Queen of Cups

My card for today.

The Moon on Water.

Reflection. Intuition. Potential. The light that illuminates an unmarked path.

I feel scattered today, my edges rippled like the water’s surface.

I feel unfocused.

Maybe today is a good day to turn inward.

I am a very thorough shuffler.

Just feel the need to state that. Ha.

Knight of Bows again. Little fox.

Twice in one week, bookending the conversation I had yesterday with my collaborator witches in the Tender Year, this fox feels like an invitation to pursue the tarot project passionately and enthusiastically.

What I see in the card this morning is that fox ready to turn and run, inviting me to run with it.

I read Cassandra Snow’s post on the Knight of Wands over at Little Red Tarot.

I’m thinking about passionate starts and no follow-through. I don’t want that for this project, or for any of the projects I’m working on. (I can see Balance drifting into view there – it isn’t possible for everything to stay at the top of the priority list. I know. But I don’t know how.)

So I pulled two more cards to help me navigate this. To embrace the passion and forward movement of that Fox, in a way that won’t burn out, or burn me out.

Knight of Stones: Horse, and 13: The Journey (and that raven!)

The horse offers me persistence, the steady forward movement, grounded in the earth and in my own hard work, to keep going forward. Bows and Stones together, Knights who can start the project in a burst of energy and complete it through persistence and effort.

But then, The Journey. 13. Death. ‘Do not fear change, because this is also a time of purification and realignment.’

If I wanted the cards to tell me I will be able to keep everything I start, in the way I first start it, in perfect stasis, the answer is no. Of course.

The fire will burn out – even the strong horse can’t prevent that.

And when it’s time to let go, it’s time to let go. To let things change. To let myself change within my work and to trust that the change is okay.

I do have the follow-through to complete my projects, but that won’t save me from continuing on the journey. Nor should it. Nor would I want it to.

This feels like such a gentle, hopeful, and encouraging reading. I appreciate it.

I am really having some tension with this deck lately. I feel like there are cards and ways of knowing in the deck that really resonate for me, but what I’m being presented with each morning is mundane and frustrating. The guidebook entry for this card references the acquisition of skills as a ‘unique human trait’ and I am instantly defensive of my corvid and other animal kin.

I wonder how to engage with this deck in a more wholehearted way.

I wonder what my visceral rejection of some of these cards can tell me about what I need and what I want and what I’m afraid of or feeling.

Skill, here, feels like both an impossible ask – how can I bring skill to any efforts when I am so tired and so overwhelmed? – and also redundant – of course I bring my skills to my labour, always.

So, what am I missing?

Focus.

Focus is what I am missing and what is evident in this card.

It’s not just having skill that matters, it’s applying skill. And that requires focus. And focus is what I lack lately. I’m moving in too many directions, too quickly.

So maybe, slow down.

Trim the extras.

Focus.

Find the space to apply the skill.

I appreciate that his eight stone carvings are all different – this card is not demanding that I choose one of my many directions. It’s just inviting me to focus on one at a time. I can still do each of them. Just not each at once.

I think I am feeling friction with this deck because I want big answers that solve my big problems. And this deck keeps offering me small answers that take a long time to resolve into solutions. Balance, frustration, instruction, skill. I want the blasted oak and the polestar – upheaval and direction. This slow movement through sticky mud is hard. I am tired. I am just so tired.

But there’s wisdom even if it’s not what I want to see.

Focus. Apply my skills. Do one thing at a time, as well as I can.

I am comforted by the three rush lights – 3s, with their reminder of community and connection. That feels hopeful.

I wasn’t drawn to the Wildwood Tarot this morning. I almost used my beloved Wild Unknown, or maybe my amazing new Next World Tarot. But then I was thinking about woods and wilderness and how I have wanted more of them but not had more because that extra step of going out to find the trees is too much.

So I stuck with the Wildwood. I don’t know if I’ll have time to go to the woods today – I have a busy day ahead – but if I can, I will.

I drew the Knight of Bows. The fox. I love foxes.

It’s nice to be out of the Arrows today. I’ve been drawing nothing but Arrows lately, it seems, for my morning card. Up in my head, overthinking it, feeling the sharpness of dry, cold air and sharp edge.

It’s nice to have some warmth in the Bow today, and to feel some forward movement.

The Fox is cunning, determined, resourceful, clever and innovative, quick-witted and dynamic. Impulsive, impatient, reckless.

The questions with this card:

What opportunities are you seizing in this situation? Where do you need to make haste more slowly? What details are you ignoring?

I’ll let those questions guide me today.

I’m having a rough morning. A rough weekend, honestly. And so, nearly in tears, fibro pain spiking, anxiety crawling through my limbs, I shuffled. ‘Please tell me how I can get through today. How can I get through today. I just need to get through today.’

Struggle.

Struggle.

Struggle.

There is no easy way through.

There is no ease, right now.

Struggle.

But then also, can this be an invitation to accept that this time is challenging and find ease anyway?

What would it feel like for that figure in the card to find shelter?

And then I am reminded of one of my goals for this year – to nest. To find coziness. To move towards ease.

So, what would that look like today, stuck as I am in a house so cold my joints ache, when my exciting plans have been cancelled and I’ve run out of milk for hot chocolate?

Maybe it looks like bringing extra blankets into the bedroom, turning on the space heater and the humidifier, and working from bed.

Maybe it looks like going out to get more milk.

Maybe it looks like getting this week’s assigned reading done in the bath.

Find warmth. Find ease. Allow comfort. The struggle is still there but it can maybe be less intense.

Yesterday, I drew my card from the Next World Tarot.

