158. The Tarot is For Us (Not To Us)

 

In this episode, we dive into our fourth and final Core Pillar of Soul Tarot by exploring how we can consider each and every Tarot card as being for us—not to us—looking to Nine of Swords, Five of Cups, and The Empress for examples. We also dive into the medicine of the upcoming Full Moon in Libra, and I answer a listener Q about how to work with the numerology of the Tarot.

 
 

Air date:
March 26, 2021

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About the Episode

On today’s episode of T-WS, we dive into our fourth and final Core Pillar of Soul Tarot by exploring how we can consider each and every Tarot card as being for us—not to us—looking to Nine of Swords, Five of Cups, and The Empress for examples. We also dive into the medicine of the upcoming Full Moon in Libra, and I answer a listener Q about how to work with the numerology of the Tarot.

Also: in April, we are going to cover The Wands suit, and I want to answer your questions about it! If you have any Wands Q, send 'em to me here: Ask Lindsay

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 regarding parenting and childhood, grief, birth, pregnancy, patriarchal conditioning

The content in this episode contains references to trauma regarding parenting and childhood, grief, birth, pregnancy, and patriarchal conditioning. 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 episode of Tarot for the Wild Soul is brought to you by Rewilding the Tarot, a self-guided, foundational Tarot course for those who desire to learn the fundamentals of Soul Tarot theory as taught and developed by me. This is the sibling course, the sister course, for Tarot for the Wild Soul, and the first foundational step in the journey through all of our Soul Tarot courses. 

Through a weaving of immersive video and audio lessons, stunning workbooks and special access to the Wild Soul Q&A Database — which is amazing — participants will be guided on a deep, rich, transformative journey of discovery and reclamation with their Tarot practice, exploring all 78 cards in the deck and so much more in a spacious, clear, and wholly digestible way. 

You can find full syllabus, really robust FAQ, the featured decks in our course, including The Gentle Tarot, The Melanated Tarot, The Next World Tarot, The Numinous, The Fifth Spirit Tarot, Tarot of The Holy Spectrum — just to name a couple — and so much more information by going to tarotforthewildsoul.com and clicking the link in the front page that will take you directly to Rewilding. You can also click the link in the show notes. 

Enrollment is open for this monumentally powerful offering, and material drops on April 7th, which is less than two weeks away, which is insane (Lindsay laughs). So to learn more, you can go to tarotforthewildsoul.com, and I can't wait to serve you through that course journey. Thank you so much, Loves.

(Instrumental intro music)

[00:02:00]

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 grateful to be gathered with you in this virtual space. Thank you so much for being here with me today. 

So today's episode is the final part in our four part kind of deep dive into the four Core Pillars of Soul Tarot. And we've been kind of anchoring into this foundational perspective. And today we're exploring the last of the Core Pillars, which is: how do we consider each card as being for us, not to us? Pretty pivotal shift in perspective that definitely has a very strong, positive ripple effect in terms of how we interpret cards, how we speak about the invitations that cards bring. I think really super supportive guideposts. 

So we're going to lay that idea down onto certain Tarot cards, onto certain Tarot cards reversed that we'll talk about on this podcast, and we'll just sort of lay down a very basic framework. How might we consider this as being for us, not to us, while still totally retaining our feelings about a card? Again, you know my take on this; we never have to like (Lindsay laughs) a particular Tarot card, but we can be open to the medicine, to the gifts, that it's bringing us. We can be open to the core intention, the core element of it being, again, for our growth, for our good, rather than to us. So we're going to talk about that. I'm going to answer a listener question.

We also have our Full Moon in Libra on Sunday; I am so feeling it already. The sun has moved into Aries. Venus is in Aries. Really, when the sun moves into Aries on the Equinox, it's a huge rebirth. It's really the... it's a new year. And so I think we're adjusting to that a little bit. (Lindsay laughs) We've dropped the cocoon and now we’re, sort of… our wings are still wet. We're a little bit shaky, because we're in these new forms. Anytime we move into Aries season, like, the seed cracks open and the sprout starts to move through the earth, toward the sun, toward the surface of the soil. 

So if you're really feeling that big, energetic shift, and also sort of the adjustment period, you're not alone; it's quite normal. And I think for me, personally, I'm really feeling this Full Moon. So any Full Moon is a harvest point. It's a moment where it's very much like a Ten in the Tarot. It's very much a moment where we're sort of... the crops have grown, they're ready to be cut down and then we get to review. We get to kind of lay everything out. We get to look at all of it and decide, “What am I keeping? What am I composting? What am I cherishing and infusing into my life? What am I kind of laying on the fire here?”

[0:05:12]

So all Full Moons are this beautiful review point, and this moment where we sort of get to harvest, look at everything, and decide what we're going to take with us, what we're going to leave behind. In terms of this Full Moon being in Libra, it is really shining a pretty stark and unforgiving light (Lindsay laughs) on the places where we are imbalanced in some energetic way in our lives, especially in the realm of our partnerships, our… which include romantic friendship, business, people that we're working with, our community, people that we're serving. 

