156. Soul Tarot 101: Tarot as Medicine
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This week, we continue on our exploratory deep dive of the Four Pillars of Soul Tarot. Last week, we looked at what happens when we frame the Tarot in the present moment, rather than out into the future about something arbitrary, rather bringing it back home to ourselves. In this episode, we look at how The Tarot always shows up as medicine—there really are no good cards, and no bad cards.
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About the Episode
Happy New Moon in Pisces, loves!
On today’s episode of the podcast, we dive into all of this wild Pisces energy, and deepen our exploration of the four pillars of Soul Tarot by considering that all cards (even the "bad" or "negative" ones) bring medicine. Plus, I share a recent experience I had where I pulled some cards that didn't match my inner experience (and how I navigated it), and answer a listener’s question about what to do when "positive" cards show up in a reading as what we are releasing.
Plus: Rewilding the Tarot is officially open for enrollment! 🥳 Learn all about it here!
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
The content in this episode contains references to trauma. 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]
Hey Loves, it’s Linds. Just wanted to take a quick moment to share the very exciting news that Rewilding the Tarot, my brand new course is officially open for enrollment.
Rewilding the Tarot is a self-guided foundational Tarot course for folks who desire to learn the fundamentals of Soul Tarot theory as taught and developed by me. This course is the brand new sister course for the Tarot for the Wild Soul course and has sort of absorbed quite a bit of what was covered in Tarot for the Wild Soul, so this is really the foundational step for folks who want to join us for the far more advanced, sort of comprehensive immersion that Tarot for the Wild Soul will be. It's kind of the first step in the journey.
This course contains immersive audio and video lessons that are so beautiful, stunning immersive workbooks, special access to the Wild Souls Q&A database, which is just a totally brand new feature in our courses and it's just going to be so supportive and nourishing. It's really a transformative journey of discovery and reclamation with your Tarot practice, where we'll get to explore all 78 cards in the deck and so much more in a spacious, clear, and wholly digestible way. If you are planning on taking the Tarot for the Wild Soul course this year, this is the course you want to dive into. If you are waiting for a little bit more of an advanced immersion Tarot for the Wild Soul will be an excellent, deep dive for you. And again, that'll be out later this year. So if you would like to learn more, or if you feel called to take the leap into Rewilding the Tarot, it is there for you. You can learn all about it by going to tarotforthewildsoul.com or clicking the link in the show notes.
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(Instrumental intro music)
[0:02:07]
Hello Loves and welcome back to Tarot for the Wild Soul podcast. I am your host, Lindsay Mack, and as always, just so thankful, so honored, so grateful to be gathered with you in this virtual space. Thank you so much for being here with me today.
So we're going to continue on our little exploratory deep dive of the Four Pillars of Soul Tarot. Last week, we looked at what happens when we frame the Tarot in the present moment, rather than out into the future about something arbitrary, rather bringing it back home to ourselves. And today we're going to be looking at how Tarot, The Tarot, can really show up as medicine, that there really are no good cards, no bad cards. It's all medicine, all coming with some kind of benevolence, some kind of helpfulness, even if we don't particularly like (Lindsay laughs) the cards energy, which you know, honoring a Tarot card is neither good nor bad, does not mean we have to like it, which is a really, really important distinction.
So today, I'm going to be talking about another personal experience that I had last week with regard to a pull that came up for me that I was able to bring these resources to, and I have a feeling that you will resonate because it is a very universal quandary that could come up with our Tarot deck. So hopefully that helps. I'm going to answer a listener question. But first, I have to talk about this new moon in Pisces.
So we are in the most epic, unbelievable colossal, like double decker Pisces energy right now. Venus and Neptune are in Pisces. Of course, the Sun is in Pisces, of course, the Moon is freshly in the sign of Pisces. We're going to have a big new moon on Saturday. So just a day or two depending on when you listen to this. And it's big, not just because of all the Piscean energy but also because the Sun is conjunct Neptune. So it's even more Pisces (Lindsay laughs) than we would normally have even with, you know, all of that energy swirling around so.
[0:04:37]
If you've been really feeling it, Pisces energy is beautiful, but it is hard. It's very tough to move through. It's super liminal. Obviously a mutable sign. Pisces energy is the letting go. It's the sacred death of our year, so much more than Scorpio energy, I think. Pisces caps the Zodiac wheel. It's the end of this cycle. We are literally completing this cycle.
For most of us this is the year anniversary of when lockdown started. Our bodies 100% remember that. This is a very big time, gosh, of so many things, with all this Pisces energy, of grieving, of clearing, of processing, reviewing, reflecting, letting go. Of preparing to rebirth in Aries energy at the equinox in just like a week or so. It's very, very close. It's a powerful time.
