June 17, 2024 / The Sacred Sisterhood Tarot
While it has been logistically difficult for me to post the Messages of Divine Love via this wordpress site, I’m wanted to give an alternative to having a substack subscription so I can better archive these for future reference. However, I will always be posting these to substack first: https://sharpsweetbella.substack.com
Intro Notes to the Deck & Reading
This week’s reading with the Sacred Sisterhood Tarot presents a poignant summary of what Pride Month has felt like as a polyamorous, bisexual babe. On the one hand, we have people in mainstream society who threaten the very existence of queer, trans, and nonbinary people, along with non-white, disabled bodies. On the other, we have people within our communities who we thought would support us who nitpick and deny until I’m swimming in shame no matter where I am. It is this push and pull of societal acceptance – the tempest that blows in resistance, the dramatic violence of a dying exclusive club grasping for threads of its shredded control.
For the past few years I haven’t felt as much joy in Pride – maybe because as a disabled, neurodivergent, polyamorous, bisexual Latina survivor, I often feel like there is no space for me, especially any that feels safe for the intersection of these identities. People can relate to one but not all of these identities – so it’s always easy to feel left out to some degree. The space I’ve found that fits best is the little overlap between the geek, kink, and polyamorous scenes…but even there, we always have someone who thinks battle lines need to be drawn to keep the “undesirables” out.
This kind of jealous, protective resistance is often on my mind, especially whenever I teach about relationships, diversity, or trauma-informed care. And especially this month as I’ve seen other polyam, bisexual women targeted on social media, if the queer community were as good at organizing for democracy as it is picking the meat off our bisexual bones then perhaps we might have a true movement. Instead of banding together to turn the tide of oppressive violence and poverty threatening to swallow the most vulnerable among us, they’d rather debate whether I’m just “spicy straight”.
Why? Because the role of gatekeeper is a great way to give people who don’t have leadership skills the illusion of power so they don’t threaten the structures, silly. But because we can’t change anyone else, this week’s reading is focused on what it will take to survive this tempest push and pull of change so that we become the examples of integrity instead of this dying breed of power and control addictions masquerading as “normalcy”.
Where We Are This Week
Eight of Wands (R)
Root Chakra
Either things have spiraled out of your control…or the lack of control is causing you to delay action out of an overabundance of caution. This week finds us at a standstill with ourselves. We know what we’re supposed to do, but there is a lingering wound of perfectionism that is making us rush the process, scattering our energy all over the place with mixed signals. Likewise, we are so invested in controlling the outcome, making sure the “right things” happen that we aren’t giving the universe any room to sprinkle in magic. This is a moment where we need to let go and surrender to the moment so that Spirit can guide us again.
Messages from our Guides
Four of Cups
Heart Chakra
One of the things I’ve been struggling most with lately is how I’m always expecting the other shoe to drop. I either don’t believe that they can be attracted to me, or I’m looking for flaws in their behavior to confirm the waning interest I always expected. But how much of that has been a self-fulfilling prophecy? How much of it has been me rejecting them first so I never have to feel the sting of that rejection myself. Here is what I’m learning, if you’re only looking for the reflection of rejection in every cup you’re handed, can you even recognize when it’s the real thing being handed to you…don’t pass over a good thing. Sometimes you gotta lean into the yes even if it won’t work in the long term. The merit is in the experience itself, especially with love.
Messages from Lady Gaia/Mother Earth
King of Cups (R)
Solar Plexus Chakra
“Stop showing your ass when you could be showing them your assets”. I’m getting a great deal of oversharing energy here. The folks who flaunt how toxic they are, airing all their dirty laundry, mocking people for likes, making an ass of themselves in the comments section. Soon it’s going to become very apparent as people wake up to their trauma how these kinds of things are an expression of woundedness, of a support-seeking need that has taken the form of dominance in the real world, algorithmically speaking. Be aware of where we are putting our attention. Are we showing the assets we are proud of or have we just left a wet fart on people who were already suffocating?
Messages from the Ancients
World (R)
Crown Chakra
There are twisting wounds that have contributed to the standstill we are experiencing. A tight knot of values that got tangled in with our needs caused us to feel like something is incomplete, our channel not quite open to receiving. For example, yesterday I had a moment where the words “If I cannot show complete unconditional love then I don’t deserve to ever feel it.” Oof. Right? Might that belief cause me to reject the channels of unconditional love that were being offered to me and have been offered to me for decades now? Might that negatively impact not just my relationships with others, but my relationship with the divine? These wounds of sacrifice, suffering, and scarcity are exactly what our collective, colonized past selves have experienced and obeyed and where has it gotten us? These beliefs are hard because they feel like a cocoon waiting to keep us safe, but it’s fiberglass meant to contain us so we never know what freedom feels like. My loves, this is our final test…the hardest of them all. It is time to break free.
Messages from Our Future Selves
Temperance
Throat Chakra
Just look at how beautiful this card is! It brings tears to this mama’s eyes to see this kind of representation, especially coming from our future selves. To me, this is a testament to how our trans and nonbinary communities have become modern-day alchemists, not only in how they perceive and define their experiences but in how they consistently have to alchemize hate into self-love. This card for me represents the long, hard journey to self-love that then becomes the recipe for freedom that others can use to define and perceive themselves too. Acceptance is coming…please hang in there, my radiant friends.
