Reaching for Starlight: A Spread with The Moon, The Fool, Strength, and The Queen of Mugs
I recently snagged a couple of issues of The Rebis, and it's fantastic. Deep in the Star issue is a “Reaching for Starlight” spread where four cards are laid out in a square. The Upper Left is “a grief to acknowledge,” the Upper Right is “a transformation to embrace,” the bottom left is “a hope to believe in,” and the bottom right is “a faith to renew.”
Let’s get into it.
A grief to acknowledge. The Moon by Emily Balivet. The moon indicates “not-knowing” and potential confusion. Remember, the “light” of knowledge is only a dim reflection in areas illuminated by the moon (although such light reaches where the Sun cannot touch). It is a hazy, dream-like world. Occasionally, there is bliss in not knowing, and grief in fully understanding something. I have personally been struggling with reaching middle age, and I can now see a time when my world ends. There is a difference between intellectual understanding of something and an emotional experience of it. I am young enough that such a place is (likely) far away, but the end is there. It wasn’t there when I was in my 20s. The not-knowing is gone. And it's ok to mourn the death of that illusion and start to process the crushing weight of mortality.
A transformation to embrace. Ha. The Fool by Cat Rocketship. The world is different now, and it's time to embrace those differences with the mind and energy of a beginner. As Valentine Michael Smith would say, “I am only an egg.” Life is different now, and I am on a timer. There are so many new things in my life, or a change in my point of view. I have two young children, I am in the middle of learning a new job, and, of course, there is my personal tarot practice. My old practices and capabilities are no longer sufficient for my new life. It is time to head off, toward that cliff, with a beginner’s mind.
A hope to believe in: Strength by Francesca Ruffoni ‘Ruru’. To tame the world through compassion. To believe that, in the end, compassion is one of the greatest tools we have. To be loved, and to be understood. For someone to look at you, without the mask on, and still love you. Damn. Sometimes the cards just line up, don’t they?
A faith to renew: The Queen of Mugs, reversed, by Cat Rocketship. The Queen of Mugs knows how to meet people where they are, and I haven’t been doing that. That is such an important and valuable skill, and something I need to work on, especially with my children. They are wonderful, and also the largest sources of entropy in my life. Right now, as I write this, I am in a house that is somewhat picked up. This will absolutely change the moment my kids wake up. They are young enough that they can’t be expected to clean without supervision and guidance. I need to meet them at their level, and that means understanding that they are not adults.
I have to sit with this for a few days.
