What a surreal, thought-provoking, and bewitching reading experience this was. Between the academic articles interwoven, insane worldbuilding (teehee) with sentient places revolving around values of fluidity, change, and creativity, the lyrical and at times philosophical prose, and just all the mini thought experiments the magic system and plot presented, this book felt like it was made for me (and perhaps a love letter to Gemini's in general). The tension between individuality and community, independence and interdependence, authenticity and belonging, escapism and presence, imagination and reality, man oh man was a masterclass in showing not telling your reader themes of importance. It was trippy as hell and certainly a slow burn, I can't give it a perfect 5 because I felt like the second and third acts' volume could have been readjusted. I don't know how I feel yet about the ending, but that almost doesn't matter, because the journey in and of itself was so captivating and rewarding:

“Esi's legacy of madness is not just whales or museums. It runs deeper and gentler. It is in us. Which one of us has not looked over our shoulder for instincts we cannot explain? Who has not sought things that cannot be grasped? Who has not lost their head, or thrown caution to the wind, or jumped off heights that could kill us? Scrubbed off versions of ourselves so we may be born anew, so we may be once again unfamiliar? We reach, over and over, for that which is outside of understanding. It is why we travel to the Vortex of Noma and peer into its depths. Why we read stories on the whale. Why we tap our tragus and wander the corridors of the museum of collective memory, searching for those parts of ourselves that are vast and invisible and yet always present. We have our own small version of madness, and we cradle it close. It is what makes life worth living,” (422).

This book has completely revitalized and revolutionized my tarot practice. Gone are the days of predictive and prescriptive form fitting with binary-bound symbolism. Unironically my sort of "bible" for my daily pulls, thank you Charlie!!!

"Tarot is radical and revolutionary because it introduces us to ourselves by reconnecting us to emotion and intuition and empowering us to self-direct our lives. It invites us to examine our beliefs and values, and it opens our awareness to new perspectives. It cultivates a marginal consciousness where we can consider things slantwise and from many directions, a queer vantage from which new possibilities, new portals, new realities can emerge. Across its history, tarot has refused to be pinned down and codified into just one thing, not in iconography or archetype, correspondence or magical system. Like nature, like thought, like water, it adapts and slithers. It moves and becomes anew," (247).

It was quite a journey moving through this book, but the second half was very redemptive and encouraging for me (as an MSW student). I did not like the random chapters solely on the author's life (outside of her own therapy sessions), as they took me out of the flow and felt disjointed. But I absolutely loved the clients' journeys, including the therapist's in her sessions, and was left feeling just as enthralled by the therapeutic process as I was when I first applied to grad school.