133. The Great Rebirth, Part Two: Temperance
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Today on TFTWS podcast, we dive into Part Two of The Great Rebirth series, exploring the life changing medicine of Temperance and Line Two of the Major Arcana.
Temperance represents the shift from egoic control to co-creation with Spirit — a crucial and profound invitation into personal and spiritual rebirth.
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About the Episode
Today on TFTWS podcast, we dive into Part Two of The Great Rebirth series, exploring the life changing medicine of Temperance and Line Two of the Major Arcana.
Temperance represents the shift from egoic control to co-creation with Spirit — a crucial and profound invitation into personal and spiritual rebirth.
In this episode, we will explore how we can begin to understand and open our arms to Temperance, Line Two of the Major Arcana (and how this degree of spiritual surrender in Temperance could never happen without traveling through this Line), and what it means to shift our inner driver from ego to soul.
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: death, loss, grief
The content in this episode contains references to death, loss, and grief. 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]
(Instrumental intro music)
This episode of Tarot for the Wild Soul is brought to you by my brand new upcoming course, Heart of Service, a five-week online, intuitive, Tarot immersion for Spirit-guided service that runs from October 1 to the 29th.
Enrollment for the course opens on Tuesday, September 15, and today, the 11th, is the last day to apply for a need-based, full scholarship to Heart of Service. Our applications will close tonight at midnight Eastern, 9pm Pacific.
So if you are currently in financial need, would not be able to participate in the course without a full scholarship, we want to make it possible for you to be here. So you can learn more about that and apply for a scholarship by going to lindsaymack.com/heartofservice. And all applicants, whether chosen or not, will know whether they've been chosen or not either way on Monday, the 14th.
So again, to learn more or to apply for a scholarship visit tarotforthewildsoul.com/heart-of-service.
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(Instrumental intro music)
[0:01:18]
Hello loves and welcome back to Tarot for the Wild Soul Podcast. I'm your host, Lindsay Mack, and this is our second installment of our three-part “Great Rebirth” series on the podcast. So we'll be covering Line Two of the Major Arcana and Temperance.
Before we dive into that, I wanted to share a really exciting announcement, which is that transcripts for the podcast episodes are finally happening and here. So I'm delighted to share that there will be transcripts for every episode of Tarot for the Wild Soul podcast going forward, starting today, and that there is a full transcript for not only today's episode, but for the last week's episode on The Chariot and Line One of the Major Arcana, and the September Monthly Medicine, and all those are available to read now by clicking into the show notes for each episode. And if you're not sure where to find show notes for the various places that you may be listening to this podcast on, you can just Google it, and you'll find it very, very quickly, and easily.
So we have, finally — and I mean, finally (Lindsay Laughs) — we're going to be having transcripts for all of you going forward for every future episode. The highest aim is for those transcripts to be up when the episode goes up. That may not always happen. I ask for your patience on that. If the episodes — the episodes go up Friday — if the transcripts are late for any various reason, they will be up no later than Monday, but probably by Sunday, or even Saturday. So let's hope that doesn't happen too often, but also it's very new. So I don't know. Let's hope.
And I often don't record too far out from when these episodes go live, so depending on whether I'm in course creation, where I am on my spectrum of chronic illness or body pain, it may be a little harder for me to record further out, but I'm going to… I'm going to do the best I can. So just letting everyone know, so if they're late, you know to expect them within about 24 to 48 hours of the episode going live.
We're also going to be very, very slowly. My amazing transcriptionist, Meghan, and I are going to be very slowly making our way through the backlog of the entirety of the podcast episodes and doing transcripts for them, too. Our goal is to have the entire catalog of the podcast transcribed in a year. So hopefully it's sooner than that, but certainly by September 2021. That's the goal time.
And I just want to thank those of you who reached out to me about really desiring transcripts both over the weekend, because a couple people did, and for the last three years, really, and really invited me to align this part of my work, a very large part of my service with my values about accessibility. It's a bummer that it is so late, three years in, but I'm very happy that we're here now. And you'll have transcripts for every episode going forward, hopefully on the day they come out, but certainly a few days within the episode posting. So anytime you don't need to… if the transcripts are late, you never need to wait for an announcement from me. They'll always just be in the show notes once they're ready to go. I’ll go in and edit it and put them on there. So excited to share that with you. I'm happy that I'm happy we're here.
[0:05:07]
Okay. All right. Onto today's episode. You know, again, just bowing to everyone, sending my heart (Lindsay Laughs), you know, in these Mars retrograde, insane times, I know I sound like a broken record again, but it bears repeating. There's a reason that we're doing this series. There's a reason why we're being asked, I think, right now to look at these themes of endings, of thresholds, of completions, of rebirths.
So, last week, we dove into The Chariot and Line One of the Majors. And in order to venture, to travel, into Line Two and to understand Temperance, which I think is rightfully very challenging for people to understand, we're going to get into why that is and why that's not actually a problem. But how you can hopefully begin to think about it a little differently, and at the very least bow to and be accepting of the difficulty in understanding and knowing that you're not alone, and it's not a problem (Lindsay Laughs).
But yeah, in Line One, this is our line of building a sturdy backbone of personal inquiry and of egoic identification. This is what we do, from birth to kind of 18 years old. We establish our identity, we label ourselves, we venture to discover who we are, we want to explore our autonomy and our independence. And this is what Line One supports us in doing. This is what we do in Line One.
It doesn't necessarily mean that we'll always be doing that every time we pull a Line One card. Like, if you pull The Lovers, it's not necessarily important or even relevant to reflect on, “Oh, I'm doing super foundational work right now.” We're talking about sort of as a whole and how we can live Tarot and understand how these things can exist, beyond the scholarly, beyond the sort of conceptual piece, and into the real, integrated, spiralic, rooted, earthy piece, you know. Just sort of like how did these themes show up?
So we really see Line One in kind of the first 18 years of life. We can also see it in the first seven years of life, where, you know, children will get closer to their parents, will push them away, will want to do things on their own. This is the journey, you know, from infant to crawling to walking, “I am. This is mine. This is my name.” You know, that's what we do.
