Tag: Sobriety
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Attention is magic: the leaf portal
I’m sharing my writing in a new space on ig, attentionismagic. But I’ll also be sharing here and on substack. 
New stickers for the mail club just dropped. They’ll also be available to purchase separately. Check it out here -
Collage-a-palooza
I made a little journal that included vellum pages and have been able to create some really fun collages. It’s been so fun I filled the journal in two days! I’ll be uploading all of these designs to Redbubble.
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self-inquiry with paper
what works? what doesn’t work? what’s necessary? what feels like a boulder? -
The tarot diaries: ace of pentacles
My collage for the ace of pentacles 
this week’s edition of The Tarot Diaries is now available. We’re talking about the ace of pentacles, how the hand is offering you the pentacle just as Morpheus offered Neo the red pill out of the matrix, about analog practice, about cooking and the moments that make sobriety and presence worth it.
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The Tarot Diaries: the moon
I will be linking the newsletter archive here to avoid having to publish both places. No subscription is required, but it’s always appreciated!
The Tarot Diaries, my 78-week project has had me delving deeper than I anticipated, much faster than expected. In today’s post I share about self-identity, the myth of Narcissus, the cloudy depths of the subconscious, dealing with the throes of sobriety and memory loss. Trigger warnings are listed at the beginning of the essay. It’s a vulnerable one folks.
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The Tarot Diaries: The Four of Wands
The four of wands is a quintessential happy card. I pulled it on the wrong week. It’s my birthday tomorrow. I can’t help but see the people, happy, celebratory, heading off to some stable future they seem to feel very certain of. The past couple of days I have been a ball of anxiety, specifically today.
My life is probably the most stable it’s ever been…but on my birthday, I feel the tug of lack. This is a very silly thing, as I have more than I ever thought possible. I am very grateful for my life…my family, the kids, our health, our home, our pup. 2013 Rikki could have never visualized anything, especially a way into this beautiful life.
My birthday was a time of celebration. The people in the card are celebrating. It used to be an excuse for me to throw a party (I rarely needed an excuse, but still). Birthdays as an adult in recovery with two small children are…ordinary.
There is beauty in ordinary. There is still a yearning there…to be known…to be seen. To be truly seen by our fellow humans is surely worth celebrating.
Inevitably, I end up getting rather grumpy as we get closer to the day (i.e. me yesterday and today), and end up crying at some point because I feel let down. I don’t feel the glamor and excitement I used to around this day.
This is not a bad thing. First off, the kind of partying I was doing was hardly glamorous. The excitement was simply anticipation for my next drink. My logical brain knows this. Second off, we grow as humans and priorities change.
My birthday was one of those times I rarely had to explain my voracious drinking. I usually had to coax others to partake. My birthday gave me the confidence to demand people notice me, spend time with me, drink with me.
I am richer in my life, now. I have two little humans who love every moment we spend together (for the most part, at least for now). I have a partner I am so grateful to…the understanding and love there gives me the ability to stand my ground.
When I see the four wands in the card now, I think of home. I think of the balance that enables us to build our lives confidently. I think of my creativity, that has granted me mental bandwidth and better self-esteem. I think of my body, a long-neglected vessel that I am trying to tend to with more love and care. I think of my family, truly my everything. They are threaded through my being and my everyday in a visceral way I can hardly describe. I am so so lucky, even when I am too stubborn to see it. I think of my spiritual practice, which has led me to know witchcraft, and Catholicism, contemplative Christianity, Zen Buddhism, animism, and ultimately, that everything is god.
Perhaps the people in the card are celebrating not a new adventure or abundance recently won. Perhaps they are sharing praise for the beautiful lives they’ve already co-created with the universe. Perhaps the invitation is to see all that’s there.
- What helps to hold you up?
- When you are having a day where you are feeling too reactive or overwhelmed, what is one practice that could help you zoom out and see everything as it is?
- What do you feel needs celebrating in this moment? It can be any thing, big or small. Who are you celebrating this with?
