150. Monthly Medicine: February is Clarify
Jump to:
Listen | Show Notes | Transcript
February is a cycle ripe with opportunities for radical growth and refined clarity.
We enter a new month in the energy of Aquarius which invites us to consider the invitations of The Star and The Fool cards of the Tarot.
Listen
About the Episode
Welcome to a new month, Wild Souls!
We enter a new month in the energy of Aquarius which invites us to consider the invitations of The Star and The Fool cards of the Tarot.
February is a cycle ripe with opportunities for radical growth and refined clarity. We can lean into the support of The Star and The Fool in our tarot decks to touch into the season of Aquarius. Some questions we can ask is: How and where can we nourish and center ourselves in the midst of such wildly transformative energies? What are we ready to let go of? What is ready to bloom and open in its place?
Indeed, this is a month full of death/rebirth cycles, ones that have the potential to clarify so much for us that has previously been hidden or obscured. We’ll discuss how to work with all of the potent Aquarius energy happening this month (Sun, Venus, Saturn, Jupiter, and Mercury (Retrograde!) all in Aquarius), as well as the upcoming Saturn square Uranus on February 17th.
We’ll dive into the medicine of this first Saturn square Uranus transit of 2021 and its connections with The Fool and the Knight of Wands as feelings, exciting, messy, and everything in between, around change rise to the surface in February.
We’ve talked about the connective tissues between groups of cards on this podcast and we’ll likely talk about them again in the coming months. The unique notes and atmosphere we can experience when we look at the Uranus-ruled Fool and the insistently authentic Knight of Wands will be explored. We all have varying feelings around change, death, rebirth, and Knight of Wands can hold hands with the Fool as we leap into our soul’s calling with all our Tarot allies supporting the flight.
In our series of Wild Soul collective Tarot readings, here are the questions and cards we’ll cover for February 2021:
Tarot cards for the month ahead: The Tethered One [0:23:30]
The lesson of the month ahead: Knight of Wands [0:33:14]
What we are being invited to offer our attention to: Page of Pentacles [0:40:43]
How can we love and nurture ourselves at this time: Ace of Swords [0:48:50] and The World [0:46:57]
What we are being invited to walk away from: Knight of Pentacles [0:51:40]
What are we being invited to reclaim and embrace: Death [0:56:56] and Queen of Pentacles [0:55:34]
As always, it is such a joy and honor to provide you with collective Tarot readings and the medicine for the month ahead. Thank you so much for being here, Wild Souls!
Related Episodes
If you enjoyed this episode, we invite you to listen to last week’s episode to learn about the connections between Tarot cards and how they flow from one to the next, Deepening Tarot Connections: Eight, Nine, and Ten of Swords.
If you want to learn more about the atmosphere created with The Fool and The Star cards in the Tarot, we invite you to listen to Taking the Leap: The Fool, The Star, and The Great Conjunction.
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, systemic oppression, violence, white supremacy, climate change, birth, and grief
The content in this episode contains references to death, loss, systemic oppression, violence, white supremacy, climate change, birth, 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)
[0:00:12]
Hello Loves and welcome back to Tarot for the Wild Soul podcast. I am your host, Lindsay Mack, and as always, it is such a joy, such an honor, such a delight to be gathered with you in this virtual space. Thank you so much for being here.
It is a new month. It is a new Monthly Medicine episode of the podcast to honor and explore with curiosity and compassion and open-heartedness the invitation, the medicine of February 2021.
Our theme of the month is Clarify, which is really quite potent, the beating heart at the center of it is quite beautiful. We're going to kind of explore all the different ways that clarification can play a part in our working with the themes of the month ahead. Of course, we'll talk about our tarot reading, but there's actually quite a bit to discuss with regard to this month.
So first things first: February is one of those lovely, delicious months, four of them per year, where we begin it on a cross-quarter holiday. So February 1 is Imbolc and Imbolc marks the halfway point, for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox.
We can think of Imbolc as kind of the energy of a candle. We're honoring the fact that we are in this hibernation space that, you know, so much of our life and the world doesn't make space for these kinds of seasonal... the word I want to say is “honoring.” You know, it doesn't really make space for honoring the flow of the seasons, both kind of collectively where we live in a larger sense and individually.
I always like to think about the last three houses of my chart, as sort of always feeling like the winter of my personal year, and they always do. And it's like high summer - I'm in 12th house Leo moon. So like, in (Lindsay Laughs) 10th, 11th and 12th house, like, I feel like I'm in the winter time of my personal year. So I just like to say that because I think it's so important to continually be reminded that we have our own - you know, High Priestess holds the space for us, right? We have our own rhythms, our own unique way of touching in with God, with Spirit, with plants, with medicine, with ourselves. It's up to us to feel into, like... Where are we right in the rhythms, in the lunar cycles, in the cycles, period, of our life? So, not to digress, but I do think it's really powerful to hold both where we are in the seasonal Wheel of the Year and also kind of where we are, right?
[0:03:39]
So I love the cross-quarters because we're always in in-between spaces, right? We're always holding kind of “this and that,” “both / and,” and the cross quarters are just such special times of the year. They're so magical. It's really very multidimensional energy and I feel like they really mark the month that we kind of flow into. It's so cool that Imbolc is an Aquarian energy, right? And it's so Aquarius, right? To think about this idea of being between the worlds of death, Winter Solstice, and rebirth in Spring Equinox.