[0:08:10]
And then The Chariot is so profound, because it essentially says, “Yes, you went on this whole journey on the ego’s dime, essentially, and this is the sum total of what you've created; this beautiful chariot that looks just so beautiful, but it can't really take you very far.”
So there's a moment there of graduation, right? Where we outgrow this really good looking thing, that if we want to do life based on looks or public perception, or sort of a veil of — gosh, I can't think of the word — but a veil on things, where what people are seeing is not really what's going on, it's sort of a polished version. That's sort of what we want. We can kind of hold on to that Chariot, not ultimately move forward, but the winds are starting to blow.
Once we get into The Chariot, The Fool has come to call. The Fool basically says, “Are you going to evolve and take this leap forward? Or are you going to stay still?”
And that moment, when we decide to step out of that Chariot, step out of that crab shell that's offering us sort of, in that case, false protection, and enter into the world with these really fragile, and yet sturdy, inner parts of ourselves, and walk into the wild forest of Line Two of the Majors, we shift. There's an inevitable shift. Who we kind of thought we were is supposed to actually, on purpose, be totally offended. Because Line One of the Majors in that sort of egoic part of us… the ego is a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing.
This is not ego in a negative light. We need the ego (Lindsay Laughs). We have to have the ego. It’s great! You aren't the ego. It's your little “I”. Your big “I”, the “I” of you that is eternal, that is beyond identity, label, definition, beyond any of those pieces, is your big “I”, and that's your soul. The human part doesn't deserve to be discounted. What we're learning, however, is that we don't necessarily want it to be driving the car. So there is a shift in our inner car, inner vehicle, in who's in the driver's seat, and Line Two is where that shift over time takes place.
[0:11:13]
So we're moving from this beautiful work, beautiful work of, again, personal inquiry, self discovery, of structure, of foundational understanding, the caterpillar line, moving into the line of the chrysalis, Line Two.
So Line Two of the Major Arcana, which ranges from either Strength or Justice — because of various situations (Lindsay Laughs) that you can certainly Google, look up, you know, read about — Line Two sometimes starts with Justice. Sometimes it starts with Temperance. I love to meditate and think about both, but there are, incredibly, two inroads to this line for some people. It strongly resonates for them either way, and moves all the way to Temperance.
Line Two is the line of deep, personal undoing in a wonderful way; journeys of self-discovery, major questions, and a profound, cellular shift from our ego, to a more surrendered, soul-led nature. So this is the line of the chrysalis. This is the line where you are going to get in that cocoon. You're not going to know what the hell's going on. You're not going to have any answers. You're going to literally be upside down because everything you thought you knew is being shifted. And it must be. It's important. Once we walk away, once we choose the soul, walking away from The Chariot, we choose our souls in every moment.
We always have choices. We’re either working from fear, working from brain, working from ego, working from that thinking mind, from that less… from that sort of de-evolutionary space that says, “I just want to stay safe, comfortable. I want to kind of, like, play it a little lower.” Every time we're choosing that, it’s okay, but we kind of stand still a bit, you know. And it can look on paper like people are doing great because they're not actually evolving.
Whereas those of us who are continually choosing the soul, radically devoting our lives to evolution, can sometimes look like messes (Lindsay Laughs). It's alright! You know, again, it's okay. It's sort of appropriate in a way. It is messy. You're shifting from a caterpillar to a butterfly in every moment that you're awake and available to it, so it's messy, you know. We move from linear to spiralic in this line. So it's confusing for a lot of folks. People don't understand what the hell's going on.
[0:14:23]
“I don't understand what the hell is going on” is very indicative of a Line Two experience. If you've ever been in a situation where you've thought, “Oh my god, I thought I knew what I wanted, who I was, what I believed in, what I thought. I had a sense of my life, and now I have no idea about anything,” you're in Line Two. That's Line Two. Sometimes it's Moon, which is in Line Three, but if you're really in a time of that experience, you’re in Line Two in a very, very big way, and there's nothing wrong with it. It’s the chrysalis line. That's precisely what we do in the crystals: we change. We're meant to change, radically alter, you know, our inner and outer being. We're also cocooned, so we're not moving too much.
And this is an important thing about Line Two is that sometimes Line Two can bring up phenomenal amounts of doubt and frustration because the doubt in that “Why aren’t things happening? Why shouldn't I be doing more? What the fuck is going on? Am I going to be in this forever? Oh my god” frustration, like, “Fuck this. I want answers. I want to move. Like what is going on?” And that frustration and doubt are very natural, kind of die off effects from the very parts of us that are being kind of demoted to the back seat.
Like the ego wants, the ego is the driver in Line One, you know. It says like, “I want to make. I want to create. I want to do what I want to do.” And that's what we're supposed to be doing in that line. That's what we learn. In Line Two the ego gets demoted to the safety of the carseat in the back. This is crucial, important for all of us, that the ego is supposed to be in the car. It's not meant to be driving. The soul is, ideally, meant to be the driver. Ideally, you know, ideally. That doesn't mean that we just float around and don't have any concentration, it's actually quite the opposite. It's a very self-responsible, committed energy that takes a tremendous amount of courage to let the soul drive the car.
But that doubt and frustration, again, are kind of, I mean, this is a death line. This is the death of the old identity. So those parts of us that were used to being in charge that want to know what the fuck is going on are going to scream from that backseat. And that's important. They're supposed to. So again, it's not a problem.
[0:17:12]
I often call this “the line of the underworld”. For some people “the shadow line” is a term that really resonates with them. I call it, in Tarot for the Wild Soul Course, “the death spiral” (Lindsay Laughs). You know, it really is! Like we're being cocooned so we don't move on purpose. So we understand what it is to practice not making choices from egoically-driven movement, it's all internal.
