155. Soul Tarot 101: Tarot & The Present Moment
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Each week for the next four weeks on the Tarot for the Wild Soul podcast, we will dive into and explore each of the four core pillars of Soul Tarot + answer some beautiful Q’s from the community.
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About the Episode
On today’s episode of the podcast, I share about an experience I recently had where I tried to glean a little about an upcoming cycle and got served Tarot cards that were rooted in the present moment, and answer a listener’s question about whether it is essential to have a consistent, daily Tarot practice (hint: no :)).
Plus: get the inside scoop on my huge new website relaunch, and my brand new upcoming Soul Tarot fundamentals course, Rewilding the Tarot!
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: trauma, grief, mental and physical illness, chronic pain, capitalistic structures, patriarchy
The content in this episode contains references to trauma, grief, mental and physical illness, chronic pain, capitalistic structures, and patriarchy. 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]
This is Tarot for the Wild Soul, a weekly Tarot podcast about life, death, and rebirth, hosted by me, Lindsay Mack.
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(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 just so wonderful, so grateful to be gathered with you in this virtual space. Thank you so much for being here with me.
So, in honor of my brand new website, tarotforthewildsoul.com, and my brand new upcoming Soul Tarot Foundations course, and the brand new sister course too, Tarot for the Wild Soul, which is also in the midst of a pretty huge evolution as a course and a container of learning, this month on the podcast, we're going to play with something a little different. Because so much of the launch of this new website and so much of Rewilding the Tarot is really rooted in foundations and roots and spaces and in solidity to structure, for the next four weeks, we're going to look at each of the four core tenants of Soul Tarot, which is the kind of Tarot that I developed and teach and have been developing since I was 12 years-old, and really look at how we can engage with these tenets as a helpful reference point to recenter when we are experiencing an aspect of difficulty as it relates to our Tarot practice. So we're gonna play with each one of them for the next four weeks. And I'm also going to answer, on each of these four weeks, a listener question. So very, very excited to dive into that.
[0:02:05]
And if you're interested, by the way, in checking out the new website, it's tarotforthewildsoul.com, again, and if you want to know more about the brand new course, you can check it out at the link on the show notes. You'll likely hear quite a bit about it over the next few weeks as we develop film and really birth it out into the world, and enrollment opens for it next Thursday, March 11th.
So without getting terribly into detail, the four core tenants of Soul Tarot are really not hard and fast. They might change, honestly (Lindsay laughs), and I never really set out to create tenets. They really formed themselves, it's been more of a retroactive realization about what these tenets actually were. And they are as follows, and they're not absolutes. Again, they're not something you're supposed to engage with. They're not hard and fast rules, you know, I'm not about that. But again, they are supportive guideposts and anchors for recentering during, again, difficult, challenging moments of getting to kind of a deeper level, a connective tissue level with our decks or our pulls in some way.
So the first one is, all tarot cards are for us, not to us.
So when we pull a tarot card, it's not coming at you. It's not to you, it's not doing anything to you, although it totally can feel like that sometimes. I promise you that even if you hate it, it's bringing something for you. That can be, I believe, probably the most impactful tenet to dick around, with the cards that you cannot stand.
[0:04:02]
Can you stand in your feelings that you can't stand them and consider, even like writing it down on a piece of paper, what might such an energy like this be doing for me? And you might really find, like, nothing? How dare Lindsay say this? (Lindsay laughs)
Just, I feel like one of the most powerful things we can do with any kind of practice like this is to kind of sit in those questions. And notice the impulses to be like, “Hey, other person, like what the fuck did you mean by this?” Really sit with it, you know, because it likely will yield to some pretty powerful discoveries. So we're not bypassing anyone's feelings about it. We're just really saying that all tarot cards, if we pull them, they are bringing something for you. You can absolutely hate the experience. And you can totally be like, “I don't want it.” That's always welcome. But there is always a core of helpfulness that's at every pull. They're trying, really, to help you come back home to yourself.
