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1:1 sessions with Eva are available now!

I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

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Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: Our Summer sessions are coming up on the following Saturdays: June 20, July 25, and August 29—all 1pm to 3pm Eastern. These gatherings are free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP and get the Zoom link or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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If you’re in the New York-metro area, I’m delighted to recommend a morning or afternoon spin around Musical Bodies, opening June 7 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Curated by Bradley Strauchen-Scherer, this expansive, imaginative exhibition features 130 works of visual media and instruments spanning world cultures and 4,000 years to highlight interconnections between musical instruments and the human body.

The Met promises announcements of special activations and musical performances during the run of the exhibition.

Below: Champion and world-champion members of Brooklyn’s Beatbox House collective perform at the press preview for Musical Bodies.

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Message Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: Our Summer sessions are coming up on Saturday, June 20, Saturday, July 25, and August 29—all 1pm to 3pm Eastern. These gatherings are free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP and get the Zoom link or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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At the window over my kitchen sink, I stand and think me some thoughts while I wash and dry.

From that window, where various cats once loved to sun themselves, I gaze at the fire escape of the neighboring building. The landing directly across from me is littered with the carcasses of random items most likely dropped from a higher window—a container with a big piece broken off and a shattered thingamagigwhozeewhatsit, damaged eyesores lying there forever through many seasons and all manner of weather because plastic.

Also, two flower pots have also been abandoned. One is of good size and red clay and holds a smaller ceramic vessel that contains the spindly remains of a long stem dangling over its rim like a withered tentacle.

The other pot, ceramic glazed in cobalt blue, holds a desiccated bonsai tree. A little over a week ago, I noticed the tree’s root ball sprouting a few vivid green leaves that looked foreign to the dead tree. I can’t tell you how much the sight of them lifted my heart!

It’s often hard to see these new leaves, but sometimes the sun hits that lovely blue glaze and those healthy green leaves just right. And today, I saw their stems had grown longer and the leaves larger and somewhat varied.

I don’t know what’s growing from that root ball. Something blown in on a breeze or dropped by a passing bird and nourished by rain? But, whatever, it has won my heart.

After making sure my wife saw the leaves’ new growth while the light was still good, I stood alone again at the window, taking it all in.

You need someone to love you, I said to the leaves.

And then, I said:

I will.

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Our free monthly Zoom Séance circles offer supportive space for folks exploring creativity, grounded spirituality, and psychic development in community. Please join us next time on Saturday, June 20, 1pm to 3pm (Eastern)!

NOTE: For this next session, please bring a lightweight object that can fit in the palm of one hand or easily balance across your palm. The object should have symbolic and/or significant meaning to you. Don’t stress about your choice. The right object will present itself to you!

RSVP by DM to me here to get our Zoom link. Add your email address if you’d like to be added to our mailing list. We look forward to welcoming you to Zoom Séance!

This is about me digging up my forgotten pendulums from where I last stashed them, years ago, and presenting them to Spirit Self for an update on the whole pendulum shebang.

Simple as that.

One day, I was wondering: Is there anything new to say about this practice of consulting pendulums?

Something beyond all those repetitive tutorials on YouTube?

You know the ones: Cleanse your pendulum in moonlight. (Okay.) Ask it to demonstrate its Yes and No directions. (Makes total sense.) Start off by testing it with a trick question. (Okey-doke.) You know you’re only talking to your subconscious mind, right? (Are you sure about that?) Look, my hand’s not shaking at all. (But it is.) The pendulum’s moving on its own! (Well, maybe.)

BTW, my favorite YouTube pendulum moment: a video host tells us, with confidence, that when she works with her pendulum, she steadies her elbow on a table to keep it from shaking. Meanwhile, I’m eyeing her elbow, and it’s cocked up in the air.

Okay, girl. Whatever.

Anyway, my first few experiments with my rediscovered pendulums were…cute.

There’s one gleaming fella, sterling silver and impressively sci-fi, with a point so sharp it should hold lead and double as a mechanical pencil. Handsome as hell but, for some reason, it now has taken to stabbing me with that point. That never used to happen.

After several of these unprovoked attacks, I said, No, sir! I will not be treated that way. You are not my pendulum.

Back in the bag with you!

Next, I tried a charming beaded one I’d purchased long ago from a craftswoman who sold them online. It radiates warmth.

The beads remind me—slightly, just enough—of Catholic rosaries I loved in my youth. The top bead, twirled between my thumb and index finger, is perfectly, pleasingly smooth. An adorable amber crescent moon and tiny star serve as its pendant.

Promising, right?

Heh.

Fond as I was of this pendulum, it developed a taste for playing hide-and-seek. After a couple of times having to track it down, I said, Nope, unreliable beauty, you are not my pendulum either.

So, hold up. Before any of you say a word—You neglected these guys for years, Eva. They’re getting back at you!—yes, yes, I’ve already thought of that. And we won’t speak about the handmade (these hands) pendant (below, left) still waiting for me to add a chain. I know, I know. Look at that dove! That dove deserves a nice gold chain!

