Where We Are This Week

Queen of Cups

Heart Chakra

Last week we had the king of water (cups) in this same position. Reinforcing the new emotional maturity we have acquired over the past year, this week’s reading signals that it is time for us to open our hearts so others can be sheltered in the safety and security we have achieved. We are in a place of elevated clarity in 2023. We not only have achieved a new level of internal mastery but now we also are healed enough to offer that same safety and healing to others. Each of us has a distinct circle of influence where we could, today, be showing up with our arms open, willing and able to help others shoulder their pain and escape the intensity of the storms in their lives. It’s time to take care of our people.

Messages from our Guides

Ace of Wands (R)

Root Chakra

Despite what we think, we’re actually rooting deeper down into indecision, branching off with infinite overthinking in too many directions. We’re letting this indecision stand in the way of even getting started. Questions like “am I even qualified” are relevant, but shouldn’t be a barrier, it could be the start of an adventure. Because even if we aren’t qualified, we can take steps to become qualified. Even if we aren’t perfect at this *yet* doesn’t mean shouldn’t at least try. Getting started is often the hardest part. Avoiding the choice will only keep our dreams further away. Don’t be so afraid of missing out that you actually do end up missing out.

Messages from Lady Gaia/Mother Earth

Six of Swords

3rd Eye Chakra

Mother Gaia tells us it’s time to move on from an old way of thinking, an old pattern of existence. We were birthed in this era to change humanity’s trajectory. but that cannot happen unless we’re willing to take the big, bold step to leave the past ways behind. This is less of a systemic issue – and more of a personal one. We’re ready to leave behind old dogma to explore the riches of a life well-lived. We’re leaving behind the beliefs of our parents to create a new kingdom, with new rules. We’re ready to cut the cord tethering us to old models of living. Lady Gaia encourages us to set our eyes on new horizons for professional and personal fulfillment.  

Messages from Our Ancestors

Four of Pentacles

Solar Plexus Chakra

This week, our ancestors bring up our relationship with material security. Consider how many of us have been raised to accept a culture of lack and scarcity? In fact, we expect it. We so blindly adhere to that lie as a truism that we’ll put more energy into protecting our wealth, voting against humanity for the slim promise of dying with more money than the next person. Of course, we don’t see it that way when we’re in the thick of it. Because all we see are the empty ramen packages, overdue electric bills and years of insurmountable student debt. And the prickly truth is that even when we have enough to pay all those things, the memory of that poverty and hardship (whether it be intergenerational, lived experience or even past lives) continues to settle into our bones. We convince ourselves that we need more to be safe. And the more we get, the more we have to lose and so we fight harder to protect what we have…to conserve our wealth at the expense of contributing to others’. And during this season while funds are tight for everyone right now (taxes, credit card bills, annual expenses) we need to recognize the inherent difference between material security and hoarding/greed. When we feel the reflexive need to “protect what’s ours” our ancestors ask us to look a bit deeper at that reaction and the context it comes from. Which ones will serve elevated humanity and which ones won’t? Recognize specifically how money and confidence are intertwined.

Messages from Our Future Selves

Six of Wands (R)

Crown Chakra

Last week we discussed blossoming, the beautiful becoming of our humanity. But some are impatient, trying to force a victory before it is ready. Likewise, beware of chasing recognition or approval. For example, in the past few weeks I’ve had to remind myself that i’m not doing these posts for likes and shares, but to offer the gifts I have in the hope that it all resonates with those who stumble across it. And while I know I should put more time and effort into marketing myself, I am more satisfied with posting the channeled messages i get than I do in chasing my tail trying to optimize my posts to “go viral”. Even if it worked for me, it wouldn’t feel like success to me – because it means I watered myself down, made myself smaller to fit the narrow algorithms that distill humanity into bytes of code. It just isn’t waht I’m here to do and I can’t change who I am to meet others’ definitions of success. And in essence this is the message this week – performing for the applause and approval of those who haven’t been doing the work we have isn’t worth our time and energy. This week our future selves ask us to stop giving in to what we think others want from us. Instead, we’re urged to pursue those victories that are harder but more substantive because ultimately it will create the stepping stones to elevate all of humanity.