We are really swirling around in Moon card energy, which is ruled by Pisces, and The Tethered One, which is ruled by Neptune. Both of these cards share, like they hold hands with each other, because they're connected by this Piscean cord. But each do really, really potent, unique work. Even though they are sort of in harmony together when we're in Pisces season, you know, they are singing different notes.
[0:06:23]
So if you've been feeling just really untethered really, really, again, like unclear, liminal, anxious, moving through a lot, you're definitely not alone. And I'm not saying, “Oh, it's just because of the Pisces energy,” but the Pisces energy, the real extra energy, the fact that we're in a new moon in this energy is amplifying all of it.
So when The Moon card is drudging up, bringing up, drawing up to the surface the stuff that's laid down at the bottom of our ocean. It is a card that its core invitation is to invite us to float and hang out in the unknown. It is a highly activating card, especially for those of us who have had trauma. Especially for those of us who have means or needs for control because of hyper vigilance or safety or whatever it is, this card is super triggering, for some of us who have had a lot of activation in that area. And you know, hanging out in liminality, in the unknown, is pretty activating for everyone just simply because you're a human being with a nervous system.
Nervous systems, brains, need to know what's going on. They like to know. They like to be in control. And this is a very... it can throw us off in a big way. And it can really feel like we're alone. We have no one. We don't know what the fuck is going on. We've got nothing. Like even if things are happening and we're surrounded by people, The Moon card does have a way of kind of feeling, making us feel like we're sort of being pulled back into something.
[0:08:15]
So if you've been experiencing a lot of, kind of, older stuff that you're like, “Why am I back in this? Why does it feel so weird? What is it? What am I in?” Like very hard to define the edges, this is… you're doing deep Moon card work, and you're not alone. I'm absolutely in this most, folks I know are in this. Some of us are really fighting those waves and no judgment. I've fought the waves a couple times myself (Lindsay laughs).
And some of us are really doing a beautiful job, just floating, taking it really easy. Just knowing that the function of this card is to help us to, not only befriend the void, but to actually have this incredibly important pocket of time where the stuff that has been laying down at the bottom of the ocean of our being has room to come up.
So this really is a time where field patterns, the old habits, the old invitations, relationships, like whatever it is, if it's something we've outgrown, if it's something that doesn't resonate anymore, if it's something that is not what we're meant to carry any longer, it's going to come up in Moon Card, and it's not because you're going backwards. This card is very famous for kind of again, having a sort of an echo quality. So, most likely we're getting some kind of old ghosts or a memory or experience of it because of the nature of the fact because it's about revisiting something so that we can release it.
[0:10:05]
Part of the reason why the Moon Card’s, functionally, really feels like we're just, “Oh my god, like, there's... What is going on? Where are we?” It's disorienting, almost on purpose, so that again, we can drop into the center of our being and do the work, honor the stuff that really needs to be honored before we move into Aries season.
It's a clearing card, just like Pisces is a profound clearing energy. It is the ultimate cosmic death time. Again, endings, releasing, tying up loose ends. It is very similar, medicinally, to The Tethered One, very similar. This card is about suspension, and essentially, The Tethered One literally could be called The Chrysalis because that's exactly what it is. In Line One of the Major Arcana we are little caterpillars. We are munching on everything we can. We're exploring. We're checking it all out, and we're meant to get as juicy and robust and full of literal, like life as we possibly can.
And in Line Two we sort of weave in that chrysalis, and wind up clearing, shedding, releasing, totally alchemising, changing form, as we walk through, spend ourselves through the Line Two Major Arcana experience. In Line Three, of course, we emerge from that as those little butterflies, but The Tethered One is the climax point of being in that chrysalis.
It represents a time when we're like, “Okay, I'm ready to move it. Why? Why am I still here? Why am I still going through this? What the fuck?” And similar to The Moon, The Tethered One’s job is to lovingly hold us in that chrysalis until our sort of transformation into a butterfly is complete.
[0:12:00]
And so how it does that is that it provides us with the space to have all of the things come up. This is where it shares a similarity to Moon card. All of the things, so we don't have to take it with us. So we don't have to carry the stuff into a new time, into a new rebirth, that we're just not meant to be holding. And we don't need to figure anything out. We don't need to do anything. And it isn't so much that, let's say, we're going through an experience of enormous loss. That's not to be callous to say like, “Oh, that person, that beloved person isn’t meant to come with us anymore.”
Sometimes within the grieving, within the processing, there can be a profound letting go, a profound re-discovery. Sometimes we don't even know, you know, why necessarily. It's often in life that we don't know, right? But what is really powerful to remember is that after The Moon card, we get into The Sun.
The Sun energy, where the sun does rise. The edges, borders, and boundaries of where we've been walking, and where the hell we've been, become a little clearer. We get a little bit more illumination.
