next and the other. It wants us to connect the dots between what we’ve started and where we want to go.
The number of kindness and compassion, two rules the heart and the hands. It centers what we make, yes, but it also wonders about the intention behind our workings. One is the idea, and two takes things a step further, asking: Why do we want to embark, set forth, manifest, or create? What are we looking to gain, in terms of experience, material means, a certain feeling, etc? Where will our creations have the most impact, or offer the most support or guidance? And who might help us bring our hopes and dreams in the physical realm?
Two’s archetype of The Peacemaker has a great deal in common with 2025’s yearly archetype, The Humanitarian. They are both considerate, both curious about how to fill in the gaps between what is needed and what is possible. But where nine’s energy is mental, and therefore solves problems through reason and logic, two feels into situations, using emotional information to connect with the most charitable path forward. This week, consider both your heart and head.
Keep reading for some food for thought based on your yearly cycle number!
subscribe as a paid pal for weekly numerological forecasts for your yearly cycle number, quarterly insights from the tarot on the solstices and equinoxes, first dibs on future offerings, and access to The Soup™ Discord server.
Photo by Randy Rizo on UnsplashJanuary 6-12, 2025 for Your Yearly Cycle
January 1, 2025
Welcome to 2025, a Nine Collective Year
Happy New Year!
Regardless of whether or not you observe January 1st as the beginning of a new year, congratulations! You’ve crossed an energetic threshold. Allow yourself a moment here to take a deep breath, shimmy your shoulders, and attempt a small smile. You made it. You’re here.
Welcome to 2025, a nine year (2 + 0 + 2 + 5 = 9), the final spin in the collective cycle we’ve been spiraling through since 2017. This is The Wrap-Up, The Last Hurrah, The Final Go Around, The Victory Lap, and The Hard-Won Reward. After an intense eight year, which brought hard knocks, power struggles, immeasurable joy, and unplumbable grief, the nine year offers us different and new perspectives, as well as opportunities for reflection and redirection.
In the tarot, nine is represented by The Hermit and The Moon: mature, wise, stoic energies that tend to go within or away, led by the light of their own lamps, staying deeply and devotedly present, and fully integrating their lessons into wisdom before re-emerging to share. Nine also weaves its way through the minor arcana: the stroll through the well-tended garden (pentacles), the final efforts to cross the finish line (wands), the wishes made that are coming true (cups), and the thorny things that keep us up at night (swords).
Here, you’ll find an exploration of nine energy and what it could bring to 2025 through four keywords: Humanity, Service, Solitude and Completion, boyued by excerpts from T.S. Eliot’s The Hollow Men, a poem which feels deeply tied to the energy of nine, but also of 2025, specifically. Tucked under these umbrellas are thematic predictions, current events, spells and practices to try, food for thought, and more. I hope that it is useful to you today, and every day of this year. It is also too long for your email inbox, so please click through to Substack to read in full, and engage in the comments if you feel called or inclined.
This information is for the collective energy—external forces that effect us all. If you’d like to calculate your own personal yearly cycle, simply add the day and month of your birth to the year 2025. For example, if your birthday is today, January 1st, you’re in the second year of your current nine-year cycle (1 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 5 = 11, 1 + 1 = 2).
[Please note that I reduce doubled digit numbers like 11 and 22 to their root numbers when working with yearly cycles, so please calculate and read accordingly.]
Additional resources for your year ahead:
📆: DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers
🎧: Call Your Coven is back! Listen to January 2025: Shedding Season
We are the hollow men
We are the stuffed men
Leaning together
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!1
Nine (9) is the number of populations, communities, the masses, interconnectedness, and the All, and has quite severe potential pitfalls of misandry, martyrdom, and savior behavior. Rounding out the spiral of building block numbers, nine encompasses collective energy at its largest scale, ruling over humanity as a whole—what ties us together, and what keeps us from co-existing.
Throughout 2025, I believe we’ll see highlighted themes of world leaders, the global economy, imports, exports, industry standards, tarriffs, immigration, travel, tourism, border crises, genocides, hostile takeovers, ceasefires, peace agreements, lawmakers and laws of the land, The Establishment, journalism and news, integration (or lack thereof) of AI, separation (or lack thereof) of church and state, progression and regression.
If nine’s archetype is The Humanitarian, who trusts the wisdom of their own experiences, while holding space for contrasting ways of being, then we must also hold space for its opposite: The Egoist, who pushes their worldviews on others, lacking the critical aspects of respect that allow groups of people to live harmoniously, but differently.
The world stage seems quite set right now for the latter to flourish, especially in the United States, which will ring in the new year with the second term of President Donald J. Trump (whose first term was in the first year of this cycle, 2017, and whose presidential numbers, 45-47, reduce to 9-11). Winning on a Republican ticket with campaign promises of America First!, and already packing his cabinet and collaborators with extremists and billionaires, Trump stokes fear and rewards the few over the many, which are both aspects of the number nine.
His most staunch supporters are already starting to clash with his appointees, specifically when it comes to immigration, visas, and the industries that employ foreign workers. On the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, prominent MAGA influencers are squabbling with X’s owner, and member of Trump’s inner circle, Elon Musk, and former GOP presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, over the appointment of Indian American Sririam Krishnan to spearhead government AI initiatives, and the future of H-1B employment visas.
