202. The Medicine of Queens Reversed, Part One
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Whether a symbol of completion, an indication of stuckness, or a signal for revised action, all card reversals bring medicine. When we greet a reversed Queen card, it can be a deep, impassioned plea from our very soul to pay attention, and come home to some aspect of ourselves that has been requesting our presence.
Air date:
November 11, 2022
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About the Episode
In Part One of this two part series on the Queens reversed, we will dive into Queen of Pentacles and Queen of Swords, exploring what they mean, and how we can work with them. We also -- of course -- dig into what they invite us into when they show up reversed, and how we can respectfully, compassionately heed that call.
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Land Acknowledgement
Honoring and acknowledging that this podcast episode was recorded on the unceded land of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, currently called Portland, OR, with the deepest respect to the Kalapuya Tribe, Cowlitz Tribe, and Atfalati Tribe.
Please Note
CW Tags: mentions of parenthood, systemic racism and oppression, capitalism, inherited generational patterns, chronic pain, trauma, childhood and ancestral trauma, chronic pain, unpaid labor that is regularly asked of folks of color, shared labor in parenting/co-parenting, relationship to body, light mentions of diet culture, fatphobia, and intuitive eating
The content in this episode contains references to mentions of mentions of parenthood, systemic racism and oppression, capitalism, inherited generational patterns, chronic pain, trauma, childhood and ancestral trauma, chronic pain, unpaid labor that is regularly asked of folks of color, shared labor in parenting/co-parenting, relationship to body, light mentions of diet culture, fatphobia, and intuitive eating. We have done our best to identify difficult subject matter, but the labels may not be comprehensive for your personal needs. Please honor your knowing and proceed with necessary self-awareness and care.
Transcript
[Introduction]
[0:00:00]
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(Instrumental intro music)
[0:00:05]
Welcome to Tarot for the Wild Soul, a podcast that explores the Tarot through an inclusive, soul centered, trauma-informed perspective for growth, healing, and evolution. I'm your host, Lindsay Mack.
Hello, loves, and welcome back to the podcast. It's nice to be back with you. It’s been I think about… Yeah, it's been roughly a week and a half, I think, since we had our last episode, just because of the timing of the beginning of the week. I have truly been thinking of all of you through this absolutely unacceptable, brutal eclipse (Lindsay laughs). I know the eclipse is over, but I'm still not okay. I mean, really. That was… Yeah, that was major. Major, major. And I felt that eclipse physically. I had a horrible migraine that started like at 4 pm. Like, before the Full Moon, like on the eighth. And it lasted for several days, as my migraines tend to do, especially around the Full Moon. And oh, just so emotional. Like, so many old things coming. It was wild. Wild (Lindsay laughs). Like, I'm still standing, but wild.
And it just got me thinking. This is not that different of an episode, but kind of. What's been feeling really good is to just do kind of like cards of the week. And like, there's always a lesson to be found inside of that, but this is a little bit more of a lesson episode. And it's actually completely connected to the pull of the week. I went to my deck and asked my guides and my deck, “What would you have me speak about on the podcast this week? What are we working with?” And pulled two reversed Queens, and knew right away that this wasn't so much about like, oh, what are we working on this week? This is a little bit more broad.
So this week, we're looking both at sort of what is in highest and best for us to be nurtured by, looking at this week, absolutely. But also in this time, not just with the eclipse, but in this moment in our history, in this moment in being at the end of 2022 and wrapping up our work with The Lovers, and preparing to move forward in The Chariot in 2023, and also just, I think, in the broadest sense possible. Like, some of the deepest work. Like, The Queens reversed – and this is going to be a two-part episode – are of this moment and also of something much larger, something that echoes and ripples back and forth through time. The reversed medicine and invitation of any of The Court Cards are… Well, really any of the Tarot cards.
[0:03:42]
Let's back up and just do kind of a refresher on how we view and treat reversals in Soul Tarot. So there are a couple different branches on the tree. Of course, with any reversal, some reversals are very straightforward. We're complete with a cycle. We're finished with something. Something is a little bit blocked. Something is sort of taking its time.
Now, I want to pause here. I want everyone to remember that just because something is blocked, just because something is taking its time doesn't mean you have to do anything about that. Sometimes things take the time they take, right? So I would caution anyone hearing that to think like, “Oh my God, what do I need to do to get unblocked?” You will know when you're meant to know. Truly, you will know when you are meant to know. Even if it's so obvious to everyone else, even if it's so obvious in retrospect.
