Weekly Tarot: June 14th - 20th
***Note: I created this spread, and I read tarot intuitively meaning that I was not formally taught in any way. These are my thoughts and intuitive reactions to each card in each position, and these interpretations may not resonate with you, personally. This is in no way meant to predict certain events.***
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Shout out to my friend/soul brother Reuben for talking me through some of the more difficult astrology this week! Check out his Instagram for more astrology info and original music :)
Card 1: What is changing this week? -- Death
Opening the reading with some heavy, blunt energy makes me feel like the cards are really trying to get our attention this week! The Death card always makes the hair on our necks stand up, even if we’re aware that it isn’t a literal omen of death.
The Death card is all about change and transformation. It can also signify a swift ending to something, because change is often the result of something beginning or ending. Death is the ultimate card of change, in my opinion, so in this position we can be certain that what’s changing this week is everything.
Since the start of 2020, we’ve been confronted with many threats to life as we know it and society as it stands.
Think back to January when we feared an impending World War 3 as a result of imprudent strikes on Iran, or when certain Democratic candidates performed unusually poorly in primaries.
Think back to February when the first mentions of COVID-19 came about and many places were dealing with climate-change-related unusual weather patterns.
Think back to March when COVID-19 kept us at home and afraid.
Think of April when quarantine shifted our priorities away from consumerism and towards learning to bake bread, substituting Zoom calls for social lives, and grappling with the realities of the systems we live in.
Think back to just this last month of May when many states reopened only to encounter protests, riots, and looting as a call for justice for Black lives.
If you haven’t gotten the message yet, take this Death card as the sign you’ve been waiting for: things need to change. And when I say “things” I mean all of the things we can humanly think of. Our thoughts, our feelings, our self-image. Our families, our communities, our language, and our communication. Our systems, our frameworks, our societies, our beliefs. Notice how those areas seem to flow into one another, notice how change begins and ends with us as individuals and along that journey it expands into the parts of this world much greater than each one of us.
The Death card is telling us that if we haven’t surrendered to the changes we’ve been presented with yet, this week it won’t be a choice. Change is coming whether we want to accept it or not, whether we want to learn to let it in or not.
As I’ve suggested in some past spreads, the changes we’re going through aren’t optional at this point so the sooner we can not only accept but welcome them, the easier it’s going to be for us. Not to scare you, but this Death card is sort of like last call for all the people in the back that haven’t heard (or haven’t wanted to hear) the truth about what is happening. We will not be “going back to normal” -- that “normal” is dead and gone, and this week, we will all (yes, even those of us who surrendered long ago) come to grips with that in a very real and visceral way.
Yeesh, okay, I know that was a heavy one. Stay with me, there’s some good stuff coming too!
(And remember that fear doesn’t serve us very well. If you’re scared or feel called out in what you just read that’s okay -- sit with that fear and then chuck it out the window and move on. You got the message you needed already.)
Card 2: What is supporting us this week? -- Queen of Wands
With all that heaviness in the air around us, it’s awesome to have the Queen of Wands herself support us. We’ve had a lot of fire energy recently with the Knight of Wands and Page of Wands showing up in weeks past, and the Queen of Wands is also fire energy. However, her’s is a much more refined and mature take on the fiery disposition.
That’s good, we could use some maturity and refinement right now.
The Queen of Wands is the embodiment of confidence, courage, independence and determination. We have learned to harness the fiery energy of the Page and Knight we’ve been working through lately, and graduated to the next level where we can use that same boldness with poise and purpose.
Though all the upheaval and change around us, the Queen of Wands infuses us with a sense of determination that will keep our eyes on the prize, whatever that may be for us. She guides us not in a specific direction, but instead to use our strengths to our advantage. She reminds us that the greatest strength is knowing what our talents truly are, and more, learning how to use them to get what we want.
The Queen of Wands is also someone who is really physically attractive and beautiful and knows it. They are confident and regal in how they hold themselves, exuding a sense of high self-esteem and self-worth. The Queen of Wands shuts down whatever room she walks into with her beauty and boldness.
What supports us now is the same innate awareness of how amazing and beautiful each one of us is. We are all coming into our own and beginning to understand the exact parts of ourselves that make us beautiful and irresistible to all good things. We are beginning to own the most attractive and alluring parts of ourselves, and as Venus retrograde continues, we are also learning that these aspects of our physical appearances aren’t something to be ashamed of but something to be deeply celebrated.
This is the part of Venus retrograde when we may feel more able to implement some of the lessons we’re learning about beauty, appearances, and how we value ourselves. The Queen of Wands isn’t really a Venus-type energy, but it’s quite close in the sense that this figure is notably about physical beauty and sexual appeal.
This week, allow yourself to be bolstered up by your beauty as a human being. Allow yourself to feel like that bitch. Allow yourself to get lost in your own eyes and the infinity they hold, and feel supported by the courage that comes from being boldly yourself.
