Queering the Tarot w/ Charlie Claire Burgess
/Shuffle through your Tarot deck as we’re joined by author and artist Charlie Claire Burgess who talks about their work around tarot and the intersection of spirituality and queerness. We talk about witchy awakenings courtesy of the CW network, getting rid of the binary in tarot readings, and so much more!
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of queerphobia, abusive relationships, theft, misogyny, white supremacists, patriarchy, colonization, and the apocalypse.
Guest
Charlie (they/them) is a queer and trans-nonbinary author and artist working at the intersection of spirituality and queerness. They are the author of Queer Devotion and Radical Tarot and the creator of the Fifth Spirit Tarot and Gay Marseille Tarot decks. Their nonfiction writing has appeared in the Lambda Literary Review, F(r)iction Magazine, The Rebis, and the Tarot in Other Words anthology, and their short fiction has earned a Pushcart Prize Special Mention and notable mentions in two Best American anthologies.
Housekeeping
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
- Multitude: multitude.productions
About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends and folklore. Every week, we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia.
AMANDA: And we are so excited to be joined by perhaps the most— Julia, tell me if you disagree, the most down the middle Spirits guest of— we got about five words into their bio and said, "I mean, yeah to [0:50] whoever this person is," Charlie Claire Burgess, the Radical Tarot deck creator, the queer, trans, non-binary author, artist, tarot reader. I see in your Instagram bio, Charlie, you're a dirty Aquarius and a Jenner anarchist. So welcome to the show. Congratulations on your whole vibe.
CHARLIE: Thank you so much, Amanda.
JULIA: A little peek behind the curtain for the audience. We occasionally get very cool publishers and PR people that will send us emails on behalf of their clients being like, "I think this person would be a good fit." And a lot of times they don't research the show at all, so it's like, "A whiskey maker who doesn't know anything about mythology or folklore." And we're like, "I mean, I guess, but I think you kind of missed half of the show."
AMANDA: Or a medium who is like, "Give me money, and I will make sure your dead relatives forgive you." And we're like, "I think not here."
JULIA: I don't think so.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But this one, we said, "Oh, yes," immediately. So Charlie, thank you so much. We received your books. We got your tarot deck. I have everything laid out in front of me right now. So I am so excited to talk about you and your work, but we're doing a great job kind of telling the audience about who you are, but in your own words, who are you and what do you do?
CHARLIE: I am so excited to be here, because since I learned of your podcast, I've been listening to all of it, and it's the intersection of everything that I love and am interested in.
AMANDA: Thank you.
CHARLIE: I know for a fact my publicist, Pip, [2:10] also loves your podcast, so like he knew exactly the vibe.
JULIA: Gonna cry. It's fine, it's all good.
AMANDA: Shout out Pip.
CHARLIE: Yeah. So Charlie Claire Burgess, my pronouns are they/them. I'm a queer and trans, non-binary author, artist, tarot deck creator, dog parent.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
JULIA: Your work is incredible. You've written some incredible stuff, like Queer Devotion: Spirituality Beyond the Binary in Myth, Story, and Practice, Radical Tarot: Queer the Cards, Liberate Your Practice and Create the Future, and, of course, your Fifth Spirit Tarot deck. To get us started, I guess, Charlie, how'd you get into tarot?
CHARLIE: Hmm. I started reading tarot when I was like a little teenage Wiccan.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Classic.
CHARLIE: In the early 2000s, so, like, very influenced by The Craft, Buffy, the Vampire Slayer, Charmed. You know, it was a great era to be a teenage witch.
JULIA: CW is really just giving us everything then, huh?
CHARLIE: They were nailing it.
AMANDA: They were. My Instagram has recently begun serving me a lot of posts and promoted items that are, like, pictures of the women from Charmed with, like, different aspects of like, rot, rest, girl, boss, like, on each of them. And I'm just like, "I don't know how you did it, y'all, but that is me. You're right."
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: I've been seeing that, too. It's coming back. This is— like, finally, this is the era in which I get to be cool again at, like, almost 40 years old. I'm like, "Here we go."
JULIA: Yeah, they're really serving us the nostalgia now, and I love that for us.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: Yes, I do, too. But, yeah, at the time I started reading tarot, I was also— I grew up in Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama. Grew up in the Methodist Church. The Methodists, I guess, are known as, like, kind of the heathens of Protestantism. But in Alabama, it was still very conservative.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: When I was exploring tarot and, like, paganism and alternate beliefs in order to find a version of spirituality where people like me were accepted, not going to hell. Like—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: —I was doing it all in secret, you know? So I had, like, my tarot deck hidden, like, behind some books on my bookshelf, hide it in plain sight thing. Books hidden underneath my mattress, all that.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: So that's when I started reading tarot, but I ended up leaving it at the same time as actually, I decided that I was gonna stop being queer and try to be Cishet, because that seemed easier.
JULIA: And that worked out pretty well for you?