But that dove’s gonna have to wait, because my pendulum (above, right) turned up when least expected—a fish-shaped evil eye talisman a friend gifted me a while back.

I wasn’t even trying to find an alternative when I spotted this glass pendant in a jewelry box. I went in there looking for an unclaimed chain for the dove. Well, the fish also needed a chain and pretty much told me so!

Apologizing, I attached a humble yet sturdy steel ball chain I found in that same box. The protective pendant seemed to take to it. This was the only pendulum that went on to answer me with wide, unambiguous swings—and I mean right away.

One of the first things it told me was to ignore all those other pendulums!

So, now to the rest of what I’m learning from Spirit Self about pendulums:

• BONDING: It’s great to clean them, one way or another. It can be as simple as running clearing energy through before and after a session. But what’s even more important is energetic bonding through physical touch. I sometimes wear the fish pendulum snuggled close to my heart chakra. With the chain cinched in back, it rests close to my throat chakra, the center for communication and channeling. I also like to warm it in my hand.

• DIRECTIONS: In my experience, “Yes” is a distinct clockwise circle, and “No” is counterclockwise. A side-to-side swing is ambiguity or the unknown. A back-and-forth swing feels like a rather cheeky “Girl, don’t ask” or, with intensity, a more serious “Girl! Don’t ask!!!” Not moving or coming to a rest and just hanging there might be a way to say, “Not feelin’ it today.”

• QUESTIONS: Think about your questions carefully and write them down. Specificity helps. Have some follow-ups handy to dig further for details and clarity. Remember, the usefulness of your pendulum’s output depends on your smart input. Having said that, I did once pick up something useful on a YouTube video about not relying on Yes/No Q&As, just straight-up talking to your pendulum and paying attention to the various directions and inflections of energy as it reacts to your words. This makes a lot of sense to me and tracks with other ways I engage with the etheric more-than-human.

• DOWSING CHARTS: As for pendulum charts, according to Spirit Self, they’re training wheels. No shade on training wheels. We’ve all needed helpful training aids at times as we’ve made our way. Our greatest myths and holy books and rituals devised by humankind are training wheels. Divination cards, no matter how beautiful and compelling, are training wheels, too. We can continue to use them at will or move beyond them as desired when the time comes. Now, if you’d like to try using a chart, you’ll find a lot of cool ones, for nearly any purpose and to reach nearly any source, at the amazing Subtil site. Download one or more to print out. You can even edit one of Subtil’s many templates to fit your needs. Or get inspired and draw a completely new chart of your own design.

• WHO’S THERE: “It’s your subconscious. Period.” Subconscious. Inner Child. Inner Critic, even. Sure, if you’ve decided that’s who you want to answer your questions, it’s all good. More’s possible, though. As with any other divinatory tool, you have to ask for what/who you’re seeking. Don’t start the conversation assuming you can’t connect to the ancestor, orisha, or angel of your choice. Ask directly. You wouldn’t send unaddressed emails or texts out to a teeming multiverse hoping they’ll land somewhere useful, would you? Assert yourself and slap that address in the TO: field. Then watch for a ping coming back.

• WHAT’S SHAKING: Is it you? Is it the pendulum and whatever/whoever’s speaking through it? Maybe you could hold your breath, but what about your pulse, your nearly imperceptible, uncontrolled twitches? Sure, anchor that elbow on a desk or table, if you like, but it doesn’t matter. Your body with its nervous system and flow of breath and blood are one with Spirit. Spirit Self sees no distinction between the physical and the etheric. Your conscious intellect constructs those boxes. Your body, though, not only keeps the witchy score, it’s always telling what it knows.

Look! I found another pendulum in a bowl on a bookshelf. I think my evil eye fish will have to get along and share space with this polished clear quartz. It’s already proving to be quite active.

Have you enjoyed pendulums? How do you use them? For chakra diagnostics? Gathering finer details from Tarot cards? Maybe hovering one over a birth chart?

Comment below and share your ideas and experiences. And, if you have pendulums, please do post pics of your faves!

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Clairvoyance is an inherent human ability and muscular skill developed by play, experimentation, and ongoing practice.

It’s the most recognized and studied of several discrete sensitivities that traditionally include clairaudience, clairsentience, claircognizance, and lesser-heralded abilities of clairgustance (psychic awareness via phenomena of taste), clairtangency (psychic awareness via phenomena of physical touch), and clairalience (psychic awareness via phenomena of scent).

All such human skills and practices can best be understood as subsets of an overall clairsentience, in the sense (no pun) of awareness through both material and non-material senses. Aside from this, claircognizance appears to have no connection to (or necessity for) sensation at any level, being uncanny psychic awareness and accurate knowledge simply available in the mind with no apparent external source or trigger. It’s just there for the tapping.

By the way, that’s why I now avoid the popular term download for any experience that makes more sense as an emergence of what’s already there and accessible. When we’re living, more and more, as our Spirit Selves, nothing really needs to be downloaded like a digital file or app, just perceived and recognized for what it is.

And images popping into your mind’s eye are not the only signs that you’re activating clairvoyance. Think about the many ways you’ve already experienced this skill.

