Lane Smith (they/he) is a transgender writer and activist living in Baltimore City, MD. Lane is the author of the book “78 Acts of Liberation: Tarot to Transform Our World” (Sounds True, 2024), has a personal essay in the forthcoming anthology “Temple of 22 Doors: Lives in Tarot” edited by Jane Meredith (Llewellyn, 2026), and has a piece of flash fiction in Vol. 3 of The Rebis, a print anthology celebrating tarot, art & creative writing (www.therebis.com).
They can be found online at @leftlanesmith.bsky.social and www.mxlanesmith.com
[2025-10-05 15:48:46] Lane: Heyyyy Fin, it’s Lane!
(- Finbarre: ❤️ -)
[2025-10-05 15:49:51] Finbarre: Aha! There you are! I’ll grab myself a brew and be with you in ten?
[2025-10-05 15:50:03] Lane: Sure thing, ready when you are!
[2025-10-05 16:01:55] Finbarre: Lane Smith, it is so good to be able to speak to you again. I am here with my tea. I’ve even got an autumnal satsuma which sadly doesn’t have a small pumpkin face drawn on it. I need to do something about that. And I’m here with your first devil card for Devil Season. But first of all, how’s your weekend going?
[2025-10-05 16:06:47] Lane: I’m feeling great this weekend! This is my favorite time of year! We talked before, maybe springtime, and I had a pretty rough few months but it has really been feeling like October is the month for a big turnaround toward the better for me, personally! The socio-political situation in the U.S. is of course still very bad, for trans people and in general, but I’m feeling more energized and resilient than I had been the last several months, and I have lots of fun fall things lined up to do with my kids, and friends and community to replenish me! And I always feel more alive when the air chills anyway. 🍂🎃🦇
(- Finbarre: ❤️ -)
[2025-10-05 16:09:17] Finbarre: I do like that nip of Jack Frost in the air, for sure, but here in the UK I’ll soon need to wear a scarf around my face like a Mortal Kombat fighter bought from Wish! Speaking of fighting, are you still involved with the stick-based martial art you mentioned to me last time we chatted?
[2025-10-05 16:10:44] Lane: Yes, that’s one of the things I’m looking forward to – a big Samhain bonfire with that group! I’m sadly out of practice because I had two long bouts of illness, but I’m still very much connected to the group & getting back in the routine again.
[2025-10-05 16:12:03] Finbarre: Fabulous! Now I mentioned Devil Season as we’re coming up to Halloween - every person I speak to until then is getting the same first card.... (yours is from the Rider Waite Smith that I bought when I fifteen!)
[2025-10-05 16:12:15] Finbarre:
(- Lane: 🔥 -)
[2025-10-05 16:13:35] Finbarre: I knew you would like this one. I mean, of course, the traditional meanings of this are addiction, control, obsession, the whole idea of what owns you. But I know from your book, which just happens to be shown in the picture there, that you invite the reader to welcome the trickster-like disruption and instead put the end to repression when thinking of the Devil.
[2025-10-05 16:19:04] Lane: I love that you’ve chosen the Devil as the card of the season rather than Death. If you’ll permit to sidetrack for just a moment – you know me, I’m all about community connections and shouting out other people and making sure we all are linked up with what’s good – I’d be remiss if I didn’t call attention to the fact that The Rebis, a *gorgeous* print magazine for Tarot lovers & creatives that comes out yearly – has just released their issue for this year and the theme is The Devil. I’m so excited to get it in my mailbox this week! It’s always an amazing publication and this issue was co-edited by Meg Jones Wall of 3am Tarot. Folks might know her Devils & Fools newsletter, and her book “Finding the Fool” – well, she has been working on a forthcoming Devil themed book to complement the Fool one, which is I assume why she was chosen as co-editor for The Devil issue of The Rebis. (I had a piece in last year’s issue which was themed on The Star). Anyway, for your readers, it’s www.therebis.com.
(- Finbarre: ✨ -)
[2025-10-05 16:20:47] Finbarre: Not just for my readers, I just sat bolt upright and scribbled myself a “BUY THIS MAGAZINE” note. Thank you for that!
