171. A Deeper Balance with Six of Pentacles
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How can we cultivate a deeper sense of balance in our giving, receiving and overall energetic output, knowing that these things are not static, but fluid, spiralic and ever changing? Today on the podcast, we look to Six of Pentacles as a powerful anchor for this kind of deep work, exploring it as a continuation of our journey with Ten of Wands, our card for the month of September.
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About the Episode
Together, we will look at the huge container for support and healing that Six of Pentacles can be, sensing into how it can be a helping presence not just for Ten of Wands seasons, but for our entire life. I also answer a listener's question about sense into aligned visibility with their work, and we dive into the medicine of the upcoming Mercury Retrograde in Libra (9/26).
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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: Ancestral and collective trauma, capitalistic structures, systemic oppression, pregnancy, trauma and anxiety
The content in this episode contains references to ancestral and collective trauma, capitalistic structures, systemic oppression, pregnancy, trauma and anxiety. 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]
Hello, Loves, just a very quick and very exciting announcement to share that enrollment for my upcoming course Heart of Service is officially open. And if you are looking to learn more about the course or to sign up, you can click the link in my show notes –in the show notes for this episode– to learn all about it. Very quickly, Heart of Service is a seven-week online intuitive Tarot immersion for folks who desire to shift into and deepen into soul-led, Spirit-guided service. It's a seven week container running from October 8th to November 19th.
The syllabus is incredibly comprehensive. We cover everything from seasons of life-death-life cycles of our business, and service, and creativity, what to do if we feel blocked, what to do if we don't know what to do, the medicine of everything from a Creation cycle to a Death cycle with our work, a little primer on aligned pricing– there's just so much. And there's a very comprehensive Q&A database of answers to a bazillion questions (Lindsay laughs) that I've been asked about intuition and Spirit-guided service over the years. There's also seven live two-hour calls with me every week for the duration of the course. It's an incredibly rich, robust container. It's also the last live-guided container that I'm likely going to be doing for at least a year given the fact that I'm going to go on maternity leave in February.
So yeah, if you feel called to this kind of journey, this kind of curriculum, and if you'd like to work in deep mentorship with me in this way, I would love for you to be a part of it. It would be an honor to serve you. So again, to sign up or learn more about Heart of Service while enrollment is still open, you can go to the link at the show notes or you can go to lindsaymack.com. Hope to see you there if you feel called.
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(Instrumental intro music)
[00:02:09]
Welcome to Tarot for the Wild Soul, a weekly podcast that explores the Tarot through an inclusive, soul-centered, trauma informed perspective for growth, healing, and evolution. I'm your host, Lindsay Mack.
Hello, Wild Souls. Welcome to a new episode of the podcast. Welcome to Libra season. Hoo, that full moon (Lindsay laughs). Wow. I mean, I do feel Pisces full moons. I don't think anyone… I don't think it's possible to not feel them. But hoo, I really felt that one. That one was big, and Pisces moons are, I think in general, they’re so… They ask a lot of us. I was gonna say they're hard. I don't know if they're hard, as much as the invitation that they bring is so big, because I believe Pisces is so devoted to completion.
It wants us to not have to go into the next cycle with anything. So it's really devoted to like opening up every sort of wound, every place that's not quite completely closed, and clears it all out, because it knows that's how we clear infections. That's how we clear debris. That's how we clear things that we're carrying that we don't even know we're carrying. It's very much like this Ten of Wands invitation. We can get so used to a burden, a heaviness in our sort of energetic load, that until we put it down and actually unpack like, “Holy shit, I've been holding this thing I didn't even realize like I could move forward without it.”
So I think Pisces moons, especially full moons, are very dedicated to that. But the way they tend to go about it, of course, is that they bring us often right into the heart of what feels older. You know, I think a key signature of a Pisces energy, or frequency, or moon especially is like, “Fuck, I thought I was finished with this. I'm back in this.” But we're just clearing out the last pieces, right?
[0:04:29]
And I always feel equinoxes and especially that shift into Libra season. It's huge to go from growing, birthing, blooming, which is the focal point of the Spring Equinox to slow down, shed. That doesn't mean that we won't be creating, but there's a sort of a larger umbrella invitation that is so different. So I hope everyone moved through that with grace, and with a lot of care and support. And I hope that whatever it brought up for you, it's feeling like that starting to clear in some spaces starting to be made at this point.
So, this is our last episode about, rooted in, in devotion to our September card, which is Ten of Wands. It's also the end of our first month back together from hiatus, and I gotta tell you, it's been so nice to hear from so many of you about how you're loving this new theme. I love it. It just feels like a joy to drop into, and sense into, and it's helped to keep the energy of the month ahead so close to my heart. I'm just really enjoying it and so glad so many of you are too.
And so this is a very exciting sort of gateway that we're engaging with here today on this episode, because we're diving into the last and final anchor card that is really going to help to… You know, we've been talking about like Pisces being the end, and about completions, and sealing. We're sort of dropping back into that energy with our anchor card this week. I'm really looking at sort of how do we seal and come to a close with our time in September with Ten of Wands and all that it was inviting us to pay attention to. So there's a lot of richness there that we'll get to explore with our last and final anchor card for our Ten of Wands work.
