The Twelfth House

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thetwelfthhouse.substack.comNGL, I was expecting to hear *crickets* when I asked this to the Substack ether last week:Color me thrilled! For the full list, keep scrolling. (It’s long)My son and I are both on summer break — him from preschool, me from my doctoral program — and the last few days we’ve languidly floated through the daylight hours taking walks, watching movies, going to parks, taking the train, and generally chilling.The few hours I’ve spent working-working I’ve been chipping away at our newest North Node challenge (publishing a podcast in two weeks, tomorrow is day 6!) and organizing my research agenda for the summer, which is honestly pure pleasure because it consists of:* looking up books and research articles* thinking about books and research articles* buying books* printing research articles* surveying all of my materials and figuring out who wants to sit with whomDream, non?What’s a research agenda and why do you want one?My research agenda is just a proposed schedule of readings and research I’d like to do to help myself as I prepare to complete the next portion of my doctoral program — passing my written qualifying exams. I’ll spend next year finishing up coursework and writing two long qualifying exam papers; after you pass your qualifying exams and defend your dissertation proposal, you move on to PhD candidacy and writing your dissertation.So I’m thinking of this summer’s research as the basis of my dissertation. If I can make it work, I’ll try to produce research that could be included in my WQEs or as a dissertation chapter down the road, which means my research this summer is capacious — I’m diving into studying creative research methods, tons of experimental critical theory, and trying to fill my own knowledge gaps that’ve revealed themselves in the first year of my program.My research agenda helps me organize my thoughts, and gives me bird’s-eye-view of how I’ll navigate all my reading this summer. It’s fluid — it will definitely change as I discover more resources — but it’s a nice place to start.How I built this research agendaMy research is focused on how we can archive experiences of transcendence and altered states of consciousness using emerging technologies, and for the last year any time I’ve seen a book or article I feel could be useful for my work I’ll write it down in my “Books to Read” notebook or save the article to my Zotero database.What I’ve put together below is entirely made of materials I’d previously flagged as potentially helpful, and as I actually do the reading (lol) I’m certain that I’ll chase down other sources and articles mentioned in the proposed reading.I’ve grouped the readings in a way that I find useful for my own memory; I like when my research sort of loops back on itself, where there’s a break of a week or so between concepts and then I dip back into and build upon previous ideas. (I explain more of this in the podcast ep that goes with this list!)Again, this is subject to change 😇 I’m a big fan of reading what excites you, and I know there are a few titles on this list that I’m already frothy over so they might get bumped up to an earlier date.What’s not in this research agendaI haven’t included my other creative research in this agenda, but just know that’s happening. Creative research feels a bit more indirect. Doesn’t mean it’s less valuable, though. I have a whole stack of plays that I want to read (I would literally rather have my big toenail wrenched from my toe with a pair of rusty pliers than have to speak out loud on stage, acting is so not for me, but I do love to read a play for pleasure), and a bunch of literary fiction on hold at Libby atm.Other types of research:* reading plays* watching movies* making ceramics* going to dance class* taking a walk every morning* sewing* gardening* spellwork* swimming* Feldenkrais lessons* talking to friends* drinking rosé on the patio as the heat of the summer day dwindles* visiting museums* seeing shows* being present to the mystery of lifeLiving is research, baby. As mentioned, we’re focusing on creative research in the North Node during Q3 — if you want to join us for one month, you can find out how here.Without further ado, here’s the summer reading list:

