July 29, 2024 / The Celtic 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 comes after turmoil and revelations, backtracking and self-doubt. It’s enough to throw us for a loop and cause us to question reality just a bit. That’s what happens when towers come down…and believe it or not, when Biden made the decision that he did, when he did, a giant pillar of the “same old game” began to collapse…this time with some dignity, sacrificing itself for a last gasp of other dying systems.
The dust hasn’t even settled yet and people are already putting the hopeless cart before the healing horse. Will Democrats save us? Of course not, the establishment Dems are quite invested in an old system that generates endless, polarizing conflict (I should know, I was often mocked and excluded for my support of education reform back in 2004, making it clear even then how little they cared about good policy and more about generating donations that keep the dualistic machinery working). But just because we can’t count on these systems doesn’t mean we abdicate the responsibility we have for one another in the process.
Some key questions I think every heart-centered leader should be asking themselves is: What am I building right now? How close are we to being able to build structures that can replace the towers of old? Where are we shoring up bridges to get people to a better world? Have we even shared or gotten input on our vision yet? And most important to me: How are we creating a fabric of care to catch our most vulnerable when systems fail in these transitions of “burning it all down?”
My life has always swirled through the darkest of the gray areas of life and so I’m always going to find comfort in frameworks that allow for the true diversity of humanity’s rather nuanced experiences. I’ve been committed to creating structures of support – bridges of understanding between disparate sides and a safety net to catch folks who might stumble off that bridge. Meanwhile, my clients are usually those who are either challenging the old systems, setting off alarms to wake people up for evacuation…or those who are building new systems from the ground up – pioneering collective care as a default modality.
With this week’s reading, I want to you consider which of these lanes calls to you: 1) Designing & building from the ground up, 2) Rooting in to create networks of care to catch the vulnerable or 3) Shoring up the gateways, bridges & portals of understanding that will help people transition their hearts & minds. No matter where you land, you have a part to play where this advice will be relevant:
Where We Are This Week
Knight of Wands (R)
Root Chakra
One of the most easily dismissed influences over our external world is our inherent bias. But here it isn’t just that we’ve convinced ourselves we’re right, but we’ve embedded that into the very systems of our physical world, including the digital world we rely on for news and connection. Unexamined bias will ALWAYS produce a mistake in the outcomes. While this clearly is the case of racial bias in medicine, for example, it is also something as simple as a bias that “success is always the result of hard work” makes us look the other way when someone rich receives something (like tax breaks). Instead, we criticize someone poor for receiving something (tax credits for low-income parents), saying we’re giving a handout or creating dependence. The bias of assuming rich and poor are things that are earned then perpetuates that lie within systems and ensures government protects that belief. We need to look at the math here and make sure that whatever we’re building doesn’t integrate the same false assumptions or bring about worse consequences.
Messages from our Guides
Knave of Wands (R)
Third Eye Chakra
One of the more infuriating things we’ve all encountered this week is how easily misinformation is getting spread. There has been a flattening of the truth, an oversimplification used for the expediency of a soundbite, to capture that first 10 seconds of attention you have on social media before someone scrolls past. So the more bombastic the claim the more we’ll interact with it. This card reminds us that none of us is immune from distorting the facts or resharing misogyny. Our impulse to act is going to be very strong, emotionally charged, driven from one extreme to another – learn to take a step back before charging in with self-righteousness.
Messages from Lady Gaia/Mother Earth
Three of Wands
Crown Chakra
We keep expecting something big to happen. A big bang to announce the coming apocalypse. The temptation of a wandering eye, the impulse to chase down any opportunity that flashes a grin our way is strong right now. Escape is easy; commitment is hard. Right now, the people, places, and roles that have entered our lives stay put, to build from where you find yourself now. This is a card of discipline and intentionality. We are building something magnificent…but that can’t happen if we give into the temptation of wanderlust, self-doubt, and impatience.
Messages from the Ancients
Six of Wands (R)
Heart Chakra
Remember when I mentioned bias before? One of the biases that has flowed from one generation to the next is the idea that you can command either love or respect through fear. In particular, the use of shame to control, coerce, and manipulate people is a feature, not a bug of patriarchy and all its ilk. We’ve tried victory that way…and our ancestors know it doesn’t really work…it doesn’t change hearts & minds, which is what we need more than anything right now. To get the love and respect we need to build a better world, we need to earn the trust needed to ensure it comes to life.
