210. Working with The World
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Happy Friday the 13th, Wild Souls! Together we will dive into the medicine of this day, and look at our auspicious card of the week: The World.
Air date:
January 14, 2023
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About the Episode
This is a re-recorded version of the episode that was originally released on 1/13/23 in which Lindsay confused a Vedic Astrology transit about Saturn with Western Astrology. We apologize for any confusion we may have caused. Thank you so much for your understanding and thank you to all the kind listeners who reached out!
Happy Friday the 13th, Wild Souls! Together we will dive into the medicine of this day, and look at our auspicious card of the week: The World. Ruled by Saturn, this card represents a huge ending of sorts, a necessary completion of a cycle of lessons, all to assist us with moving forward into the next phase of our lives.
We also answer a beautiful and important question from an anonymous listener about how we can engage with Four of Swords during times of tumult or uprising, such as what is going on in Iran right now, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini.
LINKS TO HELP IRAN:
Thank you to Ariana (@azadi.times.three) for sharing these with us!
1. Center for Human Rights in Iran (based in NY, provides news and in-depth reports on human rights abuses in Iran)
2. How to Talk About Iran (a living document from the Iranian Diaspora Collective on Instagram)
3. Persians With Purpose (Educational content, news translated to English, and other Iran resources on Instagram)
Lindsay’s Links:
Purchase the Soul Tarot 101 Digital Book for a special discount until 1/18!
Sign up for The Threshold: our channeled guide around 2023 and The Chariot card!
Download your Ultimate Soul Tarot Card Guide here!
Land Acknowledgement
Honoring and acknowledging that this podcast episode was recorded on the unceded land of The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde, currently called Portland, OR, with the deepest respect to the Kalapuya Tribe, Cowlitz Tribe, and Atfalati Tribe.
Please Note
CW Tags: violent protests, police brutality,ancestral trauma, burnout, birth, death, labor, postpartum, trauma, hypervigilance, systemic oppression, patriarchal & religious structures/conditioning, violence against women, human rights violations, injury, ancestral trauma around magic & intuition, colonization, and white privilege
The content in this episode contains references to mentions of violent protests, police brutality,ancestral trauma, burnout, birth, death, labor, postpartum, trauma, hypervigilance, systemic oppression, patriarchal & religious structures/conditioning, violence against women, human rights violations, injury, ancestral trauma around magic & intuition, colonization, and white privilege. 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]
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Hello Loves, just a quick and exciting announcement that if you have been waiting or wanting to purchase just a digital workbook from me all about the bones and foundations of Soul Tarot, this is your lucky day (Lindsay laughs). I'm so excited to share that we have made just the digital book that accompanies my brand new offering, Soul Tarot 101, available for purchase all on its own. It's the first time we've ever offered our students the option of just purchasing a workbook or a digital book accompanied with a course, and I'm really excited about it.
The Soul Tarot 101 digital book includes a beautiful overview of the framework of Soul Tarot and how we can, you know, utilize it in our readings. There's a wonderful overview of the bones of the Tarot, as it were, Majors, Minors, and Court Cards. There's a really helpful cheat sheet for memorization or quick refreshers around card meanings while you're sort of teaching yourself to read. There's really easy primers and bullet points on how to start reading Tarot for yourself or others. There's great starter spreads, there's good journal prompts. It's really a great resource, and I'm honestly just so pumped to offer it.
And it is available for a discount from today, Friday the 13th, to Tuesday, January 18. That discount ends at 9pm Pacific Time, Midnight Eastern. So you can get that digital book for 19 bucks. Normally, it's 22. If you want to get the entire course, Soul Tarot 101, which includes video lessons, Q&A database, and that digital book, you can buy that now for $97. Or, if you just want the digital book, for anybody who doesn't have the space, desire, or finances to engage with the full course at its current price, hopefully, the digital book may be just what you're looking for. So to purchase the book, to learn more about Soul Tarot 101, to get the scoop on all of it, you can click the link in the show notes.
