Thank you so much for your patience while I took a brief hiatus to commemorate the first anniversary of my dad and grandpa’s deaths. And if you’ve been following me on social media, you know that I recently had ankle reconstruction surgery. this is the first week I’ve felt clear enough to write anything coherent. It’s been three weeks of self-care, but very worth it as it would have taken too much of an emotional toll for me to function any other way. And while there are very few of you who are here just for the Message of Divine Love content, I start to pile on guilt when I don’t keep up with the schedule. And worse, I allow that guilt to interfere with my connection to the Divine.
I’m starting to realize, whether it’s because I have seasonal affective disorder (SAD) or whether I will now always associate this time with sadness, death, and insurrection, that I need to allow myself time in January to hibernate and heal. We have family celebrations for birthdays starting in mid-November each week through the end of the year and so it would make sense that January is more of a time for me to cocoon myself into my creature comforts because all while all the socializing does this Sagittarius girl some good, it also can take a lot of out me and I need time to rest and replenish after the holidays. So while everyone is out there excited to start their “new year, new me” resolutions, I need some alone time to be functional again.
I think it’s fitting then that the reading this week talks about divine balance. The cards align with the number four (4 of Cups, 4 of Swords, IV – the Emperor – a trinity of fours – 444) which to me reminds me of the balance of the four elements (earth, fire, water, air) or the four directions (north, south, east and west). This symbolism is embedded into so many of our spiritual traditions and cultural narratives and values. Four is a number that symbolizes cohesion and stability, from the four walls of a room, the four legs of a chair or table, the four pillars holding up the roof, the four wheels of a vehicle. You can make any of these with three, but four gives us greater stability and room to breathe, doesn’t it?
The cards also align with Queens & Kings, Priestesses & Emperors, so the theme this week is also about the balance of masculine and feminine. Because when we have a balance between these two equally important forces of nature, we obsess less about the separation between them. They integrate and flow together, each cognizant of its role while making room for the other to have their place. When we are in divine alignment with these two polarities of humanity, we begin to see how silly it was to divide us this way anyway – for we were made from the union of both and we contain elements of both, not just inherited traits or genetic material, but the memories, traumas and hopes encoded with those who created us. To embrace one without the other is to divide own individual psyches in half as well. When we heal these halves of ourselves, when we reintegrate the divine lessons of balance in our lives, we heal the world too.
This week, in particular, I think a lot of people think that balance means compartmentalization. In fact, most of the advice and mentorship I received in the legal profession over the past twenty years amounted to dealing with emotion by sucking it up, locking it away, or hiding it from others. They all told me that I wasn’t a good fit for the profession because I simply cannot nor will not do this with my emotion, my empathy, or my vulnerability, which proved to be true. Yet, it didn’t have to be like this. It isn’t inevitable that we remain separated from ourselves or from each other. But what is most critical is that we recognize that humanity will never be whole until we allow ourselves to be whole. And this is the essence of what balance actually is – allowing ourselves to be our full selves with honesty and integrity, without shame or guilt, so that we are always bringing our full talents to the table to propel us forward.
The deck I chose this week is the Tarot de la Nuit, a goth and fantasy-laden deck that is just gorgeous to look at. I loved how many themes seemed to pop up that remind me of Game of Thrones as we eagerly await the prequel series (and Winds of Winter). I loved this imagery – so inspiring for my first week back! Enjoy!
See more below…
Where we are this week
Five of Cups (R)
Much has been said (especially by me) about the relentless trauma we have been through as we enter year 2 of the pandemic (in fact, this week marks 2 years since I got very ill with early COVID – the long COVID symptoms still see revenge from time to time, I’m luckier than most). And while the world has a lot of growing up to do with how we treat and manage this trauma collectively, on a personal level, acknowledging this trauma is helping us face and resolve other kinds of trauma that have accumulated in our lives. Whether it’s trauma around our workplaces, our families, our personal histories, in the face of such overwhelming emotion in our daily world, it is oddly shining a light on trauma that we struggled to tolerate and hide in our lives before. Shining a light into these dark corners of the psyche is a critical step toward healing and this week, we’re coming to a place of acceptance about the role trauma played in our lives before and during a global pandemic. Gentle illuminating light in the dark landscape of our lives.- the rest of our plans are growing, but it will take time.
Moving toward acceptance.
Messages from our Guides
Four of Cups (R)
Because we are collectively coming to terms with how trauma has impacted our lives, we are being asked specifically by our guides to check in with them at this stage in the journey. It isn’t enough that we’re recognizing how our life stories have affected us, we need guidance on how to move forward so that we don’t continue to beat ourselves up with past versions of our story. We need guidance so we don’t trauma dump all over humanity in an effort to move forward. This is a stage where we need to accept the help and guidance of the divine. Tune in this week and listen to what our guides have to say. Keep our eyes and ears open to messages from the divine and be intentional in setting aside mental time and space to tune into the guidance we receive. And remember that help will often arrive in forms we never expected – so most of all, stay open.
Time for a check-in with our guides.