It can show up as:

• yes, certainly, non-material imagery, static or moving, that may be fleeting or sustained over time

• dream imagery

• visual experiences during guided imagery meditation, active imagination, journeying, and other therapeutic and ritual practices

• seeing into and reading the details of images in the outer world (e.g., such as Tarot cards, visual art, film, dance, physical objects, landscapes, and people)

Suddenly and for reasons unknown, your eyes are drawn to look in a particular direction, intently gazing at something existing in material reality. You realize that call was a psychic signal. It’s a form of clairsentience we might label clairvoyance.

This insistence on breaking down clairsentience into separate sensory skills can be misleading, though. What’s really going on here? Should we attribute much or all of the experience only to the visual sense?

These kinds of phenomena are often complex, rich, intricate with a subtle overlap and interplay of modes of receiving, communicating, and knowing.

What made you swivel your head just in time to see a huge, vibrant flock of birds lift, all at once, from the branches of a distant tree? (Real story from a birding trip to Belize, btw.) Did you, at the farthest edge of your vision, detect the first lift of a single wing? Or did you receive a tiny whisper—hey, look now—just below human auditory perception?

Or maybe, well, you just knew as you sometimes do.

Here’s an exercise to help condition and finetune your clairvoyance in this more expanded sense.

Select any one of the many works of visual art offered by The New York Times’ 10-Minute Challenge series—including paintings by Rockwell Kent, Frida Kahlo, Utagawa Hiroshige, Romare Bearden, and Gustav Klimt.

Set aside all distractions, and sit in front of your chosen image for as long as you can. I’ve found ten minutes to be ideal. See how much you can notice, absorb, imagine, and ponder in that time.

Of course, you can do the same with any work of art you’d prefer. Here are two from an engaging new exhibition of portraits I visited this morning at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Set a timer for 10 minutes, or your desired time, and pay attention will unfold in front of you. See how deep you can go. I guarantee, with every passing minute, you’ll notice more and learn more about that work and its artist. And you’ll be exercising your clairvoyant clairsentience.

Don’t try to make notes or journal entries during this time. Just observe, letting your eyes take it all in, letting the image carry you, dialogue with you, instruct you, and surprise you.

Notes can come later.

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This email invited me to present something at Open Street, a FABnyc-hosted event outdoors on East 4th Street as I’d done last fall.

Here’s me in October 2025 reading my work.

And here’s an excerpt from this year’s invite:

Bear in mind, each artist gets only three minutes to perform their…whatever.

I looked at the invite, remembered how nervous I’d suddenly gotten last year, and decided to file this email somewhere, with any luck, I’d forget I’d ever seen it.

Then, as so often happens, my shoulder got tapped…

…by the invisible.

Anyway, here’s what rapidly unfolded.

I CONFESS

2 to 3 minutes, eh?

Last year when I took part in Open Salon, I read something, and my knees started knocking wildly like they haven’t since I was a little Black girl in Catholic school far out in Queens many decades ago. I swore I’d never again subject myself to that experience.

But then Psacoya sent her invite, and while I stood by helplessly, memories cascaded into my mind: Friday evening confessions at our parish church.

Confession. Back in the day, that day being the 1950s and ‘60s, they didn’t call it Sacrament of Reconciliation. That language emerged well after the Second Vatican Council when I’d made it to college—yes, a Catholic one—and was beyond caring.

Confession meant kids—teens and adults, too, of course—sidling into the sanctum of a small booth with a latticed screen that separated confessor from a priest standing in for compassionate Jesus—you know, the Biblical one, not the one who might be a doctor or…wait…President of the United States?

Anyway, I was an only child. Quiet. Introverted. Shy. Arts Nerd. Science Nerd. A model girlchild of a Black Caribbean immigrant family with a mom known to be handy with a whipping belt.

You know what all that adds up to?

Lying.

That’s right. The creative sin of lying—right there in the confessional booth.

Our school mandated weekly confession. So, I had to go. As a pathetically good girl, I had to make up sins to tell the priest—little ones, mind you, not mortal ones.

I had to swear repentance and take my penance and grace for stupid, trivial things I’d never done.

Grace? I have a lot. Truthfully, despite all the confessional lying, I know I was never denied it—then or now.

But it does make me wonder, what if?

What if the Sacrament of Reconciliation was more an opportunity to tell our stories, to say, in the sacred space of the booth, not what horrors we might have done but who we are, and are becoming, in full, and what daily wonders we are learning about ourselves and this world.

A storytelling booth in which eagerly listening priests—perhaps, some day, a good number of them women—might also learn a useful and liberating thing or two.

©2026, Eva Yaa Asantewaa

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INTERESTING UPDATE!

A new email just arrived from Psacoya—and well, waddayaknow?

NYTW’s Open Salon participation in the May 21st Open Street event turned out to be a miscommunication with FABnyc and has been cancelled.

Oh, well.

No knocking knees, and at least I got a new Substack post out of it! :-D

Have a good weekend, folks!