When I say imbalances, I think the mind immediately leaps to like, other people are not stepping up, we're giving so much, other people aren't, you know. That might be true, that we just really feel like we're giving, giving, giving, giving and there isn't as much reciprocity. It could be that really old sort of energetic inequities or imbalances are getting eliminated, and the folks that they're happening around are stepping up. It could be that they're not. And that's a larger question, kind of, what are we doing about that? 

If we've had a really long history of sort of giving ourselves away a little bit, that could really be coming home to roost for us, like just with the energy everything around you just saying, “You can't continue that.” It could be much, much larger. The way that you work, the way that you serve your community, the way you show up; these are really big picture themes, like: what has been working? What is sustainable. What isn't? Very big. And also can trickle down to really small minutiae. It can also be, lest we — let's not move past this point — that you have so much fucking support around you, that you have so many people who want to help, want to guide you, want to serve, who want to bring pleasure and ease and beauty into your life. And you're like, “No, thank you.” (Lindsay laughs) Which is so real.

[0:07:45]

Libra is ruled by The Justice card. And these are all Justice themes, by the way. Justice is the key to it — it's a two step process. We have to observe the reality of what's in front of us. “Okay, things are unbalanced here. Okay, this person isn't working. Okay, this person's not pulling their weight. Okay, this person is offering to help, offering to help, and I'm not taking the help. Here's the trickle down effect of where it is, for me.” 

There's something out of alignment in Justice, but the first step is to acknowledge all the parts of what is just simply happening. This cold, clear… very, very objective, very curious, a little removed. This is what is happening. It's a revolutionary moment, where we can really just look. Sometimes we need a little help. 

It's a very big air energy, like Queen of Swords in Soul Tarot is ruled by Libra, so The Swords are really Cardinal air energy. It's a big time, typically Libra moons, of not really being... like we can have a little trouble getting clear. We may feel like, “Oh, this is happening, that's happening. I should do this, I should do that.” We may want to bring in like, a gentle other set of eyes to kind of hold us in that. And to help reflect to us like, “Hey, I am witnessing this happen, like how does this land with you?” Whatever it is. So that's the first step of Justice. 

[0:09:24]

The second step is to take empowered action. And that can't happen unless we're super, super clear about what is. But the other piece of it that I mentioned around, like, it could be that everyone around you wants to help out. It could be that there are so many opportunities for space, for ease, for greater pleasure, more receiving, and you're hitting a very natural — we all have this — a threshold with that. And so there's a kind of a shutdown or, you know, there's different pieces in place. And if that's the case, then that's where The Empress comes in. Because The Empress is ruled by Venus, which is the ruling planet of Justice. So we… The Empress and Justice are two Tarot cards that, although they're both lovely and for us (Lindsay laughs) — which we'll explore today — they can be really hard in the experience of them. 

That's why in Soul Tarot, we're not ever saying like, “Oh, my God, all cards are great.” They're experienced uniquely, with all of us. And also, I also do believe, in a degree of normalization, that these cards can bring up a lot of energy. Very often, Justice comes up when we're really in “shoulds.” When we're really in, like, “This should be different. This ought to be different.” That's not wrong. But Justice just draws us into a very fine point, like, “Yes, that's absolutely valid. Why is it happening? And also, it is happening. So let's start with that.”

Once we're in full engagement with the reality, then we're really free to change it. And that's what we're getting down to the heart of, the places where we've been unwilling to be with the reality of our current situation. You know, if we are somehow in a kind of an imbalanced state in some part of our lives, if someone is giving more than what is maybe... like, if we need to step up and really meet someone in what they're giving, if we need to be more open to receiving if we, you know; wherever we find ourselves in this continuum, really just being open to that idea, and really respecting and honoring the fact that Libra is... it's a hard energy for the nervous system sometimes. 

So to just be super gentle around that, and to remember that Full Moon in Libra energy really comes in and it’s, again, can be really challenging, because it can be super confronting, it can bring up our stuff, again, it can bring up shame. You know, “Why did I give myself away? Why can't I say ‘yes’ to this?” All of that stuff. 

[0:12:06]

So if you're there, I'm totally holding you in that. Just know that with every Full Moon, this one included, the opportunity is at the root of all of it to clear out what doesn't serve us so that there is more room for alignment, for receiving, for care, for rest, for more balance, for more reparation, for more equity… you know, for more justice. So it's really, again, the tenor, the tone of it, feels quite big. We'll see how it plays out collectively.

And certainly, it'll be unique for all of us personally, but Justice, The Empress, Queen of Swords, and The Swords in general, are all beautiful anchors and allies for this mood. And I encourage you, if you feel called, just play with how you're… how you're feeling about them, what they might be bringing into your life, for this Moon and beyond. Yeah, very, very potent. 

So the fourth Core Pillar of Soul Tarot is that the Tarot is for us, not to us. Each card shows up in a reading, in our pulls, as being for us, not to us which... as I said before, is a pretty powerful shift. If you're really baby beginner with the Tarot, it's a lovely thing to weave into the foundations of your practice to just consider when you pull, “How am I going to see this card as being for me, not to me?” And the best thing about that practice is that you will inevitably come up with like, total head-scratcher question marks where you'll pull a card and be like, “How the hell is this for me?” (Lindsay laughs) You know, and that's where things get really interesting. 

