Ten thousand steps

You know those ads you see which tell you that you can have this body is 6 weeks?  Yeah, that never worked for me either. 

About two years ago I got my first fitbit.  I’ve always struggled with fitness (and weight,  but that’s another issue) and though I live in NYC and walk everywhere,  once I put the fitbit on,  I saw that I was walking less than I thought.  I was averaging about 6,000 steps a day, whereas current wisdom is 10,000 steps for maintenance, 12,000 steps for weight loss.   So I wore it for a couple of months, and some days made 10,000 but I don’t think I made 70,000 a week once for that first year.  I lost it when I was shopping, trying on clothes, and it took me about 3 months to replace.

But I like the fitbit,  I like the calm relentlessness of the numbers,  you can’t cajole or argue with it,  you either met goal or you didn’t.  So I bought another one.  That one I killed by accidentally putting it in the washing machine.  That took about 2 months to replace.

After a year or so, I realized I was actually walking more.  I was doing 10,000 or close most days,  and it was less of a struggle to do so.  I still didn’t always make 70,000 a week,  but I was in the 60’s most weeks,  occasionally hitting goal.  When the new puppy ate my last fitbit,  I looked up on ebay (I was sick of paying full amount) and bought one the next day.  I wear it all the time now, and this year,  maybe 2 years in,  I average 12,000 steps a day,  definitely make 70,000 steps a week.

I’m not telling you this to gloat, but to say that a journey of a thousand steps starts with the first one.  My first year was far from stellar, the graph is definitely not a clear progression, lots of loops and pauses there.  It’s an incremental journey, but one that you can absolutely see results from a few years down the track…

Lots of ten's

Over the past few years, I’ve gone through every single card of the tarot and looked at their meanings (just type the card you are interested in the upper left hand corner and it should appear!) Now I am looking at the numbers. I’m just finishing the pip cards – the numbers cards, and then it’s only the court cards left! What does it mean if we draw lots of 10's in our reading?



It means life is particularly action packed and intense right now. The 10’s link to the Wheel of Fortune, the card of karmic change. Tens are about completion but of course we’ve only really completed when we are dead, so at the same turn of the wheel, we start again…


10 of cups is when we want to hold the moment, have the ‘happy ever after’; 10 of pentacles is when growth and stability are hampered by tradition/family demands; 10 of wands is when the burden is too much and we feel like we are endlessly pushing the rock up the hill and the 10 of swords is when change is inevitable, we can’t survive the current situation, in order to be able to get up, we must change.


I read somewhere that the 10’s were the culmination of the physical and spiritual aspects of each suit, the end of the long road, and the last of the pip cards. If you draw a lot of tens, then you are coming to the end of cycle, but it’s an intense ending, with a bang, not a whimper…

Ten of Wands

I know this card well and it always makes me sigh… it’s when all that wonderful wands energy becomes a burden to us and instead of lifting us up, we’re the ones pushing it up hill. We feel like Sisyphus, endlessly pushing the boulder up the hill only to watch it roll down again.


I warn people when they get this card that they have to take some proactive action, because waiting for it to pass is bad for wands energy, the flame starts to flicker and die… Wands need fiery passion to keep thriving and this image shows that the seed has no light to grow...


I like this card because it hints that the burdens are being hoarded. Sometimes we collect emotional injuries, like they are coins we can later cash in, giving ourselves permission to be resentful or bitter. The ten of wands is a hard card, but this attitude makes it even harder to change the situation.