[If you can stand to engage with this story further, Taylor Lorenz wrote a great piece on it for User Mag.2]
Thanks for reading swimming in the soup! This post is public so feel free to share it.
The number nine also rules belief systems, philosophy, religion, and mythology, which are all deeply important to the spiritual health and narrative history of the human race. 2025 could have us reconsidering the ways in which we tell the stories of who we are, what we believe in, and how we choose to chronicle those records.
The Humanitarian has perpetually thrown themself head first into the spiral of life experience, fought their way through trials and tribulations, secured the “reward” (the ninth step of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey)3, and has made their way back home to share their treasures. But unlike Campbell’s mono-myth, which has long been proclaimed as a universal template for patriarchal storytelling, The Humanitarian has left behind delusions of independence and linear heroism, and instead honor the diverse ecosystem that birthed them, humbly coming home to offer their newfound wisdom to the whole.
In a brilliant essay called “How to Go Home: On Resisting a Very English Hero’s Journey,” Ellie Robins ponders the usefulness of Campbell’s mythological structure, noting how many stories have been cut from the cultural canon because they do not fit the mold. (Unsurprisingly, most of these myths center women, gender non-conforming folks, and other magical beings living on the margins of society.) After wrestling with her internalization of these narratives, which led her down a harrowing trip to her own underworld, Robins eventually surfaced with a new understanding:
Heroism is a story that elevates one person above the fray, which is to say above the ecology of living things. It’s a form of literary solipsism, in which most people’s fates don’t matter, so long as the hero triumphs. Odysseus’s story helped to enshrine the political mentality (and the physical geography) of colonialism, as well as a sort of emotional colonialism, in which the is-ness of all things and the web of relations that link them is shunted for the greatness of one.4
Visionary, science-fiction writer Ursula K. LeGuin could offer Robins, and us, another, more inclusive way of looking at narrative structures. Her piece “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,”—which begins with a scathing critique of the ballooned workweek of the late 1980s—redefines the hero myth as a story of action and violence, and posits the bag of a gatherer might be a better metaphor for a story than the hunter’s sword or arrow.
“In [the bag], as in all fiction,” she writes, “there is room enough to keep even Man where he belongs, in his place in the scheme of things; there is time enough to gather plenty of wild oats and sow them too… and still the story isn't over. Still there are seeds to be gathered, and room in the bag of stars.”5
LeGuin’s methods, which are much more aligned with the expansive nature of the number nine, allow for each individual being, stone and sapling to contribute to the story. Similarly, the Humanitarian does not need to be the best or the brightest, even when they might be, for they know that they are just a single branch on a much larger and more significant tree.
Putting Principles into Practice: Observe if humanitarian themes pop up for you, whether through events in your own life, media or figures that you’re drawn to, or even how you receive spiritual messages. Read about an area of spirituality that has always interested you, but that you’ve never explored, or even one that you have felt resistance towards in the past. See if you can open your mind and see past the minutiae to the sum of its parts. Notice where you may be centering your own experience over that of others. Investigate what greater philosophical questions or themes might be at play in any given situation, even if you disagree with the way the message is being delivered.
Become a paid pal for weekly numerological forecasts for your yearly cycle number, quarterly insights from the tarot on the solstices and equinoxes, access to The Soup™ Discord server, and first dibs on future offerings.
THE MATHEMATICAL MAGIC OF NINE AND 2025
Did you know, if you add 9 to any number, and do the math to simplify it to a single digit, you’ll end up with the original number added to 9? It’s like the 9 just disappears within the equation. For example: 9 + 5 = 14. If you reduce further, you’ll see that 1 + 4 = 5, which was the original number added to 9. Voila!
This means, every month this year has a core number of its calendar numeral. January is the 1st month of the year, and when added to 2025, it remains a 1 overall month (1+2+0+2+5 = 10, 1+0 = 1). It also means that everyone’s personal chart placement of the Public Persona number will match their personal Yearly Cycle number in 2025. You can read more about this placement, how to calculate yours, and what it might mean for your year ahead, in my final post of 2024:
Another fun fact: A few weeks ago I was tagged in a Discord conversation by a community member, who shared that 2025 is the only square year most of us will see in our lifetimes (45 x 45 or 45²). The last was 1936 (44 x 44), the next will be 2116 (46 x 46). I thought it was interesting that 45 also reduces to 9 (4+5 = 9), which doesn’t happen for all of the square years (1936 was a 1 year, but 44 reduces to 8), but will happen for the next one (2116 is also a 1 year, and 46 reduces to 1)!
Neat, huh?
Nine is ServiceThere, the eyes are
Sunlight on a broken column
There, is a tree swinging
And voices are
In the wind’s singing
More distant and more solemn
Than a fading star.6
Nine is a mental number, and emphasizes the brain through learning, sagacity, perceptiveness, grappling with paradox, and using one’s natural skills and gifts in service to the community. But remember, while nine carries roll up your sleeves energy, it knows that the way to wisdom does not just live in the mind alone. All of the embodiment work we did in 2024 will need to come with us into the new year, as we continue to honor our gut, and our body’s unique and universal needs, so we can move forward from a place of embodiment, integrity and care.
In The Witch’s Book of Numbers, I share about a spiritual download I received about the ouroboros, an ancient symbol of a snake eating its tail; an infinite, painful cycle. Reasoning that if the stories about our own inner divinity are true, then so must be our access to the whole. We must be able to eat the fruit of the infamous Tree of Knowledge. The answer? Yes, we really can know it all. But—and this is a big but—the more we know, the harder it is to hold.
