Decolonizing Tarot w/Christopher Marmolejo

Tarot isn’t just a mirror for your personal life. It can also be a language for breaking the spell of colonized thinking.

We sit down with Christopher Marmolejo, author of The Red Tarot, to talk about divination as a “literacy of liberation” and what it looks like to read the cards through a queer, trans, decolonial lens. We get honest about how colonization trains us to treat certain kinds of knowledge as “real” and dismiss spirit, ancestors, ritual, and psychic experience as irrational. We also connect this to the Missing Witches Reparations Fundraiser and why reparations are about repair, not charity.

From there, we make it practical. We explore what “colonized” interpretations can sound like in tarot, especially around gender, relationships, and the pressure to predict one correct future. Christopher reframes the Twos in the minor arcana, showing how the Two of Cups can hold fluid identity and two-spirit resonance, how the Two of Swords can reveal dissociation and silence born from trauma, and how the Two of Pentacles can invite you to learn by experience instead of following a rigid map.

We close with a grounding reminder: we don’t know what we don’t know, and staying curious keeps the spirit from getting exhausted. If this conversation helps you spot a blind spot or name a block, share it with a friend, subscribe, and leave a review so more listeners can find Belief Being and Beyond.

Transcript

Welcome Back And Reparations Fundraiser

GDC 0:01

Welcome to Belief Being and Beyond with your host, Granddaughter Crow. Hi, everybody, Granddaughter Crow here for yet another episode of Belief Being and Beyond. And this time I got to bring somebody back. Now it has been too long. I met Christopher Marmalejo, also the author of The Red Tarot. Oh, amazing.com, red R-E-D, read R-E-A-D.co.com. Do you guys know? So anyway, I met Christopher Marmolejo under the Missing Witches Reparation Fundraiser back in 2024. And I was like, can I adopt you? And was like, come on the podcast, come on the podcast. Since then, um, we have done a number of different things. Uh, we were at a poetry slam that we did online, which was really, really cool. Um, and now we're back, Missing Witches Reparation Fundraiser, sixth annual, check it out, www.missingwitches.com, reparations fundraiser. So basically, if you want to know all the info, all I know is if you donate to if you donate to an Indigenous woman's facility, you can find out all of them that qualify. Ten dollars, at least ten dollars in increments of ten dollars, you get to be put into the fundraiser where you have a lot of wonderful gifts and prizes. It's not a donation, it's a reparation. Keep that in mind. So, Christopher and I were both on the panel to kick off the sixth annual reparations fundraiser. And of course, I was like, come back on the show. I miss you.

Who Christopher Is And Why It Matters

GDC 2:12

So let me give you a formal intro of who Christopher Marmalejo is, if you haven't, if you don't know already. So Christopher Marmalejo, M A is a brown queer and trans writer, diviner, and educator, which I love, right? They use divination to promote a literacy of liberation. Yeah, divination to promote a literacy of liberation. We're gonna be talking about that with nine plus years of experience as a trained educator focused on cultivating classrooms of emancipatory possibilities. They work with students around the world to plant and nurture the seeds of a divinatory practice, finally weaving tarot astrology and conrismo with critical, decolonialized black, queer, feminist epistemology. You guys, let's bring Christopher on the show. Christopher!

Christopher 3:25

Thank you so much for having me. Oh my gosh, it's so great to be back on. Oh my goodness, to kick off the 2026 Reparations Fundraiser together and then to just keep the party rolling because I'm so excited for what you've got coming out with GDC. Congrats on the new book. Oh my goodness. I was so happy to see you at now, now we're all pubmates. You know what I mean? At North Atlantic. Now we're all label mates, as I like to say, with the Missing Witches. And so um, I feel so honored to just be to share in the glow of this recent birth that you've given. My goodness.

GDC 4:04

So if you guys don't know, Granddaughter Pro just released a book. It's called Hoshan. And it is, I just happen to have a copyright here. It is a native. What is this?

Christopher 4:20

Just went right to native a Navajo.