Also, just want to make a very quick note that if you've already purchased Soul Tarot 101, the same digital book is already included in your purchase. And if you purchase the digital book now and change your mind and want the entire course, you can definitely purchase the rest of the course separately. So hopefully that helps. Thanks for listening and on with our show.
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(Instrumental intro music)
[0:02:38]
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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Hello Loves and welcome back to the podcast. I'm your host Lindsay, and as always, I'm just so delighted to be gathered with you in this virtual space that we get to share together each week. Thank you so much for being here.
So part of this episode is actually a re-recording of the episode I released yesterday because I had recorded and released an episode all about The World card and confused a Vedic astrology transit with a Western astrology transit. While I bow, of course, to Vedic astrology, I don't know anything about Vedic astrology, and I don't follow Vedic astrology. And so I went back to go edit out my mistake and — or not a mistake but, you know, the confusion — and I literally was so embedded in the episode that I literally could not edit it out (Lindsay laughs). So rather than just, like, smoothly re-record and not say anything, I wanted to, first of all, just apologize for my confusion. I absolutely know that Saturn moves into Pisces in March. I just talked about that with Jessica Lanyadoo.
I do just want to say, I'm really just offering the deepest bow to everyone who has had a baby. Having a baby has completely changed my brain and makes me get things confused, and it, unfortunately, has created a lot less, or a lot more, chance of error. And so I definitely really beat myself up when I realized that I confused this—which I just feel like it's important to be honest about because it can be really hard to have grace with ourselves in those moments. But it's always really nice to get to touch base with this community. Even when I'm recording alone in my office, it feels—which is always how I record—but it always feels like I'm touching in with all of you. So I do apologize again for my confusion.
Thank you so much to the very kind listeners who wrote in and were like (Lindsay laughs), “Um, I don't know. I'm not sure what Lindsay meant by this.” So I'd like to take the opportunity to root us back into the medicine of the week ahead and just be transparent about my humanness, and be transparent about where I am right now, mentally. Because, while mentally I'm okay, there's definitely diminished capacity where there once was I think a little bit of a higher capacity. So again, I apologize, and thanks for being on the ride with me.
[0:06:00]
Incredibly, when I went to my deck and pulled and asked, you know, is there anything different that wants to be talked about this week? I still got The World card. So we're here. We're in The World card. And also wanted to mention that I was able to salvage the answer to my listener question. So we'll just seamlessly flow right into that portion from the previous episode, but this part is being recorded fresh for everybody.
So yeah, we just had Friday the 13th. And, you know, I spent some time on the podcast, also said that I was going to talk about it for just a moment and talked about it for 20 minutes (Lindsay laughs)—which, again, postpartum brain. Thanks for hanging in there with me around it. Yeah, I just think even though we're past it, I do think Friday the 13th is just, it's a really potent portal. It just is. It's really, really powerful.
When we weave together Venus as connected to Friday, and when we weave together the Empress, which is Venus as corresponding energy in the Tarot, and the number 13, which is connected to Death, we have this invitation to really get super clear about what aspects of our behavior or habits or tendencies to not receive, maybe not be open to that, to the highest degree of pleasure and support, to really get clear about what's ready to be what's ready to go, what's ready to be released in service of really letting that Empress energy flow.
It's also absolutely the day of, you know, we could say the day of the spiral. It's absolutely a witches' day. It's I think, exceedingly, I won't say lucky or unlucky, although I think I have mentioned this in the previous recording, the unlucky piece is really rooted to I think a lot of patriarchal or religious structures attempting to dismantle the power that is contained in this kind of deep, soul-led, magical work. The power that witches hold and that magic holds is very threatening to those kinds of institutions, and so it makes sense that Friday the 13th would have been branded as an unlucky energy. And I know that it is very lucky energy to many. I don't know if I see it as lucky or unlucky, personally. I think it just is. I do think what it offers is incredibly powerful and working with it can be, you know, really extraordinary.