- In the card there is a castle indicating some type of future. What does that look like for you? What is the future you would find worth celebrating? What goodness are you wanting to call in for you, for your loved ones, for the collective?
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The Tarot Diaries: The Three of Cups
When I entered the tiny washroom, I could still feel the bass thrumming in my veins. Dance music played outside. I escaped here, if just for a moment, to collect myself after another shot of Jack. Who knows how many shots at this point? My stomach turned, and I took a breath.
These quiet moments in the small bathroom, the only one in this bar, allowed my mind to run away from the liquor-fueled avoidance. I drank to penetrate the veil. It was though I wore a gauze shroud my entire life, every person out of focus. I was unable to touch, unable to connect, unable to truly be seen by anyone. The alcohol allowed me to pulled the shroud off of my body. I was able to be loud, and messy, and seen, and I kept telling myself “this is the closest to the true me I will ever be able to come.”
Of course, this was self-delusion. The hazy cloth that usually kept me separate from all of the people I came across in life now simply took the form of a glass wall. I look in the mirror, but I don’t see myself. I don’t recognize the girl, the person, the woman, standing there. She looks vacant in dirty little room. The light flickers and causes her skin to look sickly. I stand there staring in the mirror, not really seeing, not really recognizing the person who stood there looking back. It was time to re-enter the fray. It was time to go back into the sort-of club in the small town I swore I was going to leave to dance and drink with people I had convinced myself I had connected with.
I think deep down, I knew that I had severed all connection…most importantly, the connection to myself.
This flashback paints a little bit of a picture of the longing that fueled my depression and binge drinking during most of my 20s. Ya’ll, I sat down to write about the three of cups so many times yesterday. But the chalices in the image just keep tripping me up. What is the cheers for? What’s inside those vessels they are about to bring to their lips? Is it fuel for the fire, or cleansing water to truly see?
My initial thoughts on this card from Monday were that community was the essence, and something vitally missing from my life. It almost made me nostalgic from the days of drinking. But as one might be able to tell from the flashback above, being surrounded by people doesn’t mean you don’t feel alone. In fact, there are times it’s more isolating. It’s easy to turn blame inward. You have to be the problem, right?
A collage made with vintage materials found during my artist dates recently. Also used one of my image transfers I tried the first week of The Artist’s Way program. Note to self: do more of these. I don’t remember the exact moment I decided to start chipping away pieces of myself to try and fit into the ideas I believe society has for me. I don’t think there was a solid moment where I began to shove my true self underwater in order to step forward and fit in.
But I do know my sobriety date. December 11, 2017. The day I decided to allow myself to break the surface of the water, to re-emerge to the world, to start breathing again. I don’t know…that feels like something worth celebrating.
And every single day since has been a lesson in remembering that I can continue to get to know myself. I can continue to change and evolve and grow. In the hopes of making more friends and becoming a friend to my body, we decided to join a gym this week. This is typically not a good move for me. It means wasting money and taking on the guilt of never showing up for my health.
So far it has gone well. There is a spot for the kids to hang out with other kids and play. I get to chill on the stationary bike and crochet. The husband gets to lift or do whatever he chooses. We break apart into our own little worlds, then come back together in our home. Family is also a community. Sometimes this is what can give us the strength to allow our world to expand.
I often share that my husband and kids saved my life. I think this is true. I knew for a long time I had to stop drinking, but honestly didn’t see my own life as worthy of being saved. But I could show up for those I love. I did this long enough, and worked on my own healing long enough, that now I do see that getting sober just for myself is worthy. I am worth re-building a life for. I am worth pursuing a creative career that lights me up. I am worth showing up to the gym for to take care of a body long abused and neglected.
All of this disparate parts make up my ever-shifting and multifaceted community. I celebrate with all of them. My family, my body, my mental health, my creativity, my IRL friends, my online friends, the plants and animals and insects I encounter everyday in this tiny little world I get to walk through.
How lucky to live this life. How lucky to have survived. How lucky to have learned to love…not only others, but myself. Today, I celebrate that.
Starmoth Press 