[0:05:04]
The second core tenet is there really truly are no bad and good cards. They all bring medicine of some kind. That's really, really specific for the folks who get super caught up in like, this is a bad card, this is a good card, this is a positive card, this is a negative card. That's not really true. Well, I can't say it's not true. Like you're so allowed to feel that way. You're so allowed to have that. I don't want to take anything away from anything, because also one of the core tenets of Soul Tarot is there really are no rules, so I'm gonna have to catch myself in that one.
It's very, very powerful to consider how it might be limiting your practice, your pulls, your relationship with certain cards, as you read for yourself, if you might be reading for someone else, by believing that a particular card is bad or good, right?
Again, you cannot like it, but that doesn't make it bad. You can be uncomfortable with it. That doesn't make it bad. You can adore it. That doesn't make it good. They just are. They're neutral. And really, you know, of course, it's true that there are experiences in life that are horrific and experiences that are wholly joyful. So I'm not taking away from that. What I do think is really powerful that I've seen, totally, totally transform my students’ relationships with their cards and their decks, is to identify “Where am I believing that this card is a problem, when it could actually be bringing something really nurturing that I'm maybe not 100% available for because I'm thinking that it's so bad or that I'm doing something wrong by pulling it?”
This is specially for, like, the people in the back who are having a great day, everything's great, and they pull a bunch of cards that are “bad”, and everything just falls and drops. Because they think “Oh no, like, Am I doing good?” Then we question ourselves, we wonder if something’s bad gonna happen. So this tenet is a way to begin to unravel that, to begin to trust ourselves, to really know that they're so benevolent at their core, these cards. They're just such brilliant helpers, because they're all a mirror to some part of us.
[0:07:33]
The archetypal system in Tarot existed long before it was brought down into card form. These archetypes are eternal. They are forever. They are cross-cultural (Lindsay laughs), like they exist. Like The Magician is present in every culture. It may not be in the same incarnation that it is. Really important to acknowledge what culture, you know, is being pulled from.
Are we being appropriative with the way that we're engaging with that particular archetype? But it lives within all of us and it is present everywhere. They all want to bring some kind of medicine, so to be willing to consider, we may pull The Sun card and feel like shit. And that's cool. That we may pull The Tower and be ecstatic. That the less, or the more rather, we start to unpack and investigate, like, “Why do I feel, like, who told me that an Ace was good and The Devil was bad? Like who and where did that come from? And why did they start to believe? Does that actually match with my experience?”
Thinking for ourselves, critical thinking super important, honoring our own experiences doing our own field research. And again, this isn't to say like, you have to love the cards that don't feel comfortable to you, but are they bad? That's maybe, maybe not, right? So just curiosity about that. Just an openness and willingness to consider.
[0:09:06]
The third core tenet is that each tarot card is an invitation, not necessarily a predictor of what will be or not be. So a big, solid, huge, major pivot from, you know, that's where most of us start is with trying to see the patterns that are to come, that you know, we're pulling cards and thinking, “Oh, this is what's going to happen.”
Most Tarot spreads have a little bit of something rooted in the future, rooted in the past, and that can be really hard when we try to apply “Well, exactly what does this pertain to, you know, etc.?” If we are to consider, and again, all I ask is that you consider it. It doesn't necessarily have to be your truth, your way Like everything I say, it's just a consideration. Nothing I'm saying is the way or the truth, period. But if we are to consider each card that we pull as an invitation, rather than what is, what will be... very powerful.
It will shift the way we speak about these archetypes. It will shift the way we, I believe, the way that we give back agency to our clients, if we're readers. That this is an invitation for you, rather than what's going to happen, what's here, you don't know. Like, I don't want to disrespect anybody, but it's hard to know that. So an invitation. Very powerful to consider that. Very powerful.
