Card of the Day: Four of Wands

Image description: The Four of Wands in the Next World Tarot.

Today’s card is the Four of Wands. Harmony.

This four says, “Today is always the first day of the rest of your life.”

More from the guidebook, “The 4 of Wands asks you to do as she does – hold onto the breadth of your enthusiasm and use it to both offer and embody inspiration.” – Cristy C. Road

Beloved tarot companions, where can you breathe into an awareness of your own survival?

What is the ground beneath your feet, the ground holding you up? What helps you feel grounded?

What would you name as your accomplishments? What have you done despite the obstacles in front of you?

Who is your chosen family, and how did you find them? How did you choose them? What does it say about your values and what you hold precious, that you chose these people to be in your world?

What defines ‘home’ for you? How have you built this home?

I pulled this card into a day marked by emotional distress, into a week overshadowed by violence and abuse and gaslighting and victim-blaming. I pulled this card into a context that is anything but harmonious.

And so, I pulled this card especially for those of us who resonated with the Ten of Swords earlier this week, and who are struggling with issues of intimate partner violence and abuse.

Where can you, you who have suffered and are suffering, find a moment of harmony? Where is the breadth of your enthusiasm, beloved? What do you love, and what does this love say about your lovely and longing and resilient heart?

You are here, surviving.

This is the first day of the rest of your life, and so is tomorrow, and so is the next day.

There is ground to stand on.

There is home.

There is chosen family.

There is music and there are plants and there is a soft sky above you.

There is you, with your heart.

What magic that is.

Card of the Day: Seven of Wands

Today’s card is the Seven of Wands. Courage.

From Cristy C. Road’s brilliant Next World Tarot guidebook, “You recently had a vision – you are a priestess, a leader, an energetic plea for peace and justice. You have what you need – the resources, the knowledge, and the revolutionary intent to create something both educational and breathtaking – but a community, an individual, or a system unwilling to comply sits beside you. There is a system of power that excuses hate violence; this system could run through a police state, a political power, or a love. Through intimidation, scare tactics, and lies, they urge you to run from your own magic. The 7 of Wands cultivated a force field that surrounds the space she creates her elixirs, makes her art, and strengthens her intuition – away from the claws of the oppressor. She asks you to do the same.”

Oof.

What is your vision? Your dream? What secret, precious hopes are you holding close but feeling unable to bring into the world?

Maybe it’s a book. A course. A career change. Involvement in a project or process of justice-doing. Maybe it’s just speaking what you know to be true into a world that you know to be hostile.

What is the system of power that sits in your way?

How can you resist this system?

How can you show up for your dreams, for your own deeply knowing self?

What are we doing with, and for, our dreams?

What do you think it means to your dream or vision that you have not forgotten it, despite the resistant system that you face?

Where did you first discover this dream or vision?

Who in your life, past or present, would not be surprised to know that this is your dream or vision? Who knows the secret magical heart of you?

Who supports you in this dreaming? Is this person living, no longer living, fictional, historical? Can you bring this person closer to you in the moments when you need courage?

I believe in us. In you, and in myself. Sitting with this card early this morning, I felt it deep in my bones. Both the vision and the fear.

If you are here in this Seven energy with me, welcome. Let’s put up our force fields and protect our magic. Let’s build.