That was the message I “heard” in my morning meditation. Do my spirit guides know my language, or what?! I’ve been perseverating for days…weeks…months…years – okay – decades now, about doing something…anything…creative or productive or proactive to help myself out of this malaise. “This” malaise is commonly known as poverty. Struggling financially, but more so, spiritually.
The J.O.B. (Just Over Broke) hasn’t been working out so well the past decade or so…you don’t want me to work for you. Everyone I’ve worked for lately dies. Just sayin’…
Over 13 years ago I started this blog in an attempt to write my way out of a nervous breakdown. It worked, and I’ve been writing since. Several years ago I began making videos on my own YouTube channel, Crow Quill Tarot. I have also painted some paintings in that time period; I’ve drawn. Made jewelry. But I don’t feel creative. Getting started is always a challenge and requires a shove. But finishing…well, I’ll let you know when I’ve finished something.
Most of my adult life I have assigned myself a “winter project.” I enroll in a class or two, or study on my own, a new subject or skill I think I would like to master. This fall I decided to study astrology. After all, it’s all the rage. I’ve toyed with going back to making videos on the tarot channel, but there are hundreds (maybe thousands?) doing it, and well. People with far more technical expertise.
And many, if not most of them – certainly the most popular and successful, are incorporating astrology into the tarot readings. In fact, that is how they have “delineated” the collective. And there’s where I got hung up – right there, at delineation. Collective = our common humanity, if I understand it correctly. How we are not only alike, but psychically connected. That understanding I have no problem with. But once I start defining myself and others, and using a fixed set of criteria, I am in the business of predicting the future. I call that fortune telling. And not only has it never interested me, but it is a sad and gross mis-use of the infinitely present tarot.
“The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” – Indigo Girls
So, I have been struggling to understand how astrology fits for me. I had a teacher in ninth grade who asked each student on the first day of her class what their sun sign was. Some didn’t know, so she asked their birthday and told them. Then she proceeded to assign us into study groups accordingly – that is, those students she didn’t send to the office to transfer to another classroom because their sign wasn’t compatible with hers.
When I listen to tarot readers using astrology to “clarify” messages I break out in a rash. It goes something like this: “this person may be a Leo or a Sag…or a Scorpio…or they could be…” until they’ve listed 9 out of the 12 signs. They have missed the point of the tarot entirely – which is a precise methodology for developing self awareness and hence, intuition. Intuition. Helllloooooooo! How intuitive are you if you need to list every possibility?! Make up your everlovin’ mind! WHAT are you saying, exactly? To me. I’m not listening because I want to know about my mother’s sister’s neighbor’s cousin. It sounds like they are trying to connect with everyone and anyone. Because that’s how they make money. And so, in the interest of learning, I have listened to many different readers addressing all the 12 zodiac signs. And identified with something in each of them. So now what?!
I want to make money. So I keep going back over this in my mind. And this morning I was meditating on why don’t I get astrology? Why isn’t it clicking for me?! And I heard, “because you are every sign.” Yes, yes I am.
And the bubble in my chest popped. I’m every sign. You are every sign. How can this be? Because we are not the past. We are not even who we were yesterday. We have been transfigured. We have risen. We do not need to keep reliving the crucifixion and the resurrection. We are on the other side of that now. It’s over. Pull your head out of your past.
“What we know of other people is only our memory of the moments during which we knew them, and they have changed since then.” – T. S. Eliot
A Painterly Home 
Nice article.
Astrology is another way for people to define themselves. As you have astutely noted, you are a conglomerate of all the signs. Ironically, that is the gist of the pisces…they are the last sign on the wheel, thereby an amalgamation of zodiac characteristics and lessons, (so they say.)
Astrology works for me in a general way, kinda like the “April bring showers” generality, or “the early bird gets the worm,” generality. Those things are true in a horseshoes and hand grenades kind of way.
Tarot, on the other hand, is more specific. It’s not contingent on the time of anyone’s birth, and does not require incessant homework in order to stay informed. Each tarot card will represent a situational picture. The crux of the biscuit is in how the inquirer relates THEIR situation to the picture.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.😄