Because... I mean, this is such a big thing. And if you're, you know, if you're really interested in diving into this idea, definitely recommend signing up for Rewilding the Tarot because it's a huge piece — not just — embedded in the way that I work. I think you can see the proof of that in this podcast, we're always talking in this podcast about what these cards are bringing for us, how they're illuminating things. And so, kind of expanding on this idea is a pretty powerful one.

[0:14:36]

But in short, these cards, the Tarot — these archetypes inside of these cards and depicted on these cards — are our anchors and allies through this life. They are our buddies. They're our friends. They want to help. They love us, even when we kind of can't stand them. It's a really pure love. Because remember, the Tarot is a deck of cards. It's also a beautiful tool; it's a mirror. 

These archetypes are eternal. They have existed since time immemorial. They belong to you, and are sort of living in the same frequency, the same framework, as your guides, as your beloved dead, as your ancestors, as those who love you, and champion you, and celebrate you, and grieve for you on the other side of the veil. This life is super hard, and really unfair, and really challenging. And it's very easy to feel separated from that love. And yet, every time we turn to our decks, we have the opportunity to connect with that larger sense of belonging and homecoming. That it is possible and, in fact, I would argue even a birthright to form this kind of kinship with our decks where we're really feeling like these energies are rooting for us.  They want to help. They want to invite us back home to ourselves, to call us back to what's really asking for attention. 

[0:16:27]

And like our guides, like all of the beings that help, guide, serve, support us on our path, everything is assisting us in our highest evolution. That's, I mean… I certainly can't claim to know why we're here, what we're doing here, but I do know that the one thing that we all share, that every living being creature that has ever existed on this planet and on any planets beyond it (Lindsay laughs) share — because it is the nature of life — is the process of evolution. And evolution requires an adaption. It requires flexibility. It requires discomfort. It requires the stuff in us, the beauty of our nervous systems that always want us to be in safe, familiar, so we can just like, relax. 

I mean, that would be great. And yet, no creature, including us, ultimately, always lives like that. Now, ideally, we don't want to be in a situation where systemically, due to circumstances that can be helped, that people are in hypervigilance, in danger. Ideally, we do not want that to be perpetuated. But there is a sense of like, we'll get to a certain point in life and think like “I'm good,” right? And then life comes (Lindsay laughs), you know. It's exactly why we go through Line One of the Majors, then all of a sudden we leave The Chariot and shit starts getting a little wild. 

It's because we're always evolving. The Tarot shows us this. So these cards, really — at the core, at their essence — they are for us. They're for your growth. They’re for your love. They’re for your highest good. 

We're not always tapping into them like that. We're not always considering them like that. And we don't have to consider them like that. But if we're willing to play with this idea of seeing them as being in our corner, it can not only really help to create some spaciousness, a little bit more ease in our readings, it can also reshape the way we read. It can shape the way we talk to our clients. That is a very strong shift to make, that this card is showing up for you not to you. It's felt, it's palpable, if you're bringing that into a reading. And, I think, a wonderful thing. 

[0:19:09]

It can also help us on our just particular journey, to continue to befriend these allies and these archetypes, to continue to say, “I cannot stand this card (Lindsay laughs). When it comes up, I have a very hard time considering that this could be for me, not to me.” That's the start of your work. And I live that practice. I definitely know that it can be... it can be done. It can be done skillfully. And I know that from experience, things change the more you bring attention to that idea. 

So for us, not to us. Doesn't mean we have to like them. Doesn't mean that we have to appreciate it. It's just a gentle… this most subtle shift in the perception. It doesn't even mean that so much of what we say or how we work with the card has to change. It's just, again, the most subtle shift. This is for me and wants to help. It's a reflection of me being mirrored back to me through this card. It's some part of my own wise-knowing. It's some part of the wisdom of my guides and/or wisdom figures that is trying to help. It's for me, you know. Really, really powerful, especially with the more challenging, traditionally, challenging cards. You know, it can really be super epic when we consider that. 

So I'm going to throw out a couple of examples of cards that we might not typically immediately think are for us (Lindsay laughs), rather than to us. And the first place I felt super called to go right for was Nine of Swords. 

Nobody likes Nine of Swords, I don't think. I don't like this card. I appreciate it. And I suppose I do love it for what it brings, but I don't enjoy my experience inside of Nine of Swords (Lindsay laughs). So we've explored, like, the Nine of Swords is an invitation. It's not necessarily what is, what will be, what won't be. Sometimes it is an invitation into understanding a little bit more of what we're in. In times when I'm in extremely high states of anxiety, I can pull Nine of Swords; it's still an invitation. 

[0:21:50]

Even though I can really feel my experience being reflected in this card, it's reminding me, “Hey, move into your practices. Start to really question these fears. You're getting invited into a tremendous amount of what-ifs right now.” It's a beautiful reminder (Lindsay snaps), like, “Oh, yeah, I don't need to be dragged hither and thither,” (Lindsay laughs), “by like, all the what-ifs that my mind is presenting me.” So we can see, in terms of the other pillars, the invitation. We can see how it draws us into present moment practices. We can maybe even see the medicine in that. 