Messages from Mother Mary

The Unknown

Heart Chakra

I intentionally keep the title cards of a deck as a sort of Magic 8 Ball non-committal, ambiguous response. So when this card came up I had to laugh out loud. Because the normally sassy and mysterious Mother Mary is giving us a giant clue this week – she wants us to trust our intuition. So often we seek guidance from cards like this, from readers like me, because we think we need answers. And yet, in the grand scheme of things all any of us can do is reflect what we see within, to serve as a mirror for the divine (and the evil) that rests within all of us. My intuitive gift is just to see and describe what your spirit allows me to see. So all any of us can ever do is offer a glimpse of the mirror through the lens we see ourselves through. But how often are we reaching for someone else’s words, opinions, or interpretations to tell us what we already know? How often are we asking others to confirm or deny what we already feel in our hearts? Mary offers this radical reflection to us – to look within to find our answers and our strength – for we already have both, we just need to remember how to access them. And once we do, we have no more reason to fear the unknown – for we know we are strong enough, gentle enough, smart enough, and clear enough to face whatever comes our way.

Extra Card

High Priestess (R)

3rd Eye Chakra

There are a lot of pretenders out there. Not just the copycat accounts that follow us on social media, but the spiritual teachers with fabricated credentials, misaligned ethics, and appropriate techniques. It’s harder to discern sincere actors from fakes every day. This card reminds us to a) not claim lineages that we are not entitled to claim and b) to be discerning of those who do. For example, while in certain circles I will still refer to myself as a bruja it isn’t the direct source of my lineage. So to offer limpias that I’m not trained to do, even though I’m Latina and this lives in my bones. As applied to me, bruja is a descriptor that can hint at what I do, but it is not a title I can claim or pretend I have the spiritual authority to initiate others into. Specifically, this week be aware of whose energy matches their intentions versus those dependent on our money and gullibility to feed their egos.

Undercurrents

Death

Sacral Chakra

An unwanted reminder of our mortality, we have a natural distrust of death, the finality of life. But this is cyclical, like everything else in nature. Death, decay, destruction, and disintegration are all natural parts of life. Because even after the forest fire rages, burning all in its path – it seems like that is the end of all things. But in that heaving sigh after the tears have all been squeezed out of us after the denial has been expressed, that first breath after the smoke clears becomes the first breath of a new life. Even hillsides scarred by fire will see many of the same species of weeds, trees, flowers, and ferns return to regenerate the forest, tender evidence of the earth’s magnificence (but read more about how climate change is impacting this phenomenon). So too it could be with our lives. I think sometimes we cling to the losses because we’re afraid of the guilt of welcoming new life – as if the fire-charred hill that hosts new trees growth is insulting the forest that didn’t choose its exit? What if, the new life being offered to us is simply the consequence, the next step in the progression of how our love, our dreams, and our family live on in others who grace our lives – offering us new dimensions of ourselves to explore. The lesson this week is to trust the natural processes of life – including rebirth.

Final Advice

Hanged Man

3rd Eye Chakra

The overall theme this week encourages us to deliberately wear our intuitive lens this week, even if we don’t feel it’s as potent as we want it to be. We need to establish a baseline of where our intuition is and isn’t helping us. Use the lens of an observer. If you pull tarot cards, examine the deeper patterns and follow the superficial trends. Try to predict what is going to happen next week for you and see how close you come. Use your gifts to unlock treasures of text and see if it helps make things clearer or more cloudy. Do some people watching this week and see how close you can come to empathize with that person’s day – why are they in this space? where were they an hour ago? What is their mood? Do they like their lives? Notice where we’re filling in blanks with assumptions and biases (for example: we see a BIPOC woman with a kid and presume she’s a single mom or assign her a “welfare queen” narrative) and where we are making discerning observations that are precise and informed. Challenge the assumptions (“why do I assume she’s a single mom? Why did I presume she wasn’t already married, an auntie, or even just a paid caregiver” Follow-up question “And why would it matter if she were single, partnered, or somewhere in between?”). By doing an intuitive check in over the week, we can start to see where FEAR (False evidence appearing real) colors this goddess-given gift and where it rings true with compassionate truth. Intuition uses the language of dreams by tapping into deeper archetypes, cultural storytelling, spiritual signals. So the more we engage it deliberately, thoughtfully and curiously, the more we can learn a language that even our ancestors would understand.

Parting words

One of the most definitive episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (and TNG has an extraordinary body of work to choose from in this regard) is “Darmok”. The episode entirely depends on avoiding conflict not through tactics and strategy, but through communication. That communication would have been impossible without the intuitive leadership of these two captains who approached this problem with curiosity, patience, and ultimately trust in themselves and in the goodness of the other. This is one of the episodes in all 800+ episodes of the franchise that shows what makes Star Trek special (especially for heart-centered leaders). Likewise, this is what the Divine wants to inspire in us this week. It wants us to walk away with a new impression, a new understanding – like our eyes have been opened for the first time. Spirit wants us to see the possibilities of connection, the new paths for security and recognition. It wants us to finally hear & see it – truly – with our eyes open to the blessed life happening all around us.