We recently connected with Cyn Grace Sylvie and have shared our conversation below.
Cyn Grace, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you get your first job in the field that you practice in today?
My arrival into both poetry and tarot are what I refer to as “callings” As a tarot reader, a large majority of my work with students is helping to identify the quality and nature of their current life paths, and one of the ways I do so is by helping them delineate if what they are experiencing is a “journey” or a “calling.” A journey is something that we set out to do: be it a course of study, a profession, or a new skill: we place our intention in the direction we choose, and begin to traverse what we find to carve a path in that direction. Callings are an entirely different experience: it is something that finds us, over and over again — sometimes even when we are doing our best to avoid its call. A beautiful example of a calling can be found in the story of Jonah and the Whale: Jonah feels called by a higher power to travel to the city of Ninevah. Choosing to not heed the call, he makes the intentional choice to head to Tarshish, which is in the complete opposite direction. On his travels he experiences a great storm that throws him overboard, and is summarily swallowed up by a whale. Three days later, the whale spits him out on the shores of Ninevah.
While I was never spat out by an aquatic creature, there was never an intentional moment on my own life path wherein I made the conscious choice to write poems or read tarot, but rather, they found me, over and over again. I was first introduced to tarot by my mother when I was a small child. My mother is devoutly Roman Catholic, and growing up I was never taught to see anything antithetical to the cards and the religion wherein I was being raised. Being too young to fully grasp the meaning of the cards, I found them beautiful and fascinating. I would utilize them as paper dolls in grand imaginative dramas I would play out with my stuffed animals. It wasn’t until I was about fourteen that I began to truly study the meaning of the cards in earnest. I would read for myself, my sister, and our friends, and this was a practice that followed me through my teen and young adult years.
As I read, I improved. Old friends began to reach out to me months and sometimes years after I had read for them, to inform me that the reading I had given them had not only resonated, but held even more truth and a deeper meaning over time. As I aged, I found the requests for me to read for these individuals not only increased, but I began to be approached by individuals who had heard of me through these friends.
This led me to a very interesting moment, wherein I was having my own tarot reading with tarot reader (yes, tarot readers get readings too) and I asked my tarot reader if I should begin to start offering tarot professionally. I will never forget what she said to me.
“It’s not whether you should or shouldn’t — you have to.” I asked her what she meant, and she told me that if I was so good that not only was I being recommended by friends from years past, that strangers were coming to me for readings, that I was already a professional reader. I just hadn’t accepted it yet.
It was at that moment I told her that I was afraid.
“Why are you afraid?” she asked.
“Because I’m worried that I might do it badly,” I said.
“That’s why you must do it,” she said. “And that’s why you will be good at it. People who are truly exceptional at things are terrified because they care about the things they are doing. When someone is confident that they are the absolute best at something — that’s the person you have to be wary of. Someone who is absolutely sure at every moment that they are doing everything perfect, rarely is. The reason you are terrified is why you are good at it — because you care about it, you love it, and you are constantly worried that you aren’t doing it as well as you could be. That’s why you will be excellent.”
She gave me an incredible reading that day, and an incredible lesson. I started to charge for my services after that day, my business grew, and when, several years later, the opportunity to make it my main profession arrived, I stopped avoiding the whale, and have been blessed to be doing this work ever since.
So too was my arrival into poetry equally unique. The first poem I ever wrote I did not even realize was a poem: I was always drawing when I was younger, and there was rarely a spare moment when I wasn’t sketching. I was out one afternoon behind my childhood home in Cherry Hill, NJ. My father had built our home in an area called North Woods, and our house was directly behind a forest. I was doing my best to draw the woods, when a strange desire overcame me. I felt compelled to write something: but I didn’t know what. Much like the way I drew, I just let the words flow from me: a stream of consciousness that when I was finished, I stared at in wonder and curiosity.
I had seen poems before: but the poems I had been taught in school all carried a very rigid meter and rhyme structure. This did not rhyme, nor did it have any structure whatsoever: but it felt charged, and powerful, and important: not only in what it said, but even in the ways I didn’t fully understand what it was saying.
A large portion of my work is built upon the idea of trying to capture the ephemeral: ephemeral feelings, ephemeral moments, ephemeral thoughts. This idea of ephemera was a big inspiration in the writing of my first chapbook, “What Sharp Teeth” that was released by Crying Heart Press in 2025. The premise of the chapbook is a toxic queer love story that is framed as a poetic retelling of Dracula, in the form of micro poems that call and respond back and forth to one another throughout the book.