[0:06:40]
In this episode, we're also going to, I'm going to answer a listener question that is –all of them have been just so powerful– this one I really love and I'm excited to speak to it. We’ll also just spend like probably only a few minutes on Mercury Retrograde in Libra, which is happening in just a couple days on September 26th. I also would love to now, because I think most people are sort of here at the beginning of the episode. The sad thing is that we're sort of bidding September and Ten of Wands farewell, but the exciting thing is that we're about to move into a whole different journey with a different card for October starting next week. And so I would love your questions.
Without giving too much away, we're going to be exploring themes that are within the realm of kind of calling what's ours back to ourselves, loving ourselves, ancestral homecoming. There probably will be a lot of death themes inside of this month. And really trusting that we're enough, like that kind of general overview. And so I know that that's, again, general, but I again, would love your questions about this. I would love to know where you get stuck, where you get caught, your successes, the places where you may feel like you're sort of circling the drain a little bit with that idea. If you have something that's sort of in line with that idea, you're also completely welcome to ask me that too.
[0:08:17]
I would also highly recommend, invite you, if you have not already, to sign up at the link in the show notes to receive the written Monthly Medicine Missive that's going to go out on October 1st, and it's only available to my newsletter subscribers. And it'll be a huge deep dive on the energy of October, a full collective reading on all of the cards that we're going to be working with in October, not just the one that we’ll kind of be spending our time with throughout the course of the month ahead. And a little spread that you can engage with to help you deepen into the medicine of that time.
And so if you'd like to receive that on October 1st, you can. If you miss it, we're also setting up an auto form, so even if you miss it and you sign up on like October 2nd or 3rd, we're working on it so that when you sign up at that link in the show notes, you'll just get it in your inbox. So hopefully that'll be up and running by the time October 1st rolls around.
So, okay. Again, we've been spending lots of time with Ten of Wands and we've really, at this point, spent a lot of intimate time discussing it from all of these different, you know, frameworks and points. And the theme for September was Shift and I would just encourage you, you know, when we spoke about this around the first of the month, what really came through for me in the written Monthly Medicines for September, which was far more extensively gone into than I did on the podcast, but mentioned it on the podcast, that shift, when we shift, and this idea of that being the sort of theme and word for the month of September, there was a lot around there finally being an external shift to match all of the internal work we've been doing.
[0:10:25]
There's been a build up, I would say since 2021 started, but I actually think a little bit before that. There's been a build up of all of this internal work, invisible work, that we can't really see. We have no real framework for it. And it's very challenging, because often it can feel like,
“Motherfucker, like I've been doing this work forever. Like, when is the change? When am I finally gonna see some sort of shift externally?”
And whether it happened for you in a wildly overt way, in a random way, in a very desired way, I encourage you to check in with your September and ask yourself, were there any shifts for me that I want to celebrate that were significant? You know, I think as human beings, –especially human beings that are likely a lot of people listening to this podcast– are really devoted to perpetual evolution. And if we're not careful, it can sort of dip into this idea of being on a hamster wheel. Like, it's never enough. When are we going to get there? And I think that's human nature in general. So try not to compare it. You know, try not to compare your successes, and your triumphs, and your celebrations this month where you shifted, where you grew, where you noticed a difference, to maybe where you want to go in the future. What might have happened in the past, you know? What did September really illuminate for you?
And I want to encourage everybody to be really, really open. Because again, we can get very focused and pretty narrow. Like, our view can get pretty narrow. And we can think like, “I had no shifting whatsoever.” If you declared your boundaries in a different way than you usually do. If you said no to someone– and not responding is a no, by the way. If someone's behavior in your life became unacceptable, and you voiced that, or you took action that reflected that.
[0:12:42]
If you said yes to something, if something came into your life in a way that maybe hadn't before, you have shifted. It doesn't mean like, let's say… let's take the idea of writing a book. Let's say that's a dream you've had forever. Maybe this month an idea started to solidify in a little bit more of a concrete way than it ever had. Maybe you spoke to someone about a book process. Maybe you met somebody who can't necessarily get you further or, you know, but can give you advice on where you are right now. Who knows? But we want to be really open and really flexible with where we're celebrating.
So that's where I encourage you to sort of, that's a beautiful way to sort of bow out the month, and really welcome in fresh new energy is to really reflect like, where have I shifted? And how can I give myself credit for that really powerful and important work that, you know, again, we don't always give ourselves props for.
So we talked this month, we explored Ten of Wands by itself as this incredible invitation for transformation –the end of an old cycle, the beginning of a new one– that really does invite us to sort of place these energetic responsibilities, these wands that we all carry down sort of on the ground, and take some space from them, really give them a big circle. And note for ourselves, like what are we carrying and why?
[0:14:20]
And is there a way for us to, one– compost, giveaway, pass off the wands that were never ours to carry or were at one time and now are not? And how can we really let ourselves go through full cycle of feelings about that grief, or rage, or resentment, or guilt, or whatever it might be?
Then we talked about what it might be like to consider a whole different way of picking up the wands that we actually do want to carry? You know, how can we invite in, ask for, make room for more support, so that we don't feel like we have to take on all these wands by ourselves? Like, what does it look like to give things away to be vulnerable, super vulnerable, ask for what we need? If there's absolutely no ability or access at this point to draw in more support, how can we be open and willing to receive it? You know, we talked about that last week.
This week, we're going to be working with the anchor, that's the anchor card, that's going to help to bring things together, I think, and sort of polish off this quilt, this tapestry, in such a way that I think that it will really help us to sense into this idea of living a good Ten of Wands life. Like allowing Ten of Wands to be a lifelong anchor that moves with us forever, past this month. Because in life, Ten of Wands is an anchor that is actually quite present. (Lindsay laughs) It is for me, certainly I imagine it is for you, too.