CHARLIE: It is not easier.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: And that ensued, like, the darkest decade of my life so far. Yeah, interestingly for me, tarot and my self-acceptance and my spirituality, and my creativity, actually, all go hand in hand. Like when I left all that and tried to be someone I wasn't, creativity dried up, couldn't barely produce a thing. Flash forward to my late 20s, I'm in a horrible, straight, abusive marriage, and found tarot again through a new friend, started exploring things, re-found my sexuality, eventually found my gender identity, left my husband, moved across the country, changed career paths, and then wrote two books, and created two tarot decks within five years.
JULIA: Wow. Wow.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
AMANDA: Checks watch, not a typical timeline for producing books and full illustrated tarot decks.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: It's just all, like, bottled up in me, I guess, and then, you know, burst forth.
JULIA: Damn. The damn burst.
AMANDA: Damn.
JULIA: Now, I'm very curious, then, where did you get your first tarot— like do you remember your first tarot deck? What was the experience of getting that like, and then, sort of the exploration of that before the dark times?
CHARLIE: Yeah, I absolutely remember it. It was a classic Rider-Waite Tarot deck.
JULIA: I feel like that's all they sold back in the '90s, you know, and the early 2000s.
Charle: You could find like that, and maybe some, like tarot decks that were illustrated with, like, fairies or something.
JULIA: Yeah.
CHARLIE: That was never my vibe. I wanted, like the classic imagery that I saw in movies like The Craft, you know?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: And I'm pretty sure that I shoplifted it—
JULIA: Nice.
CHARLIE: —from a Books & Company at the mall.
JULIA: Oh, I was gonna guess a Borders Books—
CHARLIE: Because—
JULIA: —so I was kind of on the money there.
CHARLIE: You were really close. In Birmingham at the time, it was like Books-A-Million and Books & Company was, like, their, I guess, fancy or one that had, like a coffee shop in it.
JULIA: Ah, the Barnes & Noble versus the Borders, I see.
CHARLIE: Yes, yes.
AMANDA: Exactly. And you were also able to adhere to the superstition of not buying yourself your first tarot deck.
CHARLIE: This is true.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: I circumvented that, and not the usual way. I don't think I even knew that superstition at the time. It was more about being afraid to walk a tarot deck up to the cash register and buy it.
AMANDA: Look someone in the eye and be like, "Yes, I don't believe in God."
Charlie; Uh-huh. Exactly, exactly. And also, like, everybody knew everybody. And, like, the chances that somebody that my mom knew would see me doing that and they would, like, get back around and, yeah, so I resorted to crime.
JULIA: As one does, it's [7:42] do crimes, and you just didn't realize that yet.
CHARLIE: Exactly.
JULIA: It's fine.
CHARLIE: Precisely.
AMANDA: Charlie, I hear so much of my own origin story in yours for so many reasons, but including the fact that, like, everyone I knew who was into tarot is gay, trans, witchy, deviant in the absolute most, like, loving hug of that word. Tell me about both why tarot resonates so much with queer people in your specific queer, trans, non-binary experience, and also what— how to be queered further about it. Because in reading your book— like this is the thesis of the book. Everyone who listens to Spirits should go read the book. It's gonna be incredible for you all when you get it not early. Hair flip. But I both assumed that tarot was quite queer and also, as soon as I basically read your take on the whole, like, deck system, RWS, like the imagery, knew that we had to take it further.
CHARLIE: Yeah. I mean, I think that there is an inherent sort of affinity between queer people and things like tarot or things like witchcraft or alternate belief systems, because we're othered, right? Like the dominant culture puts us on the outside on the fringes, refuses us, and then we have to sort of create our own ways of being, and our own culture, and our own beliefs that we can see ourselves in. And tarot also is on the fringes. It's othered by, you know, the church as Satanic and blah, blah, blah, "Don't use tarot. You're gonna get haunted or something." You know?
JULIA: Hmm.
CHARLIE: It's the devil's picture book—
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: —is actually one of the things that it's called by Christians. Yeah.
AMANDA: And I go, "Sign me up."
JULIA: That's so silly. It's not a book.
CHARLIE: But it does take pictures.
JULIA: Yeah, that's true. That is true. I'll give it to them.
CHARLIE: But, yeah, I think there's an automatic affinity there. And when you have something like tarot or witchcraft or magic or whatever, like, it's a source of power that is also marginalized. It's kind of inherently queer-coded, because it's something on the fringes, something on the margins, and a way that people who are also marginalized can find power in that otherness, you know? And so— and there is power in that. There's power in being on the outside and being able to see what's happening on the inside with greater clarity, and not be as manipulated by it. And being able to do things—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: — differently, sort of chart your own course in a way that's not as restricted, not as controlled by the norms and the codes that exist in dominant culture and mainstream society.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: You know ?
JULIA: That brings a great segue into the idea of making the tarot even more radical, queering the tarot even further. Because I think that a lot of people who are reading tarot for the first time or are learning more about tarot, they really think that there is this kind of very much binary when it comes to reading the cards, where it's like this card always means this and reversed, it always means the opposite. And it's just not true when reading the cards, like everything is sort of informed by everything else when you're reading tarot. And I would love for you to speak a little further on that, in terms of what it's like to sort of take what is assumed about tarot and to further, as you phrase it, liberate it. So tell me a little bit about that.