And the force that we're kind of going to spend just a touch of time on today, I'm going to share a story about how this showed up in my life this week, as it relates to my website launch, is that the tarot truly shines and lives in the present moment. Now, does this mean that there are not practices, cultures, ways of looking at the Tarot, for the future that are not whole and sacred and beautiful? Absolutely not. There are closed practices that are rooted deeply in divinatory practices that deserve to be honored and totally respected. And for me, for what really tracks as being as useful as possible. And something that has always really felt important to me is that there is no fixed future, really. The present is all there is. So while we may be able to pick up on cycles of the future, what's to come in a reading, it is very, very challenging to always do it. And it's very, very challenging when the present is so strongly calling us home.
[0:12:18]
So I, again, have nothing but respect for the way that other folks use the Tarot, like that's for them. This is what I know to be true for myself, that when we come home to the present moment, when Tarot is allowed to be a mirror for what is here, what is truly here, it can do many, many things.
One, it can be an anchor, that brings us home to ourselves. If we're upset, if we’re bored, if we're lonely, if we're triggered, if we’re sad, sometimes a pull can be just the thing to bring us back home and be like, “Oh shit, like, I didn't even notice.” It can help us, too, when we're wanting to be off in this, off in that thing, it can help us to come home. It can be a way for our inner self or our guides to be like, “Sweetheart, you're not done (Lindsay laughs) with, like, what's here.”
Really, every step we take, builds the bridge to the next destination of our life. So what happens when we want to be a mile down the bridge and it hasn't even been built yet? That's ultimately life, like we don't know that we don't know. So again, there are beautiful practices that are rooted in seeing what is to come. And I honor and bow to that. And in Soul Tarot we really it's a non-predictive tool, really. We're rooting into this moment and really paying attention to what is present. And it's not, again, a hard and fast, just as I’ve said. Total respect to other folks doing it differently. But in terms of, again, utilizing and considering each one of these tenets as a way to help us deepen, recenter, get a little bit clearer when we feel stuck. That's really, again, like Soul Tarot is really just, if anything at all, it's just a really, really solid foundation, a very solid structure upon which you get to build your own aligned meanings. If, you know, this way of viewing the Tarot resonates with you, which it may not.
So what, with regard to tarot really shining in the present moment. Because my practice has been non-predictive and largely rooted in the present for most of my life, I still am learning even when I touch in with the lightest of questions about life, “What am I stepping into? What's sort of in the next cycle?” I very rarely don't get an answer to it. I very rarely just simply get a response that is rooted in the here and now. And that's it. And there's not really all that much (Lindsay laughs) that's offered to me as a way of looking at what's to come.
[0:15:27]
So I'll share this with you. And, again, there are far harder things. But definitely launching this website was a big one. It was a very big expansion. It brought up a lot, was a very stressful week. There were multiple, kind of, little ruptures that happened. I had a huge trauma flare. It was big, the vulnerability, kind of, there was huge fear in it. And at that time, spirit was not really talking to me about Rewilding, but it was they were also telling me like it was happening. So my brain self was just totally panicking about kind of not knowing. And so on the day that I knew the course was gonna launch, I didn't know what time Monday. Wound up being around 10:30 at night.
I cleared my altar. I sained my space. I opened up the windows, and I went to my deck, and asked, “You know, what new expansions, like what new worlds, am I walking into with this new website?” I went to my deck with so much excitement and so much delight, and I pulled Four of Pentacles. (Lindsay laughs) And I was like, “okay.” So I went back, and I said, “What else would you have me know?? and pulled Five of Cups. And I went “Alright.” And I said, “Is there anything else you'd have me know?” And The Chariot came forward too. And it didn't take me long, because again, this is my practice, to realize they didn't answer me.
They gently bypassed my question and drew me back into this moment. And they let me know, “Sweetheart, your body needs some care. Please remember, you're not finished yet. Energetically, boundaries. Be super gentle with this human body of yours. Be willing to draw yourself into the refuge of this Four. What might feel good here? What might feel nurturing here? What might you feel called to? What might feel like a breath, some ease in this?”
[0:17:53]
And I just didn't want to look at that. I just hadn't been looking at that. I wanted to move right past where I was - this really, really uncomfortable space of being almost there, but not quite there.