Meanwhile, if you’re in the New York metro-area—particularly, downtown Manhattan—and love food and meeting new people, you might enjoy this outdoor event sponsored by NYTW and coming up on Thursday, May 28. Yes, this one is happening and sounds like fun!

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It was such a pleasure to meet and chat with Allison Adams who hosts Art and Alchemy Lab here on Substack as well as on YouTube where she’s dedicated to “symbolic art, alchemy, inspiration, mental and spiritual health, and creative conversations. Turning lead into gold.”

You’ll find more about Allison and her artwork at www.allisonadams.net.

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: Our next sessions are coming up on Saturday, May 16 and June 20, both 1pm to 3pm Eastern. These gatherings are free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates and get the Zoom link or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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Tiffany Merritt-Brown is a choreographer, performer, and educator whose work centers the interior lives of Black women and their embodied knowledge. She holds a B.F.A. in Dance from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and an M.F.A. in Dance & Social Justice from the University of Texas at Austin. She creates immersive choreographies that function as prayer, testimony, and visionary invitation, exploring tenderness, kinship, and care as sites of survival and connection. Grounded in Black feminist thought and radical imagination, her work positions dance as a space for inquiry, ritual, and collective life. She is an alumna of the Dancing While Black Choreographic Fellowship with Angela’s Pulse and the Jacob’s Pillow Ann & Weston Hicks Choreographers Fellowship. Her work has been presented nationally and internationally at venues including Arts On Site (NYC), BAAD!, CADD (Collegium for African Diaspora Dance), Detroit Dance City Festival, The Kaye Playhouse, Miami Dade College, and WDA-A (World Dance Alliance Americas) in Puebla, Mexico.

Scene from Ethereal Bodies: Anointed, Divine, & Black by Tiffany Merritt-Brown (Dougherty Arts Center, Austin, Texas, 2022

Scene from an earlier duet version of Tender is the Night by Tiffany Merritt-Brown (University of Wisconsin-Madison, Moonshine Black Artist Series, 2025)

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: Our next sessions are coming up on Saturday, May 16 and June 20, both 1pm to 3pm Eastern. These gatherings are free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates and get the Zoom link or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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Jade Charon is an award-winning choreographer, filmmaker, interdisciplinary artist, educator, and mother. She is the creator of the multimedia project and children’s book Gold: Made Just for You, which explores empowerment, healing, and spirituality in Black communities. Her acclaimed films Reverse (2016), featured by The New York Times, and Recharge (2020) have screened internationally. She has received fellowships and residencies including the Angela’s Pulse Dancing While Black Fellowship, the Bill T. Jones/New York Live Arts Fresh Tracks Artist Residency, the GALLIM Moving Women Residency, and the Ann & Weston Hicks Choreography Fellowship at Jacob’s Pillow. She earned degrees from UCLA and Columbia College Chicago and is currently pursuing an Ed.D. at Teachers College, Columbia University.

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: Our next sessions are coming up on Saturday, May 16 and June 20, both 1pm to 3pm Eastern. These gatherings are free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates and get the Zoom link or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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Our beloved world is manifesting, and rapidly magnifying, disorder on a devastating scale. We swim in toxic waters of manipulation, oppression, and violence.

The health of our environment and the interdependent web of life remain threatened by our willful resistance to change. As individuals and as societies, we’re gripped by trauma, fear, selfishness, and greed.

We ignore the spirit living within our wise, if struggling, bodies and inside everything that, for better or worse, we’ve formed here on Earth.

But Spirit is in motion. Some of us have been feeling the sweep of that motion towards new thresholds where we can be encouraged (find the courage) to examine ourselves and realign.

Spirit is calling us to a radical reset.

Spirit Self at work will never let us sink and settle into repression by self or by others. It’s a continuously restless force with all the primal energy of elements we know (Air, Fire, Water, Earth) and ethereal elements each of us may yet discover. While it grounds us in what is, the here and now, it desires what’s next for us.

It holds generous space for what’s next, holds the door open, and invites us in.

Reset requires imaginal courage to look into a possible future and see oneself there, in place and well-aligned, inside and out.

Tarot’s Justice calls us to begin a process of discernment, choice, and finetuning. Eight of Cups, then, is a perfect complement to Justice.

With Eight of Cups, we carefully weigh and choose what must be left behind and what’s worth carrying forward. If we must grieve first, we grieve. If we must finish up old business or make amends, we do so.

Some doors, we’ll close for the final time, perhaps with sadness or relief or with satisfaction. Some graces and tools will merely require proper, secure vessels for the journey ahead.

How are you seeing Spirit/Spirit Self moving within and around you in our current moment?

How is Spirit/Spirit Self inviting you to choose anew, reorient yourself, and move forward?

What are you being guided to foresee, and perhaps help shape, for yourself, for all of us?

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: Our next sessions are coming up on Saturday, May 16 and June 20, both 1pm to 3pm Eastern. These gatherings are free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates and get the Zoom link or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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Sometimes, gazing at a divination card, you decide to make a clean break with either the implications of the artist’s imagery or the creator’s stated concept or the language with which it’s presented.

