October 14, 2024 / The Storyteller 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
Today would have been my dad’s 94th birthday. My kids called him Grandolf in part because he resembled Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. Ian McKellen somehow managed to channel my dad’s compassionate presence for the entirety of that role. From the smile to the beard to the sparkle in his eyes, Gandalf will always be “dad” in my heart. (Read my eulogy)
He has been on my mind a lot these past few weeks as I’ve been getting the family’s cabin ready to sell. My dad left it to my siblings and me, something of his for us to share. But with one living on the East Coast, another helping with her grandkids and me trying to save the world one nonprofit at a time, none of us can invest ourselves in the upkeep the way he did.
I have so many memories of my dad working at the cabin, especially cutting wood logs (and usually himself). When he wasn’t working on that he was fixing the pipes, the deck, or tinkering with something else to make the space both more rustic and more liveable. He threw himself into hard work as a matter of pride; for the rest of us, it’s hard work that takes away from the other hard work we have to do. For him, maintenance was an outlet, a hobby he enjoyed, much like painting or dancing is for me or riding and fixing bikes was for my oldest brother.
It’s been more and more challenging over the years to preserve it the way I know he liked it and still be able to get some of my work done thanks to everything being cloud-based these days. Don’t get me wrong, I treasure the time I can get away from the constant tether of social media and email, but because I’m the one who lives the closest, it feels a lot more like work than the escape it was for him. One hour up, one hour back, and usually only 5 hours to get things squared away before I need to be back for my family at the end of the day.
In the end, I’m managing property that is now subject to two other opinions, and two other sets of values, neither of whom have been involved in the upkeep beyond trailing after my dad on joint visits up there. I love my dad so much, but I can’t help thinking that for all the time he spent up there, he could have instead invested more time to ensure my siblings and I would know how to care for it…and each other…when he was gone.
It is the “caring for each other” bit that troubles most of us right now. Even though we have accepted that some relationships need to move on, it’s not like we have an easy recipe for how to collaborate and connect to create something more…real. But that’s because we have to face the darkness of that loss before we can greet a new day of beginnings. The theme for this week: “Look to my coming at the first light on the fifth day. At dawn, look to the east.” Light is coming…just hang on.
Where We Are This Week
The Devil
Throat Chakra
This week, we need to discern between the devil we’re always tempted to blame and the one that keeps trying to make itself known from within. The spiral of trouble is a hint at where that culpability needs to land. It doesn’t mean we have to victim-blame ourselves for the problems that have befallen us, but we need to recognize the ways we tell the story of our demise only prolong the impact of that pain. We become then, a pawn of our own narrative, a victim of a story told on repeat, punishing us for whatever fault we were given to bear. We are not responsible for what happened to us, but we are responsible for continuing to escape facing it head-on so it doesn’t continue to control us from behind.
Messages from our Guides
Nine of Sceptres (R)
Heart Chakra
This discomfort is almost too obvious to ignore. The heart requires closure. It need us to make use of that healing and finally bestow healing to the rest of the timeline. There is some unfinished heart business that needs to be addressed before we can finally feel free enough to pen the next chapter of our story. We have to face the darkness before we will see the dawn.
Messages from Lady Gaia/Mother Earth
Ten of Sceptres (R)
Solar Plexus Chakra
After the week we had, Mother Earth is leaning back and saying, “So… capitalism…climate denial…how’s that goin’ for you?” For all the Wall Street bankers and filthy rich dilettantes would have us believe about their genius, they don’t know when to say when, do they? Mother Earth is here to remind us that all of us have our limits, even to our precious greed. Sooner, rather than later, scales are going to have to rebalance and it will be in her favor.
Messages from the Ancients
Eight of Spikes (R)
Sacral Chakra
It doesn’t feel like it now, but doing the hard thing IS the right thing. We have been spinning our wheels in a backward spiral, like a conveyor belt going the wrong way. The force is almost too much for us, the temptation to cover ourselves back in our beds and wait out the storm from the safety of the cage we hold ourselves in. One of the most difficult things we’ll have to do is offer the forgiveness that we need by taking responsibility for who we had to be to get to where we are now.
