196. Monthly Medicine: October is Clearing the Path
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Welcome to a new month, Wild Souls! The theme of the month of October is Clearing the Path, and is a time of big preparation, inward looking, and necessary review. It might be tempting to get swept up in the distractions that arise, but this month is asking us to get focused on our own shit.
Air date:
September 30, 2022
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About the Episode
On today’s episode, we dive into the energetic signatures and invitations of the month ahead, and (of course) dig into our Tarot Anchors for October. Lindsay then answers a question from Alyssa about Tarot cards that can be helpful to parents, self parents, and caregivers.
Links:
Check out my two new Tarot offerings, both of which close for enrollment on 9/30 at 9pm PT!
Send me your Q's for my upcoming Tarot class
Land Acknowledgement
Honoring and acknowledging that this podcast episode was recorded on the unceded land of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, currently called Portland, OR, with the deepest respect to the Kalapuya Tribe, Cowlitz Tribe, and Atfalati Tribe.
Please Note
CW Tags: death, capitalistic structures, depression, mental illness, birth, and challenges around parenthood
The content in this episode contains references to death, capitalistic structures, depression, mental illness, birth, and challenges around parenthood. We have done our best to identify difficult subject matter, but the labels may not be comprehensive for your personal needs. Please honor your knowing and proceed with necessary self-awareness and care.
Transcript
[Introduction]
[0:00:00]
Hey Loves, before I dive into today's Monthly Medicine episode, just a very gentle, very quick heads up that this is the last day to sign up or enroll for two of my brand new offerings: one of them is called Tarot Anchors for Radical Self Love, the other is called Tarot and the Inner Child. Both are really sweet, deep dives into those themes and how to lean on Tarot as an Anchor and a guide and a tool for fuller exploration of our perpetual, lifelong work in those areas.
They're gonna go in the vault tomorrow (Lindsay laughs), like, this is the last day, the 30th is the last day, to sign up for both of them. They may pop out at some point if I do a little vault sale, but right now they're gonna go for a little while.
So if you've been looking for some nourishment in this area, I would love to humbly recommend them. So to check both of them out and sign up for them, if they call to you, you can click on the links in the show notes. Thanks so much for being here.
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(Instrumental intro music)
Welcome to Tarot for the Wild Soul, a podcast that explores the Tarot through an inclusive, soul-centered, trauma-informed perspective for growth, healing, and evolution. I'm your host, Lindsay Mack.
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[0:01:29]
Hello Loves and welcome back to the pod. I am your host, Lindsay Mack. It is such a delight to be gathered with all of you, as always, especially for a fresh and hot Monthly Medicine episode.
I am so happy to be in October, I could scream (Lindsay laughs). I am. I'm just… I’m happy to be here. I'm happy to be here. I'm also happy to be getting closer and closer to getting the fuck out of 2022, tbh. I imagine I'm not alone in it. It's really been a dumpster fire. And, you know, I find, especially, like it's very much easier to kind of track these things, doing something like this podcast, because you're constantly tuning into the collective and sensing into all those larger themes.
I notice, for myself, that I feel like the energy of the Tarot card of the year really intensifies the closer we get to the end of the year (Lindsay laughs) because I feel like it's like, “Hey!” like clapping in your face like, “We have only a few months work to do. Like, let's clear it out, so you don't have to go into this next year with any of this bullshit, whatever, repeating the work.” And I get it. It’s so helpful, and also like, oh my God, I've had enough life lessons to last me a million lifetimes (Lindsay laughs)! Again, I'm sure that you feel me. I'm salty today, maybe a little bit salty and grateful.
So yeah, we get to dig into October together. October is funny. It's a funny month, in terms of its energetic signature and its invitation. There's a lot of different things going on under the surface and on top of the surface. Before I get to kind of the theme and the cards, specifically, I want to talk a little bit more about that energetic signature.