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thetwelfthhouse.substack.comA lot of what we’ve talked about at Holisticism and The Twelfth House over the last five years pertains to how to create systems, and about how those systems (or lack thereof) influence our personal information worlds.So often the major problems we face as creative entrepreneurs and makers — burnout, overwhelm, unceasing existential dread — are foregrounded by the way we consume and create knowledge. It’s so boring to talk about, but I think we can all agree that there’s an ideal consume:create ratio that allows us to take in new information, get inspired, and transmute that new knowledge into something that’s our own. But getting to that ideal consumption-creation balance is easier said than done in a world where you’re constantly pelleted with Cocomelon-level high stimulation content.Today — per reader request! — I wanted to explore strategies for reading to retain information, because all of us need to do research for one reason or another. If you’ve ever looked up from a book only to realize you have no idea what you just spent the last 20 minutes reading; if you’ve ever lost yourself in a scroll hole while “researching” for work; if you’ve ever struggled to articulate to your partner what, exactly, was so interesting about that article from The New Yorker that you just read… this guide is for you.Or, if you’re just someone who identifies as a life-long learner and wants to make research a more satisfying hobby, read on.To retain, or not to retainFirst and foremost, why do you need to retain information when you read? Or, maybe, when do you need to retain information?I don’t find the need to retain everything I read or consume; in fact, much of what I consume leaves me thinking, Damn, wish I could delete that out of my brain and reclaim some of my cognitive RAM.Personally, I am not interested in annotating a work of fiction unless I’m writing an essay about it. Fiction is my escapay. But there’s a hell of a lot in the non-fiction category that I research and take in that I do want to recall later, a few reasons being:* because I’m working on a project, and I want to build upon the ideas I’ve already generated with new concepts I read about* because I want to participate in a conversation (literal or metaphorical) and feel informed about a topic* because I want to learn a skill or acquire new knowledge, and what I’ve read walks me through how to do that thing* because I want to critique or rebuttal what I’ve read to establish my own divergence of thoughtMaybe you identify with some of my Remember Reasons, and you likely have your own reasons for wanting to retain ideas from what you read or consume. Ultimately, I believe understanding why retaining the information is important to you — aka so what? what will you do with that information? — informs the strategies you use when reading for retention.Pre-ReadingGet your bearings

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thetwelfthhouse.substack.comThere’s a 1971 academic article that I’ve been thinking about a LOT lately. It’s called “That’s Interesting!” It’s by a sociologist named Murray Davis, and it is technically about how to develop academic theories that people actually give a s**t about — ideas that are not just important, but are also interesting. I read it as part of my PhD research, but while I was I kept thinking: this is copywriting. This is pitching. This is why some content makes you stop scrolling and some doesn’t. This is MARKETING, B***H. This is how to stress-test any idea for sticky-ness. This is how to come up with ideas that make you a thought leader.Davis’s central argument is that a theory becomes important not because it’s true, but because it’s interesting. Truth has almost nothing to do with influence. (See: the entire internet.) What makes an idea sticky is that it disturbs something the audience already assumed. It catches them mid-expectation and redirects them somewhere they didn’t see coming.Quick aside for holographic repatterning healer rec:

📚 Resources and Links:* Sign up for the North Node waitlist here* Inquire about 1:1 work with Michelle here* Holisticism Resources 4 u:* Ruthless Clarity — an 8-week email course designed to help you achieve crystal-clear certainty about your goals, desires, and energy allocation* How to Begin: A Project Planning Class — a 90-m on-demand class that teaches you exactly how to sketch a effervescent project plan that’ll fill you with glee and inspiration and instantly banish procrastination and overwhelm, so your brilliant ideas can finally come to life.* The Subconscious Audit — an 11-day diagnostic framework that helps you identify what’s holding you back and making you *feel* blocked. Because you’re never actually blocked* The New Age Playbook for Spellbinding, Can’t-Stop-Reading Copy — a 35-page downloadable workbook to take your writing from blah to bingeableTo be blunt and unpoetic about it, a way to increase your surface area for synchronicities is to just start noticing things.In the Feldenkrais Method we talk a lot about habituation and differentiation. The whole point of a Feldenkrais class can be boiled down to this: I’m trying to bring your attention to your habitual way of being, moving, and thinking by introducing some type of novelty into your experience; the novelty helps you notice the things you’ve grown accustomed to which have been “invisibilized” in your life.By bringing your new awareness online, you give yourself options for responding to the world differently. You illuminate choices. You create doorways where there were once walls.And that’s the whole crux of synchronicity practice — we’re trying to create more opportunities for synchronicity to show itself.Archetype practice can do this, sure. But today I want to talk about an even more obvious option for inviting a different reality into being — altar work.What’s an altar? An altar is a place made sacred.The word sacred comes from the late Middle English sacre, which means to ‘consecrate.’ An object or place that’s been consecrated has been set apart from the average and the ordinary to accomplish something specific. We might also describe these objects or places as holy.A sacred space is a place where wonder can be glimpsed. - Joseph CampbellWhen we focus our attention on building and tending to altars we transform a space from regular-degular — mundane, if you want to get fancy about it — to holy and magical. An IKEA BILLY bookshelf becomes a hallowed shrine. The top of your ancient apartment refrigerator turns into a reminder of the omnipresence of our ancestors. The dashboard of your somehow-still-kicking Honda Civic becomes “a sacred place,” as my obsessed toddler has taken to saying. (Shoutout to the Moana writers for introducing that banger to our home, it’s familial canon now)The spaces we might take for granted because we’ve become habituated to thinking of them in a certain way are called into new light. We can see things differently … And if we begin to see one thing differently, maaaaaybe JUUUUUUSST MAYBE we can open up to the possibility of seeing many things differently.How you use your altar depends entirely on your cultural and spiritual beliefs and practices. But altar practice itself? Universelle. We find evidence of altars and shrines going waaaaaaay back to the Paleolithic era. Permanent sacred spaces tucked into narrow caves and carved into stone underhangs. ‘Mobile’ altars that could be taken on-the-go by migratory peoples. People have been doing this s**t forever.I think that altar creation is hardwired into our DNA, even if that’s not how we necessarily clock it these days. Is a thoughtfully designed tablescape for a dinner party not an altar to kinkeeping? Is an organized, dedicated crafting corner not a shrine to creativity? Is a well-tended back garden not a cathedral of nature?All I’m saying, really, is that making an altar doesn’t have to be this buttoned up ceremonial, Wicca-adjacent act full of vermillion red candles and money bowls and scrying mirrors and the menstrual blood collected during the Full Moon (Although… I do love the drama, as a Scorpio Moon tosses hair) You already know how to make an altar, but maybe do it with a little more oomph and awareness, you know?There are many ways to make an altar, and usually we make them in devotion to something — a deity, a loved one, an intention. Practices vary dramatically. If you have the privilege of knowing your ancestral origins, studying those traditions is always where I’d point you first for more specific guidance.But for our purposes, I suggest starting with a small altar (or refreshing your usual altar) organized for Winter.A Winter’s Altar May I go goth for a sec? When I pull the Death card, my mind goes straight to Winter. (People with 13s in their Matrix of Destiny chart — eyes on me! Eyes on me! This applies to you!) The Death card isn’t a harbinger of doom, more a reminder of the cyclical nature of all things in the universe.Eventually, everything ends! (positive)Eventually, everything ends. (foreboding)The Spectre of Death tills a fallow field — there is no life here, yet. Because it’s winter! The field needs time to rest in order to bloom in the spring. All things in their proper timing.It’s not incredibly groundbreaking to be like, “Oh, winter, rest, yeah?” And to me, that’s actually not what this card or season tells us. Death still works the field in the winter, he ain’t vacaying. This is the time for working in the dark — at inky pre-dawn and late afternoons blanketed in shadow — deliberately and devotionally. Winter air is crisp and clear — Death’s line of vision to the horizon is unobscured. You can see in the dark, eventually, because your eyes adjust if you sit still in it for long enough. The opportunity to bloom in spring is created in the winter.How to assemble (resist the urge to overconsume, I beg!)Circling back to the point of all this — the purpose of altar building is to bring the sacred into the mundane. To get started, we’ll need a few elements:A place to put your altarDoesn’t have to be big or impressive, a window sill or a corner of a bookshelf or a side table in your entry will do just fine (you can also build a traveling shrine to take on-the-go, in which case you’ll need an implement for transport, like an altar cloth or a cigar box)An intention Yes, we’re hoping to increase our surface area for synchronicity… but why? What are you hoping the outcome will be for you, when the field around you gives you little nudges of acknowledgement? Health, happiness, healing, spiritual growth, gratitude, love, self-knowing, peace, strength, clarity, intuition, wealth, work opportunities, community, friendship, confidence, direction? I get a sense that most of us here are looking for confirmation of being on the path to something purposeful and living a life that is personally meaningful while contributing to the collective. But pick your thing! A theme, even a capaciously broad one, is important.Cleansing materialsLiteral cleaning supplies (I am currently obsessed with this stuff?), but also ceremonial cleansing tools like salt, incense, smoke, selenite, a bell… all can work, depends on your preference and your practice. I’m partial to copal resin and this incense.Symbolic and sympathetic totems Dealers choice, here. There’s really no need to buy anything new, if you don’t want to. Use what you can find in your house, on a walk, etc. Drawing on your intention, meditate on what symbols could represent your focus. Flowers, stones and minerals, saints, dieties, tarot cards, colors, herbs, essential oils — all have culturally associated meanings that you can draw upon to echo your intention. In my opinion, using items that you have personal associations with — a golf tee that reminds you of your grandfather’s love, or gardenias that feel like home because they remind you of your mom — as opposed to meanings that you look up in a book but don’t necessarily feel called to are always going to make a more sagrado space, IYKWIM.Other items you might want to add to your altar:* photos of loved ones or beloved/sacred places* a candle* coins or cash* coffee, wine, rum — common in certain cultural practices* elemental additions for water, earth, fire, wind* a letter with your intentions written on it* sigils you’ve designed* spells you’re working* protective materialsThe main thing for us is to practice seeing things differently. So if you were asking for my advice (not saying you are, but… you’ve read like 600 words on this so we’re kind of at that point in the story, right? Not too presumptuous of me to go there?), I would encourage you to set up your altar in a space you walk past every day but tend to overlook. For me, this is the windowsill at the top of the stairs just before you enter our bedroom.Set up your altar with some awarenessMaybe pause the podcast you’re listening to before you get going. Maybe pull a card real quick. Maybe say a prayer, if you feel moved to. Maybe a recite poem. (What’s the difference?)Now here’s the invitation — notice what happens when you invite the sacred into the every day. Resist the urge to habituate, to walk past the altars of your life without acknowledgement.Liked this?You’ll love Holisticism and our podcast The Twelfth House.Want to learn more about intuitive business and creator-ship?Sign up for the North Node waitlist here.Into my persnickety personality and strategic perspective?Inquire about 1:1 advising with me here. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠ This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thetwelfthhouse.substack.com/subscribe

