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When intuitive knowing meanders and shifts
I run in the circles of tarot, metaphysics and new-age spirituality. And love this circle as I do, this realm can lead us to over-simplify things. You know, we talk about following our intuition as though we all have this super clear, totally certain intuitive knowing that leads us effortlessly to the truth.
You’ve probably heard the advice that goes: just trust your intuition. Tune into your inner knowing. Let the truth reveal itself to you.
I guess I should clarify here that I do, of course, believe in intuitive knowing! I think mainstream culture still has a lot of disdain for the concept of intuitive knowing, much preferring to approach things through rational knowing. This is probably why the subcultures that value intuitive knowing seem to thrive – there’s not a place for us at the mainstream table, so we’ve established our own little corners of existence.
The thing we sometimes skip over, though, in our intuition-promoting circles, is that intuitive knowing sometimes circles, snakes, zig zags and meanders. This type of knowing doesn’t always appear within us as a sudden burst of clarity. Instead, it often unfolds in strange ways, dropping clues and breadcrumbs. Identifying the truth that your intuition is guiding you towards can indeed be quite like solving a puzzle.
And then, sometimes we think we’ve reached a place of intuitive knowing. We think we know our purpose, we think we’ve nailed down the truth, we think know what it is we are meant to do from here. And perhaps that answer is right for the time being. But eventually, we may find we are pulled to go deeper. That, in fact, the core truth is still a few layers deeper than where we’ve arrived.
This can be exhausting. After all, humans as a general rule do not like uncertainty. We crave that aha moment, we crave the solid understanding of who we are and what we are here to do. And when we seem to find that solid understanding, we cling to it. We don’t want to go deeper. We don’t want to be uprooted again. We want to, at long last, find nirvana and set up permanent camp there.
But this is rarely the way the truth works. The truth reveals itself in layers. What right now might seem like an ultimate and final intuitive knowing may actually only be a sliver of the big picture. It’s much like the image of the High Priestess sitting in front of the veil. The entire veil is not dropped at once. We get a peek of corners, we get various viewpoints of what lies beyond that veil. But the entire illusion is not dispelled in one fell swoop.
Ironically, it is clear that I can’t get at the core of the truth with what I’m trying to write here! And that is because the truth does move at it’s own pace. I’m still working through it. Intuitive knowing reveals itself in layers, in a spiral journey.
If you do know right now – if the truth (or at least the current manifestation of the truth) has unfolded within you…yeah. That’s powerful. Act on that knowledge! Respect your awareness.
But if you don’t know…if you feel like you’ve long been stumbling towards the truth only to find more and more diversions and dead-ends and labyrinths…know that this is okay. There is no race. The truth moves at it’s own pace. Sometimes the wandering is necessary. Sometimes the deeply frustrating moments of unknowing are exactly what you need before setting into the truth. And of course, even once you’ve settled into the truth, you’ll likely find the truth shifting yet again, sooner or later.
This is another lesson of the High Priestess. She is comfortable existing with mysteries. She’s invested in the truth, but she’s not addicted to truth. She trusts the unfolding of her own knowing, glimpsing beyond the veil in bits and pieces, engaged in a never-ending dance with the truth. When the time comes to hone in on the truth, she does not resist. But when the truth is evasive, she does not despair. She unites herself with the mystery, letting the truth move to it’s own rhythm.
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Write your own introspective tarot flash fiction
There are two things that always happens to me when October arrives. The first is that my pull to introspection deepens: I crave wide open hours spent with steaming mugs of tea, glowing candles, journals, crystals and cards. The second thing is that I want to write fiction: I want to witness narratives emerging from the ether and taking shape on the page.
This October, I’m realizing I want to do both of these things at once. I want to reflect on my personal journey, and I want to write fiction inspired by that assessment. I don’t just want to ploddingly write about the “facts” of my current life. I want to take a more magical approach. I want to take creative liberties and tell a slice of my own story not literally, but mythically.
Of course, tarot lends itself nicely to this process! I’m going to show you how I’m going about writing my own introspective tarot flash fiction. I hope you’ll decide to try it for yourself.