GDC 4:24

It's a Navajo Nation Medicine Woman's exploration of the four bodies of existence for balance and self-reclamation by granddaughter crow. It's kind of a mouthful and beautiful all at the same time. And you know, with the reparations fundraiser, it's really beautiful because they bring a lot of different people on and we do panels. That's where I met you. And I want to kind of continue our conversations around what does that look like as a BIPOC, as you know, uh a beautiful person moving in the direction of bringing like decolonial, like deconstructing the colonialized language thought process in order and doing it with divination. Okay, so the last time I had you on the show, I was like, You're brilliant. I'm a Gen X. I don't have the words around these conversations that we're starting to have with you know, the red body, the brown body. I don't, I haven't had those internal conversations, and that was two years ago. So I've had some internal conversations now. And I published a book.

Christopher 5:42

Yes. Mine is in the mail.

GDC 5:45

Yours is in the mail. Um, but you know, the beauty is that I'm starting to, I want to come back to the table and say, wow, you are still doing the work, still moving out there with using divination in order to help us to investigate um this like breakdown of colonization. This is above my pay grade. Can you tell me what I'm saying in English?

Christopher 6:29

I'm like, I mean, my you know, my bio certainly is a mouth. I try to fit it all, fit it all in there. And if you read, if you read the text, you know, it's it's kind of always bursting at the seams.

Colonization As A Way Of Knowing

Christopher 6:39

Um I mean, absolutely, you know, I like colonization, of course, so fundamental to it is this rational Western worldview that centers this male-centric way of knowing the world and encountering the world, which is about domination. It's not just male-centric, it it's it makes the male patriarchal, which also then deems anything that is in tune with spirit, with nature, with the four directions, with ancestors, with altered states of consciousness, with ritual, um, as demonic or crazy, or you know, it's or something to be eradicated, something to be denied, right? And so um divination in terms of one, I as I like to say, I use the tarot as a spiritual prosthetic, you know, to mend the ruptures. Like I'm gonna take this, you know, the history of tarot has is disputed or whatnot, but like, you know, generally originating like in Europe, right? Um, I'm gonna take this and and take it for myself, you know, and and use this language to throw a red lens on it and and use it to talk back and also interrupt um patriarchal ways of manifest destiny, of just, you know, like the Western imperialism is territorially acquisitive and perpetuity, as we know. That means that um colonization and imperialism is not a one-and-done event. And so that's where issues with like post-colonialism, and I'm like, we're not post-colonial, obviously, yet, right? We're like, we need to be decolonial before we get to the post-colonial. But um, but that there is this sense of destiny that has been our prophecy, I mean, presidents having astrologers, like the ways that divination has get gets used to um reify a capitalist project that is around self-help, that is ableist, that orients the ideal future to be white, property, and male, where a queer decolonial counter-prophecy is an interruption, inviting multiple voices into the space, um, envisioning multiple possibilities, and honoring the fact that we can both be very literate and learned and like with masters and PhDs or not, you know, to be poets um or any type of like serious theorist and at the same time really psychic. You know, I think sometimes people delimit divination to a self-reflective, self-reflexive practice, which is great, but also um are still wary because they're so um focused on like institutional validity of their intelligence that they're like, oh no, like you were in someone's dream last night. Oh no, your grandmother came to you in your dream last night, or oh, I did see this in the cards for you. You know, like they limit that sixth sense or those extra sensory abilities. And I'm like, you know, we can hold space for both. So that was a lot. I'll stop there. Um I'm worried about it.

GDC 10:05

I need to be the first member because I am game on Christopher Marmalet.

Christopher 10:11

Well, we are we're in here, we're in a community, you know this, and so at any point, yeah, I'm you know. I love to spread the message, you know, as I can.

GDC 10:22

You know what I think is so beautiful is that you eloquently lay it down in a sophisticated way that uh a you know, a white doctor male body would be like, so you have intellectual abilities, you use five dollar words, so you have a way of being able to translate and to talk to them on behalf of us, the ones who are like, I'm Gen X, I've been a red body all my life. Now I'm finally proud of it, now I'm finally coming to the table. Now, who can put words in my mouth? How can I how can I think these things unto myself and where are the blocks? And it's kind of like recognizing where our thinking patterns and our um objectives are in a colonialized world, and pointing out where those walls are and breaking them down so that we get to be ourselves.