Knave—the word used by Alice Santana in her Afro-Brazilian Tarot to rename the historically Eurocentric Page—can mean an untrustworthy scoundrel. Not usually how you see Tarot’s Pages, is it? During England’s Middle Ages, the word knave just meant a young lad, no commentary on character, good or bad. Neither meaning, though, helps me decipher and engage the specific nature of artist Giuseppe Palumbo’s striking image (above).

Nor, actually, does Santana’s “little white book”, the all-too-typical mini-guidebook tucked away inside the box I’ve owned for nearly two decades. Her LWB interprets Knave of Chalices (the Page of Cups equivalent, but not quite) as “handsome youth, loyalty, understanding, harmony, sincerity.” That’s as far as it goes.

There’s no full-sized guidebook available for Santana’s deck, published by Lo Scarabeo, the well-known Italian firm, in 2006. And, in all honesty, it’s not a deck I ever clicked with despite having some pull to Afro-Atlantic traditions like Brazil’s Candomblé, Santana’s inspiration.

But, sometime last week, I dug the deck’s box out of a basket and just gazed at it. Since my relationship with Spirit has deepened, I pay respectful attention when something’s calling me, and I could feel it.

A day or two later, I finally opened the deck and riffled through its cards. Who knows? Maybe something might “speak to my condition,” as Quaker folks would say.

Of course, when Knave of Chalices caught my eye and held it, I opened the LWB, too, but soon tucked it back in place. Here’s what the image itself chose to show me:

That rushing waterfall and foaming river. That pristine vessel where a vibrant rainbow arises or descends. The rugged strength of the massive rocks the Knave climbs and faces. The Knave’s sinewy arm and gleaming, wind-swirled garment.

Air, Water, Earth, and Fire of light and colors of rainbow and raging sky. Commanding, even erotic elements of nature aroused in their fullness.

It’s an image of power turned up to 11.

This Knave is not a dirty, lying rascal. Neither is this Knave your typical Tarot Page—a gentle, poetic, dreamy, ethereally sensitive soul. This Knave and the snakey wand raised to the sky add dynamic, transformative energy to the atmosphere.

This is a call to claim your witchcraft, dig deep, and draw power from within to enliven one’s surroundings. Meet the multitude of powers in the world with one’s own. Move mountains and make something happen where, before, movement and transformation were unimaginable or deliberately blocked.

What have you denied yourself—and the world? Each of us has a superpower—at least one! What’s yours?

If you have left yours dormant, now’s the time to find it and find its best application.

And Look at This!

You might enjoy Lennox Rees’s video Oracle Decks Rely on You, Not a System.

Writing a Love Letter

Yesterday, I went to an afternoon showing of works-in-progress by two assistant professors of dance at Hunter College—Jade Charon and Tiffany Merritt-Brown. Their performers—all Black women, as are the choreographers—met every technical and big-hearted, cathartic challenge of these works. If you’re in the New York-metro area, keep eyes peeled for any announcement of a presentation of finished works by these artists!

At one point, we were offered a moment to write a love-letter postcard to the part of ourselves needing tenderness, and I wanted to share mine with you:

Dear Me,

As you get older, please continue the way you love and care for me with everything that makes me feel nourished, comforted, joyful, connected, and treasured.

With love,

Me

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: Coming up this Saturday, April 25, followed by May 16 and June 20. All 1pm to 3pm Eastern. And all free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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I was so lucky to hear Grigorian live today—free!!!—at a Met Opera rehearsal of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin.

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: April 25, May 16, and June 20. All 1pm to 3pm Eastern. And all free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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So, this morning, I had a quick, routine medical follow-up in midtown and then walked a bit further uptown to the Museum of Modern Art for the new Marcel Duchamp show. Totally recommended, btw! Fun! Made me chuckle a lot!

On the way, knowing I had a large show ahead of me—some 300 works of art—before heading home for lunch, I stopped for a little nosh from a food truck. While I waited for my order, I happened to notice the vendor had a box of Tarot cards sitting right there in plain sight on his counter. He’s preparing my food, and I’m looking at this box, mind-blown, and thinking, “Now, what are the odds…?”

Finally, I had to ask him, “You’re a Tarot reader?”

“Yes,” he said, cheerfully. “Me, too,” I said, and we grinned at each other.

I love New York!

And I smiled to myself because, along the way, I’d passed several other food vendors and somehow found myself in front of this guy.

Spirit is wicked good with this shit. Wicked good, I tell ya.

The deck was Linzi Silverman’s Intuitive Night Goddess Tarot, a beauty, an enchantment I’d never before seen!

I haven’t purchased a Tarot deck in a long while, but this one’s calling!

(Shop)

And can you imagine gifting a friend Parisian air preserved in this lovely glass vessel?

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: April 25, May 16, and June 20. All 1pm to 3pm Eastern. And all free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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Hey, folks!

If you’ve hung around my newsletter for a while, I’m sure you realize that, at some point, I stopped making certain posts paid-sub-only. That’s because when I’ve got something to put out, and especially when it arrives straight from Spirit, it’s intended for everyone. I’m not comfortable restricting it to readers who can pay.