As a side note: I’m calling this tarot flash fiction, but is it truly fiction? The aim here is to write semi-autobiographical fiction: a story about you that may not be literally true, but points to metaphorical truths. What we’re doing, you could say, is writing a short myth about ourselves.
Myths are an integral part of being human. For time immemorial, myths have provided entertainment, but they do much more than that. Myths help us understand our place in the cosmos, myths reflect the workings of our inner worlds.
Joseph Campbell pointed out that myths can “conceal OR reveal” the truth. This exercise in writing your own introspective piece of flash fiction is not about concealment! It’s not about avoidance or pie-in-the-sky fantasies. It’s about revealing your truth by putting it through a different filter, by allowing wisdom to be expressed in an alternate paradigm. Sometimes the truth is best revealed not by barraging it head on, but by approaching it from an unconventional angle.
You can go about this exercise in whatever way feels right to you. Perhaps there’s a specific something you want to write about: a challenge you’ve been grappling with, a recent influential experience. If so, keep that concept in mind as you shuffle your cards. But you can also approach this from a blank slate, going in without a plan and taking note of the story that naturally takes shape in your cards.
It could be useful to do a brief meditation before you pull your cards. This way, you can get yourself in an open, receptive mindset. This exercise is different than doing a traditional tarot reading. Don’t worry as much about traditional card meanings. Let yourself be inspired by the images – in fact, I think it would be great to use a deck with a lot of really rich imagery. Think of your cards as open ended prompts.
Get your chosen deck, shuffle well and then draw four cards. The cards will prompt your story as follows:
Where I was
Where I am
Plot twist
Where I will be
Flash fiction gets the name because it’s brief. Write as much or as little as you feel inspired to do for your story. If you find you focus best when talking, you could speak your story out loud and record yourself. Or, if you’re like me and express yourself more naturally through writing, you can draw your cards and then type out your story.
I find this works best if you really put your inner editor on hold. This isn’t about writing something flawless. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be about writing something that makes sense! Instead, this introspective tarot flash fiction is about letting your pulse of self-expression beat freely.
As you can tell, there’s really no wrong way to do this! I hope that I’ve given you some useful guidelines, but you can truly take this concept and make it your own. Just as an example, I’ll show you my cards and resulting tarot flash fiction. The past two or three months have been a bit tumultuous for me, so I’m thinking about centering my story around that. I’m using the Lumina Tarot (my cards are pictured earlier in this post).
Where I was: Seven of Swords
Where I am: Two of Cups
Plot Twist: The Hierophant
Where I will be: Four of Swords
I sat alone on the mountain for aeons, watching the sky turn violent. Swords attacked the moon, that heavenly body that I once thought impenetrable. The world around me looked flat and monochrome, like TV static. The air I tried to breathe was thin and ragged. My bones were heavy and try as I might I was fixed in place, nowhere to look but straight at the celestial onslaught.
Dawn came, despite my inkling that it would not. My limbs began to loosen and I found the desire to move returning. As I watched the sky morph from darker to lighter, a new perspective began to take shape. Perhaps the war I had witnessed above was only a reflection of the wounds of my soul. As above, so below; they say.
Was I asleep or awake? I was moving someplace between the two when I was approached by a winged creature. “You have been waffing about and assuming the worst,” it said not unkindly, it’s voice as rich as silk. “But now, you can grasp a new way of being. You are supported, you are loved. You are love! You are not here to wallow in the darkness that ensnares the moon. You are here to bring color and life to the heavens and the earth.”
I nodded. I stretched my arms, mirroring the expansion of the creatures wings. “Yes,” I agreed, my voice thick in my throat but strong. “I am certain this is true.” As I spoke, the moon smiled down, liberated. Whole. I felt luminous, too. As within, so without.
With the winged creature as my witness, I stood up tall and solid, letting the potency within me radiate outward and into the expanse. I vowed to no longer sit idly by in a monochrome trap, but instead to wield great powers. To teach. To learn. To embody the energy of life, vibrancy and resilience. Perhaps, I thought, I am learning to see myself not as a witness to destruction, but as an agent of creation. I am learning not to fear decay, but to embrace a vaster scale of life.