Reversals do sometimes say, like, hang out in it and notice the resistance to maybe unblocking. Notice the resistance to taking action in a different way. Notice this, notice that. Like, it's… As I've often said for many years, reversals in Soul Tarot, I consider them to be sort of the rugged path through the forest, the unmarked path versus the marked path, right? So they take us on a longer journey, on sort of the more scenic route, actually.
[0:05:18]
And, of course, there are other ways of interpreting and working with reversals. But what we're looking at today with regard to The Queens, in particular, is that reversals sometimes can show up and shine a mirror on a place, on a spot in our kind of personal mirror that is a little smudgy. A place where maybe we can take empowered action, that maybe we can start thinking a little bit about the underlying reasons why we do the things we do. And in particular, The Queens, when shown up reversed, are typically a signal from our inner self that we are needing something that we're not getting.
The Queens, out of all the cards in the Tarot, have to do with our deepest self, our soul self. They are the internal place that only we will ever travel to. It's a place inside of ourselves that comes alive, that we, only we have that access to, have that map to. It's the intimate knowledge of self. It's what comes up when we are in the best kind of intimate space with ourselves. It's the deep cave within the deepest part of the heart, not necessarily the most scary part of the heart or whatever. The most intimate part of ourselves. And every Queen represents a calling, an invitation to come home, to reclaim some part of ourselves, to visit some part of ourselves. In other words, to get some fucking one-on-one deep time with us.
And when we get these cards reversed, it can be an invitation that somewhere along the way, we've lost the thread. Somewhere along the way, there was a tap on the shoulder, a knock at the door maybe a couple times from some part of ourselves to pause, to come home, to take a moment. And for one reason or another, whether through completely, like, no fault of our own, like, we haven't been able to take that time. We haven't been able to get away. We haven't even been able to, or even believed that we could sort of even just acknowledge, like, “Hey, I feel this tap. I feel this knock. I can't get to you right now. But I see you, I hear you, and I can't wait,” right? And maybe opening that up to Spirit and saying, “Hey, I can't really see a way to get to…to take this time, to have this intimate moment to retreat, even for a half hour with myself. And I'd love for, if possible, that to be more accessible to me,” right?
[0:08:35]
And it could be the next day, your baby sleeps in a little longer. It could be the next day, there's an unexpected day off. It could be the next day, you get sick. And while that would suck, obviously I don't want anyone getting sick or to romanticize getting sick, you may find yourself, as I did with my migraine, being like, “Well, I do have some time alone,” (Lindsay laughs). Like, “Right now I am in the dark alone.” And that is a version of being pulled to the mat, so to speak. So even when we can't take that time… And those examples I just offered are a way to sort of re-frame. Like, oh, I can't take the time. What would happen if we just acknowledged, right, to ourselves, like, “I hear you calling out to me.” And opened it up to Spirit, let them in to help out a little bit. Make room where we currently can't see room.
But even when we can’t take the time, there are moments when we can and we choose not to. And I think that's really worthy of exploration. Because this happens with me all the time. And this happens with pretty much everyone I know. That some of us are so much more, like there are those of you out there who are so much more seasoned and disciplined in a wonderful way, and clear and unapologetic about being like, “Oh, yeah, I'm taking this time and I'm gonna enjoy the hell out of it.” And I bow to you as my teacher. I think that's incredible. And for many of us, that feels really hard to take the time.
And what can happen if we do not take the time to answer the call from an inner Queen, to drop into a part of ourselves is that we can get short, we can get angry, we can get very sad, we can get distracted, we can start making decisions that sort of force that we're going to have the time, we can sort of feel like we're searching around for something. That really all we're truly needing and desiring is to come home to self. And it can feel a little bit like a hunger that never really gets satiated. Right? There can start to be a lot of, again, really strong, like pushing, pulling away, even blowing our lives up just to kind of come home to that part of ourselves.
And I'm positive that many of us listening to this, myself included, have had this kind of experience. So I think that The Queens reversed do represent a very strong but gentle, you know, straightforward and fierce, but kind of compassionate call to pay attention to something that is trying to get our attention. Letting us know that a call has been unanswered, and it is very important that we answer that call.
[0:11:51]
The Queens are very romanticized, right? Like, they're very beloved in terms of the Tarot. We love being like, “Oh, I'm the queen of this, I'm the queen of that.” And I'm about that. I think that's fun, and it's great. And inside of that beautiful claiming of identity, and, like, rooting, and Anchoring into personalizing our relationship with these cards, I think that there is an aspect of them that is kind of understood without really being lived, which is that again, these cards are a call to come back home to ourselves. And to do that can be an act of courage in a society and in a world, especially as women or as nonbinary folk, or as folk who identify as women, there is very often an experience of deference, of sacrifice, of even if we're as empowered as can be.