That decision does not reflect devaluation of my work or myself. It’s a matter of knowing what the work is for, why it’s here.

I well understand that Substack writers approach free and paid subscriptions in different ways. You might paywall your entire Substack output—or only selections from it. You might make a portion of a post paid-sub, or paywall only special, in-depth posts. You might monetize your presence here by offering other incentives to paying subscribers: exclusive participation in additional features, like the ability to comment on a post or take part in a chat group or attend special communal events. You might offer discounts on your products or services. For some, Substack can be an effective marketing toolkit for their business or practice.

We’re on this app for a variety of reasons. The one thing we have in common—aside from surely enjoying a little compensation for our expertise, skill, time, labor, and love—is simply being read, having an attentive, loyal, and ideally interactive readership.

In the past, as I gradually got my sea legs here, I put some posts behind paywalls in part or in entirety. I’ve also offered a free download to paid subscribers. But I know whenever I’m presented with a Substack paywall, I wish my limited finances allowed me to support that writer and read the entirety of their work—and what you need to know is I read a hella lot of terrific, worthy writers and valuable stuff on Substack. I know you do, too!

So what evolved into an intuitive decision around not paywalling will not change. I’m keeping the option for paid subscriptions active for anyone interested in supporting me in that way, but I’m not going to paywall my offerings here. It just does not feel good to do so.

What I’m asking of you are a few things, and I truly hope you’ll take them to heart:

You can acknowledge and support me in any or all of the following ways, and each will make a tremendous difference:

• If you read something, say something. I greatly enjoy and value your comments and questions. They often open up new pathways for thought and feeling and prove useful for other readers, too.

• I love Likes! Who doesn’t? If you enjoyed something you read here and found it valuable, please don’t keep it to yourself.

• And that goes for restacking and sharing outside of Substack, too!

• Please recommend this newsletter. If you do value my work overall, it takes just a few moments to go into your Recommendations section (under Creator Tools) and scroll down to the Add Recommendation button.

• Drop a tip of any amount at any time the spirit moves you! (links available here)

• And, of course, if you have the means, sign up for a monthly or annual subscription:

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Thank you for reading through to the end! And thanks in advance for taking action! I appreciate you and everything you do!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Eva

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• I’m doing a labor of love. I think it’s important for these people to be recognized.

• Something shifted, and I found something new in this work—a new strength.

— Pamela Sneed at Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art

Pamela Sneed and Carlos Martiel: Sacred and Profane closes Sunday, April 12 (remaining hours: Thursday to Sunday, Noon to 6pm). For information, click here.

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: April 25, May 16, and June 20. All 1pm to 3pm Eastern. And all free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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Our 8 is the infinity sign (lemniscate, from the Latin lēmniscātus, or “decorated with ribbons”) flipped on its side. As we find in witchcraft and qigong practices, it’s beneficial and magick to work with continuous flow of energy from Above to Below and back again. 8 symbolizes that intimate, interactive relationship.

Today, Spirit Self offers us 8 as a channel that unites and feeds energies throughout our material and etheric systems.

Visualize the energy as liquid light, or perhaps you will feel its movement as it courses or even hear its sound and rhythm.

Do each of the following exercises separately or in sequence, as needed or desired. Five minutes can be a good duration for each, but go ahead and make these energy runs as long or as short as you’d prefer. In a pinch, one mindful, vivid, twisting loop-around might do the trick.

Grounding 8: Stand or sit or imagine your feet firmly planted on the ground. Bring your attention to the soles of your feet and feel energies moving from within your feet to the ground below and back again. Keep up this super-sensory experience (5 minutes recommended). If you can find a time to do even just this one practice in the out-of-doors, that would be marvelous!

Rooted 8: Now bring your awareness to your Root chakra (base of your spine). Again, feel energies moving from that center in an 8-shaped pattern to the ground beneath your feet and up and around again.

Cauldron 8: Move on to the Sacral (or Belly) chakra below your navel. Run the energy from that energy down into the ground and up again. Then run energy from the Sacral chakra to the Root chakra. You can do each of these figure 8s separately, in sequence. Or you may combine the 8s, taking time to do the Root-to-Sacral figure 8 each time you descend or ascend for the larger 8 over the duration of this practice.

Solar 8: Above the navel, you’ll find the Solar Plexus chakra just below your ribs. Follow the pattern you used for the Cauldron 8, moving energies from Ground to the Solar Plexus and, if you will, taking time to make continuous 8s between the Solar Plexus chakra and the Sacral chakra and between the Solar Plexus chakra and the Root chakra.

Heartfelt 8: I’m sure you get the picture by now. Move energy from the Heart chakra to Ground and back again. Now, the Heart chakra is significant as the liminal gateway between the “lower” chakras (energies of our earthly, bodily existence) and the “higher” chakras and their more etheric energies. You might choose to linger longer at this center and really indulge yourself in a luscious flow and exchange of energies. You won’t regret it!