“It’s not easy to hold all of the complexities and nuances of someone or something,” I muse. “Part of what makes us each so unique is our inherent holographic multifaceted nature. Of course, when we bump up against this in others or while chasing down philosophical rabbit holes, it can get quite difficult to comprehend. The more we know it seems, the less it makes sense. The great thinkers of history knew this as well, yet they continued to unravel and be awed by the mysteries.”7
Culturally, 2025 could see new and burgeoning conversations about the value and necessity of higher learning, shifts in culture and attendance at colleges and universities, the importance of learning a trade, the roles of mentors, teachers, role models, and students, who the keepers of wisdom are, institutions of research, libraries, volunteer opportunities, and collective efforts.
This year, you may find yourself being drawn to intellectual pursuits, and opportunities to work with new mentors or teachers. You may also discover you have become the mentor or teacher! Regardless of whether or not you enroll in a structured class, honor when and how your hard-won knowledge and study becomes wisdom. Share what you’re learning with the curiosity and enthusiasm of a child. If there are children in your life, see what they might have to teach you.
Be sure to also consider why you are learning, why you are putting energy into expansion, and what exactly you plan to do with all of your newfound knowledge. We often think of service as actions that make others feel supported or more at ease, like offering to give someone a ride to the airport, or doing the dishes when it’s your partner’s turn but they have a busy day. However, nine would also like us to expand the definition of service to include learning, reminding us that our efforts allow us to connect with our communities through direct care-taking or problem-solving actions, teaching others and sharing our expertise, and continuing to grow in order to keep up with societies everchanging needs.
Nine is SolitudePutting Principles into Practice: Indulge your brain with teasers, puzzles, and riddles! Learn about a new philosophy or way of being. Work with flourine or ametrine. Call up a friend and tell them about something neat you’ve learned. Volunteer at a local organization. Join a club or donate your time towards an initiative you care about. Do something kind or helpful for someone else. Pay for someone’s gas or groceries or pay it forward in a way that is meaningful to you. A little generosity of spirit will go a long way for all involved.
Is it like this
In death’s other kingdom
Waking alone
At the hour when we are
Trembling with tenderness
Lips that would kiss
Form prayers to broken stone.8
Nine is a number of seclusion, privacy and privateness, and sacred spaces. On the other side of the coin though are avoidance, isolation, and loneliness.
The Hermit, our tarot archetype for 2025, is one of energetic flux, of the ritual rythyms of retreat and re-emergence. They hold dear the experience of running away to the woods, cocooning in darkness, and devoting oneself to whatever is fueling their innermost, divine spark. And while they must rejoin society at some point or another, for the most part, like Emily Dickinson wrote in a letter to Elizabeth Holland, regarding a recent household move, the Hermit is “out with lanterns, looking for myself.”9
There is much to be said for the fertility and fecundity of working in the dark. Of traversing the void, and growing in the womb. The space in which creativity—life—flourishes. In the Northern Hemisphere, the calendrical new year greets us in the depths of winter, when nature is barren and at rest. Perhaps then The Hermit is the perfect ally for us every year, but especially in 2025, please heed its warning: Do not rush. Trust your own timing, process, wisdom, and creative spirit. Stay centered with your eyes on your own paper. Do not share before you are ready. After all, the astrological new year doesn’t kick off until March.
On the other hand, do not mistake the gifts of solitude with the pitfalls of isolation. Nine is a number of community and togetherness. It wants us to always be considering how we are part of a larger whole, even if we live in a remote area, are chronically ill or are needing to take other health procautions, or just aren’t the biggest fans of other people (which, fair). And finding ways to feel connected, even if just to one other person, has reached a cultural tipping point during this current, pandemic-heavy cycle of nine years.
In 2023, Dr. Vivek Murthy, the 19th and 21st Surgeon General of the United States, issued an advisory regarding what he refers to as a public health epidemic, writing, “Loneliness is far more than just a bad feeling—it harms both individual and societal health. It is associated with a greater risk of cardiovascular disease, dementia, stroke, depression, anxiety, and premature death.”10 And beyond physical, spiritual and emotional damage, loneliness and isolation are proven to have massive economic and financial impacts as well.
2025 could see continued changes to how and where we gather, including the shifting landscapes of social media platforms and other online spaces, and battles around protections and rights to privacy.
I have found immense freedom and joy in online spaces, both as myself and anonymously. I’ve connected with audiences of readers, listeners and clients, joined and grown communities on Discord and Instagram, shared my creative work on websites, Substack and AO3. Hell, I met my best friends on Tumblr.com! And I know I’m not alone in seeing how the internet has rapidly and wildly altered our ability to connect with folks on a global scale.
“I believe that digital spaces have a vital part to play — not only in the resistance, but in our everyday lives,” writes , in “if the internet is home, where do we live?,” a recent essay for her publication, . “How wondrous, that we can just shoot off messages to other people across the country and around the world and have them instantly seen and responded to? The ability to do this is a gift.”
In last year’s newsletter on the collective eight year, I warned against submitting to the ways in which surveillance culture seeks to keep us from our deepest desires, and I think that rings true for this year as well. Keep connecting with others over shared interests and pleasures. Divest from algorithms and make your own online spaces. Protect your right to privacy through VPNs, screennames, pennames, and other means. Become a paid pal here at swimming in the soup, and join The Soup™ Discord server (hint, hint, wink, wink!).