Christopher 11:30

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Right. I mean, the D, you know, the D part of the decolonial is that is again the emphasis of the deconstruction. I mean, so much of the work of decolonization is to um work out of the rubble. You know. Oh and tower card rubble or very tower card, very, very that, yes, very that. You know, that is a uh such a such a card, the card, like premiere of decolonization, right? Um 1000%. I mean, I d and in turns in towards the language and the in the and the language use, you know, I just remember learning in school when these um agreements, when the when the signing over of language was made, like when these white men came to to the to the natives and created a contract, created all of this legislature in language that they did not speak. Right. And I remember learning that in school, and I was just like I was just like, like I couldn't keep reading. Like I was just like, hold on, everyone, like let's just stop right there because it was so insane to me that that would be a valid piece of like a valid thing to hold up in court. Like, you know what I mean? Like that anyone could cosign that as being valid. That there was no translator needed. It's just like here, sign this and some you don't know what that's saying. And so, you know, now where there's of course various modes of decolonization and of course various the plurality of what it means to be read um is complicated, of course, but um those like you know, like those who are like there should be lawyers who have like native lawyers in those spaces in these in making treaties or legislature agreements or reparations or what have you um who know how to talk the language and talk back. And that's just the his like the lineage, I would say, not lawyers, but that I exist within in terms of being in certain in those spaces, you know, of being tokenized in a way, but also like not assimilating, though my my my tongue may sound however it may sound to anyone.

GDC 13:47

Beautiful and it's intelligent. Jenny, what do you think about all of I mean dynamic, right? It's like forerunner, it's the Robin Hood of you, you Christopher, a Robin Hood, um Robotin Robin Hood S of being able to study what they say and do as the colonizers utilize that language to help them to deconstruct as well as us.

Decolonizing Classrooms And Literacy

GDC 14:23

So we have the lit witch here, Ginny Seabell. She also literature, also educator. How is this landing with you, Ginny?

Jenny 14:34

Um, it's landing beautifully with me. As you know, I studied Native American literature, and so it's and I and I also studied lesbians of color in literature. And I feel like when I was an English teacher, I taught mostly kids of color, and it's just where I landed in the school district, and I just could not in good faith teach to the textbook. So I was pulling in all of this stuff that where they would feel represented, written by people that looked like them, that had ancestry like them, and it was amazing because kids would say, like, oh, I've never like finished a book before, you know? And it's like, yeah, we're finishing it because it's bless me ultima, and it's got all of this beautiful culture, and we can talk about your culture in a classroom honors class, and you can feel seen. And I so I think like when we talk about decolonization, a lot of like white people will say, Um, well, what do you want us to do? Like, tell us what to do, educate us. But what they don't understand is it's their job, it's each one of our jobs to become decolonized. And I say that all the time. Like, it is we are all colonized, our minds, our bodies, like we're in the patriarchy, and it's in every aspect of our lives, it's that deep. People like down to the pink tacks, like every part of our day-to-day life, especially in the United States, and it's our jobs to like pull ourselves out of that and start to get educated, to start to understand, like, oh, that's how deep that history goes. Oh, they they didn't actually speak the language and they signed the contract. Like, people need to know this stuff, and that's on all of us because the more educated we get, the we actually start the process of like the rubble of you know, deconstructing, like you're saying. And so I love that. I love that you're saying it's you know, it's it's uh it's us, it's like all of us, and we need to, you know, start this process. I think that's beautiful.

Christopher 16:40

Thank you. Yeah, I mean, I I what grade did you teach um or grades as an English teacher? I mean, yeah, we both were well former English teachers.

Jenny 16:49

Yeah, I taught uh middle school and high school, and I did this thing called Avid, which is for kids that want to go to college, and I pulled the Freedom Writers and I followed the same kids from seventh to twelfth grade.