Something that can be very challenging to integrate, to understand — this is a huge part of what we're going to be covering in Heart of Service, and this is something that I've learned from my teacher, Michelle, who is, you know, really, in so many ways, the originator of so much of what I've learned that I'm going to be teaching in my own style and flavor and Heart of Service — but she always said, you know, always says, you have to do the work internally first. Any work, the external pieces are the last parts to come.
So if you're desiring an externally-based shift, you have to travel the whole journey internally to clear out what that was, to be available for what it is that you want. It is a walk. It is a journey, a pilgrimage. It is a major thing. Line Two teaches us how to do that. That's the function of Line Two, to be able to say if you truly desire, success, change, receiving, if you truly desire to be open to what's possible, we have to slow everything down. Because you've left The Chariot, you've committed yourself, you made that choice, you can't go back on it, to say, “I'd rather be in a life, in an existence that resonates for me as truth, rather than one that looks really good but can't get me very far.”
So this is the underworld because it's a huge journey.
There are tests in this journey, not tests — ugh, I hate that term — but opportunities and invitations, more than tests. There are these wildly powerful times where we're in stretches where we have no idea what's going on, where it seems like nothing's going on, because we've been used to crawling around and eating leaves this little caterpillar. There is no way that the thinking mind could ever conceive that we are coming out of this chrysalis flying. It's a transition point where nothing is clear, and it might even look like your life is over. And I don't say that to scare you. I say that to comfort you.
[0:20:20]
If you're going through a Line Two experience — I've been through many, many in my life — these words are so comforting because there are times where life feels like that. We're in that as a collective right now. In a total time of choice, many of us are in huge chrysalises, or cocoons, rather, even though we might be moving and very active in the world. It's an internally-based state where we stop, we lean down, we lean in, we go further, we go deeper, in order to actually embody the change that wants to unfold in us. It's only at the very end of this cocoon journey that we emerge from that, and the wings are there, right?
So it's a very slow, very potent process of shedding and transformation that occurs between our Line One and Line Three journey. So we slowly, in these seven cards, transition from ego to soul, from control to surrender. Again, even though everything is happening in this cocoon, it usually feels like nothing is happening. And so, again, that's the telltale sign of Line Two is you're like, “Nothing's happening. I'm stuck. I'm caught. Everyone's moving forward. I'm not.” You know, getting caught in those comparison traps, that's a very Line Two place to be, and, again, that's okay. Ideally, we want this kind of work. You can't be the butterfly without it. It's impossible.
So I think in a much more macro sense is like, in terms of the themes of kind of spiritual whatever, awakening, rebirth, teachers, the journeys we walk through in evolution, I often find that it's interesting the way people talk about their Line Two journeys, right. Because some people say, “I went through this Line Two journey, and now I'm this particular kind of butterfly, and I have this to say to you about how you can move through your Line Two journey in this way or in that way,” I think that's just fine.
What I find interesting, though, and what I think is really worth mentioning, is that if you're committed to growth and to evolution for your life, you will regularly be in Line Two. And the only thing that changes about Line Two is that you start getting more relaxed about the fact that you know it won't be forever.
I have not… I don't know that I am always in Line Two. I don't know that it's ever gotten more comfortable for me, but I know what it is. And so I can make it a lot less hard on myself because it's easier for me to surrender to what that time really wants me to be. And I've also been through enough rounds of it to know that on the other side, life is much more expanded, and there's much more capacity in me to receive, to channel, to live better. So I think it's not just one time, it's many times that we go through this process.
[0:23:59]
The Soul Tarot phrase for Line Two is “Who am I?” which I love. I channeled it, I made it up, and I'm like, “I love it!” It's true. That's the point of this time to move from that “I am” space to “Who am I? Which ‘I’? Who is the ‘I’ that’s saying that?”
Temperance, which we'll get to in a moment, is, really, very deep, spiralic, esoteric, and yet, at its core roots, because all cards have them, Temperance is about what it is to commit to a life of co-creation with Spirit, period. It's understanding that you alone can only go so far. You alone can only go so far on your ego, on your beliefs, on your very limited view of the world. It's so important that ego, that belief system, those limited points of the world that we devote a whole line to it. But it is Line One. It is not Line Three, it's not the final line. It's where we start.
And the Major Arcana lets us know if you want to keep going and evolving, whether you believe in God or Spirit or source or whatever you believe, there's something greater than all of us. There is benevolent wisdom in this universe. For you, there may be chaotic wisdom in the universe, it really doesn't matter. Everybody's… the way that the universe works with and through us is going to be differently expressed through everyone and that really is supposed to be that way. We're all different.
The point of Line Two, and the point in shifting from the little “I” to the big “I”, the point in discovering how little we actually know, how little we can actually control, is to assist us in coming into a place where we are able to practice saying, “I can only make it these first 10 steps. Beyond that, it's literally impossible. You know, the ground is untenable. I'm not able to balance. I can't figure it out. I don't have the answer. I'm going to surrender it up to whatever it is, whomever it is, that I feel holds my life in a sense of order and centering in this spiralic world.”
[0:26:54]
If there is something that I'm working on, trying for, and it's just not happening, surrender it up. And eventually that changes where you may even get to the point where you ask, “Is this even in my highest and best right now?” No? Great, then you drop it. It doesn't mean forever, but it might mean right now.
I cannot tell you how helpful it is to do that. Now, not everybody is at the place necessarily where they're able to literally ask and receive the question. Not everybody even communicates or wants to communicate with source or their inner voice or their Guides in that way. And that's okay.
Temperance just teaches us over time, very slowly — again, we'll get into it — that we can, and that we don't have to try to figure everything out on our own. In fact, we ultimately can't. We ultimately cannot get very far. You know, just on our own steam, and our own steam is really great. But we can't get as far as we meant to without letting the soul drive the car. And in order to allow that we have to actually move through this whole process.
So even though we're asking “Who am I?” in Line Two, Line Two is actually where we find ourselves and who we really are, where we make contact with ourselves and shed, really, quite a lot that separates us from that true self. Line Three is when we really let everything go that separates not only us from ourselves, but us from divinity, us from source, us from our soul work in the world and what we're really meant to be doing.