Whatever you decided to do, enjoy a year of flowing between sacred alone time, and quality connections with others. Bask in the conundrum of being part of a Whole that’s made up of Individuals. Take pleasure in both darkness and light.
Big Events at the Beginning and the Mid-Point of the Current Collective Cycle (2017 and 2021, respectively)Putting Principles into Practice: Reconnect with a friend or loved one you’ve fallen out of touch with. Get to know your neighbors. Protect your peace. Go on a solo retreat. Start writing in a diary. Sit in meditation for longer than you have before. Delete a social media account that no longer aligns with your current self or values. Join a new space with like-minded individuals. Take a few different personality or typing quizzes to learn new things about yourself. Write a new biography or mission statement. Spend time with your reflection. Scrapbook or put together a physical (or digital) photo album. Hold rose quartz.
Photo by Brent De Ranter on UnsplashTrump’s first term.
“Fake news.”
The Women’s March.
The toppling of Confederate monuments and the neo-Nazi rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Opioid epidemic.
Hurricanes and wildfires.
AI advancements.
Brexit.
The Rohingrya Crisis.
North Korea’s nuclear weapons.
Harvey Weinstein allegations and the #MeToo movement.
202113 :
Biden’s first term.
January 6th insurrection.
U.S. Military Withdraws from Afghanistan and the Taliban regains power.
COVID-19 Vaccines.
Oprah interviews Meghan and Harry after their move to the United States.
Simone Biles withdraws from Tokyo Olympics.
Historic heatwaves.
Texas freezes.
#FreeBritney.
Cargo ship stuck in Suez Canal.
2025:
Trump’s second term.
The rest is yet to be written…
Nine is CompletionThis is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper. 14
Nine, and it’s sacred shape, the spiral, denotes the ending of a cycle, wrapping things up and letting them go. It can be a sobering energy, but one of great maturity, composure and conviction. It both basks in a job well done, and remembers that this too shall pass. The good, the bad, the ugly, and the otherwise—it’s all temporary. This is the year to go for broke, leave it all on the floor, and let what wants to die off, die off.
Even in cultures with loving and supportive practices around loss and grief, death and dying are difficult life experiences. But Western culture is so incredibly death-averse—while also being abhorrently violent—that we lack any collective relief or understanding at all. How could we? So many of our cornerstones are built on graveyards, both literal and metaphorical.
Still, nine reminds us that the cycle is never-ending. We’ve been here before. Perhaps under different circumstances, but as there’s nothing new under the sun, and even our very particles were once contributing to some other life-form or force entirely, maybe it’s not so different after all. Remember, after radical rest comes rebirth, resuscitation, and renewal. Death creates space for birth.
Maria Popova, author of The Marginalian, begins an essay called, “The Art of the Sacred Pause and Despair as a Catalyst of Regeneration,” with a poignant point:
“Just as there are transitional times in the life of the world — dark periods of disorientation between two world systems, periods in which humanity loses the ability to comprehend itself and collapses into chaos in order to rebuild itself around a new organizing principle — there are such times in every human life, times when the entire system seems to cave in and curl up into a catatonia of anguish and confusion, difficult yet necessary for our growth.”15
ICYMI:
📆: DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers
🎧: Call Your Coven is back! Listen to January 2025: Shedding Season
💍: Marriage By the Numbers: Planning Your Wedding Using Numerology
Last year, I wrote a short grimoire called, Spells for the Spiral. In it, there are nine bespoke practices—one for each number of the building block numbers. While nine’s spell is a simmer pot recipe called Letting Things Simmer, I feel that 2025 vibes more with the offering for the number four: Funerals for Everyone. You’ll find it in full, for free, a new year’s gift from me to you. If you’d like to snag the whole spellbook, you can purchase it here.
Funerals for EveryoneA variation on a release or cord-cutting spell, performing an energetic funeral can be a potent way of laying to rest old selves, habits, practices, relationships, and situations. It is natural for things to run their course, but we humans are not always so good with goodbyes. Luckily, there’s magic for that!
For this short ritual, you’ll need:
A bathtub or other quiet, cozy space
A eulogy of sorts, either borrowed or written
Optional bath salts, herbs, candles, crystals, or other magical (water safe) tools that align with the colors and themes of death and rebirth
Considering your situation, intentions and desired results, decide if you’d like to include a eulogy or blessing. This can be something you write yourself or borrowed from a spiritual or meaningful text.
Fill your bathtub with warm water, adding any bath salts or herbs you’d like to work with. Place candles or crystals around the bath as desired.
Clear your energy before stepping into the bath with Florida Water, through visualization, or another simple action like clapping 3x and sweeping your hands around your auric field.
Get into the bath, giving yourself as long as you need to relax and sink into your center.
Once you’re grounded and ready, begin to focus on whatever it is that you’re cutting cords with. Be present with the feelings that arise and visualize them leaving your body and being absorbed by the healing waters that surround you.
Read your eulogy or blessing aloud. You may also want to state your intentions or desired results here as well.
Move through your ceremony in whatever way feels good, asking any guides, angels or ancestors to aid in your process of separation and clearing. You may also light your candles and hold your crystals, or repeat comforting mantras.
Imagine the water holding both you and whatever you’re releasing, together for a final time. Say goodbye and let the water carry everything down the drain.
