The Revelatory Room of Risk

September Consultations Open

Reminders:

Thresholds, my signature decolonial divination course, is open for enrollment

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Hi dear reader,

After letting my consultation room rest and recharge for August, I am excited to share that I am booking readings for September. This next month brings the first Pisces partial lunar eclipse, Mars enters its depression in Cancer, Venus enters her exile in Scorpio, The Sun will have its fall in Libra. Pluto returns to Capricorn. All to say change, is hard. It’s ok to cry as you change. Me, myself I’m a a crybaby, wandering around in the dark on my tippy toes looking for relief to my grief on the radio, on the blank page, in the flame, in the frame of my tarot cards. By my blues I summon the rain and in the overflow something softens, I untangle.

Divination is endlessly intriguing. Though I’ve been told I may never marry, I often imagine the veil I peer through on the daily, looking at my students, at my clients, at the beloved in their ever-changing form, to be bridal white. As I sit down to read I fasten pearls to each ear, I stretch sheer lace gloves across my hands, I light an anointed white candle, I say a prayer and then I cut the cards.

And I as engage this speculative study, I return to Selah Saterstrom’s Ideal Suggestions, Essays in Divinatory Poetics, and her contemplation of Rachel Pollack’s commentary on divination’s origin. Pollack, a transcestor, writer, scholar and diviner, says in an interview:

“[Divination and gambling’s relationship is] based on an Egyptian myth, in which the goddess Nut is pregnant with five new gods: Seth, Osiris, Isis, Nepthys, and Horus. But she’s been forbidden by her husband, Ra, the sun god, to give birth on any day of the month of the year because she got pregnant through an affair.

Nut wants to give birth, so she goes to Thoth for help. And what’s interesting is that instead of using magic or compelling force, or even theft of power from Ra, Thoth gambles with the moon, and wins 1/72 of each day, producing five new days out of year that had previously been 360 days…The 360 day year is an allegory for a fixed cycle—nothing can change, everything is predictable…Thoth’s gamble makes the circle open up, and something new becomes possible.”

My father is a black-jack dealer and so maybe my predilection for gambling with cards is inherited. The language proffered in a divination is thrilling and terrifying at once. It is thrilling because we enter a divination to pursue change, to break fixed cycles, patterns and surety. It is terrifying as we realize the risk of life will be illuminated in our choices, our desires, our fears all laid out on the table.

But the cards and the stars will celebrate you too. Because celebration is vital to survival. Because the hard-won wisdom you have acquired through surviving and enduring suffering should be commemorated.

My divination is martial or so it seems because so many of my clients bring their bravery to me. For so many, its their first-time. And so many, despite every struggle to survive, champion the radical authenticity of their lives. We meet in this revelatory room of risk and once we leave I wonder where and when we will meet again.

So as I welcome students to gather round the oracle more regularly with me, I’m deeply affected by their testimony of our time together:

“I cherish my time in class. I’ve been in Christopher’s classes for a few years now & I find that it’s my safe space to be with deep psychological & worldly material. Chris presents in a way that’s so cutting edge.

Their teaching comes from the roots interwoven with embodied knowledge, divinity, devotion, & the funnest venusian/jovial flair. It’s a space where everyone has a place & a voice.

Chris’s containers create a lighthouse where I’m continuously wowed by the people that are drawn in. I learn so much from EVERYONE. The class is well organized & there’s always an opening to ask questions if something is not understood. Their book, Red Tarot, is something I come back to daily. I pull tarot everyday & whenever I re-read about the cards I’ve pulled, Chris’s words seem to always open up something profound. It’s truly a text of keys to liberation. I always love at the end of class when each person gets to discuss cards they’ve pulled for a spread that Chris creates because it creates a portal of healing, enlightenment, and being truly seen. I owe my tarot literacy to Chris. I came in a few years ago with basic tarot knowledge but was struggling to give my divination roots & vitality. I look to Chris as my mentor & thank spirit everyday that we have crossed paths in this lifetime. They have helped me bring my passion for the divinatory arts to my professional life & guided me to my start of doing readings for the public. Chris has a revolutionary take on tarot that my soul knew I needed but didn’t know existed. It’s deep and liberatory. These classes & talks with Chris have been my saving grace in many instances & I encourage anyone who wants to cultivate a deep, beyond meaningful relationship with tarot & spirit in general to take the leap & take Christopher’s classes." - Steph B.

I am thankful to have students like Steph who have been studying, divining with me for years. My community is intimate, honest and full of grace. My classes are for those brave souls want to increase their tolerance for uncertainty and ambiguity, who already navigate the critical edges of society, who want a radical relationship with divination that empowers them to change their lives and then celebrate how damn good it feels to be alive.

Thresholds is testifiably life-changing. It is a space to learn together, to challenge un/conscious conditioning, to be witness to moments of revelation, which such a red tarot reading offers. I open this space to you dear reader.

x,

Christopher

p.s. May this Aquarius full moon bring you revelation and revolution. I’ll see you soon.