Only by really rooting and hanging in there at our most confusing hour, at the point where we believe we cannot go any further, we're going to blow, you know, or we're just going to, you know, blow up with frustration and collapse into doubt, is when we actually begin to befriend the unknown and feel into what it is to be spiralically-guided. The brain and the ego want everything to be linear as in “I make a plan, it happens. I hear something from Spirit, it happens. I can count on it.” You can't count on anything in this life (Lindsay Laughs). You can't! It's a fool's errand. The only thing you can count on is yourself and the fact that most things are going to change.
Are you available? Are you rooted deeply to move with those winds of change without collapsing or breaking, right?
[0:29:56]
So Strength and Justice both offer us inroads to Line Two. Justice, when we take that in road to Line Two, is a sacred review that starts us off right out of the gate, right from Chariot, into a really huge review that says “What were we believing? What were we thinking had to be, who we should be, who we're supposed to be? What is our feeling about balance? Where are we in that? Are we telling ourselves story that life should be different from what it is?”
And Justice offers us an inroad into Line Two by saying you are exactly where you're meant to be. Whether or not you understand that, whether or not you agree with it doesn't matter. Because in order to actually change, in order to actually create true justice, we have to be present with what is first. In order to truly understand how we got here, why what happened happened, in order to step forward and create a different life for ourselves, what do you have to face and acknowledge and bow to and honor in order to start stepping into Line Two? That's sort of how we can begin with a Justice-led Line Two.
With Strength, Strength ultimately lights the torch and helps us the entire way. Both of these cards do. With Strength, we are bowing to what scares us with an undefended heart. We're learning how to embrace, we're learning how to soften in the face of difficulty. And with each and every card that follows Strength in Line Two, we can come back to the sense of willing to bow to this with an undefended heart, willing to consider that this card that I'm very uncomfortable with, that I don't understand, this moment in my life that, like, I would really rather be different, I don't understand what's going on, I can come back to the heart. I can come back to where I'm feeling defended. I can iron that. I can smooth it out. I can polish that mirror.
With Justice, same thing goes, except we can bring the medicine of “Even though every single part of me wants to argue with this and feel that this should not be happening, it's what's here. I cannot argue with what is here. I literally cannot because it's reality.” It doesn't mean it's fair. It doesn't mean it should or rather, should continue. We’re certainly being asked to get our attention, especially if somebody, something, is wildly out of balance. But as it pertains to Line Two, Justice says, “Don't argue with it. You're in the cocoon. You're supposed to be. You can't argue with that.”
[0:33:17]
And “supposed to be happening” has a kind of a different meaning with Justice. “Supposed to be happening” to the mind means “Oh, everything about this is great, supposed to be, you know, meant to be whatever.” Justice says it's not necessarily that something is or is not supposed to be because there's a larger reason for it. That may be that may not be. That's up to you to really determine that. Justice says, “Let's move past the argument that this should have been different, so that you can actually move through your process and grow from this or grieve this. Let's actually be with the reality of this moment.
So either way, both Strength or Justice — again, they offer different inroads, and they present themselves as different allies for the journey — but both ultimately say the same thing. Can you lean into and honor what's here? That's really the only way that we can move through Line Two and get to Temperance. You have to become more comfortable exploring what's within yourself. So we have to have the courage to leave the familiar what is known for the unknown, and it's not a journey we can blast through, or one where the ego can drive the car; it really cannot anymore. And step by step it's, it's, again, a coming home to self in a huge way.
[0:34:46]
So, Temperance is ruled by Sagittarius, and it can be really powerful to reflect on what we have to walk through to get to Temperance. We have to walk through Strength. We have to be willing to open the heart in a moment of great fear, in a moment of potential challenge, of difficult confrontations with the lion within us or outside of us.
We learn to walk a very different pace of life in the Hermit. We learn to go more deeply inward. We learn to seek, rather than to get an immediate answer or know who we are. We understand and are being invited in to touch into what it is to be hermetic. We're not really in an energy like that in Line One.
We walk through the Wheel of Fortune, where we learn how to center into ourselves and hold our pose, so to speak, while change happens around us. So rather than us creating that change, we learn how to hold still while the change unfolds, and it's our first opportunity of really feeling into what it is to surrender to something unfolding without feeling the need to try to control it.
We move through Justice, learning a different rhythm. Instead of getting stuck in “shoulds”, which ultimately don't — they're okay to feel, of course — but those “shoulds” don't ultimately help us to expand, evolve, step forward, step up to be forces of change that the world needs most in both challenging and more easeful times.
And we have the Hanged One, which is a highly liminal card that essentially roots us to a particular space until whatever is meant to be processed, cleared, grieved, uncovered, can do so, can have room to come up and out, so that what is no longer meant to be carried, can be burned away in the Death card; can actually be cleared. Hanged One does all the work to help uproot all of that so that it can be burned and cleared in depth.
Although we're breezing through these cards, these are major, monumental, inward journeys that we go on with every single one of these cards.
[0:37:58]
We've just gone through Death. We're essentially clean slates after Death. I will remind everybody that human... the loss or the passing away of people in our lives that we may love or know, or not love or know, but are deeply affected by, are not always connected to Death card energy, not always and certainly not immediately. Death card energy is really an offering up to the fire of what in our lives has served us, has gotten us as far as where we're meant to go, but cannot anymore and deserve to be either composted or, again, offered up to the flame.
So it's a powerful thing, and it does bring up grief in its own way, but often the experience of loss and grief that we go through as human beings, while connected to Death cards is often so much more multi-layered, and, you know, that offering up to the fire is a place that we may not even necessarily have any desire to even get to with regard to how we lose folks in our lives who we love. So it's really an opportunity to sort of see them as separate entities, and I often don't find the lineup for me personally, it could feel different for you, but it's much more of a spiritual death, a metaphorical death, of change that happens from within. It's ruled by Scorpio.