I'm finding… You know, I'm someone who identifies as a nonbinary femme. I am a parent, a mother. And I am finding myself falling back into patterns of self-sacrifice that are absolutely… Like, my partner, who sometimes identifies as my partner and my husband, depending on where they are with their identity, is as generous and as open to giving me space and rest as they could literally possibly be. They are 50/50, the most incredible co-parent. And I find myself turning their offers for rest down, and then find myself short, like, internally. Not taking it out on my family, but feeling like I don't have what I need. But it was offered to me. And it's been an interesting thing because it's absolutely ancestral. It's not the truth of my situation. In other words, the invitations for space and rest are there. But I'm making meaning of taking that space as it’s not okay, or whatever it might be.
[0:14:19]
And I have been working very deeply on this because it's uncomfortable for me. It's reflecting something inside of me that I was not aware of, that I don't really take time for myself. And this is… I mean, it's vulnerable, but why not be vulnerable with you? I don't really take time. I'm pretty uncomfortable resting. It definitely has to do with being someone who lives with chronic illness and chronic pain. It absolutely has to do with living with a mother who had a disability, visible and invisible, and who was profoundly mentally ill, and permission to take space feeling like I'm being kind of swept out of life. There's some stuff for me around that, that absolutely is getting worked out in therapy. So (Lindsay laughs) know that those branches are being tended to. And this isn't therapy, of course. This is just sort of a share and like, I think, a commiseration.
And obviously, there's so many, many, many intersections here that I'm not even naming, like the intersection for so many people of color around performing labor and being asked to do tremendous labor on the behalf of folks who, you know, are descendants of White ancestors, or are White and are asking for unpaid free labor. And there are so many of us who are not folks of color who experience a great deal of entitlement in other ways. And like, there's a million places, some so prevalent and systemic, that have nothing to do with gender, nothing to do with identity, that have to do with race, that have to do with… So many, again, incredible intersections here about like, what does it mean to breathe, to take space, right? That's a very privileged idea.
And I don't know that I have the answer, but it is something I think about a lot. And inside of that, inside of that, I think that for all of us, whether…whomever we are, however we identify, it's very, very challenging for a great many of us for a million reasons, a lot of them ancestral, a lot of them rooted in trauma, to take that call, to answer the phone and say, “My self is calling.” And to answer it, I think, in an accessible way. Because I'm not going on retreats right now. That's not in my budge’. That's not a… You know, like, I have a baby. There are… You know, there's COVID. Like, that's just not personally what I'm doing. Although next year, who knows? That could change. That's not in my life right now. But for you, that might be exactly what you need. For you, that might be something that is absolutely available to you for a million reasons. You also may be able to take a retreat, but that might not be the call for you.
[0:17:42]
So I think accessibility is also a really important thing to think about when we consider working with The Queens. Because The Queens… Again, when we consider The Court Cards in Soul Tarot, what we're talking about is answering to a much deeper level than we do with The Majors or The Minors, believe it or not. Because The Majors are very macrocosmic. The Majors do have to do with these big ocean waves from…like of energetic invitation that basically say, “Hey, this is coming through. Your job is to essentially surrender to that.” Like, how do we work with that? Right? The Minors are about the microcosm. And they really have to do with these various different areas, like how do we trust ourselves and our heart? How do we take the time we need to process and grieve things? How do we work with brain chemistry and the mind? And how do we come back home to the heart, right? Like what… Really, the older I get and the more I do this, I think really all the suits are about the heart. Like, The Wands are about the heart. The Pentacles are about the heart. They just really have to do with different ways of tending to and coming back home to the heart.
The Court Cards, though, are different. The Court Cards have to do with leadership and the way that we show up. But they really, I think if I had to put them under the umbrella of something, they have to do with service. They have to do with answering to a higher call. And we don't need to feel like we're doing a particular kind of work or vocation to be of service. If you're a parent, you're of service. If you're a teacher, you're of service. If you're… Like, literally, I can't think of an occupation that isn't of service in some way (Lindsay laughs), you know? And it depends on who we're serving, and it depends on how the service is feeling to us. Sometimes it's too much service and not enough receiving.
But there are steps to this service, right? There are steps to this personal work, this soul work that is connected to The Court Cards. And The Pages a lot of the time have to do with reclaiming the inner child, and working with that deep core part of us, like the root, kind of recentering where we stand or where we are at. The Knights have to do with moving in a way that feels really authentic and good to us in this moment. The Kings are absolutely about how we extend that kind of true north-like arrow on the compass, and are of service to others. And The Queens are about how we come home to ourselves, how we come home to this deep cave of the heart, how we listen to this part of ourselves, right?