[0:03:55]
So in October, right, let's just start with kind of one baseline to sort of map this out:
We move from Libra to Scorpio in October from Justice to Death. And there's a real, sometimes the shift, The Moon to The Emperor from Pisces to Aries, is one of those shifts that is, like, wild (Lindsay laughs), like, in its dissonance — at least for me. But the shift from Justice to Death is easy breezy, like Justice perfectly prepares us, and, of course, so does The Moon to The Emperor, in terms of moving from Pisces to Aries. I find that just kind of the connection point passing along from one to the other can be a little disorienting, a little, little weird.
Justice, and you've heard me now speak about this many, many times over the last week or so, and especially if you're doing Spiralic Tarot, you've heard it, like, it a million times (Lindsay laughs). But there is a sense with Justice where it really is very intense and kind of exacting, and it's a kind of, yeah, it's an intense energy. And it really invites us — some would say, forces us— to acknowledge what's happening right now, even if it's really hard to face, so that we can be available to change it with all the information available to us. That's not easy to do.
Justice is ruled by Libra. So we're moving through that on one layer this month, for most of this month, till we shift over into Scorpio season in late October. That's really intense to acknowledge what's not serving, what's not working, what we're needing, what we're not needing, that we might need a little bit more help, that we might need to ask for support, that we might need to do a little less or a little more. And again, those realizations that can come up to our eyeballs through Justice can be really blunt, and kind of intense — again, that word— to take in.
And so, for some of us, the work that we do with Justice can take a lot of, it can call for a lot of, comfort and a lot of tending, just in terms of, like, how we absorb this information and what realizations come as a result of the absorption of information. That leads us into Death really beautifully. Because the more we realize, the more we can be with and acknowledge and truly look squarely in the eye of what's here, whether it's fair, not fair; we want it, we don't. Just being like, “Okay, regardless of how I feel about it, and, of course, my feelings about it are valid, this is what's here. So if I don't want it, and if it's not working, what do I do about it? If I do want it, but want to shift in this direction, or want to feel like I can actually embrace what's here. What do I do about it?” it actually frees us up to change, more potently than most Tarot cards do.
[0:07:38]
So that's our work with Justice and Libra, by extension. And again, that tees us up really perfectly for Scorpio themes and Death because Death is really the last action in a long, long line of Death work in the Tarot. Really, all of line two of the Major Arcana, we're preparing for our work in Death.
Death is that moment where we finally uproot the thing that we've been doing a ton of work around, actually lay it on the compost pile. It's actually the moment when we let go, when we clear, when we are willing to move through the transformation that's necessary to move to the other side. So I share all this not just because it's relevant to the month ahead, but because it applies to this energetic signature of the month that I was talking about.
This month, the best advice that I can give to everyone is to, as much as you’re able, given your life circumstances, is to just kind of chill. Not chill, like relax or whatever, but to kind of lay low a little bit, and to rest as much as you can, and to just kind of like from, again, sort of an energetic standpoint. We're on a, you have the ability to kind of, in a way, float down a lazy river in the midst of a lot of churning rapids. And like, when the moments come that you can just float on this proverbial, lazy river, you're gonna really want to take that time.
This month is a time of kind of coming back to center in a way, coming back to some part of ourselves. I think some of it is sort of clicking back online with all the work we've been doing, particularly, in this Mercury Retrograde transit. Mercury Retrograde goes direct around October 3rd. Of course, we're in the shadow for a little bit, where this retrograde, in particular — we're in multiple right now — but has been very… the themes of review and reflection kind of have been so intense that it's been a little hard to actually be in the body because we're up here, over there. There's a lot going on that we can't really sense into or name.
So, as much as you're able, it's not about being lazy. Although, I don't even think laziness really exists — total shout out to Dr. Devon Price whose book is incredible called Laziness Does not Exist. I agree. And I think that it's not about, like, tuning out or disassociating or not being here, but it is about choosing to kind of be a little bit more still, a little bit more inward. There's a very, there's very much a turning in.
Even for the folks over in the Southern Hemisphere who are kind of welcoming the medicine of Spring, that's still, that kind of shift is a real internal time, actually. Even though there is a blooming and a blossoming, there's a lot that has to get cleared before that happens. And a lot, of course, for those of us who are experiencing autumn, it's all about clearing in order to sort of welcome the deeper rest and the hibernation season of the year.
