117. Anchor Cards for Grief
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We are all feeling huge personal and collective grief right now. How do we acknowledge that? What needs love? What needs tending? What wants to be listened to? How can we make space for that at the table of our lives?
Air date:
April 19, 2020
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About the Episode
In today’s special workshop sized episode, we expand on the concept of Anchor Cards, looking at how the Tarot can be a profound resource in the experience of grief, and eight Anchor Cards that can offer us a beautiful path to our self tending in this realm.
Links:
Soul Tarot Courses + Workshops
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: grief, illness, trauma, abuse, death, loss of loved ones, systemic oppression, capitalistic structures, extinction, environmental degradation, ancestral trauma, and inherited generational patterns
The content in this episode contains references to grief, illness, trauma, abuse, death, loss of loved ones, systemic oppression, capitalistic structures, extinction, environmental degradation, ancestral trauma, and inherited generational patterns. 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]
Hi Loves, just a quick heads up that enrollment for my Tarot for the Wild Soul course closes in just a little over one week, in one week and a day enrollment closes at Midnight Eastern Standard Time on April 28. So if you are feeling the call to join us for a sacred, eight-week journey into how to call upon your deck for deeper self-tending, for reading, for anything that arises, to explore the Tarot from a soul-centered, evolutionary, inclusive standpoint, it would be my honor to serve you.
So if you're interested, you can learn more or enroll by visiting tarotforthewildsoul.com. Thank you so much for being here.
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(Instrumental intro music)
[0:00:51]
This is Tarot for the Wild Soul, a weekly Tarot podcast about life, death, and rebirth, hosted by me, Lindsay Mack.
Hi Loves, welcome back to Tarot for the Wild Soul podcast, such a joy to be with you today, as always, and very much hoping that this episode is finding you as healthy and safe and resourced as you can possibly be.
I'm so, so sorry that this episode is late this week. I am in like, full, full, full birth mode for the course. And sometimes there just isn't as much room for other things to get tended to as I'd like. So, this one just needed to wait a little bit longer, but you're in for a treat, because—unless something changes, and if so I'll just let you know if that does—I think you're going to get three podcast episodes this week (Lindsay laughs), which may be, like, too much. But um, we have one episode today, and then I'm gonna have one on Friday and the Weekly Medicine tomorrow. So, definitely, we'll catch up.
But I know that in this time when the course is so wild not everybody, of course, can afford the course or even wants to take the course, and I have just as much desire to serve this community as I do the course community. So that's why it's important for me to make sure that you have a full helping on your plate this week, whether you choose to engage with them or not. And if it's too much, whatever, it's fine. You don't need to listen.
I had tuned in with my Instagram community, as many of you are part of, and asked you, essentially, what you were most needing and gave three options: “Anchor Cards for Grief” was one of those options, a podcast episode about The Empress was another one, and then there was one about befriending the cards that scared us and, and like by far this one and The Empress were the two most requested. So this is… today should have come out last Friday, but again, craziness, and Empress will be Friday, and then “Befriending the Cards that Scare Us” will be sometime in May. I’m not quite sure when but we'll get to it, for sure, after the Monthly Medicine for May.
And so this episode just felt really appropriate for me to do as not just, you know—this podcast is so wonderful for so many reasons. But in times like this, and even not in times like this, it's essentially a chance for me to do the equivalent of a free workshop, to be able to make things a little bit more extensive, to be able to make things—maybe a little less in detail than a workshop, certainly, more than a normal podcast episode would be. And of course, these are not normal times.
So we've been exploring a lot of the ways that we can bring Tarot into our lives as an Anchor, as a healing tool, as a tool for self-tending—specific to what the pandemic may be bringing up for all of us. And of course, you know, there's no way I can speak to everyone's experience, but in this very small and humble way, hopefully, it serves.
And you know, a few weeks ago, we did an episode on “Anchor Cards for the Pandemic Period” and we talked a lot about Tarot Anchoring, which is the process of working with the Tarot in this particular way, that I developed in my journey with PTSD. And we worked, you know, I think last week or the week before, on inner child stuff and “Tarot for the Inner Child” and again, very related to pandemic.
And now there's sort of a Three of Cups kind of a completion, a triplet completion here, with this podcast episode, which is exploring a way that we can engage with Anchor Cards for grief, because, you know, to put it really bluntly—and also, really compassionately—we're all in grief right now, on a personal level and on a collective level.
And not just now, but in general, I find that grief is—and I'm not unique in saying this, by the way—grief is like the last place that we really want to go. We really don't want to go into any uncomfortable experience. It's part of our conditioning in the nervous system, and there are a million reasons why.
[0:05:51]
And that's true in normal times. But when things are as they are now, when there is so much grief, so much suffering, a completely unprecedented experience of a trauma really, we have an opportunity—not to traumatize ourselves, not to go into a realm of pain or of grief or of suffering or of performative grief of, like, sobbing and really feeling our sadness in any way other than what's here—but just to simply find inroads to be able to say, “Oh, this is grief. How interesting, this is here with me. How can I make space at my table for grief? How can it come with me? How can it be included, and a part of my day-to-day?”
And probably, you're feeling some resistance to that, because I think we all do. And, you know, of course, of course (Lindsay laughs), I'm not a therapist, and I'm not a grief expert, but I am a human who grieves, and I do have the honor of being a helping professional. And speaking just within my paygrade, so to speak, you know: grief is an emotional experience that, I would say, out of most of the emotions or the experiences that we have as human beings—grief is the one that we are most gaslit around, and we most gaslight ourselves.
It's a root emotion. A root experience that is alive in the body. It has density; it gets into ourselves, into our bones. Grief shows up as headaches, as chest pain. It shows up as exhaustion, it shows up as rage. It shows up as a million different experiences, some of which I haven't named even slightly. It's both the most personal experience and the most collective one; collective, being that we are all going to die eventually.
We will all leave these bodies eventually. We all know what it is to have loved and lost in all kinds of different ways and levels. Some people have experienced grief that is completely unimaginable. And some people have experienced grief that's been wholly inherited, and that's why there's no right or wrong way to grieve. And part of looking at our grief, part of this time and the invitation of this pandemic, is to actually acknowledge that there's grief here to begin with.
[0:08:47]
We've been in grief long before this pandemic. We've been holding our own grief for our own lives, we've been holding the things that we've, you know, inherited, again, from our ancestors. We've been… you know, again—grief is this deep root, root-in-the-bone emotion, and it's got a lot of covers, a lot of layers. There's a lot of layering that happens with grief. You know, denial and avoidance are two really common ways to deal with our grief.
Because grief is so wild and so uncomfortable, it's part of why we can gaslight ourselves about grief and just think, like, “Oh, it's not anything.” Or we can say, “Yeah, I'm in grief, but I should be over it by now. So like enough's enough,” you know. And, of course, that can happen to us with other people, and they're only responding out of their discomfort, and they're gaslighting with their own grief, too.