This vibrancy of evolution, I knew, would take time to integrate. Instead of rushing out into the world of action, I sat down. But this time I sat not out of weakness or fear, but as a contemplative respite. I offered companionship and gratitude to the winged creature who offered me such insight. When I gazed up again at the moon, I was in the presence of an all consuming, ever-expanding pool of radiance. As it should be.
I hope you will give writing your own tarot flash fiction a try. If you do, make sure to leave me a comment and tell me how it goes!
Also, National Novel Writing Month is coming up! For more inspiration on using tarot for writing, check out this three part tutorial I created last year. It’s packed with spreads and advice on using tarot to write your novel.
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Bluntly demanding Emperors
Every tarot card taps into a potent aspect of the human psyche, but trump four the Emperor is one of the cards that evokes the most polarizing reactions. People have strong opinions on this card, and the impressions of each deck’s creator is imprinted upon the deck. The “true” meaning of the Emperor is, as all cards are, vast. The Emperor is an archetype, personal but also mythical, transcending the individual consciousness and inhabiting the realm of the collective.
I’ve been thinking about the Emperor in particular because of the stark difference in two decks I work with: the Japaridze Tarot, in which trump four is titled War; and the Gaian Tarot, which renames trump four the Builder. Wow, right? That’s about as much contrast as possible for viewing this card.
Which of these paints a more useful picture, do you think? Which of these is more aligned with the “true” meaning of the card? Which of these is closer to your interpretation of the card? Answering these questions for yourself is a really useful way to develop your own relationship with trump four.
As I’ve been thinking about this for myself, I’ve been revisiting the concept that each card has what Arthur Rosengarten calls a “spectrum of meaning.” I see each card as inhabiting a living, dynamic energetic space. This space contains the shadowy aspects of the card, and it also contains the lighter aspects. These aspects all bleed together and they come to the surface of our awareness in different ways depending on the circumstances at work in the exact moment we plug into the card. Intuition is a huge part of this process, and this is why I don’t think any card can have a “definitive” meaning. There are shared understandings of the card that inhabit this energetic space, but they are always processed through our personal understandings.
Let’s look at each of the aforementioned decks more closely. The Japaridze Tarot calls the card War, a title that takes a clear dive into the shadowy aspects of the card. Remember that when we talk about shadowy aspects this doesn’t strictly mean negative aspects. Shadow is a term to refer to things that are hidden, more difficult to access, unconscious or repressed. These are elements that do dwell in the previously described spectrum of meaning: destruction, brute force, imposing of order, staking ones own claim as ruler regardless of how this impacts others.
It’s understandable to be taken aback when you see this card titled War and depicting a scene of destruction. This card does not leave much room to explore a vast spectrum of meanings. Instead, it guides us directly into the more difficult energies of the Emperor. But I have to give the Japaridze tarot credit for not shying away from the shadow sides of Emperor energy. Tarot is a tool that challenges us to consider things from new perspectives, to wade straight into our own fears. When you look at the War card, you have nowhere to hide, no rose colored glasses to don: you are face to face with the shadow of the Emperor, and you can learn a lot here.
The Gaian Tarot takes another non-traditional approach, titling trump four the Builder. The title alone is enough to convey the lighter sides of the Emperor. As another reminder, light does not mean positive. Light aspects are those that are more readily apparent, consciously assimilated and optimistically focused. The Builder shows trump four’s potential for creating stability, ideal fathering, working towards a clearly defined outcome and stewardship of one’s territory.
I’d guess most of us will be more comfortable with the Builder than War. It is empowering to identify the highest and best channeling of a card’s energy. This is how we find inspiration and motivation through our readings. The Gaian Tarot’s depiction hints that although the Emperor does have the capability of destruction (the hammer he holds), he chooses to use this tool carefully and productively. The Builder leaves some room for exploration of the shadowy sides of the card, but not much. This deck decidedly leads us towards the light, but the light may not always be the full story.
