211. Opening to Nine of Pentacles
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Happy Mercury Direct + (almost) New Moon in Aquarius, loves! Today on the pod, we are diving into the heart of our card of the week, Nine of Pentacles.
Air date:
January 19, 2023
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About the Episode
Together, we will look at this near mythical card of untold pleasure and delights, demystifying it and getting a clear sense of how the hell we could ever hope to trust or work with this kind of energy. We also answer a listener question from Kristin about how we can discern whether to take action with a particular card pull (and chat about how to determine what your personal card of the year is!).
Lindsay’s Links:
Purchase the entire Soul Tarot 101 course (or just the Digital Book for $22!)
Sign up for The Threshold: our channeled guide around 2023 and The Chariot card!
Download your Ultimate Soul Tarot Card Guide here!
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)
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: capitalistic structures, labor, illness, patriarchal conditioning, and religious structures
The content in this episode contains references to mentions of capitalistic structures, labor, illness, patriarchal conditioning, and religious structures. 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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[0:00:05]
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.
(Instrumental intro music)
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Hello Loves and welcome back to Tarot for the Wild Soul. It's always such a joy to be gathered here with all of you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you, again, for your grace with me last week. Again, what a Mercury Retrograde dust-up! But all good now. Again, thanks for hanging in there with me around it all.
We have a really sweet episode today. We're going to chat about our card of the week, how we can work with it. I'm going to answer a listener question. Yeah, we're gonna dive into some good stuff. We’re just about ready to head into Aquarius season, which feels phenomenal. We're just about ready to touch in with our New Moon in Aquarius, which, again, I think is going to feel really, really great. So looking forward to shifting into this lovely, Fixed Air energy.
Before I go any further, I just want to name a couple of kind of housekeeping things at the top. One is that we're shifting the day that this podcast goes live. Is it a good idea to do that? Of course, it's not (Lindsay laughs). Just every single resource about how to run a successful podcast actively advises against that — they do. Have I changed the day that this podcast goes out 50 times since starting? And I have. It just works better for me to get it out for y'all on Thursday. So that's what it's gonna start becoming. Rather than going live kind of late Thursday, but really, Friday, it's just gonna go out late Wednesday into Thursday. And that's it. Thanks for hanging in there with me around those changes (Lindsay laughs). That's a very brief housekeeping thing.
And also, just a heads up that if you are a total, total, total, brand new beginner to the Tarot, if you like or feel resonant with my approach to teaching it, I made a brand new course, especially for you. That’s Soul Tarot 101. All that material is totally brand new. All that material is going to go live on January 30. You can sign up for it now, it's under 100 bucks.
It's for anyone who wants the ABCs and 123s of soul-led Tarot reading without a whole thing into every card. If you just want to know what you need to know, to effectively and confidently start to pull cards for yourself or another person, and begin to play around with what you're pulling, I think this offering really has everything you need.
It comes with my first video course, and I think it's been about a year, maybe? Maybe two? Time is meaningless to me now. So probably — I mean, we'll see. I've said this before — but it probably will be my last video course for probably a few years. And you know, there's no rush. It'll be here for you if, and whenever, you want it. But there's a nice video lesson that sort of goes into, again, the ABCs of solid Tarot reading, how we can sort of begin to see the Tarot in a more digestible way, how to begin to interpret cards. It's much more granular about the details than I've ever done before, which is interesting because I feel like I've really, I've had to actually go further out in order to come back in.
So basically, the hierarchy of my courses are, Soul Tarot 101 is for people, like, brand new deck, you could gift them this course. If you don't want to spend close to 100 bucks, you can buy the digital book that accompanies the course for $22. And it's damn good. It's damn good. It's more of a digital book than it is a workbook, although there are some prompts. The book contains everything that's contained in the video course, but like, wildly distilled, and it gets just an incredible encapsulation, honestly, of what I teach and do.
So, if you are a total beginner, you want to gift something to a total beginner, this course, and/or you can buy the whole thing, or you can buy the digital book. You can check it out. The link is in my show notes. Again, that goes live on the 30th so just around ten-ish days, a little bit more. And then after that, I have some really exciting new things coming around the bend. But for right now, if you're a beginner, this is a nice place for you to start, if you want to go take a step further.