CHARLIE: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things about tarot— like, you know, tarot, I just said, was kind of, like, essentially queer, but also there's a lot of cishet normative gender and sexuality baked into the deck, particularly in the imagery and also in the card titles. So, you know, for instance, we've got the Emperor and the Empress. We've got Kings and Queens. We've got the hierophant, which was originally the Pope. You know, we've got all these normative institutions in the deck. And the Empress traditionally means things like nurturing, maternal vibes, softness.
JULIA: Female energy.
CHARLIE: The divine feminine. Exactly.
JULIA: I love saying stuff like that.
AMANDA: What do you mean by that?
JULIA: Yeah.
CHARLIE: And then the male or the emperor is like, you know, the male energy of the deck, the quote-unquote, "divine masculine," which is, like, strong and powerful and a leader, and blah, blah, blah.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. As we know, all women cannot be leaders, et cetera, et cetera.
CHARLIE: Precisely. All women are soft and weak. And, you know, all men are powerful and strong. But— so those gender norms have been sort of baked into traditional card meanings in ways that are incredibly uncreative and also not true. So there was actually a point after I came back to tarot, and now this was, like, in my— you know, I'm in my early 30s, I have figured out that I'm non-binary, with the help of tarot. Like, tarot is one of the things that, like, helped me figure that out, because, you know, you can use it as a self-exploration tool. It helps you think about things in new ways, and, like, approach yourself.
JULIA: Hmm.
CHARLIE: And I was, like, doing a reading, and, like, looking at like the Empress and the Emperor and just getting really frustrated with the gender binary that was reproduced in the cards. And I had this, like, moment where I almost just left tarot again, and, you know, threw it out the window, because I was like, "How can I, as a non-binary person, use this tool that's so binary-coded?" And then I had, like, a revelation that—
JULIA: Hmm.
CHARLIE: —the function of tarot, or one of the functions of tarot, is to present us with these archetypes, which, to a certain extent, are just norms and roles. They're tropes, you know, that have been repeated again and again and again.
AMANDA: They're trope because they're tropes.
CHARLIE: Yes. And so it presents us these cards with these norms and these tropes in order to, like, get us to see them for what they are and, like, move past that. And the story of the Major Arcana itself— the Major Arcana is the cards that are named like the High Priestess, the World, the you know the Devil.
JULIA: If they don't have a number and a title and then a suite, those are the Major Arcana cards.
CHARLIE: The story of the Major Arcana itself is a story from like norms and roles to a story of, like, transcendence and liberation. By the, you know, last third of the Major Arcana, we're getting into cards that are actually very non-binary. Like Temperance is about, like, mixing— the mixing of two perceived opposites, but the mixing and blending of them, proving that they're not opposites at all.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: Judgments, you see in the Rider-Waite kind of classic imagery, you see, like, zombie people kind of raising from their tombs—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: —at Judgment Day, but that's also people transcending their boxes. You know, like those boxes I think of as, like, you know, the norms, the roles, the categories that we've been placed into by society. And in that card, we're transcending them. We're going, "Nope, you know, rising up." I had this like, "Oh," light bulb moment. And was like, "Oh, damn. Like, the tarot is incredibly queer, but it, like, makes us reckon with that first, like it guides us to discovering that." And then we come back around and we find new meanings in— even the binary gender cards, and can queer those further. And that's a lot of what I do in Radical Tarot, and in Fifth Spirit Tarot.
AMANDA: It reminds me so much of— I worked on Wall Street when the movie The Wolf of Wall Street came out, which itself based on the book. And there were a lot of people who watched it and said, like, "Rad, yeah."
JULIA: This is great.
AMANDA: And I was like, "Let's get more curious. Let's do another lap, folks. Let's go back to the movie and see what we think should be replicated and not replicated." But you're so exactly right, because unless somebody tells you that it's a trope, or a journey or a set of guideposts and evocations that are meant to ask you, well, what's my relationship to this, what should I take from it? What should I not take from it? If I pull a card and I think that's not right, that's really useful data.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Like unless someone takes you through that and teaches you how it can be, like Julia has done for me over my last few years of getting into a regular tarot practice, you can't know. So I love how you narrativize the progression of the Major Arcana in the book.
CHARLIE: Thank you. Yeah. And you're exactly right. That's exactly what it does. And your point about if you pull something and it doesn't feel right, that's data. That tells you something. And then you explore, what does that mean? You know? So, yeah, I freaking love tarot, obviously.
JULIA: I have a friend who recently started her tarot journey in the past, like, year or so, and she's gotten to the point where she will do herself a reading and she won't look up the card's meanings, like from the booklet or online until the very end, because she's like, "I just want to see how the card makes me feel first, and how I perceive that card to be, just based on the art and the like, the energy that it's giving me, and then I can look them up after and be like, 'Oh, that really confirmed it for me.'" Or, "Oh, that was slightly different than I immediately thought, but that does say something about how I reacted to that card in the first place, in this particular space, in the spread."
CHARLIE: Absolutely.