Messages from Mother Mary
The Hierophant
Third Eye Chakra
I don’t know how else to say this, but authoritarianism isn’t spiritual. No matter who proclaims it, no matter how righteous we think their cause might be, spirituality, as in oneness with the divine within and around us, is not served by the cause of small-hearted dictators, corporate crowned kings, or legislated morality monitors. Guidance shows up as a teacher who gets us, a healer who sees us, a kind word on a bad day, a poem read in a library, an opportunity to love ourselves, a sparkle in the eye of a lover, a flutter in the heart with a kind deed, an approving nod from a mentor. Those who construct narratives of dominance try to control these things with book bans, “don’t say gay’ legislation, denying trans care, winding people up with so much trauma that kindness seems rarer than it should. Don’t fall for the hype, keep following the threads of goodness and the right teachers will find you the more you embrace divine love.
Undercurrents
Page of Wands
Solar Plexus Chakra
As an antidote e to the “oversharing our asses” commentary above, the undercurrent delivered a more pure and courageous motive: Do all things with the courage of a 4-year-old in Batman PJs. This energy is about living our dreams to the fullest. Showing our talents. Showing who we want to be when we grow up. Doing things for the pure enjoyment and passion of it. Instead of showing how mean and snobby we can be, let’s tap into that childlike wonder to show the world our true joys, the things that make us come alive. I’m not saying we can’t feel anger, frustration, or hurt, but let’s be what we put into the world a demonstration of all we can be beyond the pain.
Final Advice
High Priestess (R)
Sacral Chakra
Our true power lies in the acceptance of our nature. Whether you’re empathic because of trauma (me), neurodivergence (also, me), an ancestral tradition of witches (oh yeah, that’s me), or a natural gift or calling (can relate), then the biggest wounds we can fix for ourselves, without anyone else’s permission or intervention is to start connecting in with our intuition. Look at the world through the eyes of empathy, interconnectedness, a collective consciousness, and imaginative visualization. Don’t judge it, just notice it. For me, it started when I would find my calling “activated”, there was always a strong smell of roses even when there were none. Another is the sound of crows outside when I am sending Reiki to my long-distance friends or doing a reading for myself. Treat the training of your intuition with cooperative curiosity and see what is revealed. This is the one tool that once it comes back, it can never be taken away again.
Parting words from a Geek Empress
Capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy have never liked coming in second – especially when they have so carefully crafted a world full of so few winners and so many losers. After all, there is a reputation for coercive control to maintain. These forces will stop at nothing to push back against resistance, working overtime to make the world more threatening and scary. Suffering, scarcity, and trauma are the only ways these systems know how to operate.
These forces, the socially limiting beliefs of power, have been structured on a presumption of dominance. Winners take all in a storied battle of righteous conquest. The structures survive through clear categories, rigid order, and an array of codes, consequences, and control mechanisms that ensure their survival. (The Empire in Star Wars, Wilford’s train in Snowpiercer…the list goes on). It’s those of us who don’t quite fit in these categories and have opted out of the constructed competition that proves to be the most disagreeable to these systems…and the best positioned to unravel them.
That is why this year’s Pride feels more oppressive than others. Every day the supporters of that world are pushing back against the increasing irrelevance of their dominance. The goal is to put the genie back in the bottle, to wind back time by making it more dangerous for anyone who is sensitively trying to live their truth, unwind their learning, and walk the talk. After all, what motive does someone have to be authentic if they’re constantly smacked down for being vulnerable enough to do that? And if we shut out all the examples of people who have done this then who will ever muster the courage to do the same?
Unleashing that light within severs the last hold that any of these forces can hold over us. But that has to start with us…in community with each other by establishing the safety for people to be authentically themselves. But even deeper than that – it is about unwinding those parts of us that still push and shove so hard against people being accepted for exactly who they are (whether we agree with it or not!). Are we brave enough to love ourselves enough to make room for us all?
No matter what this week brings know that I am with you, always, in love 💖
Spark the Heart Network (June 25 @ 5:30 pm)
Registration is now open for the Spark the Heart Network group. The first meeting is on June 25, via Zoom.
The first topic we’ll be covering is So you have a calling…now what?!
- What is it?
- A virtual monthly support & networking membership group for soul-centered activists, leaders & helpers.
- Members can sign up to present at a quarterly skillshare meeting to learn about each others’ experiences, services, and backgrounds to better exchange information and referrals.
- The vision is to grow it into a framework that can support fundraising, volunteers, or resourcing for members’ mutual aid projects and outside charities nominated and voted on by the group at large.
- Why is it needed?
- Speaking from experience, we all need a place to regroup when the world gets to be too much. When disinformation has us doubting our knowledge systems makes us doubt our worth. Double that for anyone who works with vulnerable communities.
- This is a space for sensitive souls to Let go of the hurt, gather our strength, straighten our crowns, and get back to the radical love we are here to give.
- Who is this group designed for?
- Those who have personal or professional experience as a community healer, activist, navigator, service provider, or leader?
- Those who consider themselves heart-centered or soul-led in describing their approach to the world.
- Anyone who feels called to contribute their skills to building a more loving world
- Those looking to expand their network of caring souls who don’t ignore the suffering of the world, but also need support in responding to it.
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