Christopher 17:01

Wow, amazing. Oh, amazing. Oh, I love the children. I love the children. I miss them. I mean, I miss being able to work with them directly in that way. So maybe I'll share at some point in the career overturn. But anyhow. Um I mean, also the attack, just like declining rates of literacy always. I mean, what's happened with the education department? I think the uh the person, my own personal path that led me out of the formal classroom and to becoming independent, and um, you know, where I'm at now is divine grace in a lot of ways. Um, and so conversations are just like the education is needed, that's where I feel particularly called, and also doing kind of like um traumatic counseling, post-traumatic counseling with my clients and whatnot. And so yeah.

GDC 17:55

I love that, and I always admire your stance. I really, really always admire your stance. Um, because I'm with you, I just don't have the words because I'm older, but then there's this inner child within me that's like, you guys can be my teacher if you miss students. All I'm eight years old, like, how do I avoid this colonizational thought process? Because I think that there was a good point that was brought up by both of you, and that's even in my red body, I still think in ways that are oppressed and everything, and I don't even see it.

Spotting Colonized Thinking In Ourselves

GDC 18:43

So, could you give like an example of what would be colonized thinking, patriarchal thinking, and how can we move through that through divination, especially the tarot? Guys, pick up the red tarot, Christopher Marmalejo.

Christopher 19:02

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Hopefully, more works being birthed and the seeds are growing and planting, um, of course. So much, I mean, on on instance, I mean just like this notion of the gender binary, I think, is a colonized form of thinking of um a hetero way of thinking, cis heteroism, you know, like that is a colonized, that is a colonized um understanding of the world and understanding of bodies and beings and attraction and desire and sexuality, all of that. That is primary. Um I've got native kin, you know, like who again, and also younger generations. Like I think so. What you're naming about like a generational divide. Um I drew I drew a card today and it was a hierophant, but it's you know, um, the young can't teach the elders tradition. Right? Like it's that's on the elders, that's on the elders to pass down tradition. The young cannot teach that. There are things that we we can break and again um interrupt certain traditions that need to be more made more accessible and like um held accountable for ways that they are perhaps reproducing systems of oppression. But I think that's just in terms of the way that I move through the world, like one of the most preeminent ways of experiencing colonization, even um f like a body and a subjectivity does not, or like a certain position, yeah, does not abscond one of reproducing harm or like having internalized forms of domination within them. And I think that's where critiques of identity policy politics have come into play over the past several years. I think we're definitely in a different moment now with the second Trump presidency and everything where it's just so exacerbated and like so wild, you know, to just to see everything. But um so I would say like absolutely. I mean, there's there's that aspect of like that's a mode where the internalization of colonization is evident in so many generations.

GDC 21:14

100%. And you know, you just brought up a perfect example of binary, non-binary. Talk to us about the tarot in the minor arcana and the two of cups, the two of swords, the two of pentacles, in a more of a decolonized way of looking at that. Because in a colonized way, I'm like, oh, you're going to meet a partner. And they, you know, and and and since you're this body, then they probably are that body, you know? And and it's kind of like, wait, that might be colonization. When we're looking at binary, non-binary. So talk to us about the two of cups, swords, take your pick, whichever suits you.