[0:20:54]
So for all the reasons that I've mentioned, it can be hard to take The Queens up on their offer. It can be really easy to be like, “Oh, you know, I totally identify with the queen of whatever.” And even if we… We might not even call them Queens. And I think that's great. Like, you can do whatever you want. I think that's beautiful. And I think it's just an invitation to think about, what does it actually mean to get a phone call, a cosmic phone call from The Queen of Wands? Like, what does that actually mean?
And the deeper we actually unearth and un-layer this idea, I think the more vulnerable it becomes because it actually is a call to some extraordinarily powerful source within us that tells the truth. And sometimes if we're in the middle of some bullshit in our lives, it's really hard to look at that. And a lot of the time, The Queens hold some source of power, some source of medicine or magic within us that we may have forgotten, that we may have had to stow away because it was not safe for us to be engaging with it.
So it's a homecoming and a retrieval that I think is really powerful. And this definitely is what we're being called to think about right now in this time, in this week, in this moment as we're journeying through November, and kind of working with our theme of preparing to receive. I think if we're thinking about receiving, we have to first unpack why we don't receive the calls that come from inside the house. That's what I'm thinking about right now. Like, what happened? What was I shown? What was I taught? Where have I grown so much in that area, and gone so far past what my ancestors or my elder relatives have done? And where do I have work to do that's really being reflected back to me? What kind of a legacy would I want to leave for my child? What would I want to show her is possible, right?
So this is what I'm thinking about right now, and this is what's definitely coming up as a reflection. And it is a very helpful tool for the month of November, and it’s certainly a helpful tool coming out of this eclipse. I think that's a big piece of this. But also, this is pretty evergreen, you know. These are pretty evergreen inquiries, you know. So I think just, again, something to think about.
[0:23:53]
So the first Queen we're going to talk about is the first one I pulled, which is Queen of Pentacles. When Queen of Pentacles shows up reversed, it's a calling out from the body for tenderness. It's a calling out from the body for some sort of care. Only you can know what kind of care that is and what that means to you. In a world–and you have heard me rant and rave about this–that delegates the concept and the commodification of self care to, like, baths…
And listen, I fucking love baths. I don't do fancy baths. I just like water. Call me old-fashioned. That's just how I like my baths. I have chronic pain, I have chronic inflammation. Like, baths are medicine to me. They always have been, from the time I was a little kid. And I don't need, like, an $800 bath full of herbs and stuff. But if that's you, if that is a part of what lights you up… I know I was a bit flippant with what I just mentioned there, but truly, in my heart, I think that's extraordinary and wonderful. And there should never be any shame or any… Like, I think that's beautiful. And if that's you, I think that's great.
And for a lot of us, there's just a really profoundly limited idea of, like, what feels good to the body. Like, some of us feel really nourished by masturbation, some of us do not. Some of us orgasm, some of us don't. Like, some of us… You know, some of us love to get out and run, and some of us would rather die. There's different things for everybody, right?
[0:25:56]
So I think the first step to working with Queen of Pentacles reversed is to actually come home to the fact that the body might be asking for something that is different than what we're used to. That it actually requires and calls upon us to get quiet and listen, to do something different from what we think might be the thing. Example, and this is going to… Just a small content warning. This is going to delve, lightly dive into sort of whispers of diet culture, okay? If you are somebody that is really, really strict about what you eat, and who really has a very binary view on what's healthy and okay to eat, and what isn't, first of all, just bowing to you on that path and that journey. It could be that your body is calling out for a food that you might be judging as not okay to eat, not healthy.
Now, obviously, if this is an area of medical concern or anything like that, I'm not in any way overriding that, your own wise knowing and judgment. And obviously, the advice of professionals comes first. And it could be that you just need to kind of have that thing. It could be that your body knows something that your brain does not. And that happens a lot. And it could be having nothing to do with the terms of healthy/not healthy, which I think are very damaging and very harmful.
Actually, it could just be that your body is asking for something. Can you just answer the call? Can we just answer the call? Can we not make it a thing? We're just saying, “There is a desire for this. Can I fulfill that desire?” And there might be information. It might be like, “Oh, that doesn't feel super good right now.” But that's good information, right? Or “I had a lot of energy from eating that for about, like, 20 minutes, and then I got really tired,” or “I have lots of energy. I have more energy than I usually do. That's really interesting.” It could be that the food I'm eating, just this particular thing is providing different energy than something else might, right?
