P'Easter
in which we celebrate renewal and rebirth as hard as we can
Hey Hartlist,
I just repotted my first plant.
‘News’ before ‘Letter’:
THIS SAT APR 16 I’m playing a few songs at a backyard party in Gowanus Brooklyn, you’re invited, message me for details
TUE APR 26: For anyone who’s been curious about my Tarot endeavors but not quite ready to book a session… I’ll be doing discounted mini-readings at this FREE event in Industry City. Come by!
SAT & SUN MAY 21/22 bring your wee ones to this quirky kids’ musical at LaMaMa!
SAT JULY 9 YES JULY- The Annual NOT MY BIRTHDAY SHOW @ Rockwood Music Hall Stage 2!! Ticket link forthcoming; mark your calendars, yes I will be regularly mentioning this til July
Every once in a while it occurs to me that writers don’t use metaphors and symbols in order to seem cool, or in order to confuse you, but because they are everywhere and are how our lives look.
I talk about this in my free book which is free, RESPECT FOR TAROT: a new way of seeing.
Symbols and metaphors appear to us all the time if we look, because our external reality in many ways reflects our internal reality and because as Anais Nin put it, ‘we do not see things as they are; we see things as we are’. And we’re also doing symbolic actions all the time, because our thoughts and feelings drive our behaviors.
We’re not always aware of it. Sometimes I have to laugh at myself after the fact. The plant on my shelf has needed repotting for quite a while, its poor little roots poking through the bottom of its home… but I tend to drag my feet whenever it looks like I will have to acquire a new skill, so I let it slide. When did I suddenly decide that Now was the moment to go to the Plant Store? Right after I got off the phone with the person who is going to be my new manager, thereby satisfactorily tying up months of the Big Search for acting reps.
Like, I hung up, and my first thought was “this plant needs a bigger pot!” And the connection didn’t occur to me til hours later.
Speaking of metaphors, I suppose I just missed the second anniversary of the the moment the man turned to me in the (socially distanced) coffee line and said “Who will we be when we emerge from this Chrysalis?”
After two years of working to, well, re-pot myself on various levels, I am reflecting on the power of Applied Metaphor. Of declaring something, naming it, creating a container with a stated purpose or implied outcome. You create the symbol or the metaphor and then begin seeing the evidence of it and perhaps even acting in accordance with it, rather than the other way around.
I decide that I am entering into a Chrysalis. Therefore, I expect that there will be a point where I come out, and when I do, I will be different. Therefore, I do a bunch of things both consciously and unconsciously that support this expectation. Therefore, I come out of it with new furniture.
If unconscious symbolic action is kind of just how we live, engaging in it consciously and with intention is powerful and is sometimes called Ritual. Or Spiritual Practice. Or, Art. Or Art Therapy. Or, controversially, ‘Magic’. Whatever. We engage a metaphor and make it work for us. We acknowledge a piece of our reality that we want to change, or amplify, and we take a symbolic action, intending to be different after the action, experience a different reality. And I’m definitely not the first person to point out that it’s our intention that has the power, not the bells and whistles of the ritual itself.
Where we get into problems, of course, is when we expect to change other people’s reality, but that’s a different newsletter.
Anyway this is on my mind, obviously, because I feel a very strong personal sense of Emerging from a personal Chrysalis, but also because it’s spring and this weekend many of us are going to engage in a whole bunch of Rituals that echo the Spring season. Everyone doing Easter is working with Rebirth and Renewal; life springing forth from death, remembering hope and growth even in the darkest times. Everyone doing Passover is calling up and honoring Freedom from bondage and oppression, remembering why we must remember that’s important. And those of us on the more Pagan end of things are running around pointing at trees and going “It’s NOT just a metaphor!” and then telling you (again) how the bunnies and eggs are fertility symbols.
… while prepping for both passover seder and easter dinner, plus two birthday parties in the same weekend. (Just me?)
I will leave you with some lines from the immortal classic, “P’Easter”, written with fellow half-Jew Mr. Jonny Porkpie some years back:
I always wondered, what’s with eggs and Jesus?
I always thought a bonnet was a shirt1
There’s a broken matzah hidden in the bookshelf
That grandpa keeps on saying is dessert
Oh ‘Eastover’ sounds like a Hampton
And ‘Passaster’ sounds like porn
A ‘Pastor’ is a thing, ‘Easver’’s hard to sing, and that’s how P’Easter was born.
Happy P’Easter everyone! May you celebrate with flowers, chocolate, and strong joyful intention; we need all we can get right now.
Love,
Rebecca
i personally think this is the funniest thing Jonny has ever said, but to each their own