And I definitely, on my Friday the 13th, had a lot of kind of tender feels come up around this mistake I made, which did make me think, okay, maybe I need to ask for a little bit more support just to hold me in where I happen to be, at like, eleven-ish months postpartum, as I continue to, maybe, you know, yeah, as I just continue to work through what I'm in right now, this season of my life. How could I maybe reach out for that support, to have some grace with myself around it?
And I also met a really dear friend for, like, a spa day, you know, and got to watch my daughter in baby class do their thing and interact with other children and play, and it was delightful. So there was a lot of medicine and also a lot of really intense, like, I could feel where the Death card was kind of flowing around with the Empress. And so I wonder if, even though it's past Friday the 13th, if you might notice where that's still showing up for you right now because it probably is still working its magic. I think on Friday the 13th, we have the opportunity to reclaim the true medicine of this day. And, yeah, I'm just really grateful to be traveling through it again with all of you collectively.
[0:10:25]
So our theme for the month of January is Trust, and really, trust in a lot of unseen invisible pieces right now. The significance of where we are in 2023, in a very broad sense, if we kind of look at it mapped onto Tarot themes, we're in a Chariot year. We know this. If you don't, 2+0+2+3 is 7, that's the number of The Chariot—hence, Charioteer.
The Chariot is extremely powerful, and really has to do with helping us to shed skins, sort of crack open these proverbial eggs that are ready to go, that are ready to be cleared, that must be cleared, have to be cleared, in order for us to actually rebirth into the direction that we're meant to be going. This direction might not be totally known to us. It might be something that, you know, let's say is, for lack of a better way of putting it, more unknown. Chariot really wants to take us in a better direction, in a direction that's much more vulnerable and open. And it might feel really challenging to crack out of that egg, but what it brings us is worth every moment of the discomfort.
Chariot is also really known for, it’s almost like stuff we've been waiting to happen for years and years and years and years, just sort of like happens, just sort of starts—the ball starts rolling, and we think, “Well, what the hell changed?” And it might be that somewhere inside of our work in all of these Line One cards preceding The Chariot, we've prepared enough that things are just kind of humming along in that particular area. It doesn't mean we didn't work our asses off.
Chariot can sometimes be a lot faster in certain ways. It can work a lot faster where all of a sudden it's like, “Whoa, this is happening. Oh my god.” And it can sometimes really slow things down so that the clearing, that cycle of clearing, we can really come to a space of completion with it. But with this also comes the release and the completion of our work as a collective in line one of the Major Arcana.
So in 2024, we’ll be in Strength together as a collective card of the year, and that's all Line Two. And Line Two is specifically about dismantling some of the ego kind of work, i.e. the important, egoic foundations that we set up and develop in Line One, like: this is who I am, this is what I do, this is my identity, this is how all those things are crucial.
But Line Two, on purpose, kind of takes us out of that and puts us in a space of like: “Yes, all those things are true, and there are parts about me that are too complex to name. I don't have to name them. There are parts about my work that are changing, and I don't really know why there are parts about me that are changing, and I don't really know how.” It's a lot of unknown and a lot of deep inner work rather than being more external. So again, we'll see how all that actually shows up in this very external world. But it, well, I suppose we're more internal now in that we're connecting more than we ever have. But many of us are alone more. So we'll see how that kind of tracks along with the cards that we're in.
[0:14:30]
All of that work requires deep trust because there are a lot of invisible processes at work. And in order to have trust we have to have some kind of foundational Anchoring around us. And so it can be really helpful to sense into like, what does feel anchoring? What do we trust? What is helpful here? And all that pertains to our card of the week because the card that is showing up to really help us with all this is The World.
The World is ruled by Saturn. And Saturn, as my dear friend Jeff Hinshaw says, kind of comes in with a clipboard. And that clipboard is full of, kind of, tasks, lessons, things that we’re meant to complete and check off. And Saturn comes in to really slow, to halt, to make sure that we're doing what we promised to do, what we said we were going to do. The World is the last card in the Major Arcana, and The World comes up when we're typically ready to leave a cycle behind, a big one, a significant one, a very clear one, for some other new cycle to be born.