We're constantly thinking about juggling, rifling through like, “Is this mine? Do I hold this?” For so many of us, there's ancestral trauma driving that, there's ancestral guilt or shame driving that. There's collective pressure. There's this, there's that. Like, it's hard, right? In the end, if we're not careful, we can pick up a lot.
[0:16:38]
And the opposite can be true, where we like, we know there's a wand that's ours to pick up and we're just not doing it. So, again, this is good energetic hygiene forever. Like this idea of like, what's mine? What isn't mine? What's mine today? What isn't mine today? What felt okay to hold yesterday and does not today? And is there a way for me without adding like more labor, more work, more kind of capitalistic framework of like, more on the to do list for my self tending? When I speak about self tending, I'm never intending for that to be like another thing to do.
We're trying to integrate into our lives, like what is it to aim for, and ultimately fail at (Lindsay laughs) –do better at all the time– a healthy relationship, in general, with what we pick up and what we put down? And the anchor that’s sort of closing us out of this idea and helping to seal and put that final square on the quilt, that final touch on the tapestry, the anchor that's helping us to do that is Six of Pentacles.
So we're going to be exploring Six of Pentacles through this lens, our last and final anchor card around the work we're doing with Ten of Wands. And by the way, this is an evergreen subject. So way past the month of September 2021, you will be able to come back to this and apply this to this idea, like how can we work with Six of Pentacles as an anchor in an overall life-long way around, again, how we can be really clear about what we're picking up and what we're placing down, what we're giving away and what we're taking on.
[0:18:35]
And the title for this episode is called A Deeper Balance with Six of Pentacles. And, you know,
I've spoken about this on the podcast before, we're not going for balanced like some idea of perfect, like floating off the Earth balance here, obviously. Balance is incredibly changeable, believe it or not. Libra season really teaches us that. Like, balance is very spiralic. Sometimes things are really out of balance for a while before they sort of come back to equilibrium and then maybe even move in the other direction where we're receiving a lot more after giving for a really long time. It's not always linear balance, and it doesn't always happen in real time.
So, and that's often not fair, you know. It's not fair. And yet many of us can identify with that, right? So, we're looking at, again, this sort of long term journey –this long term meditation, for lack of a better word– this long term consideration. Like what's my patterning with picking up and putting down, and how can I call upon Six of Pentacles to help me allow for deeper spaciousness, richer commitments, across the board so that I'm no longer sort of leaning into those old patterns and habits that don't serve me, and that actually take away from creating not just deeper balance with myself, but deeper balance with my fellow human beings? And so again, we'll talk about that.
[0:20:24]
Let's first start with Six of Pentacles, which there are a couple Tarot cards –probably more than a couple– that I actually feel like could be their own like multi-week course, in and of themselves, to actually get to the heart of what they bring, the invitation, what's possible, and Six of Pentacles is most certainly one of them. And it's, again, a very, very big one. It's not a card that is a one and done. You can get it in a reading and have it be a one and done.
The invitation, if we're talking about like the quickest sentence on a piece of paper about Six of Pentacles, is that it's an invitation to consider our cup, or energetic cup. Where is the liquid amount in our cup? I know that I'm talking about Cups energy in a Pentacles energy, but you know, let's just go with the analogy here. If we're considering that idea of like, where we are, Six of Pentacles basically says, quite simply, “If you are lower in your cup than you'd like to be, and if you're feeling that, then you have a responsibility to be aware of that and open to more support and nourishment so that that cup of yours gets filled.” And by doing that, by centering that, and acknowledging that, and reaching out into containers of community and support –even just for witnessing and for acknowledgement– we are in turn, calling out to people who have a lot in their cups to give to pour some into ours.
[0:22:28]
And eventually, what that does is it creates as a sort of domino effect, more balance and more equilibrium in cups across the board. That's what happens in Six of Pentacles. Now, let's say somebody with very little in their cup reaches out to us and we have even less on that particular day, or we're right where they are, the most we may be able to manage is like, “Seeing you, you know, witnessing. I'm so sorry you're going through this.” We may not even be able to engage. That's a part of Six of Pentacles medicine too. That's not our time to be giving a ton from that particular place.
We can always acknowledge that there's some folks, based on systemic oppression, based on just larger themes, may always have a little bit less in their cups than we do. And so if we're on that granular level, we can always find something to offer and give from that space. But it's about finding what we can, so that we're not completely getting blown out, because then we'll have nothing to offer to anyone, you know. So the point is, we can't give from an empty cup. It's impossible. And although many of us make the impossible seem possible, it's not really possible to do in a long term.
So that has to do with just this daily, moment to moment, check in process. It has nothing to do with money as a rule, although if you wanted to apply money to it, Six of Pentacles is a reparation card. Like this is, I mean, I can't pretend to know all that there is to know about reparations. I'm still learning too. But if we think about this idea, again, on a granular level of like, what is it –when we consider ourselves, you know– what is it to engage in a cycle of reparations? What is it to make space, to honor, right, those different levels of like, what does it actually mean to be a little bit lower in our cup for one person versus us, based on our level of privilege or, you know, intersectional privilege wherever we want to look at that?