They were reminding me. They were shining a mirror back to me. They were speaking from my body in a way that, you know, helping to amplify a part of myself, that some part of me, was willing to see because it came forward. And they were reminding me with Five of Cups like, “Honey, there's still some grief. There's still some fear in bowing and saying goodbye to Lindsay Mack.com.” Like that's big. There's been a lot of patches of deep grieving of that. Thanking and bowing and blessing and appreciating my little website that really didn't do a very good job of sharing with people what I was doing, because I was really afraid to be seen, which is challenging to share. But as all of you know, I'm committed to being transparent. And it is the truth. That is a big deal, and does bring up a lot for me.
So it was reminding me to honor it's not finished yet. Honor those three spilled cups. The two full ones will be behind you when you're ready to turn, when there's a natural turning. So there's two pieces inside of this surprise pull that I just hadn't had my eyes on, or they were there and I wasn't really giving them much time, which was that there was absolutely grief and contraction in this ecstatically beautiful, exciting transition and that that was okay, that that was to be expected in fact. And could I honor it?
[0:19:54]
You know, Five of Cups is absolutely about making space for grief, not just in the moment we pull it, but just in life, that grief can come with us. It can actually be important to bring it with us, you know, it can create so much more destructive energy when grief isn't really acknowledged, right? It can turn into some really big other emotions, you know, that are important to tend to, with or without the element of grief but definitely important with that. And it amplified and illuminated for me that my body was asking for me. My body, like Four of Pentacles is all about the body. It's all about the energetics of the body and spirit was reminding me, me was reminding me, “As your website shifts, there's going to be different energetic tugs and pulls and all different kinds of things that you're likely feeling around you and you can absolutely not be available to tend or deal with or even hold any of those, that you can really come home to the deep refuge in yourself and how might you do that?”
And then Chariot, it really helped me to see. It helped to tie it all together. Chariot is so much about, you know, I've said on this podcast and in my teachings, like Chariot is exactly like baby teeth. Like they're really important. They get us where we're supposed to go and then eventually we're supposed to lose them. And that's exactly what this website was, exactly what Tarot for the Wild Soul course was. That's baked in this too, and I could feel that. That really honoring and bowing to the previous incarnation, iterations, of the Tarot for the Wild Soul course was essential for really welcoming and letting Rewilding be what it wanted to be and also giving Tarot for the Wild Soul the freedom to be what she wants to be.
[0:22:02]
Chariot is so much about honoring the containers, the things, the identities, those chariots of life that take us from point A to point B that we’re meant to, at a certain point, leave behind, like the crab releasing a shell, metaphorically, obviously. That we’re meant to come into a little bit more of our vulnerability, a little bit more of our softness, and step into a new world.
It's a huge thing. And while my mind was on like, excitement, expansion, joy, maybe spirit, maybe me, maybe my heart, maybe all of it, was gently bringing me back home to what was, to what is.
And there was an allowance in me upon really acknowledging like, “Oh, yeah, this moment is all there is.” The expansion, the website's not even live yet, the expansion will be when it's ready. Like it'll be when it's ready to be. That was a big deal and helped me to stay in touch with the parts of myself that needed the most tending as I really walked through the final day. So I find that I never reach even like a step past this moment. All of my pulls personally, are just rooted in what's right here. Like, what I'm being invited to pay attention to, what spirit would have me know, what is present? What is? What am I being invited to learn about at this moment?
Really, those are my core questions in my own personal practice, but every once in a while, there are times where I will want to know, like, and I can't even do your head spreads anymore, really, for myself (Lindsay laughs). But there are times when the more rooted I get with these archetypes, the more I greet them without judgment, without expectation, without story of what they should or shouldn't be, what they are, bad, good, otherwise. The more they draw me in to what's here, and the more that just continues to be the space of the deepest medicine for me, because it really is none of my business personally what the expansion to come is, that there's still so much more to do right here.
