I am sitting in my home office, next to the window, which doesn’t offer a lot of light at this moment. For one thing, clouds are meandering their way across the sky. For another thing, the tree right outside my window is in a spring growth spurt. New branches and leaves wildly sprawling this way and that. It’s windy (just like it was last week) so the tree – which of course IS a living thing – looks even more alive. Like it is wiggling its fingers and toes. Dancing.
As I write to you today, my intention is to share something that is valuable or at least mildly interesting. I don’t yet know what that will look like because I’m following a method described by Mary K Greer for writing from your heart with tarot.
So I was shuffling The Spacious Tarot and the Lovers reversed jumped right on out of the deck. This doesn’t happen to me too often, so I will usually pay attention when it does. It’s funny seeing the Lovers, this card of connection, when I have been feeling pretty lonely lately. I know a lot of us are lonely. Staying home more. Maybe not spending as much time around friends and family because we don’t want to unwillingly spread illness. Life in 2020.
Physical connection is sacred and we are wired to crave it. It’s hard not to have it, and that doesn’t just talking about sex. Even just the physical connection of like, sitting in a coffee shop chatting to a friend. Being in someone’s physical presence, being all up in their vibes and aura. It can’t really compare to interacting with someone from behind a screen. But we kind of can’t do a lot of that physical stuff right now.
Even before the whole social distancing thing, I had been thinking about people from my past who I’m no longer as connected to for whatever reason. It’s my Cancer Sun. I am emotionally clingy. Letting go is hard, sometimes feels impossible for me. I’m aware of it, and I accept it, and I try to let it come forward as a constructive trait even though it obviously has a shadowy side.
So, maybe you can relate to this feeling of missing someone but knowing that you have to be away from them. Either because of the pandemic so you know (hope?) it’s temporary but it’s still hard. Or maybe you’re away from them for another reason entirely, like your life paths just naturally drifted apart or you had a falling out or whatever the case is.
Leave it to me to go to the dark place when talking about THE LOVERS of all cards. But, y’know, every card has a whole spectrum of meanings. Our Lovers card has a dark background, after all. And love is god damn complicated. Sometimes you love someone even when it’s probably not ideal to do so and you feel weird about it and wish you didn’t.
Anyway, what I love the most about our depiction of the Lovers is that it’s about energy. Love and connection may be amplified when you’re able to connect with someone in the same time and place, but there are other ways to be together that challenge assumptions about the time space continuum. Anyone wanna hang out on the astral plane? Maybe you find some energetic closure with people from your past by visiting them in a dream or on the astral plane or writing a letter you may or may not ever send.
I think we could all do with sending out some love and light, whatever that means to you. Maybe you tell them someone you’re sending loving energy, maybe you do it quietly. I believe putting out love carries an impact any way you approach it.
I’ve now pulled another card and this time it’s Temperance. Soooo in a roundabout way, this card reminds me of something else I’ve been thinking about a lot which is the theme word I chose for this year: DISENGAGE. Yeah…not sure how that choice aged? DISENGAGE came to me very strongly at the beginning of the year, but I did not expect it to align with a global crisis that forced disengagement from so many of our normal activities.
So those are some shadowy things, but DISENGAGE has also felt like a useful theme word for me in many ways. When I think about Temperance, I think about a measured approach. There’s some sense of balance in our version, the fire and ice almost mirror each other. Too much of one would destroy the other, so that measured approach is crucial.
It goes back to my Cancer Sun clinginess. Although there are things I wish I didn’t have to disengage from, there are just as many things I’m still engaging with which fuck with my vibe. I guess the metaphor I’m trying to go with here is, maybe I’m the ice in this card and I’m engaging with too much fire which is destructive to my vibe. A little fire? I can co-create with that. Too much fire? YIKES I’m melting, time to disengage.
There’s a delicate balance in Temperance, just like there’s a delicate balance within me and within you. This card asks: where do you feel out of whack? What are you maybe overly engaging with even though it’s wreaking havok on your vibe? Maybe for some of us the answer is: screen time, news consumption, self-pity, the list goes on.
Looking at these two cards together, the Lovers and Temperance, there’s a synthesis available. The Lovers asked: where are you called to energetically connect? While Temperance asks, where are you called to energetically disengage? And maybe even where are you called to do both of these things at once?
That’s what I’ve got today. It was a little random, but it was beneficial…at least for me! Thank you for taking the time to read these words.