JULIA: And I really like that approach, because it is so— like I said before, I really kind of grew up and learned tarot as that very kind of prescriptive, like, this is what this card means, and there's no other meaning, and don't read too much into it, because it is this, right?
CHARLIE: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: I was a bookish kid. I am a trivia nerd.
CHARLIE: Yes.
JULIA: My favorite thing in the world is being correct, so that was very much how I learned tarot. And, like, getting away from that now and just kind of feeling the vibe of the cards before I, like, immediately go to the book and flip to the page that's gonna tell me what I'm supposed to be feeling about it, has been a really interesting journey. And I think that it's something that you often talk about in your book. I love that. It really did speak to me in kind of looking at your work and then looking at my own experiences.
CHARLIE: That's the key that intuition piece is so important to the reading of tarot. And intuition is something that like— it's a word that gets thrown around a lot, and it's almost meaningless now on, like, the internet, but—
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Yeah. Like someone saying, "I'm an empath," and I'm like, "Okay." So what does that mean to you exactly?
AMANDA: Okay.
CHARLIE: It's— intuition is basically just like listening to ourselves and exploring things on our own, listening to, like, those feelings we're having inside, instead of immediately just, like, rationalizing it. You know?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: It doesn't mean like it doesn't have to be counter rational, like no rationalization ever.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: These two things need to exist, both of them. But in our society and culture, we've been so trained to not listen to intuition, to not listen to ourselves, to only, you know, cultivate the rational side of our brains and just, you know, follow the rules that cultivating a practice like tarot, where you're sort of actively working with your intuition, is, like, kind of radical.
JULIA: Yeah.
CHARLIE: It's a form of resistance to cultivate part of ourselves that we're old is wrong or stupid. It's not— and that's also very gendered as well, because it's always, you know—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: —women are too emotional and blah, blah, blah.
AMANDA: Well, as we all know, Charlie, there's two halves of the brain, two genders, and two ways to act in the world, okay?
JULIA: Uh-hmm. And there's nothing else. That's only it. It's correct and incorrect, and that's the only— there's no gray, whatsoever.
CHARLIE: Only binaries.
JULIA: Only binaries
CHARLIE: All Cartesian dualism.
AMANDA: Another way that the binary shows up in my life is I'm always either thirsty or not thirsty, so right now, we have flipped the switch. We must immediately go get a refill. So Charlie, we'll be right back.
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JULIA: Hey, this is Julia, and welcome to the refill. Thank you, of course, to our newest patron who joined us over at patreon.com/spiritspodcast, Brittany. Thank you so much for signing up. And hey, I noticed that maybe you're using the seven-day free trial for our Patreon. It's really great, and you can listen to a lot of content, bonus content, no less for those seven days. Check it out. That is patreon.com/spiritspodcast. And, of course, thank you to our supporting producer-level patrons Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Hannah, Lily, Matthew, Rikoelike, Scott, and Wil. And of course, our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Michael, Morgan H., Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. And hey, we are getting ever so much closer to spooky season, so please, please, please, send us your hometown urban legends by going to spiritspodcast.com/contact or emailing us at spiritspodcast@gmail.com. You can also send us a voicemail, you know, preferably two minutes tops. But hey, if it's particularly spooky, maybe we want to hear more. You can call us at 617-420-2344. Send in those urban legends. And hey, I also want to tell you about another show here at Multitude. I want you to check out Attach Your Resumé. It is a show where they interview online creators about how their jobs work and how they got there. You can hear the personal stories behind seismic events in digital media and learn what concrete steps we can take to build a sustainable media landscape. There was an episode recently that features one of my favorite past Spirits guests, Greg Rucka, so check that out. If you enjoyed him on Spirits talking about queer Wonder Woman, I think you'll enjoy that interview. Attach Your Resumé proves that the best credential for deciding the future of media is actually making stuff. And like I said, season two is airing weekly right now. You can subscribe to Attach Your Resumé in your podcast app today. Check it out. This is an ad by BetterHelp. Listen, workplace stress is now one of the top causes for declining mental health with 61% of the global workforce experiencing higher than normal levels of stress. Some of us, you know, we can't just wave goodbye to the stress. We can't leave it behind at work. We can't just, I don't know, retire or whatever. So to battle stress, we have to start small with a focus on wellness. I know during the summertime, I feel a lot better when I just, like, take a break from work, and I go and I sit outside for like, half an hour. Even 10 minutes would make me feel a lot better, and it's something that I can do for myself to make me feel just a tiny bit better. You know, vacation is great, but it is not a long-term solution to stress. So don't forget that therapy can help you navigate whatever challenges the workday or any day might bring. I want to recommend to you, if you're interested in therapy, much like I was, you can check out BetterHelp. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. And it works with an app store rating of 4.9 out of five based on over 1.7 million client reviews. It's convenient, too. You can join a session with a therapist at a click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life, plus switch therapists at any time. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diverse variety of expertise. Unwind from work with BetterHelp. Our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com/spirits. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P, .com/spirits. And now, let's get back to the show.