So, Temperance, again, is that profound spiritual rebirth and is the last card in the second line, and it is very powerful to think about how far we have to travel to get from The Chariot in Line One, to here; very different, very different. So Temperance ushers us into our last cycle of soul work in this spiral of death and release, in this cocoon, in this chrysalis line, in Line Two of the Major Arcana.
[0:40:24]
So Temperance is both a very large energy and a very micro, simple energy. The micro, simple energy of it is that it is an invitation to commit ourselves to co-creating with Spirit in every moment of our lives. And the brain may be clicking and worrying hearing that (Lindsay Laughs), but it's really quite simple. That's all there is to it. Rather than just doing something, pushing ahead, forcing, strategizing, we learn over time, over time, years of practice, to pause before we do that, and go, “I wonder if that's actually an alignment for me.” And then we stop it and remember to check in about that.
And often the brain can get in here and say, “Well, I'm not intuitive. I don't know how to hear, I don't know what to do.” And your body knows the part of you that knows the truth knows. And if you don't know, there are questions to ask:
Is there a should somewhere in what you're doing? Do you feel that you should do it? Do you feel that you're supposed to do it? Not from a place of a sacred calling, but from “Everybody else is doing it? I should, too. I should because this person told me it's the right thing to do.” Or is there a sense of the wind moving through you, of a destiny, of a calling? Is it not even a question?
The “should” is when you know that it's a “no”. That destiny, that calling, that's when you know that it's a “yes”. It doesn't mean that you don't have discomfort with the yes. Often contraction arises the more exciting and expensive those yeses are. Should is a really important signal to pause and to invite Spirit into the conversation, “What if? What if I don't do this? What if I can't do it? What if I don't do it and x happens? What if I do do this and x happens?”
That's all. All of it is ego. It's never soul.
When you have a “what if”, you just surrender it up to Spirit. “Spirit, I'm totally noticing that I'm in a ‘what if’ about this right now, and I can tell that that's making me want to push through. It's making me want to run away. So I'm just gonna, I'm gonna ask you to help me. I'd love for your guidance. I'd love for you to intercede on my behalf. I'd love to co-create this with you. What are you inviting me to do?”
You can pull a card. Let's say you get Seven of Pentacles. That's when you know, hang in there and wait, even though it might be really uncomfortable, that's okay, you know.
“I ought to”, comparing yourself, “Everyone else is doing it. I'm going to be punished if I don't. It's ‘the right thing to do’.” There is no right thing to do, necessarily. Everybody has, of course, there's an overarching, highest and best good to aim for in the collective unfolding, but if it's not in your highest and best to do, what is right for someone can be completely wrong coming from you, and vice versa.
We owe it to ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to be really clean on what we're bringing forward. Otherwise, it's just going to make things more, way more, complicated.
[0:44:12]
What is it to co-create with Spirit? This is a big part of Heart of Service, my upcoming course, and really, it's kind of a weaving.
You start with the impulse, “I feel called to do this. I'm not sure whether it's brain or soul or whatever,” and you just notice. Is there kind of like a frantic energy, a drive, of “I have to do this right now.” Emergence is almost always thinking mind, rather than soul. Soul’s very stretched, very relaxed.
I move faster than most people I know, in terms of, like, my creation time, and in some ways I move infinitely slower. And when it's soul, the degree of work or creation that I do is kind of unbelievable to people outside of me. And yet, it's really not a problem when I'm not trying to attach or make things. I'm just an available vessel for what wants to come through.
So we notice: what's the reaction? Is there emergence? Is there contraction? We're just noticing what's happening, and then we're connecting.
And it doesn't matter if you can't, “hear”, understand, perceive, Spirit. It takes a long time to allow that emergence because it's very, very, very quiet, and the brain is very loud, especially if it wants to protect, to guide, if it's used to being in charge.
Again, this isn't the brain being bad or the brain being an enemy. It's being a friend. It's actually loving us. It wants to protect us. Sometimes it can use some really shitty moves to do that. It can invite us to doubt ourselves, or it can behave in the way that it’s seen our caretakers behave. And we just don't need to be… we can get better in time the more we co-create with Spirit at catching that and saying, “Hey, you know, I know what you're doing, and previously this made me stop before. And you know you bringing this up, this point or this piece about me made me doubt myself, and it made me stop doing what I was doing. That's... I'm not available for that anymore. So, I love you, and I want you to be with me, you belong in the back seat. We're not going to rush. We don't have to do anything today. We don't have to figure this all out. We don't need to find a partner immediately. I am not going to be alone for the rest of my life just because I'm not feeling called to go out on this date with this person today. I’m not going to not have any money just because I don't jump on this one opportunity. I'm stretched full. I'm overscheduled.”
[0:47:09]
It's okay to say no. Those moments are where the miracles, where the things that we can't even imagine happening for us, start to happen. Those are the moments when we start to feel into the safety to say, “no, thank you” or “yes, please” to things that the brain might be like, “You can't do that.” When we start to open and say, “You know, Spirit,” — and again, sub out Spirit for whatever suits you: inner self, higher self, whatever it is — “Spirit, my brain is saying I can't do this because this kind of punishment, this kind of effect, is going to come for me not doing that. Is that true?”
If you can't consider that, think of the person that you love the most and ask yourself that same question. If that person was empowered enough to say, “I think I should do this. It's what makes sense. And yet my heart is really pulling me in the direction of just pausing right now,” would you say, “Well, I mean, I think you should go out. Like, what do you mean your heart is pulling you in the direction?” Then you really have some work to do on that. That if you imagine, “Of course I wouldn't. I would, I would totally trust and support my friend,” then you're onto something. Either way, there's good work to do there.
The thing that is the most incredible thing about Temperance and about co-creation with Spirit is that we have a perception that when we start co-creating with Spirit, we're going to get everything we want, and it's all going to happen in a way that's so smooth. I won't say that you… we never always get everything we want because it depends on the part of us who's wanting it, might not be in alignment for us, and obviously this is life. We don't always get what we want. It will ensure that you get what is in highest and best for this moment, and, I mean, even “get” is a strange word to use.