So think about that for yourself and reflect on that; where are you in that space? For me personally, it's complicated and complex and I definitely feel it both very literally in my life, I can see things - rebranding my website, shifting the flow of my courses, creating kind of new, like - there's constant kind of, you know, acknowledging of death themes and also knowing that there's a rebirth coming, but I'm not there. That's very much a cross-quarter experience. And so we're in that and we're leaping into the month of February in that energy, which is really lovely.
And of course, we also leap into February in the energy of Aquarius and like, damn, is this an Aquarian February. (Lindsay Laughs) And I say that because the sun is in Aquarius and will be until late February, I believe February 21, could be February 20th or 22nd... I believe so, when the sun goes into Pisces. But, until that time, this month, we're going to experience the sun being an Aquarius until that point. As of February 1st, Mercury, Venus Jupiter and Saturn will all be in Aquarius and we're in a Mercury retrograde in Aquarius. (Lindsay Laughs) So it's like it's a lot. We have a new moon in Aquarius on February 11th. It's a big time.
[0:06:07]
And, of course, February being a month that we leap into in the energy of Aquarius, we're also traveling through the medicine of our Aquarian tarot cards which are The Star and The Fool. So what does that mean exactly? Well, you know, I think it can mean whatever we feel called to have it mean. Sometimes when things are so expressly focused as we find ourselves in all of this Aquarian energy, you know, we can tend to branch out into like: What are the themes? What's the symbolism? What am I supposed to know?
And I think it is sometimes, really - because that'll be personal to you, right? But I think it can be really valuable to touch into - Aquarian energy is quite powerful, to bring about fixed air, which Aquarius is, right? That's a lot of energy, a lot of air focused, blowing, pushing on us. And that's great because air will literally blow off whatever we're not meant to be carrying anymore. And it will blow things into clarity, right? There's a lot of medicine there.
The ability to focus, you know, which is tricky, right? Because we're not necessarily meant to focus air. But Aquarius shows us that it can be done when we actually embrace impermanence. Aquarius really shines, it flowers open, it blossoms open, when it shows us that the only thing that we can really, not necessarily count on, but rely on, is impermanence.
[0:08:07]
You know, Aquarius understands the value of cycles, the value of death and rebirth and understands change, evolution. Aquarians are always - they're always changing. They're always shifting, always rebirthing always, always. Always seeking to stay true to their souls, which you know, soul is just the authentic part of us where we happen to be in any given moment, right? Ideally not what the ego wants to necessarily express itself, but who we are which is usually far more courageous and can tend to press on the ego.
So, the good medicine for such a high Aquarius time, so much time spent in Star and Fool energy, so much time spent in Uranian energy (Uranus is the ruling planet of Aquarius): hydration, making sure that we're really nourished as the best of our ability. I want to just, you know, this is something that I regularly affirm: nourishment looks different to everybody, has different points of access to everybody, and doesn't necessarily ever stop with food, although, it is absolutely a birthright to have it be encompassing of beautiful, nourishing food. And it's my prayer and wish that everybody has access to that.
Focusing on, the best we can, how we're tending to these bodies, because these bodies of ours are under quite a bit of pressure and stress in general. Most of us unless we're central or unless we're able to get out, walk, whatever it is, we're not actually getting the same kind of outdoor time, sun, movement that we normally would. Of course, some people are the exception to that, but a lot of us cannot do that.
[0:10:14]
A lot of us are moving, working constantly, but aren't necessarily being nourished, right? We’re just, some folx are just, like working and not necessarily taking in all that much that restores them, that fills them. So we're not doing anything wrong, at all, by feeling like our cup is completely fucking empty. I think it's wonderful if yours is not - it makes me feel so happy if you're feeling like your cup is pretty full. And ideally, we're gonna go for overflow in any given situation, realistic or not (Lindsay Laughs) cause you deserve it.
So what could maybe tick up the nourishment factor for you like 5%? Maybe even like five degrees? Just thinking about that and the basics, as my teacher, Michelle would say, like water. Can we, you know, what would feel grounding nourishing for me in this moment and making choice moment by moment to honor that. Being really steady, taking deep breaths, pausing.
Aquarian / Uranus energy is very powerful and there's a lot of... a lot... of energy this month. Especially, and I haven't even mentioned this, we have our first of three Saturn square Uranus transits. We have the next ones in June and in December, I believe, although don't quote me on the December date. But we have our first one of the year on February 17th, which is, you know, Saturn in Aquarius square Uranus in Taurus is, for sure, one of, if not the most, defining astrological feature of 2021. It's a very big deal.
[0:12:12]
And it kind of speaks to this idea, right? How are we - we're in a time of radical evolution beyond what we've ever known, ever experienced on this planet, period, period. End of story. It is a huge time. The body feels that and with all of this Aquarius energy, as we shift into feeling like - what is it like to be collectively focused? What is it like to have these really important conversations to expand? My soul family, my kin, my, you know, my team in my business has exploded. We have so many new folx joining us who are assisting and holding the containers in many different ways, like, kind of overnight. And that's very Aquarius to me, actually, even though, you know, it might not seem that way.
It's soul family, right? It's kin. It’s collective rather than just doing it individually, right? But in order to really be present for the collective in the way that we're being asked to show up, we have to be able to return to self.