In The Tethered One, we move into Death energy. We move into actually being free, beginning to lay on the garden of our being all this beautiful compost that we've been collecting in Tethered One. You know, really, I think The Death card is more about the shift to the garden, and what's growing in the garden, than it is about the composting. And very often that pivot is exactly the thing that's needed in order to make the new things grow. We have to actually clear it before we can do that.
So all that to say that we're moving into a new moon energy within this sign. So how can we on Saturday, even if we're not even consciously aware of it? I don't think we have to be, to work with Moon energy. I think it works with us and we can say “yes” to it. So I would invite you to consider like what's been coming up for you right now? Like what kinds of experiences, feelings, invitations have been coming up and what might they be asking of you in terms of your attention?
[0:14:32]
You know, if that feels relevant, I invite you to really check it out and reflect for yourself how that feels to you. What you might be being called to pay attention to inside of this energy and how, within those questions, does that feel when you consider the idea of planting new seeds of intention beyond this moon energy? Like, what would you very much like to clear, to shift, to change, to release so that you're not taking it with you anymore?
It's been a pretty powerful question in my life and in my practice, and I wonder if it is resonant for you and yours, you know? Very, very powerful right now.
So as I mentioned at the top of this episode, my brand new course is open for enrollment called Rewilding The Tarot, and as you heard on that little announcement, it is a self-guided, foundational Tarot course for those who desire to learn the fundamentals of Soul Tarot theory. And it is the new, like, sister course for the Tarot for the Wild Soul course, and really the first step in the, like, full journey of courses. And the Tarot for the Wild Soul course is actually really expanding and becoming much, much more advanced and even a little bit more comprehensive than it was. And I say that because it was pretty comprehensive before.
And that's sort of in celebration of that launch, is why we're looking at the Four Pillars of Soul Tarot, moving back into the foundations and the fundamentals on this podcast. So today, you know, the title of this episode is Tarot as Medicine, which is a phrase and sort of a titling for offerings that I've had for a little while.
[0:16:36]
So Tarot as medicine, we know that, and medicine meaning something that comes in, soothes the bones that are broken, helps us to nourish, helps us to build, to grow, to come home to ourselves, right? We are perfectly capable of healing. Our body has extraordinary healing capacities. Medicine helps. It helps to support the process. And when I speak of medicine, obviously, I know some folks have a real, likely are to have, maybe an experience, myself included, with medicine that did not help. When we speak about Tarot medicine, we're talking about medicine that really seeks to nourish and be helpful always. And that's a powerful thing to consider, especially if we have relationships with some of these Tarot cards that do not in any way, shape, or form, feel like they could be medicinal (Lindsay laughs).
And for a lot of people that's thinking about cards that feel like they're bad or less favorable. Maybe we feel like they're scary. And in general, even if it's very, very subtle, many of us, for many reasons, our own feelings, our own preferences, our own stories, our own kind of, you know, our own internalized stuff. And that's all beautiful and fine. Over-cultural leanings, stuff that's been written about in Tarot books, so it's now sort of been infused into our being almost as an assumption. Certain cards mean that there's good favor, certain cards mean that there's bad favor, right? And I'm not here to say that that's wrong, necessarily, although I do not think it is always the truth. So if somebody wants to work that way, listen, you do whatever you want.
[0:18:42]
Is it always going to be true that The Tower means horrible misfortune? Or that, you know, Three of Swords means you're going to get betrayed? Absolutely not. Nor does it mean that you're going to get a giant windfall in 10 of Pentacles. Nor does it mean that you'll meet your beloved in The Lovers. They just don't work that way. That's it, you know. And that certainly isn't the way I teach them. So I think it's really powerful to build and root into a foundation that considers each and every Tarot card as bringing some kind of medicine. It doesn't mean we have to like it.
Some medicine is very spicy. Some of it is bitter. Some of it tastes gross. We don't have to like it. I've shared this. If you've worked with me over the years, this has not changed. I hate The Moon card. I love The Moon card. I love what it represents. I appreciate it. It is my absolute least favorite experience. I tantrum it. I fight it. I also don't need any advice or anything like I'm good (Lindsay laughs), but like, I don't like it.
I don't like it because of my own relationship to being in the unknown, my own relationship to being alone as a very young child in deeply traumatic ways. I do not like the experience and the feeling, it hasn't gotten any better over the years (Lindsay laughs). I really just, I don't like it. And I feel perfectly comfortable with that, because I know the potency of it. It doesn't mean that I have to like it, though. And that's where I think I want to empower everybody.
[0:20:35]
If you've never thought about this before, you can appreciate, honor, respect, be open to the medicine a card brings, and still be completely empowered to have a temper tantrum (Lindsay laughs). And when it comes up, you don't have to like it.