Visualize warm light filling all of the emptied spaces within you. Call all of your energy back to yourself. Give thanks.
So be it, so it is.
Remember, after radical rest comes rebirth, resuscitation, and renewal.
Putting Principles into Practice: Cultivate practices around letting things go, closing chapters, and surrendering to new beginnings. Commit to leaving some negative relationship, habit, or situation behind. Wrap up unfinished business. Work with lemon balm to relieve stress and headache. Rejoice in your wins and move forward from your losses. Reminisce on the full cycle experienced. Start to make plans for the future. Bless and give away clothes, belongings, and spiritual tools that no longer resonate. Consider what chapter of your life is coming to an end and how you can meet it with more grace.
MAY THIS YEAR BRING US ALL INTO DEEPER RELATIONSHIPS WITH OURSELVES AND THOSE AROUND US! MAY WE CONTINUE TO SOW SEEDS OF INTERCONNECTED CARE AND JOY! MAY YOU DEVOTE YOURSELF TO THE KNOWN AND THE UNKNOWN! MAY WE HAVE THE COURAGE TO WALK AWAY FROM THAT WHICH NO LONGER SERVES! SO BE IT, SO IT IS!
Until next time, just keep swimming!xx, bee1Eliot, T.S. “The Hollow Men.” Poems, 1909–1925. Faber & Faber Limited, 1925.
2Lorenz, T. “A MAGA civil war is breaking out.” User Mag. 28 December 2024.
3“2017 Events.” History.com. December 11, 2017.
4Adams, C. "17 stories that defined 2017.” CBSNews.com. December 20, 2017.
5"2021 Events.” History.com. December 20, 2021.
6Eliot, T.S. “The Hollow Men.” Poems, 1909–1925. Faber & Faber Limited, 1925.
7Scolnick, R. The Witch’s Book of Numbers. Hierophant Publishing, 2022.
8Eliot, T.S. “The Hollow Men.” Poems, 1909–1925. Faber & Faber Limited, 1925.
9Dickinson, E. A letter to Elizabeth Holland. About 20 January 1856.
10Murphy, Vivek. “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation: The U.S. Surgeon General’s Advisory on the Healing Effects of Social Connection and Community.” 2023.
11Campbell, J. (2008). The Hero with a Thousand Faces. New World Library.
12Robins, E. (2022, November 3). How to Go Home: On Resisting a Very English Hero. LitHub. September 10, 2023.
13LeGuin, U. K. (1989). The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. In Dancing at the Edge of the World. Grove Press.
14Eliot, T.S. “The Hollow Men.” Poems, 1909–1925. Faber & Faber Limited, 1925.
15Popova, M. “The Art of the Sacred Pause and Despair as a Catalyst of Regeneration.” The Marginalian. 24 December 2024.
December 31, 2024
Which Personal Placement Will Play a Starring Role in 2025?
What’s up swimmers?! Happy last day of 2024! Happy almost new year!
Tomorrow, I’m going to send you an email about the numerological NINE YEAR—the last in the current collective cycle that’s run from 2017-2025—through the lens of four big-picture keywords: Humanity, Service, Solitude, and Completion.
But for today, I thought we’d keep things personal, and chat about the chart placement that’s going to be highlighted for everyone in 2025: The Public Persona number.
TODAY IS LAST DAY BECOME A PAID PAL FOR 25% OFF FOR 2025!In the new year, your perks will include:
Weekly Numerological Forecasts for Your Yearly Cycle Number (check out the first one for free!)
Quarterly Tarot Insights on the Equinoxes and Solstices
Access to The Soup™ Discord Server
First Dibs on Future Offerings
The Public Persona Number 🎭
Photo by Burgess Milner on UnsplashThe Public Persona number, sometimes referred to as your gift, is a bit like the costume you wear during the play of your life. Found by adding the month and day of your birth (and, if applicable, reducing to a single digit), it represents your most social and performative self—the version of you that meets other people out in the world. I also like to think that this placement highlights facets of your personality that can aid you along your life path.
And in 2025, this number gets to stand in the spotlight!
To find your personal Yearly Cycle number, you add the month and the day of your birth, aka the Public Persona number, to the current year, and reduce until you reach a single digit.
2025 is a 9 year, which is a fascinating number mathematically. See, when you add 9 to any number, and do the math to simplify it to a single digit, you’ll end up with whatever the original number was (the one you added to 9). Seriously, it’s like the 9 just disappears within the equation!
For example: 9 + 5 = 14. If you reduce further, you’ll see that 1 + 4 = 5, which was the original number added to 9.
Voila!
This means that in 2025, your Public Persona number and your Yearly Cycle number will match, emphasizing its energy in your chart and experience!
And if you know of anyone who would dig me/my work/any of the goodies listed above, please consider forwarding them this email! Word of mouth works, and is neat!
Over the summer, I hosted a series of three workshops cumulatively titled, The Road Trip. The first, What Are the Rules of the Road?, employed a plethora of travel metaphors to get to know the Life Path and Public Persona numbers.
To help prepare you for 2025, I thought I’d share three qualities of the Public Personas, which may come in handy during your year ahead!