What are your reactions to these two cards? My key takeaway is that it’s important for a tarot reader to give some consideration to the personal biases at work in each deck. Of course, every deck was created by a human, and every deck will have sort of slant – that’s okay. Cards that tap into the spectrum of meaning in a more neutral way are generally preferable for me – I like to have the space to consider for myself if a more shadowy or light interpretation is required.
But in working with these two decks, I’ve also been considering how much we can learn about ourselves when we’re confronted with cards that take a firm stance. It’s more comfortable for us to stay somewhere in the safe middle ground, but there is value in a card that bluntly demands us to face a definitive end of the spectrum.
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Dynamic life energy, the lessons don’t stop
I used to think I’d eventually finish all my life lessons. Then I’d be a kind of enlightened being just cruising through life! But now, I’ve realized that day probably won’t come – and that’s totally okay. More thoughts in this video:
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Beams of light: a few reader recommendations
I read my own cards all the time. Pretty much every day, as a matter of fact! But sometimes I’m way too emotionally entrenched in a situation to read for myself. In those times, I turn to the talented population of our tarot community. There are SO MANY amazing tarot readers out there and it makes my heart happy. I’ve worked with a few amazing readers lately, and I want to tell you a little about them today.
Vickie Wilson
A few months ago, I found myself constantly dreaming about an old friend. It felt cosmically significant, but I couldn’t see for myself why that was. And so I turned to Vickie, and received an in-depth, articulate, and to the point reading.
Vickie incorporated astrology and tarot, with astonishing results. My mouth was literally hanging open as I read certain parts – she described my friendship with this person SO accurately, it was like she knew us!
It was also really useful for me to get a reading from Vickie because her style was direct – no fluff, no fancy frills – just straight up wisdom. She’s wonderful at giving tough love! There were a few things in the reading that I know I NEEDED to hear, but I didn’t necessarily WANT to hear them at the time, haha! Vickie was always kind and empathetic, but still told it like it was. I really admire that approach.
You can book a reading with Vickie here.
Kelly-Ann Maddox
If you follow my blog or Instagram regularly, you might remember that I went through some pretty intense inner turmoil last month. I could sense I needed guidance, and so I turned to Kelly-Ann for a reading to help me work with that Tower energy.
I received a video reading, and it was truly a treat. If you’ve seen her YouTube videos, you know the magic Kelly-Ann weaves with cards and words. I was enchanted throughout the entire video, and you bet your bum I took a lot of notes!
The most poignant thing about the reading was the way Kelly-Ann tapped into so many nuances of my situation. She helped turn my attention to aspects of my life that I wasn’t consciously aware I needed to look at. The reading helped me flip some mental switches and gave me lots of tangible advice to work with.
You can book a reading with Kelly-Ann here.
Dana Machacek
This reading came along due completely to the powers of synchronicity and the delightful workings of the universe – and I’m sure glad it did. I’ve been following Dana for a while on Instagram, and she sure is a beam of light. She’s very positive (high vibe as the cool kids say) but still thoughtful and real.
This was a unique reading in that Dana did not use cards. Instead, she intuitively tuned into my energy. It was a new experience for me – I’d never had a reading that was so utterly intuitive. I went into it with an open mind, and I was quite pleased with what I received.
The most powerful thing about my reading with Dana is that she tapped in to many issues that had been lingering in my unconscious mind for some time, but I hadn’t been ready to address them. Dana firmly but gently brought those energies to the surface, putting words to what had been stewing within me. It felt like a sigh of relief hearing someone else describe my thoughts and feelings – it gave my experiences validation, and I didn’t know how much I needed that until I had it.
You can book a reading with Dana here.
Honorable mention: Jessi Huntenburg
If you aren’t familiar with Siobhan’s monthly tarotscopes, you should absolutely check them out. Each month on her site, Siobhan brings together twelve tarot readers to contribute a tarotscope for each of the zodiac signs. I always enjoy reading them – Siobhan certainly has a knack for bringing talented people together.
I’m a Cancer, and when I clicked over to read my ‘scope for Leo season I had to do a double take. The reading, contributed by Jessi Huntenburg, was soooo applicable to me that I think my exact words were “holy fucking shit.” Seriously, I can’t even describe the levels of meaning I derived from this short but potent AF message Jessi delivered. That’s why I’ve listed her as an honorable mention – technically I didn’t get a “personal” reading from her, but I sure as hell feel like I did!