The root system of Aquarius is that Uranus energy. Uranus is the planet of personal freedom, absolute necessitous liberation, saying, “yes” to our souls, and committing to living in alignment with them. That is the only way that we can channel that fixed air energy in Aquarius to serve everyone is if we're being true to ourselves, right? We forget that. We tend to think like, oh, Aquarius, it's just all about the collective No, no, no, no. Absolutely. But it can't do it unless it's being true to that Uranus drumbeat within them. So it's a powerful thing to reflect upon.
It's also you know, I'm recording this today at the Full Moon in Leo and, even though it's not February yet, I think that it is really, really, always quite striking to me to think about What is the full moon illuminating for me right before I go into a new month. Like what - you know, illumination is always so powerful, right? Any Full Moon lets us know what we're complete with, what we're being asked to harvest, what we're being invited to keep, to release, to compost, whatever it is.
[0:15:03]
So that's where the source of clarity comes in, in this theme of clarifying. This idea, and I think it roots back to Saturn square Uranus as well, like: where do our beliefs, our stories, our limitations (self-inflicted or not), conflict or support the ways in which we show up in the world? Are we showing up in the world as our most authentic self? Why or why not? What is it about what we've been told, taught, what we believe - we have the potential if we're available to it, to discover unbelievably profound stuff. Some of it may be very, very internally directed. But some pretty profound stuff about like, “oh, whoa, I haven't been available to this, because of this story in myself and now I'm realizing the story doesn't match, it never matched who I was, it's never been true, but I also don't kind of know who I am without the story.” Like, we're gonna be sitting in a lot of that energy.
And in terms of the theme of Clarify, you know - I had mentioned we're in a time of really radical evolution on this planet collectively, like, something that's taking place over many, many years, we really moved into that at the Saturn / Jupiter conjunction, this kind of Aquarian time that sort of is and isn't like the, quote, “Age of Aquarius.” It's really a shift from the industrial to the Enlightenment. And not enlightenment in kind of a spiritual woowoo¹ sense, but, literally becoming enlightened to systemic oppression, to ways that we may be complicit in those systems, to ways that white supremacy lives within us, to ways in which we play ourselves down, we give our power away, we, you know, believe that we're not deserving of love... like realizations and enlightenments across the board so that we can actually dive in, do the work and change them.
[0:17:31]
But yeah, this theme that we're coming back home to again and again and again is really just the opportunity, the willingness to get clarity on things, to become clarified, to say, “Woah, I never realized,” like...
Things are rarely, I mean… and I want to pause before I say this, but things are both really, sometimes quite simple and also really not simple at all. And I think the latter is often true. That we can tend to limit ourselves, kind of even attack ourselves by saying, like, “Well, other people can do this. Other people have figured this out. Why can't I do it?”
If a tendency to really, really oversimplify in some ways and wildly overcomplicate (Lindsay Laughs) in other ways, at least, I know I have a tendency to do that. I think it's just human nature, frankly. So we're gonna get to play in February and beyond it, but especially kind of this theme in February, we're going to get to play with this idea: Once we have the clarity around something, how can we sit in whatever is underneath that realization, the wounding that may be ready to be reopened, re-expressed, the dams that are ready to kind of break and actually get flooded within us in a great way so that we're not holding anything back.
[0:19:15]
That's very much the theme of Aquarius, too, and is really present in the energy and the imagery of The Star...
Right? Being connected, no clothes, back to ourselves at our most natural self, you know, rooted on the land, rooted in the earth while all of these streams of water are flowing from so many different directions. This is a card of clarification, of clearing things out. We have to be able to kind of go within to see what's ready, what wants to be healed.
The Star is a profound healer but it does require a bit of a journey to touch in with and the way I think we really get there is by touching in with our Uranus card, The Fool, the ruling planet of Aquarius.
We're really, you know, at every moment, always at choice, you know? What are we going to say “yes” to, put up with, keep, leave? And it's rarely so simple as that. And yet sometimes it can be profoundly simple, right? And living in that duality is really interesting, which again, speaks to this idea of clarification, and also working through the complexities within the clarification.
What are we choosing to commit to? The Fool commits to living life, living a particular cycle of saying “yes” to themselves without fear, without shame, without questioning. The Fool says, Yes, I will. The Fool acknowledges, knows where the trap doors might be. The Fool absolutely knows that they're walking off of a cliff. The soul understands, The Fool is the embodiment of the soul, right? The soul knows that there's no getting out of this life alive. We have to leave, we have to commit to the idea that there really isn't a leap in The Fool anyway. There just hasn't been any ground underneath us to begin with.
Understanding a life lived in alignment with Fool, with Aquarian energy, is just acknowledging the fact that everything is ephemeral. Everything's shifting, everything's changing, right? And so are we.
So connecting with this beautiful, fixed air, collective, high, energetic channeling time, I feel like we're not even in the depths of Aquarius season yet with all these planets in Aquarius. I feel like I haven't slept in like two weeks. (Lindsay Laughs) It's a very powerful time for downloads, for channeling, for electrical, almost, impulses and energy. It's potent.
[0:22:28]
So how can we be open to the journey rather than the destination? How can we be open to whatever wants to be expressed and acknowledged? You know, whatever clarifications, whatever insights, illuminations want to make themselves known to us, how can we be open to that? There's so much to explore.