1 — The Trailblazer
Excitable energy
Dependable determination
Infectious individuality
2 — The PeacemakerSensitive and considerate
Empathetic listener
Bolstered by a right to choose
3 — The CommunicatorSteadfast optimism
Chaotic creativity
Sensually engaged with life in all forms
4 — The Salt of the EarthPragmatic problem-solver
Natural leader
Brings a beautiful sense of enoughness to any room
5 — The ChangemakerWily wisdom
Trial + Error
Perfected the pivot
6 — The NurturerHost with the Most
Fierce advocate + ally
Knowledge of nature
7 — The SeekerCalm + curious
Eager to understand
Keeper of knick-knack knowledge
8 — The EmbodiedOrganically organized
Heart-centered and hopeful
Balling on a budget
9 — The HumanitarianAltruistic alchemy
Good at saying goodbye
Blessed by the fruits of their labors
Hint: Everyone can learn from and employ The Humanitarian’s characteristics in 2025, as it’s the collective umbrella we’ll all be standing under next year.
Thoughts? Feelings? Insights? Light bulb moments? Puzzle pieces clicking?
Until next time, just keep swimming!xx, beeDecember 29, 2024
Week #1: December 30, 2024 - January 5, 2025
Welcome to the first week of 2025, which technically begins in 2024, a perfectly imperfect way to enter the final year of the current collective cycle we’ve been spiraling through since 2017.
Rarely do threshold moments bring magical change. Just because the calendar now says January 1, 2025 doesn’t mean you’ll feel different than you did on December 31, 2024. You’ll likely have the same worries, the same problems, and hopefully similar joys and successes.
And yet, in a 9 collective year, every single daily, weekly, and monthly number is amplified. Due to the fact that 9 can essentially be canceled out in any reduction calculation it appears in (truly, try some out, i.e. 1+9 = 10, 1+0 = 1), every core number this year becomes more of itself. Magnified, and polarized. Embodying both sides of the coin at the same time.
Meaning for this week…
ICYMI:💍: Marriage By the Numbers: Planning Your Wedding Using Numerology
📆: DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers
🎧: Call Your Coven returns Monday, December 30th with a forecast for January!
Photo by Mike Erskine on UnsplashOne is the number of the self and the start. It asks us to take stock of who we are right here, right now, at the beginning of a new year. A new cycle.
Pause for a moment to scan from the top of the head, all the way down to the tips of the toes, noticing where you may be holding any tension or extra energy. As you breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth, let each inhale invite in expansion and each exhale encourage relief and release.
Try and allow the shift into 2025 to be a fresh start. A new chapter, in whatever way you can. Let it be another chance to do what you want to do, say what you want to say, and be who you want to be, even if your circumstances are undesirable. Welcome what shows up. Let what’s done be done. Turn your face to the winter sun, and embrace the possibility of all that’s on its way to you.
Each week this year, I’ll bring you some food for thought based on your yearly cycle number and nine, the collective energy of 2025. Like any decent peddler of goods, the first hit’s free—a new year’s gift from me to you! If you like what you read, please consider becoming a paid pal at a discounted rate (through 12/31).
Thanks for reading swimming in the soup! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Photo by Mara Ket on UnsplashDecember 30 - January 5 for Your Yearly CycleTo find your yearly cycle number, add the digits of your month and day of birth to 2025, and reduce until you reach a single digit. For example, the calculation for my birthday of July 7 looks like: 7+7+2+0+2+5 = 23, 2+3 = 5.
Please note that I reduce doubled digit numbers like 11 and 22 to their root numbers when working with yearly cycles, so please calculate and read accordingly.
1Hello, you. Today is the first day of a new nine-year cycle of your life. Perhaps you are ready for the next adventure. But maybe you are tired and road-weary from the last one. No matter your state of affairs, you have much to be proud of! You’ve survived trials and tribulations, taken pleasure and joy in both the BIG and small, weathered storms, faced hard questions and truths, and clutched tightly to hard-won rewards. This week, get to know the self who stands here now, at the beginning of the next. What do you know? What do you want? What do you need? Don’t worry, baby. You’ll have time to get to where you want to go. Be here now.
2Place one hand over your chest and the other over your belly. Feel the beat of your heart and the heat of your gut. Close your eyes and picture your lungs inflating with every inhale, and deflating with every exhale. Breathe in compassion, breathe out judgment. Repeat as many times as you need to, until it feels simple and true. This two year is bound to bring you a buffet of choices: Do you want this or that? You may not always be able to have both, so what’ll it be? Either/or. This week, when faced with early bird, right-off-the-bat decisions, place one hand over your chest and the other over your belly, and connect to the parts of you that breathe with ease. Choose from that place.
3Ernest Hemingway said, “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” Hemingway was also a racist, misogynistic asshole, who wouldn’t know an adjective if it punched him in the jaw, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Here, at the beginning of your three year, consider your habits when it comes to communication. Do you value hearing as much as talking? In conversation, do you often cut people off, or find yourself just waiting for your turn to reply? How often do you speak without thinking? You don’t need to fix or change anything this week, unless you really want to. Just observe and take note of your findings.
4Support systems come in all shapes and sizes: emotional, physical, psychic, imaginal, financial, communal—the list goes on. The four year you’re about to embark on is sure to highlight the structures that surround and service you. For better or worse, by December, you’re bound to know a bit more about them. You’ll see their strengths and their weakness. The ways they buoy you, but also the ways in which they let you down. It’s all good information, even though it might feel awful to find out the truth. But for now, this week, simply focus on identifying them. May you be pleasantly surprised by just how shored up you really are.