Reading The Twos Beyond The Binary

Christopher 22:11

I love. I mean, yeah, the twos. I mean, well, absolutely, you know, the two of cups, for sure, I will say, I and this has actually come through with a friend in navigating my own gender experience. I mean, such a card of two-spiritness, you know, of being inhabiting a fluid expression and experience of gender and harmonizing aspects of like the left and the right, like the inner and the outer, whatever spectrum between masculine and feminine exists within one body. You know, being able to like bring those beings into harmony, and then also it's like when you come in, when I'm when I seek a relationship, it's like we enter, you're you're getting two sometimes, you know. Um, Isaiah Rashad and uh um a rapper just released uh the new album, It's Been Awful. And I love Isaiah Rashad, and on one of the songs, he's honoring like Prince and Um A Girl in Red, I think is the title. But you know, he's like, I'll be your boyfriend, but and if that doesn't work, then I'll be your girlfriend, you know, like Prince's, I want to be, I wanna uh let me be your girlfriend, you know, and and that kind of energy. Um and so I think there's such that fluidity in the Two of Cups, and again, like being able to look at yourself in the mirror and feel affirmed and also switch. I think the Two of Swords is such a card of splitting, emotional splitting, it's such a card of trauma, um, of being told to be silent and to dissociate. Like it's the beginning of a it's a such an early card of dissociation. Um, such often a card also that can indicate child abuse, um, which was rather through neglect, through emotional neglect, which creates lies and dishonesty and leads to the three of swords and on, right? The two of pentacles, I think, um is a very interesting card. I do see that card is like seeing with your feet, you know, mapping the territory with your feet. Um, this experience, like this, rather than preconceived, here's a map of the world, or of what it means to be in a relationship. Here's what it means to have like you're just gendered right off the bat, right? Or you're in this like this compulsive heterosexuality, where perhaps the Two of Pentacles is like maybe you kiss a boy, maybe you kiss a girl, maybe you kiss a trans doll, you know, maybe you kiss a non-binary, like maybe you go and have your experiences and let those experiences inform your attraction and your movement and your own expression. Like it's like a call and a response. It's like a very rhythmic seeing with your feet again, type of like navigating the environment rather than outward shown in like this is go this path. It's more of like, I'm called over here, and then like I'm called over there, you know. Um it also for whatever reason is coming in the moment, feels to me like also a drag card where um by day, you know, you may have this one presentation, and by night, you know, you have you you're flipping the script and you and you're just like the fiercest drag queen on stage. So yeah.

Modern Decks And Indigenous Created Tarot

Jenny 25:16

Can do you have some modern tarot that you love or recommend? Because there are some new, like really cool um decks out there on the market that are not like so traditional that would actually help people lean in a little more to your like more open interpretations. Do you have any recommendations?

Christopher 25:34

Oh my gosh, there's so many. I mean, I will say my friends just got me like um there's a drag queen oracle deck that's really new. I would say also the sex positive tarot, um, I believe is still running on Kickstarter for the next print of that deck, which is a really great, like they reorient the suits to be around like consent and like total fluid expression and all these things. Um the Fyodor Pavlov Tarot, I know has been one that has been popular. Um it went to like a more mass publisher a couple years ago, and that's a really great deck for showing the lovers as trans bodies, like two trans lovers in that deck. Um, very queer. Um I think lineages of change, tarot, of course, like brings in Octavia Butler, like more black futurist images and like thinking and ideas, but still the the way that the images are in that in that deck is is not like gender essentialist at all. Um so those are certain just a few off the top, off the top of the deal. What about you? Are there any that you've been working with that are yeah?

Jenny 26:40

We well, we were talking before we had you on about um how we I was trying to think if there has ever been other native or indigenous created decks besides the two Jamie Sam's. And I have both of Jamie Sam's. They're Oracle, they're not tarot, um, they're amazing for people that are not familiar. Like, she's great. But we were talking ahead of time and we're like, oh, we should ask. Like, do you know? Because I don't know, and I'd love to know more.

Christopher 27:08

Well, there's also um the Tero Yohoal Ekal Um by Mi Corazon Mexica, and so that's um like from Anahua Mesoamerican Native View, like creator. It's an amazing deck. Um, and their art, they they're an artist, they are constantly putting out art around like filling in the space for for queer Mesoamerican, like native um histories, right? And like that deck, I would say, is probably the the deck that I can think of that is like as you're naming, right?

Jenny 27:47

Um have you seen I use the Fifth Spirit Tarot by Charlie Claire Burgess. I like that one a lot. It's very like open and it's all bodies and all types of people.

Christopher 27:58

My students, um, one of my students really works with that deck a lot, so I see it through through them. Yeah, definitely. Yeah.

