An Enspirited World
The Body, Brain, and Books: Eleven Questions with writer and astrologer Jeanna Kadlec
Welcome to another edition of The Body, Brain, & Books. If you enjoy reading these quick, insightful interviews brimming with wisdom and hope, please subscribe to Beyond!
What are you reading now?
My dear friend Nina St. Pierre’s forthcoming memoir, Love is a Burning Thing, which comes out May 7th. Her writing is just so beautiful, and the story is so haunting. It’s about spiritual discovery and growing up in California and the difficulties of mother/daughter relationships and the desire to untangle where you come from. Her mom literally set herself on fire multiple times, and also started devastating house fires, and how central those fires are to Nina’s life. This book is going to change people.
What are your most beloved books from your youth? Did you ever hide any from your parents?
While I grew up in a very religious, very conservative household, my parents pretty much let me read whatever I wanted, as it was deemed an acceptable, godly activity.
Which worked well for me when it came to reading those middle grade books like Catherine, Called Birdy which heavily feature an independent, spunky heroine figuring out how to cope with her dad abusing her, the expectations of society, and a religion that is trying to shoehorn into a specific role, or Ella Enchanted, which is literally all about how obedience is a curse. While I was far more rule following than rebellious, books like those helped to lay the groundwork, and help me cope with what was going on at home.
A full circle moment: Gail Levine, author of Ella, congratulated me on my own book on Instagram, and I will never recover.
What’s your favorite book to reread? Any that helped you through a dark time?
I am a big rereader. I think, in part, it’s because of growing up so devoutly Christian: I learned early on that in order to truly sit with and understand a text, you had to meditate on it over time, return to it and read it again and again. Even those books that you could feel changing you from the inside-out on the first read had further things to reveal to you on future reads. They need time to sink into the marrow of your bones.
So I’m going to cheat and give you a few! I reread Melissa Febos’ Abandon Me once a year; it’s a ritual for me. I read Toni Morrison’s The Sources of Self-Regard like a morning devotional; when I finish the book, I start it again. And Mary Oliver’s poetry, of course. A daily touchstone and offering, as anyone who has taken a class with me knows.
What’s an article of clothing that makes you feel most like you?
I used to own a lingerie boutique and so have a rather ridiculous collection of silk robes and kaftans. Lounging around the house in a fancy robe is my preferred state of being.
What’s the best piece of wisdom you've encountered recently?
My writers’ group recently reamed me out for calling my sick days “rest days.” SICK DAYS ARE NOT REST DAYS, JEANNA! I need to get that tattooed on my hand.
Tell me about any special relationship you’ve had with an animal, domestic or wild?
The last cat I adopted, Keats, ended up passing about six weeks after I brought him home. This was a few years ago now. Little did I know that he was actually very sick and had been dying even at the shelter. It seemed that my purpose was to doula him out of this life, to give him cuddles and fluffy pink cat beds and the sunniest apartment to sunbathe in. Poor baby, he hated all the meds he had to take. Naming him Keats was a little on the nose there, in the end.
What's one thing you are happy worked out differently than you expected?
In hindsight: my first book getting wholly, totally rejected by so many editors was a blessing in disguise.
Heretic, which is very much a hybrid memoir, completely failed the first time we took it out on submission. At the time, we were pitching it as a straight memoir. There were some blended critical elements in that earlier draft, but my agent and I hadn’t figured out the right way to present those, and editors were confused about what these tangents about the Bible and Lilith and feminist art history were doing amidst my story of leaving my husband and coming out.
That resulted in me taking an entire year to re-imagine the project, and while it was initially devastating, the book was ultimately so much stronger for it. Plus, the next time we went out with it, we got to take it to an editor who hadn’t been on my agent’s radar before, Jenny Xu, who ended up being the absolute perfect editor for me and the book.
Singing in the shower or dancing in the kitchen? Or another favorite way your body expresses itself?
Singing showtunes while doing the dishes. Also, being that weirdo who sings while walking around the neighborhood.
What are your hopes for yourself?
I just want to be a better person. Better meaning: more intuitive, kinder, more in tune with myself and with the people and the land around me. I think creativity flows from that kind of spiritual connection with the self and the world, and so that also inherently means a more creative person, too.
What’s a kindness that changed your life?
All the teachers and librarians who really saw me as a child — who noticed that I was bored in school, that I was lonely and hanging out in the library, who put books in my hand and gave me whatever extra attention they could muster. Mr. Bertini, Mrs. Briggs, so many more. I am forever grateful.
What’s a guiding force in your life?
My spirituality. These days, if I had to call myself anything, I suppose “animist” would fit the bill most accurately. I believe in an enspirited world that is in relationship with us as much as we are in relationship with it. And to me, astrology is a mindfulness practice that provides a language for noticing the patterns around us. A language that helps us better articulate our observations of the world — of what arises in ourselves and others throughout the ebb and flow of the daily tide.
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Love! I've been following Jeanna's work for years and I love the simple but revealing questions in this interview 💜
Absolutely love Jeanna's work and the community she is building! I'm inspired on the regular by her wisdom around creativity, writing, and spirituality. Her answer for question #9 around wanting to be "more intuitive, kinder, more in tune with myself and with the people and the land around me" resonates so much. 🤍