 Hey friends, how's it going? Welcome to Tea Cakes and Tarot, Conversations with Queer Futurists. I am your host, Will Wilhelm. It's so nice to see you all. So if you are new to this space, thank you so much for coming. I can't wait to tell you a little bit about what we're gonna do. And for those of you who are returning, it means so much to me to have you here again, to take a little space, you know, to dream about the future that we're about to manifest, y'all. Things are happening out here in these streets. So please tell me, as some of you already are, where you are coming in from. I am gonna be drinking some tea. So tell me if you're sipping on something special as well. And what we're gonna do today is we're gonna share space with a beautiful friend. Tea Cakes and Tarot is my little experiment at creating queer community in this virtual space. So what I love most about the queer artists and makers in my life is their ability to sort of creatively work around problems and to invent in the way that I think only a queer sensibility teaches you how to bring. So we're gonna be doing that with a new friend, I'm gonna introduce you to and we're gonna share their talents and insights. And then I'm gonna provide them with a Tarot reading, but before we do all of that, I want to see how you are and what's going on with y'all. So how we do that here is with a poll that's coming at you right now. And it's about Gemini season starting tomorrow. So I'm gonna read that for you. Gemini season starts tomorrow and what effects are you looking forward to feeling? Are you gonna be a social butterfly? The twin sign of communication and connection. So you're trying to meet and greet. Feel free to respond to these as I read, by the way. Are you rebelling against inspiring some mischief, thirsty for good chaos? Well, Master of Acts are both, I hope. That's kind of me. Brainiac, we've got these dueling perspectives. So we're figuring out some critical thinking, maybe figuring out what clubhouse is eventually. I've downloaded it, still haven't really used it. Or the only WC in your future is a gin and tonic in a public place. I think I'm all of these. But I respect that y'all can only pick one of them. So what are you most feeling right now? I'm loving these responses and I think we're ready to publish it. A lot of you are feeling twin season gin and tonic. This is just tea, but as soon as this is over, it will be more than tea, trust and believe. Okay, thank you for doing that. I'm glad to see you all here. And I appreciate you sharing how you're feeling. So as I mentioned, I'm gonna be providing a little tarot reading and we do a special one here on Teacakes and Tarot. What we do is one card from the Major Arcana, which I'll explain in a little bit for those of you that don't know a lot about tarot. And I use the Star Spinner Deck by a Vietnamese American artist named Trungles. It's really gorgeous. So you get to see one of those cards. And then we have a special Island Shakespeare Festival, Teacakes and Tarot, Sonet Deck. So these are Shakespeare Sonets and I'm gonna be pulling one of them as well for our guest. All right, if you have any guests, any thoughts that you wanna share, please feel free to use the chat. That is your way to make yourself known in this space and at that time, at this time. And if you are moved by anything that you see, feel free to donate to the Island Shakespeare Festival. Okay, that's all we got. We're ready to rumble. Today, I'm so excited about the new friend that I'm sharing with y'all. They are, I don't even think a multi-hyphenate is the right word. They are a community organizer. They are a mutual aid organizer. They're obviously an artist. They're a writer. As you'll meet in a second, they have an ability to, like I said, creatively think around all of the things that face are, all of the challenges that we face as a community. And so I'm really excited to talk more about how they bring artistry to all of that. My wonderful guest today is artist, writer, actor and all around badass, Yehan Osangin. And here they are. Hey, babe. Hi, how are you? I'm well. How are you? Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. It is my pleasure. I can't wait to talk more about what it is you do in the way that only you do it, which I think is true of all of us, but the more I get to know about you and your work, the more I realize you have these amazing abilities to, you have these amazing billiards to, like we said, like we always invite queer futurists to this program. And I just see you creating this future. So I want to let the audience hear a little bit about what you're doing from your perspective and from your mouth. So will you start us off with just a little bit about the work that you're doing with a company you created called Earthseed and how that sort of works? I sure will. So Earthseed is an organization that I started a long time ago by a different name, but it uses theater in wild spaces to decolonize those spaces and the bodies that pass through them. And so when I say decolonize it, just me and not just means a lot of different things, but it's about developing our identities in accordance with our own beliefs and not just in opposition to oppressive constructs. And so using theater in the same way in which we understand text and