How is this card for us? A card that invites us into often worst-case scenario thinking, nightmare situations, what-ifs. Any Nine is kind of a little bit more of a solo journey where even if we're surrounded by people, we may feel very alone and very isolated. Sometimes that's glorious, like in a card like Nine of Pentacles. Other times in a card like this, it can be really hard, really, really challenging. So how the hell would this be for us? So I don't have the answer to that. But I would love to kick off the conversation (Lindsay laughs) with a couple of different things. 

[0:23:20]

When does the mind tend to get the most scared? When does... When do our inner kiddos tend to get the most freaked out? When does the mind tend to invite us into the worst-case scenario thinking, into what-ifs, “This could happen, that could happen?” Like, almost like we're living the potential of a nightmare. So absolutely, that can happen when we are in a situation that feels super challenging and where there is a lot of fear, where there are a lot of unknowns. Moments in life that feel... you know, again, that are not… they don't feel great. Where there is a lot of fear and there are a lot of unanswered questions, very, very easy for the mind to project onto a room where there are a lot of shadows, a lot of… like the light is off, essentially. 

It's really easy when we're sort of in a room in the middle of the night to be like, “Anything could be in here with me.” So when we don't have an answer, it can spin us out sometimes. And the answer to that question is that sometimes all of those things can happen when we are in the midst of a profound expansion into something new, when we're in the middle of a very powerful underworld journey, when we're in the middle of a very powerful birth journey. 

Whoa, we can come to a place that is so intense (Lindsay laughs), that isn't necessarily comfortable, welcome. We may never want to do it again. And it is a place where we have the potential, where we can, in those moments, greet ourselves in the midst of our fear, and potentially bring about a sense of tenderness and compassion. 

It's an opportunity, even in the moments in life where things are tangibly, factually, very scary, or moments when everything is actually really okay, but the mind is very, very spun out because of the fact that we're expanding. Whenever we're in any kind of soul expansion, it can really freak the mind out. Remember, it is our protector. So it can pull us into lots of fears about what could go wrong. 

[0:26:02]

We have the opportunity in those moments to show up as our inner caretaker, to be the parent that maybe we never had. To go into that room in the middle of the night and flick on a nightlight, and take our kids, scoop them up and be like, “Hey, I know like a monster could totally be under the bed. To the degree that we're able, let's look. Let's shine a light on it. Let's confront it straight on. And I'll look for you; I'll look with you.” And very often what winds up happening with Nine of Swords is that the story of what could happen is so much worse than what's actually happening. And when we engage with this card at, really the circumstance around it doesn't matter, it actually doesn't matter, because the medicine, the gifts of it, are the same. 

In this card, we're being called to meet ourselves in a moment of great fear, in a moment of invitations, into a lot of worry, a lot of concern, a lot of projection, a lot of, again, what-ifs. “What if this happens? What if that happens?” It's a really scary space. And we are our own parents. We are those inner caretakers, and unless we were very blessed, most of us did not have parents who created this kind of inner caretaking within us. We often are creating that for ourselves. 

And so how this card can be for us, not to us: It's not necessarily that the experience in life, of being in a really tough brain or mind space, or being in a really scary time where we just don't have answers. I'm not suggesting that that's “for you” or not — that's only for you to say — but the card can reframe those situations and can help us to find the gold in the midst of the grit. So the “for you, not to you” with Nine of Swords, it is absolutely for you that you learn how to parent yourself in challenging scary moments. That's not just you, that's all of us.

[0:28:38]

It is absolutely in your best interest, in moments when you're expanding, to find ways to hold yourself, to root and ground yourself in moments of terror should they come up. I have to do that all the time. You know, it's where my little kid… that's where my mind tends to take huge moments of expansion and, because I've been expanding so much, I’ve been pretty deep in this work (Lindsay laughs). So it's a... Nine of Swords is a big familiar to me. So it's not unfamiliar, but it's definitely been present. 

Nine of Swords isn't making the scary situation. It's not trying to fuck you up. It's actually helping you to reclaim your own sense of care in moments that may feel a little scary. And again, if you get this card in a position like, “Oh, this is what's coming,” you don't know how that's going to be. That's not necessarily telling you, “Oh, you're going to come into some really horrible scary situation.” 

It could be that like, you meet the love of your life and it scares the bejesus out of you. It could be that you make a huge leap. You start a business. Like, that's gonna bring up all the feelings (Lindsay laughs), you know, and if you're prone to that, Nine of Swords is a huge ally for you. Huge. It will help you over time. Learn how to work with your fear. Learn how to scoop up your fear. Learn how to call your mind out on those invitations. When the mind says, “Oh my god, this could happen, that could happen,” maybe you play with like, “Well, okay, what's the absolute worst thing that could happen?” And you actually follow that trail. 

[0:30:26]

You know, maybe it inspires you to bring it to a processor. There are so many… hope you can feel it. So many root systems of care, of self empowerment, of autonomy, of self tending, reparenting, that can open up as a result of this card. It is profound. And it is for you, not to you. For sure, you can always go back to “to you.” Most books, most people, only talk about Tarot as being kind of to you. Not everybody, but most (Lindsay laughs). The “for you,” for your evolution, for your highest growth, for your continued expansion on this planet, for your continued willingness to come home and tend to yourself; definitely possible and ready and waiting for us, for whenever we want to dip in and play with that, you know. 

