Cowboy Clairvoyant is a members-only newsletter and series by Autumn Fourkiller featuring dream interpretation, tarot answers, and more ventures into the Beyond. Today, Cowboy Clairvoyant interprets a reader’s dream, answers that reader’s tarot question, and provides a guide for us all about how to use the tarot to choose between two paths. To submit your own dream or question, use our mystical form (okay, it’s just a google form).

Dear Dreamers,

Howdy. How are you? I’m… okay. I think. I’ve gotten really into watching The Ultimatum: Queer Love like three years after everyone else. I had ice cream for dinner. I’m going on a date this weekend. I keep re-reading the first part of Swann’s Way over and over again. My dreams have been pretty bad.

On Thursday, in fact, I went to bed and woke up heaving. It’s been hellishly hot in Oklahoma City, and I’d sweat through my shirt. My whole body was disgustingly wet, a mark left on the sheets from where I’d shed something bodily. In the dark, it looked like blood.

As I knocked into the cats in the hallway on the way to the shower, my eyes squinted, I thought about the Shroud of Turin. What they wrapped Jesus in, maybe. A relic of my Southern Baptist youth. I’d dreamt of awful and terrible things — a baby locked inside a car with her toddler sister, a panting phone call to my mother about something dire, the field across from Aunt Nana’s old house in Baron near the creek that I always thought looked like a perfect place for an alien abduction. Come to think of it, something must have been buried there — something that drew that spirit that lay inside of me towards it, though I was afraid, and I wouldn’t go over alone.

How different I was, an age ago. How the same I remain. Do you find yourself the same? Let’s gaze at the past versions of ourselves, together. Let’s see them clearly.

Sending only good dreams,
Cowboy

Queer Dream Interpretation

So I had this bizarre crossover of a dream wherein my younger teen self had to defend my house from enemy units; in a fusion of Age of Empires and Fire Emblem. Most of my army/family were dead at this point, and there were only a few of us left. So I went outside, armed with dual blades, and recruited a bunch of trick-or-treaters to defend our place. All of a sudden, the enemy attacked us at once, and I was stabbing and straddling some weird robot unit.
– Lua

Dear Lua,

Thank you for the gift of your dream. I did laugh when, in your note to me, you let me know that you were indeed playing Fire Emblem, because yes, it was going to be my first question. Still, now that that’s settled, there is still more to interrogate. I am particularly compelled by your dream-self manifesting as a young teenager. When in our lives feel more perilous than that age? I can only think of a few. This, compounded with your house being attacked by enemy units, well… who wouldn’t be stressed?

This is not to say that this will be the most spiritually enlightening dream you’ll ever have. Sometimes, people ask me if I think all dreams mean something, and what they actually want to ask me is if I really believe all the woo woo bullshit and also, if I am vaccinated. It also seems unwise as a mystic to spread any counter-argument against all dreams springing some Divine well. But that’s what I think makes this work so compelling and, in considering dreams like yours, dear Lua, that are rooted in your clear and present occupations and struggles, the person doing the interpreting can help you clarify your own kind of intuitions about what your dreams might mean, as well as provide a pathway to a clearer kind of psychic growth.

So yes, while this dream means that you’ve been playing a lot of Fire Emblem and are about to move soon and may or may not feel responsible for your family and other people in a way that burdens you in the long term, other dreams may not. They may spring from the ether, from the Beyond. Welcome them in. See what they have to teach you. And hey, keep me updated.

See you on the other side,
CC

A Queer Tarot Reading for the “End” of Summer

My parents intended to name me Autumn because of the autumnal equinox which coincided with my due date. When I arrived a few days early, though, the name stuck. So, technically, I was born on the bridge between the seasons. I complain about the heat, sure, but two exes have gotten me seasonal depression lamps as holiday gifts, and if a body of water is near me I can’t help but get into it, and I prefer not to freeze while doing it. I wanted to call this reading SUMMERTIME SADNESS, but that wasn’t quite right. What I want it to function as is instead a well of clarity for what fall is going to bring us, and its plentiful gifts, even if the entry is rough.