But there's a difference between that and judgment. There's a difference between that and preconception. There's a difference, that when we can bring what I call the Four C's, which is another cornerstone element of Soul Tarot theory, which is Curiosity, Common Sense, Critical Thinking and Compassion.
When we can bring about a kind of a check in process that you know, for reading, for someone or for ourselves, and we seek or we immediately think, “This is a problem, something's gonna happen. Uh oh, I've got to prepare this person.” You don't, necessarily. You know, where is the medicine in that? If you can hold that space for them, then they will be open to that too. They will see the medicine. You can see the medicine. Eventually we’ll start offering this to ourselves.
You don't have to like it to appreciate the medicine. That is sort of the… sort of.. Oh gosh, what is it? It's like an ocean underneath another ocean. Like that's the water source that we're not often tapped into. If we're kind of up here, trying to figure out what does this card mean? What's going to happen? What's coming? Is this good or bad? We're often missing the fact that these are long, deeply soul-guided relationships with these cards that bring invitations for our highest growth, that bring opportunities to heal, to enrich, to nourish something of some kind- often something that we don't even know is lacking or in any kind of deficit.
[0:22:50]
So there's something so, so powerful about that, and it's not romanticizing it, it's actually rooting it into a much more spacious... I guess, space (Lindsay laughs), for our highest, you know, again, our deepest growth. It really just does create so much more curiosity, so much more possibility for what a card can bring. And when we work with Tarot as medicine, it starts to become less about “What is this card bringing or what's going to come in this card?” and more about “How can I flower open to receive what this beautiful card is bringing me? How can I see it as an invitation? How can I work with it? What is? How can I be open to the medicine that it's bringing? How can I get curious about that?”
So as promised, I wanted to sort of open this up to a personal experience that I had the other day, and I mentioned that the experience that I had was one that I think is very common for many folks, which is that I went to my deck in the morning, as I often do, and I was having a really wonderful morning. It was a really nice morning. I felt really good, really spacious, really kind of expanded in a wonderful way and happy. I'm really just kind of on cloud nine, actually.
And I went to my deck and I dropped in and placed my hands on it, said, you know, wanted to communicate with my guides and said, “What would you have me know today?” You know, which is what I do when I want to kind of talk to my guides through my deck. And I pulled Five of Swords. And I went, “That's interesting. Wow.”
[0:24:48]
And I sort of checked in and I didn't feel it at all, but I got curious, more curious, and thought, I wonder if there's a clarifier for this. I asked again, “Is there anything else you'd have me know about that? Can you clarify, please?” And got The Tethered One. And I checked in again and just thought, “Wow, I just do not feel that for myself at all. But how interesting, you know?”
Now, this practice of Soul Tarot is mine. This is my practice. It’s a practice that I didn't learn anywhere. It's just something that I've developed over the years through the work I've brought to myself to my deck. So I am fairly experienced with being able to not get caught up in “Oh, no, like, I pulled a card that doesn't match.” But every once in a while those things do trip me up and I know that they certainly used to.
And I know that this is a very common experience that is super challenging and very, very activating, really kind of, can almost feel like a bypassing or an erasure of our experience, like, how do we work with the Tarot when we are in a particular kind of feeling, state, or experiential state and the cards do not match it? What if we're feeling like I did, really happy and light, and we get cards like Five of Swords and The Tethered One? Like, what do we do? What does that mean? Why would we pull that if it doesn't match?
The same thing goes in a sort of an oppositional way when we feel horrible and we pull “sweet cards”, like Ace of Pentacles, Ace of Cups. We pull, like, you know, The Empress. It can make you want to, like, you know, upturn the table you're reading on and just be like, “What the fuck is this?” And what can be problematic about those experiences isn't that we've done anything wrong, like there's nothing wrong with those experiences. Those happen to everybody. It's that when those things happen, they often invite us into doubt about ourselves and our practice, which is super painful, which is really, I don't want to say problematic, because we can feel doubt and it doesn't have to necessarily be a problem.
But around that, I can assure you, no matter what circumstance you're in, you certainly haven't done anything wrong and the cards aren't fucking with you. I promise you that (Lindsay laughs). You don't need to shuffle again. It's just that what we're trained to look for with the Tarot, which is that it's going to be a perfect mirror for the entirety of our experience is not actually the way that the deck often works.
[0:27:57]
Tarot shows up as an invitation. So we're going to talk about that a little bit more next week, but to give you a little taste, and this is certainly something I've talked about before. Tarot is an invitation into something that we're being asked, invited, to pay attention to. It's not always what's happening right now. It's not always inclusive of our experience. The Tarot often beautifully reports. It can report. It can be a mirror for our experience. We can be going through something horribly discomforting, horribly uncomfortable, rather, and we can pull something like Nine of Swords, which I did last night. It was a perfect mirror for my experience and helped me to actually come back in and be like, “Oh my gosh, like yes, absolutely yes. Okay, thank you.”