[0:24:46]
It's absolutely a card of reparations and the acknowledgement of a long term cycle that we can seek to hopefully heal or begin to heal by even having that conversation. Like based on harm, based on trauma, based on all of these years, what is it that we feel called and are able to give at this time? It's not always money. It could be some other energetic offering of some sort. But absolutely as a larger, like conversation –one that, again, I'm still very much learning and a student– I think Six of Pentacles is the ultimate card of reparational care and reparational tending.
It's also a card of taking burden off of folks who are often doing it all, doing everything. It does ask for awareness of privileges. It does ask for awareness, again, systemically, of where we are not coming from a place of guilt, but a place of sacred responsibility– a place of, again, reparational care, and have huge ancestral work, you know. Huge. So there's many layers to this card, many layers. So a card of profound caretaking of self and of others, to be able to know when we need something, to be able to have enough courage, vulnerability, to reach out and say, “This is what I need. I recognize you might not, you personally, may not be able to give that to me. That doesn't mean that there aren't others who maybe can, or will, or are willing, but I'm reaching out to name that my cup is empty. It's emptier in this way. I would like it to be filled.”
[0:26:45]
And there are many, many layers to that, right? We can look, again, systemically at huge issues. If we're coming from a place of like, “I've been fucking holding this shit for the family, for my- my identity, for you know, whatever it is, and I'm not doing it. Because I didn't create it, this isn't mine. I refuse to hold it anymore.” Six of Pentacles can help to really say, like, “This is what I have to offer and this is what I'm not available to offer. You know, like, this is what I will not do.”
For anybody who is of service, and we are all of service. If we're going to talk about service, we're of service to our community, to our family, to our children, to our parents, to our grandparents, to like there's no end to the amount of folks that we serve in many of us in a huge variety of ways. Six of Pentacles is the card that really helps the helper. It's one of the cards that really helps the helper and helps us, I think, with time.
Like it's an exponential card, because the more we lean into it, the more we get very clear, “My cup is… I can't give anything right now, so I have to close this. I have to shut this door. I have to stop. Or I have to ask for more support so that I can continue forward. And it has to be a priority, period. And again, if this person can't do it, I'm open to someone else, right? Or I'm going to seek this out.” It asks for a lot of empowerment.
[0:28:22]
And same thing if our cup is so full (Lindsay snaps). If we are blessed with financial privilege, send it out into the world. Like if we're able sponsor, help, donate, support. And again, that's just for like the financial piece. That's also energetically helping out, taking things off the plates of folks around us, showing up to a parent who is still trying to juggle working at home, and in this pandemic, and their kid being in, you know, maybe still not being able to go to school or not being old enough to go to school.
If we have the time, and the ability, and the wherewithal that's showing up and being like, “You do your thing. I'm gonna hang out with your kiddo. I'm gonna do a load of laundry for you and get the dishes going.” It's just showing up and giving from what you can, not trying to give more than what we can because then we will be at a deficit. So there is a lot of subtlety, a lot of beauty to this card.
And again, probably, if I was able to sort of gather with a community of all kinds of different folks, there would be some pretty incredible conversations about this, and about sort of larger themes and different ways to look at it, and how we can… It's an anchor for life. Like really how can we look to Six of Pentacles without giving all that we have in our cup away, because that will do no one any good, and really having this fine tuned awareness like, “Oh, okay, great. My cup is getting like half full, nothing seems to be coming in. I have to pause. I have to shift here. I have to make a change to the best of my ability.”
You have seen me live out Six of Pentacles many times on this podcast, with my work, with my offerings. It may not have been explicit. It may not have been from a place of burnout, or of total like, “I can't take this another moment.”
[0:30:34]
The hiatus I went on. It was too much. I couldn't do it. I had nothing to say. And I love doing this podcast. It had nothing to do with loving it, absolutely nothing. I could not. There was nothing to give. There is nothing to give, and I knew it right when I started to record the episode that was supposed to go out way back in June and realized like, “Oh, I'm complete with this and I don't know if I'll ever come back.”
Now what's the hiatus allowed me to do was fill my cup. I had no idea I was pregnant at that time when I went on break, but it allowed me to move through my first trimester without more on my plate, other than making a course, which was a huge thing to have on my plate while going through my first trimester. And I didn't know why, but a Six of Pentacles bell went off. And that's what happens, right?
Now, I can tell you, to be sure, there have been times in my life where I would not have listened to that, because I would have believed “If I take a break. No one will be here if I get back. If I take a break, I won't be consistent enough.” Which has always been a strange concern of mine, to not be… I think it is really like it stems from some traumatic stuff. If I'm not this, that, the other. If I'm not, you know, showing up like I should be able to show up, like all the time. There was that internalized thing, and it would build and build and build, and then all of a sudden, I'd have to like (Lindsay snaps), get out of there or whatever it is.
And it's also happened in different ways with my work like the shift from one-on-one readings to courses. Like that wasn't because I hated readings, or couldn't do them anymore, or they were completely overwhelming me. I just knew that it was complete. I just, you know, it wasn't a yes for me anymore. And so it's not always that we have to be so burned out and exhausted. Sometimes that's the case, other times it isn’t.
[0:32:40]
And so, you know, I've been talking about Six of Pentacles for a while now. But that's all to say that when we apply this to our Ten of Wands work, what that's essentially asking us to do is to consider this idea of, what am I available for today— takes it out of a long term commitment, which is where I think a lot of us get stuck. It’s like I'm going to promise this thing. I'm going to do this thing, I'm going to be consistent in this thing. And the truth is we can't.