we prepare to be witnessed on a stage, that's the same way in which I approach like professional development, racial equity, somatic embodiment, all of those things. And oftentimes the vehicles I'll use to do the art theater, of course, but it's also the wilderness because there is rarely a more unpredictable given circumstance dealer than the wilderness. And so like it really holds you up against, you know, yourself and the world. And it's like, who are you in this moment? Yeah, and so I'll canoe, I will whitewater raft also whitewater canoe or backpack or go, I hate hiking because then I have to come back. Like it's a really hard thing. But backpacking, like, oh, I get to get taken to that for several hours, got it. Yeah, so that's the gist of what I do at Earthsea. That's amazing. Yeah, please, were you about to say more? But I forgot the theater thing. Ha ha! Ha ha! It also is the company that hosts the things that I do like staged readings of my works or before Corona, I'm just putting up Yankee Picney in the studio before I took it on the road. And also it's the company when I work with young people, we have a youth ensemble. And so we did a piece called Grief at 2019 Whale. And so that Earthsea is the entity that hosts all of those things. Thank you. Yes, I want to talk more about Yankee Picney in a second, but I'm obsessed with what you just said about the wilderness as like the biggest provider of given circumstances, uncontrollable provider. And I'm curious, what do you think we tried to control less than the theater? Like what do you think we let, in what ways can the theater be more like the wilderness? It's my question. I love that. So one of the things that is super interesting to me is we cultivate so many things to a teeth. And so many things are reliant upon, the backstage storytelling is reliant on front stage story. We're all, it's a great team and it's wonderful. And however, when we cultivate things like a set or things that are definite or even costume, those things cannot change necessarily as quickly as the wilderness particularly in the Pacific Northwest because here you'll be hiking and then it's all of a sudden it's snowing and then it's raining and then it's, and so not only is it about the temperature, it's also about how your body is acclimating to it. Also how your body is acclimating to the other heartbeats of the people that are in your party as you're traveling through the wilderness. And so just like on stage and just like in humanity, our heartbeats are connecting and we're having empathy in the best case scenario. And that's the same thing in the wilderness except with the varying given circumstances. I'm talking so fast. Thank you Brad. This is slow for me, me and keep it me. Don't me too, me too, don't worry. I also can't see Brad, so I'm just like guessing at the pace. He is always doing incredible. Okay, great thing, Brad. And now I'm making him sign about himself. Interview, Brad. So I think I don't remember because I got signed to it. We were talking, you were talking about like the sinking of the heartbeat, which is like in case anyone doesn't know that's more than a metaphor. That is something that has actually been studied. I totally make sense like on a hike, but in the theater as well, there is a synchronicity of heartbeats after people sit for a certain amount of time at the theater, which like, I don't know very much about science, but that blows my fucking mind. I'm like, that's proof that the theater is real and the theater teaches empathy. I'm sure a scientist would be like, those two things have nothing to do with each other, but I don't care. No, and you also have the mirror neurons and things that are fired when you're hearing a story. Yeah, so our physiology is definitely connected. Yes, that's so cool. I love that you, especially outdoor theater, we think of the elements as like the thing that we're working against, like, oh, we got rained out and I performed at the York and Shakespeare festivals, like, oh, the smoke, but it's like, you're outside, you're in the elements, you're in the wilderness. You have to sort of invite that in as a part of the experience because it is inevitable. It's not gonna be perfect weather every day. That is so cool. Will you tell me also and tell us more about your solo show, Yankee Pickney? Sure, I wrote it in 20, you know what? I was preparing for this interview and I was like, how do I prepare to speak about myself? You look at dancing at him. What did I do and when did I do it? Exactly, I wrote it in 2017 and I was approached by this theater that is well, now defunct called Theater Schmeter. And it was, I think, earlier on in the Let's Diversify our season situation that we have, you know, we found ourselves on the other side of in a different way. And so he asked about a solo show and I'd written one that I performed in Chicago many years ago, but that just, it just wasn't right. And so then Yankee Pickney was one, it was also 2017 and so the deaths or the murders of black bodies that were state sanctioned by the police were really hitting me hard. Also, there were several gun deaths in my own personal life, in my teaching professional life. And so guns played a huge role. And so when I thought about, there's no one ever approached me to say, would you like to do a