Seven of Cups—the challenge of choice; with a bounty of imagination can come choice paralysis; eventually you’ve got to choose something or be stuck in imagination land forever
“The Seven of Cups is a reminder that we can learn to harness the power of our imaginations, and notice if there is some choice involved in what’s being imagined.”—Jessica Dore, Tarot for Change
Updates from the Captain’s (b)Log
reflections on doing meaningful work with a rogueishly piratical refusal to accept the status quo
Oh, hello again, Seven of Cups, my old friend. Fancy meeting you here, on the other side of a busy couple months of conference going that is now wrapped up.
I’m writing this edition in the airport as I wait for some friends to arrive for a week of catching up, mountain hiking, hot springs soaking, baby meeting, and Wicker viewing.
You may or may not know that I love me an airport. I love their liminal space potential. Everyone’s here for a purpose, but for most, it’s not their final destination to achieve that purpose. It somehow “makes sense” to pay this much for a bottle of water or a mediocre salad. Everyone walking by has a story sitting right at the surface.
So to pull the Seven of Cups—again—in a place full of so many imagined stories and distant possibilities makes a ton of sense to me.
It’s also making sense as I head toward my annual end-of-year transitional reflective period as the clocks have changed and the dark is setting in.
I’ve been encouraging those possibilities with colleagues across the museum sector in the last month, both at the Museum Computer Network and New England Museum Association conferences.
I led a workshop teaching mindsets to live better with uncertainty (thanks for the shout out, Joe!), which resulted in some lovely reflections and appreciations for the small things around us.
Over the course of an hour and a half, we went from this initial word cloud:
to these lovely take-aways that participants brought home to share with colleagues:
💡 Not everything will have only one unchanging answer and we can play around to figure out what to do
💡 Have collaborative conversations to help work through problems or workshop new ideas—you might have solutions you wouldn’t think of on your own!
💡 Play and experimentation can be a tool to work through uncertainty—and even if it feels uncomfortable at first it can help decrease panic and builds a bit more resilience in the face of some uncomfortable challenges.
💡 Uncertainty is inevitable. The initial panic is normal and you need to allow yourself to feel it. After that, get creative and come up with a solution, even if it isn’t perfect.
All by way of some intentionally destabilizing, low-stakes uncertainty scenarios I put people in that provided them helpful mindsets and also some fun.
I also did my favorite thing to do at conferences: interstitial shenanigans.
One of those was the Uncertainty Oracle exercise. I’ll explain it below. But in addition to that, I did what I always do at conferences and brought my tarot cards. I’ll happily pull a card in answer to a question for anyone who’s interested.
If you’re tarot-curious, there was a lot of BMWE (Big Museum Worker Energy) in the air this fall. I pulled Temperance, The World, The Tower (twice), the King and the Knight of Cups, Queen of Wands… people were having some Major Feelings.
If you’re not tarot-curious, the tl;dr version is that I pulled a lot of cards that suggest archetypes with a lot of power, agency, and energy about them.
At any rate, all these interstitial shenanigans led to some beautiful, emotional conversations, a lot of stories of the uncertainty in many lives right now, and some heartfelt thank yous for my helping folks find some guideposts through that uncertainty.
All of which is to say that it feels good and right that I’ve found this uncertainty coaching work as the way to frame the ways I can help people. So instead of this pull of Seven of Cups reminding me that I often have trouble picking one of my possible options and moving forward, it’s reaffirming that I’m using my imagination toward helping people in a way that’s uniquely me.
I’ve created a slew of ways to help people live better with the inevitable uncertainties of life. That’s both for individuals, of course, and also to help the good people working in cultural organizations feel like they can stay working in those organizations without burning out, rage quitting, or leaving the field entirely.
The Wayfinder for Orgs page is still being tweaked, but it’s up and running, and I’d love to come offer it to your org if it would help you and your team.
Dispatches from the Helm
a recent concrete highlight from my work that can hopefully help you in yours
In true pirate fashion, I like coming up with non-session based ways of inviting interaction with others at conferences. The tarot cards is one way of doing that. I’ve also created reflected, inspirational spaces for quiet introspection.
This time, I created the Uncertainty Oracle and with the help of a handmade handy dandy old-fashioned cootie catcher, gave out cards for folks to take home to give them some help through uncertain moments. Depending on the emotion and the numbers you pick, you might walk away with an ACTION, a MANTRA, a QUOTE, or a RESOURCE.
The amount of joy on people’s faces when I pulled out a paper fortune teller was truly delightful. And never underestimate the power of a little gift to surprise and touch folks. I love orchestrating little moments like that, and I love designing beautiful, tangible tools that give people a helpful suggestion that they might really need.
This was a l’il Slack thread where some folks were sharing their reviews.
Am I working out a way to vibe code an online version of this? Maaaaaaybe…. 😉
But really the magic of it was in the conversation it generated and hearing how folks reacted so well to a little guidance in turbulent times.
One of the central ideas in all my uncertainty coaching work is that we can actually cultivate and train the mindsets we need to see uncertainty more as a realm of possibility than a frightening whirlpool. These little cards and sharing them in such a playful way
Flotsam & Jetsam
one random bit of fun (could be pics of Lila the dog, a recent podcast fun fact, a bit from one of my many strange areas of nerdy interest, or something else)
At the end of the MCN conference, while trooping to a Seattle bar full of pinball machines and delicious made-to-order pizza, I exchanged $1 for Xorbo to tell me my fortune. And it was worth every cent.
Top tip: when you see random opportunities for oddness, take them. They can sometimes end up being quite profound. And if they’re not, they’ll still be memorable.
In this category, see also the early morning visit I made to Enders Island in CT, which I went to on the Atlas Obscura recommendation to see the arm of St Edmund of Canterbury. Because of course I’m fascinated by saints’ reliquaries.
But in addition, it turned out to be a gorgeous, serene location for retreats and sacred art courses that I’m earnestly considering returning to. I want to learn how to make stained glass windows or illuminate manuscripts! Especially in such beautiful surroundings
Not a bad way to spend the morning after a hopeful sea change of a midterm election in the USA. 🌊💙
Small Treasures
a resource recommendation or creative prompt for you
I’ve got a fiction recommendation for you this month. While I’ve enjoyed everything Natasha Pulley has written, her newest novel, The Salt King, was a fabulous, moving, wrily funny exploration of how belief can change reality and how people might live through apocalyptic times without losing themselves in despair and hopelessness.
Peer Pitch
space to recommend someone else’s thing—maybe yours
This month I’m shouting out a lovely project from an online business buddy, Amanda Laird.
✨ 🎧💎 It’s Never Just Marketing
(a podcast & digital zine) ✨ 🎧💎
If you can just ask chat for a marketing strategy then why does it still feel so damn hard? Money stuff, AI, astrology, chronic illness… it all shapes how you show up for and in your small business. It’s Never Just Marketing is a podcast series about the stuff that doesn’t sound like marketing but absolutely affects your visibility and growth. Listen to each episode then dive into the digital companion zine for reflections, resources and tools you can put to use right away.
On the Horizon
something coming up next for me that I’m excited to share with you
I’m looking forward to some time in the Colorado mountains that I miss. I’ll be coming down from the whirlwind of conference-going, as well as following up with the lovely folks I chatted with over the last few weeks. And I’ll be doing it in one of my favorite of the US states.
I can’t wait to get in the rental car and get out there.
I write these updates using Ellipsus, an online platform for collaborative writing. They’ve got a feature that lets you share the revision history of your writing, so here’s this issue’s documentation of my non-AI writing process.