So it's a place where we can feel so uncomfortable to be with people who are in grief. It's a place where, if we're in grief, it can feel really triggering if we don't have the right language being communicated to us, and we can… it's an area where we can all make mistakes with ourselves and with other people. And we're all really learning together, because most of us—unless we were raised in the most progressive, amazing, grief-educated home, or we have the education that we gain later in life—are pretty uncomfortable with this subject matter.
And I really believe that part of what we're doing in this pandemic, at least collectively, is coming back home, coming back to terms with the grief that is here, that we've been holding, that remains covered over by denial, by avoidance, by anxiety, by panic, by rage, and anger—by all kinds of avoidant, you know, or other forms of action or of process that we may take in the world.
And, again, because all of us grieve so differently and our grief shows up so differently, it's very empowering to begin to feel into our personal relationship with grief. Like, what does that look like? And how does grief show up for us? Because, most likely when we think about how it shows up for us, it’s pretty different, because everybody's experience and what they need is really different. And there is really a reclaiming that can happen here, you know, when we're able to feel grief.
There is a liberation that happens. And I'm in no way, in no way, romanticizing the crushing agony of grief—like there's some sort of “freedom” that occurs. But the liberation that I'm speaking of is: our ability to feel at all, is a triumph. Our ability to have loved so deeply that we grieve is absolutely an inroad to be intimate with self. I will not qualify it as being a good thing or a bad thing, but it certainly makes us more honest. It certainly helps us to know ourselves better.
And there is a direct pipeline from that self-wisdom and ability to self-tend—or ability to ask for tending or for space-holding when we need it—our ability to be autonomous around our grief is a direct pipeline to our ability to be present with others in their grief; to not get uncomfortable, to not shy away, to not cover over our grief with, again, avoidance or denial or with judgement, or with inviting others to rush out of their experience, or in trying to distract ourselves from our experience. Obviously, we're not supposed to be in the plunge pool of grief all the time (Lindsay laughs), but just simply acknowledging that it's there, is really what we're focusing on in this podcast. You know, how can we name that it's there?
[0:13:28]
And there's an amazing piece written by Scott Berinato for Harvard Business Review that, most likely, many of you have already read. It's an interview with David Kessler, and it was written about a month and a half ago, and it's called “That Discomfort You're Feeling is Grief”. And I think it's a really important piece to point to because it is a reminder that grief is such a shapeshifter and can show up in so many ways that we might not immediately realize.
This grief—grief asks for attention. We actually have to have a little presence with our process to get down into like, “Oh my gosh, there's grief here.” It's not always apparent.
So what we're talking about is deeper attention, deeper presence, coming back, coming home.
There is a natural, beautiful, and much-needed extension from that ability to offer that to ourselves and our ability to offer that to our fellow folks, our fellow humans that we share this planet with.
Grief, I really believe, also offers us an inroad to much deeper stewardship with the planet and with its inhabitants. And it softens us and deepens us into the presence and the attention that's so deeply needed right now. It calls us back home to ourselves in the fiercest, rawest, most wildest of ways. Really, grief is always a call for attention to be placed on the heart of our being. And it can take everything we've got if we're in deep, deep, deep grief. But again, we were in deep grief before this.
We're living in a mass extinction right now. If you don't believe that you're feeling that grief, when you wake up in the middle of the night—we may not know what it is because, again, we're not talking about grief as a collective, so there's a lot of gaslighting around it. It's very easy when we're feeling grief to feel like we're the crazy ones, and it's not true. And if there's anything—again, we're not in any way shape, or form talking about the “medicine” or the “why” of this pandemic, because it's bullshit—what we are talking about is: we are being given the opportunity to evolve through something. This is a strong invitation, this pandemic—to evolve. And it's not good or bad, it's not a spiritual spin on it. It's the most natural spin, most organic way, you know? When we're handed something that is extremely uncomfortable, we can resist it. We can resist what it brings up in us, or we can surrender to it and see what comes forward.
And surrendering never means we have to like it. We never have to like grief. I mean, grief blows, it sucks. It's part of the reason why we avoid it with all that we've got (Lindsay laughs). But it is a chance to come back home and to acknowledge what's been here all along. You know, it's been here all along. And now there is such a strong opportunity to offer our attention, to even get into the practice of offering our attention, to the grief that arises in us. I would say it's some of the most important personal, individual work that we're being asked to do on this planet right now.
[0:17:04]
And because grief is kind of a shapeshifter, again, it asks for that really key element of presence. It's not so easy to identify. So you have to really get down on the floor with it and look it in the eye and say, “Okay, you know, maybe this is what it is, maybe that's what it is,” (Lindsay laughs) you know?
What needs love right now? What needs tending? What wants to be listened to or deserves to be cared for? And it's very easy, very easy for the brain to say, “Well, this person or these folks are going through so much worse than what I am. What right do I have to feel grief?” And I'm not necessarily saying that it's not true.
There are certain folks, certain demographics, especially people of color, who are—particularly with COVID—getting hit way harder, getting way less, way less access to tests. There's so much we still don't know right now. But of course, it would make sense that white supremacy would be present even in this, like it is in everything—like a Hydra.
And of course, beyond the pandemic—are there people who are suffering more than you are? There are people who are in potentially more intense, you know, direct circumstances of profound grief, absolutely. Does it mean that you are taking up any space or taking anything away from them in your personal work if you pay close attention to your grief? Not at all. And in fact, it may help you to acknowledge ways that you can be more present for them, even if, and most likely, it will mean just sitting and being there.
Grief helps us to develop ways to sit and be, to just be there, to not have to know the right words, to definitely not try to make it better, because we can’t, ultimately. It just wants to be held, and it wants to feel the feelings.
[0:19:27]
Look at where we are right now: unless you are essential, you're at work, you're doing your thing, and even if you are—we're sitting here, most of us, who have the privilege to be at home right now. And some folks desperately wish they could be out making money in some way shape or form. They can't get a job or aren’t able to get a job, or they have their kiddos or, you know? Everybody's moving through their own experience right now, and we can still acknowledge the privilege that's present, right?
And no matter what our circumstances, there is grief present for us. And we don't have to continue to gaslight ourselves. This is not performative. We're not asking for anyone to acknowledge our grief. Let's start with us, because we can't seem to do it. So we don't need to ask anybody else unless they're, you know, being paid or they consented to help us.
We're going in a little deeper, you know? We're becoming—getting the opportunity to become clear on our own cycles of grief, and more importantly, how we can tend to those cycles and actually offer them our deep care.
And without, in any way, again, romanticizing grief, because it can be bone-crushing, it does change you when you start to acknowledge its presence. It's not worse, it's not better. But it does make you more honest with yourself in what you need. And it does help to make you more sensitive and more present with the folks around you, even if their circumstances are far beyond what you've ever experienced. Sometimes it can take that wisdom of connection with itself to begin to realize that, right?