theater show as a part of our season, like a solo performance? And so I thought, let me take advantage of this. So what are the things that I wanna do? I wanna talk about these things that are affecting my life. I wanna have my dog and I would just like it to be honest. And so Yankee Pickney is me as a black-bodied human being who's exploring what it means to be Jamaican and then seen as a black person and then seen as what I called white people black and then realizing my own blackness within my Jamaicanness. It's a lot about identity and it's also about gender and the ways in which, I, what is it? I call myself a gender vassalator sometimes. And so when we put, you know, masculinity or maskness with this black body that also has me intersecting with power in interesting ways. So Yankee Pickney was about the exploration of all of that and my dog roamed through the stage and it was really beautiful because he was with me for the whole run except the last weekend and I took him out on the water because he got really sick and we paddled in like Washington and he looked up at Seattle skyline and then he passed away in my boat and like I was on the river sticks just paddling his body to the shore. And so it was like, oh, that's the weekend that ended and it was really meaningful show for me. And so all of those things happened. Yeah. Wow. That last bit has me like literally speechless in a way that I'm not supposed to be right now to continue an interview. Wow, that sounds amazing. I wish, I can't wait to see that in the future. I know you're not done performing it. So I love that you brought up the gender vassalator because I actually, you know, when I was getting ready to when I was looking through all of your wonderful work I wrote down that and I was like, I wonder if that's like out of date because I love to, I did not create these terms but I love to think of more like exciting terms to describe what gender is to me. So I like to call myself a gender traitor. I just think that's fun and subversive. And I also like to, especially with my theater work like to call myself gender imaginative because that also just speaks to what my experience of gender is and saying like, oh, I'm a gender vassalator. I know exactly what that is. That's a very like specific, like amazing way to talk about an ongoing relationship with gender that changes obviously from day to day. But the other thing that was included where I read that was Yehan is a gender-vassalating one-sided storyteller. And I was like, that's so funny and so fierce. I love describing myself as a one-sided storyteller because like in a way, aren't we all? But like, will you tell me more about being a one-sided storyteller, which I love that you're just like, I'm owning up to this because like, what else am I going to, it's from my perspective. Will you talk to me about claiming that? Absolutely. So I have an interesting relationship with my biological parents. And so I've had to go back and Yankee Pickney has so many journal entries from when I was, I just slowed down to my pace because Brad, I know you're still with us and thank you. So I had all of these journal entries and I've written in these journals since I was nine years old. And I looked back and that was the only record because of trauma, because of me being given away at 11 because of so many things that I only had this record of Yehan who wrote really hard things about being hit by their parent and there were marks that were, thank you, Peggy. There were marks that were on my body and I had this written record of myself in my own hand. And that was super powerful. And it also then made me think about what are the ways in which that is trauma of me living in that moment and not necessarily remembering things that are correctly or remembering things correctly or what are the ways in which my biological brother would have seen this differently or my parents would have seen this differently. And so I just tried so hard because I try to be kind and gracious to all of the things that like two perspectives it's what makes me such a great facilitator. And however, it does not make for good theater. We need some drama and we need the truth from one person's perspective at least. And so with the solo show, I felt like the most important piece of that work was focusing on my perspective on all of the, from all of the, if it was from Jennifer, if it was the conversations with my parents or my brother, it was really important for me to, for my own survival as bodies around me were dropping on the streets. And oh, how do I reconcile all of these things to heal? Yeah, that is amazing. And more power to you. Be that one sided storyteller. Like that's what we're here to explore and that's what sharing, I think empathy and humanity is. I just love that you wrote that in your bio because on paper that could be misconstrued as something negative that it doesn't have to be. It shouldn't be, I loved it. Is there anything, I'm curious. So you said you did the solo show in Chicago. So either from that first attempt or from all of the success of Yankee Picney. Like what did you learn about yourself? Was there any sort of like awakening or, I don't know, what are you working on a solo show teach you about yourself? I guess it's my question. I think working on a solo show