This “feeling” is what I like to identify as POETICAMISTICA: which means “mystic poetry” in Italian, and how I describe my own personal poetic practice. A poem that is a conversation not just with the reader, but with myself as the awestruck channel. I am deeply pleased that others seem to enjoy my poetry, but I feel like the true gift and power of poetry is the profound revelation of the self that occurs in the creation of it. POETICAMISTICA is also the framework from which I build poetic experiences: I feel like in some way, I am always trying to capture that initial feeling of awe and wonder that I first experienced in my backyard all those years ago, and I want as many people as possible to feel that same empowered creative power as well. Through POETICAMISTICA I work to build tangible poetic experiences that bridge the gap between poetry and the world around us, through a variety of interactive multimedia installations that unify poetic voices in new and wondrous ways.
POETIC FORTUNES, for instance, builds upon the idea of the fortune telling tents of old. I create a collective crystal ball prior to the installation being performed, where participants are encouraged to add their own poetry fortunes into our digital crystal ball: on the day that the experience is performed, participants enter a site-specific fortune telling tent I erect, and can take and leave a fortune, creating a self-sustaining divination system whose compendium of fortunes grows with each individuated performance.
WATER’S SOUL SPEAKS is a project that serves as a love letter to my home of the last twenty years, Jersey City, New Jersey, while also calling awareness to the importance of protecting our state’s waterways. It is an homage to the incredible sculpture that lives on the Hudson River waterfront, “Water’s Soul Speaks” by Jaume Plensa (2020). The 80 foot enigmatic figure stands at the waterfront with a finger to their lips, and participants are encouraged to submit work based on the following premise: if the statue could speak, what would they say? The received work is then dubbed onto cassette tapes and available as a “river of sound” that replicates the river the statue dwells before.
POET PROM is an experience that works to heal our relationship to proms. Proms are supposed to be happy occasions, but everyone seems to have a horror story related to prom. When you think about it, it is an exercise of rejection, particularly for someone like myself, who is both queer and neurodivergent, and always been somewhat of a social outlier: you must be CHOSEN by someone to go to prom, or find the resolve to attend prom alone, and even then, only two people are selected to go on stage and be honored as a prom king and queen. It’s a scenario that is based on everyone attending being disappointed in some fashion, save two people: there is almost no space you can occupy in prom that does not create some form of trauma. In this way, POET PROM works to heal this collective wound: you come to prom with your poem, everyone takes the stage, and your poem is performed and celebrated by all those in attendance.
I feel like a lot of the work I do is focused on attempting to heal the pain that I often feel is overlooked in our society. I am queer, neurodivergent, and nonbinary: each of those revelations has taken me years to reach, and an inordinate amount of pain that I personally experienced before I reached them. This was doubly more difficult in the context of being the child of diaspora: both my parents migrated here from Italy. I like to identify the difference between a diasporic familial story and an immigration story is the relationship to the place one departs from: diaspora does not leave out of inclination, but tangible need. And as such, there was always a strong directive to fit in that was communicated as an imperative throughout my life, that I hold with empathy for those who were trying to not be seen as “other.”
It is this same work to heal that inspired me to create TAROT CHURCH, which is a movement whose aim is to destigmatize tarot across faith systems. One of the first things I encountered when I became a professional tarot reader was a hesitancy and trepidation from those who were coming to me for tarot readings. When I inquired, invariably the answer was the same: they were religious, and they carried a fear that the tarot was going to somehow move them further aware from their religious belief system.
This was a baffling and shocking discovery to make: particularly as someone who had learned the techniques of the tarot from someone who was deeply Roman Catholic. I am also someone who has poured almost 30 years into the study of the tarot, and I can say with absolute certainty that nothing I have found in understanding the symbolic and allegorical systems within the cards would move one further from a faith practice, but in fact, may actually bring one in closer connection to one with proper study. Thus, TAROT CHURCH was born. I host a daily show where I read the tarot before a live online audience while also teaching a monthly class program to help others understand the deeper meaning found within the Smith-Waite Tarot system that was created by Pamela Coleman Smith and A.E. Waite in 1909, all to help others understand that there is nothing to be feared in the cards, but rather a deeper connection gained to our own divinity.