Another card that I think we can… we can bring about as a sort of example here is Five of Cups. So how can a card like Five of Cups, that typically does indicate — for most over-culturally and interpretations and books and things — as a loss, as a kind of a grieving process, as a contraction point, as a moment where we can kind of only see what's been scattered to the wind and we can't see what's on the other side. We can't see the possibility. We can't see the next step, at least not right now. How can an energy like that be for us, not to us? 

[0:32:18]

It's really easy, when we pull Five of Cups or if we're thinking about this card, to immediately move into a place it's like, “Well fuck, something's going to happen to kick that off. Something substantial, specifically external, some situation is going to arise, it's going to put me in that place.” So in terms of “for us, not to us,” I want to extract Five of Cups from the need for any kind of external impetus. Because you and I — all of us — have profound grief living right under the surface in every moment. It doesn't take much for us to dig in the soil of our being and hit some water, you know; it's in there. And that's really what this card is about.

That when we grieve, ideally, we are in the fullest honoring of the grief. We're letting it be raw. We're letting ourselves be in the grief. We don't have to immediately turn around and see the positive unless we, like, need that for our survival. I'm never going to tell you how to be, so the way you're grieving is perfect for you, full stop. But a lot of us, we’re a little reticent to give space to grief. We don't want to be “negative.” We don't want to bring a party down. We don't want to, whatever.

[0:34:17]

Five of Cups. If we just truly look from a super objective standpoint, Five of Cups actually says, “You will be more able to be present with the full cups in your life if you are continuing to give attention to the places that you're leaving behind, to the things that have died, that you are grieving.” Grief is really spiralic; we don't often plan for grief (Lindsay laughs). Don’t think many of us do. We're often taken surprise... a bit taken by surprise with grief. And grief for the most part unless we are like… and I bow to the folks who have this within them, grief makes us pretty uncomfortable. Most of us. 

It does pull us into a space where we want it to be over as soon as possible. It's as understandable as it gets, really. What might it be like for you to make a space at the table of your life for your grief, for your mourning, for your sadness, for your rage, for your emotion? To make space at the table of your life for this raw, beautiful part of you? And I don't want to romanticize grief. I often feel that that's a bit icky, but the rawness, the ability to love… I mean, that's really at the heart of grief. 

We grieve because we love so much and even in love, even in spite of the fact that we're likely going to have losses that are enormous in our lives, what would it be like to make a space at the table for your grief on your terms?

[0:36:11]

Some of us have suffered losses so great, we can't be in contact with those losses. We cannot be in connection with that grief, otherwise it would take over our lives. But what would it be like to not shut it out to the point where it had a space at the table where we could just simply say like, “I see you?” when we have disappointments, when we have moments where…  Very naturally and inevitably, Five of Cups is not always reflective of a grief or a loss. If you make a decision — I've used this example before — but if you make a big decision with your business, with a friendship, with a trip, and your mind pops up and is like, “You made a huge fucking mistake. You shouldn't have done that. You lost everything. You should have gone this way, instead of that way.” You're going to have Five of Cups come up. 

So what would it be like to make space at the table for those feelings? Those feelings are so human, that rawness, like, “I made a mistake. I shouldn't have done this. I shouldn't have done that.” Instead of trying to recenter, to fix it, to get out of it, what would it be like to practice just sitting in the discomfort? And how would that be for you? 

Well, it might not be if, you know, you never have to go on what I say. But here's some of the ways that it might be in your best interest. It can help you to be close to yourself in moments when you're suffering and in pain. It can help you not to turn away when you're uncomfortable, from yourself, which is a very valuable skill to develop. It can help you to live and be in the center of a contractive space. When you'd rather wiggle out of it, try to fix it, those are very valuable, to let those beliefs come up in order to actually be centered, processed, cleared. 

[0:38:28]

But in terms of honoring and making space for the grief, I can tell you that I've spoken about this precise example on this podcast a couple times. But I have, as somebody who since I was a child, I'm an extremely, obviously, very highly sensitive person; I've always been. I'm very empathic. I’m very aware and connected to the energy around me, sometimes to a very annoying and detrimental degree. And I feel everything, and I... especially younger can definitely shut a party down with, like, my sadness that can come up at really random times. And I've learned that when I have huge sadness arise, that actually, if I can just give some space to it in the moment, if I can take that space and honor that, it actually really helps me to be more present with the two cups behind me. 

Like when I'm with those three cups, it actually makes me so much more intimate, close with myself. It is a re-parenting to my inner child too because I'm like, “You can be sad any fucking time you want to be. I'm not going to stop you. You're not inconveniencing me.” So it's a really potent space to be in. If other people are uncomfortable with that, I don't hang out with anyone who's comfortable with that. At this point in my life, those people have come and they've gone. 

But I'm allowed to feel my feelings, like full stop, you know. So if I don't make space for that, who's going to, you know? So for us, not to us: a profound reclaiming of our process of mourning, of grieving, of making space for that, of weather patterns of emotion coming in and out. Really being in the honoring of something. You know, sometimes Five of Cups is like, “Yeah, honor this. And when you're ready, when it's time, there'll be something different and new that will call you back to your heart.” 