[0:21:24]
So why Tarot?
Tarot, in its own little, small, mighty, humble way, can be a wonderful inroad for us to be with that grief. And in this, in this episode, we're going to be exploring some Anchor Cards that can, I believe, create really useful and helpful containers to help us be with whatever might be arising for us because again, for you, right now you may be feeling so much anger, and that anger, we don't ever want to invalidate that anger or—(Lindsay sniffles) excuse me. I feel like there is so much pollen. No one needs to hear me sniff like that. But I'm also not going to edit it because I don't feel like it (Lindsay laughs).
We can be in the depths of our anger, completely in the depths of our anger—and we're not invalidating that. We're not saying, like, “Oh, anger, just—let's get down to the grief.” We can call upon an Anchor Card in the form of Five of Wands to help us not only be with the anger, just to name it, just to honor that it's here, to ask it what it would like, to think about different ways to be with that anger, to let that anger out of the body. And from there, if there is grief to tend, it has room to be seen.
So what—each and every card that we're going to cover today is a kind of a different point on the star toward a way that our grief might want to be tended to. And some of these cards will resonate with you, some of them won't. Part of the reason why we're covering so many, and we'll hit on each one—not spending a tremendous amount of time, but enough—to see, you know, how can we aim, how can we call upon these cards to help us be with what arises, to help us see, you know, different ways that we might want to, you know, gently warm up the pot, so to speak, as it is with our grief.
And again, we're not going for hysterical wailing, sobbing. We're not going for anything. You know, again, because grief in many ways, for many of us—especially, I think, in America, where we're so devoid of ritual, unless we are not, basically—but overculturally, you know, we don't know how to grieve. And I'm not alone in saying that, you know, it's true. We really have to be taught how to be with grief and how to be with our own.
And I certainly don't think this podcast is in any way a real… is offering anything really strongly around how to be with grief. But I do think that, at least for me, Tarot in the form of Anchoring has always provided such a wonderful inroad for my ability to be with what is. And I think grief is one of those things that really loves to be paid attention to, like any other experience that we have, but it can be so hard to do it.
So calling upon Anchor Cards for these times can be really powerful and in some ways, we might even consider it our responsibility as a citizen to this world, to begin to be with our grief, because the more we are, the more we'll stop going to sleep when the planet and other folks are really needing us.
[0:25:11]
So, if you don't know about Tarot Anchoring as a process, I recommend you go back and listen to “Anchor Cards for a Pandemic” where I go into a little bit more of what that is. I also talk about it on “Trauma and the Tarot” which was another podcast episode I did, I think, a year plus ago, maybe even more, because I am not going to go into it again. But essentially, I'm pretty sure you're able to follow along with it rather than—especially right now, in the midst of the pandemic, this is really more important than ever—rather than kind of trying to construct a whole reading or to kind of rely on our typical processes with the Tarot, what we're doing is starting with a particular card, and working our way in and forming a bond with that card so that when we move through a particular experience, we can call upon that card.
And Anchoring is a process beyond the Tarot that is a psychological notion and process that's really powerful, where we can, you know, put very simply, attach some anchoring and bonding, and intimate meaning to a mantra, a deity, a prayer, the thought or a memory of a dog, or a particular person that we love, or spiritual figure—so that we're kind of grooving a new neural pathway. So that when we have a feeling that is distressing, or in some way, you know, brings up some discomfort, we can call upon that Anchor.
And what we're doing in Tarot Anchoring is essentially applying the same principles to these cards so that when we move through particular times, we can call upon particular cards to help us be with what is. And from there, I believe, can create and construct and channel down Tarot exercises, Tarot spreads, Tarot medicine—around that card, particularly formulated for us and what we need, rather than continually kind of looking out to teachers or readers to tell us like “what to do, what to do”. We can kind of become our own stewards in that way.
So yeah, we're covering quite a few cards here. So I'm just gonna start with the first one.
The Moon
[0:27:37]
In terms of Anchor Cards for grief, I can't think of a better place to start than The Moon, because many of us right now feel pretty lost, and The Moon card really is the Tarot card of the pandemic.
We're not clear what's going on. We're not. There's no end in sight, right? There's a lot of desire and attempt to rev things up. There's a lot of… In The Moon, there's no illumination at all, you're just in the night, right? We're trying to see things by moonlight. When we try to see things by moonlight from an ego-directed place, all kinds of things come up: our fury, our frustration come up, “Why the fuck can’t I see anything clear? What the fuck is going on?”
If we have trauma, which most of us do, in the midst of this pandemic, a lot of trauma can be brought up by that, a lot of feelings of like, “I am trapped. I'm caught here,” you know? And obviously, everybody's experiencing that a little differently. But really, more than anything, it's a sense of, “I'm in a void. I can't see. I don't have my typical Anchors. In a different way—I don't have my typical rhythms of safety. I don't know where I'm at. I don't know whether or not I'm okay. I don't know what's going on.” And as much as we've now been in this pandemic for a couple of weeks, some of us may be feeling a little less of that than we were, maybe, when this initially started. But it's still there. It's not something that we necessarily have to dwell upon.
But the important reason that The Moon can be such a powerful Anchor Card for grief, especially as it pertains to these times, is that very often grief moves very liminally. Again, it's a big shapeshifting energy. It's very strong, it lives in the liminal spaces, it lives in the spaces in-between spaces, you know? It lives in the body. And again, there's a lot of layering over it.
And part of what The Moon teaches us how to do is to surrender to the void. It teaches us the power of the way that the mind projects onto voids and the way that the mind will try to say, “Okay, if there's no familiarity here, no rhythm here, nothing that I recognize, if this is all moonlight, and I can't see a thing, then there might be a monster here, this might be…” you know, and then we can try to enact and control in ways that just kind of keep us from that center, from that core, surrendered place that can open up to us, when we are willing to be with The Moon.
[0:30:55]
So one of the ways that I think we can work with The Moon card as an Anchor for grief, is to notice our patterns of layering over and distracting from grief. And of course, I'm not a therapist, so just, like, throw this away, if it doesn't serve—but, I’m not attempting to be, of course. But it's really healthy to sometimes not be completely with our grief, just like it is with everything else. We don't have to zero in. Sometimes that can actually be really triggering to do that.
So it's important to be asking the question, when we feel lost, when we feel scared, when we feel that sense of void, that sense, you know—grief, it often comes in so hot, out of nowhere, and behaves really spiralically. There's zero linear nature to it at all. We might expect to grieve in a certain way; it almost always is very different. And it can be really inconvenient. All of a sudden, we can just be kind of in grief, and we may need to excuse ourselves to really clear some energy or to cry or whatever it is.
But with The Moon, what this card can teach us is to be in the willingness, to be in that, in that kind of time flow, in that kind of liminal space, in that kind of spiral nature; so that we're not fighting that, so that we're making space to say, “I'm actually willing to be available. If there's a moment where my grief does come to visit, can I actually just take, like, 15 minutes? If the grief is really piercing, really profound, can I just give myself 10-15 minutes to go and to feel it? You know, is that available to me? If not, can the grief come along with what I'm doing?