[0:49:25]
The function of co-creation with Spirit is so you get to stay tethered to yourself while you're living your life.
So for example, here's an example of a co-creative moment with Spirit. Let's take it back to anxiousness around finding a partner, which I know so many folks feel and move through. If you feel a sense of deep anxiety, “What if I never find somebody?”, and that hypervigilance informs the way you accept dates or whatever in the eyes of your ego, your little “I”, you can rest easy knowing that you did everything you could to try your best to be open to finding someone, and yet, all you're doing is running on a hamster wheel. This is especially true if you're not meeting anybody who aligns with you, if it keeps continuing to sort of even go downhill, or if there's just nothing, if it just feels like a desert, like everything's dried up.
What is actually happening there is that there may be an invitation for you to totally pause with online dating. Not because of dating, period, not because you're not supposed to find anybody, but because you're beloved literally cannot come to you in that energy. It's impossible. That would mean that beloveds come to people in the energy of desperation.
Nothing comes to us in the energy of desperation. It's very, very hard for things to come through because most of the time when we're desperate, we're very tightly contracted. Sometimes it can really happen where desperation fuels huge opening, but that shift, that change, it will not necessarily allow you to meet someone immediately. What it will allow you to do is get really intimate with the part of you that is terrified to not find someone and dismantle this mechanism, this program of hypervigilance, around finding a partner, so that there's actually so much more spaciousness, trust, and freedom that can be developed.
Maybe actually drawing in more support, more reflectors, more mirrors in your life that allow you to see “I'm trying to rush getting someone in because I'm actually really terrified to receive the kind of love I want. I don't know if it's possible for me,” that is where Temperance comes in. Because Temperance says, “Yeah, it's not about finding someone, but also probably it is.” What it really is, is an opportunity for you to go very deeply into why it is that you're trying to find something like this. What's the underlying fear? What's the story? Now can you shift from that little “I” to the big ”I”? So very, very powerful. Hopefully, that makes sense.
[0:52:56]
Temperance is connected to the energy of time. It is extremely slow, and it's supposed to be. It doesn't mean that when you get Temperance stuff in your life is going to come slowly, although most things do, to the thinking mind. The thinking mind wants everything immediately. Temperance is about developing over the course of your life, a sense of inner balance, inner oneness, a smooth rolling back and forth with Spirit, where impulses come in, you check in. You get a yes? Great. You get to no? Great, you keep going. That takes time.
Usually there are a lot of spiky places in there where we are asked to spend a lot of time massaging, you know, I went through years where when I tuned in about something and got a no, I'd go, “What?!” I'd be so mad because I was so sure that my way was the right way. And so then the work isn't, “Well, do I do this thing or not?” The work is “Can I go into that sore, tender spot, that reactivity in me that says, ‘How dare you not give me a yes to this. I think I'm right. Why?”
Why do I think I'm right? What's the story? Usually it's fear. I'm afraid that I won't be able to do something. Maybe there's something wrong with where I am right now. My ego really wants me to be distracted today. I want to have the comfort of getting things taken care of. Whatever it is, that's usually where the magic and the medicine lies, and when I'm willing to move into that space, of tending, rather than getting the thing that I think I need to do in order to be in alignment with Spirit, by shifting into tending the really tough places that I'm actually... are meant to pop up in order to get me closer to what it is that Spirit really wants me to do, it allows me to be really close with myself. It allows me to be really clear on my process and requires a total devotion to surrender.
[0:55:23]
This is every day. This is not once and then we're in. This is every hour. This is every moment. Are you willing to be in alignment with your soul? What is in highest alignment for you in this moment?
We could work with infinite numbers of categories, in terms of what you nourish yourself with, if you even have the privilege to choose that in terms of, you know, this or that. Where we are, we have access to, how we choose to engage with any area of our life that is in front of us, we have the capacity to check in about that. And we might be super surprised, even shocked, by what Spirit says, on occasion. We may have been busting our ass, working from “shoulds” and “Well, I have to do this,” never questioning that ever.
Then the minute we check in and say, “This isn't highest and best to do. Right?” We might get a strong no, and that, that creates the work. That is the work, the response. What is underneath that bridge of asking and where it's taking you, that's the co-creation. That's it.
So this is this card is a lifetime journey, where we feel into what it is to co-create and work with Spirit in our everyday lives, in every moment, honoring the knowing of our soul, rather than our ego and our will. The ego and the will get to be there, they're just not there to drive the car. They're there to support the process from the backseat.
Will, again, we can call upon that amazing power within ourselves to get us through projects. We can do all kinds of different things. We don't have to do that. Those of us who are really used to our willpower and our ego hitting the gas, it's a very different experience of speed and movement in this kind of thing. And if that's the case, and if it's so uncomfortable, and if you're constantly having to, you know, why do it?
Why do it? Because it can completely realign your life. It can make things infinitely more complicated in the best ways, and it can make things infinitely more aligned. But life is not supposed to necessarily be easy and predictable. It's nice to be able to have roots, and yet that's not always the case.
So it's really a question of devotion. Are we willing to allow in something wiser than the very, very small perception that we have access to of what is safe and not safe, what is known or unknown? And the brain is very limited. The thinking mind is a big helper and protector. It wants to keep us so safe. It also does not actively want us to evolve in any way. It does not value discomfort for growth’s sake. That's all we do in soul work.
I am uncomfortable every day of my life, and it's a good thing. It's good discomfort. It's discomfort for the sake of evolution. So that's what we're on the planet to do. We’re not on the planet to necessarily take it easy and have it be really simple. Even those of you who think “Well, that's what I want,” do you ultimately, really? You get so bored, you know. I'm not saying we shouldn’t all be treated to stabilization. That is my prayer for everybody: roots and stability and care and equity for all, 100%, but that's not… It's both what we're talking about, and also not we're talking about. It’s getting used to being on a spiral, rather than on a straight line.