You can book a reading with Jessi here.
Have you had a reading from anyone particularly incredible lately? If so, leave me a comment and tell me about it. I’m always happy to find amazing tarot people.
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My Joy Guidelines
What causes my feelings? How can I best navigate these feelings? These are things I consider aaaaallllll the time. One thing I’ve realized is that the word happiness doesn’t quite jive with me. When I think about what happiness means, I associate it with positivity, with feeling good and upbeat. And frankly, I don’t even WANT to feel positive all the time. I strongly believe that the whole emotional spectrum is important and necessary.
I think what I’m seeking is joy. To me, joy is different than happiness. Joy is broader. When I think about what joy means, I associate it with being wholly engaged with life, with awareness and being courageously immersed with what is (even if the present moment is painful). That’s what I want.
But how do I experience joy? What theories and reminders help align me?
Gretchen Rubin presents the idea of developing your own list of personal “happiness commandments.” This becomes a guideline you can reference to live life in the way that is best for YOU. Mine are still a work in progress, but what I’ve come up with so far has been very useful to me! I’m calling them my JOY GUIDELINES rather than happiness commandments, just because that wording resonates more with me.
If this idea piques your curiosity, I’d definitely recommend writing your own! I’ll share what mine look like at this point. I could write an entire post on each of my guidelines, and I probably will, eventually. But for now, a brief explanation will do!
Laugh all of your laughter, weep all of your tears.
This line from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran evokes a theme I found emerging in many of joy guidelines: joy and sorrow are inextricable. If I want to be fully expansive and radiating happiness, I need to be just as willing to be bowled over by sadness. I can’t protect myself from experiencing the darker, more difficult aspects of the human experience. When I try to reign in my laughter or stifle my tears, I rob myself of the true depths of life.
Be the King of Cups.
The King of Cups has become my tarot BFF lately. I used to relate most to the Queen or sometimes the Page of Cups, but recently I’m realizing that the King has many lessons to offer about how I might best show up in the world. He is emotionally intelligent, but he is also logical. He understands how to feel his feelings and use them constructively (instead of living in a dreamworld or falling to pieces). He values dreams and intuition, but also values tangible experience and scientific reasoning. He has a collected presence; he brings a stabilizing, healing energy to others. He does not judge. He does not cling to expectations. To me, he is a sage, a zen master; yet still humble and humorous. I want to be the Kind of Cups when I grow up!
Stand knee deep in the flow of life.
This quote from the Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron speaks to me of mindful intention. I do not want to stand on the sidelines of life, I want to stand knee deep in the flow. I want to be fully immersed, aware of each decision and action that I make.
No lies, just love.
I have only one tattoo and it is these words, quoted from a Conor Oberst song. There are many levels of meaning here for me: the obvious being the importance of telling the truth. Lies drain energy, telling the truth is love. This line also reminds me to gently remove my masks, to shed anything within me that is a lie. Vulnerability is beautiful, living with an open-heart is painful as fuck sometimes…but it’s also love.
We’re all in this together.
I place a lot of importance on ME. My soul, my journey, my life, my emotions…I’m the center of the universe, right?! Sure, it’s important to honor myself; but it’s also important for me to remember that we are all one. We are all connected. We all have our struggles, our stories, our experiences. We’re all trying to navigate life. It’s important to be empathetic, it’s important to take care of each other, I am not alone.
These are beautiful times.
I struggle processing a lot of terrible things happening in the world today. Sometimes I get so swept up in all the horrific things going on that I forget to acknowledge that these times may be hard, but they are also beautiful. I took the line “these are beautiful times” from an Owl City song, the entirety of which speaks to me about struggling with darkness and finding the strength to live in the light.
There are ebbs, there are flows.
There are times I feel like I’ve lost the thread. Times when I feel uninspired, disconnected, apathetic. Gradually, I have learned that as unpleasant as these ebbs may be, they are a natural part of my life. Ebbs happen and that is okay. Just like the tides going in and out, the flow always comes back.