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JULIA: Amanda, we are back. And, Charlie, something we love to do when we have a guest on is to ask, what you've been drinking lately, whether that is cocktails, mocktails, teas, coffee creations? What has been your drink of choice lately?
CHARLIE: So when it comes to, like, cocktails, I don't have, like, a broad range. I've only recently started doing cocktails most of my life. I was—
JULIA: Ooh.
CHARLIE: —completely classless, like, I was like the like vodka and Crystal Light type person.
JULIA: Oh, fun.
AMANDA: Listen, it's giving pantry staple. You're fine.
JULIA: Yeah. If you have it in stock, you know, why not?
CHARLIE: But I've matured some and then started exploring new things, and mostly I just really love Campari.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: Hell yeah.
CHARLIE: I'm a vegetarian, and I have heard that there's bugs in Campari.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Oh.
CHARLIE: Like the red Carmine comes from insects, but I'm a bad vegetarian, I guess. Do insects count as meat? I don't know.
JULIA: I think— I don't know.
AMANDA: It's a great question. Jainism says yes. Kosher rules say no. It's a topic of ancient debate.
CHARLIE: Amazing.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: I also love that Campari— the recipe of it is a mystery, that, like, only, like one person knows. That's fascinating to me. I love—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: —a mystery. So, yeah, I can— I learned how to, like, make a Negroni.
JULIA: I was gonna ask if you were a Negroni fan. That makes sense.
CHARLIE: Absolutely, yeah. And I also love bitters, and so I do, like— you know, I'll make an old-fashioned, like the Old Fashioned way, with the sugar cube and everything.
JULIA: Of course, of course.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: But I love bitters, so I add, like, way more bitters than it should be in an Old Fashioned. The traditional bitters that you put in an Old Fashioned, the— what is it called? Ango—
JULIA: Angostura.
CHARLIE: Yes. Also a mystery that, like only a couple people know the recipe for that.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: Speaking of bitters, I've also gotten into herbalism recently. I started learning herbalism, so I'm still very much a student. It's very new, but I've been making my own tinctures.
JULIA: Oh.
CHARLIE: And that's what bitters are.
JULIA: Yeah.
CHARLIE: They're just a tincture.
AMANDA: It's patent medicine, but unproblematic. And that's why I think more people should drink bitters and soda.
JULIA: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Absolutely. And they're really good for digestion. Like that's actually—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: —what they were meant for, is to aid with digestion. So, you know, just take your medicine. Have a Old Fashioned.
AMANDA: Charlie, have you married at all your Southern roots and your herbalism and witchcraft in the form of shrubs?
JULIA: Oh.
CHARLIE: Oh, my gosh, I haven't yet, but I want to. I need to do that.
AMANDA: This feels like a break glass in case of emergency hobby for you, so I'm just gonna leave you with that offering, and I can't wait 'til you're making your own vinegars and shrubs.
CHARLIE: Yes.
JULIA: Incredible.
CHARLIE: Thank you so much.
JULIA: I'm trying to think of, like, based on your suggestions here, if I have a recommendation for a next cocktail for you to try, I like it any sort of twist on a Negroni. Like a white Negroni is very good. There's a lot of like— you could do, like, some interesting rum-based kind of Tiki Negronis that are out there.
CHARLIE: Ooh.
JULIA: And I also know that coffee Negronis are a big thing. I don't know if you're a coffee drinker.
CHARLIE: Ooh.
JULIA: But a coffee Negroni—
CHARLIE: I love coffee.
JULIA: Ooh, coffee Negroni then, Charlie, might be a good option for you.
AMANDA: You do live in Portland.
CHARLIE: I never thought of combining those two things. Ooh.
JULIA: I will send you a recipe that'll be the episode recipe for the recipe cards for this.
CHARLIE: Yes, please.
JULIA: But I think that's a great choice for you, personally.
CHARLIE: Amazing. Thank you.
JULIA: Yeah. And there's some great coffee bitters out there as well, and a little bit of chocolate bitters with a coffee Negroni might actually be really good.
AMANDA: A mole bitter in a coffee chocolate Negroni.
JULIA: Ooh, a mole bitter. Thank you, Amanda.
CHARLIE: I am going to the liquor store after this.
JULIA: We did—
AMANDA: That's a great response to recording an episode of Spirits.
JULIA: Charlie, I think we also could talk about tarot for an entire episode very easily. But I do also want to talk about Queer Devotion, which is your newest book, and one that I think, if you are a Spirits listener and have any interest in spirituality, and also like trans issues and, like, being non-binary, and how that is historically accurate to a lot of myth and religion. You should check out Queer Devotion. It is a fantastic book. But Charlie, talk to us a little bit about what sort of inspired this as something you wanted to write a full book about.
CHARLIE: Oh, man. I mean, I— my sort of spiritual journey has been a very long path, but I've always been very interested in mythology and in sacred stories in general. So mythology, religion, folklore. Like as a kid, I was like rewriting Greek myths. I was also obsessed with Joan of Arc. The Joan of Arc to transgender pipeline is a thing.
