Month: November 2016

Finding the way forward

The last week has been brutal. I haven’t touched my cards since the election (and the subsequent email from Kellie Leitch up here in Canada – we are far from safe, far from clear of the poison of white supremacy and xenophobia and misogyny and racism and hate).

I have been working. A lot.

My coaching page is up on Facebook – you can find it here – and I’m posting daily self-care tips. I’m working on content for upcoming workshops and getting my website ready to launch. I have a business account, my business name is registered, and I’m prepping hard for an official launch in the new year.

But it’s been a rough week. Holy wow, it’s been a rough week.

This morning I finally felt centred enough to do some tarot.

I did my favourite five card spread. First, the situation, then the right path and the wrong path, then cards for why each path is what it is.

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So, the situation. The Wheel of Fortune, reversed. Big, bad change. Cataclysmic change.

The right path: The Fool. Moving forward, having faith, taking risks. Foolish bravery. And, for me, this is my heart card. This is the card that comes up again and again when I need a reminder to be true to myself. So, risk-taking, movement, leaps of faith, and being who I am. I will not retreat into a closet again. I will be wide open to this world, even when it’s turning to the dark.

Why: Page of Cups. Because this is where I will find the “well of love,” as Beth Maiden at Little Red Tarot calls this card. This is where I will find:

a sort of making-it-right quality. And within that, I find an accepting-wrongdoing quality. Because accepting and trying to heal our mistakes is an act of love, and a creative act. It requires us to look into ourselves for that well of love, and put aside self-motivated, petty, angry thoughts.

It’s a hard ask in a time when I want to be angry and petty. (And, to be clear, I think there absolutely is a need for anger right now – deep anger, anger that motivates us to act, to stand up against hate and violence and bigotry. But this card is a reminder that anger can be wielded in many ways, and petty anger right now is not helpful.)

The Page of Cups as the “why” for The Fool as my right path speaks so gently to me about deep love, about making space for the overflowing cup of emotions in my self and my communities. Moving forward heart-first and with love. Finding healing.

These cards tell me a story of moving forward bravely and authentically, engaging my emotional self in the work.

In contrast, the wrong path: The Hanged Man. Motionless, trapped, upside down, disoriented. This path is so tempting, because that Wheel has turned and the world does seem so upside down (it seems that way to me, from my position of privilege. I know that for many people of colour, and especially Black women and Indigenous communities, this is not a turning of the Wheel but an acknowledgement of the rubble they’ve been buried under for generations. My shock betrays my privilege.)

Why is this the wrong path: Two of Swords. Because now is not the time for weighing both sides of the debate. Allowing myself to be bound by the feelings of helplessness and horror, and trying to intellectualize an understanding of how this happened rather than moving forward along the path. It will lead to a stalemate, an impasse, an inability to engage with the emotions that need to be felt. In so many ways, it is the exact opposite of the Page of Cups and her watery wholeheartedness. This sharp, airy, arid immobilization is why letting myself hang upside down in horror is not the response right now.

I am reminded, again, of the talk I saw late last week with G. Willow Wilson, the fantastic creator of the new Ms. Marvel, Kamala Khan – Marvel’s first Muslim superhero. Wilson said that sometimes, the mess stays messy. Sometimes there is not a way out, but there is always a way forward. This sentiment has become the guiding principle in how I’m shaping all of my coaching materials – moving away from the victim-blaming “law of attraction” model of coaching and towards something that acknowledges systemic oppression, takes into account the ways in which there is not always a way out, and offers tools and support for moving forward.

I am going to keep moving forward.

I’m grateful for the power of narrative, and the ability of stories to provide hope and inspiration. When I look at the Page of Cups and the Two of Swords, I know which character I want to inhabit. When I look at The Fool and The Hanged Man, I know which one I want to be right now.

Let’s go. Foolishly, bravely, forward.

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Telling Tarot Stories

My homework from my counsellor for last week was simple, but challenging. Make a list of the things I want when it comes to my work and financial life.

What do I want out of this new career that I’m proposing to launch?

What do I want for my life, when it comes to my money?

How much money do I want to make?

(Why am I so resistant to the idea of making a “decent living” doing something I love and am good at? Why do I think it’s only good work if I do it for free or if I suffer for it?)

The whole week before, I had been rolling the questions around in my mind. Every time I came up to an answer, I shied away from it. The answers are terrifying! I want… I want a lot. And I feel ashamed of that.

So, at 1 pm, an hour and a half before my appointment (because procrastination! Because those are big questions!) I pulled out my Wild Unknown deck, and my amethyst and quartz moon set, and my blue goldstone, and my White Light and Catalyst oils, and I shuffled my cards, and drew five.

Representing myself: Father of Swords

Representing my wants, needs, hopes, and fears: Five of Pentacles, Two of Wands, Nine of Swords, Father of Cups – all reversed.

All reversed! No wonder I couldn’t get a clear answer from myself, something big was in the way. So I drew a card for that, and it was (unsurprisingly) the Ten of Wands. Yeah, of course it was.

My sense of myself in my career was clear, and my desire to use my skills to be a leader and to create change within my communities – that Father of Swords resonated so strongly. But all my desires around that, what I want within that clearly defined role, and especially how I want money to factor in… murky. Too many branches in the way, too many trees, carrying too much, trying to do too much.

So I picked the cards I felt resonated positively – the Father of Swords, Two of Wands, and Father of Cups. I read them all upright.

That left the three cards that resonated negatively, or as challenges to be acknowledged. The Ten of Wands, Five of Pentacles, and Nine of Swords.

I paired the Father of Swords with the Ten of Wands – that sword of truth and self-awareness to cut through the branches, to clear a path, to prune back the overgrowth of anxiety and self-doubt that was getting in the way.

I paired the Two of Wands with the Nine of Swords – swords and wands again, but this time the action and movement of the wands moving through the paralyzing fear of those nine swords. I loved this paralleling – in one pair, it is the self-awareness and airy quality of the sword that calms the wands, and in the other, it is the warm light and action of the firey wands that lights the way through the trapped-in-my-head swords.

Last, I paired the Father of Cups with the Five of Pentacles. Grief with the space for grief. Pain with space for pain. An open invitation to feel every feeling, to fill the cup and let it overflow, to allow that Fiveness to exist. To hold space for myself, and to create within my practice and my vision for my business the space for my clients to also bring their grief and fear, their loneliness, their lack. This, in some ways, solidifies most clearly for me what I want from my career as a narrative/life coach – not to simply clear the path for my clients, but to show them how to gently and lovingly hold space for the dark parts of themselves and their situations.

As a final piece, I shuffled the reversed cards back into the deck and left myself with a gentle, hopeful, powerful three card spread – the Father of Swords, Two of Wands, and Father of Cups. With my crystals on either side of the spread, it felt balanced – air, fire, water, with the crystals grounding and anchoring.

I wrote my list of what I want from my career and in my finances, and I felt good. Not only did the process of working actively with the cards to find the story that was right for me feel empowering and stabilizing, it was also practice in the kind of narrative coaching I want to do in my work as a coach. It felt like storytelling. Like using narrative to shape my sense of myself and who I am as a character in my own story.

It was really good.

I am really grateful for these cards, and for this practice. Although I still struggle with feeling like it’s “too woo” sometimes, and I know my evangelical family members would be horrified, when I let go of my expectations for myself and my fears about other people’s judgement, it just feels good, and right, and helpful.

I’m grateful.

And I do feel that strong Father of Swords energy so deeply. There are moments when I know that potential is within me, and I love it.