told me that you need help. And here's if I am someone who does a lot with a little and have for such a really, really long time. And I also though I get really frustrated because bureaucracy is in the sinew of white supremacy and white body supremacy. And I'm able to take my time often and that doesn't work for me because if I'm trying to change something then that means something's not working. And so I got lost at the word sinew. What was the question again? What had taught you about yourself? I love where you're going as far as when you are working against things. Sometimes you feel like you have to do it all yourself if you want it done a different way that works better for you. Well, I think it's that. And I also just budget wise, it didn't make sense to me to, like we talked about a lot of work into having a set. But I just wanted to, because it felt weird to have the set cost so much money and then have the fee for like a stage manager and $25, like I decided to look at the budget and put it in the people power. And so that was great. And though, because of the limited budget, it then reduced me to, oh, like I can't actually find black people who can afford to work on the show behind the scenes because of the way in which the resources were laid out and people power. And I also just, I had my dog there as my emotional support piece, but I also, Alicia, who I think is still here, came in and did the video recording of it because people are like, can I see it? I mean, no, because I just, I don't love being on camera, but Alicia had said, you know, this is something you want to remember and want to have recorded. I have my friend, Jess Smith, because I had to let go of the director shortly before rehearsals, who came in and was my eyes for lighting, particularly when I was on stage. And so I am someone who can do things by myself, but I also, someone on Twitter who was on Black Twitter was like, this was a black woman. She said, I don't want to hear myself described as resilient ever again in my entire life. I want to be soft. I want to be weak. And so that is the stage that I'm at. That's what I learned. But like I absolutely can do that. And I did it for so many years of my life and like, spoil me, baby. Like I'm trying to not work. Listen. Yes, you deserve some gentleness. Absolutely. Victoria, do I have a manager? Do you want to hook me up with that, Jungian? Literally, every time people are like, yeah, so like what's up next for you? Like what do you have like in the wings? I'm like, I don't know. Do you have something for me? Is someone gathered in this audience trying to offer me something right now? Do you know an artistic director? We're like, I'd really love to see you play this role. I'm like, who do you know? Send them in. As I mentioned a little bit, you do a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot of things you mentioned. You do facilitating work. We haven't talked about, I know you do a lot of mutual aid and community work. You do a lot of education work and this is on top of all of your artistry, even though I think you approach all of those things with artistry, I would say. But is there one sort of central mission that those all serve that ties them together or are they disparate to you? Well, so I was raised within how they would identify themselves as a Judeo-Christian boarding school that's probably rooted, probably it's definitely rooted in white supremacy and white savior complex. And so I was raised with the idea to whom much is given, much is expected. And I was like, yes, right? Like I'm gonna do that. I believe in that. And then a pandemic happened and I was like, bitch, I'm fucking tired. Like I'm tired. I don't know if I'm gonna be an actor anymore. Like I don't know what is happening. And so like before it was about being of service, before it was about healing, ooh, Brad, before it was about being of service and it was about healing. And now I just want to be human and I want to take care and I want to be the princess version of a potato. Like just let me not stress and I've made some decisions and yeah, especially in the pandemic and that's worked out for me in all of the spiritual ways in all of princess fun. Yes, T-shirts, I will make us those in my craft. Yeah, I do. And so that's what's happening for me at this point. My art is, it's shifted completely. I don't know the direction completely but I'm excited for it to be from a place of ease and thank you, Peggy, a place of ease and a place of, I'm tired of the energy that doubt takes up in my brain. I'm tired of the energy that self-hatred takes up in my brain and I've dealt with that in very deep and like in ways that I'm surprised I made it out of. And since I've gotten to this other side, I've realized like, oh, I'm actually never going to be at that place again because I'm now older, because the world is different. I may be deep and dark and hurting in a different way but I now have like these different experiences and so I'm choosing ease and I'm choosing myself and that is probably what my art will also reflect me. Yes, I think part of ease and part of choosing yourself, I was reading an interview that you did for American Theater Magazine and something that you said in that that I always try to echo, especially when I talk to young artists like