Practical ways to increase synchronistic experiences and make everyday life feel more magical. A three-part framework—altar, aura, archetypes—for expanding your surface area for signs. Stories of clustered synchronicities and why deliberately looking beats autopilot. A playful daily tarot ritual to use images as prompts and train noticing, plus tips for spotting repeating patterns.

They unpack what it feels like when one area of life keeps going wrong no matter what you try. You get a playful deep dive into how intentions, words, and timing can act like spells. Practical missteps are called out: performative vulnerability, oversharing raw wounds, building publicly too soon, and bad timing around change. The episode ends with first steps to cleanse, protect, and rewrite your approach.

📚 Resources and Links:* Sign up for the North Node waitlist here* Inquire about 1:1 work with Michelle here* Holisticism Resources 4 u:* Ruthless Clarity — an 8-week email course designed to help you achieve crystal-clear certainty about your goals, desires, and energy allocation* How to Begin: A Project Planning Class — a 90-m on-demand class that teaches you exactly how to sketch a effervescent project plan that’ll fill you with glee and inspiration and instantly banish procrastination and overwhelm, so your brilliant ideas can finally come to life.* The Subconscious Audit — an 11-day diagnostic framework that helps you identify what’s holding you back and making you *feel* blocked. Because you’re never actually blocked* The New Age Playbook for Spellbinding, Can’t-Stop-Reading Copy — a 35-page downloadable workbook to take your writing from blah to bingeable Has the whimsy, magic, and sparkly intuition has been seemingly Dyson-vacuumed out of your existence? Do you feel trapped by your own identity or paralyzed by indecision? Have you noticed that it seems like the universe hasn’t winked at you in a while? (Rude!) Congrats — you played yourself. This one’s for you. Let’s talk about self-surveillance Self-surveillance is becoming the cop in your head. It’s that voice judging everything you do as you’re doing it. It’s the part of you watching yourself from outside your body, constantly monitoring how your actions look to other people. It’s censoring yourself before you speak, curating your identity online, and performing actions because they’d look good on Instagram rather than because you actually want to do them.And here’s the problem: you can’t create and judge simultaneously. When you’re self-surveilling, you’re stuck regurgitating old ideas instead of channeling something new. You’re closing yourself off from sensing, feeling, and intuiting. You’re reducing your surface area for luck and magic.Self-surveillance keeps you trapped in the realm of the known, using old materials to try and build something new. But magic lives in the unknowable! Synchronicity happens beyond the border of the comfortable! When you’re performing a human life instead of living one, you miss the glimmers of opportunity that are right there in your peripheral vision! So, basically, we need to cool it on the self-surveillance to invite intuition, magic, flow, synchronicity back into our lives. Listen to the full episode for practices on dropping the surveillance loop and letting your freak flag fly. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thetwelfthhouse.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit thetwelfthhouse.substack.comHi! Welcome back to The Twelfth House+, our bi-monthly behind-the-paywall podcast episodes. Every month, I record two episodes — one BTS, “inside voice” convo, and one audio course to help you navigate living a creative, intuitive life with more ease, abundance, and wonder.In this episode, I dive into Colin Bedell’s recent video about the state of astrology and the problematic ways fear-mongering and rigid control dynamics have infiltrated spiritual spaces. Colin’s call for a “big reset” — one that centers sovereignty, nuance, and grace over black-and-white thinking — had me kicking my feet under my chair in abject GLEE. (I also love when his New Jersey affect popped out… it was truly perfect, absolutely no notes.)And and AND I extend his critique beyond astrology to the world that Holisticism inhabits — a smorgasborg of intuitive business advice, wellness/well-being frameworks, and creative work. If you haven’t watched Colin’s video yet, I highly recommend it. For my full thoughts (messy and unedited, for better or worse)… just press play on the episode.Now, let’s talk about something I do love: planning! If you’re thinking about launching an offer before the year ends (yes, there’s still time but we’re reaaaaally pushing it!), here’s your roadmap.