GDC 28:05

I love it. You guys pick up the red tarot. We got a little bit of a glimpse with just the two of cups. And if you felt that that was empowering to you, there's so much more. I mean, there's 78 cards. Come on, you know 30. I mean, it's just so brilliant because sometimes, just like what Jenny said, it is independently our responsibility to show up and educate ourselves, whether it's a white body, uh, you know, whatever, and and come to the table. And I keep trying to come to the table and I'm like, how where are my blocks? I think that that's honestly the vulnerability of being able to come to a table, have these types of discussions, which are forward thinking, forerunner, like like interruption, like you said, you know, that's it's it's interrupting the program. It's the one of the scariest things to do is to come in and go, what if I say something that totally is stupid? Or what if I say something that is uh ignorant? Or and and I think that that's why one your book right now is so vitally important and continues to be important, because then from the sanctity of uh a person's home, they will begin to understand where their personal blocks are and at least be able to come to the table and go, I'm starting to see my blocks. What other blocks are there? And that's where the conversation begins. And it begins with the artists, it begins with the educators, it begins with the creators, and we are vitally important because when we are looking at the program, the uh you know, whatever you want to call it, the dark lord, the whatever you want to call the system that we're in, and and we try to come against it, but it's so ingrained in everything that we do. So, how do we counteract that? And it's like self-empowerment, self-exploration, and get yourself among creators, people. And if you don't have a question, find somebody to ask or text the show, we'll ask it for you.

Christopher 30:38

Yes.

GDC 30:40

So, what do you think about that, Christopher? I mean, the ability to that that's one of the things that continuously goes through my mind is man, you're breaking down with words uh things that I want to say, but I haven't articulated within myself. I want to come to the table, I want to make have these dialogues, but I don't know where to begin. Your book helps me to find some language and some lenses or perspective so that I can start seeing instead of memorizing and reprogramming, so I can start seeing the different perspectives in all of that. I don't know if there's a question in that, but I'm I I so am honored by that.

Christopher 31:25

I mean, I think that's for me the experience of reading. When I read Bell Hooks, when I read Our Prisons Obsolete, it was just like, you know, Angela Davis, like when uh reading Jose S. Bon Munoz, like reading, reading does this thing where it helps you which exactly what you're naming. You know, there is a sense of catharsis of expression and clarity of thought that is found when someone does do the work to and and writing is hard work. I mean, writing and editing, we all know, you know, it is a long, arduous process. It takes so much time and there's so much self-critique and external critique. You know, I already anticipated some external critique and um at the same time just committing to the vision. So I think it's uh such a blessing, and I'm so honored for that feedback that that's your experience. I think um it's also you're also so modeling and teaching for people in whatever age, but especially perhaps some uh like Gen Xers, you know, like the non-defensiveness, like not approaching this as if you're being attacked by being willing to be um teachable, to understand that there's some things that maybe need to change, or also there's there's just gaps. Like we don't know what we don't know. And that's just the that's just how it goes. I mean, I think that's a part of the call for those of us who are interested in divination in the occult in tarot, is like the biggest question, what's happening after death, or like on the other like you know, there's all like this this way of um authorizing ourselves to know differently than what has been prescribed for us. And at the same time, you know, uh I think I'm just constantly learning. Like I just think I've always never had um I've never thought like I'm like I love to learn. It's just like please teach me, please, you know, help me refine. Or I'm also thinking of like ways things are put in tension and trying to write from in particular like black American diasporic i ideas and theories and practices and histories of of liberation and dealing with um obviously the afterlives of slavery, ongoing forms of slavery, with uh indigenity, with internalized displacement. Right? And where there where there is overlap there and where there's disjuncture there, because both of those communities are like my communities. Um and so and they're not it's not always neat and it's not neatly resolvable, and so so often there's more questions and there's just continuous learning because we're not we're not arrived. We are not, we're still dealing with this paradigm. So that means like clearly um and they're they're actively attacking our histories and our teachings, and like they understand how transgressive and subversive it subversive it is. So much. I mean, so yeah, I'm not sure that that's a nig necessarily an exact answer, but I think just somewhat of a response to some of what you were what you were putting down, you know?

GDC 34:35

Christopher, you clocked it. I've tried I'm trying it on for the and I guess the gin Z. Did that work?