And then other times, I feel like I'm in a fucking swirl of a lifetime and I'll get something that does not seem to match at all. And that is because there is an invitational quality to it so even when it does match with that idea mentioned about you know, having pulled Nine of Swords and I was in a deep fear place and now I'm not, but I had definitely a lot of those feelings coming up and it helped invite me back into “Oh, yeah, absolutely. Okay, this… I know this.”
So what can I do? I can start to reframe and can start to check in about some of the stories my brain is inviting me into. Are they true? Are they worst-case scenario? Why? Whatever. Can I greet that with compassion? So that's sometimes what we do with that invitation. So very powerful to distinguish that.
But another thing that is just as important, that is the reason why I don't have activation when I pull a card like Five of Swords or The Tethered One in the midst of a really sweet morning, where I'm feeling really good, is because I know that each and every Tarot card brings profoundly beautiful medicine. And then I don't have to be afraid of any card that I pull.
[0:30:25]
Five of Swords is not a problem. It may be uncomfortable. We may not like the imagery. We may not welcome it. That's all absolutely valid. The question becomes, and can transform your Tarot practice: Can we hold the both of, “I do not prefer this” and “I am willing to open to it? I'm willing to get curious about it. I'm willing to consider that what I've been told about this card might not even be the truth about it. Where did I learn that? Where was I told that this is going to promise this or that? What are my beliefs about the card?”
That's what we can bring those Four C's to, as I mentioned, which, again, are a huge part of Rewilding the Tarot, all of this is, and of Soul Tarot work in general. It’s just that checkpoint of can I bring my Critical Thinking, my Common Sense, my Curiosity, my Compassion? Especially Curiosity, you know, what? How do we develop these relationships, these rooted relationships on the ground floor with these cards?
So when we pull cards like that, we can start with curiosity. We can start with curiosity. So that's what I started with, was the willingness to consider, you know, I asked what my guides would have me know. And I am certainly in and can feel the, yes, the Five of Swords-ness, The Tethered Oneness of this time. And those cards weren't necessarily like... that was present and I was still in a happy mood. Those things were still present, but they were letting me know, “Hey, these two cards are showing up as these really sweet plants at your door. These really sweet offerings of medicine, and can you stay curious about that? Open about that?”
Now, here's how Five of Swords can be medicine, okay? If we're in a time of massive expansion, where we're doing lots of new things. And this is so tricky, because sometimes we don't actually know that we're in an expansion when we are in an expansion (Lindsay laughs).
[0:32:54]
So expansion is what happens when, you know, that big, huge contractive feeling often happens when we're about ready to grow. And so how we know that we're in one of those times is typically that the mind pulls us into all kinds of different old things like, what Tara Brach calls our Top 10 Hits. So like, what are your things that you go into every time you're upset? Sometimes it's like, you even know better and you get pulled into it.
If we're in a moment of huge expansion in some way, it's often especially again, if it's soul-guided expansion, the mind is typically very, very scared when we go through those experiences. It gets super duper threatened, because any experience of expansion is going to take us a little closer to the soul and a little further away from sort of the control that the mind, that the ego, has over us, that it wants to have over us in order to ensure that we're going to survive and stay safe and in what's familiar and known.
So what does it do? It's very similar energy to Devil, where we can often get invited into the story that we've done something wrong. We've missed something. We fucked up, like somewhere along the line, we made a mistake. That's very indicative of a Five of Swords experience, but that's not really the focus. The focus of Five of Swords is “Okay, those feelings, whether real or imagined, are as human as it gets, as universal as it gets.” You may even have those feelings every day. Like “Fuck, I should have done this or that.”
Sometimes it can be very light or very heavy. We all have this tendency to be really hard on ourselves. How do we recenter and move closer to self compassion? How do we, if we actually have fucked, up recenter and make amends to ourselves or to others?
[0:35:01]
This card is about not sort of taking the invitation that everything is all all asunder, to really come back to that inner caretaker, that inner wise one and say, “Okay, how would I guide my child or a teenager that I care about through something like this if they came to me and said, ‘Man, I’m really beating up on myself. You know, I'm really feeling this, this, and that, and I don't feel like I can tell anyone because they'll not be kind to me?’” Look, whatever the story is, how would you advise them? That's exactly how we want to show up to ourselves. And that energy like, I can't tell you, you probably wouldn't believe me, if I did (Lindsay laughs), how confronting, how vulnerable it is to put forward a new project. It just is, no matter how much I'm guided, whatever, I'm still a person with, like, a brain and the nervous system and previous experiences that make me susceptible to all kinds of feelings and fears.