It’s meaningless, it’s meaningful.
I think paradoxes are an interesting approach to complicated topics. I used to gravitate back and forth between assigning tremendous meaning to EVERYTHING and then thinking everything was random and pointless. I’ve now found that taking more of a middle ground approach is better for me. When I accept that maybe something can be both meaningless AND meaningful, I feel closer to the truth.
Take the next right step.
This is a nugget of wisdom you’ve probably heard from me before if you’ve worked with me one on one. As many of us do, I can get caught up in telling myself I have to have a huge master plan before I take action. But this is rarely the case! Usually, it is better for me to focus on taking the next right step, even if it is a small step. Looking at the big picture is valuable from time to time, but I don’t get anywhere without breaking it down and taking the next step.
Give fucks wisely.
This is one of the most fucking powerful things on my whole fucking list. I got this idea from this article (hands down one of the best fucking things I’ve read on the internet). Not only do I enjoy liberal use of the word fuck, but I am a HUGE believer in giving fucks wisely. The fucks that I have to give are a limited resource. I want to give fucks about things that actually matter and not give fucks about meaningless bullshit. When I give my fucks wisely, I find a more powerful and potent way of living.
Go for a walk.
For me, walking is a spiritual practice. When I am sad, it is good to go for a walk. When I am happy, it is good to go for a walk. When I’m stuck, it is good to go for a walk. When I am a human living life on this planet, it is good to go for a walk.
Create for the sake of creating.
I’ve written about creating for the sake of creating before, and I probably will again. This is a vital concept for me. I need the space and permission to create just because. Not because I’m expecting money or praise or fame…but because I feel called to create. To have a truly joyful life, I have to let my creativity fill in all the corners of my experience simply because it feels good to do so.
If you come up with some Joy Guidelines of your own, I’d be curious to hear them. Do leave a comment and share.
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The healing process: pain is required
There’s a particular blip of the tarot’s major arcana that’s always fascinated me, the sequence of cards 15 through 17: The Devil, The Tower and The Star (shown here from the CBD Tarot De Marseille).
To me, these three cards illustrate the healing process. When I talk about healing here, I’m talking about spiritual and emotional healing. I’m talking about healing the traumas of our personal pasts, healing our addictions, healing the enslaving tendencies of our egos, healing the gap between our subconsciousness and our consciousness.
What associations do you have with the notion of healing? Maybe you associate healing with the concept of wholeness. Acceptance. Serenity. Peace. Recovery. Rejuvenation. I think these are the associations many of us jump to. And these things are part of the healing process…but the catch is, these things come in the final stage of the healing process, represented above by the Star.
We don’t talk as much about the things that happen earlier in the process, because they aren’t as desirable. But if you’re really devoted to healing, you’ll eventually have to accept that you can’t jump straight to the Star. First, you have to go through the pain represented by the Devil and the Tower.
Keep in mind that the healing process looks wildly different in each of its manifestations, but here are a few broad strokes outlines of the phases you might encounter.
The Healing Process Phase 1: The Devil
The onset of the healing process comes when you acknowledge that you are being weighed down by pain. You finally see that you are being imprisoned, and even if part of you wants to cling to that thing, part of you knows that you need to release.
The key point of this phase is learning to look directly at the problem. Instead of letting things remain vaguely unsettling notions, during the Devil phase of healing you begin to name your captor. You learn to look directly at what it is that is unwell within you.
This acknowledgement alone is a huge step. Before this point, you were a blind prisoner. Now, you have the conscious knowledge that healing is required. This doesn’t mean you’ll willing jump into healing work right away, but it does mean you’ve reclaimed the power to do so.
During this phase of the healing process, you usually feel a LOT of resistance. You’ll backslide on promises you make to yourself, you’ll relapse into your old patterns, you’ll rage with anger, you’ll blame others (and yourself), you might feel cynical or depressed. You might wonder what the POINT is of even attempting to heal. Sometimes we remain stuck in this phase for a long, long time.