Okay, let’s dive in.

CARD ONE: THE HIEROPHANT, UPRIGHT 

You have it all together. Things are going well. Your pens are lined up, and your post-it notes are at the ready. But how long, realistically, can this last? And how terribly will you flagellate when things don’t stay perfect? Look to older, wiser teachers. They don’t have to be what you expected. The messier the better. Watch what they do and copy it. Then, freestyle, and have fun while doing it.

CARD TWO: THE WORLD, REVERSED

How many times have you sabotaged yourself right before the finish line? Harsh, I know, but we all need to hear it. Instead of burning out from some kind of ill-conceived notion of what something should look like, take time to rest and to shore up your reserves. Give not into inertia, however, no matter how appealing it might look. Balance is not easy, and neither is practice. Luckily, with the clock silenced, something else emerges.

CARD THREE: THE CHARIOT

Willpower will get you everywhere you want to go. Discipline is a gift we give ourselves. Happy Fall, y’all.

Cowboy Clairvoyant’s Post-Script

Listening: The Disintegration Loops by William Basinki, read about my obsession with them in Dream Interpretation for Dummies (my other newsletter). Let God Sort Em Out. Slowed and reverb songs on Youtube.

Watching: As above, so below — The Ultimatum: Queer Love. In an effort to strengthen my limited Spanish skills and honor Kanopy’s monsters and aliens week, The Untamed. Max Miller’s tasting history (when I’m [REDACTED]).

Reading: Women in translation! But also, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron (I’m in a cluster with two of my dearest friends, Helen and Dana)! Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin. The Mobius Book by Catherine Lacey. Ann’s newsletter, always. Like three essays in the Yale Review.

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This time of year, Tabs was always pretty stoked about showing off his summer bod, which as you know, was curvy, Rubenesque and voluptuous.

With this being the official weekend of the summer solstice, this morning I asked Rosie if she had any big plans for summer, and she just stared at me blankly and meowed something under her breath that sounded like “science waits for no one.”

I took that as a “no.”

Marnie’s sure been enjoying these longer summer days. In fact, she insists on waking me up at the crack of dawn so that she can go running with me, and by running I mean sprinting circles around me as I shuffle along…

I believe she thinks that I am her sheep.

Your friendly neighborhood beauty addict,

Karen

Summer always has a magical quality about it, but the summer solstice is especially mystical. It’s more than just an astronomical event; it’s a cultural phenomenon rooted in deep traditions, spanning from paganism to the Neolithic era. The longest day of the year marks the traditional “midsummer,” and for literal centuries and centuries, different cultures have celebrated this day with various rituals. If you’re feeling particularly witchy, the summer solstice is a great time to honor the light inside of you and the light of the sun, to thank it for its nourishment, and to celebrate all it can do — and all you can do.

Because summer solstice is like another beginning. Sure, maybe your kids have already been out for summer, and you’ve already had a million pool days and eaten a million popsicles. Still, this midsummer celebration can really feel like the start of something special. For the Vikings, the summer solstice marked the beginning of a productive summer, with more daylight to accomplish tasks and prepare for the dark winters that lay ahead. For paganism, a ritual of jumping over bonfires during the summer solstice was meant to ward off demons and bring good luck. Much like All Hallows’ Eve, the folklore behind midsummer involves the world seeming to suspend as the supernatural takes over. “[Midsummer was seen as] a time when the normal laws of nature or divinity could be suspended, when spirits and fairies could contact humans, when humans could exceed the usual limitations of their world,” according to University of Bristol professor Ronald Hutton on the National Trust website.

So, if you want to channel some of that bright energy and manifest more of your own light and fairies, try any of these witchy, lovely summer solstice rituals to clear the air for your special season.

No matter how you want to celebrate summer solstice, focusing on your intentions for the year and opening your heart to what’s to come is the most important.

As summer gets underway, Cancer season kicks it off with sensitive, nurturing, and compassionate energy. It’s a time to slow down, feel our feelings, and lean on our nearest and dearest—and we could all certainly use more of that, no matter your zodiac sign.