And so that was spirit letting me know, “Hey, you know, your medicine, for the next foreseeable whatever, is to remember that you're in a big, big expansion, and that your mind will likely be very frightened of this and in order to try to pull you into something that feels like a semblance of safety, or to attempt to regulate safety, you may be pulled into a lot of stories about how you’re bad, you royally fucked up, or somehow, you know, whatever it is. So how can you come home to truth?”
For me, personally speaking, that is other people being able to bring those stories, those invitations to other people and say, “Do you also get that this is a fuckup?” Most of the time, it's like, absolutely not. Do you, you know, “Oh, my gosh, I feel like I've, you know, XYZ. It's not okay. It's not gonna be okay.”
Of course, it's going to be okay, having that voice in my ear, from my therapist, or my mentor, or from my partner. It's really important. And so can we call on those kinds of processors to be reminders for us
[0:37:14]
You may have a completely different interp of Five of Swords, and that's perfectly fine. When you think about how this card shows up for you, how it brings medicine to you, the way in is if we can show up to it from a place of curiosity, from a place of, “Oh, you know, you're not here to attack me, to do anything to me. You're really here for me. You're really here bringing me something. You're here to help.” So how could I potentially be curious about what that might look like? And perhaps even more importantly, how could I be open and available to receiving the help that can guide me through a potentially expansive experience with this card? That's actually possible, even with an energy like Five of Swords.
So it's been really helpful. It's been an energy I’ve called upon a bunch of different times. You know, I'm definitely in some big time contraction. It's par for the course on big course enrollments. You know, that's just what it is. And big course creation, because we're creating it right now. Very intense to be in that birthing process. And with all this Piscean energy, which again, is an energy. I'm not particularly fond of the mutable energies. So again, that's just for me.
And I want to really clarify something. I love my mutable energies in the people that I love, in my kin. And I'm just talking about for me, personally, like, the experience of being inside of the zodiac energy, not a fan (Lindsay laughs). And all due respect, love Gemini, love Pisceans. I love Virgo. I'm a Virgo rising. Love Sagges. Do not love the season. That's it.
[0:39:12]
And so yeah, how can we be open to that medicine? It's really powerful, like, learning how to forgive ourselves and recenter when we feel like we fucked up is really advanced, mature, self-tending work. And it is a muscle. We have to call on it again and again. And of course, we just talked about the medicine of The Tethered One, like there's tremendous medicine in this card.
How can we honor that we're in a chrysalis? How can we honor that? That in the much bigger, overarching picture, we're in this chrysalis that's holding us so lovingly, so that when we are moving into this new rebirth time, moving into a time where we're flying rather than crawling, we're not taking any extra baggage that's not needed.
Those cards did not have to- they didn't change my day. They didn't make me go on edge, they didn't. And that's possible. Some cards used to do that to me. Now it doesn't, because of these pillars, and because of the Four C's, and because of my own really dedicated field work with Tarot that I've guided myself through for many years. So it's not like it never happens, where I'll pull something and be a little stumped or be even a little disappointed. But in terms of spiraling me out, it's a really… doesn't happen too often anymore. So if that happens to you that's not a problem.
What I'm trying to invite you to consider is that it may be that it won't happen eventually. The more that we potentially get curious about the medicine that these cards are bringing, which really come with time. And yeah, you know, again, one of the biggest, sort of challenging things with this, is literally the feeling that we can have when we say I don't feel like I'm in this card. You might not be in it in the way that you think you are.
It might be that we want to look at the question we've asked. We want to look at where that came up. We want to look at sort of how it falls in the reading. Again, the inquiry that was behind it, if you just randomly pull it, you may want to pull a qualifier or a clarifier just to be clear or sure.
[0:41:48]
We want to open up to curiosity, as if you were greeting these cards as pals and friends at a coffee shop, like, how would you show up without any preconceived notions and see them really as pals, as buddies who really do want to help in some way?
The other piece that we want to bring in is a question that I think is a million-dollar question. What am I assuming that these cards “feel like” and why? If I have a really rich experience with them, does it have to be the same as it was before? That is a really big part of my practice, because I have a look, I talk back and forth to the Tarot, so I try really hard not to assume anything about them, which is a really, perhaps, a very strange thing.
But I try to keep it respectful enough (Lindsay laughs) that if they come up, I'm willing to consider like, I'm always holding a space that one day The Moon and I can be I mean, really, really good pals, where I can be so excited. And eventually I may get there, the more I just as a human being spend time with the energy.