Anyway, those are the housekeeping pieces.
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[0:05:21]
Okay. So our card for the week ahead is Nine of Pentacles, which is interesting because it's hard to ground. We've had two cards now, The World last week and Nine of Pentacles this week, that are sort of, to my way of thinking, not necessarily cards that we would root around into, like, oh, working with it just for the week ahead, right? Perhaps you feel differently, and I think that's absolutely perfect and okay.
Nine of Pentacles is a very interesting energy and is very malleable. It can come with us into a myriad of different situations. But the bottom line of it is this: that Nine of Pentacles has to do with an invitation that can feel quite confronting. It has to do with us being radically challenged, radically invited, to wholeheartedly just open to pleasure, period.
How can things be as sweet as they can be? How can we not take on a goddamn thing more than what we need to? How can it be even 10% better, 10% sweeter? How can we just be — not do, not post about what we're not doing, not talk about what we're not doing, not contextualize it — just be in the fruits of what we've grown, whatever that means?
So it doesn't mean taking a gorgeous luxurious vacation and just lounging on the beach. It can mean that — just like any card can show up in that space. It can also be like looking at your full pantry, if you're privileged enough to have that, looking at your full fridge and being like, “Damn, like I worked for this. I'm going to enjoy the shit out of this as much as I can.” You know, it could be taking a bath and really being in the luxury and the beauty of the warm water or the sense of your bath, the oils in your bath, or however you fuck with your bath (Lindsay laughs). It could be receiving bodywork or touch or good conversation, and just being, just embracing, and enjoying, and letting the beauty and the sweetness and the sensuality of what's around you kind of fill you. And your only job is to enjoy it. That's it: your only job is to just enjoy it.
It doesn't mean we won't work next week. It doesn't mean we won't deal with stuff. But the invitation is, how can we? You know, we spend all this time giving and being of service and like trying to get stuff out, and give and give. And even inside of where we receive or try to get, we might be missing a really crucial piece that we, ideally, do all this, create all these things, to actually be nourished by it all, to actually expand our capacity for this kind of enjoyment. When we toil and when we work to build and grow and nurture, like, let's say fruits of our labor, we're called upon to consume those fruits, too. That's a really, really important part of our work with the Pentacles.
[0:09:18]
So how do we get here with the Pentacles? And then I'm going to talk about how this is different from the Empress, because I know the way I'm sounding, the way I'm talking about it right now, they sound very, very similar. So I'm going to draw a kind of a couple of differences between the two, fundamentally.
The Pentacles are all about planting a seed of intention, of bringing soul work here into the world. And soul-led work looks like whatever the fuck it looks like. It could mean working at a bullshit job that you're grateful to maybe have, that you don't really care a whole lot about, because it helps to make sure that you're taken care of so you can do volunteer work, or it helps to ensure your family has insurance — if you live in America, that's very common. If your soul work is, it has nothing to do with work, how to pay the bills, that's very common.
How are we drawing upon and utilizing our resources, the full totality of what we have within us, to meet that end? And if we think about the act of tending to a seed and nurturing it into this full plant, and eventually, this sort of full orchard that can feed so many, and be sort of this beautiful redistribution of energy and of a different kind of wealth than necessarily money.
But if we're talking about money, then sure, that is reparational, that is equitable in nature, how, you know, what kind of devotion we need to draw upon? There's a reason that the Two of Pentacles right away is like, if anything inside of the scope of your life does not, if you don't have room, if you're dropping balls to tend to this thing that doesn't ultimately really matter to you, or is sort of making you feel kind of shitty about yourself or whatever, you’ve got to drop it, you know, or you're called to drop it. We can always do whatever we want.
There's a real kind of eye on the prize, for lack of a better way of putting it, keeping your end goal in mind, and being aware of the resources you need to have in order to do that; resources that are accessible, that have to do with the body, and with kind of how we're asking for help and willing to receive support. But really, the entire, I think, the entire suit is really how to work well, whatever work means to us. And it's sort of marrying the soul with the material world as best we can in this maddeningly capitalist society that is so broken and unfair to so many. So I think the Pentacles are a big agent in rethinking the way we work, rethinking the way we think about work.