Messages from Our Future Selves
Ace of Hearts
Crown Chakra
No joke, the good stuff is coming. The replenishment, the heart song of reunion, the validation, approval and clarity you have always sought is coming. There is only one hitch…you sorta have to embody what it is you’re looking for first. The foolish will try to transform themselves into someone they’re not…but the wise among us will understand that this means becoming more of who we are and drinking deep of the resounding yes! that comes from within.
Messages from Mother Mary
The Empress (R)
Root Chakra
Before us is a fork in the path – one in which our faults and mistakes become the excuses of tomorrow – or the other, where we own the truth and authenticity of who we are and allow it to replenish the generations that come before and after us. This test for our survival is one where we must come face to face with the times we broke faith with connection, where we exerted control out of fear instead of embracing with empathy. Will you choose to become the ancestor who healed the family line or the one who added more shards that the next ones will have to remove on their own.
Extra Card
The Wisdom King
Third Eye Chakra
I love the shift of energy by calling the Hierophant the “Wisdom King” because that’s honestly more of the energy that needs to come through at this time. We have a lot of folks claiming to speak on behalf of humanity without any clue about how they are undermining the culture of collaboration that we most need right now. Here’s a hint, if they’re targeting the helpers and the humanitarians, they aren’t on our side. We need discernment more than force, we need connection more than control.
Undercurrents
Six of Spikes (R)
Crown Chakra
There is a reason we are being redirected back to closure: if we don’t resolve the “what if” in the back of our minds, we’ll continue to hold out hope for dreams that belong to a dying world. For example, much of the past few years have been coming to terms with my role in the legal profession. Am I still holding out hope that my law degree will come riding to the rescue in the policy realm? Or am I instead meant to use that knowledge to build a better system from the ground up? If I walk into the future holding open space for a career I wanted when I was younger, then am I really applying my full self to the vision of the future, or do I always have to have one foot tethered to the past?
Final Advice
Three of Spikes (R)
Heart Chakra
Both of these cards hold the same chakra energies from last week – each one telling us the same thing – put the past to rest, fully, if we’re really committed to the cause of humanity. This whole “make america great again” tagline keeps us in a never ending loop of developmental distress. Because what it really is a wish for is an early developmental timeline where we weren’t so aware of our damage so that we don’t have to be responsible for the outcomes of what it creates in us. No more. We need a specific mourning period, but we need to accept that life has moved on without us. Gone are the days of innocence, but it doesn’t have to be the end of everything. This is the hardest part about growing up – knowing that even with the darkness a new dawn challenges us to rise again.
Parting words from a Geek Empress
This past week proved to be one of the more demonstrably difficult on a global scale. From Israel’s escalations to the gleeful bidding of billionaires on democracy to the devastating impact of climate change on the American South, we have seen a list of “unprecedented” things happen in the past week, much less the past year. It would be easy to believe that everything is going to hell…
But every time the hero thinks all is lost, that’s when the cavalry comes riding over the ridge with the dawn of sunlight. The skies are still dark, the minutes are ticking down and the doubts threaten to swallow us whole, but in the end, if we’ve been doing the work of community, we are connected enough to know that hope still exists. Of course, we are the holders of that hope, but we are also the beneficiaries.
The only problem is…we have to be the ones to save ourselves. We keep waiting for a miracle, for some grown-up to stop the violence of it all. We keep waiting for our boss to give us permission to show up for our kids. We keep waiting for politicians to make it right. We keep waiting for a savior, hoping for a messiah, begging for a rescuer that we forgot this story was always about us leveling up into those leaders, those guardians, those grown-ups.
I get it, trust me, I do…I grew up too soon because of things my dad never knew about…things that would make him weep. He died with my secrets still locked behind my lips, stories untold that might have made a difference in how he showed up for me or my siblings, especially my siblings. I think if he had understood, he would have brought the fury of his protection to fight by my side.
But my dad isn’t here to save me anymore. It’s just me…and you…and us. I’m no longer waiting for someone else to step in and figure out that something needs to happen. I’m gathering my forces to meet you at dawn on the appointed day. It might just be me and what little magic I can shine, or it might be me with an almighty force at my back ready to restore hope to your fight.
The reading this week tells us that we have some unfinished business to tend to before we can show up the way we promised…but show up we must.
No matter how these Messages find you this week, know that I am always with you in love 💖
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