[0:59:27]
To the straight line, we ask Spirit a question, we get an answer, we go. On the spiral, we ask Spirit a question, it inevitably triggers something or brings something up, that's the work that then unfolds like a flower and allows it to shift the direction that we're taking.
Temperance can take us across the world. It can take us… Sometimes with Temperance, we have to actually release what we think we want, what we've been looking for in order to receive it. I've seen Temperance work in the lives of people in ways that are, literally, you wouldn't even believe if I told you (Lindsay Laughs). People who were seeking a partner and went “This just isn't for me, and I'm going to live my life. I'm gonna live my life in a way that maybe I haven't been, because I've been waiting for all of this.” And then all of a sudden, boom, there is somebody.
Folks who longed for children — and in these ways that are more Temperance than I can even tell you — wind up connecting with their child, or, or the person, a human, who is meant to be their child, or wound up having children or meeting. Folks wound up creating things that were completely not what they ever thought they'd be doing, and yet, thank God every day that they're doing it.
It's a massive expansion, and it's slow. It's not slow as in you're going to be waiting forever, but it's not two seconds. It's a really steady brain undoing and intuitive rewilding that takes place over the course of our entire lives. Our entire lives.
[1:01:15]
Temperance is ruled by Sagittarius, which is ruled by Jupiter. And so there's this Wheel of Fortune connection with Temperance, because Jupiter rules Wheel of Fortune. Both have similar foundations. They're both pretty spiralic, right? But while that spiral of life unfolds, the Wheel invites us to stay in our center and not worry necessarily about active co-creation. We aren’t co creating with the Wheel of Fortune, but we're doing so by taking our hands off the controls and letting ourselves be moved. That's really the first time we ever do that.
With Temperance we call in energetic allies and forces that are larger than us, wiser than us, to help maintain a lifelong alignment and balance with what is in our highest and best to do, knowing that not only can we not do it alone, but attempting to do so will get us in places that may not necessarily be in our highest and best to be in. And it really says to us, “You can get far in your chariot but not that far. Look at what's possible when you surrender what you cannot do and cannot control to source.”
And this is all on the visuals of the Temperance card, especially in the Smith Rider-Waite. We have the archetypal energies, in many different areas in this card, of fire and water coming together. The only two elements — unless you're going to create steam, which is you know, legitimate — that you can't hold in one hand. That's the only two. Technically, you can't really hold air, but it's there. Air is all around us.
So if you attempt to hold fire and have it burn your hand, and you attempt to hold water in your hand at the same time, it can't happen without there being some kind of mashup, some kind of alchemy to hold it together. So we immediately know from that crown in the Smith Rider, from that crown of fire rising in the distance, from the symbol of the sun on the angel’s forehead to the symbol of fire on the angel's chest, we know we have a lot of fire.
We also see the angel standing in water with one foot really firmly on a rock and the other foot completely floating in water. We also see the angel holding two chalices, moving water into one cup, into the other, really almost blending. It’s a blending process happening here. We're weaving two things together. We're weaving our humanness with a larger spiritual center with a sense of spiral wisdom, with a sense of great mystery. Like, there's a blending process that happens through our whole lives because this deepens over time. Our willingness to trust it to see it, to ask for it, it takes a lot. We have to work really hard to ask for this, you know? (Lindsay Laughs)
[1:04:48]
So what does that tell us? That tells us if we attempted to blend fire and water together we'd get steam, and yet that spiritual spirit archetype, that angel, is doing it with no problem. If we attempted to put one foot on a rock, and float our other foot in water and hold that, we'd fall. We might even hurt ourselves. If we say, “I cannot stand here. I cannot envision how you'd like me to do this. I'm just going to give it to you because I can't do it. So you let me know what to do. And I'll give you the rest of it.” Huge.
If we attempted to blend that water in those two cups in the way that the angel’s doing it, we'd likely spill them. But if we're able to say, “Hey, I recognize that you're blending me. You're changing me. You're making me something different than I was. I'm evolving through this process. I'm available to let you do that. I'm available to let that come through me. I'm available to be blended. And I'm also available to recognize that if I attempted to blend these cups of water together, I'd likely spill the water.”
So what is the point? That a lot of the time — I can say this is very true in my life — if I attempted, my attempts at doing certain things would be disastrous, you know. I'd lived through them most likely, but so much harder than if I could just say, okay, there's a larger vision happening here. That's not always the case. You know, some things we're asked to do them, we just do them.
Other things: Spirit says, “Hold on a minute. Hold up. Like no. This is … there is a much better, much larger, much more aligned vision that's being held for you. Are you willing to surrender and let that unfold? Are you willing to be blended? Are you willing to co-create with me? Are you willing to let all the stuff that's in you, that tells you you can't have that be worked on? Are you willing to do that? If you can do that, I'll make sure the vision happens.”
And that's the co-creation. We do our work. We surrender what we can't control what we can't do to Spirit. While we're doing our work, the larger vision comes forward. And that's it. It may not be exactly what you're looking for. It might not be what you think you need or want, and I promise you that whether it's a stepping stone to really get you where you want to be or where you're being called to be, it is a very important place to stop if you're being guided to go into a certain area of life.
So it's the shifting, again, of who of us is in that driver's seat? The big “I” or the little “I”? that all those parts of us have a place in the car, and only the big “I” meant to be in that driver's seat.
[1:08:27]
So what does it mean to open to source? It takes enormous courage. It's going to pull up and bring up everything you've got, and it is the biggest rebirth you could ever imagine to stop trying to figure out how to do everything on your own, to actually open to deeper wisdom, to bow to divine timing, to trust that you have so many forces of support around you. Your ancestors, your angels, your Guides, your higher self, like whatever you believe in, whatever you work with, whatever you work with, they want to help you. They can't do it unless you've asked them to.
And we really learn in Line Two the limitations of trying to do it all by ourselves, so it takes time. It takes courage. It will call you in to actually live from this place of humility and soul work, not just talking about it, but being about it. So we honor the unfolding of like the unfolding of divine timing and surrendering.