So I want to just name, you may be going through your World work this week, and not necessarily shut the door to that particular area of your life this week. The World card is a long energy. It's like Temperance: it works over a long period of time. When we get a card for a week ahead, what we're essentially talking about is planting a seed, right?
Some seeds in the Tarot, some Tarot energies, work really, really fast. Sometimes we can pull a card, like Temperance or The World, and it can work really, really fast. Who knows? Right? Anything's possible. But in general, we can really map there are some cards that work a lot slower than others, they work a lot faster than others, there's just more of the moment or more of a larger journey.
And I really feel The World card is sort of a larger journey. And that's really kind of helpful when we consider, like, what do we do when we get these massive cards for, like, the week. We start looking at where we have those gut feelings, where we have those moments where we wake up, we realize like, “Oh, I'm like, really complete with this, whether I like it or whether I don't, whether I want it to be that way, whether I don't want it to be that way.” Sometimes it can just be we're complete with how we've been doing something. It doesn't mean that we're complete with the thing.
It might be inside of a relationship. We're just complete with making, you know, the kinds of concessions we've been making. We're complete with, like, not ever being asked how we are by the other person and being the listener in the relationship, or we're complete with, you know, apologizing for our needs, or, you know, whatever it is, you know. We're complete, not having, you know, whatever, you know? Fill in the blank, right? So that can be The World card, too. So it takes trust to move through a World card transit.
[0:18:09]
The World card usually calls us into a very strong inventory. Do you have your ducks in a row? Do you have sort of a plan for the other side? But, you know, it does bring it up. But what it really does, where it really kind of calls us into like rooting into this moment, is that it does, again, invite us to really pay attention to where we know, where we sense, where we feel that we've just taken something as far as it's able to go. This doesn't mean we don't like it. It doesn't mean that we don't.
So we're doing very parallel work to Chariot in The World this week. So both of them are, I think, really working together. And you know, with Chariot, there is a sense of like there's a very organic, it’s almost just like someone going into labor and giving birth. Like we leave that womb space, we get birthed into The World. That's Chariot. It's labor happening, and we're literally birthed out of a situation. There's not much we have to do about it.
With The World, we're doing a kind of a co-collaboration here where we're working with Saturn. We're working with the kind of intensity and the kind of the strictness of Saturn, really looking around and thinking like, “Okay, what do I need to clear before this can be complete, you know? What do I need to be complete with so that I can shut the door on this chapter of my life or close the book on this chapter of my life?” So we're really paying attention to those themes this week.
What we want to do, as we work with The World, is take very good care of ourselves, and know that The World can bring up a lot. It can bring up, if we are really letting go of something that we want to let go of, like, if we're just, it can bring up equal measures of fear and worry and contraction and like, “What the fuck am I going to do?” It can call us into some self-sabotaging behavior, like, “Oh, you know, this is never going to work out, so I'm going to do X, Y, Z.” It can pull us into, you know, “What am I going to do after this? Like what?” you know.
Working with the unknown is a massive part of this card. Like we're clearing something up, but we don't know quite where we're going in its stead. And so, this week, what we really want to do for kind of self-support, is that we want to A) see what we can do to really trust this process and know that whatever it is, like, The World card never comes up unless we are ready for something else, unless we are ready for something better, unless we are ready for something way more supportive.
[0:21:28]
That’s why Saturn returns are so significant for many of us, I would say all of us. I mean, before my Saturn Return, I was living my life in a completely different way, completely different. I was a different person, like top to bottom, a different person. I wonder if you were, too. I had to go through a huge. That's part of what, you know, was interwoven, many things were interwoven into me, coming into this path as my career and my work, my life path. But yeah, like it wouldn't have happened without my work in Saturn. I had to look at the hardest stuff. And The World card, I think, is like a teeny, teeny, tiny, little Saturn transit, a mini version of that.
