August 26, 2024 / Disney Villains 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
What a genuine joy it was to revisit this deck. It had been my daily deck for a three-month run a year ago. It’s quirky and fun even if the images aren’t always as precisely aligned as some of the other decks I’ve used (like the Unofficial Schitty Tarot).
Given some of the glaring failures and wins of the DNC last week, it is becoming more obvious that the old patterns of appease & deny no longer suffice. The failure to allow Palestinians a chance to be heard, while also ignoring vital talking points we had a chance to correct about gender-affirming care and trans rights are two big errors that will cost Democrats the trust of many uncommitted voters. RFK Jr’s withdrawal from the race and endorsement of Trump was never a “plot twist” 🤨It was always gonna go like that and all the witchy bots who were paid to drum up support for him have now aligned to Team Toxic Trump…urging other witchy women to give away their power to patriarchy.
Meanwhile, what I can say is that Dems have proven that we can still pump it up with a genuine sense of connection. I did not watch the event in real-time (there is still a great pang of loss given how much of my story involved Dems not having my back when I needed it most). But what I saw was a rallying cry, a current of electricity that the party has needed for the past ten years. They accomplished the larger purpose of the event – to energize the base – and finally, get people (including myself) to say Kamala’s name correctly.
However, we have multiple dualistic systems getting pulled apart all at the same time. Multiple safety nets are burdened by the collusion of companies like RealPage are breaking under the strain of need. Multiple billionaires are attaching their names to vanity projects to out-compete each other for Worthlessly Influential Villain of the Year awards. The only comparisons we can make right now are tethered to an artificially saturated belief system. Coerced faith in systems because “there is no other way” has caused us to stop dreaming and reaching out to each other.
This loneliness is purposeful, to keep us locked away in our survival. Too scared to reach up and out beyond the machinery. And as much as I lectured people last week about their abuse of the term “the Matrix” (you’re gonna use a trans allegory to support a manipulated trans-hating MAGA movement that puts my friends and kids at risk…okey-dokey 🤨), this allegory matters a lot in the energy this week. Because it is in our loneliness that our greatest distortions are reinforced – and there is no machinery keeping us there – just our own stubborn belief that we aren’t good enough to dream otherwise.
Trust me…you are enough…as am I. So let’s start acting like it, yeah?
Where We Are This Week
Page of Coins
Sacral Chakra
I love the hyenas from The Lion King and they are a great representation of the invitation into madness that starts our week. Every new opportunity seems suspicious at first. It’s good to be cautious when presented with such wild chances, especially when delivered by overeager messengers. The “too good to be true” aspect is worth considering, but so is the idea of joining people you truly want to work and create with, even if it seems impossible. Trust your gut, stay grounded in your own truth as you evaluate the next steps that are offered to you. It might seem impossible, but my god, it’s so worthwhile.
Messages from our Guides
Queen of Wands (R)
Throat Chakra
Not all feedback is created equal. This week there is some mean girl energy floating about. Gossips who think they can get the better of us, self-appointed monitors who have an opinion about how we live our lives. No matter who is pecking at us this week, we have the right to expect that the feedback we are given is offered with empathy and understanding, in the spirit of collaboration, not competition. Speaking as someone who once absorbed ALL the negative feedback I ever got, the only people worth listening to are those who are trying to (re)connect, not deflect or destroy. Pay attention to the motives behind the feedback and let it slide away if it isn’t offered with the empathy you are due.*
*Understand too that just because we respond badly to feedback doesn’t mean it was lacking in empathy or a genuine desire for connection. This is where knowing ourselves including our biases can matter…because sometimes, people are offering us a mirror with love but we just don’t love what we see.
Messages from Lady Gaia/Mother Earth
Four of Cups
Root Chakra
In the human services work I did, it was common to hear, “They should have made better choices.” Hmm…okay, but what if they made the best choices available to them at the time? What if there were larger barriers to better choices? Mother Earth, the natural guardian of our material world reminds us that not everyone has access to the same choices as another, nor does everyone have the same priorities that we do. Likewise, especially for those of us who are used to a lack of resources, and limited choices in how we can respond to things – we might miss seeing the far-off possibilities on the horizon out of our dismay at all the discontent that life has offered so far. Keep your eyes open for the glittering opportunity that is trying to catch your eye.
Messages from the Ancients
Six of Cups (R)
Crown Chakra
At my 10-year high school reunion, I remember sitting with a friend who lamented into his beer that he was afraid that he had peaked in high school. He had an exceptional education and a seemingly happy life…but there he was comparing himself to…his former self. I think about that a lot because I spent most of my 30s feeling the same way about college. But if we’re forever looking back at who we were, we’re not investing any of ourselves into the present person we are becoming. This is the signal to stop looking back wistfully with rose-colored glasses, because frankly… that version of you wouldn’t be able to handle the challenges that you have overcome to get to where you are now. Start living as if the best has yet to come…you are creating a future you haven’t even dreamed of yet.
Messages from Our Future Selves
The Chariot
Third Eye Chakra
Speaking of gossips, in the future, it is going to matter so much less what other people are doing – we’ve got a mission to complete and none of us will have time to indulge haters in the peanut gallery. That includes the hater within. You know the one, the naysayer who minds everyone else’s business. Soon you’ll be too busy with activity and successes to bother with monitoring anyone else’s. Good thing too, because the comparisons only distract from keeping our eyes on the right road.