We don't know what life will hand us. We don't know what we’ll be available for tomorrow. Sometimes it's not even that we get so exhausted, we can't keep up with it. It's that something else comes into our life that is so big, and so powerful, and so much more nutritive that we can no longer devote what we were doing in that direction any longer, because we're meant to go in this direction. And so then that brings up Six of Pentacles, too, which is like, well, you know, what do we have to offer and what might need to be put down for that? And, you know, what are we available for here?
It also reminds us that, again, taking that idea out of the long term. If we're in a position to say, “Hey, I am in a place where I need, I am calling upon resources to help me fill my cup, right?” So we can think about it, like maybe let's contextualize it in sort of a framework of self care. Let's say I'm a bodyworker. Well, I'll just use a normal example. Let's say I'm giving Tarot readings, and giving Tarot readings, giving Tarot readings, giving Tarot readings. And I need a Tarot reading, like I need a reading, to help me to get clear, and focused, and grounded, and rooted.
[0:34:38]
That is going to help me to not just sort of be able to continue to give Tarot readings, but possibly even shift the way that I'm approaching those Tarot readings. It could be that I take a little bit of space between each session. It could be it's a natural ebb and flow that we don't follow, of course, in our culture, because we are so completely bound by capitalistic structure. And there's so much inequity and so little compensation for the enormous work that is done. Constantly, there's so much burnout, so much exhaustion. This is not meant to add pressure on any of us.
Six of Pentacles, again, is a lifetime. It's lifelong, where we get highly attuned over time to “I can give this. I'm not available to give this. This is what I'm available to give today.” If we're in a position of giving a lot from that cup, what is required in order to keep that cup full, so there isn't a full on burnout, so there isn't a full on period of exhaustion? Like what's needed, what does that look like, and how can we be open to that? So again, when we think about Ten of Wands, we think about this idea of internal work that leads to external shifts, we're looking at Ten of Wands from the framework of, “yes, it is important to really review, to move through a death/rebirth cycle, to lay certain wands down to pick certain wands up.”
[0:36:14]
Now that that work is done, once that work is complete, how can we ensure that we're staying tethered to the moment-to-moment work, moment-to-moment check in, the connectedness that we're ideally nurturing with our bodies and our hearts and our energetic, you know, capacities to be able to say, “With this wand that I'm choosing to carry, that I am devoted to carrying, I love carrying, here's what I can devote to that wand today.” Or waking up in the morning and thinking like, “I cannot pick up this wand like another day. Or if I'm going to, I'm going to need this, so let me start thinking about what it might be like to ask for that, what it might be like to open to this. Like is there even more granularly that I need to put down, giveaway, delegate in order to do that?”
So it allows for a deeper balance. It allows for a deeper balance in our giving and receiving. Because we're in tune –getting more and more in tune– with that energetic output, knowing that these things, none of this is a static process. It's all fluid. It's all spiralic. It's all ever-changing, right? And like we've been talking about for the last couple weeks, it's really coming into play here. We have to be real with ourselves about what we need, what's ours to carry, and what is not ours to carry, what we desire and deserve to receive.
When we let go of what's not ours to carry, which takes enormous courage, we open to the possibility of someone coming in to pick up that wand that's actually a far more appropriate caretaker for it. And when we open to more deeply receive, we help others to say yes to that call. We help others direct their flow, their capacity for giving, and we allow our own cup to be filled.
[0:38:24]
My teacher often talks about this phrase called “sacrifice love”, and it's essentially exactly what it sounds like. It's like, a lot of us do it. We do it all the time where we think like, “Oh, I don't really want to do this. I can't really do it. But I'm going to do it because, you know, I owe it to this person, or I can't say no, or they'd be mad at me, or they've, you know, whatever.” And we don't actually check in. It's not the… Ultimately, it really is not the deepest form of loving care that we can be offering someone. If we're not available to give it, we are not available to give it.
And again, it's okay, because it does allow and invite us to be able to… I'm not saying that any time we're even an ounce over that line we, you know, we always have to say like, “No, I can't.” There's something to be said for leaning in when we've made a commitment, but also to know that we have the freedom to say, “I'm sorry, like, I'm not going to be available to do this. I was and now I'm not, and I can help you find someone else who will be. You know, here are the recommendations, right?” We don't need to take it on.
That happens to me occasionally with folks who will reach out and like beg for reading and it's never yes, and there are so many fucking great readers out there, many of whom I've had the privilege of teaching a little bit and in the flow of their own journey to being readers. And it's a pleasure to be able to recommend them and send their information that person's way. I don't need to be the person. There's nothing in my cup for that. And that's just like one example.
[0:40:12]
So we're getting more willing here when we apply Six of Pentacles to this larger felt sense. Moving through the world with this being our highest intention, how can we devote ourselves to giving what we're available to give today, receiving –receiving deliciously– without shrinking without apologizing if we really need it? Letting others hold us so that we can hold others, then they can hold others, and we can hold them when they're needing to be held. It's a really beautiful exchange. And ultimately, that is what this card invites us into, and it again, can help us to continue to build a deeper and deeper relationship with our Ten of Wands work over time, right? Because it isn't just a one and done. It is lifelong, moment-to-moment work.
So Six of Pentacles helps us to take in that sense of moment-to-moment work and doesn't just apply it to what's going on today. It also, I personally believe, takes into account like, what are the larger systemic pieces around this? Is there an opportunity for deeper healing in this? Is there a way for me to be of service that allows for a support for this larger healing process to take place? If I am a person who is of service all the time, how can I recognize that the way I serve is going to be changing all the time? And again, we're all of service. So that's (Lindsay laughs) an invitation for every one of us to consider. Yeah, it's incredibly powerful.
