Category Archives: tarot

May6

Now what do I do?

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Today is a dear friend’s birthday. I sure am glad she was born. She has been a constant inspiration to me for decades…how lucky am I? What if the gift of her in my life is just a simple metaphor for God? What if EVERYTHING is conspiring to help me?

Years ago I was driving north with my sister in the car; I don’t remember why. It was just getting dark and we were still about an hour south of home. Suddenly a police cruiser was behind us and put on his flashers. While I slowed and prepared to pull onto the shoulder my sister went off with her own emergency signal. It went something like: “oh what the hell?! You weren’t speeding! Why is he pulling us over?! What did you do wrong?!” I calmly turned to her and said, “Why would you assume something is wrong? How about we wait and see what this is about?” As it turned out, I had a tail light out. I explained to the officer that we had just picked up the vehicle from the dealer the previous day, as my husband had hit a deer last week (unfortunately a common problem here.) He said, “oh! I know exactly what the problem is. Pop the trunk and I’ll fix it.” Soon we were on our way, safer for the help. My sister, btw, made some comment about how lucky I am and how I never seem to panic (don’t believe it) because I always assume I’m in the right place at the right time. I’ve had far too many experiences of divine intervention to possibly believe in coincidence. Sadly, my sister would write in her memoir years later that she feels abandoned by God, that she “even knows a tarot card reader he blesses more than he blesses me.” I’m that tarot card reader, evil as she thinks that is. She can’t begin to comprehend how I seem to skirt the extreme hardships of the rest of the family. I could tell her, but she would never believe me: I HAVE MORE FAITH.

I don’t care who you pray to, or spell with, or your name for the divine within or without. Faith means that you know that you were “made this way,” for just “such a time as this.” (Esther 4:14) – that somewhere along the way, likely early in childhood, you decided that God doesn’t make mistakes. You decided that everything – EVERY SINGLE THING serves a purpose here on this planet we call home. And that you are not given the entire plan on purpose. You don’t need to understand. It’s NOT YOUR JOB to police the human experience, and NEWSFLASH! – you are not the gatekeeper of Heaven. Isn’t that a relief?!

Let’s spend a week asking “what if?” and be one percent more curious than fearful. Let’s be one percenters. And let’s celebrate those wonderful souls whose lives bless ours. Happy Birthday!

Apr3

when it’s nobody’s business

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Heart pounding anxiety woke me up at 3 a.m; which is not unusual anymore. I managed to talk myself off that ledge in about a minute. I’m getting better at it. My goal was freedom. The goal is always going to be freedom. Because I feel like my dream world, my rest, was hijacked. It’s mine. I want it back.

My friends and I are all worried about our adult children. They are struggling to find their footing in a culture that is undermining them every step of the way. And we are not sure how to help, or if we can. Mind you, they were raised as we were, in decent middle class families. We were well educated, but our current incomes are not cutting it. We don’t have the financial security we thought we were building all our work life. Our children left school in debt with no guarantee of a job, let alone a living wage. I read a news article last week that shocked me to my core: recent studies have shown that at least fifty percent of the baby boomers in the U.S. are financially supporting adult children. In many cases it’s the adult child and their family. They came home to get their feet back on the ground – in one case cited, 13 years ago.

Children or not, everyone I know is struggling. We are all trying to figure this out as we go along. We have no role models. We’re outliving our parents, and we are in entirely uncharted territory. We are the first generation that is openly talking about the abuse our parents and grandparents kept secret. No one was consciously dealing with narcissistic abuse 20 years ago. Or 10. No one recognized that past generations were being groomed for sexual abuse. The culture tolerated it, they tolerated verbal abuse, even laughed about it. They tolerated bad behavior, made excuses for it. Hell, we’ve voted it into the White House. Taking accountability for your behavior was optional. Do you wonder we have an epidemic of dementia?! (Help me forget!) Addiction? Of narcissism? Of sex trafficking? Of all manner of spiritual bankruptcy? Can no one connect the dots here?! That pandemic was no accident – it was a physical manifestation of a spiritual problem. It’s time to pull our heads out of the sand.

Meanwhile, I’m struggling with my health. Last week I called for a doctor appointment and was reminded that I have to be interrogated by a nurse over the phone to determine whether or not I am sick enough to qualify for a precious appointment. I have to beg just to be seen. Then before I can be given the necessary antibiotic I have to endure a week’s worth of tests. Meanwhile, I was prescribed a temporary superficial treatment. Medicare doesn’t cover that prescription, so I didn’t fill it. I can’t do that and buy groceries. And I’m angry about that.

Now, lest you think me ungrateful, or just a whiner, I am aware of opportunity hiding here in plain sight. When worry and anxiety seem to steal my peace I know my training is not yet complete. And I’m not havoc-ing it anymore (see blog post of March 15th.) Intellectually I know that the way out of angst is gratitude. But my intellect is not easily coerced. I can’t expect to start pontificating about big, general platitudes and get myself free. Those old affirmations aren’t working anymore; this feels like spiritual warfare.

But. I can start small…go back to basics. I’m sure glad I bought an orange desk chair instead of black. Orange is the happiest color. Wow, I love my bed. I love my wide Frodo feet. I walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I say “Thank You” to everything I pass (yes, out loud) – the floor, the countertop, the cat, the doorway, the moon outside. Try it. There are big things I am grateful for, too – like my son having survived cancer. He is struggling through his self-proclaimed “mid-life crisis”…but he’s here for it. Not all of his friends have made it past 40.