And again, you know, there's never a hard and fast “this is what it will be or not be,” right? We're seeing, we're still opening our eyes, acknowledging, and starting to understand a little bit more. Understanding is sometimes really painful. Sometimes we get clarity on something and we have to agree that - sometimes clarity comes and we are called to celebrate it and we don't know how to - and things exist within all different shades in those spectrums. So just being with it is part of the love that we can offer, you know?
[0:23:30]
So the Wild Soul Collective Reading for February, our card for the month ahead is The Tethered One, or The Hanged One.
I like to call - the deck I'm using is the new Tarot of the Holy Spectrum for this month and Chase renamed “The Hanged One” “The Tethered One,” and I've just decided that's what I'm going to call The Hanged One from now on. (Lindsay Laughs) So I don't like the term “the hanged one” and this is just a reminder that you get to do anything you want with the Tarot. You get to rename anything that doesn't feel right to you. So I love that he renamed it Tethered One and that's just what it's going to be from here on out beyond this podcast.
So our card for the month ahead being The Tethered One: This card is so so powerful and doesn't - there's something that I think is really important about The Tethered One. It's ruled by Neptune and, very often, has this reputation - and I think it's deserved, to a certain extent - of kind of being the space of total liminality. Like your life is just stopped and you're just sort of suspended, right?
Now I want to clear that up. Clarity, (Lindsay Laughs), touching back in with the theme of the month. I would like to invite folx into considering this in a just a slightly different way. That's not wrong, of course, nothing's wrong. But it's also not inclusive of the whole truth and because this is our card for the month ahead, I think it's important to touch in on this.
The Tethered One suspends us, keeps us fixed, focused, “held in the pose,” so to speak. If we want to think about an exercise, movement, yoga practice², whatever it is, in a safe way - although sometimes can be a little, like it can create some heat - it can really be quite uncomfortable to hang out in Tethered One. And the reason that Tethered One is so important across the board is precisely because it doesn't stop our lives, it just keeps us rooted in any area where we're carrying stuff that's already died. It helps us to go in, down to the absolute base of that root way, way down in the earth, and pull it up so that there's nothing remaining in our soil.
[0:26:26]
So I have been in Tethered One energy where I've been pre-COVID bopping around, traveling, really expanding, but also drilling down so deeply into my inner earth and realizing like, “Whoa, this has so much more - this goes down way, way further than I thought.” But then after you pull it out, you're free in some way.
The Tethered One prepares us for Death. We do most of our Death work in Tethered One, actually, so that when we're finally in the Death card, which comes after Tethered One, we're just placing those roots, those gnarled parts of us on the fire. We're just committing to open. We're committed to the actual act of transformation we're letting, in agreement, to let it go. But the actual work of the clearing, of the uprooting, of the emergence, all happens in Tethered One.
And this is such an amazing anchor to have during this big Aquarius season because it basically tells us with all this air, all this Aquarius energy like swirling around way up top in the crown. The Tethered One is essentially showing up in kinship and support, saying “I will help to root you in the areas that are asking for your attention.” So we just want to be paying attention.
[0:26:26]
If we're really in resistance, if we're deep in our ego - and that's not a problem, by the way. We all have egos. We all get deep in our egos. It's not an issue (Lindsay Laughs) if we are, right? But if we're just kind of feeling a bit avoidant, we don't really want to deal with something, The Tethered One will really work to get our attention. It will, you know, hook us by the back of our suspenders and be like “Hey,” you know, and it will keep us rooted and fixed in that pose.
And it can bring up a lot of discomfort. It can bring up a feeling of like, why aren't things moving? Why aren't things going? Why aren't things going in the way that I expected them to? The Tethered One can also facilitate, in the long term, a lot faster movement because it helps to clear away so much that's actually preventing growth from happening.
So Tethered One is weird because it is Neptune, it is so liminal. It is kind of connected to Pisces. It is related to kind of a death, to the end of a road in some way. And that is very much the theme of the month. We're moving toward that candle, that Imbolc light, that little glow on the horizon that is otherwise completely - not dark in any way that is negative - darkness so beautiful - but in a time when we can't really see all that much. That kind of color, that glow on the horizon is quite beautiful and really presents itself as some of what Tethered One is trying to bring.
So, we will be invited, if we're available to it, to embrace this energy to not fight against it, to actually say, “Yes, I would,” you know - to touch in with the part of ourselves that says, “I don't necessarily want to be in Tethered One,” (I don't think anyone like wants that energy), but we can say, “I am absolutely willing and available to not have any parts, any root systems, any dead roots in the soil of my being. I'm willing to pull them up. I'm willing to actually get my hands really dirty and willing to hang out with what feels uncomfortable so that I don't have to have any dead shit, any dead stuff in that root of my being, in the soil of my being.”
[0:30:51]
So we're clearing a lot out by the root and kind of taking it to Aquarius and we're taking it to The Star. We're healing it. We're calling on The Water Bearer to help clear away, flush away what we're no longer meant to be holding anymore. And then we're calling upon The Fool to help plant new seeds, to grow. It's really a very powerful time, but it'll be kind of an interesting thing.
And I think Tethered One also speaks to, of course, Saturn square Uranus, this idea of Aquarius squaring Taurus of what wants to be born, what wants to birth, what wants to come forward, kind of squaring off and coming into contact with what wants to be stable and still and rooted and comfortable. So some of those roots may be quite stubborn. But you know, it's never a problem. This is just like life.