Amelia Hruby, PhD philosopher and founder of Softer Sound Studios and Off the Grid Clubhouse, writes about attention, tech, and intentional use. She explains why her manifesto-style book came together in a week. Conversation covers rethinking the attention economy, choosing self-publishing and design control, and treating tools as problem-solvers rather than cures.

📚 Resources and Links:* Sign up for the North Node waitlist here* Inquire about 1:1 work with Michelle here* Holisticism Resources 4 u:* Ruthless Clarity — an 8-week email course designed to help you achieve crystal-clear certainty about your goals, desires, and energy allocation* How to Begin: A Project Planning Class — a 90-m on-demand class that teaches you exactly how to sketch a effervescent project plan that’ll fill you with glee and inspiration and instantly banish procrastination and overwhelm, so your brilliant ideas can finally come to life.* The Subconscious Audit — an 11-day diagnostic framework that helps you identify what’s holding you back and making you *feel* blocked. Because you’re never actually blocked* The New Age Playbook for Spellbinding, Can’t-Stop-Reading Copy — a 35-page downloadable workbook to take your writing from blah to bingeableKP Pilley is baaaaaaaack! And we’re bringing you a mega-episode to talk about a concept that will free you from the tyranny of “content creation strategy”: content worlds. Not content strategies or content calendars or content audits — we’re talking about building a whole paradigm for how you show up online that doesn’t require you to be terminally logged in to seven different platforms while spiraling about whether your Instagram grid “makes sense.”KP — copywriter, strategist, professional pattern-recognizer, born digital child of the internet — breaks down why most of us are creating content for platforms instead of creating ideas and letting them live where they need to live. This episode is for anyone who’s ever felt exhausted trying to feed the insatiable algorithms on ever single platform that you supposedly “need” to be on to run a successful business / make a name for yourself / develop a personal brand. We get into why you don’t actually have to make content if it’s destroying your will to live, and how to figure out what that one strategy for YOU (because it’s different for everyone!) that gets you 80% of the results you’re looking for. Pareto Principle babes, this one’s for you. We also talk about why more is definitely not better, how your coffee shop flyer might be outperforming your entire social media presence, and what it means to stop performing strategy for an imaginary audience of LinkedIn judges and start doing the one thing that actually gets you clients. If you’ve been waiting for permission to quit the platforms that make you miserable, or if you’re trying to figure out where to focus when everyone’s telling you to be everywhere — this one’s for you.In this episode we talk about...Content worlds, not content platforms. Why you should build a geography of ideas that’s agnostic to where it lives, how to stop creating for Instagram and start creating with Instagram as one destination among many, and the surprisingly freeing realization that you don’t owe the internet anything.The 80/20 rule applied to marketing. How to identify your Desert Island strategy — the one thing you’d do if you could only do one thing.Permission to quit platforms that drain you. Why you don’t actually have to make content if it’s the bane of your existence (you just have to figure out another way to get clients), how to tell if you’re being strategic or just performing productivity, and why your coffee shop flyer might actually be your highest-converting marketing channel.The content constellation and nine-grid strategy. How to do a factory reset on your feed when you’re overwhelmed, why KP launched a “done for you” version after people struggled with execution, and what it means to build an editorial calendar based on your actual capacity—not what the gurus say you “should” be doing. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit thetwelfthhouse.substack.com/subscribe