Messages from Mother Mary
Ace of Cups
Heart Chakra
You can’t shame someone into loving themselves. Part of the reason why we are so quick to compare ourselves to the past or others is because of the absence of inner love. We’re looking for someone else to fill our cup instead of wondering why we didn’t love ourselves enough to keep it from going empty. Yeah…that might hurt a bit, but that’s the wisdom here. So long as we view ourselves only as a vessel to hold someone else’s love, someone else’s opinion of us, whenever we’re feeling empty, we’re going to look for reasons why – inviting us to compare ourselves to people who are “full” or fulfilled by that same person/community. But none of us see the contents of someone else’s cup…how much of it is simply their own self-love maintained with assiduous boundaries or fulfilled by multiple solitary endeavors that bring them joy. After all, the person you will spend the most time with is yourself…might as well invest in liking that person a little more.
Extra Card
Ten of Cups (R)
Solar Plexus Chakra
Some dreams have to end. There is just no energy to sustain a world that delivers every material item to our doorstep on command. Nor can the universe make every Tom, Dick, and Harriet fall in love with us tomorrow…especially if they don’t already know us. When the universe fails to deliver on our demands, on a timeline we dictate with our imperfect human tools, we pivot or double down, give up, or give contradictory commands. There are so many mixed signals pinging around the universe at this point that orbits are crashing into each other as each new direction throws another into disarray. It isn’t that the universe can’t or won’t deliver, it’s that we’re not emotionally aligned with the space of the thing(s) that we want to receive. We’re still so laden with old dreams that we haven’t bothered to erase the board before drawing over it with the next one.
Undercurrents
Five of Wands
Root Chakra
The core problem flowing in the undercurrent is that there are a lot of competing dualities. Fact vs. fiction, Dem vs. Republican, Good vs. Bad, Pro vs. Con. We have pulled the world into so many factions that soon there will be a chasm so wide that it might seem impossible to pass through it to any side at all. These patterns are meant to isolate us, to push us toward one side or another…and then again…and then again…again…until each of us is standing alone, too burdened with internal conflict to be much of a threat at all. Use these challenges to make room for nuance – for it is the flow of conversation that connections are formed and common ground discovered. And as long as there is common ground, then there is always hope for a peaceful solution.
Final Advice
King of Cups
Sacral Chakra
Take heart – we were built for these times. From the Boomers to the Gen Zers coming of age in the wildest timeline there is. We have all endured endless changes both technological and societal. We have the skills needed to not just find nuance in one another but emotional clarity as well. Because none of us have been immune from the mirror of foolishness that these times have offered. Some have used it more strategically than others, but each of us alive right now (or at least you reading this page) has something to add. Do not doubt our collective ability to handle these times. I believe in us…I hope you do too.
Parting words from a Geek Empress
The “Matrix” that I think haunts us the most isn’t the big picture, societal machinery that we all fear, but the deeper, personal demons of loneliness that creep into our thoughts triggering jealousy, resentment, fear, and cynicism. Part of the reason that the larger machinery can exist at all is because of these deeper fears of separation that tether us to a terminal distrust that bleeds into our reality.
Stuck in a pattern of “what ifs” underscored by a healthy interval of “shoulds” thrown into the mix, we are often looking for redemption for the loneliness that we feel now. Whether we compare ourselves to the past or other people, we don’t feel connected and supported enough in this moment to consider that maybe we’re doing just fine. But when we know that the universe has our back, when we realize how to fill our hearts, the bars of this cage start to seem like thin strings of reality that we can finally form into our biggest dreams.
After I was outed in 2006, ending a very promising and audacious start to a political career, I often compared myself to a version of me aged 17-22, the Janet that existed before law school. I was confident and self-possessed, secure in who I was. That was the time of my life when I felt safest in the power of my own love. I believed that in an alternate reality, I might have been in AOC’s place giving a speech at this year’s DNC, bringing attention to Colorado. But in that alternate reality, would I have ever been happy living a half-life as a closeted bisexual or polyamorous woman? Or would it have just given the GOP ammunition for an even more public cancellation?
Trauma is life-altering. Each of us responds differently, creating a cocoon of safety around us, a reality that now includes “Why me?” on repeat. So isolated from self-acceptance, many of us blame our former selves for the outcome of traumatic actions someone else took. For years I blamed the outing for everything from my suicidality to stagnant career. It was responsible for my break-ups, even a partner gaslighting me. It all would have been different, I think…if only my trauma caused me to curl inward, attacking my self-love as dangerous, arrogant, conceited, and selfish. That led me to let others use those same words to define me…until I locked myself away in cages and prisons meant to keep everyone safe from me…while also keeping me from my source of power.
How convenient for patriarchy.
It wasn’t until an impossible choice was upon me five years ago that I reached a turning point. I dreamed bigger for myself, choosing my mental health over the advancement of my career or even service to my clients (what some might still define as a “selfish choice”) and I found the healing I needed. I could have never found it while walking a path that led to where AOC stood. She was there for a reason and I’m here for a reason.
Bit by bit, my cup began to fill again. I now am overflowing with emotional abundance again. The confidence doesn’t feel the same way it did before…it feels even better! The self-love of today isn’t the idealistic floatiness of a teenager, but the deep silver lining wisdom of a woman who has seen some shit. And I think that’s beautiful…and exactly what patriarchy was hoping I wouldn’t ever find. Now it’s your turn!
No matter how these Messages find you this week, know that I am always with you in love 💖
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