5According to a 2023 poll by the American Psychiatric Association, “Americans who engage in creative activities at least weekly report better mental health.”1 Reported activities included listening to music, playing an instrument, solving puzzles, singing or dancing, drawing, painting or sculpting, crafting, creative writing, attending concerts, creating online content for fun, playing a musical instrument, visiting an art museum, gardening, and cooking. Do any of those sound fun to you? What do you like to do to let off steam, express yourself, or have a good time? The five year can get bumpy, so this week, start to curate your collection of favorite hobbies, projects, recreation, and creative joys.
6Some say there’s a direct link between a decluttered space and a clear, sharp and focused mind, and after what was likely a messy or raucous five year, you could probably use some tidy, detangled spaciousness. You also might be so exhausted that the very idea of cleaning house—whether literal or metaphorical—makes you want to burrow under the covers and never come out. This week, do a little bit of both. Rest and recuperate. Dejunk and spruce up. Make some headway, then take a break. You’ve got the whole six year to take responsibility for yourself and your expansion. Slow and steady wins the race. (Not that you even need to be racing…)
7It’s better that you know up front—the seven year can be a real bitch. On the one hand, it may have you diving deep, venturing down rabbit holes that will stretch the very capacity of your philosophical, spiritual, and psychological consciousness. On the other, it may have you tearing your hair out by August, wondering in agony why you can’t just figure out the missing link between where you are now and the life of your dreams. But before you fall completely into self-loathing over what you must be doing wrong, remember that while curiosity may have killed the cat, it rewards the human.2 This week, take every opportunity to connect to what interests and excites you, and relish in the rad returns.
8Sheesh, it can hard to be in a body. Especially in a culture that doesn’t make space for, or try to service, bodies that are sick, fat, disabled, aging or otherwise in need of care or support. Still, remember that you are star dust incarnate. A miracle, a marvel! The likes of you have never before been seen, and will never be seen again. Spend some time this week identifying where your true power lies. What are your gifts? Your natural talents? What are you preternaturally skilled at or drawn to? What lights you up and makes you feel damn good? Once you have some ideas, begin to imagine how you could work your magical mastery to your advantage this year. You’re it, baby. Take pleasure in the fullness of your existence.
9Agathokakological, which combines the Greek agath- (good), kako- (bad), and -logical (the adjectival suffix based on logos, meaning word)3, is a term that makes space for the complexities of the human experience, and the presence of both positives and negatives within the same situation or circumstance. This too shall pass, which perfectly encapsulates the experience of the nine year, is an agathokakological phrase. It promises an ending to that which ails you, but also that which delights you. This week, reflect on your current cycle, tending to your garden of both greens and weeds. What are you ready to let go of, and what would break you to say goodbye to? Take heart, love. Either way, life goes on.
Through 12/31, subscribe as a paid pal for 25% off! In 2025, your investment will bring you weekly numerological forecasts for your yearly cycle number, quarterly insights from the tarot on the solstices and equinoxes, first dibs on future offerings, and access to The Soup™ Discord server.
Paid pals, keep reading for an updated Discord invitation and link!
As for everyone else…
Until next time, just keep swimming!xx, beeATTENTION PAID PALS: THE SOUP™ IS NOW BEING SERVED 🥣The Soup™ is a dedicated Discord server for paid pals of swimming in the soup. Come check out the magical channels dedicated to various Soup Selections, muse on Numerological Notions, and hang with other like-minded-and-hearted folks in all kinds of areas of life’s Creative Compost.
Week #1: December 30, 2024 - January 4, 2025
Welcome to the first week of 2025, which technically begins in 2024, a perfectly imperfect way to enter the final year of the current collective cycle we’ve been spiraling through since 2017.
Rarely do threshold moments bring magical change. Just because the calendar now says January 1, 2025 doesn’t mean you’ll feel different than you did on December 31, 2024. You’ll likely have the same worries, the same problems, and hopefully similar joys and successes.
And yet, in a 9 collective year, every single daily, weekly, and monthly number is amplified. Due to the fact that 9 can essentially be canceled out in any reduction calculation it appears in (truly, try some out, i.e. 1+9 = 10, 1+0 = 1), every core number this year becomes more of itself. Magnified, and polarized. Embodying both sides of the coin at the same time.
Meaning for this week…
ICYMI:💍: Marriage By the Numbers: Planning Your Wedding Using Numerology
📆: DAILY DIGITS: A 2025 Agenda for Magical Makers
🎧: Call Your Coven returns Monday, December 30th with a forecast for January!
Photo by Mike Erskine on UnsplashOne is the number of the self and the start. It asks us to take stock of who we are right here, right now, at the beginning of a new year. A new cycle.
Pause for a moment to scan from the top of the head, all the way down to the tips of the toes, noticing where you may be holding any tension or extra energy. As you breathe, in through the nose, out through the mouth, let each inhale invite in expansion and each exhale encourage relief and release.
Try and allow the shift into 2025 to be a fresh start. A new chapter, in whatever way you can. Let it be another chance to do what you want to do, say what you want to say, and be who you want to be, even if your circumstances are undesirable. Welcome what shows up. Let what’s done be done. Turn your face to the winter sun, and embrace the possibility of all that’s on its way to you.
Each week this year, I’ll bring you some food for thought based on your yearly cycle number and nine, the collective energy of 2025. Like any decent peddler of goods, the first hit’s free—a new year’s gift from me to you! If you like what you read, please consider becoming a paid pal at a discounted rate (through 12/31).