Can I be in grief while I'm hanging out with my baby? Can I be in grief while I'm, you know—can I mute myself on this call to give myself, like, 30 seconds? Like, is that available to me? Can I let that be there? Can I notice the ways in which I get so scared of not being able to get out of the grief pool that I don't even want to go in? I keep trying to get myself out of it, get myself out of it.”
[0:33:21]
The Moon card can really show us what it is to be when grief does come to call in very strong, very direct ways. Like, if it is huge, and if it is somatic, and if it wants to be experienced somatically, through tears and through rage or through wailing or, you know, again, in whatever way it wants to show up, The Moon card really teaches us that we have a choice. We can either project on things, you know, really freak out, really get uncomfortable with the unknown of it all. Or we can just be in the exquisitely exquisite presence.
Not to say that what we're feeling is so exquisite, but be in the minutiae of the present, to know that, “No feeling is final”, as Rilke says, and you know, can we feel? Can we be with what's coming? Can we be with the spiral of grief as it shows up? Can we be with the experience of grief as it shows up without necessarily needing to make it speed up or slow down? And can we be with the unknown of it all without trying to figure out when we're going to get out of something?
Because the longer we try to prolong and have a sense of like, “Well, when are things kind of going to end?” and the more we perpetuate that, the less present we actually are with the stuff that's coming up as a result of being in something like this, and so, The Moon can be a really effective Anchor.
The Hermit
[0:35:04]
And on a similar note, The Hermit is our second Anchor Card. And it's similar enough to The Moon process but different enough that it really needed to show up and be its own Anchor here today.
The Hermit weaves some very important medicine, very important magic, around timing. So again, this sense that with grief, in general, we want to really have a sense of, “Well, what do I feel? What am I going to feel like, and can I set aside time for grief?” And the thing that grief is really powerful around is that it tells you when to come and pay attention to it; there's really no way to control that.
And there's, you know—we can activate grief on purpose, and we can make room. We can watch something, like, purposefully sad, or we can listen to something purposefully sad to try to get some of that energy up and out. But in general, it comes to call on us.
And if we're talking about a life lived in alignment with our grief, if we're talking about making space for our grief, over time acknowledging our grief, what we're talking about is a more fine-tuned relationship with presence and seeing life as a kind of a walking meditation, rather than something that is so linear and in existence of, you know, “we're in the past, we're in the present, we're in the future”, but most of the time we're in the past or the future.
So with The Hermit, we really learn that the lantern that The Hermit holds only really illuminates the step we're taking, the step we're in right now, where we are, and maybe the next one, but that's it. And although we might think of Hermit as being a very, very specific container—The Hermit is the preparation for life. Like, that's life; you can really only ever perceive what's here. And sometimes The Moon card teaches us we don't even know what's here. Sometimes the lights are really out, you know? But The Hermit changes that a little bit. The light is a little bit brighter, it is a little bit more specific, but it's only what's here—and maybe the next step, maybe a little bit about what we left behind—but mostly, it's illuminating the here and now.
[0:37:56]
The Hermit card reframes and can really heal our relationship with moving on divine timing. It can really shift quite a bit about the way we may want to find ourselves rushing in or out of things. And one of the most wonderful things that this card can do for us is that it can help us to really see what's here and what is, rather than what was or what wasn't, or what will be or whatever—because the future isn't fixed.
The thing with grief is that it's inherited. If your ancestors had huge trauma and grief, you're holding the grief and trauma of your ancestors, especially if they didn't process it. And most people didn't even have the luxury of doing that; it’s a massive privilege to be able to have sources of that that are there to help us process that grief or that trauma. It's inherited grief; it doesn't go anywhere, you know?
So if we're calling upon The Hermit as an Anchor Card for grief, what this card can help us do is not necessarily have us waiting until grief builds and builds and builds, and is so big that it overwhelms us—but to actually set a spot at the table for grief and always have the door open to it so that we are devoted. That lantern of the heart is devoted, every day, to checking things out, to saying “What's here today?” To understanding that if we are too far in the future, it's futile. That lantern, it's never going to show you what could be. It's only when we come back to this moment that we can change the course of the future. And I don't mean to be cheesy here or overly simplistic, but I actually do believe this.
Can you imagine where we would be and in this world right now, if the folks who, you know, were directly, directly responsible for the changes in our climate, worked through their grief? Again, very cheesy. We could go, we could continue to name that. Can you imagine if, you know, the folks who continue to perpetuate harm in some way had dealt with their grief? Or, you know, whatever it is.
But the truth is, we all have this work to do. But it winds up rippling out in enormous ways, because, you know, the more grief there is, the more we're going to try to work on cultivating stuff to not deal with the grief. So The Hermit can really help us to—in ways that are manageable and gentle and not so far apart from one another—can help us to actually re-establish a rhythm for life. Where we are present with ourselves at every step, where we truly, in an embodied way, understand there is no way to get to the future—an aligned future for everybody, for everyone—without really understanding what we're walking with, and how it is showing up, how it's affecting people.
[0:41:28]
You know, what are those little cracks in the bones of our being that continue to sort of buckle under certain circumstances? Where are we perpetuating cycles of harm because we don't want to see our own grief? And who are the proper parties in which to process that with, right? Because not everybody who, you know, we have a, you know—a back and forth with is necessarily appropriate to hold our grief, that we can actually hold ourselves.
So if we are, you know, because again, I'm.. this is in no way, this episode, an attempt to speak to anybody who's moving through the profound intensity of what it is to go through a loss of a loved one. Again, I'm not a therapist. It's not speaking to that at all. And if it helps, great. If not, I don't… you know. It’s beyond that. I’ve so much respect for people walking that path. And if there is specific loss, what The Hermit can do is to help us be present with, you know, where are we today in this moment with our grief? You know, what—are we available to touch in on that?
Sometimes, I think, The Hermit is so powerful when we are in a position where we're dealing with direct, huge, personal loss; where we can say, you know, “Here's what I'm being presented with right now. I’m with my children right now, and I'm not really thinking about that loss,” or “I'm with my colleagues right now.” And there, for some, can be a really useful compartmentalization there. For some people, they can't do that at all. So for us, it's really about feeling into what feels empowering for us, because, of course, this is just the most base foundation in, again, what I like to call my paygrade (Lindsay laughs), you know?
So, yeah, what might it be like for you to not see it as, you know, a linear narrative, but rather one that is fully here with you now? You know, how can you show up for yourself? What are the tools and the support that you might need to do that?
Five of Cups
[0:43:45]
Five of Cups is our third Anchor Card—and of course, it is because Five of Cups, perhaps of any other card in the Tarot, is the most probably important teacher as it pertains to grief.