JULIA: I was gonna say, every time we— we've had so many like trans and non-binary authors and creators on the show, and every time they say something like that, I think of the meme from the snowman of the, "I gave you all the clues, Mr. Detective." And I'm like, "It was there, huh?" In hindsight, we just kind of looked back, and we're like,
Ah, shit. Yep. It was there."
CHARLIE: All along.
AMANDA: I sure have been me this whole time.
CHARLIE: Yeah, there is that cool thing that happens when you realize that you're trans or non-binary as a, like, whole-ass adult, and then you get to look back at your life and just be like, "Oh."
JULIA: Hmm.
CHARLIE: "I see everything differently now. All of this makes sense." As far as the direct inspo for Queer Devotion, though, I was actually— I was teaching classes on, like, bewitching the binary, like the queering witchcraft and stuff like that, in addition to tarot.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: And then a local shop here in Portland that I teach with was like, "What about teaching a class on, like, devotion, but like queer?" And I was like, "Queer devotion." And so then I taught a class on it, and, you know, full of retelling myths and, like, Arthurian myths, as well as ancient Greek myths and stuff, through a queer perspective. And I gave the class, like, a 25-page PDF to take home because I over provide pathologically. And the events coordinator, Ava, [31:17] like, got that PDF and was like, "Oh, my God, you should write a book."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: And then I did. But I wrote this book not as like a spiritual leader, or like a guru, or a hierophant or something, because I'm not any of those things. I— instead, I wrote it as a queer and trans person who has, you know, struggled for a long time to even, like, reconnect with spirituality after a childhood being raised in pretty oppressive, organized religion. You know, I'm also an uber nerd, so I, like, have all this information about, all these, you know, ancient deities as well as, like, medieval transgender Christian saints. Joan of Arc is not the only one.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: There's actually a lot of very queer stuff in Christianity that they don't want you to know about.
JULIA: Oh, yeah. We make a joke on the show where we say, "LOL, it's not pagan. It's fine," when it comes to Christianity kind of—
CHARLIE: Right.
JULIA: —adopting certain traditions and certain spirits that they're like, "This definitely didn't exist before, and it definitely wasn't pagan before that." And I am sure that there are queer versions of "LOL, it's not queer. It's fine."
CHARLIE: Uh-huh. Absolutely.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: Well— and, like, even, like, if you look at Catholic mass, or even, you know, Protestant church services, like that— that's all ritual. That's all freaking witchcraft.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: It's just, you know, when they swing around their incense, it's okay. But when, you know, a pagan or a witch, you know, smoke cleanses or something, then it's witchcraft.
JULIA: Yeah.
CHARLIE: It's like these are the same things.
JULIA: Yeah.
CHARLIE: Same things. I wrote this book in order to try and help connect some of the dots for people or, like give other queer and trans people these queered, sacred stories as places to start from, because it took me so long to find them myself. And I think that's one of the tricks that cis hetero, white supremacist, colonialist, patriarchal society, kyriarchy, that's one of the tricks that it pulls, is that it can't erase us, queer and trans people. It will always fail at that, but it can make it a lot harder for us to find each other, and a lot harder for us to find our history and our sacred stories, and that does real damage. You know, it kind of sets us further back from the starting line, and we have all this ground that we have to make up. So I wanted to, like, close that gap a little bit for some people.
JULIA: And I think you did so very successfully. And the book is very interesting because it is such a, like, informative book in terms of, like, teaching you about the history of looking at devotion through a queer lens. But it also, like, provides a lot of these— like, you have beautiful, like, reflection prompts involved in the book and like, "Hey, stop and think about this for a second." Like, what—
CHARLIE: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —how do you feel about the situation that you're reading about right now? And I think that is— one, I wish more books about mythology and folklore, like, recommended you take a moment to think about it.
CHARLIE: Yeah.
JULIA: Because I know that reading comprehension is a thing that is declining in our society. But I also think that it is nice to have a moment where you can read about Queer Devotion, but then also, like, have a spiritual moment thinking about Queer Devotion. You know what I mean?
CHARLIE: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, and that's when, you know, I titled it Queer Devotion. It doesn't only mean being devoted to queerness or queer people or queer, you know, deities, or the queer divine, or whatever. It means being devoted in ways that are queer, living kind of, like, a queer ethic. And for me, that means basically anti-orthodoxy. You know, when I wrote this book, I was like, "I don't want to like, I don't know, tell people what to think. I want to give them these stories and then let them, you know, think for themselves, encourage them to draw their own conclusions, instead of just being instructive.' Right? There's a lot of information in there, and I do— of course, it has an opinion. I do my thing, but yeah, like living a queer ethic, or approaching the world and approaching sacred stories and mythology through a queer lens, means prioritizing curiosity, experimentation, critical thinking, and always kind of, like, questioning and troubling the gaps, and, you know, questioning the normative, because that's how we, I don't know, undermine the kyriarchy. And it's how we, I think, find really true spiritual connections for ourselves. It's when we are the ones that are doing that work. Like when we were talking about intuition, same thing, you know? When you find it yourself and you forge it yourself, that's stronger than when somebody else tells you what to do, you know? Or, like, here's the recipe to, like, get into heaven.
