On Writing & Divination as Daily Acts of Resistance & Empowerment

At the core of writing is often a search for inherent meaning, an attempt to record the essence of things and ideas. What is love, what is fear, what is corruption, what is grief, what makes people laugh? It’s an attempt to translate the (as yet) intangible or unrealized into the solidness of words, to elucidate the ‘more-ness’ of the mundane. It is the drawing of connections between seemingly disparate things, the evocation of emotion and sharing of experiences for the benefit, education, and entertainment of ourselves and others. At the core of writing fiction is the desire to tell a good story – one perk is it often comes with a side of insight for both recipient and creator.

At the core of divination – the practice of seeking knowledge of the future or the unknown by supernatural means – is also a search for insight. Systems like tarot and oracle cards access information via archetypes and story, just like writers. The prophetic material that can emerge from the divinatory and writing processes (in my opinion) is secondary to the psychological & emotional nourishment these practices can provide. The primary takeaway being information about the present and the past, and the opportunity to shape a world we want instead of a world we fear.

(Rachel True’s True Heart Intuitive Tarot Deck)

Perhaps the phenomenon of future-telling is just a byproduct of observation and attunement with observable or felt patterns. If anticipating the zeitgeist is hopping on at the beginning of a wave that embodies the spirit of ‘now’, maybe prophecy is making connections regarding what ‘now’ may eventually give rise to. This is why divination with the aim of prediction has many pitfalls, the main ones being to create an atmosphere of hypervigilance and projection.

Visionary fiction – novels that portray versions of the world that turn out to resemble future realities, are fairly common. Many writers will tell you they enter a sort of trance state when they’re in the flow, and it feels like the words come from somewhere either outside of themselves or from deep within. Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, George Orwell; they’ve all been credited (or accused) of writing stories that in some small way shape or form, seem to come true. If you think about it, it’s probably not as mysterious a trick as it seems. While scientists like Rachel Carson have predicted thing that would happen in the future such as climate change, fiction writers don’t have to root their predictions in empirical evidence and verifiable trends, they only need to speculate based on experiential research. They can say hey, I think this undercurrent of cloaked misogyny or racism that I have sensed (but not been able to call out) every day of my life, the subtle violence and oppression of it, will someday blossom into something more overt, it will become policy and practice, it will become real. In that sense, fictional prediction is artists’ play, pattern play, reading and writing between the lines. It is the translation of the subconscious, of societal & cultural & interpersonal undercurrents, into narrative. It is a game of the spirit. It is paying attention to what isn’t being said and being brave enough to write it down.

Consider the spirit writings of poets like Lucille Clifton, who actively channeled ‘the ones,’ energies and ancestors, in her work, and artists like these late 19^th-early 20^th century painters from the Pas-de-Calais coalfields, who had professions such as miners, plumber, and cafe owner before answering a spiritual call to make art. Consider that now, in the midst of these high-intensity times low morale re academia, art schools are seeing record-high enrollments, reportedly– “The surge comes as many young adults grapple with fears about the impacts of artificial intelligence, a sense of internet overload and a desire to reconnect with the physical world.” This demonstrates the very human desire to be connected with something more, something that has the power to transcend the uncontrollable pendulum swing between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ fortune. Humans naturally crave a more expansive, nuanced narrative than the one fed to us by the media, or even our own limited external gaze.

The phrase ‘touch grass’ is trending. The IRS is now allowing houses of worship to endorse candidates for political office without losing their tax-exempt status. ICE is terrorizing Los Angeles. As in Butler’s Parable of the Sower, fires, floods, wars, pestilence… a constant state of too-much-drama has the potential to either anesthetize or catalyze. I fell in love once with a butternut squash, cradled it like a baby and was pretty sure everything I needed in the world was right there in my arms; I watched grass grow and breathe, alive as if my vision had a time elapse setting, felt deep in my soul how trees love us unconditionally, with no strings or reservations. That moment, while admittedly hallucinogenic plant medicine induced was, I think, a concentrated example of what those prospective art students are seeking. At times like this, feeling so hijacked by technology and circumstance, we are craving a kind of tactile slowed-way-down type of mindset, time to process, time to gather insight and act from it instead of fear. We need sacred experiences that bring more in touch with the earth and our physical existence. We need space to think and feel… and perhaps most importantly, decide for ourselves what is in alignment from a personal and evolutionary perspective, so we don’t end up as characters in The Handmaid’s Tale...

We need to be divining and writing and telling ourselves and each other our stories – as day by day, minute by minute acts of resistance. If we accept the stories we are fed by those who would want to exercise power over us, they win. If we instead choose to live in a nuanced, connected world by spending time each day writing, or communing with a tarot deck, or hugging a squash, then day by day, minute by minute, we win.