hope is not a requirement.

hello, friends. each day this week, i'll be sending out a daily newsletter with writings, spreads, and a limited-time discount on tarot resources. whether today's message finds you in a place of empowerment and courage, or you're still trying to find your footing after a brutally difficult year, i'm sending you love, safety, and hope.

i write a lot about grief, and create a lot of resources around grief. it's become something of a speciality of mine: using the tarot as a tool for exploring the depths of our spirits, the ways that we traverse our own darkness and discover our own secrets. but hope is important too — and with so many current calls to action, with so many people sharing guidance and tips and insights into what is most important as we prepare for the increasing climate crisis and the incoming presidential administration, i wanted to begin this five-day series by reminding you that hope is, in fact, possible — but is not a requirement for action.

if you're just here for the discounts, i got you: for the next 24 hours, purchase either strength & starlight (my five-part tarot numerology journaling series on 2024) or remember your strength (my upcoming tarot study container) and get the other for $1. you'll get the benefit of private journaling and supportive community, while you consider what 2024 had to offer, the archetypes and resources that have been supporting you, and the ways that you've transformed along the way.

my card study containers are always incredibly sweet and supportive spaces, and are one of my favorite resources to offer. if you've been craving tarot-centric community, if you're looking for a way to gently process 2024, if you could use reminders of what you accomplished and discovered this year, remember your strength is for you.

my year-ahead readings are also now available for purchase, so if you'd like one-on-one support for navigating 2025, click here to snag one.

and for more on hope, read on.

when we talk about organizing, offering care, showing up and building something important, it can feel like no action is possible without having hope to fuel it. like we have to have a solid, unshakeable faith in a particular future in order to fight for it effectively.

hope, especially as translated through tarot archetypes like the star, can feel like something that is supposed to just arrive after an appropriate amount of time has elapsed, after the tower's dust has cleared. a deus ex machina, a third act twist, arwen showing up out of nowhere to scoop us up and ride us off to safety.

but hope isn't just a thing that springs up magically to save the day. it's not a soft, sweet companion that only emerges when it's safe, in times of quiet tenderness; something we have to coax out of hiding to sit with us in the darkness before we can even consider taking another step forward.

no: hope is stubborn, scrappy, determined. hope has been through it, has seen worse and come out the other side even stronger. hope is a fighter with a mean right hook.

“people speak of hope as if it is this delicate, ephemeral thing made of whispers and spider’s webs. it’s not. hope has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, the grit of the cobblestones in her hair, and just spat out a tooth as she rises for another go.” — crowsfault on twitter/x

hope knows how to persevere. but in times such as these, when we're scrambling for stability, bracing for impact, endlessly worrying about what the future might hold, hope can feel utterly out of reach. and the internet's admonitions to "not give up hope" or "remember that hope is a discipline" might feel frustratingly tone-deaf when you're craving a flicker of something, anything, to help you keep going.

instead i'd like to offer a different suggestion: to not let a lack of hope hold you back from doing the next right thing.

your sense of hope might not feel particularly accessible right now — and that doesn't make you a bad person, or a weak person, or a cowardly person. instead of brimming with hope, you might feel furious (use it!), discouraged or grief-stricken (feel it!), exhausted (tend it!). hope might be the last thing on your mind, a tool that's been long lost. but hope truly is not a prerequisite for action — hope is simply one thing that you might possess, or discover, along the way.

if this is your experience, if what i'm saying feels eerily similar to your current state of being, then stop trying to find your hope before doing anything else, and just decide for yourself that you're going to do the damn thing anyway.

we can't all be samwise, optimistic and faith-fueled until the bitter end. some of us are frodo, and wish we lived in simpler, easier times, with lighter burdens.

find one thing you can do, and start doing it: a mutual aid organization in your area to volunteer with, an archiving effort to get involved in, a fundraiser that could use your cash. we all have different roles to fill, different ways that we can show up. it's not for each of us to do every single thing — that simply isn't possible — but it is for each of us to do something consistently, to invest in our future even if we are afraid to believe that it could come true.

if hope can't be your fuel, then figure out what is: rage, grief, sorrow, spite, or something else entirely. identify what motivates you, and use it to get shit done.

"hope is an embrace of the unknown and the unknowable, an alternative to the certainty of both optimists and pessimists. optimists think it will all be fine without our involvement; pessimists take the opposite position; both excuse themselves from acting. it's the belief that what we do matters even though how and when it may matter, who and what it may impact, are not things you can know beforehand." —rebecca solnit

the great thing is, when you start to get involved, to connect with people, to do the work, it actually creates space for hope to grow. like any long-term project, mutual aid and organizing and community-building takes time: we don't see the fruit or the flowers on the day that we plant the seed. instead we keep tending the soil, weeding and adding fertilizer, with the patient trust that eventually a tender shoot will make its way up into the sunshine.

just like gardening, some days will be filled with joy and awe and wonder, with hands in warm soil and bright sunshine and cool rain — and other days it'll just feel like another chore, dirt under your fingernails and a sore back, a commitment you made that you're reluctantly sticking to.

that's okay — it's great, actually. because before you know it, when you consistently create space for it (regardless of your attitude while creating that space), eventually there hope is: busting open the doors like aragorn, looking sexy and dramatic and like they've seen some shit: bruised but breathing, still alive, gearing up for the next fight.

how does tarot fit into all of this? the cards can help us identify what our hope looks like, to learn to see it and build it up through the fog of fear or the heaviness of grief. and while i have readings and workbooks and other resources for in-depth exploration on this topic, i also wrote a new tarot spread that you can use right now to start seeking out your own sense of hope, and figuring out what might help it to take root.

this one requires a little prep work, so rather than making a graphic, i've just written out instructions for you.

go through your tarot deck and separate it into three sections: the major arcana archetypes, the minor arcana court cards, and the minor arcana pips. shuffle each section thoroughly, then pull one card from each pile.

major archetype: your hope's fuel. this is your hope's motivation, the thing that gets your hope riled up and ready for action. work with this archetype as a way to build up your hope's reserves and resources.

court figure: your hope's shape. this is your hope's form, the way that your hope shows up in the world. work with this figure as a way to embody hope within yourself, and to understand what your hope looks like within your own life.

pip card: your hope's everyday action. this is your hope's task and advice, the things you can do right now to show up, make change, and carve out space for your hope to grow. work with this card as practical effort, something you can tangibly do on a regular basis. (if you like, you can pull a few of these!)

i know things might feel bleak at the moment. i know you might be exhausted just thinking about how hard these past years have been, how much may change, how much we stand to lose, how much we have already lost. i know it might already feel like you've been fighting for so long, too long, and you don't have any fight left.

but you are not alone. we are not alone. if you need to take a break to cry or rage or collapse in exhaustion, that is very much okay. rest is good. but after your break, hope will still be there to pull you back to your feet, to walk with you to the next step of the journey — hope just might take a different form than you were expecting.

what does your hope look like? what fuels it, propels it, drives it? and how can making space for action in your daily life encourage hope to get louder, angrier, more courageous?

sending you power, purpose, and strength for the fight ahead, friends.

if you'd like extra support from the tarot for your personal practice, and to connect with community, don't forget that for the next 24 hours, you can get both strength & starlight (my five-part tarot numerology journaling series on 2024) and remember your strength (my upcoming tarot study container) for the price of one. spend december with fellow tarot seekers, celebrating your wins and honoring your growth.

i'll be back in your inbox tomorrow with a new essay, and a new offer 🖤