Card of the Day: Seven of Pentacles

This is a crossroads card, a stop-and-evaluate card, a how’s-this-all-going? card. We live in a culture that’s designed to keep us so busy and scrambled that we don’t have time not only to stop and reflect on where we’re at, but we also don’t even have the space and time to develop and explore the kind of life we want to live.

I remember being involved in a visioning process that put activities on one of four quadrants: urgent-important, urgent-not important, not urgent-important, and not urgent-not important. And a person who’d spent a lot of time in the corporate world warned against living in the urgent-important quadrant. Being in that space all the time—what’s the next thing that needs to happen right NOW—means that we don’t get to things that are also important but require time and space and development.

This is also a card of taking pride in our activities and accomplishments. The culture doesn’t make much space for that, especially if you’re not a white cis man. Can we affirm ourselves for taking a break? Taking a nap? Going out for a walk to clear our mind and connect with nature? Can we be proud of the small choices we make to take care of ourselves in a way that feels good, without any larger “goal” or “purpose”?

Finally, this is a card of cycles and seasons. Deep in our bones and nervous systems, we retain a memory of living in harmony with time and season, with the phases of the moon, with the movement of the Earth around the sun. We did not live 24/7/365 go, go, go. We worked and rested. We made time for communal celebration. We can still do this.