Card 3: What is the biggest challenge? -- 10 of Pentacles
Usually, the 10 of Pentacles is all about stability and the longevity of family; the comfort and security that comes from family legacy or a family name. In the position of our biggest challenge, however, this card takes on a different meaning.
This week, the planet Mercury will station retrograde in the sign of Cancer. As a reminder, in astrology Mercury rules all things communication, travel, and technology, so when it goes retrograde we are pushed to re-evaluate these areas and how they appear in our lives.
Cancer is a sign linked to the maternal, the ways nurturing show up in daily life, and family and home. Therefore, Mercury retrograde in Cancer this week will bring up the family issues lying under the surface. We’ll be prompted somewhat suddenly to ask questions such as what are the existing narratives in my family about how do we connect and communicate with one another? How are those narratives impacting us as a whole and me as an individual? Are these narratives and dynamics positive or negative? Are they neutral?
Overall, this will be a time to take a closer look at our home lives and how they have impacted us in the past as well as in the present. If needed, this Mercury retrograde will help us to be able to rearrange spaces that no longer serve us to make space for clearer energy and better times. This time will also help us rewrite unhelpful narratives and better understand dynamics around family to help us grow into our new reality/society and in some cases reparent our inner children.
This will be a challenge because it is extremely hard to confront our parents, even in a figurative and spiritual sense. We may not be outwardly having difficult conversations with our parents, but if we are still asking ourselves the hard questions, just the same we may uncover truths about our families that are painful or that cause us to make difficult decisions.
Because of how difficult this might be, be careful not to go into hiding or cut people out this week -- that type of avoidance won't be rewarded but will delay any positive changes that can result from this tricky but necessary inventory of family structures. Avoiding the truth won’t make it disappear, so we might as well take these challenges head on and get as much as we can out of them.
At the worst, this will suck and you won’t see immediate results but instead you’ll start a journey to heal familial wounds. At the best, you’ll transform your life almost immediately and vastly improve your relationship with yourself and with your family.
Card 4: What is the biggest opportunity? -- Two of Pentacles
The two of pentacles is traditionally depicted as a skilled juggler handling two pentacles at once, tracing an infinity symbol with his hands using the pattern of the coins he’s juggling. Here, the pentacles are woven together in a kind of upright infinity symbol that is not quite as obvious, and the coins float above a choppy sea.
The two of pentacles is all about being able to handle multiple priorities at once and learning to adapt to new situations flawlessly. The two of pentacles happens when we have accepted many priorities and we have mastered juggling them equally, even when braving the choppy and unpredictable sea of life.
What’s coming as an opportunity for us this week is the ability to adapt to our ever-changing world. As things seem to fall apart all around us, what is left is our priorities and our values, and we are really getting the hang of giving our attention to each one of those things without being thrown off balance.
What’s more, this week we’re presented with the gift of balance. We have faced so many extremes lately -- extreme lack and for some of us an equal amount of extreme abundance. We have the opportunity to reprioritize and find a home for all the new wonderful things we are uncovering and holding dear at this time. We will find the space for things that really move the needle for us, and we’ll get to stop making space for things that burden us.
The two of pentacles also gives us a sense of hope that things are balancing out for us already, even if we can’t quite feel it yet. It may not seem like we’re out of the woods yet because, frankly, we really freakin’ aren’t. But we are much closer to being out of the woods than we were last month or even last week. We’re coming to a clearing in the forest soon and we can look forward to that as we deal with all the other things (ehem, the Death card) swirling around us.
Oracle Card: “Thank you, Universe, for helping me see beyond the limits of fear. Thank you for expanding my perceptions so that I can see what is of the highest good.”
If you’re not familiar with the concept of “the highest good”, you can think of it as what Michael Scott in the office would call a win-win-win situation -- it’s what happens when everyone gets their way without really having to compromise. Imagine a world where that is true: where everyone, including you, gets everything they could ever dream of having or wanting. That’s the highest good. Doesn’t that sound great?
In order to embrace that and all the awesome things that come with it, we need to come at things from a place of gratitude instead of a place of fear.
Saying “no” to fear isn’t just an act of courage, it’s an act of love and respect towards the innate light that guides us all from within. Embracing what is on the other side of fear not only expands our perceptions and our understanding of reality as inherently good -- or at least neutral -- but it honors our intuition that naturally leads us in the direction of our highest good.
It’s hard to see in the dark, but no matter how dark things get in front of us, when we see things from the point of our highest good we gain a bird’s eye view.
I feel like there isn’t much more to say than what this oracle card presents to us. It’s time to move past the limiting vision that fear imposes on us and towards the true highest good.
I wish everyone an expansive week with loads of beauty and positive change!
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