In most decks, there is a pretty strong through-line of imagery where there are three spilled cups that we can see, that are visible, and two full cups tucked away—either behind us or if there's no person on the card, hiding somewhere out of sight. And to some, this is useful, because the narrative can be, “Oh, there's always two full cups around the corner, no matter how bad things get.” And if that's how you want to work with Five of Cups, I think that's fucking great, because everybody—there's no right or wrong way to work with that. So I think that's great for some of us who have brains and nervous systems that can slip so deeply into despair and loss.
And Five of Cups has been a big Anchor for me in the past where I've focused on the two full cups because if I don't, everything in me takes over and says, “This is the end,” (Lindsay laughs). And in equal measure, perhaps even more importantly, this card teaches us, “How can you acknowledge the three spilled cups? Is there disappointment? Is there loss? Is there rage, is there frustration? Where is that loss in you? Have you acknowledged that? Has there been an acknowledgment? Has there even been a naming of it?”
You know, we don't have to, again, go into this and, again, like, get fully in it. We don't have to do anything with ourselves that overwhelms our capacity to cope, right? But we can offer just some attention, you know, we are all working within, in some cases, high privilege. And in some cases, with almost no privilege at all. Those three spilled cups, everybody's got them, even if you're really grateful, and you're really privileged, because, again, grief is a personal thing,
[0:46:16]
It's really important to continue to bring voice to that. The only way to really make space for the suffering of other people is to understand intimately your own. It's really, it's really quite true. And sometimes we can try to bypass our own three spilled cups; we can shame ourselves, even think like, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Other people have nothing.” And that's sometimes a really important thing to jump into and to acknowledge.
And when it's just us and ourselves, there's nothing wrong with letting there be space and time to say, “I was looking forward to this. And now I’m really disappointed. You know, I don't want to be doing this right now. I don't want to be homeschooling my children.” For some people, it's a dream come true, and “I don't want to be working from home, I don't want to be at home all day. I don't…” you know, whatever it is.
So really letting ourselves acknowledge and honor those three cups can bring up a lot. It can bring us into spaces that are like “Who am I to do this?” It can bring up stuff with us if we are somebody who suffers, and if we are someone working through, you know, massive trauma due to oppression, or if we are working in this way where we're on the phone all day with unemployment, you know? It might bring up a lot that's like, “Yeah, who are they to do it? Like, I'm working through stuff, too.” That's in your three spilled cups, too, you know? “Why can't there be more acknowledgment for what I'm moving through? I want acknowledgment, too.”
Letting your grief be your grief, without shaming it, without making it smaller—we're not writing Instagram posts about this. This is about you in your room, maybe with a trusted friend or maybe with your therapist or maybe with your partner—but mostly you. Even if you're with somebody who you know can truly support and hold you—that there's been a consent, that they are available to do that—you have a right to acknowledge your own process around those three spilled cups. You know, that's what this card teaches us.
It's like, “Oh my god, like, I feel like I've lost something. I feel like I'm grieving something. I'm deeply grieving it.” We can let ourselves feel that without comparing our loss to anyone else. The problem is that when we try to kind of open it up to the world (Lindsay laughs), you know, then we will get some feedback that's like, you know, “What are you complaining about?” And again, you know, it's grief. Not everybody can go there, and that’s okay. And not everybody can—not everybody is supposed to go there with us. So acknowledge your own. That's what this card says.
Can you have a free space, an open space, to say, “I fucking hate this? I hate it. I don't understand it. I'm disappointed. I'm mad. I'm sad.” Can we let that be in there? And conversely, if you are so deep in that zone, can you remember that this card does hold the space of three spilled cups? It doesn't mean that if we've gone through a loss of some kind, that in some way, like, it's all going to be okay or we'll understand or there's like a reason. But it does mean that in whatever way life happens to offer it to us, that it's not all completely lost. Right? So that's a powerful card to work with.
Five of Wands
[0:50:01]
Five of Wands: our fourth Anchor Card. Very similar to the work we do in Five of Cups, except centered on our anger, centered on our fear, centered on our heat, on our energy. Anger is a valid, beautiful, righteous, important emotional experience. We… it's very easy to have so much fear, so much judgement, around our own anger and our bigness, that can come forward in that way. And very often, grief is hiding underneath anger. It doesn't make anger any less or more valid, but it is true that anger and grief do hold hands.
And Five of Wands is a big, hot, heaping plate of messiness—and it's not bad messiness. Sometimes Five of Wands is, like, needing for everything to go to shit in order to find the order in there, especially as it pertains to creative processes. But sometimes, it's that we're just fucking pissed and we have a really short fuse or a really short temper. And ideally, we're not harming or hurting anybody, but we can find ourselves, you know, losing our temper—maybe in minor or moderate ways, or snapping at our children, or snapping at our partners, or feeling really sensitive about particular things.
And Five of Wands really teaches us a couple of different things here. It does teach us to, you know, ask the question: how can we make space and permission for our anger? Let there be room for our anger without taking it out on anybody? How can there be a pause of breath, an ability to, like, clap our hands together frantically, or, like, bite into a washcloth, or like, you know, punch a pillow, or, you know, scream in our car? Like, where is—where are those steps? You know, how can we lean into those, lean into ways to get anger up and out of the body? How can we actually move with anger, right? Because anger needs to be moved out of the body, it doesn't, like, just go away.
But as it pertains to grief, and how Five of Wands can be a really effective Anchor Card for grief, you know—can we make that same permissionable space for the impulsive anger, while learning ways to be with our anger in responsible and appropriate ways? But very often, the reason that we can't feel the grief under the anger is because the anger is really protecting us from the wildness of grief.
But also, because we're not really giving our anger a whole lot of attention. You know, we comment online, we, you know, get furious at the wrong person—when we're really angry about something else, and it just keeps the cycle going of victimhood or of shame or of harm, or, you know, whatever it is. Whereas, if we were able to simply say, “There's tremendous, tremendous anger here. And I'm willing to be with that.” You know? What might feel useful right now?
And your body, if you're willing to let it, will direct you—whether it is really clear or not to you. Sometimes it takes time.
[0:53:52]
We can play, again, with different ways of getting anger up and out of the body. But very often, once we've devoted ourselves to being gentle and being a willing space holder around anger, grief is sure to follow. Grief usually is hanging out underneath there. And sometimes it's that underneath all that anger, we're so disappointed; underneath that anger, we're so scared; underneath that anger, you know, there's some other form of pain or some other form of loss that is really wanting our attention, deserves our attention. So, in order to feel into grief, we have to be a willing witness for the things that lay over grief. And often anger is one of those things.
So a lot of us are feeling angry these days. I think I'm feeling angry at other people for how they're acting or behaving, or the decisions they're making, you know, or feeling angry that we have to deal with unemployment; that we have to deal with our boss; that we have to deal with homeschooling our kids; that we have to deal with staying inside; that we have to deal with being in a hospital.
