announcing: sanctuary of the empress!

hello, friends! tonight's announcement is one that's been in the works for a long, long time: i'm opening up a 3am.tarot community, one that makes space for discovery, curiosity, connection, joy, and creativity.

i've been craving a space outside of social media for months now. and while i'm part of some incredible online groups for writing, astrology, witchcraft, and numerology, i'm not in one that is centered around my main practice: tarot. i want a space to connect, to explore, to question, to breathe. i want a space that is generous and safe, inclusive and supportive, joyful and consistent.

but. it was important to me that i open this new community with a bang, with a celebration, with a special container that would encourage playful connection and joyful, delightful creativity, setting the tone for what i want this space to be. and since november is the month of nanowrimo, a month when so many people take on various challenges of daily creativity and consistent outpourings, getting words and images on the page or ideas out in the world, it made sense to create something to support that creativity. i wanted to invite folks into this space with something special, something new, something supportive and joyful.

announcing sanctuary of the empress: a month-long container for creative output, collaborative storytelling, and embodying the empress.

wanna know more about what inspired this container, what it includes, and whether or not it's right for you? read on.

we need community. humans were not meant to live in solitude indefinitely. and among the many lessons that the pandemic has taught us, and continues to teach us, so many have learned that online community can serve as a lifeline: for support, for encouragement, for advice, for storytelling, for discovery, for collaboration. community is necessary. and while social media was able to scratch the itch for a little while, the changes in twitter, instagram, facebook, and other digital platforms have made it harder and harder to reach our real connections in between the ads, suggested content, and algorithms.

we deserve better than sifting through the mess and the noise, struggling to find small moments of connection. we deserve spaces to create and play, to be vulnerable, to share our wins and find support in our losses. we deserve opportunities to discover and collaborate, to delight in beautiful things, to ask questions and share knowledge.

because as much as art and media can be serious and important, capture deep emotion and relay powerful messages, creativity can also be pleasurable, playful, delicious, and silly. if i've learned anything from writing the course materials for magician's lens, it's that it's actually really important to generate ideas and experiment without expectation of what something will eventually become. isn't it lovely to get to just create something beautiful?

when we allow our creativity to overflow, when we simply have fun getting something on a page or a screen or out into the world, it can reshape our relationship with our art. it can remind us of how much magic dwells within us. and it can inspire us to not judge our impulsive creative expressions so harshly, to see them for the glorious messy beginnings that they are.

many tarot archetypes are in relationship with creativity. but the empress is particularly lush and abundant, a generous outpouring, someone who is deeply invested in community and the collective. the empress is not concerned about perfection, doesn't care if they can turn what they are making into a sellable product or if it will be popular, admired, or valuable. messy growth and joyful exploration can be just as magical as a polished final product.

the empress knows that what they make is precious, that the process of creation itself is a magical thing.

in this way, i think the empress archetype is a perfect figurehead for the creative overflow that accompanies projects like nanowrimo, kick in the creatives, making art everyday, november poetry prompts, one of many daily photography challenges, and more: a reminder that consistent creative output can be joyful, fun, and low-stakes, if we let it be. when we allow ourselves to play, when we are giving something the space to begin finding its form, we can make so many discoveries, and create dazzling, unexpected things.

what might the empress help you express? let's find out together.

sanctuary of the empress officially begins on november 1st, and includes daily tarot readings that also serve as creative prompts, weekly sprints for co-working on individual projects, collaborative storytelling opportunities, meditations and discussions on the empress, and room to connect socially all hosted via a private online discord community.

participants who sign up now will gain access to the community one week before the container begins, on october 25th. after that, folks will get an invitation to join after purchasing. the sanctuary will close for purchase at midnight on october 31st.

you don't have to be participating in nanowrimo or another creative challenge to join! and it's absolutely okay if you don't use the prompts every single day. this is meant to be an open space for connection and community, for creative expression, for developing deeper relationships. my hope is that this will offer support and playful inspiration for those who are creating something new, but you can still join even if you're more interested in building community, studying tarot, and/or looking to engage with the empress archetype in a gentle, embodied way.

note that we will not be doing an in-depth study of the empress archetype in this container: this is not a class, but a creative, community experience. we will instead be using this card as a jumping off point for abundance, reciprocity, and community care, as a model for collective inspiration, boundless creativity, and delight in the process. and we'll share and explore different ideas about the empress along the way, together.

questions? feel free to email me anytime. i'd love to talk to you about sanctuary of the empress and help you decide if it's a good fit. i'll also be sharing sample prompts and other information on instagram all month, so make sure you check my feed and stories for more.

a final note: down the line, i will open this discord community up to additional members, but the container materials will remain private to participants. if this container isn't right for you but you're interested in joining the 3am.tarot sanctuary later, make sure you're a paid subscriber to this newsletter to get more details later this year.

see you in the sanctuary!