We all have stubborn roots. I have parts of myself that, you know, actively don't want to be uprooted or shifted or changed and they're my little protectors and I love them… and they also don't call the shots of my life. And sometimes there's a lot of conversation, there's a lot of love, there's a lot of space, there's a lot of time, but eventually, they get cleared, you know, in whatever way they're available to.
So, clarification around all of that too, is possible this month as well. You know, having things clarified for us through this process of kind of sitting, waiting, feeling into how deep that root actually goes in the process of pulling it out is often a slow one. It takes time, respect. So, then what we do with that soil, how we nurture that soil and tend to that soil... that's all Tethered One work. And that's all what's possible here with Aquarius. So really, this card is helping us to take that high, high Aquarius energy and root it into the soil to make really lasting, potent change there.
[0:33:14]
The lesson of the month ahead, the opportunity to learn, what we're being invited to really integrate in some way is Knight of Wands.
So this is really Uranus related, to me, even though there's no technical - there's a kind of a root system that I feel here with The Fool and The Knight of Wands even though there isn’t technically one on paper. Knight of Wands has to be what they are. They gotta move, be, express, interact, look like, be embodied on this planet, in their body, how their body wants to be expressing itself. They cannot be tethered, they cannot be cloistered, they cannot be tamed. Knight of Wands energies, like, they're wild at heart. They cannot be fenced. It's not possible. And they don't have to look any type of way to be what they are.
So Knight of Wands is offering us in the form of the lesson of the month a very beautiful opportunity to reflect on where we're comparing ourselves with how other people do things.
Knight of Wands is about autonomy in the way that we take up space in the world. It gives us the permission, it implores that we be ourselves - that we move, follow rhythms, dress, walk, talk, exist, as we feel called to exist. Sometimes it's about radical acceptance of parts of ourselves that we may not necessarily even be all that understanding of, accepting of... this card can really offer us the opportunity to say, Hey, you have an exquisitely beautiful, wise body, being, you know, internal mechanism that does have wisdom, that is totally human, that you're allowed to have opinions about and that is always trying to help, is always offering benevolence in some way. And there's a lot of beauty to that.
[0:36:02]
So where are we in comparison right now? That's a potent question. Because usually, it's somewhere (Lindsay Laughs), right? We're comparing the way we look to someone else. We're comparing what we used to look like to what we look like now. We're comparing what our, you know, business looks like, what our Instagram looks like, what our love life looks like, to another person or another, to an ideal that we've been told is the right thing.
Knight of Wands is a really courageous leaning into saying, “I am willing to trust exactly where I am, the beauty of exactly where I am without necessarily denying my desire”, you know, “to come into a different kind of relationship with myself, with my body, with my friends, with my lovers,” whatever it is, “ I'm able to move through the world, and take up space.”
You know, one great example of that is if we're experiencing fewer spoons than usual and are really in a deep flare, or we know our chronic illness or chronic pain is very, very present, we may get Knight of Wands and think like, “Well, I don't feel like, you know, like, I'm popping off” or whatever. Knight of Wands is not about “popping off.” It's about saying, “Right now, I'm in pain and I may move in a way that is much more steady, much slower, leave space for rest, leave space for grief and for tantrums,” and about honoring the fact that it might not be like that next week. It might be that you move a little differently, it might be next week, you move even slower.
Because there's a little bit more ability to, you know, I know for myself, sometimes I don't get a lot of rest because I'm in pain. I've often noticed, like, sometimes I catch up on my rest when my pain is a little bit more on the manageable side. So this is actually about radical acceptance of where we are at any given moment and how our energy is available to be expressed.
[0:38:09]
What this card is showing, the allyship, the support, the anchoring that it's showing up with this month is like, Don't promise more than you have to give. If you do, you're always welcome to walk it back. You can do anything you want. You don't owe anyone, really, anything.
So if you over-promise, you can just simply say, “Hey, like, my body is letting me know this is a little bit too much right now.” Or “My plate is communicating to me, it's a little full, so how about we meet next month? How about we meet at this time or that time,” or whatever it is, right? About really acknowledging what we're able to do and what we're unable to do, what we're being asked to do and what we're not. And that's very powerful. A lot of magic can happen when we are in the awareness of that.
And this is also totally and completely - as I was saying, there's kind of like a Fool connection to this card for me. This card is really showing up with a lot of assistance around us saying “yes” to our authentic, soul-guided selves so that the Aquarian collective energy can flow through us.
So if you are a helping person, a person of service and you're saying to yourself, “I don't know... I have to do all the things... I want to be all the things... I want to offer this, this and that…” Knight of Wands may actually be the energy that comes in and helps you to refine what wants your attention right now versus, kind of, across the board. It also helps us to move and groove through this world in our way, not trying to do it like anyone else. Just us.
It is imperative that we no longer do any kind of performative pushing in the way that we show up, move, interact with the world. You know, this kind of influencer model of, like we're always there, we're always present, things are always really steady. That's great and we are cyclical spiralic beings. We are. Some more than others. And it is, again, imperative that we move through the world, utilize our energy in the world in the ways that we are really being called to, not in the ways we think we should or other people do.
[0:40:43]
What we're being invited to offer our attention to is Page of Pentacles.