[0:12:20]
The Nines in any suit in the Minors, you know, any of the four suits, are a very important solo moment of reflection and reveal. It's sort of like after the wild change that happens in the Eight, and before the big completion of the cycle in the Ten, we have to greet the Nines. We have to look at the Nines. We have to make contact with the Nines in order to clarify for ourselves the deep inner truths that must be acknowledged before we can get to the Ten. We can't complete a cycle without all the information.
And so, inside of all of the suits, there's this really important sort of Hermit call, so to speak, that happens with all of the suits. And I'm connecting that to the Nines because Hermit is connected to the number nine in the Major Arcana.
So with the Nines, there's an opportunity to do some of our deepest work with the suit, itself. For, you know, example, Nine of Swords — I think we talked a little bit about Nine of Swords last week, but I can't remember whether that was the thing that I had to re-record or the new recording (Lindsay laughs). So sorry about that, again, my memory. But the Nine of Swords has to do with us thinking about this idea of confronting our biggest what-if fears and really showing up as our strong, inner caretaker for that scared part of ourselves, and shining a light directly onto what feels murky or unclear, and being like, “Okay, what if? What if?” Or “Ooo, this spooky thing might be happening. Let me call it directly out. Let me ask about it. Let me question it. Let me make sure,” right, “let me tune in about it.” So it's bringing about, it's taking all of the murkiness and the fear out of it and just really flipping the lights on and getting some clarity, right?
And that's very important work, as related to everything that we do in the Swords, because those kind of what-if fears, those questions, that murkiness, can keep us sort of swirling around for a long time before we realize we can sort of show up in those moments fortified and curious, and, in some cases, we show up, not alone, right? We show up with a therapist or another kind of processor or space holder for our own experience. We have that extra layer of support.
[0:15:09]
We could say the same thing for Nine of Cups. Nine of Cups is a very personal energy, very personal, where we're kind of incubating something, we're wishing for something, we're gestating something. It's so vulnerable and really scary, and it asks us to basically be foolish enough and brave enough to get our hopes up, which is, again, personal, and will take us into a deeply personal place. No matter how ecstatic it might sound, if we share the news of like, “Oh, and like, this thing might be happening,” or “I'm nurturing this vision,” we still have to kind of lay our head down on the pillow at night with it, and it's highly vulnerable.
Nine of Wands is the art of learning how to rest inside of a big, big push, a big marathon. It’s like taking a nap in the middle of labor, if we are able to do that, if that's our experience flavor. Taking a rest doesn't mean labor’s done; it means that we're attempting to gather some sense of our strength and our, you know, capacity inside of that rest. It's resting in the middle of training for a marathon. So we're not opting out or stopping, but it is a very specific kind of rest.
Now, Nine of Pentacles is about being with the fruits of our labor, whatever that means. It's really being with what we offer to other folks, what we serve, what we give, and receiving it for ourselves. It's calling upon our own practices, it's leaning into our own rituals. It's going to get bodywork when we might typically give it. It’s receiving therapy when we might be the ones offering advice and counsel. It's eating a gorgeous meal served to us, when we're the ones who typically cook the meal. Now, not all of these examples apply, because, of course, everyone's situation is completely different, right?
If we're constantly working, constantly doing, constantly moving onto the next thing, there are not very many moments to just pause and be with where we are at this moment, with what's coming up right now, with what's here, with the gifts, with the beauty, with the potential for pleasure and enjoyment that's right here.
So I realize that some folks listening to this might be like, “I don't know, there's not a whole lot of spaciousness that I can see for this kind of work.” And yet, I invite you to look around and just see, like, what have you worked for? What do you have in your life now that you didn't a year ago? What do you have in your life that you didn't have ten years ago? What, at this moment, were you wishing for and hoping for and praying for that you have, you know? What's on its way to you?