Christopher 34:47

Yeah, the nail.

GDC 34:49

Clocked it. But you know, and I think that that's clocked it. But I think that it's so beautiful because irregardless of what age irregardless of what body education, educate yourself about yourself and about those around you, and remain curious.

Wise Child Energy And Processing Pain

GDC 35:14

I and I've talked to Jenny about this too, is that the older that I get, I sound like I'm an old old woman, don't I? I'm all that older that I get, children. We used to have a landline, you know, analog, you know, I'm before Google, you know, but the older that I get spiritually, the more I'm starting to go, I want to be a wise little girl. And it and it doesn't mean that I actually initially had that idea and that thought. Probably I'm in my mind, the the late the earliest I can remember thinking that is maybe in my 40s, and I realized that I'm heading for you know, 56 now. I'm gonna be going into the Saturn return. What can I do to make it easier than my last one? You know, so I I have all of this energy around it, and then I realized that there comes a time in everyone's life where they get old enough, they have so much, they're full of all of life, that they either they come to the crossroads and they either become a cranky old bitch or woman or man or whatever, or they turn into a wise child. And I had set it in place probably what I can remember, and maybe when I get off the podcast, I'll remember. Oh, wait, I did that when I was 12. You know, I don't know, but it's been a long time coming that I am like, I am not going to turn into a cranky old woman because it's not like it wouldn't be justified. If you would know my life, it could be justified. But I choose not, I choose to show up with all of my wisdom and a curious mind and a playfulness and lack of agenda. Like, come on, guys, let's play ball. And and that is serving me really, really well in being able to keep that open mind, to be able to keep that learning, you know, around uh what is next. I don't know. And you mentioned something earlier about blind spots, like you don't know what you don't know. And the beauty is we all have blind spots, and and that to me is a relief because I'm like, oh, that was in my blind spot. We all have blind spots, but if I were the cranky old woman, I'd be like, Yeah, I went to school and I did all my shadow work last night, and you know, I I would be like that, which really actually shows an exhausted spirit. And I don't want to be an exhausted spirit.

Christopher 38:13

Yeah. Yes, yes. I mean, exactly that. Amen to that. I mean I don't want to be an exhausted spirit either, and things are trying out here, you know. Like you said, like there's plenty of reason for an understanding of why people become bitter. Yes. You know, um trauma is an injury in our capacity to feel, right? And I think doing the cards are a wave of me of like it's like uh like I think of the five of cups, I always call it the bidet of the tarot. You know, the bidet of the tarot. Like I'm like, it's gonna like it's it's helpful to keep you emotionally regular. You know what I mean? Like this uh the this exfoliant that is required to keep I mean the skin supple and soft, the heart supple and soft. Like there's ways that you I've got Venus and Scorpio, I've got a martial Venus, and my mother's an esthetician, so so I've I'll do um like the lasers or not the la like what is it uh microneedling, you know, it looks like she's dragged my face across the street, but it's like it's like the cells regenerate, and I mean there's a level of um having to really experience somatically and increase our tolerance for pain, um, not to suffer um in a violent, sadistic um way, but to realize that like maturity is a not ever having had trauma or something violating happen to you, but in your ability to process the pain. Maturity is in processing the pain. And I love this notion of like the wise little girl. Exactly that. I mean, I think that's exactly you just again, you clocked like nailed it so so beautifully. That is the aim, right? That's the aim, totally.