[2025-10-05 16:27:04] Lane: So yes, often the Devil is seen in a binary way: oppressive soul-crushing repression, or the total liberation from that, maybe in the form of debauchery and licentiousness as freedom. And I think it’s fun to think about the cards in a little more of a both/and than either/or kind of way. So, yes, inviting pattern-breaking trickster energy like I wrote about in my book. Or, like, instead of the sexy side of The Devil being the “opposite” of its traditional oppressive meaning, thinking about when and how those Saturnian/Capricornian energies of setting limits, saying no, scarcity and restriction can actually be sexy themselves. Saturn speaks to lack, and lack is a prerequisite for desire. Restriction and restraint can be a relief from overwhelm, provide safe boundaries. In a consensual, playful space, the dominating character of Capricorn/The Devil can be very fun and very hot! (Full disclosure I’m a Capricorn rising so I’m somewhat personally invested in those interpretations, hehe 😈).
[2025-10-05 16:28:38] Lane: As you know, I weigh the astrological associations with the cards pretty heavily.
[2025-10-05 16:28:43] Finbarre: Wait... my *wife* is a Capricorn! Hmmm.... while I’m musing over that I have your question for you for the first card. In your creative journey, what pressures - whether from capitalism, conformity, or internalized limitations - have you had to unlearn or resist in order to stay free and true to your creativity?
(- Lane: ❤️🔥 -)
[2025-10-05 16:29:23] Lane: Oh I love this question! Let me gather my thoughts a minute.
[2025-10-05 16:30:27] Finbarre: Of course - whenever the inspiration hits let me know
[2025-10-05 16:47:55] Lane: Right, so as a Capricorn rising I’m ruled by Saturn overall and that can be a very hard, self-critical astrological position to be in, with very high standards for oneself, and also very self-denying, ascetic in certain ways. Almost all of my personal planets are in Sagittarius, and signs right next to each other are said to be in aversion to each other. Sagittarius of course is known for loving freedom and being “too much” and very unserious & irresponsible in comparison to Capricorn’s stark bare-bones stern commitment to responsibility.
[2025-10-05 16:48:07] Lane: And I feel these two energies constantly battling within me. Work and play. Being reserved and reliable vs being a big old loudmouth who gives no fucks. Etc. And I’m not saying the astrology is a *cause* of this, but I think it describes it – I have very strong “demand avoidance.” It’s a relatively recent clinical term that some of us believe is better framed as a strong *drive for autonomy* than as “avoidance” of anything. But it can be seen as being avoidant of everyday obligatory tasks, avoidance of going along with social norms, having difficulty with authority figures, etc.
[2025-10-05 16:48:21] Lane: And yes one of my biggest challenges in life is that the second I feel like something is *expected* of me, I don’t want to do it any more. It’s very hard to make money or even maintain relationships that way, when any routine or the smallest obligation feels like something you *have* to defy.
[2025-10-05 16:48:43] Lane: If I have a to-do list, I have to rebel against it in some way. So there are a lot of brain tricks I have to resort to (tapping into the trickster aspect of The Devil) in order to get anything done, including just the normal tasks of maintaining a life, writing, child-rearing as a single parent, etc.
[2025-10-05 16:48:58] Lane: So those are some internalized restrictions I deal with. There are of course social ones, too, but I feel kind of lucky in a way that I have this particular kind of social demand avoidance living in these times, because the more people say I don’t belong or I shouldn’t be doing what I’m doing, the more confidant and motivated I feel about doing it anyway, lol. I’m not going to say that the hate toward trans people is always generative and inspiring, of course – it wears me down like anyone else. But defiance is always something I can tap back into to get on my feet again.
(- Finbarre: ❤️ -)
[2025-10-05 16:53:02] Lane: I guess the short answer to your question is that I’ve had to learn to defy my defiance, or at least trick it, in order to stick with things long term.
[2025-10-05 16:54:11] Finbarre: The mention of Defiance reminds me of a conversation I had with a family member just this morning as we’re chatting over muffins and eggs. We were talking about the TV series of Andor. Now, I know many people haven’t seen it but it is the best Star Wars I have ever seen. Star Wars was the first ever film I ever saw way back when and… Andor is better. It’s like, I don’t know, sort of tacky futuristic nonsense as if it was done by HBO. There is a quote in that TV series about tyranny and resistance:
”Tyranny requires constant effort. It breaks, it leaks. Authority is brittle. Oppression is the mask of fear.
Remember that. And know this, the day will come when all these skirmishes and battles, these moments of defiance will have flooded the banks of the Empires’s authority and then there will be one too many. One single thing will break the siege.
Remember this: Try.”
So in your answer there, I was thinking about those tiny little acts of subversion, of sticking your finger up to the wider world. How you never know which one of those could cause a massive difference. I do like that idea.
