Cardless: Thoughts on an anniversary

What a year.

Perception of time is so fluid and so individual it’s no wonder humans created clocks and calendars just so we can navigate our way through the tine drop of time we are given for our lifetimes. If nothing else, the year of the pandemic has taught us that. After all it’s been blursday the 363rd of Marchish for about three years now, hasn’t it?

Let’s set the cards aside for a moment. I have an interesting intuition flexing exercise for you: Look back over the past year since the global Covid-19 pandemic was declared, but look at it exclusively through the lens of intuition. What were your intangible, intuitive perceptions over the course of that time? When and how did you become aware of them? What did life look like intuitively to you in January 2020? March 2020? Summer solstice? Fall equinox? At the American election? The holidays? January 2021? How did the intuitive feelings connect to actual events as they unfolded? Did you learn anything about your intuitive perceptions in the empathic pressure cooker that was 2020? Seriously, I’m interested in your meta-assessment of your intuition this past year (stay private – you don’t have to share details) The comments are open if you’d like to add your two cents to the topic today.

I live in the eastern United States. The cultural zeitgeist energies and emotions were so strong last year that looking back at the intuitive landscape has a certain tangible quality, almost like the memory of actual events. In my mind’s eye, I can still see the mental images of a U.S. map with little black tornado shapes spinning and wiggling and moving around all over the map. I remember the image of the ocean with a hurricane on the horizon. I remember a shimmering iridescent soap bubble or force field whenever setting empathic boundaries came into the conversation. I remember the image of survivors peeking out of storm wreckage. I remember the map again with the little tornadoes fading to grey.

Part of me wants to take pride in how well the images matched the events that unfolded after – I’d call the insurrection riot a hurricane among many, metaphorically speaking. It feeds into the cassandra complex my ego has brewing. Actually, it was just a clear-eyed view of energies that were current at the time of the mental image. It was in no way prophetic or predictive, just as Tarot and intuition always is. It helped me to do good readings for clients. It helped me know when to feed the spiritual side of life and when to stick to my knitting (literally) and take care of practical things. Sensitivity to energy helped me to ease up on the spiritual stuff (especially when it was getting way too judge-y and taking on a fearful edge) That is exactly what Tarot and intuition is supposed to do both in ‘normal’ times and times of extreme duress. It gives a read of where we are and suggests a better way forward. Tarot and intuition didn’t predict a damn thing in any of this. Still, intuition worked. We all have it. You can use it too. All you have to do is take the lid off and give your ESP a little bit of TLC. (Of course, me and my ego are happy to help you in that process)

If it is any consolation, though, the image today is a clear map and the wreckage is gone. My attention is drawn to the physical (perhaps another aspect of all the coins/pentacle cards that have turned up during the past year) There have been storms and fires and floods and accidents the same as any other year. Those literal changes and disasters increase the pandemic disaster exponentially for those who experience those losses too. The change is even more heartbreaking and profound for those who have lost loved ones. The fortunate rest of us, whose closest loved ones and physical environment is as intact and unchanged as it would be after any other year can take consolation in that. Look out the window. For the vast majority of us, the streets and houses are all the same as last year. What we DO and how we do things has changed quite a lot. Sure, there are plastic shields and hand sanitizer dispensers in the stores, but for most of us all of the physical infrastructure of our lives has been left untouched by the pandemic year.

I have another suggestion for today. Find something familiar. Any tangible thing that is the same as it was in the before time. A place. A park. Your home. Your backyard. An article of clothing. A favorite song. A coffee mug. Anything. Drink in the familiarity. Ground and center yourself around that. Life, attitudes, energies – many things have irrevocably changed in the past year. Soak up some comfort and courage from the stuff that hasn’t.

On second thought, maybe Tarot does have a card for this. It is one of life altering change, some tragic but some also for the better.

In memory of those lost. In gratitude for lessons learned.

public domain card image

This Best be Coffee in this Darn Goblet

20190123_090335

Steampunk Tarot by Barbara Moore and Aly Fell General permissions via http://www.Llwellynpublishing.com

I miss the fish.

Steampunk Tarot deck is the first deck I’ve received as a gift. It is a treasure for that reason, as I treasure the loved ones who gave it to me.

I’ve kept it for special readings, but lately have been doing the daily meditation / card-a-day exercise to get better acquainted with the deck. It is interesting. No disrespect to Ms. Moore, but it seems like I get a different message from the cards than she does, which is precisely the power and beauty of tarot. It speaks to all of us wherever we are at the time, and like the Oracle in The Matrix, tells us what we most need to hear. This is one of those cards and meanings that have followed me through time and from deck to deck to deck, whatever the little (or not so little) white (or not so white) book that comes with the deck might say.

The deck is great, but in this case I miss the fish. There are lots of decks and lots of page of cups cards without a fish in the artwork. But c’mon….a fish in a cup. There has to be comedy gold in there somewhere. This page still makes me smile with that under-caffinated, not a morning person, mopey, snarky, deadpan look on her face. If this card could talk, I imagine she would sound like Lydia in Beetlejuice.

I know, I know…the fish is the mysteries of the deep and the page of cups is associated with learning intuition, emerging psychic ability, imagination, sensitivity, kindness….

But who says any of that stuff has to be pedantic, serious and deep all of the time? Who says you have stare at your fish with a straight face? Every deck, whether it has a fish or not, has that same undercurrent. Behind all of the psychic learning and spiritual growth is a smile and a reminder to find the humor in everything, even intuition and spirituality.

So cheers! Here is to the fish in our lives and the coffee in our morning goblets. Enjoy!