[0:24:45]
So we lose that. It's really easy to lose that in general, but if we're willing, if we want to, the tarot can bring us back home and I bet you almost every single person listening to this podcast right now has had his experience, where you ask about something like, “What am I being invited to know about my new job that's gonna start in a week?” And you get cards that you're like, “What the fuck is this?” That maybe even scare you. Because you think like, “Oh my god, there's Tower here, whatever.”
What if The Tower is coming to you to tell you, “This new job is so big, that there's going to be a lot of Tower love in your life in the week leading up to this new job so you don't take anything into the job with you that's not meant to go.” So that is a week where maybe a deeper root comes up, or a deeper insecurity comes up, or something that like comes out of the woodwork they haven't dealt with in 10 years. And we might think like, “Why now?”
But really, there are times when those things absolutely happened to me before this launch, where there were a couple things that I was like, “Oh my god.” Like that were such hard, scary or challenging, ruptures that were like, how dare you (Lindsay laughs) have this come up, like, during such a scary time? And yet, all of the things that came up were things I absolutely had to move through in order to not take them with me into whatever the site wanted to be, so not romanticizing that. It was really painful and uncomfortable, and sometimes things just suck, and I really just want to honor that. But it can be really powerful to just consider it again, all it is, is just a consideration.
[0:26:35]
So how this core tenet can really be of service and of use, is if you notice that you are getting pulls that you're like, “What the fuck is this?” Come back home to the question you asked. How exactly did you frame it? And was it a little bit stepped out of this moment or maybe even a lot? And perhaps, are these cards, maybe not what you want to receive, maybe they're exactly what you need. And maybe even hating them is a part of the medicine for you. Yes. (Lindsay laughs) A lot of the time when I cannot stand a card, and I'm like, “How dare you show up here?” It's really important for me, maybe not for you because you know, we're all different, but I do find very important field research to do to really be like, “Whoa, wow, that reaction is really interesting.” And again, you don't have to, but can really, really radically shift your practice, because the downside of what can sometimes happen is if we're sort of a little off into it, and my question wasn't even so future based. It was literally like the website that was gonna launch that day, “What's the expansion that I'm moving in? Like what's the anchor card for this new time?”
Spirit was like, “Honey, like no) there's still stuff to do right here (Lindsay laughs). It's not even formed yet.” You know, there likely wasn't even an answer yet. Because it wasn't birthed into the world, you know, not until it was. So yeah, very, very powerful.
And how this core tenet can help most, I believe, is that it can really help to take some of the sting out of the moment when we pull cards, and they don't match with what we're expecting, or they confuse us, or they really put us off, and we think we did something wrong. And we must not have asked right, pulled right, when really it could actually be a mirror that is presenting itself to you to help you come home to something that is so longing for your attention that you might not even be aware of.
So that is, probably when that came up I just thought “Wow, what a perfect example to bring forward on the podcast.” And I'll often talk about my own experiences, but I do think sometimes it's really valuable. Sometimes I do, but certainly not as of late. So I thought that this one was valuable, but very, very strong.
[0:29:23]
Recentering, like the potential of it, is really quite powerful to provide the ability to say, “Yeah, like this might be actually kind of leapfrogging over what I asked and going into something that I'm being gifted information to know about.” So yeah, just I wonder to see how that feels for you and what that might bring forward.
So, yeah, that's one of the four. Next week we'll do another one. I already have my example for next week for you, that it's been really fun to be like, “Oh, wow, I'm being called to sort of storytell from my own life.” That's cool about these. And so I already have again next week, that's for sure. And, yeah, so hopefully that helped and offered something to you.
And I'm going to answer our listener question of the week. So this one is from Nicolette and Nicolette asks, “I find living with mental and physical illnesses, that it's hard to always be at my deck. I've heard many people say it has to be a constant thing. Is pulling daily or very regularly optional, or majorly important for tarot practice? I've been reading for some years now, but recently, my health just won't allow regular readings. I also feel a big alignment to The Temperance card in regards to this and many other aspects. I’m wondering if you could speak a little on this card as a guide of sorts. Hope that makes sense.” So I will do my best.