You know, there's some people that don't feel any anger about that, and some people do. And I think that naming that is really important that it's all there, and it's valid, and grief is under all of it. So how can we, rather than reacting out of anger, pause and make space for anger, so that whatever happens to be under that can come and have a seat at the table?
So Five of Wands is a tremendous card that can help us work with those emotional experiences. Again, we don't need to do any of this by ourselves, we can do it with people that we have a consented relationship around (e.g., a therapist, our sponsor, a friend who has verbally given us the cue that they have the time and the space and the capacity to hold what we're going through, a partner who's given us the same thing) because everybody's going through their stuff. And we always want to be in consent with each other about that, ideally, and/or if we feel like we have the capacity. We can absolutely self-tend around this. And I think Tarot can help, you know, if we, if we feel like that's possible.
So yeah, how do you make space at the table for your anger? You know, that's something to start with, just something to start thinking about, you know? What might that be uncovering for you? So again, just something to think about.
Nine of Swords
[0:56:42]
Nine of Swords: a wonderful Anchor Card for grief. I was reading only very recently that maybe in the DSM, I don't know—but that there's only recently started to be the inclusion of anxiety as a symptom of grief. And that made me really delighted, in a weird way, because my grandfather who raised me, passed in 2012 and it was an enormous loss. He died very suddenly and was not actually that old. So it was very hard and very painful.
And because I don't have a comfortable relationship with that part of my family, I didn't understand at all what I was moving through; what was happening. I didn't have anything that I could have leaned on in terms of grief support. But what I do remember is the anxiety I felt that was like—I feel like I've had very few experiences that have matched how terrified, how anxious, how much I was projecting all of these like, you know, my brain was just scrambling with all kinds of like horror show scenarios about things that had nothing to even do with my grandfather's passing.
That, now I know, of course, it was trying to protect me from the wildness and the intensity of my grief—from the core emotion. But all I knew was that anxiety was the predominant experience in the midst of his passing, his funeral. And I was honestly pretty excited to read that about the anxiety and grief because I definitely know I'm not alone.
And Nine of Swords is a card where we're invited to look at, very mindfully and gently, the worst-case scenario thinking, the terror-thinking that our brain can invite us into, typically, because we're either expanding—or in this case, we're in grief. There's something that the brain is saying, like, “Don't look at that. Look over here,” (Lindsay laughs) you know? And it, like, dangles the keys and there are like monsters on the keys, you know?
And so this Anchor Card is here to hold the space for anybody who, when they feel grief, tends to feel fear first, or is feeling completely, understandably, so much fear around the present circumstances. There's so much terror embedded in this time, so much hypervigilance, so many what-ifs, so many unknowns. This is all very, very, very… like, we're all moving through this together.
This isn't again, advice. It's not how-to—it's not how to get over it, it's not how to work with it. It's just to name what's here. This is all we're really doing today. It's just naming what's present without—because I think it's really easy to just think we're the only ones and that were crazy. So this is just an attempt to be like, you're not crazy (Lindsay laughs). There's no reason to gaslight yourself any more about that. But yeah, anxiety is really big. And a lot of the time grief lives underneath anxiety, or it can live under panic or, you know, whatever it is.
[1:00:27]
And so how do we work with Nine of Swords as an Anchor Card? Well, Nine of Swords always comes up when we're being invited to deeply move through a mastery around our fear in some way.
Nine of Swords and I are very strong, very, very bonded, actually. Because it's not the card that's doing it; the card is alerting me to the fact that my brain is probably really threatened or in high protection mode, or in hyper-vigilance mode, and is trying to keep me from something—usually, a kind of an intimacy with self—but it's trying to keep me separated. And the reason and the season and the situation changes every time I move through this card, but it really doesn't even matter.
How we can rely on this card, again, as an Anchor Card for grief is that it can begin to have us thinking about how do we work with and call our brain out on the worst-case scenario thinking? When the brain says, “You know, what if ‘this’?” Rather than crumbling in on ourselves, can we say, “Yeah, what about that? Do you have any evidence that that is the potential here? Do you have any kind of evidence that this person doesn't like me, that I'm not lovable, that this isn't gonna work out? Is there any evidence? And if there isn't, is there a reason for me to engage with the thought?”
And the brain will probably say, “Well, yeah, you have to be prepared.” And then you can respond and say, “I feel prepared. I'm okay. You know? I’m okay.” And or we can say, “Yeah, there might be a situation where we don't have what we need, there might be a situation where we might be a little desperate. There might be a situation where things feel a little scary, and I trust on my own resourcefulness to work out a way to move through it or to ask for the help I need.” And to just continue to follow the brain down that rabbit hole—or not down the rabbit hole—but to continue to recenter, whenever the brain tries to kind of pull us down that rabbit hole, rather.
And what we're doing here is essentially aligning ourselves with truth, aligning ourselves with evidence; to be able to say, “Yeah, there's totally anxiety here. What is it that you're afraid of?” And just naming it, following it. Very often, underneath all of that, there is some grief. There is grief, there's something: a fear or a loss.
Because I know for myself, in my own therapeutic processes—and again, not a therapist, but I'm just speaking as someone who's done intensive therapy—that the times where I have been the most anxious about a what-if scenario, it is something it is a protective mechanism that my brain has developed in order to try to keep me from further harm or pain. And that, even right there, is grief. Like, “Oh my god, this part of me probably developed when I was a kid and like is a fucking nightmare to me, and yet, is trying to protect me.”
It's trying to protect us. We're often, our brains are desperately trying to keep us out of the caverns of grief, because it's so big and so wild and so spiralic, that it's very uncomfortable and very painful to plunge into that cold cold pool. The brain doesn't like it.
So when we work with Nine of Swords, we actually work on our ability to be resourceful. We work on our ability to be tender, to be people who say, “Yeah, brain, like, you're really calling me into some strong shit. Let's investigate that together.” And again, as always, if it doesn't feel safe to investigate on your own, you can investigate it with a trusted ally or a friend.
And if you feel safe enough to engage with it with you know, Tarot Anchoring, it can be useful, too. Because in our work with Nine of Swords, what can happen is that we peel back those stories and come back to the heart of the matter, which is like, “This is a being who's moving through tremendous unknowns, and there's a lot of fear. And the hypervigilance process that's been developed here has really been developed as a way to protect myself from the stuff that feels really raw,” and the more we can recognize that, the more we can be really compassionate around that and make space for the rawness. So that's possible, too.
Four of Pentacles
[1:05:39]
Four of Pentacles. So Four of Pentacles is more of a potentially wise response around grief. Four of Pentacles is 100%, absolutely not a card of miserly action or of holding on to our money. It's not true at all. But it is a card of body boundaries. It is a card that says, “My body, my energy, my physical embodiment feels like it needs a little bit of extra padding, a little bit of extra space between myself and certain people, certain triggers, certain things.” This card actually teaches us how to embody really fearless boundaries around the way that we protect our body.