In all of the swirl of Aquarius, in this Saturn square Uranus energy, in Mercury retrograde in Aquarius, which is going to be I think, pretty - I think classically more Mercury Retrograde than - (Lindsay Laughs) Aquarius rules technology, rules the internet, so I feel like there may be more kind of classical tech things maybe. I don't know, we'll have to see. You also don't ever have to be afraid of that, it's fine.
But I think there's a lot of electricity, to me, around that particular retrograde. In the midst of all of this like electrically charged, potently powerful air energy where so much is possible, where we are really being invited to leap off the cliff in this way and kind of, simultaneously, we're in this Tethered One cycle where we're being invited to drop into the roots of our being, The Page of Pentacles is where we're being invited to devote our attention to.
And Page of Pentacles is about devotion in and of itself. Page of Pentacles asks us to, you know, there's a beautiful connect, there's beautiful connective tissue between the Aces and the Pages, between the Ace of Pentacles and the Page of Pentacles.
[0:42:24]
In the Ace of Pentacles, we’re being offered this pentacle and it's up to us as to whether or not we're going to take it and go on the Ace-to-Ten journey with Spirit.
In the Page, we've got it. We've taken it. We're in full ownership, full permissioning, full “yes” to our deep dive with this particular element, pentacle, or suit, or whatever you want to call that.
The Page of Pentacles is here to align us, remind us that we have purpose in this life - that we have our own connection, our own beautiful ability to touch in with that sense of service, of Source. The phrase, the whisper, “What would you have me know?”
I feel like something my teacher has always said about Spirit - and it's always been woven into my work with the Tarot, that question. I ask that of my deck every morning: “What would you have me know?” and have, kind of, Spirit talk to me through the cards in that way. I think that's so Page of Pentacles and that's why what we're being invited to pay attention to in the midst of all this air, earth, kind of cycling, circling - What are the things that root us to our practices, to our spirituality, to our nurturance, to our nourishment? What helps us feel like people - like a person? What helps us feel like ourselves?
Connecting to those resources, that deep reflective tending is crucial this month and really always, but especially crucial, and so lovely that in the midst of kind of going way high into the ethers with all this Aquarius and super deep into the earth with Uranus in Taurus, with our square and with, kind of, Tethered One energy. Tethered One, of course is ruled by Neptune, so it's really more watery. But the same thing applies - kind of going deep into the soil, deep into the ocean. It's really the same. We're touching in with depth, right, and with height.
[0:44:49]
This is kind of where we can keep our gaze trained, you know, is Page of Pentacles, is what we're devoted to, what helps us to connect with service. It can be utter and total presence with feeding your chickens in the morning, with feeding your child, with making breakfast for your child, with feeding your dog or your cat or whatever animal you may have the privilege of tending to. It may be like making your own breakfast in the morning, like being just completely in the midst of all the noise, all the stuff that has to get done and whatever, just being right there. Or it could be how you show up to your movement practice, how you show up to a morning walk, how you show up to an evening walk, how you show up to your Tarot deck, how you show up to your lover, or to a book, or whatever it is, right?
Devotion. Presence. Not feeling like we have to do it alone. Coming home to this idea of being in co-creation. “What would you have me do? How would you have me show up? How might I be of most use today?” is such an anchoring inquiry because it does remind us we don’t have to figure all this shit out. We have a lifelong, infinite connection to our guides, our ancestors, our angels. We're here to be of service, right?
So we can always touch in and Page of Pentacles teaches us, it weaves together all these beautiful, different colors and really allows for so much to be possible there. So remembering you're not alone, leaning on your practices, leaning on your resources and coming back to this question: How might I be of service to my community? To my body? To my heart? To my exhaustion?
We can come to Page of Pentacles with anything that we want to show up in devotion to.
[0:46:57]
How we can love and nurture ourselves through this time: Ace of Swords and The World.
Let's start with The World. Understanding that we're at a tipping point, understanding that we're about ready to clear something out in a permanent way and step forward into something new. This is just fact, right? Saturn has got a “task master-y” kind of an energy. It is rooted in the word, kind of, “no.” It's very connected to “yes” through “no,” training ourselves out of shit that doesn't require us, our attention, our time, whatever, so that we can focus on clearing out, experiencing, processing, mastering, whatever you want to call that, moving through tasks and lessons so that we don't have to do it again, so that we can actually be free and clear of certain things that we're not meant to repeat.
You know, in The World, it's ruled by Saturn. It tells us that we've gone as far as we can go in a certain area. We're ready to move into something new.
One of the ways that we can love and nurture ourselves is remembering that if things get really hard, or intense, or scary, or if things feel really new and exciting and it's freaking you out, or things feel really unclear, frustrating or unfamiliar, remembering, “I am in a Saturn / World cycle right now along with every other human on this planet.”
We are all collectively clearing out systems, cycles, habits, behaviors that have not served for a long time. And that is big. World work is big. It's very big. It's very intense. The brain doesn't like it. So nurturing ourselves, how would you show up for someone that you love in a time like that, right?
[0:48:50]
Ace of Swords. The mind is very powerful and with all of this stuff, the mind is, you know, like I just said, the mind will have a tendency to freak out and tantrum about all this. All this expansion, it is not into it.
Ace of Swords always asks us, “How are you working with your mind? How are you utilizing it?” Sometimes it is important to just stop. To not think about the thing. To actively put it gently in the little box and say, “Hey, I'm going to put you here and I'm going to keep going with my life.” Sometimes it's really important to take it out and work with it, be gentle with it, take the brain, as my teacher, Michelle would say, like with us, right? And we want to do that anyway, but sometimes we, you know, it's always a matter of ebb and flow with that work, right?