[0:31:01]
Absolutely not. You do not have to do anything regularly. So that's number one. As somebody who lives with mental and physical illnesses myself, I live on spiral time. Like, sometimes I'm not at my deck at all for a week. Sometimes I pull and it's like one card, “What am I being invited to pay attention to today?” Bam, great. You know, sometimes it's way more like, “How can I come home to this need in my body?” and sometimes it's nothing and sometimes it's everything. You don't need to do anything.
Again, this is why I teach about reading spiralically because we're not linear, especially those of us living with these kinds of daily realities of pain or of physical and mental illness. So absolutely, with trauma, whatever it might be, you come to your deck, it's there. It's a harbor and a refuge and you have your whole life. I mean, while I totally understand why people say you got to do it consistently. For why, though? (Lindsay laughs) Like, for whom? For what? Like, who are we doing that for? Like, I want to just be very respectful before I say what I'm about to say (Lindsay laughs), which is that reading consistently, if you want to be a reader, reading consistently, absolutely will help you to understand and illuminate and unpack become really intimately familiar with these cards. That's one way.
There are also other ways that are totally valid, like reading when you're called to, like doing a kind of a tarot anchoring practice, another sort of cornerstone of Soul Tarot, which essentially says, “You don't have to pull or do a spread or do a reading.” If you have felt senses, if you have a kind of a grooved in connection that you can form with certain cards, you can really read decklessly. You can really read without even pulling. You can just call upon in your mind, during certain moments, this particular card as an anchor for the moment, and the way you might do that is let's say for like, you know, if I have chronic pain, I'll speak for myself that very often when I have chronic pain, Nine of Wands is such an ally for me. Because, for me, it always comes up as just a beautiful teacher. And a reminder that like, you can rest, like you can rest. I feel like Four of Swords is sometimes like, “Shut your brain off and go offline.”
Nine of Wands just says like, “Rest here, like rest.” You may feel called to get up and do something different tomorrow, but like doesn't need to be charged, straight line, whatever. And I don't need to pull Nine of Wands, it's so in my own heart as an anchor, that I've done on purpose by the way, that's not like an accident. I've woven either in a letter that I've written to myself or in a journal or sort of over time layered on top. There are immediate sense memories, tools, experiences and resources that come to the front of my mind when I see it.
[0:34:48]
You know, I call upon Nine of Wands, there's like a physical, somatic experience that happens that reminds me, these four things could really nourish you. The top of the list could be just like fall into bed, for like an hour or three (Lindsay laughs) depending on how much pain you're in or whatever. So that's why I teach Tarot Anchoring, because I can't do readings like that all the time.
Tarot has become a tool that comes with me personally through anything. I read for myself no matter what arises and like, I've always done it on the subway, in a bathroom, like when I need it, just like, “How can I be with what is?” That's always, that's Soul Tarot. It's just like, “What's here? How can I come home? What's the truth? Like how can I come into the center with the truth?”
So don't want to say that's like the the fix it, you know, is like, you can really just kind of pick up your deck and take it with you and be like, “Is there anything here that wants to volunteer itself as a kind of, as an anchor for me in this moment?” And you can pull it and be like, “Hmm,” and like turnover or not. So I think that sometimes, all that to all that being said, I sort of jumped around a bit that there's just the lightest whiff of some probably uninvestigated capitalism, inside of the over-cultural feeling like you got to do it consistently, you got to do it all the time.
I think we're that way with everything. Like, we can't deviate, God forbid, you know. I just want to shower you, with permissioning, you're doing everything right. If you're not feeling called to your deck, you're just not. It's there any time. It's not going anywhere. You're not disappointing anyone. You are perfect. Honoring your own spiral rhythms is ideal.
And the only reason, by the way, I mentioned my own experience in Tarot Anchoring is if you actually do want to engage with it in ways that feel way more conducive to your particular spiral flows, those are some ways that I've found to be particularly helpful. We're likely very different people, so they may not for you, but that's there for you. You know, that's there for you if you want to consider it, but I do not believe that pulling daily is majorly important for a tarot practice.