Messages from Our Future Selves
Four of Wands
Heart Chakra
Hey friends, did you know that the future could look a whole lot more like interconnected pockets of intentional, chosen family? People brought together by common purpose and interest, like little cooperatives that take the place of government? Or at least…that’s my vision for us. But that’s the thing…it has to be for us as in the true diversity of humanity. We have to build systems that work for the reality of a larger collective that exists deeper and more interdependent than our current individualistic systems that churn out injustice to those unlike us. We have to plan for inclusion in all things, not just those similar to us.
Messages from Mother Mary
King of Pentacles
Solar Plexus Chakra
This card always reminds me of one of my favorite models of funding/service delivery: social enterprises. I had the good fortune to work for an organization that did it very well, (I am proud to claim that the 2018 expansion of TANF was my contribution🫶). These social enterprises generated revenue that poured back into the organization to fund innovative services like the Laundry Truck or help me pay for continuing education for my navigators that grants wouldn’t fund otherwise. This is the kind of enterprising spirit that we need right now. This is how we, as a collective, can fund solutions like guaranteed basic income and community-led safety organizations to invest back in the community. Think about where we can be more intentional in our community equity building so we generate revenue to more sustainably pour back into funding the needs of our communities on a larger scale. What are your thoughts on these ideas?
Undercurrents
Eight of Swords
Sacral Chakra
Every day I wake up and expect to find some fresh hell on my social media sites. Do you feel it too? That self-protective sense of doom every time I scroll past yet another triggery image or terrible take? Here’s the thing we don’t have to keep doing this to ourselves. We don’t have to endlessly consume hopelessness, even if we fully intend to “stay informed”. This is the time to realize that we don’t have to let the illusions of hopelessness confine us to a corner. We are so much more powerful than any algorithm…but we have to be willing to take back our control to slay those illusions making us dance to their tune.
Final Advice
The Hierophant (R)
Throat Chakra
There are layers here that I wish I could reveal with any amount of competence…but rest assured that patriarchy is falling apart. Its systems are crumbling under the weight of awareness. Much like the Emperor Without Clothes, we not only see the illusion, we see the manipulative, wounded egos that gave rise to these beliefs. We need to be uncompromising in seeing through the old power & control narratives (like using shame as a weapon of control) and how they influence our words and behavior. Instead of pushing back when people share those revelations, it is a good time to reflect on why that reaction is there at all – for that is where true enlightenment starts.
Parting words from a Geek Empress
Normally it’s easy to find the geek theme, but instead what kept coming to me was something I’ve never seen in a movie or show that is easy to reference. So, instead, I’ll go with my homegrown Colorado nerdiness for a reference this week: Aspen Trees.
Why aspens? Because they symbolize the kind of interconnected structure we need to focus on building. Aspens grow up to be a striking splash of color across the Rocky Mountain landscape but also have strong root systems designed to support one another. While the height might be modest compared to other trees, the width of the roots can grow to three times their height. While seedlings are called “clones” they are as much subject to the whims of nature’s development to make them individual and unique in how they grow and develop…much like us as extensions of our families of origin.
“Older than the massive Sequoias or the biblical Bristlecone Pines, the oldest known aspen clone has lived more than 80,000 years on Utah’s Fishlake National Forest. Not only is the clone the oldest living organism, weighing in at an estimated 6,600 tons, it is also the heaviest. Even if the trees of a stand are wiped out, it is very difficult to permanently extinguish an aspen’s root system due to the rapid rate in which it reproduces.”
Much of our focus has been on issues instead of structure. Issues will continue, particularly within the structures we have, and even more as they fall apart. But it’s ultimately going to be the creation of an interconnected network of support that will make the difference. We are so used to systems built on an individualized model of competition and superiority that we fail to see beyond the individual tree and understand the interconnected fabric underneath it all.
While the idea of a healthy burning of these systems is entirely valid, we have to be careful to ensure we aren’t damaging the people still caught within them. Like one aspen tree is an extension of another, so too must we reorient ourselves to see one another as an extension of ourselves. Not in that icky, parentified “you are a clone of me” way, but in a “what happens to you is as if it happened to me” way where we finally start to take some responsibility to ensure others aren’t harmed.
Of course, we can’t just vote hoping for a magical shift in US policy, nor can we sit out our duty to build something better. It seems like a chasm of difference, but that’s because we haven’t been here before. And that’s when that bias kicks in to pull us back into old thinking. So again…the relevant questions are:
How are we building support through our shared roots? How are we contributing our time, talent, or treasure to build a fabric of support underneath us so we have something to catch us when we fall? How are we nurturing the growth of processes that are more aligned with our true nature? How are we innovating something bigger than us? It takes all of us…but destroying the current system will only work if we overcome our embedded distrust to connect for the biggest of team projects: building a better world.
No matter how these Messages find you this week, know that I am always with you in love 💖
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