fresh out of school, I'm so eager to say yes to everything and be grateful to be here. You said something that really stuck with me that was like part of what makes me willing to be an artist is that I'm willing to walk away at any moment that it no longer serves me because this industry can be extremely abusive. And yes, it does abuse like in different ways to different people in different bodies with different experiences but there is a potential for a lot of abuse for a lot of people. Will you talk to me a little bit about what it means to have a healthy relationship with you as an artist and how that includes having other things that fulfill you so that if and when this does not provide you the space that you deserve, you are able to say goodbye or see you later. Can I ask a clarifying question? Of course, yeah. So you said that in the beginning you said that has a healthy relationship with an artist like someone having a healthy relationship with me or how to have a healthy relationship with me? Someone having... I think you are modeling in that statement how to have a healthy relationship with the arts industry or your own artistry. And I think that a lot of especially younger artists are ready to put themselves in harm's way for the opportunity or exposure. And I think that's so destructive and harmful but it just happens. And I'm also saying that having been there I'm sure you've been there, we've all been there. So I'm wondering what it took for you to arrive at that realization that you could be ready to walk away at any moment and I think that that probably improves your artistry. Thanks for helping me understand that differently. Yeah. There's something I think, I'm on Twitter a lot. And I like the Black Twitter jokes that came through was the way in which like you could die in a company will actually just hire someone the next day because like you need to get the work done. And I realized because of the life of it that I have lived and the body that I have that I am absolutely disposable to some people. And I mean, when you learn that from your parents like the people who are genetically supposed to keep you and they're just like, no, I'm good. Right, like what is the world if those relationships can discard you? So as I healed from all of those things and as I looked at and worked in corporate, the corporate world and worked in the corporate nonprofit world. I watched people be discarded. I watched students be discarded and I watched the punitive way in which relationships are built. And I also watched and experienced the relationships that required my healing or the relationship that like nurtured my healing. And I started to believe in myself and love myself which I'm like laughing about but it's absolutely what happened. And I read this one book called Women Don't Ask who's about salary negotiations and it talks about the ways in which and this is very binary but women don't ask for more money in the ways in which other folks do. And so I started to think, I was like, oh, do I really get that much? As a black person, I get so much less money than other people. People are so willing to devalue me plus I have been devalued my whole life. It comes from a place of weariness. And so once I realized that I'm an awesome person like actually just a really great person. And if there is something in my belly, if there's something in my neck, if there's something in my left nipple beneath my areola that tells me that I'm not supposed to be there anymore, part of my somatic embodiment and futuring journey is to honor this vessel that I'm going through this world in. And so I will listen to my body and time and time and time and time again, this body has taught me that the decisions I make are the right ones for myself and for others. And there have been countless times where people are like, oh, hey, you doing that thing actually opened up a door for me to do this other thing. And while I'm not, like I'm not trying to be the right, I'm trying to be soft, I'm not trying to pave the way necessarily, but if me paving the way with softness, like I was a glacier, carved through a mountain over time, if that's a thing that means passage for people, absolutely. And I will do it with fierceness because I protect my naivete and my kindness with a fierceness. Yes, thank you for like, we all need to be looking at each other and be like, I am fierce, I am awesome, and anyone can find me disposable, but I will never be disposable to my goddamn self, excuse the language, but like, you know, that's yes, 100%. Thank you. Because it's something that we talk about on this series a lot, I'm curious to have your input in it, especially with regard to everything that we just talked about. We talk a lot about like classics and Shakespeare is just a topic that we include as we consider how to make those relevant to contemporary humans and bodies, as we consider how to excavate queerness, like it's really not that hard, but to find like a non-binary joy like within classics. And so I'm wondering like, do you have a relationship with Shakespeare at all? Do you have thoughts on Shakespeare? Is it something you think about at all? Oh, I love Shakespeare. I think about Shakespeare a lot. My lexicons are right there. My anthology of Shakespeare, like I love language and I love