Offerings

Dear Reader, Every day I wake up missing the ocean. One of the things that I do to cope with that is think a lot about water. I spent the week reading about T.S. Eliot’s notoriously difficult poem “The Waste Land,” and writing a set of notes on The Hanged Man. That’s because there’s a tarot reading in the poem, from which the Hanged Man is notably absent: “Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards.

Dear Reader, In last week’s newsletter, I transcribed a portion of my notes from a slow re-read of theologian Catherine Keller’s interpretation of Job, including her argument that the Old Testament tragedy is actually comedy. In the newsletter, I complained about not being able to access a full essay I’d referenced—on comedy, by playwright Christopher Fry—because it was behind a paywall, and someone sent me the full version (thank you so much again).

Thank you to so much to those who extended kind words and support after last week’s letter, in which I shared a bit about the reading and writing process that goes into these things and the confluence of needs and desires that have been shaping the project. Thank you to Mindy (of Read Once and Destroy) who reminded me of Roland Barthes, whose special manner of working and teaching has been an inspiration to me since his Neutral lectures came on my radar some years ago.

I have a few one-on-one tarot sessions still open this summer. To read more about what they entail click here, and to book, click here. Dear Reader, For the last several years, I’ve sent Offerings out on weekend mornings and this week I decided I want to do something different. I’ll still send newsletters out weekly-ish, but they’ll come when they’re ready as opposed to the self-imposed deadline of Sunday mornings.

“For the most part, one must wait for things to start to coalesce again, though one can also facilitate this process, and encourage the revelation of new possible directions of meaning by involving oneself with others and in activities that build new habits, thereby disclosing new dimensions of reality and revealing new possibilities within ourselves.” —Kym Maclaren, from “Emotional clichés and authentic passions” Dear Reader, I spent much of the week re-reading the letter on Force, which is...

“I am convinced that we are, individually and collectively, much more than we typically take ourselves to be, and that the urgent task is, first, a kind of immanent transcendence, crossing the very proximate thresholds of our accustomed states of being, consciousness and embodiment.” — Charles Stang Dear Reader, I was away from my house a lot more than I’m used to last month, and as a result I wrote to you less.

Offering for May 24, 2026 Dear Reader, Last week, on the second leg of a thirteen hour drive after a night in a motor lodge and what must’ve been my seventy-fifth granola bar, I listened to multiple hours of interviews with theologian Catherine Keller. I’ve turned to Keller’s work in times of profound loss and in times when I began to feel better after I thought I would not.

“Sometimes one discovers that the mystery isn’t to be solved, but still that process of exploration has helped one to know it better, to experience it more fully.” —Reginald Shepherd, “On difficulty in poetry” There are a few spots left in the Tarot: Theories and Practices weekend workshop I’m offering at the end of this month. Details and registration are here.

Springtime at Long Sands Beach in York, Maine Dear Reader, I am missing a version of spring that is marked by the buzz of beach houses being readied for an influx of tourists. I won’t miss the traffic this year, but I will miss having ten options for ice cream, walking on the beach to get said ice cream, and gluten-free scallop baskets. I’m back in a mode of inhabiting that’s been normal for most of my life, which is longing to be somewhere else.

Alexander Calder, mobile at Calder Gardens Dear Reader, I’ve been working with and writing about tarot cards for around fifteen years, but I noticed early on the way the cards bear an unnerving bottomlessness. I’ve resonated at times with the language of “secrets,” and at the same time have struggled with the implication of secrets as special, official, or privileged knowings.