[0:11:35]
So the theme of October is “Clearing the Path” and weirdly — and again, that's the energy and the medicine of this month — it’s kind of hard to nail down. It's very all over the place. But I think that's part of why they're like, just try to chill and don't do too much, as much as possible. Like, spaciousness and breaths and moments to ground are really important because, again, everything's like whipping around, because it's a very big climax point. With all of this work we're doing around reflection, review, realization, acknowledgement, it requires a lot of internal work.
And if we're courageous enough to be honest with ourselves about what's not working, what is going really well, embracing a little bit more of what's going well, leaning in a little bit more to what nourishes us, it will really help us to traverse the river that we're kind of in right now. Really important, if we're doing a lot of outward, if we're putting our energy out into the world in a lot of ways, important to go inward just as much.
So clearing the path: what I can say is that we're in a time, and I know this sounds, I don't know how it sounds. It's funny to channel these things because sometimes, like, what people say, the shit all sounds the same. It’s true (Lindsay laughs). But what I can say is that I think I can clarify sort of how this is showing up a bit. We're in a time, we could call it, of preparation, right? Not preparation, the sense of, like, prepping or like a terrible scenario. We're in a time of sort of, again, reevaluation and of preparing for whatever 2023 is going to bring.
2023 is right around the corner, and it is a Chariot year. And Chariot, you can think of, literally, a creature shedding an exoskeleton. That's us, that’s you and me; that's all of us. There's a lot, collectively, that there's going to be a lot of exoskeleton shedding. So the thing and the theme that's been so intense and relentless in 2022 is simply that we really, really cannot do, cannot have the capacity to hold, more than what is meant to be on our plate. And only you can know what that means.
[0:14:35]
But when I say preparation, I mean this. Here's what I mean: if there is an opportunity for you to engage in something that you've really longed for, and you've never really had the time, the ability, the opportunity to do, what we're kind of being invited a look at is, is there anything on the path in front of us that would create an impediment to what we're really desiring that we actually have some control over?
For example, if we're constantly, constantly bemoaning the fact that we don't have space, we don't have time, but really struggle to give ourselves time and rest, when it's actually available to us, clearing the path for you might look a little bit like maybe putting a website blocker on your phone, if phone use and scrolling is really challenging, so that you kind of have that reminder. Like, you can, actually, in this moment, even if it's for 20 minutes. Like, put your phone down, and be and chill, and maybe even read, or just sit there, you know, watch TV, whatever you want to do. Take a nap, you know, like whatever. Sometimes I think spacing out is really, really healthy and great.
If you're somebody who wants to be a part of community, wants to be more connected, I wonder if you might pay attention: like, are you available for that, you know? In this time of completely necessary social distancing and pre-existing conditions, not all of us can, like, go out into the world and connect socially. Now, COVID is still happening and a very real thing — PS, please get your Bivalent boosters. What does it look like to be available for something like that for community, even virtually or distanced connections to come more fully into your life?
I don't mean to put this as, “Oh, we have control,” and like, “every block, or every impediment is somehow our doing.” That’s total bullshit, it's not true. We're being invited this month to pay attention to the fact that sometimes if we think about the path in front of us, life puts stuff in front of us; there's nothing we can do about that, and that's not our fault.
But if we are putting things in front of us, just because we might be available, we might be a little nervous or a little antsy around, like, an open road stretching out in front of us, and we feel like “Oh, I need like something going on, something to do,” we may want to rethink it. And we may want to play around with what it might feel like — probably a little uncomfortable, if not super uncomfortable — to just not have anything. If you don't quite know what the next thing is we're doing, can we just leave it like that, so that we actually are available to receive something that could really be delightful and very exciting, you know? So there's a lot of invitations here to, in whatever way we have control over it, to clear a path to make way.
[0:18:22]
I love — I'm a Virgo rising. I live for cleaning and decluttering. There's nothing more that soothes my spirit than pruning a closet, like, nothing (Lindsay laughs), you know; working out new ways to like whatever, organize. I've always been that way since I was a teenager. So that's also that's kind of another piece to it as well. Like, is there a refresh that would really feel, like, good in your spirit to do? It's a big month for clearing the way, clearing the way for something energetically, spiritually, socially, emotionally, et cetera — physically, too.
