Things can’t get better if they don’t change. Without change, there can be no hope for improvement or problem solving.
It’s not change that we fear: it’s risk.
When things change, there is a danger that things can get worse. When things change, there is a risk of something precious ending or being lost.
If you remember it, it lives on.
We can’t control change. Life brings change and all the risk that entails – but it brings the possibility of brighter days right along with it.
Video from the TaoCraft Tarot YouTube channel
Left: OK here is today’s pandemic pep talk. More change is on the horizon. It’s a crazy time if you look at things globally or if you are out there in the thick of it doing important work, but everyone else is being asked to hibernate. Hibernators have it easy. Like a bear that was forced to wake up too soon, or a bear asked to hibernate in the summer, you may feel a little off kilter or out of the natural cycle of things. Plod along, grind it out, just keep on staying in your cave and washing your paws. If things can change TO this, it can change FROM this sooner or later.
Center: Ten of Cups. My attention is drawn to the sudden hops that actual grasshoppers make more than long and varied symbolism of grasshoppers that Mr. Andrews writes about in “Animal Wise.” In fact, the energy around this card today reminds me more of Tigger from Winnie the Pooh than a grasshopper. It is also like a gentler version of the “remember to play” aspects of the Fool card that we sometimes see, too. Play hopscotch in the driveway. Spend a little quality time staring out the window. Play a game of Twister. The big picture perspective of the world is still pretty scary, but it is perfectly ok to zoom in to some personal moments. Have a minute of fun and several long minutes taking in and sending out love across the distance. Love can leap anywhere.
Right: The Star. Firefly eh? Good TV show that. I recommend it. But this card reminds me of a different reference. One of my favorites. You’ve heard it before, but it must be a good moment because here it is again all these decades later. Anyone remember “City Slickers” with Billie Crystal and Jack Palance? You could call this idea Curly’s Finger. There is one thing that makes sense out of life … the trick is figuring out what that is. Figure out the one thing that makes sense of it all and you are ahead of the game. It’s only THE one thing if it is YOUR one thing. What makes sense of it all for you? Follow that. Follow the north star, not the finger that points to it.
Pause the video if you need a moment to choose your card for today, then restart the video to see the reveal. You know what I wrote on the blog about Pentacle cards repeating? Scratch that…nothing has changed about the pandemic. It’s an eneregy shift today, NOT a physical realm one. More on that in another post. Meanwhile, we have to stay in Samuel L. Jackson mode…. STILL wash your hands, don’t touch your face, and stay the f*ck at home. New York City is still in the thick of it, so the worst is yet to come for the rest of us. Be safe, and take good care of yourselves as best as you can.
Left: 3 of Cups. Even the introverts are starting to catch a little cabin fever…until we listen to the news or scroll social media. Forget mass media. Take a loooong break from your socials. The human spirit is thirsting for real, genuine one to one conversation. We can’t feed our need for physical interaction so it is all the more important to feed our need for genuine conversation and a meeting of the minds. Use technology for genuine conversation and connection, not mass broadcast. Leave that for the professional journalists. Write a letter. Make a phone call. Text. Zoom if that’s your thing. It is a two for one offer. The conversation just might lift the whole group’s spirits.
Middle: The Moon. The physical moon moves through cycles in its appearance to us on earth, so this card is often associated with the natural cycles of things. That daisy-chains to effect of the moon on the tides, connecting the card to water and intuition. The energies today are right to experiment with your own intuition. Listen with your heart, extend your feelings. What shifts in mood and energy do you sense? What is in your energy environment right now that needs your attention? Is it within you, hinting at a need for self-care or is it outside of you calling you to help others?
Right: The Wheel. Freud was right. Sometimes a cigar really is just a cigar. Sometimes the message from a card is just as obvious, simple and straight forward as it seems. This will all change. Life changed from normal to pandemic mode and will change again in time. It will never go back to what once was because this will always have happened…this time and this experience will always exist. Time will move on, things will change. It will become our choice whether we let this time scar us, strengthen us, empower us or haunt us. Change is inevitable, but the choice is yours about how…and if…you embrace it.
Left: Ace of Pentacles. Take a factual inventory of your resources at hand. You might be better off than it feels. Think MacGyver reruns.
Center: Eight of Pentacles. Literally make something. That’s how the species has survived since time immemorial. Make something real with your full attention, and feel the survival instincts of your ancestors seep through. Think Joss Whedon quote “Write it. Shoot it. Publish it. Crochet it, saute it, whatever. Make.”