So we want to really trust, as hard as it is, that this is happening for us, not to us; that if our heart just isn't in this anymore, if something is ending, but we don't necessarily know how the new thing’s going to go, just trusting in the completion of it; trusting in like, “Okay, I don't necessarily know the next thing. And I know that what is here is ready to go, and I can trust in whatever is being kind of brought up for me to look at and pay attention to inside of this experience. I have to see all of the parts about it. I have to look at all of the things that are coming up around it.”
So one of the ways that we can do that is Anchoring into Justice, Anchoring into that card, and really leaning on it as an Anchor. Justice is not about—it acknowledges that certain things feel okay, not okay, fair, not fair. Justice really calls upon us to see things as they are, plain and simple, which is very hard for us, as human beings, to not bring in “This shouldn't be happening, this should be happening. This wasn't fair, this was fair.” They're all valid, all of those things are valid and, in many cases, true (Lindsay laughs). Like, it's not fair. Some things are profoundly unjust.
Justice isn't an arbiter of that. It really calls upon us to just be a totally neutral observer to what is because doing so will actually incentivize us to go about being an agent for change in the most graceful way. So Strength can help us this week and in our time with The World because, again, we sort of plant the seeds for The World this week, but we're gonna kind of carry it over for a while. It'll probably be with us for a little while. So Justice can really help.
[0:24:30]
I pulled Queen of Wands for the last kind of recording of this and this recording, which I thought was really interesting. Leaning into our practices, really sensing into the magic that surrounds us, to the magic that lives within us, what supports us, what bolsters us, what helps us to feel connected to something greater than ourselves, that's all Queen of Wands. And only in the way that makes sense to us.
I feel like Queen of Wands is very much about the personal connection that all of us have or long to have with that deep channel within. And so reclaiming that, as a sort of a refuge, Queens are all about that. It's almost like filling up the gas tank of the soul. We have to be able to retreat to fill up, to be inside of that really nurturing space. And that's the kind of space that Queen of Wands really occupies and helps us with.
Another card that showed up today around how to tend to ourselves and work with this particular weekly energy was Nine of Swords, and I think that makes all the sense in the world. Because when we are in such a powerful, kind of Saturn scope of work, for lack of a better way of putting it, there can be, it's very easy for the mind to project onto that and to basically say, “Oh my gosh, this is bad. Something bad could happen. I could, you know, complete this cycle. But then what am I going to do, you know? What if this happens? What if that happens?” Nine of Swords is the ultimate “what if” card, and what ifs are so painful. Because when they come up, it can be really hard to disprove them, it can be really hard to be like, “No, of course not,” because how do we know though (Lindsay laughs), right?
So what we want to do in Nine of Swords is sort of show up, see ourselves showing up as the parent we might have wished we had, or the parent we'd really like to be, the self-parent; kind of like showing up in a room without the lights on, in a totally dark room where we can't quite see what's going on. And maybe our inner kid is really scared, and our mind is really scared, kind of showing up with, like, a symbolic flashlight, and saying, “Yeah, all these what ifs, let's investigate. Let's take a look.” And we shine that flashlight, right the fuck directly onto the what ifs and say, “Yeah, what if this, then what?” And on and on we go, right? If we need to do this kind of thing with a therapist or a trusted processor, if we feel ourselves kind of freezing up, then absolutely, you know, don't do it, but it can be really helpful.
Even if we're not investigating every what if, every intrusive thought, or whatever we might be working with here, even if it's not appropriate for us to be investigating every thought, kind of seeing ourselves coming in with that like, again, symbolic, healing flashlight and just, like, really wrapping up our mind and our little kid with a hug and saying, “You know, I don't know what the future holds. But no matter what, I'll be here with you. You won't be alone. I'll be here.” And then sensing into, like, who supports you, right?