That's a huge part of what we learned in Line Two, and Temperance is where it comes together. It doesn't mean that we're necessarily, again, going to get what we want. It doesn't mean that what you want is in your highest and best, it just says to do all you can. Do it from the most integral centered place you can and give the rest of us.
So we are rebirthing from ego to soul. We're actually embodying that. We're learning what it is to start asking those questions. Still to this day, I ask Spirit, Guides, everything in my life, everything. And still to this day, I sometimes forget, and I'll be in the midst of trying to, like, figure out how to do this crazy thing. And I'll remember like, “Oh my God, I totally forgot. I just have to ask, you know, is that in my highest and best to be doing this? Yes? Great. How would you like me to do it? No? Great. I'll wait.” And sometimes around both of those questions, there's a big spike of like, “What?!” And that's when I know that's my part of the job, too.
It's not something to figure out if I have resistance. That's the work. So that's what it is to live spiralically, to actually be open to these unexpected, little places that can get activated within us. It's a really important part of the job.
[1:11:14]
Temperance is where we emerge from that chrysalis. You know, The Chariot is where we make the decision not to be a caterpillar anymore and to go into that cocoon. Temperance is the moment where we come out of the cocoon, and we have wings and we think, “Holy shit. I'm different. I know that my ego is so limited and can really not take me all that far. And I know that there's very little I can do to push or force something other than make it last a lot longer and be a lot harder than it would be if I was open to help.”
How can I be more open to help? Temperance, time, recognizing what you are forcing and noticing that, practicing noticing that, and giving it up and over and really saying, “Okay. We don't have to force anything.” That's really the truth.
It's not in alignment to force. Things happen when they happen. They will, ultimately, want things to open naturally. It doesn't mean that we're not showing up in high service, and sometimes in very active service. It doesn't mean we're not being very clear about what we want and what we don't. It's not a passive position. It means that where we feel a sense of roadblocks every step of the way, it's a heads up. Hey, for whatever reason, this just might not be in alignment, it might just even be how you're doing. So just pause and come back in.
We are human beings with these nervous systems. They are not the definition of who we are. They are a part of us. They're a worthy valid part of us. And ultimately, our response to our souls, and our soul work. Our job is to acknowledge and honor where we're being called, and to co-create with Spirit, so that what we're doing is not just in our highest and best, but in the highest and best for the whole planet. And that's a really important thing to be devoted to, you know. It's really important.
And the more we can be devoted to that, it's not necessarily that our lives will be easy and comfortable (Lindsay Laughs), but the more guided we're going to feel, and the less exhausted we're going to feel in the ways that we're used to. We may still be totally exhausted, but it's because we'll really be showing up in a way that's aligned. We won't be exhausted because we're attempting to break through 1000 locked doors that are not giving for anything, rather than just sitting and asking, “Is there anything I'm being invited to pay attention to other than this lock door?” And asking, you know, “Why is it that I feel called to push down the lock door? Have I been pushing down locked doors my whole life? Is that something my ancestors did? Is that something my family did? Did anyone before me have the privilege, or even the ability, to check in with their soul work? If they had, would they have chosen differently?”
We're not saying that anything's wrong. We're just acknowledging that there's a difference between the two. And that Temperance comes when we're ready to rebirth into opening to being a little different, into being into committing our lives, to co-creation with source, which is to say, allowing everything we do to be in the commitment of being in highest and best for all, not just us, and not just what the brain wants, but what is actually in alignment for us.
[1:15:18]
I could go on and on about Temperance. This episode’s a little longer than the other one because Temperance is complex. It's triggering sometimes, you know. Some folks may say, “Well, I can't do that. I don't know how I can even begin to do that.” That's fine. You don't need to know the how. That's a brain thing anyway.
You just start from where you are. That's it. Ask about really small, like, unimportant stuff, seemingly unimportant. Start feeling into, start looking, you know, where do you push, where do you feel like you have to do this, where, you know, what are the parts of you — we all have them — where the brain says, “I'm in control of this part. Like, you're not coming in here.” That's usually where we get to do a lot of work in Temperance.
So anyway, very powerful energy, and ultimately, the giant, huge, Great Rebirth that actually assures us from ego to soul. It can change the course of the rest of our life. It can imbue in us a sense of trust in ourselves. A sense of it can help us feel into a completely different rhythm with life. You know, I check in about everything. I make plans with someone — I mean, this was pre-pandemic — I check in about it. I don't do it unless I hear “Yes.” Period, like period.
And there are times when I'll think I don't know whether that's my brain or my soul (Lindsay Laughs), and I've just gotten better. I used to never be able to tell the difference. Now I can always tell, because it takes practice in discerning those two kind of dialogues that happened within us. And then that's great. That's why Temperance, the Latin word for Temperance, it's rooted in the word “time”. That's why it's very slow. So yeah, just really allow this to wash over you.
If your brain is feeling kind of wiggy and like, “What do I do with this information?” That's fine. That's fine. It's kind of supposed to be because the brain doesn't get to be in charge anymore with Temperance. It gets to be in the back seat. It gets to do its job from there, not as the one who is behind the wheel of the car.
The Great Rebirth in this card is that we actually shift to an embodied, committed, soul-centered place, and that is when life can really, really begin to change, both internally and externally. That is when we really become the butterfly, ultimately.
[1:18:15]
(Instrumental exit music begins)
Whew, thank you for listening, Wild Souls, and thank you for being here, always and forever. I love all of you. And I think that's it.
Yeah, until we meet next week, or at the next episode, please take care of yourselves.
[Conclusion]
(Instrumental exit music)
Thank you so much for listening to Tarot for the Wild Soul.
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.
To support Tarot for the Wild Soul, please consider subscribing to the podcast on iTunes and leaving us a five star review. It helps people find us and it is greatly greatly appreciated.
Thank you so much for being here.
[1:19:23]