[0:37:23]
I believe that pulling when you feel called and honoring that, and not bringing in a kind of a push to your practice is more important than regularity. And I imagine that there are, for all of us, things that come up, where we maybe move away from our deck for a really long time. That's just like any other relationship. Sometimes we drift apart, sometimes we only connect during certain times. But when we do, it's so nourishing. So I wonder if you gave yourself permission to only pull when you wanted to, and to pull in a way that actually met you where you were, how that might shift things, if at all.
Even just knowing that you're doing everything right as you are right now, I hope provides some real spaciousness within you because you're doing great and regular. You read whenever you want to.
I feel The Temperance card in this too for you. I really do, because I think that, I don't want to, certainly don't want to presume that I know how you're thinking about it in this context (Lindsay laughs) because I don't and how I might bring about an understanding of how this fits might not be how you do, but I feel it. I do because I think when we stop trying to do what we feel like we should do or what other people want us to do or we can have the invitation right, from our mind and ego and stuff.
But it's different if we're acknowledging the invitation like you have to pull every day, what's going to happen, and you don't because you're really saying like, “I'm actually not available. I don't really want to.” You know, what would be the worst thing that happened? Well, you’ll never be a reader. Okay. Maybe not for the kind of people who want that. But, you know, for the kind of folks who also live on spiral time, I think I would be able to greet them with such witnessing and acknowledgement. Just like I'm not for everybody. Okay, I'm certainly not for everybody. I’m not everybody's cup of tea at all.
So, really, Temperance is that moment where we stop. We truly come into a kind of a co-creative relationship with the universe at hand, with something bigger than us, with something that can hold us. That we can actually be reformed, transformed, through allowing, through surrendering, through saying, “You know, spirit, I'm just not getting the call to read. And I feel all kinds of feelings about it, failure that I should be doing it differently, nd I'm going to just sit with those feelings or not. (Lindsay laughs) You know, I'm just going to name them and then I'm going to go back to doing what I'm doing.”
[0:40:34]
I think when we have that kind of spacious allowing, and maybe even cap it off with, “If there's something I'm being invited to know, understand about this, I'd like to know. I'd like to know it.” I think that that can be really, really powerful. And again, I also think Temperance is really present in this idea of like, we all have our own way with this tool, period, full stop. That there is absolutely an acknowledgment of a kind of a middle path that's been developed of like, what a tarot practice “looks like” and I acknowledge that it's there, and I also refuse to acknowledge that it's the way and even the ethical way.
Like if you're saying that people are telling you, you have to do something consistently, and ignore your own higher knowing about it, it’s not… it's a system I feel like that deserves a little bit more unpacking (Lindsay laughs). So, but it's there, you know, we all have it and capitalism and patriarchal structures and appropriation is all baked into a lot of modern day tarot practices. So you are doing some, I believe radical divestment. Radical divesting in those structures, by honoring your own rhythms, by honoring “I show up in the moment, when I hear a yes.”
I might even have my own way of pulling. I might even have my own questions that can form from that, like my core questions that I bring to my deck: “What am I being invited to pay attention to?” If I'm speaking directly to spirit, “What would you have me know right now? What is present, obviously? What am I learning about?”
All of that has come from me, living with exactly what you're describing, and really just wanting to come home to myself as much as I can. Those are the questions that feel really good to me. I don't care about bigger readings, not interested. I don't teach them. I don't give a shit (Lindsay laughs). And I love the people who do like, I think it's great. I love my sweet students who are like, “What's the spread? Can you, like, what spread should I do for this?”
