The following is a communal tarot reading for understanding and direction during the month of November, 2020.
As I write this, the 2020 election is all-but coming to a close. Trump’s path to victory is extremely slim-to-non-existant, and Decision Desk has already called it for Biden. Covid-19 cases yesterday soared above 121k nationwide, and we’re nearing 250k deaths—surpassing the cancer death rate—many of which might not have happened under competent leadership. The fight for racial justice wages on, and civil unrest seems to be par for the course on pretty much every event that happens or doesn’t happen, in large part because of the way big tech handles the availability of information on social media.
I thought it might be a good time to touch base.
This month asks us to get really honest about how aligned what we give our attention to is with what we want for our lives—both individual and civic.
When was the last time we took stock of our overall direction—the long game? What requires our absolute attention, and what may be an egoic distraction from what really needs doing? How do we stand in our own way? Who gets the blade of our sword? Are we grateful for what we have? Are we looking at where we might have some influence and agency and acting whole-heartedly within that arena, or are we spinning our wheels in rhetoric designed to inflame those we wish to control but never will? When does the relief of some mindless scrolling stop being an adaptive coping strategy and move into avoidance?
How tuned in are we to what we really want to be doing with our lives, both individually and as communities, as a nation, as a planet?
In other words: what is essential, and what do we cut the fuck out in order to focus on it?
This month also shows that we cannot afford the social cost that comes with “free” information. It’s time to become highly suspicious of—and to refuse to participate in—systems in which we are bought and sold at the cost of truth, under the guise of connection.
Anytime you’re tempted to DM your friends, consider calling them instead.
For a deeper dive, please read on for a break-down of the spread.
A CLOSER LOOK
I like to start with the top and bottom cards, which represent what is needed—what we need to grow cultivate with effort—and what we can already rely upon as our supportive, protective grounding and root system without having to monitor or actively manage it.
Our foundation, what we can rely on happening without us putting energy into it, is a lot of experimentation represented by The Magician. Which fire to put out first, and how? How do we rebuild? What has to be fundamentally changed and what simply repaired? We can think about these questions for our own lives as well as in society—but we don’t have to worry about sleeping on trying things out and making efforts, that is going to happen no matter what.
The job of the Magician is to employ discernment rather than chaos in moving toward more stable decision-making. We really, really, really need to cut the bullshit of standing in our own way and tearing ourselves apart from the inside out. We need to be intact to fight. Stop ripping to shreds that which is barely discernibly lagging behind you in evolution and focus on making a dent in the giant monster ahead.
What needs energetic, conscious cultivation this month comes in the form of the Five of Wands. I view this as a continuation of the above questions, there’s a shit-ton more energy and a little bit more wiggle room to create the future than we wouldn’t have had with four more years of exhausting our resources fighting Trump. What will we do with it? And what will we do differently in our own lives, with so much anxiety freed up to put toward healing, repair, and new visions?
Though we need to keep our eyes on fighting this pandemic and doing our part to minimize the havoc it is wreaking, for example, it also seems to be a good time to start peeking beyond it—where do we want to land after this free-fall? How are we setting ourselves up to stick it rather than tumbling?
Have you ever lived in a city where it’s clear the infrastructure wasn’t designed with massive growth in mind? Doing that construction work becomes an insane headache later on. Let’s make sure the groundwork we lay now is flexible and/or mighty enough to handle what we aim to build.
The Ten of Cups is representative of where we’re coming from, our recent past, the latest phase from which we are emerging—and which we’ve hopefully learned from. This indicates that a lot of folks have just woken up. Not to say that a lot of folks became “woke”—far from it—but we all simply emerged from a slumber for better or worse. Some realized frustratingly late that the house is on fire, and have finally joined the long-standing fight trying to put it out. Some awoke, suddenly, afraid of the cold that may come after the warmth of a destructive fire burns out, and joined in pouring gasoline on it instead.
The Ten of Cups is a call to service. We’ve seen clearly that we cannot live small, individual lives anymore—and thankfully it seems like this revelation hit critical mass and will leave a permanent mark on our society.
We’re having conversations in the mainstream that would’ve been unthinkable even six months ago. The value of community and direct care within the community came into light, and many are working to find the place where they can be of most use. On the other hand, this card can represent the ways in which some have dug their heels in even further in a refusal to evolve.
The Eight of Wands is central and representative of our present essence in this moment. As indicated in the introduction of this reading, we’re being asked to practice essentialism. Essentialism isn’t minimalism. It is merely cutting away anything that doesn’t serve us, and therefore having massive amounts of energy to pour into what is required for everyone to have opportunities to live vital, free lives. There is a lot that is needed, so every unnecessary distraction we shave off our energetic plates will make a dent. Nothing is too small to matter. Get aligned. Look at how the narrative is spun and stop spinning your own wheels. Think bigger. Dream huge. And don’t waste any time in realizing what’s available to you.
The Knight of Swords is representative of the oncoming phase, where we’re heading, and I could not be happier about that. One of my personal favorite cards of the entire deck, the Knight of Swords is absolutely uncompromising in their dedication to following their heart only. There are decisions that can’t be made logically, and fear often masquerades as pragmatism. This is a call for us all as individuals and as a community.
In regard to the US politics heavy on my mind (I’m sure most of those reading this as well), I take this to mean that since we couldn’t quite pull a 180, but we’ve managed to move in a slightly better direction, we must continue cranking that wheel for the full turn-around we know is required with absolutely unfaltering love in our hearts. AKA, thank heaven that Biden won—but with a significant amount of energy used to fight Trump tooth-and-nail freed up, we now have a responsibility to use every ounce of it to take this shift as far as possible.
Don’t go back to sleep. Follow your flaming heart to the end and do it with all the compassion you can muster.
MAJOR MESSAGES
I tend to view major arcanum cards as holding more weight in a reading than the others, the messages might be more urgent or primary, or their warnings more fierce.
In this reading, our foundation card, The Magician, is the only major message. This puts the emphasis on experimenting, which promises hum along without our efforts. The only way we can muck this up is if we fail to utilize sober analysis of the experiments to move toward building an actual structure upon which to live. We can’t live in a fire or deluge. That’s where the Five of Wands comes in, making sure that along the way we’re constantly asking ourselves whether the dream we’re dreaming is big enough and if we’re setting ourselves up to someday realize it.