Existing Together is what we’re doing here. On the planet I mean. Seeing that phrase helps me remember something important every time: this is all we’re doing, we’re just existing together, it’s very simple and beautiful and important. It’s also very complex and immense. Existing Together.
Another way to describe Existing Together: a business run by Sarah Fontaine, me. I offer astrology readings and writing. You’re here (hey!), reading the homepage of the website for this business, while we exist together, in a way.
I’ve been a student of astrology for almost 30 (!) years and meditation for longer. Emphasis on the word (perpetual) “student” there. I have been a book publisher, a Grand Canyon backpacking guide, a long-distance bike rider, a farmer, an (abolitionist) prison justice advocate and legal aid, a nanny, a day care owner, a teacher, among other things. I rely on various mentors and support people and other species and lands to keep me in check, keep me learning, keep me open and as humble and clear-sighted as possible. This is my most essential job within in the vulnerable and problem-laden realm of spirituality and healing arts. One of those people and places is my meditation teacher in the Theravadan Buddhist tradition, Erin Treat.
If I had to make a resume at this point, the first thing on it would be: being a parent to two young kids. That’s the most recent development in my life that makes me feel the most humbled and strangely, the most qualified to work with you in this way. Nothing has stretched me and opened my heart more than this, which are the kinds of things that I think help make me better at this job.
I’m a white person and I often think about how I might doula the death of whiteness with others. Here’s an essay I wrote to remind myself of some things I want to remember about how I might practice this. I’m sharing it here in case it is of use to you as well.
I’m a cis person and I use the pronouns she/her. I don’t really feel “cis” in the sense that I’m not sure what category could possibly fully fit? As in I’m suspicious of my own preoccupation with identity and am interested in less entrenchment in it, not more. And yet, I call myself cis importantly as a way to name what remains out of my view because of this default category I have fit into for a lot of my life. I’m explicitly for and inspired by the ways that nonbinary and trans people are guiding us all toward more gender expansiveness, fluidity, freedom.
A long time ago, a generous writer wrote this piece about how astrology and tarot are becoming more popular, and talked about what it was like to get a reading with me, then interviewed me for it, which you can read here.
You can also write to me at sf@existingtogether.com. I quit instagram on Summer Solstice 2024 so it feels way better to be online communing here, over at my newsletter Venus in Gemini, and in real life mostly by the beach in san francisco ca usa.