And this isn't like a kind of a manifestation thing. This is really more of, like, an energetic space holding thing. If we were thinking about welcoming a beloved guest for dinner, who was sort of on their way, walking down the path, we would want to leave a seat available. We're simply leaving a seat available and thinking about, like, is there anything piled up in that chair that maybe we want to just find a new place for?
So again, this could show up for each one of us so differently. Really important: if there's debris and clutter and distraction and bullshit and kind of noise on the line, it's gotta go. It's gotta go, or at least the intention has to be kind of planted for plans to let go (Lindsay laughs). We're making space. It’s a really big part of this month. We can't really do that without going through this deeper review. So again, tons of internal work, tons of internal work.
Do not be — I know I just mentioned an example like “being more available for connections and for social engagements,” if that's what we're being called to. Even if that's your goal and your desire, you still gotta make space for the processing that this time is sort of taking us into.
[0:20:38]
So our support Anchor Card for the month of October is The Magician, reversed. That's interesting, because Magician reversed came up a few weeks ago, in our sort of weekly pulls. But this time, it's showing up as a much more broad, energetic invitation for this entire month and is really directly helping us to clear the path. So let's kind of break it down in a little bit more of a deep way:
When Magician comes to us right side up, what we're talking about is really just a flow of energy. We receive a hit, an inspiration, and we're called to really channel it through us. It's about freedom of movement and of expression, and it asks us to clarify, because Magician is all about flow, where might there be sort of a crimp in the hose, if you will? What, you know, are we open? Are we available? Are we attempting to overreach? Are we not super rooted? Are we receiving inspiration and sort of trying to manage it, and, you know, be very kind of mental, ego-driven, like mind driven about it? Or are we just kind of letting it flow, and being like, “Alright, this is what it is today. It doesn't need to be perfect or wrapped up in a bow. It just sort of is what it is right now?”
So that's really the focus, actually, of Magician, and how it's very helpful, as a card, to live by. It's not some esoteric thing, it's not some like place to go. It's as simple as like, if there's a concept for me about a Tarot card that I've never thought of before, and it just sort of strikes me because I'm in the moment, Magician work is as simple as me pulling out my phone, opening the Notes app, and just jotting down what I noticed, rather than all of a sudden being like, “Oh my god, I have to write a class about it,” or “Oh my god, I have to go home to like, whatever.” Maybe, but it could also be just really simple, where we just are able to like, receive and express, and receive and express, and I've talked about this before.
Magician doesn't always mean that there's somebody who has to be an audience to what we want to express. This is more about us just getting it out of the physical vessel and into the ether, so to speak, so that we've allowed something to come through, and we've actually just written it so we can return to it and go back to it.
[0:23:26]
Magician reversed is typically a time when we're being invited to really — like, I used that example of how much I love to like prune and declutter. If you think about, like, a large spiritual or energetic or universal pantry of your soul (Lindsay laughs), this month, Magician reversed is like: pull every single can and box out of that pantry, and like, clean those shelves, vacuum up in there. Maybe paint your shelves or take the shelves out and come up with a new organization system. Donate the food you're not going to eat. Recycle the stuff that has expired, meaning, throw it away, and like, recycle the can. I felt like you get it, but just want to make sure (Lindsay laughs). That's actually how Magician reversed is supporting us this month.
And its message is: do not get all caught up in big picture shit. Do not try to figure out, “oh my god, what's going on here, there?” whatever. You have to just be right here. I don't necessarily know what we're preparing for, what's coming. My sense is that it is not anything terrible. Like it's not… Before 2020 happened — and I said this many times on the pod and in The Threshold recording for 2020 that was recorded before 2020 came around — I knew that something huge was coming. Of course, I didn't know what. But this feels way more personal, not so collective.