Messages from Lady Gaia
The High Priestess
We are invited to return to the rhythms of nature – the movement of the moon, the cyclical patterns of birth, growth, death, and rebirth in how we approach Mother Earth. When we’re outside in the cold, wintery sunshine, what do we feel? Gratitude and joy? or Annoyance and impatience? The lesson from the High Priestess is to lean into the mysteries of the divinely ordered rhythms of Mother Nature, our sacred feminine selves. She speaks to us in the dark of the new moon, the flitterings of a breeze through the empty tree branches, the hoot of the owl, the songs of rivers and oceans. Her presence is all around us if we choose to engage in this receptive and reverent dance with her power.
An intutitive dance with Earth.
Messages from our Ancestors
Four of Swords
I have been cooped up for a few weeks now recovering from surgery and just like my guides are telling me to follow doctor’s orders about resting my operated leg and focusing my energy on the strengthening exercises I need to heal, so too are our ancestors telling us to utilize this time to recenter ourselves, particularly after this Mercury Retrograde. Many of us are impatient to “get to work” on our next big idea, our new job adventure, our plans to improve our lives, but the lesson from our elders and ancestors is that rest = replenishment. Rest allows our bodies to relax, recover and reset making us even more capable of executing our plans, seizing the right moment to make our dreams come true. Embrace this time for the rest we need – we won’t always get this kind of opportunity.
Rest, little children.
Messages from our Future Selves
Queen of Cups
This is honestly what we’ve been working toward for a very long time now: the emergence and balance with the Divine Feminine. The train has already left the station and we are underway – and have been so since around 2010. And while the goal is a balance between these two polarities that exist within all of us, we first need to invite and celebrate the manifestations of more feminine power into our lives. And when this presence arrives in our lives it will feel like a grand celebration – ticker-tape parade down the main street of our psyche. The softening of the deep binaries we cling to is part of this – because someday we won’t even have to worry about the division between women and men, feminine and masculine because we’ll be so integrated to cling to one and not also the other is to cling to separation and division. The Queen of Cups announces that all are welcome at her table and that she is bringing the power of compassionate witnessing to our lives in the future. When we start to embrace our shared humanity, we will begin to heal the divisions between us and find a new, integrated way to coexist together in harmony.
The Divine Feminine has arrived!
Message from Mother Mary
King of Pentacles
Mother Mary assures us that the “Rise of the Divine Feminine”, which her appearances around the world and throughout the past 300+ years have been helping to create, is not to replace men or the Divine Masculine but to give equal partnership to it. Too many think that the Divine Feminine is meant to supplant the Divine Masculine – as if we’ve been experiencing some sort of renaissance of that (hint: we haven’t – toxic masculine has been in control for centuries). What Mary is assuring us here is that the Rise of the Divine Feminine is meant to release the Divine Masculine from the dungeon its jealous toxic twin has imprisoned him in. These actions, these trends will culminate in a productive relationship of feminine and masculine as harmonious stewards of the earth, erasing division and ensuring everyone has a part to play.
Balance has always been the goal.
Final advice:
The Emperor (IV)
Leadership shows up in many forms.
Knight of Swords (R)
You know nothing, Jon Snow.
Here for the Emperor, a card about personal authority is stylized in a way that speaks to archetypes of the Warrior, a traditional view of a leader – someone who will fight to protect their people, stand tall, and cut down any threat in its past. However, with this undercurrent, we’re asked to recognize that leadership comes in many forms, not just the ones that we’d expect. In fact, that’s [what my entire leadership coaching practice] is about. We each will be called to be leaders and just because we don’t resemble the image of what we think leadership is, doesn’t mean the divine is wrong about our potential. Let go of the limiting beliefs we have around leadership and embrace that the world needs more leaders who look like you and me.
I love that this final image is so reminiscent of both Jon Snow and Ned Stark from Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice & Fire) because there is a huge lesson in their connected stories (as we still wait for the final book – ugh). We have been taught that “dying for our cause” is one of the noblest things we can do – and yet, who is demanding that we die, martyr ourselves to our beliefs? Oppressors, who want to retain power? Who wants to strip others of theirs? Ned sacrificed himself for the good of the realm, setting off a war that claimed so much of the realm. Jon Snow (at least in the show) passed up his birthright to give power to someone who wrought just as much death as destruction as the White Walkers in her ascent to the Iron Throne. Avoid the temptation to fall on our swords just because others told us that the right and honorable thing to do for them. Because when we sacrifice ourselves, we also sacrifice the potential change we can bring by standing tall and secure in our own selves. The era of needing to sacrifice ourselves to fit in, to please others, is starting to draw to a close. Resist the demands to sacrifice our authentic selves, our fight, and our vision for the sake of keeping others comfortable in illusions of power. Step back and consider, but avoid the temptation to give up on ourselves entirely.
Blessing:
In this time of awakening earth, may we make ourselves ready to embrace the wholeness of ourselves, to integrate our full existence, to ignite a renewal and rebirth. May we take advantage of the rest we need while staying open to the Divine Messengers here to help us create a better balance with the earth. In connecting back with our most natural selves, may we embody and embrace the call of leadership we were born to answer.
I am with you always in love 💖
So may it be.
Specializing in readings for LGBTQ+, non-monogamous and “it’s complicated” situations
Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Pexels.com
I offer A VARIETY OF READINGS & REIKI SESSIONS that can:
- Reboot relationship(s)
- Check-in with the body’s chakras
- Uncover hidden talent & treasure
- Clear emotional blockages
- Channel messages of Divine Love
- Step up as a leader
- Harmonize past lives
La Madonna Rosa 