JULIA: Absolutely. And that's also why both books, I think, are so fantastic in that way. You're not instructing people on how to go about the thing. You're saying, "Hey, here's a different lens. Here's a different frame of mind in which to approach both of these things." In this case, you know, mythology and spirituality and devotion, and also tarot.
AMANDA: I would like to zoom in on one of those queerings, which is one of my favorite words, which is the chapter titled in Queer Devotion, Marginal Gods at the end of the world, the queer magic of Loki Odin and the hopeful Norse apocalypse.
CHARLIE: Hmm.
AMANDA: So one of my favorite things about being queer is questioning every single part about what life tells you is proper. And to me, an English literature major and absolute reading nerd, and construction formalist like meta text, you know, devotee is questioning the ending, the story cycle, the, you know, typical narratives that we have come to expect. So I would love to just get a preview, as folks wait for their copies of Queer Devotion to come from bookshop.org where code Spirits will get you 10% off, as to what is hopeful about the apocalypse? Why did you zoom in on Loki and Odin? Tell me all about this chapter.
CHARLIE: Yeah. Thank you. And I mean, first of all, when we think about Norse mythology and we're like, "What's queer in here?" Loki is the obvious, you know—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: —first choice.
JULIA: Hmm.
CHARLIE: Loki is just quintessentially gender queer. Literally transforms from a male god into women. In one case, into a female horse—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: —which then gets pregnant and gives birth to an eight-legged—
AMANDA: We love you, Sleipnir.
CHARLIE: Yes, I have listened to the Loki episode. But also Odin is very queer as well. Odin, I think, is really interesting when you read about his actual mythology versus how he's depicted, especially by, like, white supremacist Neopagan heathens who are fascists and Nazis. You have to be careful when you're engaging with Norse paganism, because—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: Oh, God.
CHARLIE: —there are Nazis in there.
JULIA: They'll dive into white supremacy so fast.
CHARLIE: But it was co-opted. It was never— there's nothing—
JULIA: Right.
CHARLIE: —essentially, white supremacist or fascist in Norse mythology, whatsoever. It was just co-opted by the Nazis in order to provide a false white superiority religion.
JULIA: Yep.
CHARLIE: But— so when you actually read the mythology of Odin, I personally think that he kind of just, like, gives no fucks about gender. Like he is known to engage in the mystical art of Satir, which is a type of sort of shamanistic oracular witchcraft that was actually practiced by actual people—
JULIA: Hmm.
CHARLIE: —in actual history, not just in mythology. But was traditionally practiced by women.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: And for men to practice it was kind of, like, taboo. And Odin was like, "Whatever. Uh, I'm gonna do it. Like, who cares?"
JULIA: Seems cool. Should be able to do it. There's no reason why not.
CHARLIE: Exactly.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: And he also is like a wanderer god. Like he's a very marginal god. You know, he takes many disguises. He's primarily motivated by knowledge. And all of those things also give him a— an essential queerness that we don't usually find in centralized like father god figures.
AMANDA: Patriarchs.
CHARLIE: Exactly. Like even Zeus. Zeus, you know, had a whole lot of gay sex, but was very patriarchal.
JULIA: Hmm.
CHARLIE: You know? Odin is not.
AMANDA: And isn't there just historical precedent for that archetype lasting to the present day?
JULIA: Interesting.
CHARLIE: Yeah. And one thing about, like, the Norse apocalypse in particular, is, first of all, that it's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
JULIA: Hmm.
CHARLIE: One of the things that Odin is so motivated by is trying to prevent the apocalypse, which has been revealed to him by basically an Oracle, by a prophecy, which basically says that it's like Loki that's gonna bring about the apocalypse, or like in the vision, Loki is at the helm of a ship that's coming to—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: —destroy the world. And so Odin, like, dedicates himself to trying to thwart the apocalypse, but in doing so, basically others Loki and Loki's children, which feature in the prophecy, so much that they eventually turn against the gods and then cause the apocalypse. So it's like, is it really Loki fault, or is it Odin's fault? Or does fault even matter here? You know, so for all of Odin's well-meaning attempts, the apocalypse still happen. It happens. Ragnarok still happens.
JULIA: Hmm.
CHARLIE: Everyone dies, the Earth burns. It's only two people, two humans that survive and I think, like, two gods, and they, like, build, like, a utopia together afterwards. But what I like about that, or what I find really interesting about that, is that Norse mythology is one of the only mythologies in which, like, the gods can die, and do die, and fail, you know, and are fallible.
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: And they try really, really hard to prevent the end of the world, even though it happens anyway. And for me, I find that a little bit inspirational in these modern times, which feel just so— just screwed and doomed.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: And, you know, we're barreling ever faster towards literal apocalypse. It's already happening with the climate. And unless something radical changes, it's gonna— we're gonna have climate apocalypse. It's gonna happen. So what do we do? Or do we just give up? Do we become complete hedonists and materialists, and, you know, enjoy the time that we have and just say, you know, "FU environment?" Or do we continue trying as hard as we freaking can constantly to try and avert that anyway? You know, I think we keep trying.
JULIA: I mean, I'm pro keeping trying.