So we have the opportunity to take this sword, to direct our communication, our thoughts, our ideas in ways that are either not so constructive, that don't really help us, that may even harm us or others, or we have the opportunity to utilize them for freedom, for exploration, for truth, for communication, for conversation... What are we choosing at any given moment? That is an act of love, that reflection. How am I working with my mental energy?
That's not to say, that's not brain chemistry necessarily, although if that tracks for you, you're welcome to reflect on that, too. Really just, the power of the way that we engage with thought, the way that we utilize, again, our communication or speech, our energy, our time, our inspiration, can be so easily squandered, right? I do, you know, I'm always in that - where my brain’s like, “No, just like, don't do anything,” and, (Lindsay Laughs) you know? There's a million things that my heart actually wants to do that are so much more helpful for my well-being than not. And sometimes it's important to do the opposite, to just like sing, you know, rather than be productive. That's an Ace of Swords act, too.
So how are we channeling that energy? You know, just reflecting on that and seeing places where we can make different choices is going to be so nurturing and so loving to self and others this month - really always, but especially this month.
[0:51:40]
What are we being invited to walk away from this month? Knight of Pentacles.
This is really the message that this card is bringing in this particular position: You can't get it perfectly right. If you're waiting for things to be perfectly right, to be totally square, to be like, the absolute end-all, be-all perfect, you're gonna be waiting forever. It's not a time of rushing, of forcing, of pushing, but, it's not necessarily a time of waiting for all the information.
Getting all the information before we do something has kind of never really existed, but now it's really not a thing anymore. We're flipping into a time where it's really like, we're present with what is, we're showing up to what is, we have whatever amount of wisdom or guidance that we have about it, we might even just have a nudge. We lean into it and through actually testing, trying, experiencing, that's when we figure out, “This doesn't work for me,” you know, this isn't working. Or maybe by not working, it works. Whatever it is, not to be too like all over the place about it.
But Knight of Pentacles is a genius, brilliant being at waiting until they're called. And it's not that we're not meant to be waiting until we're called this month, but we want to watch - what we're ready to walk away from is this idea that we have to wait to go, that we're waiting until we have all the information. That's not what we're doing anymore. We're not waiting until we have all the information to go. We're going and we're learning through experiencing, which is also very Aquarian as well.
[0:55:34]
What we're being invited to reclaim, embrace: Death and Queen of Pentacles.
So Queen of Pentacles is a card of nurturance, of remembrance, of tethering ourselves back to nature, to movement, to the body, to our inner child, to the external parent, to the internal parent. We have parents, I think, that show up for us in so many different ways, not just biologically or birth parents. Embracing and reclaiming our own deep self-care, not as an act of selfishness but as a birthright - it makes most of us pretty uncomfortable, to take deep, beautiful care of ourselves.
Even the act of self-care has really become commodified, right? There's nothing that anybody seeks to gain, other than you, from you, literally like holding, hugging yourself, seeing yourself, hugging your inner 16 year old or your inner five year old while weeping in bed or something, you know? Only you can gain from that.
The Queen of Pentacles is about the internal embodiment and embracing of our own deep wellsprings of restorative self-tending, of self-love. We must begin to embrace this because we're losing all the things that gave us a shallow - we're starting to recognize that certain things are not necessarily going to go back to what they were even post-COVID, it won't quite feel the same. We have the chance to acknowledge where certain things have been surrogates for us, missing pieces in our self-tending, where we've been looking for other people or other things, or titles, positions, whatever it is, to define us in some way, to give us something, to cover over the wound that many of us have around our parents or our raising or, you know, around intimacy, or whatever it is.
Queen of Pentacles invites us to lean into those wounds and embrace ourselves and to literally lay our bodies, if we're able to, on the earth, even on the ground, even though it's totally not the same and I do acknowledge that. But just to feel how the chair, or how the floor, or how the car seat that you're in right now is holding you so tenderly, how the earth is always seeking to hold you so tenderly. Queen of Cups is a chance - sorry - Queen of Pentacles is a chance to always be coming back to that remembering that we're always being held in some way on this planet and that we can show up for ourselves in the same way...
[0:56:56]
...and reclaiming and embracing Death. You know, that's such a powerful concept, right? But this month is very much about a Death / Rebirth time. We see that reflected in many different ways. We see this in the presence of Imbolc, the presence of all of this Aquarius, and in The Fool being embedded in Aquarius. We see this in The World being a card that we're also being asked to love, you know, as a source of love and nurturance at this time. The Tethered One is absolutely a card of profound death and rebirth. There's nothing quite like moving through a Tethered One cycle and coming out on the other side and feeling the weight that has been lifted from the heart now that something that's been dead has been uprooted from the soil of our being. There's a lot of personal willingness work here to go in and uproot while also being kind of tethered, so to speak, to these high Aquarian energies. So it's very interesting.
Clarify, this theme of the month, being connected to Death: When we're in Death card energy, this is not about - it's so powerful to consider Death card energy because it's not reflective of the kind of grief stages and cycles, I believe, that we go through with loss and death on this planet. They're different. In fact, I would say Five of Cups is much more of an ally for loss and direct grief.