[0:28:29]
So again, I’m bowing to everyone in the journey of undoing fatphobia, and undoing body image, and undoing unhealthy relationships with eating. But that can be a part of it. It can sometimes just be the body is asking for something. It can also be that the body is asking for something that's very simple, and we might want to make it into something really complicated. Like, if the body is just asking, “Take me outside,” it could be that we think like, “Oh, I need to go to, like, a place that's this or that’s that.” Just go outside. Just go outside. And, like, see what happens from there. Right? See what happens from there.
It could also be the body is asking for something that just requires us to be really still and quiet with it. Very often when I'm in kind of a Queen of Pentacles reversed place, my body does ask for something that is unexpected. That does buck my beliefs about, like, “Oh, I need to be able to go out and get this thing,” or like… And it's usually by just listening to the body and following the body, what happens is that when I just offer the body what it's asking for, it's usually the first of many doors that will open. So if I'm giving my body sort of like the first thing that it's like, “Hey, I've been asking for this and asking for this,” if I can offer that to my body then something else kind of loosens and opens, and then something else loosens and opens. And from there, we can start asking these questions, like when were we taught to ignore our bodies?
I can say, and I know this is like… I can say, as somebody raising a child, it's unbelievable the stuff that folks place on babies and children, or don't believe they have autonomy over, don't believe they deserve respect around. It's pretty unbelievable, like, how for so many there… It really… We cut away from that because we don't see infants or newborns as being just as worthy of respect, and care, and consent as we are. It starts very early, that sense of, you know, bypassing the body for a million reasons. It starts very early, shockingly, so… Unless we're really aware of it, and unless we're really naming it and bringing attention to it.
[0:31:16]
So Queen of Pentacles, when right side up, is a call to be closer with the body, is a call to sort of bring our body to the great body of the planet, of the earth. To go outside, to sense into the relationship that we have around us to the natural world. It's a remembering that we're a part of the spiral. It's a remembering that if we're in a deep winter of our lives, that we can remember, some part of us, that after winter, spring always comes. There's never a time when that's not going to happen. And conversely, there's never a summer that's not going to be followed up with an autumn or a winter, right, if that's our seasonal flow.
So remembering that we are of and a part of that, and that the body is kind of a conduit for that experience. Because the body does…the body is born, the body will die and decay and become compost, and that's really intense to think about sometimes. And so the idea of that is to really come home to that and ask, as though we were a beautiful, luscious rosebush, like, “What kind of tending can I offer to you?” Where do you need some pruning? Where do you need more fertilizer? Where do you need more sun, or shade, or water. And tending to the whole cycle, tending to the rosebuds, and the roses. and the rosehips, and making medicine from all of those places.
So when reversed, it can mean that our rose bushes may be a little dry, it's maybe a little over watered, it's maybe been a bit neglected, it's maybe needing something that isn't our first instinct. And it's a call to come home and pay attention, and not put so much “shoulds” on the body. Not be so forceful, as some of us are, with ways that we need our body to be. To let there be a loosening there, to come home to that. Obviously, it's not easy, but it's not necessarily supposed to be, and it's not supposed to happen overnight either. So I think it's work all of us are doing.
[0:33:48]
It's also an invitation, Queen of Pentacles reversed, to ask like, where are we taking our body into spaces that it doesn't really want to be in? Like, are we in company of people that we don't really want to be in company with? And how do we mitigate that, tend to ourselves through that, listen to that, maybe make changes if we are able to. Like there's… I even think like, how can we just acknowledge that, right? And start there. So all of us, I think, again, know what it is to have the body call out and say, “Hey, you're not listening to me.” When that happens, when we have whatever kind of phone call that happens with that, it means that we're working with Queen of Pentacles reversed.
And diving into that, placing a gentle hand on the heart there and saying, “Oh, wow, I haven't even, like, been aware of my body,” or “I've been doing everything I thought was right for my body, but it's kind of calling me in a different direction. What is that like? What is it like for me to be in the unknown of that, and to be in the wondering of that?”
It can be profoundly transformative to move into that space with ourselves. It bolsters intimacy, it really does. And it offers us a chance to make amends, which I do like every day with my inner kid and my body. I forget they're there, to be honest. And then I come back home and remember and there's… I don't imagine I'm alone in that. So that's one way to work with the reversed Queen of Pentacles.