literature. And so one of the things that is, I was thinking about this as what was preparing for the interview by talking to myself. What is my relationship with Shakespeare? And I studied Shakespeare in the conservatory. I performed Sylvia Intergentum in the Verona. I've performed Shakespeare before, but I don't often, because I do so many artistic things and when I get a script, someone, and when someone asks me to audition, I read the entire script. I go through it, I do the work. I've learned as a director, not everyone does that anymore, filing that one up here. But with Shakespeare, I don't necessarily have the time to read the entire text all over again, to go through the lexicon, to understand, oh, fi means this here, and it means this here, right? So like, and so one of the things I've been thinking about is just like brushing up on that Shakespearean model on and getting to audition for different things, because I have worked on new works for so long. I have worked on like modern pieces or modern tapes on slavery pieces. And I would love to play with Shakespeare again, which can happen now that I have my schedule that works for me, that I work three days a week for like five hours. Amazing, yes. And your own company to incubate that in your own way, because I would be really interested to see more of like, we talk about white supremacy and cis normativity and heteronormativity and all that, that's kind of not like is ingrained in the text, but is more so ingrained in the repetition of how we produce it for no reason. So I'm like, I'm really interested to like, to see like the earth seed, like what does it mean if our primary objective on this text is to decolonize it? Feel free to like respond to that in any way, but I'm also curious if there are any like other poets or wordsmiths that you love and wanna give and live by and wanna give to gifts as us, because I know you have a couple other gifts you're about to give us too. The one I wish I had one that came to mind faster than Edna St. Vincent Millay, where she wrote the 14 page long Renaissance poem. I think she was seriously tripping on drugs, all I could see from where I stood were three long mountains and a wood. And she just talks about this journey of what it was like for her to trip, but then also experience God and the language is gorgeous. Who else, classics? Oh, wait. More contemporary wordsmiths and poets too. Hold on, I just had, there's some that are right here. I've been reading a lot about who do culture. And so there's a woman, her name is Lilith Dorsey, who writes about who do culture in Spanish and in English. Oh, no, no, no. Yeah, in Spanish and in English. And that has been super interesting to me. Also, just listening, like I've been reading a lot of plays by young people that in terms of rhythm are really interesting to me. But as far as classics, the thing that I'm not supposed to do is blank on things that I love or like my cannon. But yay, but I am. Yeah. No, you've given us someone. I actually, everyone responding like that in the chat is like, I don't know who that is. I probably should. So that was a selfish thing for me to have more to look up. So I already appreciate that gift. Yehan, you ready? Can we do a little tarot reading? Those are two different answers, but yes, I am not ready. Love them. Amazing. Okay, we're going to transform. I know before we start, I know that you have some really amazing decks that you would love to share and feature and I can't wait to see them. So I'm going to be doing a little shuffling ASMR while you share that with us. Okay, so I couldn't find one of the decks but this artist, her name is Jesse Jumanji and this isn't one of her Oracle decks. I'm going to put it, this is, I should have practiced. There we go. Yeah. That's the floor and pond of Africa deck. And to show the artwork that I really want to show, I also love the way this is her Afro Goddess Oracle deck, the unboxing. And there's just like each color of the bones on the outside, but it's like a gold color. Yeah. And so it has these really interesting pictures like there's someone with a, that's going through a library, but she's got acrylics on. And then this other Who Do Tarot deck by Tyana Lee, which I think is Miquilar. Yeah, the size is really wonderful. She wrote or did the work on this Who Do Tarot deck. This is the book and the artwork is gorgeous. You didn't do the artwork, but these are all black women. And so what this deck does, like the other deck does is it takes characters from either African-American Who Do or Caribbean Who Do and it replaces some of the characters or it replaces some of them. So like Strength is one of the major arcana. And so that one exists, but then you have here the eight of sticks instead. And so the, oh, I feel like it's catching it exactly. And that you got it. There we go. The artwork, it's just beautiful, look it up. And it's more like a watercolor that is also just a haunting kind of image of black faces and black stories and black histories. And so what I also love is just the way that this, the Who Do Tarot explanation guide gives you, and this is frustrating for me as a person who's no longer a Christian, but it gives you the Bible verse because that was so much a part of black culture coming up after the trans-Atlantic genocide. And