[0:28:20]
So Saturn and, by extension, World card work, is really, really intense. It's really profound. It pulls up a lot. It's really vulnerable. It really is very tender. It's super personal, meaning that, for you, it might look completely different than it would for me, for the next person. That's really to be expected, you know. What one person might say, like, “Oh, my God, I'd be so excited if that happened to me,” might terrify you, even if it's a super happy thing.
In fact, I think we have to normalize that because there are so many of us, you know, who've gone through trauma, who really work with, like, trusting the good, where we do have a happy occasion, or we have a loving relationship, we have a really great opportunity, and it scares the shit out of us. And we don't know who to talk to about that, because it can feel like, “Well, I should be grateful.” And the gratitude’s there, but it still doesn't change the fact that the nervous system and the mind can be terrified of something like that. So we can hold all of it in a totality of, I think, respect and care.
So working with The World card this week, we can lean on Justice, Queen of Wands, and Nine of Swords as Anchors. We can really work to trust in the medicine of what The World card is bringing and work with it. One of the best ways to work with any Major Arcana card is just to surrender and let it lead you.
So however this card is showing up for you this week, and beyond that, however this card is, you know, yeah, however you're working with this card, I’m wishing you just as much ease and flow and grace, you know, with it as possible. And I hope that you have a lot of clarity about how to hold yourself as you move through it, and just to pay attention to those little whispers, little whispers that take us from one place to another that help us to realize, “Oh, I do feel complete with this as it's been,” you know. So just really pay attention to that.
It's not part of World work, necessarily, to go, “Well, what next?” What next will show up. It's really about being clear about what's complete and spending some time in that. So that once we let go of it, we can actually let go of it and make enough room for the new to come in. So I hope that that is useful and helpful to all of you.
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[0:31:14]
So I'm going to move into our listener question today. So this is from Anonymous. Anonymous asks:
Hello, Lindsay,
I've been noticing the Four of Swords show up, over and over again, in my readings during the last few weeks. My guess is that it has to do with what's going on in Iran, which is my ancestral homeland.
I've been trying to use every social media platform I can to amplify Iranian voices and educate friends and followers about the protests. And it's pretty clear that my higher self is trying to use the Tarot to tell me I'm burned out by showing the Four of Swords so many times, and yet, I can't stop. I can't take a mental break from this, not when so many protesters in my ancestral homeland are losing their lives for asking for basic human rights. They don't get to take a break. So how could I?
Is there another way of engaging with the Four of Swords during traumatic and challenging times like these? I appreciate any insight you may have on this, as always, thank you so much for your wisdom.
So I am bowing to this question, and I am honored to be able to speak to it. I hope to be able to do so with the greatest degree of respect and care.
And for those of you who do not know what is going on in Iran right now, and what has been going on since about late September 2022, there have been massive protests in multiple cities in Iran and around the world in response to them, because of the death of Mahsa Amini, who was 22 and was detained by the country's morality police for not fully complying with Iran's very restrictive veil laws.
Mahsa died under very suspicious circumstances. And while the police and the authorities have said one thing, her family has said another. And it has set off, essentially, massive protests that have resulted in deaths and injury, largely to women, but to folks of all ages, and of children. It has really, again, has led to a lot of violent police crackdowns. There have been just so many horrible displays of, yeah, just really, really intense protests that have really come from an enormous amount of long-standing frustration with this regime.
And there, of course, is a lot to be said about it. I have some links and some resources for more education and donation that were sent to us from a beautiful listener, Ariana. And I just encourage you to learn everything you can about this. And hopefully, I did justice in that very short explanation to something that is obviously so huge, and so important to be centering right now.