Death is psychic death. It's spiritual death. It may be actual death, too, as in death in a relationship, like losing or releasing, clearing a relationship, an old thing of some kind. Radical embracing of the natural life cycles of this life is profoundly empowering. And embracing that, recognizing that grief and confusion and contraction are a part of those cycles, that tethering to gratitude and saying, “Whoa, what was so important about this? And what am I ready to clear?” The capacity for transformative change this month is so powerful.
But the ego... we have to recognize that the ego does not like, doesn't want Death card energy. It doesn't want to go anywhere the fuck near it. Because anything related to actual physical death, actual physical loss, or this kind of more spiritual, esoteric energetic death is a direct threat to the ego’s existence.
Anytime we work with Death card energy, the reason that Death feels so - I've experienced from my students, from listeners of this podcast (and this isn't a problem, by the way) more triggers around the conversations that come up around the Death card than any other card. And there's a reason for that: One, because folx’s responses are wholly valid and completely understandable and, second of all,
Death card is super triggering. It brings up all the things about how we suffer, what we're losing. It makes us very, very tender. In some cases, very brittle, in some cases very, like - it's a hot card, like it really is. It’s really intense. And it's ruled by Scorpio and Scorpio, like they're smooth on the outside, but there's a lot happening on the inside. And Death card brings all that out, you know?
[1:01:04]
How can we embrace this by honoring the fact that anything that's ready to be put on the fire, so to speak, also wants to be clear, that it's ready to go, that we can honor it and grieve it and allow for it and, dare I say, welcome the feelings welcome the natural, normal feelings of feeling like, Holy shit, what am I going to do without this? This habit in my life? What am I going to do without this belief? What am I going to do without this relationship (even if it sucks, it can bring up those feelings, right)?
Embracing that death / rebirth cycles are a very natural, normal part of living in alignment, living on this planet. Period. But also living in alignment with our soul, knowing that we're doing nothing wrong, that everything's going right if we're naturally honoring the cycles of ebbing, flowing, dying, rebirthing.
So we're being invited to embrace our natural rhythms and especially in a time when we are between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox here in the Northern Hemisphere, when we are kind of in this, going to be building toward this Saturn square Uranus, transit, when we are in this time of ebbing, flowing, of going up and going down, going in, going out, you know, how do we root? You know, what's our center?
In some ways, Death can be a really welcome center, because we understand this isn't for nothing. We're clearing this so that we can be freer to step more into what brings us joy. What actually feels constructive, what actually feels playful and delightful?
Yeah, so it's a big month and I've found - this is my now second. Monthly Medicine for 2021 -.they're very, they're more loose this year. I don't know, we may not be able to feel that in it, but I do. They're not so directed. It's really just like we're in a big, big, multi-year long process of changing things on this planet in a very radical and very realistic way as it pertains to, again, systemic oppression, state sanctioned violence, the climate crisis - there's so many things, named and unnamed, that have to change. It's a “do-or-die” situation. And we cannot be a part of that kind of collective change without doing the necessary internal work to show up for it.
[1:03:56]
So that's the invitation. Right? And it'll show up differently for us across the board. We may never go back to this. It may be very present for us. We may not see how it connects to what we've gone through. We may see exactly how it connects... really, it doesn't matter (Lindsay Laughs). It's just an invitation for us to reflect on where we can anchor in the midst of these times.
But yeah, I certainly hope that this resonates, that this serves, that it inspires you to step into your own reflective understandings of these cards, to go deeper, to go further, to explore what might want to come through you in your own way. And, yeah, it's been, as always, such a joy and a pleasure to be gathered with you around, sort of, again, the podcast fire.
[1:04:53]
I guess some updates: the website, the new website, is due to drop in late February. It was supposed to drop in January and then a million things changed with it in the best way. And, yeah, it should be late February, the website change, and if that changes, I'll let you know. But, (Lindsay Whispers) it’s going to be gorgeous. It's so beautiful. I’m very excited to share it with everybody.
We've got new offerings coming out, through the year, through next year. It's going to be a very, very nice, really, it's a complete rebirth of the work. But the work isn't really changing. It's just getting polished, which is quite lovely. A very different experience with - like I say, it's a rebrand, but really, everything's kind of the same, it's just being reshaped, which is really fun. It's like building a new house for my kids (Lindsay Laughs), or something like that, you know. It's really sweet, but they're telling me the kind of house that they want. So anyway, it's a lot of fun and nerve-wracking and crazy to be a part of, but great. And I think that's all my news. If I forgot it I'll bring it up at the next podcast.
But yeah, just loving all of you, wishing all of you a really sweet transition into February. We will touch in with one another throughout the month and until we connect, ‘til we meet again, please take care of yourselves.
[Conclusion]
(Instrumental exit music)
[1:06:36]
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 For better understanding of why "woowoo" is potentially harmful, please see this post. I invite you to consult your own wise knowing on this term and report that I will be striking this word from my podcast. I sincerely apologize to any and all communities who are harmed by this expression.
² We reference this post with attention to the packaging of yoga in the West as referring to only 1 or 2 of the 8 Limbs of the greater spiritual practice of yoga. I will no longer refer to the practice of asana as "yoga" in its entirety and invite your wise inner knowing to further investigate decolonizing yoga with me. I offer my heartfelt apology to those communities who are harmed by this reduction of the greater, sacred practice of yoga.
For Further Exploration
