Card of the Day: Ace of Cups

This card is often associated with romance and friendship, which is something I’ve been thinking about quite a bit lately. I’ve been really feeling the limits of the scripts we get handed about what qualities and feelings go with what kinds of relationships. Your intimate partner/spouse is for the romance, passion, sexuality and sensuality, and your friends (at least for those socialized in the feminine) are for emotional processing and crisis management. Really?

I mean, I know that there are people and communities who’ve been going off-script in these relationships...forever. I’m arriving off-script at my own speed. As someone who doesn’t have the time or interest in being partnered the way our culture suggests I should, I’ve been exploring and experiencing a real renaissance in my friendships, especially my friendships with women and trans/nonbinary folks.

What does this look like? Centering creativity, pleasure, excitement, joy, intimacy, and anti-racism/capitalism in my friendships feels a lot better than connecting over gossip and crisis. (Or feeling bereft and neglected and lonely because I’m unpartnered.) Negotiating what feels good and right in each relationship is its own pleasure. Feeling deeply loved and loving deeply in return seems like a good thing to prioritize in my life. I’m lucky to get to do it.

The notion that one person could hold, see, affirm and challenge all the things that we are, or that we could ever do that for someone in return is such a shitty set-up. I”m preferring to spread it around, with friendships getting to be uniquely reflecting facets of self and other, turning the jewel, seeing more and more, imagining a world of connection, collective care and liberation.