[0:35:41]
The other Queen that just organically came up for me, and for us this week was Queen of Swords reversed. So Queen of Swords reversed lets us know, in some way, that our boundaries are not being fully respected, either by us or by others. And I think more than that, it has to do with us sort of feeling like we're somehow not allowed or not permissioned to ask for what we need. Sort of post the proverbial property, to have a certain window open, but not the door, if we're thinking about the hearth and the home of the heart. Like, we're not thinking about a home on land, so to speak. We're thinking about the domicile of the heart within, right?
So that symbolic kind of door, that threshold can sometimes be wide open because we don't think in any part of us that we have permission to close it. Right? If we believe that what we're… You know, if we think, “Well, if I can help someone…” This is especially true for those of us who are in helping professions, or who have been through tremendous difficulty or pain, and don't want to see others go through pain, and want to help where we can, and we know how hard it can be. Then it can feel like, why would I shut the door to anyone, right? Like if someone walks in, or moves in, or crosses that threshold and has a question for me, who am I not to speak to them? Who am I not to answer them?
But what winds up happening is that we get angry, we get exhausted, we get entitled folks who feel that they are entitled to our time, and to answers, and to our personal space. And then we wonder why we're pissed. Or we wonder why we're, like, at a zero in terms of our energy. Or we wonder why we keep having the same kinds of folks in our lives who seem to take too much. We don't know quite why we're here.
[0:38:15]
So I'm not blaming anyone for that. There are absolutely folks out there who are not super conscious, who are not very aware, who do ask for a lot because they are not rooted in themselves necessarily. And I will just speak for myself. There was a long time where I totally felt like boundaries were mean. And like, why on earth would I have them because they're shutting people out. And even when I had a very healthy sense of boundaries, there were times as a helping professional where I thought, “Someone's coming into my inbox with this question. I can help them.” Who cares if I'm exhausted? Let me help. Who cares if… You know, who cares if I'm not necessarily able to make bills. Like, I want to be of use. I want people… Not everybody can afford these things. I want to be able to, like, make everything super, super accessible.
Again, this is, like, just being really straightforward and vulnerable. Like, there have been times in my career where I've had to confront those things and be like, “Oh. Like, I just did this whole thing and it was very energetically tasking, and I really didn't price it appropriately. And now I'm kind of having to think about, like, the next thing I'm going to do because…” you know? And sometimes that happens regardless, you know? It can happen when you have your own business where a launch doesn't go super well, and then you have to do another one like right after it, you know, to make sure things are coming along.
But there are other times where that's really been very true for me. And there have been other times where I've opened my door very automatically to someone, and even an hour later, a minute later thought, “Oh man, that was so automatic and I…” That was not a yes for me. That was a really old impulse and, like, not in my highest and best to engage with. It just wasn't.
[0:40:27]
And so Queen of Swords is about a couple different things, right? This is absolutely a card about boundaries, and about guardrails, and about… You know, I used the analogy of the rosebush before, but I'm going to bring that back into the fray here and say that if we have a rosebush, right, we… How we can really be in Queen of Swords is, roses are so fragrant, and beautiful, and inviting. And if you get too close, or if you are grabbing it in a way that is not necessarily respectful to the rose, you're gonna get pricked, right? You might even have blood drawn. There's a natural, inborn boundary in so many rose varietals that has to do with… It's a very clear example of boundaries. Like, this is beautiful and inviting. It's open. It's not, you know, hiding. It's open with its beauty, and color, and fragrance, and it has a built-in boundary system.
And that's sort of the invitation of Queen of Swords when this card comes up right side up. It's an invitation to think about that, to think about like, what feels really healthy? What areas and places in our lives are like the rose petals? Are we being called to kind of freely and openly be in our full color, in our full bloom, in our full fragrant deliciousness, like open and inviting? And what areas belong in the sting? What areas belong in the thorns? What areas are not open for people to move to?
And if we're seeing, if we’re really paying attention, we can see through our words, through our terms of service, through like our auto email responders, like through our invitations for folks not to DM us on Instagram, whatever it is. Those are examples of the thorns on the rose. All right? And it doesn't mean that if somebody violates that, that there's immediately going to be like a nasty prick. It’s just simply that they won't get an answer. Or we may have to say, “I'm not available to…” I don't… I'm not going to offer free advice, or I'm not going to… Right? There can be a gentleness even in just saying, like, “I'm not available for that,” right? And eventually, we get to a point where in some ways, it's not even a question. It's absolutely okay. If someone doesn't like it or they… You know, that's alright. Because we know this feels so good to be offering this here. And over here is just the door is closed. The property is posted. This is just for me. This is just for my intimate few. This just for this community, whatever it is.
