What's the best option

When people come to me with an important choice,  I like to know nothing more than the label - Plan A or Plan B.  That way,  my own biases don't come into play. 

So a woman in her late twenties comes to me with two work opportunities and and I say,  let's shuffle and think about Plan A.

She draws  4 wands / King of Swords / 8 of pentacles. 

And then we look at Plan B

7 pentacles reversed / hanged man / 7 of swords. 

Knowing nothing about either options, it's clear that Plan A is the better option - it's more stable,  it has a smart organized male energy and it gives career vibes.

Plan B was more hanging in the wind and betrayal. 

Turns out Plan A was moving to Canada and take a position there and Plan B involved staying the more familiar New Jersey.  She was scared of the big change of moving countries,  but she too could clearly see it was the better option.  Sometimes fears hold us back,  but with a little reassurance,  we can burst forward. 

Where the spirit meets the bone

I'm not a real swiftie.  I barely know who she dated (yes,  I know she just got married!) and I like her songs,  my car is almost permanently on Taylor Swift Radio,  but I don't know all her lyrics by heart or all her songs.

Then I started listening to the Swiftie and the Scholar,  on youtube.  It's a deep dive (about an hour an episode and each episode covers only one song) on random songs. 

I'm not listening to them in any order,  but I've been watching about one a week.  

Last one was about Ivy,  I song I realized I barely knew.  I had listened to it once or twice on Evermore,  but it hadn't gotten it's hooks on me, though some of the phrases I really liked. 

I had noticed the phrase,  where the spirit meets the bone,  it's so evocative.  And then the poetry professor tells us it's not unique to Taylor,  it comes from this poem:

From The Ways We Touch: Poems. 

Isn't that a beautiful phrase in a beautiful poem? And I love the song so much more now!  I didn't realize the Emily Dickinson connection and was fascinated to learn about it. 

So if you want to do a deep dive,  this is a fun away to while away an hour... 

Dreams

I've lived in London and New York.  Last night I dreamt that I was in midtown,  NYC,  and trying to get back down to Tribeca but I was walking through all these weird neighborhoods and couldn't figure out where I was.  In the dream I realized I was in Bond St and didn't know where that was in relation to Tribeca.  I was becoming increasingly agitated,  and then tried texting my husband to ask him the name of our hotel, so I could give up on walking and just cab there,  and then I remembered he was dead. 

That jolted me so much,  I woke up.  And awake,  I said to myself,  you were in London, silly,  that's why you couldn't find Tribeca.  Then I was asleep again,  and still looking to get to Tribeca while in the middle of London,  and still confused and very upset that my husband couldn't help me anymore.

Then I woke up again,  fully this time.  There's nothing wrong with being in London,  it's a fab city.  But if you are searching for New York landmarks,  you won't find them in London.  Widowhood is so disorienting,  all the familiar landmarks gone,  and the person you used to text for help and advice,  well, you can't reach him anymore.  

I guess I just have to accept that I can't go back to the past,  I have to make my way forward.  But I do so miss him.  I'm grateful that I have someone to miss, that we had such a good life together.  I also feel for dream me, lost in the wrong city,  unable to sort myself out.  Luckily awake me can see things a bit more clearly... 

saw this on line and it made me smile

 

We need more Women In STEM 

Sorcery

Tarot

Energy

Magic

Good fields to be in... 

My current favorite tarot deck

I frequently look at Tarot cards,  to find new variants,  to see if a new image will spark a deeper interpretation. 

And I just came across the marvellously named Fat Folks Tarot.  And it's true that tarot cards rarely have less than perfect figures on them,  unless they are trying to say something specific.  So it's great to see all the cards have these plump interesting figures in them,  and give us fat folk some representation. 

The Deck has a variety of artists who worked on them,  so they can look quite different.  Look them up on Instagram and see some of their variations. 

I particularly liked their version of the 5 of pentacles,  which shows such a beautiful and true way of feeling excluded and out in the cold... 

4 of pentacles vs 9 of Cups

I'm finding I'm explaining these 2 cards,  the 4 of pentacles and the 9 of cups,  again and again to people lately. I really feel we are living in a world exploiting our feelings of not enoughness,  feeding our dissatisfactions, wanting our envy.

I came across this anecdote:  At a party given by a billionaire on Shelter Island, Kurt Vonnegut informs his pal, Joseph Heller, that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his wildly popular novel Catch-22 over its whole history. Heller responds, “Yes, but I have something he will never have … the knowledge that I have enough."

And it seems to me that the super rich right now have no idea what enough looks like.  And the world of instagram and trad wives and holidays abroad are all about needing more, exploiting the feeling of the 4 of pentacles,  where our financial needs and wants hang over us. We feel tight for money,  tight for time,  tight. 

And what we want,  what we should all be striving for is the 9 of cups,  the card I call the fat and happy card,  where you don't have everything,  but you have that most special of all things,  enough.  You are content with what you have.  There may be a cup or two missing,  but you don't let that spoil the cups that you have.  You let yourself have joy with what comes your way,  and let yourself be rich in the ways of Joseph Heller,  and know that you have enough.

That's my blessing to all of us,  may we know the value of what we have,  and let us feel contentment. 

saying of the week

Sometimes someone says something to me in passing during a reading,  and I have to stop them and repeat it so both of us could hear it properly,  and I know I will be saying it to others. 

I spoke with a young woman recently and she quoted to me something her mother often says - Just because you could be doing more, doesn’t mean you’re not doing enough - and I thought, what a wise,  wise mother!

Let's just sit with that for a moment.  We could always being doing more in this culture,  but here is a breath of calm wisdom - just because we could be doing more,  doing mean that we are doing isn't enough.  It's a version of my oft quoted don't let the perfect get in the way of the good,  but it's another way of looking at it and it unlocked something in me to hear it,  so I'm sharing it with you...