Card of the Day: Eight of Swords
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The Wild Unknown Tarot [/caption]
I pulled this card in my own reading this morning, in the Spirit position. I have an understandably aversive reaction to this card, especially in that position, so I wanted to explore it a bit this morning.
I’ve been taking a class about working with lunar cycles with @gottesss, and in this final week of class, we’re in the waning moon phase. Some of what she’s given us to work with is around shadow work, a term I’ve heard before but didn’t know much about. That framework—of doing practice around self-limiting beliefs and narratives, feeling states and emotions that have gotten shoved in a deep, dark place because they’re too scary to feel IN CONJUNCTION with a larger natural cycle, i.e. the waning Moon—has given me a way of seeing this card as an opportunity.
It’s almost comical to see how much energy I put into not feeling certain feelings, trying to ensure that certain things don’t happen without actually understanding why they do happen, to imagining that there is a “place” I can get to where everything I do is universally experienced as good, beneficial, appreciated, and just generally awesome. And how afraid I am of doing and saying things that will produce an opposite reaction—in myself and others.
The other card I’ve been pulling repeatedly is the Four of Cups, which in one way can be understood as rejecting the gifts and opportunities of certain emotions and experiences. While I would never invite ruptures into my life, I can also see that they are the places that have produced the most fruitful inquiries, insights and moments of pivot and freedom. This always comes at a cost—ruptures cause harm to self and other. And they hopefully result in a larger container for my feelings and experiences so that I’m not repeating the same harms over and over. But I’m coming to understand that rupture, harm and repair are part of a human life. I wish my primary and secondary education had included learning relational skills around this. And I’m grateful to be able to work on it now.
What are you working on in your internal world?