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You touched on so many ups and downs feelings for me. So many of us do feel lonely, but in my little world here, I totally engage. We have lost privileges that we often have taken for granted and we are now realizing how precious that moment/timeline was. All we will have are memories. We’ve been tricked. Thank you. I enjoyed reading your notes on Tarot. Much love an light
Your sharing here reminded me of how important it really is to be grateful for every moment of our connections, because we really do never know when things will change!
I really Appreciate your reflections on the interaction between the lovers and temperance. This post connects to some ideas I’ve also been exploring, mainly, how can we engage when disengaged? How can we disengage from things we need to step back from? Thank you so much for your insight. I look forward to your email every week
Hi Susan, I appreciate your kind feedback very much! Sending you lots of good wishes <3
Always enjoy reading your insights and thoughts. We are not alone! Thanks for inspiring and teaching!!
This makes me happy!
Loved it. I can relate….
Thank you, sending good wishes your way <3
Re connection and disengagement. I connected with you thru your interpretations of The Wild Unknown, a deck that found me when I wasn’t looking—disengaged. You’ve been an intermittent and virtual presence in my life since I found you online. I usually consider your view of the cards along with my own—thank you. Your words go somewhere when you toss them into the ether and I hope mine do too!
Hi Elayne, I appreciate this very much! It’s easy to feel like we’re just out here in the void online, but we’re not 🙂
Thanks, Carrie! I loved reading your thoughts on these cards and being challenged to consider where and how it would be possible/feel good for me to do more connecting versus disengaging. Very timely lines of thought for me as well. Hope you are well. And BTW my Cancer rising thinks your Cancer sun isn’t clingy at all. 😂🥰
I think this pull is absolutely perfect for the time being. 💖
Venus is currently retrograde in Gemini and the energy of that couldn’t have a more perfect combination than The Lovers Rx and Temperance.
Venus energy is of course, all things love, beauty, connection. Right now, she’s asking us to take a look at our current relationships and values and the energy we’re putting into them.
How do we communicate our energy in those areas of our lives? Not only with others, but with ourselves. And I think that’s beautiful because right now, that’s big 2020 energy.
Where can we go deeper, or engage our energy and time; and what parts of our lives can we relax our stronghold, allowing new energy to flow?
You are always talking about synchronicity, it’s one of the (now many!) reasons I became so drawn to you. Carl Jung is my dude, too, and I love that you speak of him often. 🤣🥰
A few weeks ago I pulled The Tower the same day you did. I also just released freshly transformed butterflies that day and you just happened to throw in some good ol’ caterpillar symbolism in that post. I wanted to comment then. But, you know, that Tower energy had other plans for me. 🤣🤷🏼♀️
Love your perspectives, Carrie! Thanks for the post. 🙂
Hi Mallori! Your words are so beautifully thoughtful and I appreciate you sharing this so much. I’m a perpetual astro-n00b but I love seeing the connections you’ve drawn here. Thanks for bringing this additional richness to this topic.
Aww thank you for these wonderful insights! Always great hearing from you <3
I’m supposed to be sleeping as it’s midnight and i work in 6 hours, but instead I am reading your post. I love how you use the cards to explain what they are saying as well as tying in what YOU are saying! Its a gift! I appreciate your smart commentary. I need to read my cards more for messages like that!! Xoxo
I’m glad this was beneficial and hope you ended up getting some sleep!
I really enjoy reading your blog posts, and really appreciated the link to Mary K. Greer’s blog post. As an extreme extrovert, I’ve found it challenging at times to be alone and disengaged, but oddly, it hasn’t been as difficult as I expected, maybe because every interaction with a friend or family member carries so much more meaning that we are more open with our feelings, expressing our gratitude for one another. Also, while others have commented they’ve had too much time on their hands to clean/organize/binge watch, my job (which I am grateful to still have) got even busier until I lost all sense of a personal life, and now that summer is here, as a teacher, I can finally seek some of that balance. Anyway, your words really spoke to me, thank you.
That was a helpful example of writing from the heart with tarot. Thank you 🙏
Love your take on reversed lovers and temperance!
Thanks for your musings on the Lovers and Temperance. My Cancer sun relates to your Cancer sun, and your words made me gave me food for thought.
I appreciate your feedback so much Rita 🙂 <3
I’m painting a painting one side fire the other ice and in the center will be an attempted painting of myself.while i sit at my window sending out my astral plane love a song to an old friend.made me think of him and another to my father remembering somethings about my brother and me and reminding him i live and miss him.i has to comment bc this email sat here in this same spot with me. Thanks
Not that your previous offerings haven’t been equally valuable and interesting 🙂 , but this “writing from your heart” really *worked*. One for the toolkit, me thinks.
Yes, feel this deeply, tragically lately! ♥