Full-Throated 8: Keep going. Your Throat chakra needs the power, courage, creativity, and love of the energy centers below for it to function confidently and brilliantly. And you won’t want to skip looping through any of the chakras between Ground and Heart. If any of this movement seems complicated and confusing, just remember: wherever you are in the chakric system you find yourself, just keep tracing 8s, those flipped-up infinity signs. You won’t go wrong.

Third Eye 8: Same thing here. Third Eye (Brow) chakra to Ground and any points in between!

Crowning 8: And again. Go for it!

Bear in mind, the traditional seven-chakra system is a baseline. We also have energy centers associated with many other regions of the physical body—for example, our palms, individual fingers, ears, and eyes—as well as beyond, and well beyond, our physical structure.

At any point, as the need arises, you may choose to focus on one or more of these additional energy centers, connecting any one of them to another and to Ground. For example, healers who use their hands for transmission of energy will find it energizing, effective, and restorative to run an 8 loop of energy between the centers of their palms or the tips of their fingers to earth, sky, Sun, Moon, and other features of nature and cosmos.

Give any or all of this a try, and please share your experiences and insights with us here! Thanks for reading and sharing!

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Resources:

“Symbolism & Significance of the Number 8 Across the World (1/4),” by B, Medium, (August 8, 2025)

“Infinity and Beyond: The Mysteries and Fascination of the Number 8: Exploring the Symbolism, Mathematics, and Cultural Significance of the Number Eight,” by TOP 5 (2023)

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: April 25, May 16, and June 20. All 1pm to 3pm Eastern. And all free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates or to get on our email list, send me a message!

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I was born to a visual artist mother who loved decorating home and canvasses with color. I’m the wife of a visual artist (and art historian) who possesses acute awareness of when color is off or on target. And I have my own fascination with color and its power—the abundant blooms of my childhood garden in Queens, the yummy yarns I used to knit or crochet, the many fountain pen inks collected, the paintings explored in numerous museums around the world.

Colors are useful symbols and conveyors of potent energies. My Inner Child still responds to color with glee!

Try this visualization:

Remember a box of crayons you owned when you were a kid—or perhaps one you own now.

Memories of opening crayon boxes are super-vivid for me. I can feel that thin paper I’d strip away to expose more wax when the original points wore down. I can smell the combined aromas of stearic acid and paraffin—unmistakable!

How many crayons does your box hold? 8? 12? 24? 96? 120?

Or is it a rare jumbo collection of, maybe, 400? If so, color me envious!

Now, in this imaginal state, reach for any crayon—at random or with intention.

Which color? Your basic orange? Your mid-range green? Or something unusual or wacky or once-trendy that’s now discontinued?

Did you pick out metallic Gold? Teal? Maize? Razzmatazz? Raw Umber?

Gaining awareness of your Spirit Self is like discovering a dazzling array of colors to draw with beyond the basic crayon set. And your drawing paper is no longer a single, letter-size sheet, or even a large page in a sketch pad, but a continuous scroll.

How often do we get in our own way or confine ourselves to small boxes, small containers, and cramp our own style?

So now, while you have that crayon in your hand and the first stretch of the scroll in front of you, envision yourself writing a reminder of this truth—that there’s more to you and your possibilities than you previously imagined. Much more. Put this thought in your own words.

And then, you know what? Grab some more crayons and draw a few images as reminders, too!

You can also take a step back and invite your Spirit Self to write you a letter of encouragement, affirmation, and love.

Now, how does that feel?

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: April 25, May 16, and June 20. All 1pm to 3pm Eastern. And all free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates or to get on our email list, send a message!

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The words came through fast. Not a breath, not even a beat between my question and Spirit Self’s crystal-clear response.

A few days ago, I suddenly recalled a time I’d fallen headlong down one of my typical rabbit holes of curiosity.

Some years back, while listening to a public radio show, I’d first heard contemporary Breton folk music. I became enchanted by the work of harpist Alan Stivell and guitarist Dan Ar Braz. And when I say “curiosity” and “enchanted,” I mean obsessed. Music can bring that out in me.

To the best of my knowledge, I have no DNA in the game. Given the colonial history of Barbados, my people’s island, and many of our family surnames, if I have any Celtic blood, it would likely be Irish or Scottish, not Breton (from the Celts of northwestern France, a place I’ve since visited).

In any case, thinking back on that time, and pondering my general dismissal of reincarnation, I shot a quick question to my Spirit Self, not expecting this immediate answer:

Whoa! Where’d that come from?

I’m still not sure if that answer referred to my musical enchantment (which, yes, was intense, as I can be), or to a past lifetime in Brittany, or, perhaps, the experience of a distant ancestor, but it has led me to ponder the role of love in the awakening to one’s Spirit Self and in Spirit Self’s relationship with the All.

It was an intense love.

In the lives of the mystics I read about in college and early adulthood, passionate love for Spirit (or God, in their lingo) was indeed intense, the very ground and engine of their fervent devotion. Love has been poetically defined as the invisible force that unites all things and moves the earthly waters and heavenly bodies. And here was love offered an an explanation for why I’d suddenly taken a shine to foreign music I’d never heard before.