I can re-member myself whole. I have resources in my spiritual tool box: friends, some of my family, a loving therapist, tarot cards! At 3 a.m. with a racing heart I call in invisible help: “Christ Jesus, Archangel Michael, Ancestors! Any and all available light workers.” That’s step one. I am NOT TO BE TOILED WITH here. Neither are you – know that. God didn’t make a mistake. You were not a cosmic afterthought. You do not need to “find your purpose”…you ARE your purpose. Live like you belong here. There are no qualifications you haven’t fulfilled. You have exactly the same right to be here as 8,019,876,189 other people. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Since that has been established, I can be the narcissist’s worse nightmare. My home, my mind, and my body – my sanctuary – is a no tolerance zone. No talking down to anyone. I carry an expectation that you will be on your very best behavior around me and show up as present as possible. Don’t ever settle for anything less from anyone. Not your teacher, not your boss, not your doctor, and certainly not your family. I can laugh at myself with the best of them – when I’m silly or wrong. But don’t make fun of me at my expense. Don’t ridicule me. I’m a fucking spiritual Jedi, and I’ve trained my boundaries to be stronger than my empathy. Everybody sing along now…

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YBv1aOawCBg%3Fsi%3DWZND_RBPLuLEgQV8

Mar20

The Emperor’s Offer

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Yesterday I drew the Emperor as the tarot card of the day. Specifically, I drew from the Emily Dickinson Tarot. The deck depicts the major arcana as insects, derived from her work as a botanist. The Walking Stick is our Emperor here. Always looking to take action as acknowledgement of the card, I went for a walk. And I asked the Emperor to talk to me, to show me something useful. What popped into my mind surprised me, as intuition often will. I imagined a movie character as The Emperor – Grace, from the movie Hope Gap. How on earth could Grace embody the Emperor? Grace is a hot mess.

Grace is faced with her marriage ending. But they didn’t grow apart after 29 years; he suddenly left for another woman. Not only is she facing her older years alone, but utterly rejected. Perhaps for the first time in her life, Grace is faced with herself. She becomes inconsolable, and intolerable. We’re not quite sure if she and her family will survive this.

This story is a memoir. It was written and directed by William Nicholson, and is the story of his parents divorce and the way it changed a family. The way each of them were transformed. The lives that came out differently than expected. And here is where the Emperor shows up.

The Emperor embodies all four kings of the minor arcana. He is the intellect king of swords, arrogant and haughty and absolutely devoted to the truth. Ultimately he is your best soldier once he matures to realize he isn’t always the smartest person in the room. He is the king of wands, intuitive and compassionate and fair – above all else, fair. In his younger self we saw his impulsive nature and his one-sided idealism get in his way, but he sees his place in history. The king of cups has learned to love the hard way. It isn’t what he thought it meant. It requires dedication and loving action even when he doesn’t feel it, even when anger seems to consume him. And the king of pentacles has learned to manage energy, because without his health he has no throne, no say. And without his wits about him his fortunes will be squandered, and he will be rendered powerless that way as well. He intends to stay in power and to use it effectively. They have all learned to stand their ground, to govern judiciously. And they have learned what power is for.

Grace is shaken to her core, and she must find a way to survive and flourish. And live her life, her way. In her transformation we are all healed. So, yeah, I can see Grace as an emperor. But as it happens, the emperor wasn’t finished with me yet…

The Emperor is my son’s archetype. My son is the most important person in my life. When he was going through cancer treatment in his early twenties I remember something funny he said one day. He said “I know I’m going to be alright no matter what happens, but what are we going to do about getting you some help?” That’s the emperor. These days I am watching him mid-life, struggling to re-invent himself, floundering. He would make the very best dad, but he is not likely to have children of his own. That is not the path of the emperor. They walk alone, the shamans, the way showers. And I need to let him go. I need to alchemize my own life and let him learn to survive and flourish. I need to be Grace. Embrace your own internal Emperor today and be compassionate with yourself. The world is waiting for you.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=439-Uvl_MTw%3Fsi%3DYDDIPLepz5BsF3-q
https://youtube.com/watch?v=KEK_O6xgZ_4%3Fsi%3DyiruXPr9y3-HAei8
Dec18

Big, Beautiful Questions…

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Ahhhhh….the wisdom of not knowing, yes…perhaps the greatest gift of age. “Very little makes sense to me these days…” she says. The world is crazier and crazier than I ever could have imagined. How will we navigate these atrocities to our collective soul? The only way I know to be is curious.

Tiokasin Ghosthorse reminds me to change my inner language, to think like a child again. The Lakota language does not contain nouns. There are no words to define us, only verbs. We are all in a state of becoming. I require constant reminding of this. I do know how to live intuitively. Fifty-five years of working with the tarot has helped with that; I hate to think where I’d be without it. But that doesn’t mean it’s easy. Simple, not easy.

Intuition is the only thing that ever saved me. It is intregal to the creative process. I’ve said for decades that “ultimately, it is the artists who will save us.” It is. The writers, the painters, the musicians, those who live intuitively. Einstein knew it. The stoics knew it. Toni Morrison knew it: “Your life is already artful – waiting, just waiting, for you to make it art.”

It’s not too late and I am not too old. Bonnie Garmus published her first novel at the age of sixty-five. After 98 rejections. She knew something and didn’t back away from what she didn’t know. Julia Cameron teaches the wisdom of not knowing in her series The Artist’s Way. It’s a system for creative recovery – not a how to on being an artist. It’s not about producing a thing, a product, a finished piece! It’s about learning to live like a child again. Vulnerable. Curious. Open-hearted. Available to intuition – to hearing the divine speaking within you.

“…forget your perfect offering, there is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in…” Leonard Cohen wrote in his brilliant Anthem.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=M9odCzbDQPo%3Fsi%3DM9W6Iu2MPQpEG3qw

“…the less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine.” – Indigo Girls