then it also gives you the character or the person, the story of the person when they met to African-American culture. And then it gives you the meanings in the traditional deck and then it gives you meanings that are possible through the other, through the new book. Amazing. Thank you for sharing that with us. I love contemporary like out of, just like I love contemporary like clearings of any and everything. I love contemporary like, let me just like paint this similar story, but with my brush. And like I'll give you what resonates with me and I'll like take creative liberty to change whatever I feel like. Yeah. Yeah, that's awesome. Okay, cool. All right, I've been shuffling these cards. What would you like a reading on, Yehan? Anything particular, any question, any word that you wanna invoke? Oh, peace. Peace, boom. Yeah. Easy. I love it. Easy. So easy, peace. All right. I've been shuffling these cards and we're gonna do a reading on peace. So I'm gonna just be cutting the deck on camera. And then whenever it feels like the correct time, I want you to just say stop. Okay, a reading on peace. Oh, beautiful. So I have drawn the moon. Show you this moon. And the moon is about your intuition and your instincts. It's also about your fears. And you know, it's the moment of night where things are kind of lit, but not really. So like, it feels like everything could be a lot scarier than it is because we're seeing a shadow we outline instead of what's really there. But it's also a beautiful time for fantasy, right? We just like we can imagine the horrible version of whatever that dimly lit shape is. It could also be like the tantalizing, exciting, shape-shifting, it could be so many things. There's an unease and an excitement in the not knowing of, you know, and that's really interesting with pursuing peace, especially when it's not something that a lot of us are privileged to feel very often or some of us artists, I feel like are loved to be constantly troubled. Yearning. Next to like my life in this morning. 100%. Okay, so I'm learning more about the different parts of my chart. And so my Gemini is in being, my Venus is in Gemini. It's about to be Gemini season. And so this a torologist that I follow, I think I read from a while ago said that I should focus on the following the moon because for Gemini, I'm for Venus and Gemini because it's going to one highlight man tuition. It needs to highlight parts of my life that I haven't been paying attention to before. So to like get this is definitely confirmation. Thank you. You're very welcome. So now I'm going to pair that with a little Shakespeare sonnet. So I'm going to do the same thing with our deck of sonnets. I am just cutting the deck and okay, okay, fun. This is sonnet 135. Ready? Whoever has her wish, thou hast thy will and will to boot and will in over plus more than enough am I that vex'd thee still to thy sweet will making addition thus. Will thou whose will is large and spacious not once vouchsafe to hide my will and thine shall will and others seem right gracious and in my will no fair acceptance shine. The sea all water yet receives rain still and in abundance addeth to his store. So thou being rich in will add to thy will one will of mine to make thy large will more. Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill. Think all but one and me in that one will. I love that we included this one like selfishly because I feel like I have a, you know, I have a connection to Shakespeare because I think I'm like, yeah, we're will and will. And like I asked you all these questions about the solo show because I'm working on a, on my own solo show that's about will and will basically. So this is like, it's so sexual. It's like, it's very much, and I love that he uses the pun in the double entendre of his own name to sort of seduce and like try and like get whoever he's written this to to, I don't know, like give in to him in some way but he's also saying like you can never have too much of a good thing. He talks about abundance. Even the ocean is rained upon and receives more. And when it comes to peace and when it comes to channeling your love into whether it be one recipient or many, as many as possible. As many as you, there's no, there's no limit. I think of love as a, you know, an unlimited resource. And I, I wish that upon peace. I wish peace felt, you know, unlimited and accessible to us. And maybe it is once we figured out how to access it. Once we know, like you have learned like, oh, when I know that my body is not in peace any longer I have to listen to it. When I, you know, whether it's that particular breath or closing your eyes, you know, I'm working on that too. Being able to control and find a moment of peace for myself that feels accessible all the time. I'm gonna read it one more time. Yeah, of course. And then, you know, you can close your eyes if you want, feel free to just like, let this all watch over you. And then I'd love to know what jumps out at you about the sonnet, anything else about the card and anything at all. Actually, I told you to close your eyes, but I lied. I'm gonna have you look, I'm gonna have you look at the moon card while you listen to the words that you can still let them, you know, wash over you as you will. Whoever hath her wish, thou hast thy will and wilt