Because life happens. Situations happen. Where we were yesterday is not where we are today. And it's really important to feel and know that we have the permission to be able to say, “I am available for this today, today, right?” And if we're really committed, like what will it take to do X? What do we need to engage with this? How can we delegate? How can we really frame the way that we are holding, attending to, our wands so that we can be available to give of that?
[0:42:45]
And if we're just completely depleted, how can we really lean in? I learned this long ago, and it's a tough lesson. It was a tough life lesson for me, and I think it's a tough lesson in general. Nobody is ever going to come and prioritize giving you what you need more than yourself. And a lot of us spend our whole lives not quite asking for what we need, not quite being direct about it, and just wanting someone to come in and validate us, save us, take us out of where we are, which I understand. Again, I've been there, myself and like, it's hard when you've been your own parent pretty much since the day you were born. Really hard to recognize, like, no one's coming. Like if I need something, I have to reach out for that. And I can call upon people to help me, but no one's likely going to initiate this but me.
So how can I be the autonomous, empowered driver of this boat, and engage in a much, much deeper balance across the board, not just with myself, not just with my energetic capacity and what I'm holding and tending to, but with my fellow human being in relationship with them, right? So again, I could talk about Six of Pentacles for hours, weeks, days (Lindsay laughs), months. I think it's such an important card. And I think I'm still just only scratching the surface, to be honest with you, about all the ways that it can show up as a profound anchor for life, for a balance that is rooted in doing as little harm as possible, accounting for harm, accounting for intersections of privilege, accounting for so many different things– ourselves, as well as others.
It's, again, a powerful invitation. And when applied to Ten of Wands, it's a very, very strong anchor that can take this work that we've been doing this month and sort of launch it into our whole lives– really, really expand it.
[0:44:59]
So we have a question from a listener, from Anonymous, that is just so good. And Anonymous asks, “Hi, Lindsey, I'm in a stage in my practice and presence where I am far more visible than I am personally comfortable with. I know that it's necessary for my role as a translator and communicator, and that ultimately, my visibility levels are not exactly up to me. I’ve loved witnessing you take time away and remain in integrity with your practice and service. Do you have any suggestions for navigating the line between visibility and retreat for those of us who, on an individual level, recoil from being seen yet recognize that being seen as quite simply a part of the job given to us by Spirit? With love, appreciation, and joyous wishes for the health of your growing family. Thank you so much.”
Oh, I do have suggestions. And thank you for… I try. I was excited to answer this question, because it's something I think about all the time. (Lindsay laughs) It's something I talk about all the time. And talk about the moment to moment work. I mean, I think my first suggestion is that… I guess my first response to this is that it is moment to moment work. It is and we get to… it takes time and experience often in the contrast. Meaning –this is another one from my teacher, Michelle, that has just been so helpful– experiences in contrast are really helpful.
Every single contrasting experience I've had with my visibility as in, “Oh, I do not like that. I do not. Like, that did not feel good to have someone reach out for me in that way. It did not feel good to share this. It did not feel good to have this expectation put on me.”
[0:47:05]
Every time that has happened, one, it offers me the opportunity to tend to myself and establish deeper care, and also radically permission myself to retroactively declare a boundary and a line where there wasn't one before. And sometimes those lines present themselves. And it's not easy. But there is something to be said for it. I think that a lot of us are so nervous about not letting things get too far out of hand that we don't always consider the idea like we can always go backward. We can always reclaim. We can always reestablish. So yeah, but I think it is moment to moment work. And I think it is our moment to moment considering and moment to moment noticing.
I don't know if this will be useful, but I will say because you mentioned suggestions that and I do- I launched right into what I was saying without really honoring that I so see and witness you in this process, and it is not easy to move through, and I'm sorry that you're experiencing that dissonance. It is extremely uncomfortable for me as well, even though I'm very grateful to be present. And (Lindsay laughs) you know, in what I'm doing and I'm happy people enjoy the work. Yeah, and I hear you. Like my visibility levels are also a little bit not up to me, too. And yet, in a way they are, right?
So how can we… What feels ultimately, like it is a yes to share and a no to share? So in terms of— and this is likely something you're asking yourself all the time. But in terms of how my experience may be of use to you, I used to share quite a bit about what was going on with me personally, and felt that the container that I was serving in was so intimate that –and it was, it was a smaller container at the time– that when I was going through really big rushes of trauma, or of difficulty, or anxiety, I felt very free to mention that.
And also felt, and this seems separate, but it isn't— I didn't even think about posting things that were like, my home where I lived, my animal companion, my partner, my… That all felt like really okay until it didn't. And it wasn't because anyone violated anything. There was just a sense of like, these things are mine. Like, I don't… If I'm going away if I'm on a vacation. I mean, those were the days like (Lindsay laughs) pre-COVID. But like, if I'm going away, if I'm somewhere, like I have been, I mean, you know there are times where it does feel okay to share it. There are times when it doesn't, and there's always a little gut knowing, like I'm not available to share this.
[0:50:02]
So what has helped me is to see everything in the context of having a purpose that would serve my community. If I'm going to share something, I want it to serve my community. If I'm going to share something of myself, I have to go through a very rigorous process of asking like, “Well, what's my ‘why’ here? Why?”