But inevitably during this stage, you’ve gained a huge advantage: the willingness to look at your wounds, and the knowledge that simply acknowledging the pain makes you stronger. For the first time, you begin to realize that facing your pain will not kill you.
Phase 2: The Tower
During the Tower phase of healing, you are swept directly into the chaos of letting go. Sometimes this happens because you consciously chose to step into the storm, other times the Universe thrusts you in whether you’re ready or not.
This is an unsettling experience – you know you’ll no longer be the person you were before, but you can’t quite envision where you’ll end up. You may actually feel the physical sensations of being ungrounded, as though you were being flung about like the figures on the card.
Purging is one of the hallmarks of this phase in the healing process. You’ll spend time sorting through heaps of memories, old energy, blocks, and other painful stuff. At times, it will feel like too much to handle. You may do a lot of what Oprah calls “ugly crying.” You may also do a lot of laughing, too – because even though this phase is terrifying, it’s also exhilarating.
Perhaps most notably, this phase puts you in a direct experience of chaos. You will have to call back to the knowledge you first gleaned from the Devil, but may forget as healing continues: this pain will not kill you. Quite the opposite, going through this pain is the ONLY sustainable route to healing.
You’ll gradually gain a new understanding of who you are. Instead of defining yourself as a victim, you’ll find a new identity as a survivor. Instead of identifying yourself as flawed, you find that you are free.
Phase 3: The Star
The Star is the calm after the storm. This is the kind of inner peace that you can only fully appreciate when you’ve earned it. And earned it you have! You’ve learned to look at your demons. You’ve done the messy, treacherous, soul-jarring work of release. Now, you feel composed. You are at home within yourself.
Here, you step into a new way of being: you are healed. You gently learn how to sustain this state, because healing always requires checking in and maintenance, even once the intense inner work is done.
And then, of course, you may eventually be called once again to repeat the healing process. There will be deeper levels to excavate, there will be more corners to explore, there will be new vistas of chaos to embrace.
Yes, healing requires pain. And so you’ve got to ask yourself to choose:
Do you keep bearing the unconscious, soul-numbing pain that comes from refusing inner work? That’s no way to live.
Instead, let’s embrace the conscious, spiritually potent pain that is essential to the healing process.
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Kill your darlings, crush your castles (video)
Hello friends,
Kill your darlings, crush your castles…it may sound like I’m asking you to burst into violent upheaval, but I’m not (at least not literally!).
What we’re talking about here is finding the gumption to kill your darlings when they are no longer in synch with the greater spectrum of your life. Because sometimes life asks you to make this difficult choice:
Should I stick with something I worked so hard towards creating, even if it now feels like a prison? Or should I find the courage to “kill my darlings,” should I destroy what I lovingly built in order to make space for something even better?
Let’s talk about that!
What do you think? Have you ever made the choice to kill your own darlings? What darlings do you need to kill now – and how can you find the courage to throw that first stone?
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Refer to this when you need reminders of what’s important
What a strange thing it is to be a human! We’re unceremoniously flung into this strange adventure on this lush planet. There’s no instruction manual, no agreed upon “right way” to live. That’s part of the adventure; we get to figure out for ourselves what is important.
I’m pretty far from having figured out this whole life thing, but there are a few things I believe are important for me. I sometimes find I have to remind myself of these things again and again. And so today, I composed a few of them in a list for future reference.
What’s important for me may not feel so important for you, and vice versa. That’s okay. But despite the wildly unique facets of our souls, perhaps you’ll find something in my list that seems like a good reminder for you, too. Here we go…
It’s more important to be authentic than to be original.
It’s more important to regularly reconsider your vision than to doggedly stick to a plan.
It’s more important to be creatively expressive than critically acclaimed.
It’s more important to admit you don’t know than to appear “wise”.
It’s more important to consciously relax than to mindlessly numb.
It’s more important to live like you have finite time than to delay what matters.
It’s more important to feel all your feelings than to repress and let them become toxic.
It’s more important to be real than to be polished.
It’s more important to be deeply engaged than to be “just killing time.”
It’s more important to listen to your inner encourager than to obey your inner naysayer.