Thanks for reading swimming in the soup! This post is public so feel free to share it.
Photo by Mara Ket on UnsplashDecember 30 - January 4 for Your Yearly CycleTo find your yearly cycle number, add the digits of your month and day of birth to 2025, and reduce until you reach a single digit. For example, the calculation for my birthday of July 7 looks like: 7+7+2+0+2+5 = 23, 2+3 = 5.
Please note that I reduce doubled digit numbers like 11 and 22 to their root numbers when working with yearly cycles, so please calculate and read accordingly.
1Hello, you. Today is the first day of a new nine-year cycle of your life. Perhaps you are ready for the next adventure. But maybe you are tired and road-weary from the last one. No matter your state of affairs, you have much to be proud of! You’ve survived trials and tribulations, taken pleasure and joy in both the BIG and small, weathered storms, faced hard questions and truths, and clutched tightly to hard-won rewards. This week, get to know the self who stands here now, at the beginning of the next. What do you know? What do you want? What do you need? Don’t worry, baby. You’ll have time to get to where you want to go. Be here now.
2Place one hand over your chest and the other over your belly. Feel the beat of your heart and the heat of your gut. Close your eyes and picture your lungs inflating with every inhale, and deflating with every exhale. Breathe in compassion, breathe out judgment. Repeat as many times as you need to, until it feels simple and true. This two year is bound to bring you a buffet of choices: Do you want this or that? You may not always be able to have both, so what’ll it be? Either/or. This week, when faced with early bird, right-off-the-bat decisions, place one hand over your chest and the other over your belly, and connect to the parts of you that breathe with ease. Choose from that place.
3Ernest Hemingway said, “When people talk, listen completely. Most people never listen.” Hemingway was also a racist, misogynistic asshole, who wouldn’t know an adjective if it punched him in the jaw, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. Here, at the beginning of your three year, consider your habits when it comes to communication. Do you value hearing as much as talking? In conversation, do you often cut people off, or find yourself just waiting for your turn to reply? How often do you speak without thinking? You don’t need to fix or change anything this week, unless you really want to. Just observe and take note of your findings.
4Support systems come in all shapes and sizes: emotional, physical, psychic, imaginal, financial, communal—the list goes on. The four year you’re about to embark on is sure to highlight the structures that surround and service you. For better or worse, by December, you’re bound to know a bit more about them. You’ll see their strengths and their weakness. The ways they buoy you, but also the ways in which they let you down. It’s all good information, even though it might feel awful to find out the truth. But for now, this week, simply focus on identifying them. May you be pleasantly surprised by just how shored up you really are.
5According to a 2023 poll by the American Psychiatric Association, “Americans who engage in creative activities at least weekly report better mental health.”1 Reported activities included listening to music, playing an instrument, solving puzzles, singing or dancing, drawing, painting or sculpting, crafting, creative writing, attending concerts, creating online content for fun, playing a musical instrument, visiting an art museum, gardening, and cooking. Do any of those sound fun to you? What do you like to do to let off steam, express yourself, or have a good time? The five year can get bumpy, so this week, start to curate your collection of favorite hobbies, projects, recreation, and creative joys.
6Some say there’s a direct link between a decluttered space and a clear, sharp and focused mind, and after what was likely a messy or raucous five year, you could probably use some tidy, detangled spaciousness. You also might be so exhausted that the very idea of cleaning house—whether literal or metaphorical—makes you want to burrow under the covers and never come out. This week, do a little bit of both. Rest and recuperate. Dejunk and spruce up. Make some headway, then take a break. You’ve got the whole six year to take responsibility for yourself and your expansion. Slow and steady wins the race. (Not that you even need to be racing…)
7It’s better that you know up front—the seven year can be a real bitch. On the one hand, it may have you diving deep, venturing down rabbit holes that will stretch the very capacity of your philosophical, spiritual, and psychological consciousness. On the other, it may have you tearing your hair out by August, wondering in agony why you can’t just figure out the missing link between where you are now and the life of your dreams. But before you fall completely into self-loathing over what you must be doing wrong, remember that while curiosity may have killed the cat, it rewards the human.2 This week, take every opportunity to connect to what interests and excites you, and relish in the rad returns.
8Sheesh, it can hard to be in a body. Especially in a culture that doesn’t make space for, or try to service, bodies that are sick, fat, disabled, aging or otherwise in need of care or support. Still, remember that you are star dust incarnate. A miracle, a marvel! The likes of you have never before been seen, and will never be seen again. Spend some time this week identifying where your true power lies. What are your gifts? Your natural talents? What are you preternaturally skilled at or drawn to? What lights you up and makes you feel damn good? Once you have some ideas, begin to imagine how you could work your magical mastery to your advantage this year. You’re it, baby. Take pleasure in the fullness of your existence.
9Agathokakological, which combines the Greek agath- (good), kako- (bad), and -logical (the adjectival suffix based on logos, meaning word)3, is a term that makes space for the complexities of the human experience, and the presence of both positives and negatives within the same situation or circumstance. This too shall pass, which perfectly encapsulates the experience of the nine year, is an agathokakological phrase. It promises an ending to that which ails you, but also that which delights you. This week, reflect on your current cycle, tending to your garden of both greens and weeds. What are you ready to let go of, and what would break you to say goodbye to? Take heart, love. Either way, life goes on.
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