And I think that not a lot of folks ask that why or their why is often like, “Because I want to be seen, because I feel like I have to build my brand. Because of this, that and the other.” I very rarely share photos of myself. I very rarely share details about my personal life. And yet, I think my connection with my community, if I don't say so myself, is pretty intimate. So there are times too where I have to pull back. There are times where I feel called to lean forward and I do not want to, but the call is greater than my preference. So I think the best thing that I can say is that it is moment-to-moment work, and that the top suggestion I have is to know that you can't get it wrong.
It really is an act of presence, of really sensing into like, what am I available for here? (Lindsay laughs) Like, you know, what do I feel okay with, not okay with? And that’s allowed to change. You know, again, taking time away is incredibly important. Knowing that you can make changes, and you don't need to apologize to anyone.
Everyone has either just come with me with the changes, or they've dropped off. There's only been a couple of people who've been like, “Hey, like, I want more of this.” And that, that goes down even deeper for me, it's been like, you know… Even like, having a group container in my courses, which I know people loved, took me many years to be like, this is none of my business what people think about this course. I mean, it is, if it is, but people's like moment to moment reflections, and even their joys, that has nothing to do with me. Like, I don't have to comment on it. I don't have… In fact, I feel like it takes away, which is why I stopped doing them. Because I thought, you know, telling people to feel autonomous and rooted in their own practice, and yet here I am feeling like I have to respond to everyone. Which again, isn't a problem.
[0:52:25]
And that's okay if someone's doing that practice, and it's rooted in, you know, in such a way that feels really like a yes for them. I could not figure out how to do that without feeling like it was a no. So it is moment to moment. And that was a big change that happened last year. And I do think sort of lastly, so it's a random example, but that to me was an element of visibility that I just felt like I'm not… I don't feel available for this. If somebody has important feedback, it will make its way to me. It will. I don't need to catch it like in a group where people should feel free to say anything they want to. It's not always for me to see or even engage with.
I think the way we ultimately find the line, as you mentioned, between visibility and retreat for those of us on an individual level who feel way more private, or hermetic, or internally turned or attuned, or who do not like to be seen… The line is in determining what exactly, explicitly like down to the like exquisiteness, like, of the note on the piano, what is a yes for me, in terms of my service, to share?
And I have found, again, if you notice my work from like, five, six years ago, there's way more of me, or there was like way more of like Lindsay the person. Now there's very little of Lindsay the person, and yet Lindsay the person is so much inside of what, like I'm still doing all my work, all my writing, all my course making, and I am just focused on what is of service to the collective. And I have found that I can be of way more service sort of the less I bring my human stuff into it. It's also not… I don't owe it to anyone.
[0:54:38]
So I think it's about figuring out like, how are we available? Like, what's the line? Like how are we available to be seen? What does feel acceptable? What feels unacceptable? I'm often in a little bit of a back and forth with Spirit on that, where they'll be like, “Hey!” And I’ll be like, “No, (Lindsay laughs) no, no, no, no, no, no. Not today, you know, not today.” Or if that were to happen, all of these different pieces would need to be in place, you know.
So I do feel like, again, and it's an interesting thing, because I don't know what all of y'all are thinking, but I feel like, even this is an intimate share, right? Like I don't, again, you don't need to know like the day to day. I don't even want to talk about the day to day. It bores the shit out of me (Lindsay laughs), you know, much rather like… and yet there is quite a bit about what I share that's pretty intimate and personal still. it's just, it's pivoted in such a way that it's of service. It doesn't have to come back to me.
The last thing I'll say, and sorry for the length in this answer, is think about who gets to have more of you in what container. So my courses, they're often more intimate shares inside of those courses, like what brought me to an understanding, what card this and that. And yet, it is still pretty much all centered and focused around my client, my student who's participating with me in this area, in this arena. So what feels okay for you today is really important, and how you do it, there's a very fine line. And sometimes it's really like going through line by line. And if something (Lindsay snaps) sticks out to you, or you decide, like, “I don't really want my face to be seen, as much as like. I don't find it to be necessary, maybe here and there.”
[0:56:45]
But that's all within your right. Like you are absolutely allowed to do that. And I think again, just remembering that you're allowed, as a human being, to have what's yours, what's intimate, what's personal to you, and what you share. Those things are allowed to be separate. And if anything is privileged to your community, if you want to share it, know that it is a privilege, right, to share it. And then if it doesn't feel okay, we get to not do it again. You know, so, yeah, it's moment to moment. It's moment to moment, you know, because I love this community and feel quite safe with this community, and there are things that are just mine, just like there are things that are yours, that are just mine. And so I had to learn that throughout time.
I've shared this before, but like at the beginning of my career, like everyone had my phone number. Anyone who worked with me can text me anytime. Now, like, that shit is locked down so hard. No one has my number. Every once in a while, like once or twice a year, someone will be like, “Oh, I got your phone number from this person who worked with you, like five years ago.” And you know, the first time it's usually very friendly response. And the first thing is, I would love to actually have this conversation over email. This is my email. And, you know, I don't, I don't talk about this stuff over text. This is a personal phone number.
So I don't care. Like, you know, we're allowed to do that. And we're allowed to change our minds. And so hopefully this long, rambly, spiral answer helps you and I'm definitely thinking of you and about you. Because it is wonderful to be able to be of service and for people to get to be in an exchange, and there's also a lot of challenges and discomforts. Yeah, just feeling into like oof, like, where am I inside of this? What feels okay, what doesn't? We're allowed to let that build and become more robust over time. Hopefully that helps.