I mean, it could be your health. It could be the breath in your lungs. If you've experienced any kind of illness where that was, in any way, threatened or like our life is connected to the Knight of Pentacles, too. Not apologizing for it and letting ourselves be really topped up and just loved on by the fruits that we've born is all a part of what this card is about.
[0:19:00]
So the difference between this and The Empress — which I know on paper sounds very, very similar — there's something inside of the core essence of both of them that are similar. The Empress is an invitation to really, really expand and dilate our threshold of receiving as a rule. Meaning, if we tend to really kind of have a baseline of comfort at like 10% of us is nourished and pleasured, but like 90% of us is not, The Empress is going to call upon us to move that dial up a little bit, and really lean into that squeeze and that discomfort, because receiving and pleasure and beauty is part of our birthright, period.
So the Empress is a little bit less, I think, about — although it does, it is inclusive of this — is a little bit less about the actual experience of pleasure, beauty, love, and receiving, and more about the work and sensing into what prevents us from being more open to those things in the first place.
It is a card that says, “Yeah, I'm going to take this time, I'm going to take this nap, I'm going to take this massage, I’m going to take this, like, offer of a consenting exchange or pleasure or whatever it might be. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.” “Yes, I'm going to read that incredible book that I bought forever ago and haven't had the time. I'm gonna crack it open, even if I can only read it for five minutes.” “Yes, I'm going to delight in my child's face, and enjoy them and adore in them,” “Yes, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to, period—like, X, Y, Z, whatever, whenever.” Wherever you happen to be with this, whether this is meeting you this week, we’re called to just say yes. We're called to open as much as we can.
Working with this card, and trusting this card can be really hard. It's just hard to do. That's why we do the work in the Empress that we do because a lot of us feel like this is too much, we can't, it's not okay, we're not worthy, there's not enough, we're not deserving of this kind of sweetness and pleasure. And you're receiving of that doesn't take away from what anyone else is doing, especially what this card tends to center.
Again, this has to do with nurturing yourself with the kind of medicine that you typically offer out to the world. So the council that you typically give, what would it be like to receive it, you know, of yourself? If you have worked your ass off and you like, are in the position to take some glorious trip away, do it. That's it. I'm not advising that, I'm not saying that that's accessible, or even an option for everyone. But if it is for you, then sure. You know, a trip away could be like an afternoon out to somewhere delightful, you know. Like, whatever.
Whatever it is for you, however it is for you, you can trust in this card. It's a really important part of our work with the Pentacles. We have to be able to be nourished by what we do, in some way shape or form, in order to continue to A) nourish others with it and B) to be clear about what we've outgrown and what we'd really like to continue on with.
[0:22:53]
Nine of Pentacles can be confronting, because it can pull up a lot of stuff about how we're not getting our needs met in these areas, how there just isn't room in our lives, in our flow, in our work life, like how we may have just simply set ourselves up or have been set up to not be able to center this kind of experience.
I know that, you know, a wildly privileged example because of the success of my work in my business, but there was a time, like back in 2020-2021, where I realized like really, actually, realized, like, I have no life, and all I ever do is work. And I just couldn't do it anymore. And it took, I want to say, a full year, to a year and a half to undo some of that. I had to. Like my team had to change shape which was really, like, was a lot. It was like, you know, my priorities had to shift. A lot of my vigilance stuff had to shift, like, is it okay for me to not do every five seconds? I didn't even know that I was doing that. I just thought it felt really good, and then it sort of didn't.
There was very little Nine of Pentacles thing going on in my life, whereas I feel like now there's a very nice amount of it. It's not perfect, but it's better than it was. So this is about trusting in your life and yourself enough to allow in the kind of pleasure that you may really long to receive. You might have been longing to receive for a while.
[0:24:54]
Our theme for the month of December is trust and trusting in this card is a really tall order, you know? Trusting that it's okay to say yes to these things, trusting that it's, you know. Moving into Aquarius season is a real shift in energy. It's a real different flow. And so, as we open to just the pleasure and the beauty of what we've created, what we've worked hard for, and allowing that to kind of nurture and top us off, again, how can we make that into more of a regular fixture in our lives?