Remember, let's take the news. And again, I don't I don't mean to be, like, so anti-news. I'm not anti-news—I just think we can be really flippant about what our body is available to be processing. Like, if you read a piece of news, and your body is already feeling super tender, super delicate, super sensitive, we've now dug up and kind of introduced all of these new feelings, all this chemistry, all this stuff that we now have to, the body has to work even harder to move through. So we just want to be kind. We just want to, like…
Four of Pentacles, as an Anchor Card, teaches us to be aligned stewards of: what is this body available for? Is this body needing to be weeping and wailing for like three days straight? Great. Is this body needing to be really working through contraction and anger? Is this body available to see how other people are, like, thriving in quarantine right now? Is this body available to see, you know, information around numbers with, you know, as it pertains to COVID right now? Is this body available today for that? We have tricked ourselves into believing that we have to be so available to just get hit with anything and everything?
It's not true. It's not true. You don't owe anyone a goddamn thing when it comes to that. Can we aim to become resilient, available? Absolutely. But without checking in with what we're available for, we're never really going to be able to have that trust.
[1:08:34]
So when we work with Four of Pentacles, it's a little heads up that says, “Hey, you may want to create a little bit more spaciousness around maybe this particular person right now, or this particular community, this family member, this resource for news, or this, you know, whatever it is.” That's all not only wonderful but super appropriate and important to be able to be resourced.
Four of Pentacles isn't a permanent state. It's a state of drawing our power back to us so that we can step forward and be you know, again, more available to be of service to others. So there's a lot of great ways to work with that. But letting the body lead you. What feels like an absolute no-no right now? What feels like an absolute yes? It's probably not going to be the same in like two days. So you might as well just not judge it and hang out with where your body's guiding you and see what it uncovers for you.
Then we have Two of Swords. So, I think Two of Swords is really important as an Anchor Card for grief—and by the way, I never really completed my thought about Four of Pentacles:
Having that body boundary is really important, and honoring the rhythm of the body is really important because we don't tell grief when to come to us. Grief arises, and sometimes we can be in the experience of just feeling like we’re not available at all right now. And if we keep unintentionally triggering ourselves, or keeping ourselves in fight-flight-freeze, or in making ourselves, like continuing to be exposed in a way that—you know, some people are in circumstances and situations right now that they have no control over, with regard to being at home, and et cetera. But if we can control, if there are ways to bring down and in those Four Pentacles as a kind of a force field, a potent shield of protection, of a boundary—we are creating more room to actually be with ourselves. We're creating more room to be present, to go inside of that little bubble, and to be able to be with ourselves for how little or as long as we need.
And again, I want to, before we get to Two of Swords, I want to state something that I think is really important: that you don't need to, like, have hours of time to do this. This is appropriate. You can call upon one of these cards on your break during your shift or when you're having a cigarette outside, or when you're in the bathroom, like, in the middle of your shift at work, or when you're in your car in between deliveries, or in your car after like a 12-hour shift at a hospital—and you can also do none of this. But if it does resonate with you, this process is meant to come with you in the little moments that you may have.
It's not meant to be a substitute for anything larger, and it's certainly not meant to be, in any way, like, taking up time because most people don't have, ironically, any time right now. A lot of people do, most don't. So yeah, that's really powerful.
We're drawing in intuitive boundaries around the body so that we have more spaciousness to be with what wants to be tended, you know? And the more the body trusts us, the more it will allow those things to come up because it knows that we'll be able to hold the space and tend to it.
Two of Swords
[1:12:30]
So going back to Two of Swords, Two of Swords is a really important Anchor Card for grief because I think it can actually—working with this card, can actually help us to get down to the bones of grief; it can actually help us to go down to the roots of grief. And I think Two of Swords can be called upon as an Anchor Card in two different ways: one is really macrocosmic, one is really microcosmic.
The macrocosmic piece of Two of Swords really has to do with: how do we prioritize our own care? And not from a capitalist perspective, where we're spending a whole bunch of money on ways to better ourselves or like whatever it is, but where is, where is the fierce, autonomous source of self-tending, that we know is connected to the ability to be present for our community, to be present for our families to be present for ourselves? What fills that cup back up for us?
Two of Swords actually asks us to let go of the physical eyes, let go of the parts of us that say, “Oh, you know, this should be going this way. I should be doing it this way. This person is doing this, that person is doing that.”
The first step is that blindfold, no comparisons. It's inviting us to go in. To ask, you know, “What do you specifically need? Does anyone else need to know about what you need? Not at all. What do you need right now?” Those two swords are our ability to take elements of the mind, of our thinking, and again, like Four of Pentacles—create that boundary, not to keep others out, but to go further in. And from there, we're called, once we have that space, to go very, very deeply into our center.
What wants to be tended to? How is it that I can tend to this?
And in terms of the macrocosmic piece: how can I develop a framework for resourcing support and care for myself that feels accessible to me, that can help me to have a life that simply feels more resourced, in terms of my care?
[1:15:02]
I know that I've mentioned this before: I grew up with nothing, zero money, had zero money, always had a million jobs. I was lucky enough to get those jobs, even though they were pretty part-time and often didn't pay very well (Lindsay laughs). And I would have, I would be dead without Tara Brach's podcasts.
And I have to say that stuff because, of course, I'm not advocating that you should ever prioritize a podcast over the help you may need. And I know from fucking firsthand experience that you have to have a lot of money to pay for that stuff. And it's a broken system, and I know a lot of people are working and doing the best they can to serve that. There's also lots of forms of support beyond Tara Brach’s podcast, of course, that are around now that maybe weren't before, you know, like 10 years ago or so when that was happening to me.
I knew I couldn't afford the therapy, the trauma therapy, the help, the time—most likely, like away for months—that I really needed when I would go through these mini-breakdowns, and then my big one. I could not afford that. There was nobody I could call up for that. I didn't have any credit. I had loans, like, I could not do it. There was no source of support for me there.
So I was ferocious about finding everything I could that was accessible and free, and that's why I feel like I love having this podcast be free. Because if there's even like a little bit of that happening for someone, in a Tarot sense, rather than like a mental health sense, it makes me really happy.
And that's a small personal aside to say that I understand that when I'm talking about resourcing, I want you to know that what I'm talking about is something that spans the gamut from PDFs and books that you check out of the library, to podcasts.
We cannot always afford the support we need. It's not always within our reach. Not in this moment—those things can change. Of course they can. And how do we start with what's here? So that's what we're looking at with macrocosm.
It's very easy to slip into despair and think “I need this help and I'm not getting it.” You know, is there something that's within your reach today? That could potentially put you closer to that? Even if it's not quite what you want? Is there something that's within arm's reach? That's a possibility? Maybe yes, maybe no. But I think Two of Swords as an Anchor Card for grief, helps us, kind of like The Hermit, develop a way to be more in touch with this body, be more in touch with ourselves.
