naked and stunned at the end of the world

Welcome, friends and comrades!

Getting sick can shock us awake. naked and stunned at the end of the world explores the strain chronic illness puts on our bodies and minds, cultural institutions and collective beliefs — and the light that gets in through the cracks when we are forced to pause and reevaluate what was never working in the first place.

Every couple of weeks — health allowing — you’ll receive a brand-new newsletter in your inbox. You also have access to the full archive on Substack. Here are a few of my most popular posts to get you started.

On chronic illness and survival:

• Suffering is bullsh*t. Initiation experiences and transformation against the backdrop of a world on fire.

• A trip to IKEA destroyed my life, or, #millionsmissing and the moral corruption of normalcy. “I think you need to send that feedback to IKEA.”

• Desire has entered the chronic illness group chat. A princess in an urban tower, a curious tale about salad greens, and other Uses of the Erotic: Musings on the universal and ambivalent state of wanting.

• Anything can happen any time. Surgery as surrender, subtle impermanence and the dizzy, galvanizing possibilities of radical uncertainty

• Fortress, garden, sonnet, womb: Rereading the eight of swords. On working skillfully with constraint—or trying to.

• The Empress in the Underworld: Pacing as devotional practice in a fractal, living world. On chronic illness, tarot archetypes, and the weirdness and wildness of the ecosystems of our bodies

On gender, sexuality, queerness, and politics:

• The online Crucible: Who gets to have a byline and who has to get burned

  Writing as witchcraft, online abuse, and the power, pleasure and danger of a byline.

• Queer joy is stronger than the f*ckery of American fascism. On the party as a political strategy, why Jean-Paul Sartre doesn't want you to feed the trolls, and why I think we can win. (With a bonus story of how I was outed in the paper at the tender age of 16.)

• If my gender falls in the forest, and only Judith Butler is there to hear it, does it make a sound? On playing in the masc end of the sandbox, Lana Del Rey’s problematic femme genius, and gender feeling performative.

And who am I? A queer writer, mystic, and troublemaker living on the eastern seaboard of the US. When I’m not writing about the disruptive, devastating, and revolutionary impact of chronic illness on individuals and the collective, I love to nerd out about gender and identity, astrology and the tarot, literature, culture, kink, and mindfulness practice. My cat, Thisbe, wears the pants in the family.

Our growing community is thoughtful, creative, and supportive. If you’d like, please say hi and introduce yourself the comments!

Solidarity is everything—we’re more powerful together. Thanks again for being here.

My post Suffering is Bullshit was chosen as a Featured Post on SmallStack, a library of hand-picked content from writers, creators, and artists operating under the radar with fewer than 1,000 subscribers.