There might be a lot in the collective, actually, that goes down over the next few months. While we are being asked, of course, to pay attention to causes that require our attention or our dollars or our time or our protests, it's actually a very important time to pay attention to our pantries, our closets, our basements, our attics, our storage units, those kinds of areas of our being, because we don't want things kind of hanging around. We want to take care of them, and we want to come up with a little bit more of an elegant solution to what we have going on.
So Magician reversed doesn't mean we're not creating and channeling, it has to do with a complete reorganization of how we receive and channel out information, so it can be easier. So things can be easier. That's the whole idea right now: how can things be easier, gentler, even by like 10%? Gentle, gentle, very important.
The other thing about this is that it might be a time when we're actually receiving a lot of information, but how we actually go about it, the next step we take in the pursuit of it, that's a little different, right? How we express it, it might totally be internally right now. It might not be that we take it out to the world. It's really about kind of sitting in what it is that we're creating and doing a lot of sort of internal clearing and pruning and reorganizing, clearing that pathway, so that when something does want to come through, there's actually room for it. When that relationship, that idea, that opportunity comes through, we can actually say, “Okay, my ducks are somewhat more in a row to actually meet this.” It's really important.
So if something's been sort of hanging over your head, energetically, it could be anything, it's really important to give that your attention this month. This month is the time that the energetic sort of rewards for those actions are huge. So I highly recommend that if you're going to put your energy anywhere, it's there.
[0:27:51]
Two of Pentacles is kind of the little helper for Magician reversed. What that's basically putting forward is kind of a doubling down of the same. It's basically saying, “Hey, like, pay attention to what is important. Pay attention to what actually requires your attention and be willing to leave the rest. Be willing to leave the rest right now, be willing to see, like, where do I tend to leak out my time, whatever.”
I don't know. These times on the planet are so fucking hard. I'm not trying to begrudge anyone, like their time on Reddit or Tik Tok or whatever. I mean, really, I’m not. I'm just simply not. So you do what you have to do. You do what you got to do, you do what makes you feel good. And you owe it to yourself to just check in and say: is this really supporting me? Is this making me feel good and nourished and cozy? Does this feel like a good use of my time, or does it not right now? Sometimes it changes from moment to moment. Really important to go within and focus deeply on what's here, what's present, what's important.
Yeah, really, I mean, really, the biggest message I'm hearing is that if things are sort of standing in the road, standing in the way of the path ahead, and we're adding, we have a bunch of debris that could be moved or could be cleared away, it's just simply going to make the next few months in the next year, really, like just tougher. So whatever you got to do to kind of clear that out, just do that.
[0:29:47]
What we're being invited to pay attention to is Eight of Wands. So what this means: Eights are transformations that are in process, so it's perfectly matched and lined up to this whole idea. Eight of Wands says, like, we are preparing for something, and it's something that we've been working toward for a little while. And again, I want to be really clear here: that doesn't mean that the thing that you've been calling in will, all of a sudden, magically come to your door in its full form, you know. I want that for you, but I also don't know if that will be. It could be that now is a time where we plant a seed, and a couple cycles from now is when we sort of start coming more deeply into the things that we've really wanted to do or that would really be of use.
Eight of Wands is not about a ton of doing, it's about recognizing that we've already set the Wands in motion. Our job is to prepare to meet them. Our job is to open to them. Our job is to connect with them, and be available to basically say, “Hey Wands, like, I kind of set you in motion a while ago, and now I want to make sure that when you actually kind of land at my doorstep, I'm ready to meet you, and I'm ready to greet you,” right? So that is what we're being invited to pay attention to.
The pull to get caught up in this and that, to go hither and thither, is going to be really strong this month, I think as strong as it ever is. If we can kind of make a game out of it, and be like, “Oh, yeah, I could get all caught up in that or not,” we might want to, we may just want to see. Like, if you're somebody who just really gets caught up in minutiae, or if the news, understandably, completely derails you, or if you do get swept up in social media, and it doesn't feel good, then I would say like, again, it's just a month. And I believe in staying in touch with the news to a degree that feels, like, there are times where I do think it is really important to move away and come back when it feels right. But you're allowed. You're allowed to say, “This is a really, really, really deep time internally, and I just kind of want to be in my own energy.”