[0:58:58]
Man, thank you so much for being here for this episode. And you know, I had mentioned that, yeah, we have a Mercury Retrograde in Libra coming up in just a few days. And I don't have much to say about it. I feel like mercury retrogrades are so hard to touch into and tap into, like what they'll be, the invitation, right? But it's always really cool to think about the Tarot cards that are related to the planet and the sign.
So if we're looking at Mercury, we're looking at The Magician reversed, right? The Magician is ruled by Mercury and if we're looking at Libra, of course we're looking at Justice. And so we can consider The Magician reversed with Justice. We can consider The Magician reversed and Justice reversed, and either way we can have a sense of kind of what's going on.
The one thing that I will say, just that I think is really important, and I'll repeat it (Lindsay laughs) all the time, every time. Mercury Retrogrades we don't… There's nothing to fear about them. They're not formidable. We don't have to be scared. They're not going to harm us, hurt us. Can they create some ripples in the field? Sure. Can ripples in the field happen anytime? Absolutely, right?
[1:00:19]
So, do we have to expect communication and technological breakdowns? No. That's not something that is necessary to a Mercury Retrograde experience. Can it happen during retrograde, anytime? Yeah, it can. When we are in The Magician right side up, the channel is open and things are flowing through that channel. And weirdly, The Magician is interesting, because we can tend to sometimes apply some unnecessary extra baggage to The Magician when we consider the energy because we can think like, “Oh, this is the time for me to like, finish this thing, or polish this thing, or sit on this thing.” And it isn't.
The Magician says like, essentially just bring it out of you. Like if you have something to say, if you have something to write, if you have something to sing, to express, to communicate, you have to let it out of you. Mercury is not about censoring the self or even checking in with like, what we want to say. Now that doesn't mean that we're going to communicate every thought, or we're going to share our song publicly. It means move it through and out of your body. So it could mean that we freewrite a letter that is just full of rage, everything we want to say— and we read it out loud to someone, or we burn it, or we scream it, or whatever it is. The point is, it's out of you.
It does not mean we are going to send that letter to the person, or again sing our song for everyone, or whatever it is. It doesn't mean a finished product is happening. It means (Lindsay snaps) let things come out and through. Let them move.
[1:02:16]
So when reversed, what winds up happening, right? We could say like maybe things aren't moving as smoothly. But what I like to think about Mercury Retrograde as an opportunity to kind of fine tune the way in which we are communicating –and most importantly, channeling, actually– the way in which we're letting things move through us.
As somebody who was born under a Mercury Retrograde in my natal chart, I like them, and actually usually have very fruitful times in the midst of mercury retrograde seasons. I was also born under many other retrogrades and don't really feel them as much. I actually think it imbues me with the ability to see medicine in unusual times, which I'm grateful for, you know. So I think perhaps that's a unique perspective to have on this time, but if we were to apply this idea to Libra, to Justice, Libra wants to be social. Libra wants to connect. Libra wants to create threads of connection and balance, and Libra wants to bring together. Libra wants to understand. So we can look to this retrograde season in a couple of different ways.
We can look to it as a time of incredibly deep healing under the surface of the places that are not super balanced right now. Because retrogrades can sometimes bring what's out, in. So there can be a very deep subterranean healing that happens with that. There can be a lot of internal work that we do around just like where we are right now and what we're being invited to pay attention to. And sort of it actually might even mean that during a Mercury Retrograde in Libra, we're more social and more connected, because a lot of our issues sort of move out of the way. It could mean that the opposite is true for you and you're brought into a lot of internal stuff, and you don't really feel like you want to be as connected.
[1:04:23]
It could mean that you triple double check everything that you say and write. It could mean that there's a lot more confidence about what you're sharing. There's really a million different ways to look at it, but over all, mercury retrogrades are an opportunity, a time to deeply review, the way in which we are leaning into our Magician, the way that we're allowing ourselves, permissioning ourselves, to communicate, and write, and share and speak and channel. And a retrograde is a beautiful time to be able to sense into that. So it could also be like… There's one way of looking at it. Maybe you don't feel super comfortable leaning on community. Maybe social wounding is a really big thing for you. So maybe Mercury Retrograde in Libra is an opportunity to heal some of that, or bring some of it to the surface, or to be brave enough to tell the right people or the trusted folk in your lives, you know, I want more connection, but I'm scared, right?
So, again, not sure how it will be for you, but that's just one sort of, couple different ways, to look at it. And to apply the idea to, again, the Tarot and to look at what that means for you.
So thank you so much for being here for this episode, Loves. I adore you. It was so nice to be able to touch in and dive deep. As I mentioned at the top of the episode, enrollment for our Heart of Service is open. It's only going to be open for about another week and half. Enrollment closes on October 6th, which seems far away, but it's actually coming up (Lindsay laughs) again in about a week, maybe about a little under two weeks, so you have time, but not that much time.
So, if you're interested, you can go to the link in the show notes, or you can go to lindsaymack.com and sign up for Monthly Medicine because it's coming out in about a week. So, lots of goodies coming your way.
Sending all of you lots of love. Thank you for being here with me through this spiral, through September and our beautiful card for September. Just bowing to Ten of Wands and thanking it for showing up as such an exquisite anchor for this month. So excited and so looking forward to digging into a new card with all of you next week. We'll start on that next week. And until we connect during that time, at that time, please take exquisite care of yourselves.
[1:07:11]