[0:43:38]
So it's an invitation, this card, to think about that. I think it's also a card that in light of that idea, helps to slice through our really, really hard feelings about boundaries, because I think a lot of us have them. And again, I bow to you if you're, like, the master of boundaries and you're like, “I never feel bad.” I think that's wonderful. I mean that. Like, I can't wait to really, really get like that in all areas. I think I'm pretty good in a lot of areas but, you know?
So I say this to just name that I think when we're in a Queen of Swords place, there's a lot of emotion that comes up, and a lot of thinking that comes up, like a lot of brain stuff, a lot of worry and fears. All kinds of different things that we’re called to really slice through, Queen of Swords can help to clarify. It's very clear cut, razor sharp, brutal, Anchor, ally, helper. It's like, well, this person won't like it. And the Queen of Swords is like, “That's okay. It’s okay.” They don't have to like it, right? This energy can help to really kind of slice through the ties that bind, and get us sort of more intimate with our beliefs about what it is to take space, what it is to be clear about boundaries. Are we afraid we're gonna miss something, you know, that we're not going to be helpful, useful, whatever it is, right?
That, you know, could bring up even some stuff. Like I know for myself, like white saviorism 100% comes into me being like, “I want to answer this email and I want to help people blah, blah, blah…” Even taking it out of the context of whiteness, which I don't know if we ever can, I have always, from the time I was a little kid because I went through so much abuse and cruelty, have always had this thing that if I can help someone avoid any suffering, I've always been really desirous of that. And so that's been something just sort of socially and with kin or with friends, if I can help, I'd like to, you know? But sometimes it's not for me to help. Sometimes it's for me to listen. Sometimes it's for me to just be and let someone go through it. It's been a hard lesson that I'm still learning in some ways, you know. And so again, just sharing where I'm at, knowing that there's probably a lot of you who get it and who are… And maybe some who don't. That's okay, too.
[0:46:27]
When reversed, it's letting us know in some way, shape, or form, we have to go through the kind of soul home, as it were, you know, the energetic realm of the heart and sense into like, where is maybe the back door open in ways that I'm not even thinking about right now? Am I giving a shit about what someone, something, some, you know, possible person or, you know…is going to say, what they're gonna believe, what they're… Like, are we living in a way that is like we've kind of exited from the place where our boundaries weren't honored, and now we actually can be much more open and free in certain ways? Like, is the front door meant to be more open? Is the back door meant to be shut? Like that kind of thing. So it's an invitation for us to really take inventory about that.
And I think that extends itself to like… I'm not anti-social media, or the internet, or news. I'm a very heavy consumer, actually, of news and events and stuff but… I'd say not heavy, but vigorous, like in politics and news. But I would say, there are moments when I'm just being called to be with my family. And there are times when, seasons where I'm not called to dig into it as much, because I'm not in a season of my life where I'm super available to that. And other times, I go very deep into things. And other times, I'm noticing what's going on, and I'm coming back to my life or to my work, you know? So in my work blocks now, like my phone's off because my work blocks are… They're scant. So it's like, I'm in what I'm in, right? And for some people, sometimes it's harder than others to do that. And, you know, that's boundaries too, right? It's recognizing, like, “I'm getting totally swept up into, like, whatever social media platform is most interesting to me right now.” And that's fine if it's not taking me away from this moment, right?
So there's all kinds of ways to view it. And it's always helpful to come back and say, “Do I need to recenter here in any way? Have I brought someone in, in a way that I don't like? Have I committed to something that I don't think is really aligned any longer?” Like, we have permission to change our minds. We have permission to say, “Hey, this is what we were going to do. Now I'm not so sure if we're going to do it,” right? Like, it doesn't feel like a yes to me anymore. That's not only okay, it's healthy, and important, and vital, and crucial.
[0:49:40]
So I think in a time when it's very, very hard to even get the space, the breathing room, a moment to sense into like, “How do I feel about my boundaries, my energetic parameters, my personal space? Like, where do I feel open? Where do I feel boundaried? Am I all thorn? Am I all petals? Like, what's the ratio here?” I think it can be a very helpful tool to come back home to that.
The other way that Queen of Swords reversed can be a very important Anchor and teacher, a crucial Anchor and teacher, is if… Remember when I was saying that it helps to slice through beliefs about boundaries, like that they're mean, or they're unkind, or that I shouldn't, or that I owe this person something. If we start believing that, really identifying with it, like, “Oh, I owe this person XYZ,” we can turn our whole lives around for something that's not aligned, not only for us but for the other person. And if we're believing it too much, this reversal can come up. If we have a story like, “Oh, this is somehow owed,” we really want to unpack that. We really want to be with that and just say, “Oh, wow, that's a strong statement. Like an owe. Like a debt, right? Am I in debt to anybody? Like, am I…do I owe anyone anything, other than myself and maybe my kid? No, I do not,” right?