[0:43:10]
But I always assume, always assume, maybe this time I'm going to learn something different about this energy that maybe I've never considered before. That's possible too. But we have to sort of keep an open mind. We can't if we’re assuming “Oh my god, this is horrible. It's all going to go to shit.” It's going to be really, really hard to get to that really spacious, open place.
We can also ask ourselves, like “Where did the belief that this card is good or bad or any other qualifier, where did that come from?” You know what? It's a really, really fascinating thing to unpack and explore. There really are no good cards. There are no bad cards. It's just medicine. They're neutral, actually. We have really strong feelings about them, which is perfectly okay. Valid.
It's really about distinguishing from our feelings about a card to the actual charge that a card gives off. And really, again, they all come bearing gifts, they really do. We do not have to appreciate the gifts (Lindsay laughs). We don't have to like it. But it really can blow our whole practice open in the best way possible. It can really bond us with the cards, really open up our heart around the cards, if we are considering that they might be bringing that kind of medicine for our evolution in some way. Again, very, very powerful, and really liberates us from the story when we pull a card that something's going to “happen”, which is absolutely not necessarily so. It just isn't. And you know, in some cases, like when I pull a card, I'm like, “Damn, I wish I could assure this outcome.” (Lindsay laughs)
But of course, I know the future’s not fixed. The present moment is truly all there is. And we have way too much free will to have any kind of tool define the future for us in a way that we cannot adjust.
So how can we stay open and curious, you know? How can we open to the consideration that, you know, again, if we pull The Judgement card? Hmm, okay, clocking, tracking my feelings about that. Do I like that I pulled it? Do I not? Okay, you know, that's interesting. Definitely honoring that.
And then we can turn to that card and say, “What medicine are you bringing? How can I be open to that medicine?” Like you can pull those. Those are two prompts that you can pull extra cards on, like, “What medicine are you bringing? How can I be open to it?” around any card you pull that you're having trouble seeing the medicine in.
[0:46:18]
It's, again, a big unlearning and a huge rewilding to come to that place. And trust and believe if you need to, if there's something really strong that needs to be communicated in a reading in some way, where it's like, “We really have to pay attention to this,” it'll come up. That doesn't mean that we can't be open to the medicine that something is bringing.
So all different kinds of medicines, some sweet, some bitter, some sting, some are really cooling and gentle, just like life, you know. All experiences have their own medicine within them. And sometimes we do not see the effective medicine for a very long time. Sometimes we never do.
And so yeah, just being really open about that potential. Remember, nothing I say you have to take as gospel. I would hope you never do. And that you do your own critical thinking and your own reflection about everything, but it is a pretty powerful shift to make that can really open up our understanding, our own interpretations, our own relationships with these cards, I think in ways that are tremendously positive.
So I'm going to complete this with a question, and answer a listener question. This one is from Alicia, and Alicia asks, “Hi, Lindsey, long time supporter here.” Thank you. “I'm curious about cards that are typically associated as positive showing up in a challenging placement. I recently pulled Wheel of Fortune in a placement of ‘What to Let Go Of’ and wasn't sure how to interpret that. Thanks.”
So perfect question, and super in alignment with what we're talking about, but shifting it into another sort of category that I think I get so many questions about this from students, from listeners, from folks who are part of my either Instagram or newsletter community.
What if we get a “positive” or good card as something we're letting go of? So I would be delighted to bring about an answer to this question.
[0:48:39]
First of all, I think there is no positive or negative card. Some people really appreciate, really like Wheel of Fortune. Some people are actually really frightened of Wheel of Fortune. They're not a fan of it. So that's also kind of subjective. What we're letting go of doesn't mean that it's because we're saying goodbye to it in a permanent way, nor does it mean that we are letting go of something positive and potentially moving into something negative. It's not so much that we want to look at it in such a linear way, where the weather is good, then the weather is bad, and the weather might be good again, etc., and I talk about this a lot on Monthly Medicine, where I talk about like what we're clearing away, what we're stepping into.
And I think if you're going to pull a card for what you're going to let go of, it's equally as important to check in about what's coming in now. So this is exactly like a season flowing away so that another season can flow in. We can't have summer without fall. We can't have winter… We can't have spring without winter, like each one flows into the other.
So we're not losing anything. We're still retaining that Wheel of Fortune essence. It's just now sort of becoming the root system for the next thing. It's also about study. So let's say, an experience and really just flowing through the experience of certain cards. Let's just say for fun, you pull Wheel of Fortune for what you're going to leave and you pull The Tower for what you're walking into. So this doesn't mean that this is going to have any bearing whatsoever on your actual, external events in your life. In fact, likely it won't.
[0:50:43]
Major Arcana cards absolutely can show up as indicators of external events or something that can be externalized in some way, but they are really at the root, huge invitations for our soul growth. So yes, those can show up as external, as internal.