[2025-10-05 16:54:20] Lane: I’m more drawn to long term creative projects, like a whole book as opposed to stories or poems or even newsletters – but I get distracted ... 😅
[2025-10-05 16:58:01] Lane: I love that, I have only heard great things about Andor! I’ve not yet seen it (partly because of demand avoidance over prioritizing things that are popular, and partly genuinely not having time) but you know, I’m a child of the 80s, I love Star Wars, I ugly cried at The Last Jedi. I do want to see it! And what a fantastic quote, thanks for sharing it!
(- Finbarre: ❤️ -)
[2025-10-05 16:59:39] Lane: Small personal acts of defiance are actually very much what I’m thinking about in conceptualizing what I hope will be my next book.
[2025-10-05 17:00:13] Finbarre: (When I looked that up, I accidentally typed in Nandor and got this handsome chap from What We Do In The Shadows. Oops)
(- Lane: 😂 -)
[2025-10-05 17:00:40] Finbarre:
(- Lane: 🥵 -)
[2025-10-05 17:01:03] Lane: A more intimate book than the last one which is very zoomed-out social/historical scale. I think people also want more personal human stories in the context of AI.
[2025-10-05 17:02:17] Finbarre: I would like to find out more about that in the next card. This one will be pulled randomly from the deck so just say “stop” or type it in here whenever you feel the moment is right. I’ll shuffle them until you message.
[2025-10-05 17:02:34] Lane: Stop
[2025-10-05 17:02:44] Finbarre: Right, it is....
[2025-10-05 17:03:13] Finbarre:
[2025-10-05 17:03:55] Lane: Haha, indeed, yes. It’s requiring me to share more vulnerably than I did in my last book.
[2025-10-05 17:06:42] Lane: I was so fortunate to get steered more in that direction by working with Jane Meredith, who is editing a Tarot anthology for Llewellyn. She had me write an essay on the Tower and took me to task for being too emotionally distant in what I wrote. She challenged me to be more emotionally present and happily she was very pleased with the rewrite! That one, the anthology is called “Lives in Tarot: Inside the Temple of 22 Doors” should be out from Llewellyn in 2026.
[2025-10-05 17:07:35] Lane: Sorry, I didn’t let you ask a question 😅
[2025-10-05 17:09:04] Finbarre: Oh bless you. I don’t like to interrupt because I love reading your insights. Okay, so your question for the Queen of Cups is...
Coming back to the book idea that you mentioned previously, in the current times, which are increasingly shaped by AI and the role that human stories play, I ask you. Why is it important to keep emotional depth and personal experience at the centre of creativity?
[2025-10-05 17:22:35] Lane: I don’t think I need to convince you that emotional depth is valuable in its own right. What’s coming up for me is the significance of emotion being represented by water in Tarot, and how water is essential for life. There are many problems with AI, not least of which is that it sucks up an ungodly amount of water to run it. Pouring water into machine learning or whatever you want to call it, while the earth is heating up and people will die of drought en masse, is unconscionable. And yes the connection between literal life-giving water and emotion is metaphorical, but in my mind that doesn’t make the connection any less real. It strikes me that people who use LLMs are looking for a shortcut to certain ends. They aren’t interested in process. When we care about processes, it matters to us to go through the whole emotional journey of a story, to experience it in real time, not just get the summary and rush to the main point. Water is cyclical, it’s all process, no end. It reminds me of the anarchist saying “there are no means, only ends” which sounds like the opposite but it’s something that’s said in opposition to the idea “the means justify the ends” and it’s a way of saying everything all along the way is an “end” or ultimate result for someone or something. The “end” of AI is eugenics and climate catastrophe, and that’s also what’s happening all along the way. Black communities are hurt by the environmental impact of AI data centers *right now.* And it’s frightening when people choose to cut off empathy for those most immediately affected, who won’t care until they’re directly affected. It’s putting off feeling to the end and when you sever yourself from feeling with your fellows (human, nonhuman) I think it’s harder and harder to restore that feeling, and that’s essentially how fascists are created.
[2025-10-05 17:25:30] Finbarre: I’m hearing a twinkly, tinkly noise through the house because one of my children is practicing a piano piece for a talent show tomorrow. They’re going with a Halloween march, I believe. I think right now they’re wearing a cloak and a little witch hat and plinking away. A work of genius is being created downstairs.