the boot and will in over plus. More than enough am I that vex'd thee still to thy sweet will making addition thus. Wilt thou, whose will is large and spacious, not once vouch safe to hide my will and thine? Shall will and others seem right gracious? And in my will, no fair acceptance shine. The sea, all water, yet receives rain still and in abundance addeth to his store. So thou, being rich in will, add to thy will, one will of mine to make thy large will more. Let no unkind, no fair beseechers kill. Think all but one and me in that one will. I'm so glad you read it again. So one of the things I was thinking is I think less connected to love. But I was thinking about the show, The Magicians, you know, as we talked about, have you watched it at all? I've heard of it, but I've never watched it. It's super queer. And that's, it's not the reason I love it, but the way in which it handles clearness is one of the reasons I love it. And so there's this one episode where they have to ask the moon to do something for them in order to save the world. And so then they all have to band together to do these spells to then get the yes or the no from the moon. And as I was watching the figure on the moon card, I just kept imagining like the way in which an abundance of peace is possible if I want count on that all of the people who are doing the spells and the people who do spells in my own life to come and show up for me. And one of the things that's really funny about it is in order to get into the right space to deal with the moon, you had to get to a place of delirium. You weren't allowed to sleep for five days. And so I think about like the way in which I get to that place of theater, the way in which I get to that place of art and the way in which peace is almost like a delirious state when you have realized like, oh yeah, this, I'm not trying to push myself into chaos because of trauma. I'm actually just happy. And it's almost like a third lung. And so I'm excited about this abundance of peace. With a bunch of queer people in delirium, like delirious state asking for guidance from the moon. Yes. That's so cool. I love it. And I also just want to point out on this moon card like this little rabbit that's hopping around her face. Oh yeah. Look at that little rabbit. And you know, rabbits, if I'm not mistaken, are like most active kind of around dusk and around dawn is when they're hopping around most. And it's at those moments where we see the moon come out and this sort of like in between moment of breath that is just like, I'm thinking about that when you're talking about delirium and the sort of peace of being neither here nor there and just like existing in the sort of limitless of the nothingness and the limitlessness and the abundance of all of that. Yeah, it's, there's, I think, I can't wait to see how that continues to affect like these next steps for you and finding peace. I think we had to sort of make a lot of peace with isolation recently. And so now that we're no longer quite so isolated, one of the positive things that I was trying to bring out of quarantine and isolation was access to peace and being able to manufacture and make space for peace whenever I need it. So I hope that that is something that you can receive in a way that feels not limited to you and as we move forward into reopening. Thank you. Yeah, of course. Thank you so much for doing this with me. It was such a pleasure to hang out with you. I feel like pulling this on it is like just telling me that I'm gonna be giving you an abundance of will in myself. And so I can't wait for us to be connected now and you'll never get rid of me. Oh, I love that. Yay. Thank you for having me. This is wonderful. I totally needed this. And thanks to folks for showing up and being here and holding space. Yes, absolutely. Thank you so much for being here and I can't wait to see you soon. See you. Bye. Bye. Friends, thank you all so much. This has been an absolute delight. Thank you to the Island Shakespeare Festival and HowlRound Theater Commons. They are our co-producers. If you enjoyed your experience today, please feel free to, you know, share it on social media, tell a friend. We have another episode exactly two weeks today, two weeks from tonight, at the same time with writer and director Robert O'Hara who was just Tony nominated for his Broadway debut directing Slave Play. I can't wait for that conversation. And if you can't get enough of this content, we also just released a podcast earlier this month. So we just dropped our sixth episode today. We sort of went back to the beginning of our experiment that we started in September and we have been feeding you a little bit of all those old conversations. There's also some exclusive content that is available only via the podcast. So if you are interested in revisiting any of those conversations that you may have been here for, I hope you enjoy the extra little presence that we've got for you all. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Please get masked or get vexed or, you know, both. That's fine too. And until the next time, please take care of yourself. Give another huge round of applause to our interpreter, Brad, who kept up with me in your hand. I'm talking a mile a minute, but that's what he's best at. Thank you so much. Sweet dreams.