[0:41:03]

That's why Six of Cups is really like, we've come back to sort of the heart of a child, like open and receptive after such a brittle loss. Really beautiful invitations into self-tending, self-reclamation, self care in this card — ones that, at least for me, are certainly for us, not necessarily to us. 

Another example that I think is kind of interesting to unpack and look at, is a card like The Empress. So this one probably seems a little obvious. Like, of course The Empress is for us, it's like... all the “all the great things,” you know, yada yada yada, like, but it is interesting to get really curious about this idea of the cards that have been sort of over-culturally labeled as the good ones, that I actually think what winds up happening sometimes is that we don't know why we think they're good. 

I don't even know if we know how they feel for us. Our nervous system just kind of attaches to certain cards, and it's like, “Oh, great.” (Lindsay laughs) And I think The Empress, for some people, can be one of those cards. It's just like, it's just great. But we don't always actually know why. 

And I bring this up, because I actually think my experience as a reader for many years, as a practitioner of the cards in my own practice, and as a teacher, The Empress makes people very uncomfortable. First of all, it's highly gendered in the over-cultural perspective, and is really hinged on a mother, fertility, pregnancy, cisgendered, female paradigm, which there's nothing wrong with those things at all. Those are lovely things. They're not like, the end or the full, inclusive container of a card (Lindsay laughs). Not like at all, and there's a high degree of... there's a pretty high lack of inclusion rate, if that's like what we're going for. 

[0:43:41]

The other — so we want to think beyond that. The Empress is not necessarily a mother. Not all birth givers call themselves “mother” either. This is not even necessarily about birth, or giving birth or fertility or what we might call “femininity,” which is completely personal. And is not a term or word that will resonate with everybody. 

So we have to utilize our four C's — our Critical Thinking, our Common Sense, our Compassion, or Curiosity — to be like, “Okay, this was like, pretty simplistic. We got to go way beyond this to really tap into the essence of what this card is bringing us.”

The other thing that is very interesting about this card is that very, there's something baked into it that this is about like, fertility, and abundance, and like a sense of richness and you know, yeah, like fertile soil on a larger level, like materialistically or, you know that it represents a sense of like love or beauty and absolutely, like Venus is all the all the pleasure, all the things that bring us pleasure. It's how we love. It's how we express our love, how we prefer to be loved. Like there's so much inside of that. I'm not saying it's not that; it's just not all it is. 

And here is something inside of the Venus work that we do that is really uncomfortable. That is a rock, a little tiny pebble in most of our shoes that we feel. I think with The Empress, all the time, that no one wants to be the person in the room with a bunch of people who love The Empress to be like, “This card kind of makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable. You know, like, I wonder if it's just me.” It's not just you, it totally isn't just you. 

[0:45:46]

One of the things is that, again, this card has been like… five percent of this card has really been, like discussed very heavily. Like all of these kind of terms and labels that we talked about that aren't inclusive of all beings, you know. And beyond that, there's also a piece of this card, that when we think about this idea of Venusian themes, of love, of beauty of sex, if that's what we engage with, or we’re receiving or receptive of that kind of thing in our lives right now, are the things that make us feel good, that bring us pleasure, that that we cherish. 

It does call up this idea of receiving and receiving is… my teacher, Michelle, I really agree with her, this is really true in my life as well, it's like one of the hardest things, if not the hardest thing we do, we're very, very uncomfortable with receiving. And the Empress is a radical expander of receiving. 

So for us, not to us. And this is where we can take a card that is kind of sweet, that's sort of over-culturally, like “Everybody loves The Empress.” (Lindsay laughs) Some people are very triggered by The Empress, I don’t want to say everybody, but again, over-culturally. It's a lot easier to get there with this idea of The Empress being for you rather than to, but I think even with that, we have to unpack what the for you is. 

So for some people The Empress comes for them and really engages them into more of those paradigms that are more traditional. When we expand out, when we go really when we open our arms as wide as we can, The Empress is a reminder to us of the beauty, of the spaciousness, of the delights that are our birthright to receive, that most of us do not feel our birthright to receive. We all have thresholds of receiving, where we hit a certain high and we go, “Oh, I can't go any further than that. I’ll look too greedy. I’ll look like I've sold out. I'll look… I won't be like, pious enough.” Like whatever the deal is, right? 

[0:48:31]

We have incredibly subtle ways to block off our pleasure, our receiving, our connection to the stuff that puts us inside of our inner Empress. By the way, all of us have different ways of being in the expression of this card. Being connected, being tethered to this sense of receiving as birthright, it's lifelong work. It's not immediate. But when The Empress comes up in a reading, it's not just to shower us with, like sweetness, and wheat, and coins, and all kinds of shit. I mean, I'm about that. I think that's great. And again, I'm not saying it can't be that. But I do think that what is actually going on inside of that, how it's for us rather than to us, is that when this card shows up in a reading, it is typically a massive expander of our willingness to receive. 

And so what it really does is draw. It draws us like right into the heart of the places where we have the most discomfort with receiving the most. And it will basically say like, “Hey, here's where… here's where I'm finding, you're saying ‘no’ more than you are saying ‘yes.’ It's not your truth. How can you open to something different?” That definitely doesn't feel like it's for us in the short term. In the present moment, it's often very confronting and uncomfortable, but it so is... It so is here to like, dilate us. It's here to help us to be available for more sweetness, for more receiving. There is a lot of beauty inside of this that can be drawn in, even if it is a little confronting and uncomfortable. It's a high, high skill to have to be in the willingness to be in the profound discomfort that comes with wanting to close off from receiving because it's a little bit too painful. 