The Tower is just a really profound awakening, a really strong dose of clarity medicine, that basically says, “Hey, you're complete with this. We, your Guides, the universe, we're going to help you out. We're going to bulldoze this shit to the ground. We're going to clear out this part of the roof, so that we can rebuild it. So that whatever is happening, whatever rot, whatever old pipes, whatever's going on in there, we can fix it. We can upgrade it.”
So if we're going from Wheel to Tower, where we can start with this is saying, “You know, Wheel has been helping me to stay in my center in moments when I might want to be off in the past or the future, when I may be in a time of transition and change, or I'm just sort of on the path. I'm not really at a destination yet. I'm very much on the way. And I kind of want to speed it up a little bit. I kind of want to back it up a little bit or slow it down, I'm off up in the tire where I can feel every bump. What would it be to draw it back into the center of the Wheel?”
That's a big learning and Wheel of Fortune very, very often doesn't necessarily, again, indicate that anything is going to happen in that energy. It actually has more to do with drawing our attention to what is present so that we can be available to meet whatever it is that we're journeying to. So if we're stepping into The Tower from that, what I would invite someone into, myself or someone I was reading for, where I would start with this to say, “You've been invited to really, really come to your center, to really pay attention during a time when you may have been invited to be up and out in the external in all of these different ways. And now you're going to move into a new level, a new layer of preparation for whatever next cycle you're moving into, where you're going to see in ways both internal, external, tangible and intangible. What can no longer come with you on this journey? What are you complete with? What are you clearing away? What doesn't match? And what kind of root, foundational healing work might you need to do?”
What, you know, after we like, kind of pry those floorboards open, what kind of re-leveling work might we have to do? It's not a problem, but to know that we're just shifting from one thing to another. That's it.
[0:53:41]
And for another example, if we have Wheel, looking at it in exactly that way, and we're moving into an energy like Seven of Cups, what we would say is the exact same thing. You know, there's been a profound invitation to really be in the center, to really be rooted in what is present, as the sort of bigger wheel is turning, to be in the center of the wheel, rather than in the tire. And it's not that you're not going to be doing that still, but your attention, where you're being invited to shift your attention is giving yourself permission to daydream on this journey, not to be so in the destination, because that is Seven of Cups.
So much about like, “Can we give ourselves permission to like not know, to not have a solid plan?” So it's just about thinking, and I mean, that's not as well rounded as I would give someone in a reading, but it's a good start, because it's just about for us recognizing that it's not quite so finite, because life isn't super finite like that, right?
We're not like in the changing of the seasons, it's not so solid, right? We don't immediately flip from winter to spring. It's super slow. So what does that like, kind of, transition time look like?
We can help to span the gap or span the bridge by starting with, “Here's what we've been doing in this energy. Here's what we've been invited to look at,” and it's not that we're going to be done with that, we're just purposely beginning to prepare for this next season. We're beginning to bring in different energy, different attention. Essentially holding one thing and turning our head to hold something else, or turning our head to regard something else. So we're never really letting go of anything, if that makes sense. It's just either it lets go of us or it’s just a gentle invitation to, again, just shift our energy a little bit more towards something else so there can start to be a harmony and a weaving and a blending, rather than just one versus the other. So hopefully, that makes sense.
[0:56:04]
It's one of those things that until you kind of see it, or practice it, or play with it, it can be a little hard to, I think, internalize. But it is really powerful. Because, again, future’s not really fixed, and so what we're moving into, it can be for two minutes. It can be for two weeks, you know.
Sometimes I've gotten cards on what am I moving into that bring up so much in the moment that it, kind of like, is over in five minutes (Lindsay laughs) like for real, it's so wild. Because Tarot, like life itself, is super spiralic. So when you pull cards on a timeline, like “What am I letting go of? What is?” You know, it's tricky. Yeah, it's an interesting thing, you know?
So, yeah, we want to just start there with that consideration, and move into a space where we're willing to, again, open to this greater curiosity, like “What, how can I shift my relationship to the idea of time in readings to the idea that it is so finite?” And I would say, in general, what is very helpful is to look at what's coming in and to see like, where are we balancing both things? Like, where are we holding both here?
And it can, I think, really, really help to open up that, to open up and have it make just a little bit more sense. And even if it doesn't make sense, to begin to consider it from that perspective. Like if we come back all the way out, what might be the pieces there? So yeah, hopefully that helps you.
Alright. Well, thank you so much for listening, Wild Souls. I hope you have a gorgeous and glorious new moon. If you want to learn more about Rewilding the Tarot or enroll, you can do so at the link in the show notes or by going to tarotforthewildsoul.com, which is my website. You'll see it right there on the front page. Loving all of you holding all of you in my heart. Please be well and until we meet again. Take care of yourselves.
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[0:58:46]
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