And there can be a sense of duty, and of responsibility, and of sacred soul commitment and desire. But when it comes into, like, transactions and like, “you did this for me, now I do this for you”, sometimes that can feel really good. And other times, it can be an absolute, you know, weight around our shoulders. And this card does say like, “Are you maybe possibly identifying with something around that that needs to be lifted a bit?” You know, that's maybe not true, like at all.
[0:52:09]
Like, I'm thinking a lot about this right now as I sense into an offering for later this year that I have a lot of feelings around. Because, without going into it, because I think you're all going to kind of flip out when you hear about it, in a great way. I have to be very… It's an ongoing kind of monthly thing, and I have to be very clear with myself. Because if left unchecked, I will offer everything to everyone for like $1, which, again, is great if that works for someone. But it's been pretty detrimental for me, and I'm learning how to recenter from that a little bit. So just trying to not offer everything, you know, of myself because I think that's the only way I'm worthy of something, you know, is definitely a belief that I hold, and I'm always working to heal.
And so in thinking about this offering, it's super important for me to be like, what would I want to do? What could be sustainable for me to do every month in a way that wouldn't take all my time, in a way that wouldn't breed resentment, even if, like, four folks decided to sign up for it? What would feel good no matter what, right? So that's Queen of Swords work reversed too, is being like, “What feels good to me? What feels sustainable for me right now, in this season?” Maybe not in this season. Like, ongoing. Like, what do I actually want to make room for, versus crowding my life up with certain things?
And again, I'm going to bring this back to our theme for November, just to sort of round out this week's episode and, you know, tee us up for next week, which will be Part Two. That'll be the other two Queens that we'll talk about. The theme for the month of November 2022 is preparing to receive. Receiving is very intense. I think it's actually very difficult to do. I know for myself, it's ridiculously challenging for me to receive. I'm sure you feel the same. I thought that it was challenging. Then I had a kid and I was like, “This is even more challenging than I ever could have imagined, and I'm worse at receiving (Lindsay laughs) than I ever thought possible.” And again, it's true. And that's Justice work. Only by looking at what is can we be free to change it. And so I can acknowledge, like, I need a lot of work when it comes to receiving. And I'm in the midst of it, and it's hell, but great.
[0:54:57]
And I think when we think about the challenges associated with receiving, right, it's like, if we're preparing to receive, there can be a lot of fear about like, “Why would I hope and wish for something? Why would I leave a space for something, for the possibility of something to sprout and to bloom? And this place is too vulnerable. I don't want to be disappointed, and I don't want to leave this space.” That's a big thing. Another thing that I've found for myself too, very historically, and especially in this moment, is that I can't receive something if I'm not listening to myself, if there's not enough space, right?
So The Queens reversed can actually be some of our greatest teachers around identifying the places where we have little holes in our tapestry, as it were, around receiving. Like, if we have no boundaries, or if we're overgiving or under-receiving, if we're not listening to our body, if we're driving it really hard, and if we're not giving it what it really needs, if we’re not watering it, you know, if we're shining too much sun on it when it really wants to be watered, or clipped, or pruned in some way, or cut back. Then, I mean, it's going to be really hard to receive. Because if we're hopping when we're being invited to pat our head, like, we're focused on sort of the wrong area.
So in light of preparing to be in receiving, and in light of completing a Lovers year… And I'm learning really more than I ever did before how much The Lovers is really just a full-on completion of what no longer works. It's just like, you know that something is dead and complete, and once you know that in The Chariot, which is our card for 2023, you can shed that skin, and actually move into the more evolved version of yourself that you've actually grown into. And sometimes it takes the clearing off of the mantle of the material, external stuff around us to move into that place. So again, the reversed Queens can help, and they do bring pretty profound medicine, I think.
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[Conclusion]
[0:57:37]
So yeah, hopefully, this was useful to you and interesting and stimulating, and good food for thought with regard to how Tarot can and is, I think, always medicine, always bringing some way for us to tether to it in the everyday. And as this episode has probably shown you in an overwhelming way, you're not alone in whatever you're going through. We're definitely not… Like, I'm right there with you in a lot of this stuff. So just bowing to you, and grateful to be on this ride together. Yeah, very excited to connect next week, when we will dive into our next two Queens and explore them from this perspective. And until that time, please take exquisite care of yourselves.