How can there be maybe a monthly check-in to really look around us and be like, oh my gosh, like, wow. Things may not be perfect, things may not be exactly where we want them to be. Things may not even be where they were a few years ago. What is beautiful here? You know, what might you reach for that might fill you this week, just because, just because you exist, just because you deserve it? And see it as a very important step, a much larger step around clarifying for yourself, for all of us, what is supporting me, having more time with Nine of Pentacles? And what is actively in resistance or in opposition to that support? Like, are there areas of my life, situations in my life that feel like they're actively in the way of this? And if so, how do I go about potentially realizing that, confronting it, and changing it?
So, a simple energy, a simple energetic invitation — but really, a huge one that we're really being called to open to — again, what lights us up? What makes us feel delighted and rested and alive? And if there is something, even if it's as simple as we got the most amazing grapes from the grocery store yesterday, and like, they were just, I mean, it was a true Knight of Pentacles moment, like, we're just could not get over how delicious and crunchy and amazing they were. And as simple as that is, being present for that kind of moment. And even inside of that moment just feeling like “I have so much gratitude for the fact that I was able to purchase these grapes; that I have food that I can enjoy,” it's really getting down to the gratitude on that kind of granular level that is crucial to touch into and to keep hold of, you know? It's very, very important.
So how this card will show up this week for all of us will be really different. But if you can challenge yourself to stay open to it and to let it be really accessible, really simple, it has the potential to be a radiantly expansive week in terms of our relationship to receiving this kind of pleasure and goodness and joy, in whatever way it wants to come forward in our lives.
[0:28:30]
So I'm going to shift into our listener question. But before I do that, I had several people ask me in the “Ask Lindsay,” like, large, Q&A database, in response to my episode with Jessica Lanyadoo talking about our personal cards of the year ahead, how to sense into our personal cards for the year. And I know that there are a million different ways of going about this, but how I do it is I add up my birth month, my birth day, and the current year.
And I do — some folks, their method of adding is a little different from this, but so I'm 4/10 and the current year's 2023. So I would add up 4 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 3, which, for me, is 12, and that's Tethered One for me. So that's how I got that. And so, hopefully, that answers the many questions I got about this, and I'll be curious to hear your reflections on your personal cards of the year. And I'd love to do an episode on that at some point, like making sense of the medicine of your personal cards of the year. So if you have any questions about that, let me know. Maybe we'll do a whole episode on it.
[0:30:03]
So now I'm going to dive into our listener question of the week from Kristin. Kristin asks:
Hi, Lindsay,
I've been reading for a while, but I still occasionally struggle to discern between when a card is inviting me to do something or not to do something.
For example, recently, I asked how I could best serve a friend who's experiencing their awakening and keeps asking me for guidance because I've been through the experience before. I pulled The Hierophant, but I can’t understand whether it's telling me I can serve them by imparting my knowledge based on my own experience, or suggesting that I shut up and let them figure it out themselves.
I often wonder if a card is inviting me to do something or not do something related to its meaning. Do you have any advice?
I do, although my advice will — and this is maddening, I'm sure — but my advice would likely be different, depending on the situation, and depending on the question asked, in any particular kind of scenario. So, first of all, again, it's a fabulous question, and I'm honored to kind of think through it with you.
I think that I don't know that, unless we're talking about something real specific, that any card tells us to do something or not do something. Some specific examples that are coming to mind is like, I probably wouldn't do something, personally, in like, Seven of Cups. Because Seven of Cups is, like, kind of flinging yourself into a tangly web. Like, it's a lot of pomp and circumstance, but you're eventually going to come back to where you were when you jumped into the web, which is in a place where the future, the next steps, just really aren't clear, and you're being called to kind of daydream and vision into the next steps, rather than try to get a clearer sense of what's coming.
And there's certainly, like, Majors where I would be like, okay, maybe it's not the exact right time for an action here and action there. There have been times where I've gotten cards like that, and it's totally been the right time to do something or not do something. So I think it is more about listening and feeling into your own gut and, ideally, trusting that above all else.