It's about moving into the subtle and the internal versus kind of the larger waves of the external, without turning away or without becoming too much of an island, right, just kind of bridging that gap. So that Eight of Wands — we're transforming, we're preparing, we're readying for something. It'll all be different for each of us. So we want to do the work required to be available to that, and that's really all that there is to it.
[0:32:55]
Four of Swords is showing up as kind of the balm and the honey, the medicine of this month, sort of what's sweetening our tea, so to speak (Lindsay laughs)? The mind is going to have all kinds of opinions about all this, it's going to say, “You should be more productive,” “Why would you spend time on a preparation for something that might not come?” Why should you clear the path? What if we clear the path and nothing comes in, then we won't have what was there before?” blah, blah, blah.
The last few months have been cacophonous, in terms of the internal intensity and the external intensity, and Four of Swords is a very healthy mental break. And the way that I work with Four of Swords, personally, and it might not work for everyone. And I'm not a therapist, so I can't tell you. This is unofficial advice (Lindsay laughs) that's not even advice. It's just sort of sharing how I work with it.
When I get Four of Swords, it clicks very nicely into what we're talking about. So when I get Four of Swords, what will typically, what's typically going on is that I have a task to do or multiple tasks to do. And my mind has a lot of opinions about those tasks, like, “Oh, it's gonna take forever. I can't do it. I don't know what to do,” blah, blah, blah. And usually what I like to do is kind of turn toward my mind and just say, you know, “Hi babe, I hear you and I can tell you have a lot to say about all these things and maybe a lot of invitations over here and a lot of worries there. I am not going to be available to take those invitations, and I'm going to kind of pick you up and sort of place you on this little shelf over here. And you can talk to me, you can, like, leave me little notes, you can tell me everything you like. But for the next five hours, two hours, whatever, I'm actually just going to do this. And then later, we'll check in about anything that might be on your mind.”
So, you know, it's basically kind of clearing a path and making a really clear decision with the mind to not say, “Hey, I'm booting you out,” but to kind of be like, “Right now is not the time that I'm going to go through every mistake I've ever made and all the things I could do and all the things that I should do. I'm just going to be with what's in front of me. So thank you for the invitation, and also, no, thank you.” And it's really just as simple as that. And that's kind of what we're doing. That's what we're working with, and that's where we're being invited to sort of train our attention to and on. Hopefully, that makes sense.
[0:35:59]
And, you know, again, like, it's all… Like, we're in all these retrogrades. We're in Mercury shadow for a little bit, sort of into around the second to third week of October. I think it's October 13. Around there is when we start to sort of be fully out, when we're fully out of the shadow, and then, like, you know, almost 10 days later, we're starting into Eclipse Season. It's a very internal time, and it probably will be until 2023. It's very important.
I don't know why. I don't know, always, the why. I can just say that clearing the path, doing the internal work, really taking the invitations of Justice and Libra season and these cards and the energetic signature of this time, seriously utilizing it is super important. Basically, because what's going to be coming in next year and what's going to be possible at that time, we really do not want to be juggling that and kind of shedding big exoskeletons, and like, clearing up bullshit that we could have just done now, you know. So whether that's internal, external, practical, spiritual, whatever it might be, clearing the path is the key this month, very, very important.
So, I so appreciate you being here and listening. I hope it served, and then to sort of bow us out of this episode I'm going to answer a listener question and then bid you adieu.
[0:37:52]
So my listener question today is from Alyssa and Alyssa asks:
Have any cards come forward in a new way around parenthood, self-reparenting, or just overall deep caregiving that you think would be helpful to folks who are moving through a season of deep caregiving for others?
Yes (Lindsay laughs), the first is The Empress — no question about it. If y'all been here for a little while, those of you who have, you know that I'm fairly outspoken I guess about the fact that I do not think…I think that we are missing the mark a little bit when we, in a blanket way, assign the Empress to a mother to a parent, like, about femininity, because it leaves out so many. All of those things are a massive spectrum, and we all have different relationships with them. So if that's the way you connect with Empress I think that's terrif’.