It’s more important to be expansive than comfortable.
It’s more important to hold space for someone’s concerns than to solve them.
It’s more important to have curiosity than answers.
It’s more important to be relatively constructive than to “save the world.”
It’s more important to have integrity than to comply.
It’s more important to live your own values than to convert anyone else to your values.
It’s more important to be present for the whole spectrum of life than to avoid pain.
It’s more important to gently redirect yourself than to scorch yourself for your mistakes.
It’s more important to take the next small step than to reach the finish line.
It’s more important to be genuinely broken than artificially whole.
It’s more important to be a force for healing than to succumb to despair.
It’s more important to arise from the ashes than to never crash.
It’s more important to sit with the mystery than to pin down the meaning.
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Tower energy’s got me like…
I am masterful at avoiding my inner demons, but they always catch up with me before too long. I can circumvent life lessons, but I can’t permanently avoid them. If I didn’t fully integrate them the first time around, surely as the sun they will rise again.
And even when I do finally make peace with the chaos within me, it doesn’t just dissipate. Sitting with that chaos is a daily practice. Watching it change shape requires constant mindfulness.
And maintaining that mindfulness…well, it isn’t always easy. It’s easier to switch off. To distract my attention with social media or work or tv or whatever else.
Because staying mindful, for me, means bravely standing in the thick of my own inner chaos. Over. And over.
And jeez! That can get exhausting.
But the divine irony here is that resisting facing myself, avoiding inner work, and clinging to my outmoded ways of being actually takes up MORE energy than just…facing the music. The chaotic (but at the same time achingly beautiful) music of my inner landscape.
My card for August is the Tower (and if you follow me on Instagram, you’ve already seen some of my pretty raw thoughts about this). This Tower energy has been building up inside of me for quite some time. We are usually the architects of our own towers, after all.
I wish I could blame some volatile external force, but I have to admit that consciously or unconsciously, I built this fortress myself.
I built it, and I have been living in a tower. A Tower of old beliefs, of fears, of smallness, of shame, of weird habits and avoidance tactics. I haven’t wanted to admit that to myself, much less to anyone else.
For some time now, my Tower has been cracking and creaking. It’s been showing signs of wear. Signs that it needs to be demolished. But I’ve tried to ignore those signs. I’ve tried to convince myself that golly gee, that’s not a crack in the foundation! Everything is juuuuust fine!
In fact, the hardest I’ve laughed in months was looking at pictures of dogs who are stuck but pretending everything is fine because #same.
There’s a gift that tarot gives me again and again: the gift of metaphor. The cards make it easier for me to see my inner landscape for what it is: a stew of archetypes and stories. Experiences that are wholly mine, yet utterly entrenched in the collective unconscious.
(I’m not trying to be vague. I’m just doing what my mystic heart was born to do…I’m viewing the human experience through the lens of story and myth.)
And in this current metaphor, I essentially have two options. The first is to continue to squirrel myself away in the Tower, throwing up haphazard patches and pretending that the inevitable collapse isn’t going to happen.
Or, I can lend a hand in the Tower’s upheaval. I can be the one to throw the dynamite at the damn thing. I can actively help those bricks find their way to freedom.
That’s the choice I’m making this month. Even when part of me doesn’t want to. Even when part of me STILL wants to stay cooped up in the Tower. Gently, I am telling her “let’s go, my love. We are done here. This place is crumbling, so let’s quit feigning it offers true protection. We will be okay. We will survive AND thrive. Squirming away from the chaos is not a wise expenditure of our energy. Let’s jump right into the chaos.”
Because chaos is the ONLY path to clarity.
I will not frame my tower as a cataclysm; instead it is a catalyst. My tower doesn’t have to result in a breakdown; instead it can set the stage for a breakthrough.
I won’t lie, it still feels weird. I’m still not sure how to proceed. And I still don’t like it. But this is where my myth meets my reality, and it’s about time I quit resisting the call and finally show up for the challenge – like all true heroes eventually do.
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Carrie Mallon
Header art from The Spacious Tarot illustrated by Annie Ruygt
All site content © Carrie Mallon LLC 2014-2019
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