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Where We Are This Week

The Hanged Man

Third Eye Chakra

Interesting that last week we had the Sun, illuminating our “outta f***s to give” kind of freedom-loving attitude and now we follow it with another major card, The Hanged Man. The smiling, serene face, as this man hangs from his foot on the tree of life, can hit like a disturbing but almost mildly ambivalent awareness of the precarious position he is in. What matters here is that whether he put himself there or has simply accepted his fate, he simply sees the world differently than we, his audience, do. How many times do we twist ourselves in knots trying to conform to what everyone says we should be? The lesson for us is that instead of judging where we’re at, whether we’re conforming to everyone else’s reality of who they want us to be, we can flip the script to find acceptance and indeed, freedom in how different our worldview is. When we stop trying to apply everyone else’s solution or judgment, we can see things the “right way around” to arrive at the solution that makes the most sense for who we really are.

Messages from our Guides

Four of Pentacles (R)

Sacral Chakra

Last week’s standstill for some of our plans was meant to bring forth a valuable understanding of scarcity & lack embedded in this week’s card. The four pentacles upright speaks to possessiveness and greed, but also safeguarding one’s treasures (whether they be people, places, things, or talents). Fear drives the hoarding of resources; when one is feeling secure, they feel more free to share theirs. However, the Guides here tell us that instead of waiting for a “safer” environment, more financial security, or some vague idea of success – that in sharing what we can now, we create a network of support that itself creates the safety we need in the form of collective care. Remember, we can all support each other…and it doesn’t always have to be financial, just our presence can be enough.

Messages from Lady Gaia/Mother Earth

MAgician (R)

Solar Plexus Chakra

Mother Earth has been speaking strongly lately – enough that I want to go back through the I’m grateful that more and more people are starting to understand embedded white supremacy, colonialism, and patriarchy lurking in spiritual help spaces. I try to be as transparent as possible about my processes, my background, and my knowledge, but even I can get trapped in egotistical maneuverings that look a lot like wisdom and magic but are just bypassing. Mother Earth has been warning us to beware of forces that seek to exploit rather than honor her. Likewise, there is always an uncomfortable spotlight right on us – making us examine ourselves before we start throwing stones at others. In particular, what parts of our practices are driven more by consumerism than need or even true, heartfelt desire? This is a signal to take a big step back from the trappings of spiritual mastery to truly assess how aligned we actually feel and then adjust accordingly.

Messages from the Ancients

Page of CUps (R)

Solar Plexus Chakra

We still have some sour grapes about the past, a chip on our shoulder that won’t let up. That there are hurt feelings is a given, that pain is legitimate and so was the betrayal that led to it. However, continuing to drink from that bitter, worn cup is starting to sour our vision of the future. Unless you’re training for the Misery Olympics, there is no need to drink from that cup of angry sadness any longer. Call it what it is but stop drinking from that corroded cup of memory. (See Side Note below)

Messages from Our Future Selves

Blank Card + Six of Cups

Heart Chakra

Maybe it’s because I enjoy the chaos of it, but I always keep these title cards when I get a new deck. In my early tarot training I was taught that “blank” cards meant “you aren’t meant to know right now” or something similar.  So here, this blank card, the first that I pulled literally means “the future is not written yet” meaning we are at a crossroads of decision-making. This would be satisfaction enough for me in my personal readings, but I felt the collective deserved a bit more insight. The modifier card, the Six of Cups, hints that this new future is waiting for us to re-write our past. Much like the card from the ancients speaks to how we’ve been over-consuming the bad memories of the past, this card urges us to find the redeemable in the past to rewrite the narrative of our future – and the key is the card from Mother Mary.

Messages from Mother Mary

King of Cups

Crown Chakra

This week I chose to give you the card from this position as it shows up in the readings themselves – sideways. See, Mother Mary, my patroness, is the example I have for being a bridge between humanity and the divine. Here, the pains of our past and the potential of our future selves. The natural intercessor, she points to the crucial turning point we face in our quest: our commitment to emotional integrity. The King of Cups represents not just emotional control and mastery, but also transparency and compassion. Do we have the courage and strength to embrace our own vulnerability, to let go our our grudges in order to meet people where they are? Do we have the mastery to listen for honesty and to forgive when redemption is possible? Everything that we choose right now is like a switch – we can either choose integrity or disparity, but we can no longer sit on the sidelines. Our choices and the stories we tell about the past will be a crucial part of how our future plays out.

Undercurrents

Three of Wands

Root Chakra

Where there are three there is power. This theme is repeated in so many ways in our cultural memories. The Holy Trinity that Catholics profess. “Three is the magic number” from Schoolhouse Rock (one of my favorites!). In my readings, threes are when the magic starts to happen. But specifically with wands, it becomes a signal that we’re channeling deeper, divine energy into our plans, igniting our hearts with a holy fire that believes that we can truly change the world. It looks fearlessly into the future even if everyone else is naysaying and questioning. This is VERY helpful here with the undercurrent. Because it means that no matter what is happening on the surface, the actions we’ve taken have set good things into motion. We have good reason to believe in ourselves.

Final Advice

Page of Swords (R)

Throat Chakra

Last week we had a brush with the Page of Swords reversed from the ancestors, warning about taking the role of moral hall monitor too seriously. This week we have a similar warning in the outcome, except now, we’ve been drinking so much of the bitter memory brew that now we’re activating everyone else, spitting acid on the precious things we prioritize. Even if we cannot control how we think about the past, we can certainly change how we talk about the future and how we act in the present. When tempted to pass on the pain to others, remember that we are here to create something new, to stop reaching for the easy judgment and snarky snap impressions, and instead choose to contribute something better, not bitter, into the world.