[0:32:39]
Because you asked for my advice, though, I am going to say that when we consider ways of interpreting cards — and obviously, you've been reading for a while, so you probably don't need this. But for those who this might be a benefit for — if we have a card, if we have a Major Arcana card, we're talking about big macrocosmic energies; really big, kind of ocean wave-like energies; energies that are coming sort of that are larger than us. And the kind of keyword that encapsulates the most graceful way to respond to a Major is that of surrender.
So when we get a Major, we want to kind of see how it makes sense for us to surrender to a card like that, and then how do we tend ourselves inside of the act of surrender to a card like that. There's all different kinds of ways to engage with an ocean wave: we can surf it, we can duck under it. We can, you know, all different kinds of ways we can get out of the ocean entirely in an attempt to avoid it. The option is really with us. But we're really invited to kind of work with what we're handed.
So with a card like Hierophant, what we're being called to do is to really surrender to the invitation that it brings, which is a deep one. And that has to do with kind of clearing up, clearing out, our old beliefs about something. It doesn't really have to do at all with being someone's… If it has to do with being someone's teacher or guide, then it really kind of is centered around us being clear that that teacher and guide is not the end-all-be-all; that we aren't meant to do things alone if we don't have to be, you know, alone. But we also don’t need to make a teacher our God — which, unfortunately, a lot of folks do — an infallible and untouchable and up-on-a-pedestal. And then, at the first moment, you know, yanking them off of the pedestal, which is not to say that some people, there's not manipulation that goes into that, there is not very important, deep, platforming happening with folks.
I just mean all of us have those human tendencies to finally say like, “Oh my god, here's someone who can tell me what to do with my life. I feel lost.” And so Hierophant is actually about the dismantling of that, and clearing out the old, inherited, untrue beliefs that keep us looking for someone to tell us what to do.
[0:35:28]
So what I want to say to you is that — because, again, you asked for my advice — The Hierophant being there for you, inside of that kind of a pull, would incentivize me to encourage you to remind your friend that your experiences are not the same. And yet, absolutely, you are here to share and be a resource for whatever questions they might have to ask you, knowing that you're not the end-all-be-all resource for awakenings — nor are any of us.
So if your friend can hold the duality of that, can lean in on you as a trusted resource for us—I mean, all of us want to, like, that's the beautiful, natural way of folks being resources. Like if there are paths in the forest, and someone has walked or moved through that path many more times, or is many miles ahead, or at a different part of the path than us, and we're really struggling or going through a lot with that path, that's the whole reason we're in this together, is to be able to say like, “Oh, yeah, that briar patch is a motherfucker. But here are some of the things that helped,” or “Nothing helped. I had to go through the briar patch, and like tend to my wounds on the other side.” And we may find that that's your experience, but your friend might have a totally different experience in the briar patch.
So as long as your friend can hold that, and can not get swept up in their own stories about like, “Well, you know, it means this, this, and this about Kristin, because they went through the briar patch this way, but I went through it that way,” if we can just hold it like we're two totally different people, then I would say go for it. I would say absolutely go for it.
I would also say — and I imagine you're doing this — but ask your friend, “If you're ever open, you know, you can absolutely ask me anything, knowing that my experience might feel very different than yours. That doesn't make it wrong or bad or anything, but just know I'm here to be a listener, to be an ear. And I'm also here as a resource, should you need that,” you know. I think just opening yourself like that, I think is great.
[0:38:01]
I don't think Hierophant is about not doing; I think Hierophant is about being aware of the bigness of what it is to be a resource and handling it with a degree of profound humility and, really, being super aware that just because we are in a position of power, or if we are in a position to offer advice or offer feedback or offer our experience about something that we've moved through, that does not mean that we are going to match everyone's experience, nor does it mean that we will necessarily be able to center everything or be that perfect resource for folks.
And so, I would say, be willing to be a resource for your friend, holding all this in mind, and keeping the grip on it real loose. I mean, it sounds like you are, but I would just say just for the collective you, just to keep the grip on it, really, like no-grip (Lindsay laughs), just open palm. Be like, “I'm here to make sense.”