In this way, I do not see my work in tarot or poetry as separate, but as wings that share a unified purpose: a celebration of the sublime mystical world that surrounds us, through the creation of divine sacred spaces that celebrate diversity, inquiry, and inclusivity.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I am a queer neurodivergent writer, multimedia artist, and spiritual educator known as The Grey Strega (@greystrega). You can find me online daily offering a free collective tarot reading followed by personal readings that is livestreamed across TikTok, Substack, Instagram, and YouTube, and available as a podcast on Spotify. My collective tarot class program is offered monthly to paid subscribers to my Substack: www.greystrega.substack.com. I am the founder of TAROT CHURCH, a tarot education movement that aims to destigmatize tarot across any and all faith systems.
My work in tarot is specifically focused upon life paths: those who come to me for readings often depart with a better understanding of their mystical orientation, to help facilitate what is needed to overcome personal, emotional, or spiritual hurdles. I offer a variety of readings, included but not limited to: life path, past life, angelic, spirit guide, anima, akashic, mind/body/spirit, mediumship, pet guardian, aura, love, and relationships.
I also offer mentorships to those who are working to enhance their own personal faith practices, learn more about their spiritual gifts, or decode their guide messages. As a spiritual worker, I am mystically-neutral, trauma-informed and diasporic. I consider my spiritual practice one centered on creating sanctuary, and working to align you to your highest and best path. You can book a private reading with me through my website: www.greystrega.com.
As a writer, I am the recipient of Epiphany Magazine’s 2017 Short Nonfiction Prize, and long-listed as a Notable Nonfiction Selection in ‘The Best American Essays of 2018’ (Mariner Books). My writing has appeared in MATH Magazine, The Literary Review, Dewdrop, Open Secrets Magazine, and The Rumpus. My first chapbook, “What Sharp Teeth” was published by Crying Heart Press in October of 2025. I am first generation Italian-American diaspora, and reside in Jersey City, NJ. I am honored to be a board member of the Italian American Writers Association (IAWA), and an adjunct workshop facilitator for Jersey City Writers, as well as a member of Poets House, the Bi+ Book Gang, and The Poetry Society of New York. You can find information on my writing on my website, www.cyngracesylvie.com
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
YES culture. I feel like one of the most important aspects of working in the spiritual sector is understanding that choosing not to work with someone is as spiritual a choice as choosing to work with someone. I keep firm ethics in my practice by following a simple rule: if someone desires a tarot reading, I am here to provide one, but if someone feels they desperately need a tarot reading this instant, I am not available. A healthy relationship to spirituality should be one that feels like it is supportive to the centering the self, but not desperately needed in order to maintain it. This means that on occasion, I will determine that my time helping another has reached a healthy point of conclusion, or on occasion make the determination that I do not feel it is in the best interest of a prospective individual to engage in work together. I think in our current culture, there is a shame-narrative in having discernment. A society that pressures us to enthusiastically say “yes” to everything is a pervasive and damaging to us collectively and fuels collective exhaustion, and I perceive this to be an entitled perspective that damages our sense of self-preservation and self-worth in profoundly detrimental ways, that I am working to heal in my own small way. Discernment is key. And I believe that discernment is why my students trust themselves to be completely safe, seen, and supported when working with me.
If you could go back, would you choose the same profession, specialty, etc.?
If there is anything that I would choose to do differently, it would be working to pursue an MA sooner in my life. As a child of diaspora, I was the first person in my immediate family to complete college, a majority of which I paid for through my own labor and the financial aid issued to me. After graduating with my Bachelor of Science from Drexel University, I immediately threw myself into the work force. I am blessed with an incredible supportive partner today, but prior to us coming together I spent a majority of my time raising my son as a single parent, and the necessity to ensure we would have the financial means to thrive required me to put any possibility of an advanced academic career on hold. It is something I am actively pursuing now, and I would encourage anyone who has the ability to do so to take advantage of the opportunities that may be available as early as one can, if one has the support and ability to do so.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.greystrega.com / www.cyngracesylvie.com
- Instagram: @greystrega / @cyngracesylvie
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/greystrega
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greystrega/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@greystrega
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/show/2GAhe9wUKA8EWb0wx3bY6t?si=855d35c20772461d
Image Credits
Rob Hart, Wraven Design, Micayla Mirabella