GDC 40:19

Yeah, and and if we can keep ourselves, or at least for me, keep myself in that position, then I'm able to go process. I'm able to process, like you said, I'm able to five of cups, if you will. You know, I'm able to do that because it's no longer a part of my identity to know it all or to have been there and done that. And it's not a part of my personality to fuck around and find out either. I'll go there better than the other place. But the beauty is that this this childlike wander, this sense of I want to explore, even what Jenny was saying, that it is not a lot of times a white body will say, Well, I insulted you, you explain to me why, and you write me this, and then you tell me why not. Oh, I'm sorry, we erased your history, but oh, you're a big baby, or even just the really nice ones. And they're like, Well, can you tell me what to do next? And I think that they're asking that because they really, really, really, really want to know. They do not want to appropriate, they do want to appreciate, and they're like, What have I been doing wrong? Do I need to apologize? I've had so many white bodies come up to me and apologize for what their people did to my people, and I'm like, How what am I supposed to do with this? Five of Cups, baby, five of cups, gotta flush that up. But at the end of the day, it is, I think, not just the white body, that's a good example of learning. It is all of our bodies, all of ourselves to be able to do some self-exploration when you don't know what to do. You come on, you look at the podcast, you ask the question, then you start educating yourself. And I think that that's absolutely beautiful.

Where To Find Christopher And Learn More

GDC 42:16

Christopher, what where can people find you? I mean, you've got Substack, you've got theredread.com.

Christopher 42:26

Yes, the redread.com for sure is the hub. I will say I moved from Substack um to Beehive. To Beehive. So the redread.beehive.com is the newsletter, but you it's linked on my website, and um you can find it there. But that's where the newsletter lives now. I've migrated, I've migrated. Um, I love the bees, the beehive. Um I have always courses going, but I will say my ongoing, like if you want to learn the the vault, is sort of my evergreen membership, which has it's gonna just keep you right with learning divination from a decolonial perspective, libraries of texts that are centered around divination, decolonization, race, um, and gender and feminism. Amazing text that I Robin Hood away from the institution through through my through my unlocking of the keys, you know, and like taking taking texts, um, live meetings, and and then I'm always like working on a new course. I'm I am always working on a new course. I do love teaching. I feel very again, I think I shared the missing witches like the crone with all the seeds. Like, you mean like there's always just I'm always pregnant. Um I am guest editing the Rebus, um, which is the focus of this issue, which will be out this fall, is the moon. And we are we're getting to new stages with that, and that's very exciting to see what's going to come out there. Um, I'll be at the LA Tarot uh festival, the second, the second annual. Hopefully uh James keeps it going, but I know it's a lot of work, but I'll be there reading cards in LA. So if y'all want to join us there in the month of June. Um and in San Diego for probably the summer limpia, though I don't have a date. I'm thinking it'll probably be in July. Um and so if you want to catch me in person, otherwise you can definitely find me online at the Red Reed wherever you wherever you search that up.

GDC 44:23

I love it. We have a question now that we ask everybody that comes to the podcast.

What Lies Beyond And Closing Notes

GDC 44:31

Ginny, do you want to ask the the question?

Jenny 44:36

Yes. So our final question for everybody is what do you think lies beyond?

Christopher 44:43

An amazing question. Well, damn if I'm not trying to find out, what do I think lies beyond? I I mean, not to be just a total romantic, but what really does keep me going, I mean, in so many ways, is just this beautiful grid of of love. Um I think beyond is so many unknown forms, realizations, manifestations, um, expressions of love. I just I just feel love in so many ways is what is what is beyond, and I think again that really does help me when what is here in the present is often so awful and so horrific. But that meeting of love beyond is um really what fuels me and what what I feel a firm faith in, um, to be to be frank.

GDC 45:42

You heard it here, Christopher Marmaleho. You we need to have you on the show more often.

Christopher 45:49

Yes, please. Not that let's not wait two years next time.

GDC 45:53

I didn't even know. You guys check out theread.com, go pick up the red tarot, check out Missing Witches Reparation Fundraiser. It happens annually, sixth annual Missing Witches Reparation Fundraiser, www.missingwitches.com. It is in the show notes. Uh if you get lost on your way, just remember GranddaughterCrow.com. I've made a page for it so you can go directly to them because remember, it's not a donation, it is a reparation. And please check out everything that they do. Support indigenous, support BIPOC, you know, support them, and sometimes supporting them is educating yourself about how to come to the table and not asking them to educate you. So, with that, thank you so much for once again turning into another episode of Belief Being in Beyond. And I love you guys, Christopher. Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, Jenny. I know you heard it here, guys. Like, subscribe, follow. Love is beyond. So love you guys. See you on the flippity flip.