Card of the Day: Nine of Swords
[caption id align="alignnone" width="526"]
Spolia Tarot [/caption]
I’m never glad to see this card in my morning pull. It’s one of a few cards—The Tower, any of the Fives—that I dread. And here it is, showing up in the “Mind” position of my reading today. Do you really need me to tell you? Nightmares, insomnia, anxiety, spinning and looping thoughts with no space. An internal hell realm of our own creation.
The suit of Swords is about our faculty of mind—our attention, perception, judgment, discernment, wisdom, truth, and communication of all kinds. Here in this card, there are too many swords, and we are too alone to be able to sort out what’s true and real and what’s not. The isolation of quarantine and social distancing is, as a friend said to me this morning, “The Big Squeeze.” It’s showing us what we’ve been practicing, where we’ve been putting our attention, the kind of choices we’ve been making. Individually and collectively.
As painful as I’m finding this to be—and I am finding it to be VERY PAINFUL—I believe it’s also true that this is a moment of great potential. The karmic currents are accelerating and churning, and we still have choices that we can make every day. To double-down on our self-defeating habits, our anxiety, our isolation. Or to shift. Micro shifts add up over time. Choosing to give ourselves space. To connect. To act in the service of justice and healing. To locate a true, wholesome desire in our body and fulfill it. To savor a moment of pleasure.
The Charge of the Goddess, composed by Doreen Valiente says, in part, “All acts of love and pleasure are My rituals.” What if this were actually true? What if we treated any act of pleasure or love—like calling Minneapolis DA Mike Freeman at 612-348-5550 or citizeninfo@hennepin.us and urging him to prosecute the four officers involved in the murder of George Floyd, or watering our garden, or listening to a friend, or touching our own skin with complete attention in a way that feels good—what if we treated these acts of love and pleasure like the rituals of the Goddess that they are?