And I think Two of Swords work, in terms of Anchoring, can look like anything from… you know, sometimes when I pull Two of Swords, it's a huge Anchor Card for me around grief and other things. Sometimes when I pull this card, it's just a reminder, like, “Oh, yeah, your ABCs, in terms of you, what you need, Lindsay Mack, to live your life—not be, you know, deeply in your brain chemistry—what is it that you need? Are you off of that a little bit? You know, are you acknowledging and honoring that, like, it can actually be pretty simple? These pieces that you personally require, are you hitting all of them?” And, you know, sometimes I'm not hitting all of them. And so Two of Swords can really bring me into like, what's the simplest way for me to offer myself support now?
[1:19:07]
And the macrocosmic piece really, I think, opens us up to like how it can really change our lives, period. You know, how can we shift and change our lives to make our self-tending, unapologetically, a priority? And microcosmically, sort of saying the same thing. But, you know, how do we offer that tenderness and care to ourselves in the moments that we need it? In a way that feels accessible or possible?
You know, this isn't going to be accessible to everybody. It can't be. Everybody has their own experience of grief and where they're at in their process. And that's okay. This is just what I'm being guided to talk about today.
So, when we call upon Two of Swords as an Anchor Card, it's a profound opportunity to shut out other ways that we might feel are appropriate for us to be grieving. How are other people handling this time? How are other people processing this information? How are other people working through this? And really devoting ourselves to strong, solid presence.
Again, the more we're able to give that to ourselves, the more we're able to think about balance as an act of radical tending. Not that we have to be balanced in order to be engaging with that term, because balance is really impossible. Like we're always in, in the journey of it, anyway. Balance or imbalance row striving to find that, right? So Two of Swords really says, you know, “Can you come back to balance as a living practice? You know, where are you today? Where are you going to be tomorrow? You know, where are you now?”
We can only really be with grief one step at a time. So it really asks us to, once again, be in that presence, but to also think about what are the ways that I could put more tools in my toolbox that could help me be with these things?
And if you have to start with everything that's free, I wouldn't be here without those free resources; they are out there. So whomever speaks to you, whatever speaks to your experience, grab it, and take it for all you can, you know? Use it, practice with it as much as you can, you know?
Being with our grief is really a process of—process that takes time. And the more resourced we feel in our day-to-day, the easier that can be.
Six of Cups
[01:21:56]
And finally, our last Anchor Card here is Six of Cups.
So what makes you feel connected to your heart space? That question, right away, might bring up grief. What makes you feel connected to the stuff that brings you joy? What fills your cup up? What makes you remember why your life is worth living?
Literally, like sometimes those things are really just like, they're falling off our plates, they're so abundant. And in certain moments, it's like our dog or cat. In certain moments, it's like, you know, a person that we adore and love. In some moments, it's the way the light happens to hit the trees. And in other moments, that can be the fierce recognition that we've made it this far. And we're fucking miracles for being here, and feeling all of these feelings that we're feeling, and, and we're alive to tell the tale. And Six of Cups is a card that invites us into a space of heart-opening where there once was a closed heart, where there once was a heart that didn't know if it would ever be able to accept or receive love again.
The beauty about Tarot work and about life, in general—or any kind of spiritual work and the myth of it, really—is that you don't have to feel anything for it to be planting seeds. There's been a total myth of feeling it for so long—you don't need to feel anything. There doesn't need to be any kind of, like, feeling of joy to have joy. You don't need to be excited to meet a potential lover to have a lover come through—if that's even what you want.
And we're not talking about feeling so great, or so open or so free, or whatever adjective you might add here. We're talking about touching back into the heart of who we are and including everything—including the stuff that makes us sad, the stuff that makes us mad. Noticing how, even in spite of all that you've survived, you're here and how miraculous that is, you know?
[1:24:29]
I think Six of Cups is an Anchor Card that helps us to remember to celebrate how far we've come and to celebrate that we're able to feel and to acknowledge that without these big hearts that we have, there wouldn't be such protection on behalf of the brain to try to keep us out of the painful stuff.
So when I work with Six of Cups, it's always an opportunity for me to be able to say, you know, “What can I celebrate about the fact that I'm alive? And in spite of all the abuse I've gone through, and you know, I still am afforded amazing privileges by virtue of who I am, and the color of my skin, and I've lived through horrors. And the fact of the breath in my body is a miracle.” It's really true. And nobody needs to celebrate that other than me, but my heart can be reconnected to that. If I can come back into gratitude for this heart, it can open so much, and permission so much to come forward, and to be seen, and to be recognized.
So it's not really a card at all about nostalgia, although, you know, certain things can always come up in these cards, in any card. It's really a card of reconnecting to, to your wild heart, to the part of you that is really authentically, beautifully, perfectly, you. Wholly and completely across the board, with all the tough stuff and all the great stuff, you know? How can you make space for all of the things, for all of the things?
So each of these Anchor Cards are, again—some of them really similar to others—but enough of a difference, that it can provide an important inroad. And many of them start with coming into the center, and of our being, and checking in with what's there. And it's great, if that feels accessible to you. And for some people, it doesn't feel particularly accessible, which is why we have other ones.
[1:26:54]
And some of them have to do with creating really big, long-term, you know—kind of building long-term track, in terms of how can I make space for grief, period? How can there be a permissioning for grief to be here, period? So it's not so big, or so that we can be with it a little bit more often than we do? You know, so it's not so rare that we're touching in with grief. And some of them are very of the moment. None of these may resonate with you, all of them may resonate with you, one of them might resonate with you. And it's really, again, your grief is yours. It belongs to you.
Grief is autonomous, it's sovereign, it's personal. Nobody is ever going to get it exactly right, with how we experience grief. And, again, this was never an attempt to do so. It's an attempt to get you thinking about how you can make space for your grief in these times and outside of these times. You know? What's important? What wants to be paid attention to? And are there any of these cards here that can offer you a little bit of a gentle inroad to being with your grief? Was there anything that got sparked for you in the telling of this?
And also, it's just as valuable if nothing resonated with you, because that probably means that there's some card in there that I didn't even speak to—and there are tons that are inroads to grief that I didn't speak to—that can provide the perfect medicine for you. So sometimes it's about what isn't said, that can bring us to the center of what needs are tending.
No matter what. I'm just grateful to be here with you. Thank you for listening to this more workshop-sized episode today. Loving you, Wild Souls. I hope that this resonated. And you'll hear from me tomorrow, and then you'll hear from me Friday (Lindsay laughs), so we'll be definitely checking in with one another, too, through the next week. So thank you, again, for being here.
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[Conclusion]
[1:29:17]
This podcast was edited by Chase Voorhees. The podcast art is by Chelsea Iris Granger and it is hosted by me, Lindsay Mack. For more about the podcast, visit wildsoulpodcast.com or follow us on Instagram, @wildsoulhealing. For more about me and my work, please visit lindsaymack.com.
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Thank you so much for being here.