Right: Wheel of Fortune. Change is the one thing that doesn’t change. Things changed to get us from the way things used to be into how they are now. They will never change back to exactly the way things were…they may change into somethjng even better. If ‘what goes up must come down’, then what is down will eventually come up again.
Every change requires a choice, and every choice results in change.
Change and choice are two sides of the same coin in both subtle and obvious ways. If we choose something radically different from what we have been doing, the change is obvious. Once again I’m reminded of what Chris Chibnall wrote for Doctor Who
“The future pivots around you, here, now. So do good.”
But what about the future when no choice is made, nothing is done. What is the change there? No choice, no change, right? Not entirely.
A physician I used to work with often said that the decision not to decide is still a decision. In that case, the change comes in mindset rather than external circumstances. If you decide to decide later it relieves stress in the present moment, which in turn can help us see clearer, get more information, and you guessed it…make a better decision later on. Not deciding makes for less stress and better judgement….both of which are a change from the initial mental state.
Deliberately deciding to stay the course, and persist is a choice. Only time will tell if it was a wise one or not. Deliberately deciding to NOT change externally still has internal impacts. One possibility is that choosing to stay on a path changes your level of confidence and courage and persistence for the better.
Even in the most passive, oblivious scenario possible, where no choice is made, time changes. Don’t choose, and by default things will still change around you, like or not.
Load the change side of the wheel with enough time and external change, it will eventually force a choice. At some point or another, we all wind up choosing if we are happy with our circumstances or not. Once that question is answered, we must choose if we are going to do anything about it or not. If we choose stagnation, we change relative to the world around us that is not stagnant.
Like two sides of a moving wheel, choice and change are very much connected. If you want a change, it requires a choice. Make a choice, even if that choice is to do nothing, some sort of change will still come in time.
A few days ago, we looked at the question of why cards sometimes turn up repeatedly in readings, regardless of whether you are getting readings or giving them. As I was uploading the post, I could almost hear a chorus of “It’s Mercury Retrograde” coming from social media as a hot take explanation of why life lessons are hard to learn; why messages aren’t being heard well and why cards have repeating lately.
I disagree. Understanding and enacting an important life lesson often takes much longer than any given Mercury retrograde. It takes more than a Mercury year. It can take multiple Earth years. Any retrograde of any planet in any solar system is no more than a trick of forced perspective. It is the relative movement of a very close planet compared to very distant stars. It is a little like those photos where it looks like someone is holding up the leaning tower of Pisa or holding the setting sun in the palm of their hand. As the animation above shows us, shift your point of view, and POOF! no retrograde. Only normal cycles of planets – and of nature – remain.
I have seen, however, a connection between repeating Tarot cards and one particular planet’s orbit. It isn’t Mercury; It’s Earth. The Wheel card in particular speaks to these cycles. When the Wheel shows up, think about natural cycles that may be moving through your life. There is also a subtext of adaptation. We must move with the wheel of time and natural cycles, or be crushed beneath it. This is a good example of a difficult life lesson that takes time to learn, don’t you think?
Seasons of the year are an obvious natural cycle. Over time, I’ve seen several cards cluster around summer and winter. They seem to capture the essence of the season. I often see cards like the 9 of cups, the 4 of wands or the 3 of cups turn up frequently around the Winter holidays. It fits Those holidays are akin to the cards with celebrations, traditions, family foundations and social connections all at top of mind that time of year.
Summer cards are a bit more subtle.
We think of summer as an active time, and it is. Yet it needs balance. In the winter, we balance the seasonal cold with warm things: woolly clothes, fires in fireplaces, spices, warm drinks, candles, lights. Summer needs balanced with cool drinks, sitting in the shade, loose cool clothing, going barefoot. Again, there are cards that hint at this seasonal balance, with quiet introspective cards like the 4 of swords, 3 of wands, 5 of cups or The Hermit. Admittedly, I’ve seen this pattern emerge more as a reader than as an individual. It think of it as being part of the entrainment phnomenon we talked about last time. Cards may repeat in a party (or in a season) as a resonance with the time and place (or time of year.)
If a card keeps turning up time and again, yes, it is significance. Yes, that repetition in and of itself is a message. If a card keeps repeating, it could be for multiple different reasons. As always, it is usltimately up to your feeling and your intuition to decide which reason best fits..or if it is something else entirely. It might be:
Life never changes at at perfectly steady pace. It speeds and slows of its own accord. The trick is knowing when to nudge it along and when to let it flow, although most of the time it is the latter.
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