[0:50:41]

It's also really intense to confront the parts of ourselves that have cut off from receiving. Oof, that can be really painful to be like, “Wow, all of this was available to me and I was just not comfortable with taking it, with my willingness to receive it.” So sometimes even just time, you know, quiet space, those are huge privileges, big luxuries. 

So those are just… it's just a taste. Those are just a couple of different ways that cards can be for us, not to us, not maybe immediately what we would think, right? And yet opens us up to a whole world. If you notice all of the ways that we've been exploring this idea, put the empowerment and the center back on you, put it back on me, like this is about, “What I can do for myself?”

This is about, “What I can reclaim in myself?” This is about, “How I can bless, honor my own process, rather than sort of being whipped around by ‘Hey, this is what… this is what this is bringing you, full stop,’ and it's like a closed argument.” There's a period at the end of the sentence. No, you know what, we're expanding, we're evolving with these archetypes. How can we be open to that? 

So if this felt supportive to you, Rewilding the Tarot, my upcoming course, and really Tarot for the Wild Soul, any Tarot course I teach, this is going to be embedded (Lindsay laughs) in the idea of it, but you're really wanting to sort of structure and solidify your Tarot practice, whether you're super beginner or not in this idea, the course is most certainly going to be your best pal. 

[0:52:38]

So, before we wrap up, I'm going to quickly answer a question that I received on Instagram, from a username that I think is pronounced @shermanator. Hopefully, I've got that right. So the question is, “Hi, Lindsay. I've been wondering why some numbers have very different messages across the suits; Ten of Cups versus Ten of Swords, for example, and others are very similar, The Fours and Fives, etc. It can be hard not to not look at one suit as being better or worse than another when one has more seemingly “negative cards.” Three of Swords, Ten of Swords, Nine of Swords versus the same cards in Cups or Pentacles. I can't help but dread a Swords-dominated reading. I'd love any insight you have into the numerology and why it can be so different. Thank you.”

What a great question. I'm seeing like two things inside of this question. One of them is about the numbers, which I’ll speak to, and the other one is about suits, it seems, so hopefully I'll speak to both of those things. So, you know, my spiel before I'm even going to say that, all suits, all numbers, they all bring medicine, right? (Lindsay laughs) Like they really all do. And your dread is so valid. It couldn't be more understandable. And it really, I think, because you're asking me about this, I probably wouldn't offer it if you hadn't, does often illuminate an area where we can bring some attention, where we can sort of polish the mirror a bit in our own practice. 

I don't… this is the work I do all the time. If I'm really in some big story about like, “Ugh, God,” or if I'm bringing a judgment, a preconceived notion to a suit, a card, whatever, I consider that to be like my the bell ringing. Then I'm like, “Okay, I'm bringing energy into the space with this card. I want to do my own kind of field research on this. I want to look at it and see how I can be a little bit more curious, a little bit more open to this idea.” So that's a… there are so many ways that you can do that with The Swords over time. And really, I think it does help with an energy like The Swords to come into a sense of remembering what they're doing. The Cups can be extremely uncomfortable, even though they might seem, like, delightful. The Pentacles can be super confronting, so can The Wands. 

[0:55:32]

The Swords can be really light sometimes. Really just, The Swords are an opportunity for us to befriend the mind, and the mind can be a little bit of a scary place sometimes. So that's part of why they feel so shitty (Lindsay laughs). It's totally understandable. And I also wouldn't maybe be doing my job, if I didn't say like, definitely check out, you know, see if there are ways that that you can bring about a little bit more curiosity to that. 

So I think that it can be really helpful to come into the heart of the invitation of each number in the Tarot. So you brought up Tens; it's perfect, because we just talked about Tens earlier. Tens are Full Moon energies; they’re harvest points. So really, they're all kind of doing the same thing, each Ten. They're just… the experience of them might be different. 

And I actually am going to say, I don't know if this is true of your experience, but I'm going to say that I think a lot of the time our like perceptions about cards can create so much more stress than what actual cards bring to a reading. Like I know for myself, because I've been so rigorous in my own practice since I was a kid was being like, “I don't know if what this author is saying about this card is actually true for me. I'm going to try to separate that and just be in the moment to moment relationship with this card, to be really curious about what it's bringing in, to observe it.” You know, so I think that might be really useful for you too. 

[0:57:31]

But Ten of Swords… I think it has rather the same message of Ten of Cups. They both just like kind of represent different states of being. In The Cups, we're always seeking. There's so much seeking, and with The Cups too, there's constant shedding, rebirthing, like we're always losing cups, regaining them in different ways. It's super spiralic. It’s very Cancerian, very watery. 

And in the Ten of Cups, our task is really to say, “Can I be present with the joys without having to leap into the next thing?” In spite of what might be here, the inevitability of discomfort, of longing, of wanting, of whatever it might be, how can I be right here, with whatever is coming up in life with the rainbows? 