[0:34:27]
Okay, so Anonymous, I took the opportunity to—I want to speak to you about the Four of Swords-ness that you're asking about. And I took the opportunity, and I hope this was okay, with just pulling a couple of other cards for me, I think, to ask like a little bit more about Four of Swords and a little bit more about your question, and hopefully, it can be useful. But, again, even though you're not here with me right now, on the recording of this, I consider this to be sort of an ongoing dialogue. So if there's any sort of question or any comment or any issue that's taken with how I respond to your question, I'd love to hear about it, whether it's, you know, like, complimentary or critical, you know, or both. So do let me know, because, again, I wish you were here with me. And we could just talk about this, like, almost live (Lindsay laughs), you know, just to sort of even this a bit more.
Okay, I think I want to start with a couple of different things. One is that I think that I hear you and I agree, that when something like this is going on, when an uprising, when a social rights issue, when a right to life issue is happening in this World—and I say “issue”, even though, like, it's not an issue. It's not. It's like it is, and it's also a very important thing that deserves attention and centering.
When something of outrage is going on, and we get a card like Four of Swords, it does not mean that we turn away from it. It doesn't mean that we move away from it, it doesn't mean that we stop, it doesn't mean that we bypass, and it doesn't mean that we sort of go away. It means that we recharge. It means that we develop “healthy”—and I say that in quotes because I don't know. Like that's self-defined. It means that we develop—maybe healthy is not the right word but, at the very least, accessible, sort of autonomous, personal, I want to say, lines that are drawn just simply for the nervous system, just simply for the nervous system.
So it might mean that we take our eyes off screens for a little bit. It doesn't mean that we have forgotten, and it doesn't mean that we are not taking what is maybe going on very seriously. It means that we're human. And it means that our brain, bodies, nervous system, inner children need to have time to restore. And that's not personal, right? It's not personal.
[0:37:44]
There are all kinds of different jobs that all of us have inside of any given moment in life. And while you're right—there are protesters in your ancestral homeland who are losing their lives for asking for basic human rights, and they don't get a break, so how can you?—there are moments in which we may be put into a situation where we do not necessarily get the benefit of a break. And times when, if we're amplifying where we may have a little bit more access to taking a pause and taking a moment, and those things are not taking away from anybody who is on the front line, who is in the heart or the center of that issue, it doesn't mean that you are not able or allowed to take a moment to, again, recharge, you know?
So I want to say that it's not fair that the people of Iran who are protesting are not necessarily able to take a moment. That's not fair. And by you, potentially, leaning into Four of Swords as sort of a momentary opportunity to restore doesn't mean that you are in any way, again, taking away from that. So I would actually say that for anybody who is in that particular situation, that eventually there will be a call to refill for them as well.
If we're in—and I'm speaking about a completely different situation—but if I'm in an experience of very acute protesting, disruption, stress, I may go for a very long time without a break. And I say break like not like a break, but without stopping. And eventually, there will be a time, whether good, bad, or otherwise, where my body will force me to stop, at least for a moment, and say, “Okay, I absolutely need to sleep, I absolutely need to eat.” We're running a marathon with a lot of this, not necessarily. We're not sprinting. And it's not to minimize any of this. It could not be more important, but all of us have different roles. All of us have different jobs in certain moments.
And if your deck is continually pulling up Four of Swords, it might just simply mean it may have absolutely nothing to do with the situation. It might quite literally not have to do with you being burned out. If you are self-identifying as being burned out—and I, totally, I want to honor that—I don't think Four of Swords has to do with burnout. I think it has to do with developing the capacity to say: let me hydrate, let me have a sandwich, let me catch some sleep, let me take an hour, few hours, 24 hours, 12 hours without a screen in front of me, then I'm going to get back to it. Right? If we don't, then we do run the risk of completely burning ourselves out, and then we aren't necessarily as useful as we could be. Not saying that this is true for you, Anonymous, but I think that, in general, it can be true.
[0:41:56]
I think a way of engaging with Four of Swords during traumatic and challenging times like this is to think of it, not as a long pause, but to think of it as a series of necessary pauses to refuel and to, again, tend to the physical vessel, to the nervous system, so that we can continue to go. I think that cultivating resilience and supportive practices inside of times like this, where we are, you are, those, you know, are amplifying situations, or are on the frontlines or are wherever we happen to be, we don't always have the full benefit of something that fill up our tank 100%. But I don't think… yeah, I think that's what I want to say.