Temperance, Balance, that 14th major… obviously I have a lot to learn there.

I just wish I knew how.

I feel sad and hopeless today, even with my plans for seeking coziness. The anxiety is coiled in my belly and my whole body aches and feels restless. I’m cold, and I hate being cold. I haven’t taken my winter jacket off in 24 hours.

I have so much work to do but I just want something else.

I want something else.

I want to be somewhere else.

I want not to be reminded of my financial precarity.

The cat peed on my laptop bag and even after scrubbing and dousing in enzyme cleaner three times, it still stinks. I only have the one laptop bag. I’ve been needing a backpack, but with what money?!

I feel grief, transformed into anxiety because anxiety is easier to deal with.

Today’s card is the Ace of Vessels – The Waters of Life.

In the guidebook, there’s a reference to the ‘moonlit pool holding all memory’ and I had a very meaningful experience yesterday of being reminded that I do have the memories that I need.

That felt like a nice resonance.

Today is going to be a rough day – it’s the busiest day in this week when it comes to counselling clients and work obligations. I’m going to hold this card as a reminder to stay hydrated and nourished, and to make some space at the end of the day for my emotional wellness. I was thinking maybe a bath or something else symbolic.

Today’s Balance meditation is pretty basic. I am just going to keep breathing, and try to keep my emotions in balance despite how tired I am.

Endurance was a gift – stuck to the table after I shuffled. I wondered about putting it back into the deck before I drew, but it felt like a strong and encouraging card for the day, so I kept it. A foundation of endurance to keep me going.

Then I did a four card spread – a card for the day, commentary on it, and something to focus on to the right, and be careful of to the left.

So, the day: Three of Stones – Creativity. The words seem hopeful but the image gives me pause. The green woman seems stuck, trapped, strained. Sometimes I feel that way about all my projects. There’s so much, and I love it, I gain so much from it, but I also sometimes feel like the amount of energy flowing is going to rip me to shreds, and I just want to be able to rest.

The commentary: Three of Vessels – Joy. When I look at this card, I notice that each of the vessels is different – it’s okay to have so many varied interests and projects. But support is also necessary. I can channel this creative energy but I can’t do it without help and Community.

Something to focus on: Ten of Arrows – Instruction. Learning. Being taught. This is the card that came up Monday when my Masters program started, so I think that allowing myself to spend time being taught will be helpful and will increase my ability to feel creative flow and be joyfully supported in that.

Something to be careful of: Six of Vessels – Reunion. Old patterns and ways of being, remembered and habitual actions. Be careful of continuing to do what I have always done when it comes to my creative projects.

Which, of course, leads into today’s meditation on Balance, which has historically not been part of my creative process. So learning how to do that – how to have community, how to be supported, how to find instruction when it comes to balance.

Struggle is not always a bad thing.

When we struggle, we are continuing. We are moving forward. We are grappling with the challenges in front of us (and all around us) and we are persisting.

Struggle has its opposite in ease, and when we can find ease, that’s delicious. When we can let go of struggle and find comfort – ahh. Yes.

But struggle also has its opposite in defeat, and when we let go of that struggle, that’s bitter.

I am reminded of Sara Ahmed’s writing about hope, and how hope animates a struggle. How hope gives us the strength to struggle, to advocate for change, to persist, to resist, to carry on.

The Wildwood Tarot guidebook says, about this card:

In the darkness of failure, the burning torch of hope remains lit in the human soul and encourages struggle. Courage is needed to survive the storm…

The choices can be painful and stark. The path may appear fraught with unfamiliar obstacles and pitfalls, and with no obvious rememdy… Such profound struggles require calm, decisive and resolute action. Reach down into the very core of your being and summon all the reserves of your courage and wisdom. See honestly what the issue will require for you to resolve it…

I don’t believe that every issue has a resolution, at least not one that is accessible by individuals or within our lifetimes. However, I do believe that finding hope, intentionally inviting hope into the frame, can fuel the struggle and allow movement forward.

One of my personal (and professional) mottos is from G. Willow Wilson, who said, “There is not always a way out, but there is always a way forward.”

This card reminds me to keep moving forward.

This card also validates my current struggle. This morning was hard. This week has been hard. This year has been hard. Last year was hard! I don’t know when this struggle will ease. But I do know that what I’m feeling is real and valid. And I do know that I will continue to struggle – to struggle in the sense of not giving up. And I will try to balance that (ah, there’s that card) with allowing myself to stop struggling when ease is available.

I love the way the light turned my amethyst into a glowing beacon of hope and protection this morning. It seemed appropriate and comforting.

In today’s meditation on Balance, first I felt foolish for my “insight” yesterday – over the course of the day my fibro pain escalated and escalated, until by the afternoon my ankles were in so much pain that the idea of standing on my Bosu was laughable. So, I did not do that. But this morning I noticed how the two serpents look a lot like the Caduceus symbol of medical care. Today I am feeling the invitation within the Balance card to prioritize (or at least acknowledge the importance of) my physical health. I’m going to look for opportunities to be gentle with my body and to treat my ankles as wounded allies rather than vicious traitors. That shift in perspective is always a hard one for me, but it seems necessary here.

I start the coursework for the Master of Narrative Therapy and Community Work today. This card seems like an auspicious invitation into the work.

It also feels relevant to learning how to act in solidarity with the #justiceforcolten movement. Listening for instruction from Indigenous leaders has to be part of that work for me.

Last, I’m in Day Two of my week of reflecting on Balance. This morning I wondered if I could respond less intellectually to it, and work on my physical balance. I even bought a Bosu to help with that but I’ve hardly used it. So, that’s what I’ll do on my break this afternoon.