Slow Tarot spread for Pisces - Aries season, The Tower Rx crossed by the Emperor Rx, 5 of Cups, The Star, 3 of Discs Rx, 9 of Swords Rx

The mad king is a symptom, not the disease itself. The Tower reversed crossed by the Emperor reversed feels like the disease to me, the destructive and dominant paradigm that a few power-hungry, violent men are currently perpetuating.

The Tower often represents sudden and forceful change. In its reversed state, we know that this is an ongoing, drawn out process: of systems collapsing, of war and genocide, of the structural violence of fascism, ethnic cleansing, and systemic neglect. This is being carried out by the reversed Emperor, power’s shadow, the rot of patriarchy, white supremacy, and christian nationalism.

The dis-ease is evident and flourishing, its impacts less so. Some are obvious, some are becoming known to us, and others rise as threats and catastrophic ruminations. Many impacts can be ignored until…until when? Until their shockwaves are rolling through the threadbare systems holding our world together. We occupy this precipice, the vast majority of us wanting to stop the wars, to ease the suffering, to redirect resources from endless profiteering to the nurturing of life. It is so devastating to know that despite this, the shockwaves will continue to come.

The Five of Cups and Nine of SwordsRx speak to our grief, fear, and feelings of powerlessness in the face of such ruination. Grief and loss are integral components of life, and yet our society has mostly siloed and institutionalized these experiences, turning them into outliers. Most of us carry acute discomfort around grief and death, not sure what to say or do when it comes near. Common wisdom says grief has linear stages that we work through, to get to another side. We are told it is a temporary dark period, but there are steps and results if you put in the work. Productivity culture strikes again, and we all suffer for it, because, in one way or another, we are all grieving.

Our grief discomfort extends to other shadowy realms: violence, trauma, coercion, oppression, shame, complexity, nuance… When we internalize that these experiences should be linear, we are more likely to compartmentalize our feelings and shove them into the shadows.

Shadows erupt when they are suppressed.

This happens on a personal level, when we deny and aim to control our emotions and our nature, sometimes to devastating effect. And it happens at the collective level, when histories are submerged and denied, in full or in part.

This denial is necessary for the linear path of progress that we have been sold as paradigm. For the world to keep producing, it’s always forward, never back.

But we are cyclical beings, our nature is spirallic.

Our grief and pain are not shadows that we walk through and leave behind, they are experiences that change our shape as they are integrated into our being.

I often think about reversed cards as directing our attention internally instead of outside of ourselves.

The guidance contained in this spread, to me, is an invitation into exploring the ways we try to dominate, suppress, and control our grief.

To shift away from the destructive paradigm of modernity, we have to be willing to inhabit our fullness of being, including our grief, our pain, our nonlinearity with all its shadows and strange creatures.

Understanding that we arrived to this point, in part, due to our shared denial and suppression of pain, grief, trauma, and all that’s unspeakable, what might change when we accept and embrace these beings inside of ourselves?

The Star is a card of radical hope in the aftermath of loss, of regeneration and replenishment. The Star gently reminds us of our dreams that feel unreachable. Hope and grief are intertwined, the Star whispers.

To create space for the fullness of your hopes, you might try creating space for the fullness of your grief, two vessels pouring forth never-ending streams.

Grief feels bottomless, as if it will swallow us whole. But if you’ve ever let yourself grieve deeply, maybe you’ve experienced the grace that can be found in those depths.

Grace is the healing touch of the infinite, the remembrance that we are not alone, that instead we are united with the mystery: god, goddess, source, the universe, whatever you call all that is. The mystery contains life and death, healing and suffering. In partnership with the mystery, all of it helps to build the way to grace.

The Three of Discs is a card that depicts the building of a sacred structure. In this spread, I’m imagining the three figures of grief (5 of Cups), hope (the Star), and fear (9 of Swords) as our builders. Turning towards our shadows as allies and guides can help us to overcome the paralyzing terror of this moment we are in (9 of Swords).

It is not about dominating our fears and grief, but about welcoming them in, hearing their wisdom, and through this process, learning to inhabit a more spacious, sacred, fullness of being.

Not experiences to get through or emotions to overcome, but partners, allies, and guides toward something greater. We cannot build a more compassionate world if we cannot turn towards our own grief and pain.

Maybe our work in this time is to find places within ourselves for our grief to live, and through this process, we work towards building communities that accommodate and tend to grief, loss, pain, and trauma as part of their sacred fabric, instead of burdens.

Looking at the Star I am thinking, life always finds a way.

I know that our essence as being is not rooted in force and domination, but in love and nurturance of life’s abundance. Reckoning with all that these structural distortions have cost us, and all that we fear they will continue to cost us, helps to guide us home.

Thank you for reading, may you find tender ways to welcome your fear, pain, hope, and grief this week.

May this tenderness with self lead you to grace.

🌓 The Shadow Leads the Way: ♈︎ Slow Tarot