Love is essential, I learned, as Spirit Self unfolded more thoughts. It’s not only the energy that connects and binds, it’s the energy of creation. I was amused, then, to be shown the image of a boiling pot of oatmeal, a bubble rising to its surface.

There. See it now?

The unified field (all oatmeal-y and such) with something new (bubble) rising from the depths into visibility, something desired, created by intense love. The ten-thousand things emerging by the action of intense love within the one Spirit.

It’s all love.

Anyone else hungry now, though?

Okay, then! Let’s get our fiber and anti-oxidants!

Might there still be a personal story to discover in High Priestess’s scroll?

Perhaps. But isn’t HP one of those Tarot icons that just screams Spirit Self?

And wouldn’t all those pomegranate seeds go nicely in a bowl of oatmeal?

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SPECIAL NOTE

Help George & JoAnn Brooks keep their home!

I know my Substack community is loving, compassionate, and generous!

I’m delighted to offer three 1:1 Tarot sessions (each for 60 minutes, valued at $150) for contributors to dance artist mayfield brooks’ campaign to save their parents’ home from foreclosure.

George and JoAnn Brooks are victims of predatory lending, trapped in a high-interest mortgage they were unable to refinance. As George’s Alzheimer’s progressed, JoAnn became his full-time caregiver, and the financial strain became overwhelming. They now face the threat of losing the home George built with his own hands.

Meet the Brooks family here:

You may donate directly to mayfield’s GoFundMe campaign here. Any amount is welcome!

Or you may click here to learn more about my 1:1 sessions and schedule one or more to support this special drive! All proceeds from these sessions, paid via Venmo or Zelle, will go directly to mayfield. Three are on offer for now. More may be added.

Thank you so much for your interest and your contributions for this beautiful family!

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If you haven’t done so already, do check out this audio post first: “Spirit Self and Prospective Tarot” (March 17, 2026).

Living more from your Spirit Self is not at all the same as ungrounded avoidance of earthly, bodily realities—or society’s problematic ones. It’s an affirmation of the sacred, dedicated, and purposeful power inside your life as an incarnate being in the very time and place you find yourself.

It’s an expanded awareness of what’s possible and an intentional calling back of freedom once stolen, compromised, or disowned and lost.

It’s your deepest truth and your fiercest energy.

Learning from Spirit Self models how to perceive the manifest and etheric worlds and one’s potential within them.

Returning to our examination of the Two of Wands and Three of Wands in my previous post, consider the conditions for shifting perspective: having the space and stillness to hear one’s own undistracted, unmanipulated thoughts as well as the subtle messages of Spirit around you; stepping back far enough (pausing to remove yourself from the fray) so that you can clearly see the whole picture, all dimensions of a situation, from its origins and early stages to its present condition and potential developments.

The Two of Wands figure in the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot cups a globe in the right hand—merely a representation, a replica of reality—but looks out over actual land and water beneath a stretch of sky. In the same way, when we grapple with a situation, we need to show up with our whole Self and meet the moment in its wholeness, too, intent on better understanding and working with it.

Now, consider the range of possible meanings for the Two of Wands and/or Three of Wands, both holding wand fire in reserve, now reversed (as shown below):

• the exact opposite—not having sufficient perspective; being unable or unwilling to take the time, dedicate the space, and make the effort to see something in a clear or more expanded way; lack of focus and a potential for confusion and disarray

  -or-

• not yet or not quite enough—a useful perspective may be available and attainable but not quite yet; more work must be done

  -or-

• an inside job—the need to journey a landscape within oneself before gaining the necessary perspective

Surrounding cards or your clair-phenomena or the overall vibes of a session help determine which of these meanings is most relevant to the person and situation in question.

Other Major Arcana cards shed light on perspective—and shifts in perspective—in varying ways.

For example, The Hermit steps far away from busy social environments and their expectations, seeking a time of solitude and mystic connection with the unseen. The Hanged Man dramatically flips topsy turvy to enter a different mindspace, later returning with something unexpected and radically new. Conversely, perversely, The Devil depicts losses of both perspective and freedom while cleverly, sneakily hinting at how to gain them back.

******

Let me know if there are any cards (or other practices and systems) you might like me to talk about from the perspective of Spirit Self. I’d love to open this up as a conversation among my readers and learn more about what you’d enjoy seeing here!

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: Saturdays, March 21, April 25, May 16, and June 20. All 1pm to 3pm Eastern. And all free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates or to get on our email list, send a message!

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Audio by Eva Yaa Asantewaa

Spirit Self on “perspective,” “prospective,” and Tarot (6:34)

Click here for the transcript.

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I’m here to help you develop a capacity to live your human life as your Spirit Self. I draw from a spectrum of colors: primarily, intuitive listening, Tarot, animistic Spiritwork, and energy work. I guide, witness, and champion your development, and I look forward to sharing my work with you soon. Message here to learn how you can book a session:

Join me and a beautiful community of celebrants for Zoom Séance: Saturdays, March 21, April 25, May 16, and June 20. All 1pm to 3pm Eastern. And all free (donations gratefully accepted—message for details). To RSVP for one or more of these dates or to get on our email list, send a message!

Subscribe now