You know, there's some folks that I've been a resource for, not even as a teacher, but just in general, who don't want to hear anything about what I've gone through in certain ways. They really just want to be heard. And there are some folks who have a million questions for me. And sometimes I speak on certain things, and sometimes I don't, depending on the situation. So I think for you, too, holding that duality of kind of letting your friend go through their experience but also, being there if they need it, I think is pretty much the ideal situation, if we're going to think about like, a really trustworthy source for resourcing and advice or teaching, or whatever it might be. So I think it's just handling that with care.
I don't necessarily think that The Hierophant is sometimes—whenever I get The Hierophant, it doesn't always have to do, it doesn't really circle in on too much about like taking action or not taking action, which I know is at the heart of your question. It does have a lot to do with surrendering to a much larger process about my belief systems, about my stories, about trusting myself. There are all kinds of different pieces wrapped up into that. So I think what I'm hearing inside of your question is actually you doing the Hierophant work of questioning with humility, like, “What's in my friends’ best interest here?” Like, you know, “I'm torn about how to handle this.”
And so, I think proceeding with that degree of respect and of very vast and spacious holding is a beautiful way to work with this card. But I don't necessarily know that there's a ton, yeah, if there's a ton of clarity around whether or not you consent to sense into a card, as a kind of a rule and as a blanket space, as inviting you to do something or not do something.
[0:41:44]
I would say that if it feels like something that comes up for you a lot, additional card pulls can be incredibly helpful. Pulling a card on something and then just asking, “What, if anything, am I being invited to do about this?”
And let's say you pull Two of Swords. It could be check in about it more. Do your own kind of processing with it and see what comes out on the other side. If you got a card like King of Swords, it might be leaning into your vulnerability and saying to a person that might be engaged in a situation with you, “I'm not exactly… I've been a little torn about whether or not to offer up my experience or not because I really want to center your flow through this. But I sort of wanted to take it out of the realm of my own internal process and open it up to both of us. Like would this be helpful?” Or “I just wanted you to know, if it is ever helpful, I'm here.” Like, speaking your truth centered around King of Swords. Like, let's say if you got, you know, something like Six of Wands in response to a question like, “What if anything am I being invited to do about this?” it might be that it's something completely random versus if you got another card.
So I think the way that we make meaning of these cards is so personal. But I think, in general, the cards don't ever tell us what to do or not do. It's really about our own kind of fieldwork going into it, and then kind of taking a stumbly, fumbly leap toward what we feel is the right thing to do, and seeing where it takes us.
There are times where I've been invited to speak on something that, like to a friend in a vulnerable moment, but that's kind of opened up to a totally unexpected place inside of the actual construct of the conversation. But what the benefit of it is that sometimes it serves to really offer repair for a little bit of a rupture between myself and someone. Sometimes it helps me to practice speaking my truth when I would normally swallow something, and sort of toss away the key, and then, like, just kind of float away, (Lindsay laughs) which is an old pattern for me.
So yeah, I don't know that we can. All cards are so different, and they bring about so many different things. So I would say whenever you're unsure about what you're being invited to do, if anything, pull a clarifier. But even inside of pulling the clarifier, I would say just be with it. Maybe journal about it, maybe just sit with it.
And it might help you — although, you may hear this and think that is not helpful (Lindsay laughs). If so, I totally honor that — it might be helpful just to verbally talk through your process with someone or whomever you're with, and be like, “Here's what I don't want do. Here's what I'm worried about doing. Here's what I'd like to center. I'm worried by doing this or not doing this, I'm not,” you know?
So if there's a concern there, I would say chat it out, and you'll likely have a sense of the next right thing to do, even if it's more of a spiral step than a linear one. In other words, we can make a move and think, “Oy, that was totally not the thing to do.” And then we learn from that, and try something different, and so forth. So I hope that helps. Thank you for trusting me with this question. And um, oh, as always, feel free to let me know how it goes.
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[Conclusion]
[0:45:41]
All right, this was a short one, but a good one, I think. I'm really curious to see how this week unfolds with all this Nine of Pentacles goodness. I'm really grateful to be here with all of you and to be traveling here with all of you, within this flow and within this process together, doing this weekly podcast with all of you.
And I really hope that the week treats you as sweetly as you deserve. And until we meet again, please take very good care of yourselves.