[2025-10-05 17:26:49] Finbarre: When you mentioned that people aren’t interested in process, that we should care about process because it’s about going through the whole emotional journey of the story… I was thinking of online dating. “when you hear that people are being approaching others who are getting an LLM to generate messages for them to send to somebody who they’re interested in. And *those* people in return are creating AI-created messages back. It’s like Cyrano de Bergerac meets Blade Runner.
[2025-10-05 17:31:30] Lane: Omg. I can’t imagine (but I love your analogy, that’s so perfect, someone should do a Cyrano adaptation with that in mind!!). I am so old school. I tried online dating for like two weeks in the early 2000s and it was terrible. I need to get a vibe for someone in person. Thankfully I meet people often enough in person to potentially date that I feel satisfied and don’t have to use apps. I would be absolutely offended if someone outsourced getting to know me and communicating me to their chatbot. Instant dealbreaker.
[2025-10-05 17:32:06] Lane: *with me
[2025-10-05 17:33:11] Finbarre: Somehow we have flurried through cards one and two and we’re done to the last. Are you ready?
[2025-10-05 17:33:21] Lane: Ready!!
[2025-10-05 17:35:11] Finbarre: Fabulous. On Tarot DMs each guest picks a third card for the next guest and the one that was selected for you was from a wonderful performer of acrobatic burlesque: Scarlet Vikki. She wanted you to have...
[2025-10-05 17:35:36] Finbarre:
[2025-10-05 17:36:47] Finbarre: The last question is: what new ideas or directions are igniting your imagination in this shifting world?
[2025-10-05 17:38:24] Finbarre: A card of adventurous beginnings is a wonderful way to finish things off!
[2025-10-05 18:01:25] Lane: Well I always love the Wands suit! 🔥
[2025-10-05 18:01:29] Lane: I’ve really been opening up a lot within myself around desire, unbound from sexuality & gender identity categories this year. I’ve been learning a lot about what I passionately want and what doesn’t matter as much to me as I once thought, mostly through “failures” I guess you might say – both in the realm of sex & love and creative exploration. If there was one thing I was gonna do this year, it was shoot my shot, and I did, with several people, with several publications.
[2025-10-05 18:01:45] Lane: When I was young I assumed I would grow up to be a science fiction and fantasy writer because that’s what I loved most to read. I got feedback in writing groups that my stories were overly didactic, and it’s true, I generally have a point I want to make and I want to get right to it. I decided nonfiction was better for me and I set aside fiction for a long time. But this year I tried again and wrote and submitted some things. So far they’ve all been rejected but I don’t feel like it was wasted time. It goes back to what we were just saying about process.
(- Finbarre: ❤️ -)
[2025-10-05 18:02:02] Lane: Yes, my impulse is to get right to the point I want to make in my writing. I want the person I’m interested in to immediately match my enthusiasm. I want things to happen fast, with fireworks. But I recall that when I was very young I liked to get lost in the long journey of a meandering 400+ page fantasy novel. I liked to observe and daydream without necessarily taking action. I think there’s an integration process happening now where I’m inspired by the things that used to delight me when I was young and less aware of social concerns, and bringing some of those slower, dreamy and romantic fantasy world pieces back into play along *with* the parts of me that want to take bold action in the real world based on material reality and historical context.
[2025-10-05 18:05:22] Finbarre:
(- Lane: 💯 -) I will gladly raise my glass to that and here is to wonderful things as we come into 2026. My god, it’s like living in the future. I have a favour to ask. Could you, if you have a deck of cards nearby, shuffle the deck or draw from that pile a card that you’d like to leave for the next person? And even better, if you could take a picture of it, just so we can pop it into the chat.
[2025-10-05 18:06:35] Finbarre: I would dearly love to see what the next lucky person gets.
[2025-10-05 18:08:20] Lane: Lol, I pulled the seasonally appropriate one that I already said I was glad you weren’t focused on for this season 😝
Hopefully it’s a good one to the person who receives it!!
[2025-10-05 18:11:59] Finbarre: “Hi [insert name] I have a very special card here that was chosen for you by Lane Smith. You have.... DEATH!” They’re going to love you! Still, it such an overlooked and misunderstood card it will be fascinating to hear the story it beckons into the next interview.
(- Lane: 😂 -)
[2025-10-05 18:12:24] Lane: 💯
[2025-10-05 18:13:13] Finbarre: Lane, thank you so much for appearing on Tarot DMs. As always it is a delight to chat to you across the pond and I hope our paths cross again soon!
[2025-10-05 18:13:46] Lane: Absolutely, any time, thanks for having me! 💕