Charlle: Even if it's doomed—
JULIA: Yeah.
CHARLIE: —like—
AMANDA: Because something happens after the doom. Like that is, to me, one of the queer parts.
CHARLIE: Yes.
AMANDA: Queerness and grief—
CHARLIE: Yes.
AMANDA: —are so inextricably linked, not just because of oppressive society, but also because of, like, needing to come to terms with being different to the world, which has a lot of beauty in it. Also, the shadow to that beauty is grief. And I think that the Norse apocalypse, in my almost 10 years of listening to Julia talk about so much folklore and mythology, that really is one thing where, like, a grief is not a shutdown, grief is not an ending. Doors closing are also openings. After apocalypse comes something new, even if it's not for me specifically to enjoy or for this version of myself to be around for, and that's one of the things I loved about your reading of the Norse apocalypse.
JULIA: Hmm.
CHARLIE: Thank you. Yeah. And also, when it comes to apocalypse, like the end of the world as we know it, what comes next might actually be better, you know?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: Like this world that we're living in right now, this culture kind of needs to end, you know?
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: And when that happens—
JULIA: Something has to give, something has to change.
CHARLIE: Absolutely. And when that happens, it's going to be— like, literally, apocalypse means, like, the end of the world as you know it. We've already had several apocalypses in the course of human history. The colonization of America was an apocalypse for indigenous Americans. People have survived apocalypse before, and what's next is not always better, but it can be, and that's in our hands. You know, that's in our hands to try and create something better on the other side of the end, but also right now as well. And that— there's a ton of power in that, and that's one of the things that I talk about in Radical Tarot, is how we— like tarot doesn't just— it doesn't predict the future, it can help us create the future that we want in real time. And I think that that's a particularly queer and essentially liberatory and revolutionary approach to the world, and to life, and to living. You know? We make the utopia now to the best of our ability, and that's a radical act.
JULIA: Yeah. And we as like human beings, and particularly like queer human beings, have such an affinity and an ability for change. If anything, queer people should be the leaders to where the future takes us.
CHARLIE: Yeah. Adaptability and also visionary capacity, because we've had to— in order to embrace one's identity as any sort of queer or gender queer, you have to unpack everything you have been taught, everything you've learned about yourself and who you're supposed to be and how life is supposed to work, and be like, "No, that's not my truth. That's not my future."
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: And then go make your own future to your own specifications. And that, like, gives us a particularly, I think, visionary kind of futuristic ability to see other possibilities and other potentials that people who are stuck in the box of—
JULIA: Yeah. Yeah.
CHARLIE: —the norm just simply can't see or aren't interested in creating—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: —because the norm is working for them. Although I think a lot of people think the norm is working for them, but it's actually not at all.
AMANDA: I feel really lucky that queerness has been my wedge to all of that. Like, my queerness is inextricably linked to my, like, anti-Zionist Judaism, to my socialism, to my anti-racism to my like ability and disability, you know, understanding and champion of disabled bodies, hopefully, and it just is something that I appreciate in the imagery of your tarot deck in the just entire premise of Queer Devotion. And, Charlie, and your Substack, which people should also check out. So this may be a great time to invite people into your wider world of perspective and work. How can folks follow your beautiful thoughts online?
CHARLIE: Thank you. Yeah, my Substack is called Queerly Devoted at substack.com/queerlydevoted. I think that's how that URL works. There, I write about a lot of these topics, and there's a lot of stuff that I couldn't fit in this book that plan to be writing about on Queerly Devoted. I would love to do a queer devotion to Hermes, Chiron, public universal friend. There's so much stuff, so I plan to be writing about that there. You can also find me on Instagram at the.word.witch, on Bluesky @thewordwitch, no periods. My website is thewordwitchtarot.com, and you can buy all of my stuff there if you want to support me directly. Yeah, I think that that's the greatest hits, at least.
JULIA: Incredible. And all those links will be provided in the episode description for this episode of the podcast.
AMANDA: Charlie, thank you so much for your time today. Safe to say we'll have you back. And shout out, I would say most of all to Pip, who put Spirits and Charlie together and said, "Mwa." You're so right. Crossover event of the century. Pip, I'm picturing you as the page. You can decide which suite you belong to, but you're giving page vibes, not just your adorable name.
JULIA: I wanted the episode with Charlie. What is the card that you associate with yourself in your tarot deck?
CHARLIE: So a little bit of lore on the Emperor.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
CHARLIE: Which in Fifth Spirit Tarot, the Emperor has tits. That's actually my boob. Yeah. They don't exist anymore. I've had pop surgery, so they're gone.
AMANDA: Oh, your former boob.
CHARLIE: But I immortalized it on the Emperor.
AMANDA: Aw.
JULIA: Incredible.
CHARLIE: So yeah.
AMANDA: So good. An ode to a former boob. Consider that for a Substack post title. Charlie, you're a gem. I look forward to being friends.
CHARLIE: Thank you. Yes, me too. This is great.
JULIA: Well, the next time that you pull from your tarot deck, remember, listener, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
JULIA: Later, satyrs.
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