[0:42:59]
And like, I don't know, because I don't do spreads like that, you know, like you make it. You know, if you're feeling a call to it could be you that we all have our own way. And I think you have a beautiful way that might be calling your attention. And that might be where Temperance is coming with a little bit of extrasensory guidance for you. Maybe there's a whole way of working with the tarot that meets you where you are. And maybe opening to that, moving beyond that sort of, like “consistency just for consistency’s sake” paradigm could actually open up a whole new world. So I don't know. But that's just sort of what came up for me when I heard you know, when I read your questions, so I hope that this helps and serves. And thank you so much for asking such a great question.
Because I think a lot of us feel this way, like, “Oh, I should be doing this every day.” No way. It takes a long time to even develop your own organic questions, to even, like, feel into. There were so many other folks’ readings and spreads that worked for me for a really long time. And then after a while, I started to notice like, oh, this is just my own natural kind of… (Lindsay laughs) This is the question I really have. This is the inquiry that I'm most interested in. I'm not really interested in this and that, so and other people are totally different. So we all are where we are, and we all go where we go. And really just you have your own rhythm, your own process, your own brilliance with this tool, not to keep taking it back to this, but that really is one of the other core tenets of Soul Tarot which again, there are no rules.
Like the way you're doing, you have the freedom to break those rules. 100% and in fact, I think, the willingness to consider breaking them, thinking beyond them, is actually what helps us to form our own integral, rooted practices, and that actually allows our relationships to form because the tarot is alive, like it is its own. It's a tool that, again, it's not sentience, but it is a powerful reflection of us and a powerful conduit for, you know, really benevolent, helpful medicine to come through. And it's a relationship.
So if you are in a relationship with a friend and you forced yourself to see them every day that wouldn't be the most respectful thing even. We're not intimating that anyone's being disrespectful by going to their deck in a very dedicated way. Don't want anyone's nervous system to take that on. But it is kinder often to say, “I am not available to come to tea today, I'm sorry.” And being open to the tarot, potentially saying, “I'd love to come to you and I'd love to bring this. Would you be open?” And maybe it's in a totally different way than you think.
So just long story short, your great regular practice is not necessary, and I think with regard to Temperance, there's a pretty powerful breadcrumb trail in there that's helping you to come to your own practices, understandings, relationship with this tool, perhaps in a deeper or different way.
[0:46:28]
So thank you for listening, Wild Souls. It’s been really fun. Again, just want to shout out anybody who is interested in learning more about Rewilding the Tarot, which again, is sort of the new sister course, in the initial step in the Soul Tarot course journey, as it were. If you're interested in that, you can click the link in the show notes or go to tarotforthewildsoul.com. Definitely check out the new website. I'd love to hear what you think and what you love about it, because I know that you're gonna love it, because it's gorgeous.
Yeah, and until really, before I kind of close here, I just want to, again, reiterate that the function of discussing these core tenets and of even teaching Soul Tarot and the fundamentals of it, isn't to tell you that this is the way to read tarot.
And I want to be really explicit and clear and potentially repetitive about that, that I think that what it does do is help to free up some of those places where we get really caught and stuck in the “shoulds”, in our confusions, in our blocks, in what we've been told, and have just sort of taken without really questioning. It's something I'm perpetually undoing and rewilding in myself too. It’s like what I've been told about a particular card, what I've heard about a particular card, can take years to undo that. So these tenets are not to tell you this is the way and the road to reading tarot, but actually, the way and the road exists within you, and only you. And I think that these core tenets can help in moments as a compass, when you're like, where the fuck am I on this road?
I think that they're quite effective just to tune in with, just to pull your compass out and be like, “Okay, interesting. Great.” And then you keep working on your own path. So yeah, I hope it serves if it resonates, if it doesn't, that's okay. Really. (Lindsay laughs) I would hope that you'd have your own understandings that you'd be leaning on anyway.
So I love all of you, Wild Souls. And I'm just so excited to dive into this new year with these new course offerings. And this new website that is such a gorgeous love letter to you, really, and a space that I've dreamed of building for this community that can be an intentional space of totally accessible learning and of tools, and of all different kinds of things. So I hope you love it. Thank you as always for being here. And until we meet again, please take care of yourselves.
[Conclusion]
[0:49:29]
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