That's not necessarily easy. It represents a transformation point, a point of review, a point of change, where we're willing, instead of leaping into the next thing, to be with the joys that are present, knowing that life is very long (Lindsay laughs), and that it's always changing. And also, conversely, life is so short. And that can bring up a lot, because a lot of the time when we get Ten of Cups, it's usually that there may be a degree of dissatisfaction in our lives, but the Ten of Cups is actually asking us to be super present with what does light us up while we are in the midst of sort of this transitory time. 

And Ten of Swords is not the same, but it offers us the same degree of review. You know, when we get Ten of Swords, we're typically... It's like shedding a chrysalis, like we are complete with a way in which we've been relating to our thinking. It can't take us further anymore. We have to do something different. And it can be incredibly uncomfortable. Because both of them, all of The Tens, call us into a sense of like, “Here's what I've been doing before. Here's what happened before. This can't come with me. This is going to come with me. Okay, on and on we go.”

[0:59:58]

But in The Cups we’re learning to love ourselves, we're learning to be present with what is, we're learning to honor, bow, accept, embrace ourselves as we are. In The Swords, we're learning to befriend the mind. We're learning to drop into what's underneath the thoughts and tend to ourselves in very challenging or difficult moments. So that's sort of why they're different, because each suit is bringing in a different harmony in this sort of four-part harmony. But overall, the message across each Ten, I think, is actually the same; they're just being expressed… they're being played on different instruments. 

So like Ten of Cups might be piano, Ten of Swords might be a trumpet, but if you listen to like a Chicago song, or any song that (Lindsay laughs), you know, has got some really sweet trumpet, a little Earth, Wind and Fire, and piano in it. I mean, I could go on and on, there's so many beyond Chicago and Earth, Wind and Fire. It's an amazing space to occupy. It works. So it's… I don't want to say it, like, isn't different, because it is different, but it's also totally the same. 

I would actually say that, you could say that about the Fours too. I would say Four of Swords, Four of Pentacles, and Four of Cups are actually sort of similar, like they're all on a piano. But Four of Wands is kind of like on a saxophone, like it's pretty different. And yet, they all have the same tenor, the same message. All of the Fours, really say, “It's time to refill your cup. It's time to take a break of some kind.” Four of Wands is really the only one that’s specifically like, “Go out and play.” (Lindsay laughs) “Go out and enjoy your life.” That's a really important part of tending the fires, bringing a sense of joy to it. 

[1:02:06]

So, I so understand your dread. I won't go into all of the numerology. But just to say that there is often an umbrella of medicine, clarity. There's a sort of a solid intention point that all of the numbers occupy. And if each number is like a song, and each of the four suits are playing a different instrument inside of that song, other songs are going to sound different. And it's really easy to be like, “This part of the harmony, like totally doesn't match with the other part.” And yet they do, you know, they do. Again, that's just a different expression of the same song. 

So I think how you can come to a greater sense of clarity, which hopefully I helped to illuminate for you, is to A) Check in with your relationship about, you know, we're always having to do this work, like where are your judgments, preconceived notions, etc.? How can you befriend a suit like The Swords? I think that's a really important step. It can be done. And if you're willing, like The Swords definitely are not fun, and yet, they are really potent expanders. And so if you can appreciate them on that level, you can still totally dread them. Sometimes I do too, you know, even though I definitely consider them to be pals. 

Kind of going into that root work and then checking in for yourself about like, you know, whether it's kind of tuning in with this podcast if this resonates with you, and really just reflecting for yourself with what has Lindsay said about the numbers over the last, whatever how many years. And really, I would hope going beyond me or anybody else, and checking in with your own understanding, like looking at each of those ten four-card sets and really saying like, “What is, like... How are they all working together here? And how can I let them all bring different instruments to the party? But how can I see them all playing the same song?”

[1:04:28] 

Because I think that does happen. I just think that sometimes we just want all of them to behave the same and they don't really. So hopefully, that helped. I hope (Lindsay laughs). Thank you so much for asking the question. 

[Conclusion]

Oh, Loves, thank you so much for being here. I love you. And a couple different things: So next week will be our Monthly Medicine episode. As I mentioned a couple times, Rewilding the Tarot material drops for that April 7. It's incredible. So beautiful. The first of many, many courses we're going to do this year. If you're interested, you can learn more or purchase at the link in the show notes. 

And next month we're really going to drop into The Wands. We're going to explore several Wands energies, several Wands cards, and I want to know your questions about The Wands, about particular cards, about your relationship with these energies. And so there's going to be kind of a little a link to ask me, you know, to ask Lindsay your questions (Lindsay laughs) for the podcast. That's also in the show notes. It's in my Linktree for Instagram. It's on my website, tarotforthewildsoul.com

I would love to hear from you about The Wands. We're going to have a little Wands-travaganza in April (Lindsay laughs), in honor of being in Cardinal fire for the year. Yeah, we're just going... We're kind of going to have fun with that theme in the month of April. So send me your Q’s if you got them. 

I love you. Thank you so much for being here. Until we meet again, please take exquisitely beautiful care of yourselves.

[1:06:35]

(​Instrumental exit music) 

 
 
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157. Soul Tarot 101: The Tarot is an Invitation