I don't think that the Four of Swords is necessarily saying, “Hey, go off social media and don't talk about this.” I think it's just saying, “Hey, can there be a little bit more of both? Just a little bit more and can you kind of let your own body lead the way?” Right? And maybe, let's say, it's not an opportunity for you to sort of take that time, you know, in a full way, what is it to take 10 minutes to, literally, like lay down on the ground, breathe, and then get back to it, like literally 10 minutes? You know, just experiment with how that feels for you.
When I pulled some cards for clarification, I got Eight of Pentacles reversed and Four of Pentacles reversed around what you were asking me, around sort of this issue in general. And I think when Eight of Pentacles comes up reversed, it is a gentle reminder that, like, we're in something that's longer; we're in something that's more of a marathon; we're in something that's going to require long-haul energy stores. So I would say that's one benefit of leaning into Four of Swords when it comes to call and just being really present around like, okay, like, is there an opportunity here for, you know, whatever it might be, you know, whatever kind of nourishment you might need around that.
And Four of Pentacles reversed sort of has to do, I think, with drawing a kind of a good boundary around ourselves so that when we need it, we can call upon it. But when we get Four of Pentacles reversed, it could have to do with the fact that we've sort of filled up enough and now we're, like, ready to get back out there. And so I think what this is essentially saying to you is that you can trust in your body's needs. You can trust in your body's needs.
[0:45:08]
I, you know, I say this with, again, enormous respect to the fact that I'm a white descendant of colonizers, that there have been times where I've opted out of amplification in my life where, like, I'm not necessarily a person to know all of this or to give you the best advice, because I think, in some ways, I'm learning and have certainly been problematic, I've certainly done the wrong thing, like when I've tried to do the right thing in my life. Not saying that for any other reason, other than just keeping myself honest, and in the spirit of this conversation.
But I also think when you consider the idea that when we try to think about this idea of marathon versus sprint, we can go for longer. When people who are on the frontlines inevitably get exhausted, and can no longer amplify, need to tap out in order to do whatever they need to do, we can keep going, we can keep speaking, we can keep amplifying. But again, hopefully, I've done any kind of justice to this.
Long story short: what I would say is that Four of Swords is not an invitation to opt-out and to leave behind and to go away from something. It is an invitation to prioritize the basics, the foundations, the building blocks, again, the body, the nervous system, et cetera. To make sure, I mean, again, this is also your ancestral homeland, your ancestors, like, I am sure, like, there's deep pain inside of this for you, as well.
So holding both of those things, I don't know necessarily how to tell you to do that. But I do think that just keeping in mind it’s something that Four of Swords can help with, but it's definitely not an opt-out. It's just saying, “Hey, can you keep in mind the longer journey?” which isn't to say you aren't, Anonymous. Just, again, something to think about.
[0:47:33]
I hope that was helpful. Let me know how this lands. Let me know if there's anything I can clarify. If there's a follow-up that you'd like me to read, I'd be honored to do that. And yeah, please go to the links in the show notes to learn more, to amplify, to donate. It's incredibly important.
I want to just thank all of you for being here, especially, again, thanking Anonymous for their question. Thanks again, for your grace with me around mistakes on the podcast (Lindsay laughs). And thank you, as always, for your presence. It's always an honor to be here with all of you.
I didn't even mention that Mercury goes direct next week—that transit I am sure of (Lindsay laughs). And so, for those of us who are really, really sensitive during Mercury’s shadow period just, again, be super gentle with yourselves. May we all be super gentle with ourselves no matter what arises.
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[Conclusion]
[0:48:39]
And I'm hoping that no matter where you are, no matter what you're moving through, that this week, you can find some ease, some comfort, some nourishment in, again, whatever you happen to be moving through in your life. And until we meet again next week, please take exquisite care of yourselves.