But for me, it's always been a card that has come up around — certainly, seems before I became a mother, myself — around reparenting and certainly of self-tending, et cetera. But it's coming up more intensely because what I am seeing as a connection point between The Empress and between now, me having an identity as a mom to another human, as well as myself, is that I do not have an option to not take opportunities to take care of myself, and ask for what I need. If not — and this isn't directed toward my family — but I get super angry. I get really upset. I get depressed. I have way little… My mental health is worse, and my intrusive thoughts are worse, and my body and my inner child get angry at me. Like, they're furious sometimes about like, “We fuckin’ asked you!” But I'm bumping against new layers of, like, really strong, overcultural bullshit in myself like, “I'm a mom, I should be there. I'm a mom,” like all this stuff. Whereas it's like, no, I'm a mom. I need to be able to take a minute here, like whatever.
[0:40:32]
So the Empress, in so far as the need and the importance to be in a state of receiving, has never been more imperative for me. I've certainly needed it prior to becoming a mom and being a working mom and being like, all kinds of things. It's at a new fever pitch. So I'm taking my own. Like, I get up earlier than my daughter, I make sure to catch, like, breaks and grounding moments, like where I can. But yeah, that giving so much between my work and my parenting and, you know, the shared responsibility of caretaking with my husband, that I think The Empress has just sort of reached a climax point.
I think that's important for any caregiver or any self parent: that you've got to be able, we all have to be able, to be in a state and a willingness to receive, and it is uncomfortable to do that, t be the best self parents, parents, caregivers, we can be, to really be clear about what we need and not.
I will just be, I have no reason to not be honest with you all. Like, I still really struggle with feeling like, not feeling bad for wanting a break or needing space or whatever, and I really try to feel those feelings, and take the space anyway (Lindsay laughs), you know. But it's hard. So The Empress has really been like, for lack of a better way of putting it, like, really up my bum the last, especially, seven months. My daughter just turned seven months.
[0:42:27]
Page of Cups, perhaps, unexpectedly, is another one because it elevates, I think, that idea of receiving to a sense of like, what really helps to make you feel like you're playing, what helps to connect you to something that brings joy or delight or activates creativity or the imagination. I know those things are somewhat out of reach. I cannot say that I do this all the time, or feel like I have access to this all the time. But it has been a card that showed up for me way more.
And the last sort of answer I have is all the Fours (Lindsay laughs), which makes sense. Like Fours are rests, like, they're all about a certain kind of rest. And they all are really important, really crucial kind of breaks and moments in time where we sort of push the pause button and take a nap, take a minute, recharge, regroup, turn off our brain, go off and do something for ourselves.
Yeah, but really, any card that has to do with inviting us to confront the internal conflicts to live within us around our deservability, to name when we need to refill our well, we have to take care of ourselves. And I'm also finding, for me, that that doesn't require, like, any money, or any extra money or any. It doesn't require anything huge. It's not a burden on my family to take that time. It's, really, very simple things.
I think that's the hardest thing for anybody who's a self parent or a caregiver or a mom or pop or a parent. I think just knowing that you have the right — we really do — to take what you need for yourself, to ask for what you need. It's so confronting. It brings up all the things, invites in comparison, you know.
We can tell ourselves like, “Oh, this parent can handle anything, this caregiver seems to be able to do so much more than me,” and it's horseshit. It could be that why you're thinking it is that they're a little better at taking space for themselves. So who knows? I don't know, but I think that's a really big part of it and, I think, a really crucial piece.
Those cards have been way more forward since I've given birth, along with other cards that have come up around kind of parallel or concurrent seasons since becoming a mom, but I do think that, what I do want to say to anybody who's in a season of deep caregiving, is you have the right to pause, you have the right to take breaks, you have the right to ask for a break, you have the right to ask for people to help you.
And for those of you who can't see a way to do that, right now are juggling so much, it is my deepest and most sincerest prayer, if you'll allow me, that some more help and support and spaciousness can come into your life and be a blessing on you in that way.
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[Conclusion]
[0:45:57]
So I hope that was useful. I love your questions, please send them in to me. Thank you so much for being here, Wild Souls. I love all of you and I'll catch you next week.