the page of cups asks: how do we hold all of this grief? slow tarot capricorn

The spread for this month, drawn on the Capricorn New Moon: 3 of Discs reversed, crossed by the Ace of Swords, 2 of Discs, 6 of Swords, Page of Cups, King of Swords reversed.

Listen to the initial reading of this spread here, from the new moon in Capricorn.

Last weekend, federal agents murdered another American, Alex Pettri, on a Minneapolis street. I write this with a heavy heart that weeps for Alex’s loved ones, who not only are thrust into the unthinkable grief of losing someone to violence, but also have to defend his honor against their own government, who immediately moved to denigrate his memory. Alex was, by all accounts, a kind soul dedicated to service in this life. The type of service he demonstrated in his final moments is what we are seeing flourish across Minneapolis in sub-zero temperatures: an incredibly organized and widespread movement of regular, kind people taking action to defend their neighbors from kidnapping by the federal forces occupying their city, and undeniably risking their lives to do so.

The indifferent brutality and abject lies defending such horror from our highest levels of government is heartbreaking and terrifying.

Lines are being drawn between reality and violent authoritarianism. Many of us have been trying to draw these lines for years, decades, but the choice point has finally arrived. On one side is a white nationalist, fascist project that will execute peaceful observers if it deems them obstructive to its goal of ethnic cleansing. On the other side is humanity, a collective swell of nonhierarchical organized resistance, the blossoming of a networked web of mutual aid and protection, fueled by collective grief and outrage, but also love and acknowledgment of our shared humanity, of our right to belong, and of the value of each life.

Minneapolis is doing more than staving off an unjust and unnecessary government occupation, they are showing us the way forward.

Maybe they are going so far as to demonstrate the use of different tools than those that built this house, in the famous words of Audre Lorde.

Her well-known quote, “we can not dismantle the master’s house with the master’s tools,” is something I’ve been contemplating as I consider this reversed King of Swords. Reading the reports of courage and solidarity from Minnesota this week, and witnessing a city overwhelmed with bodies during their general strike on Friday, it’s as if an alternative to our current power structures is stirring.

Revisiting the speech which birthed this quote, I found so much wisdom that aligns with this spread and this moment. The context is critical. Audre is speaking at a feminist conference, where Black and Lesbian women have been siloed to a single panel, marginalized from the bulk of the collective discussion. Audre is pointing out how the oppressive dynamics of patriarchy are being replicated — consciously or unconsciously — in the very place seeking to oppose this system.

We internalize our oppression and bring it with us, even in the ways we strive to become free from it (6 of Swords).

And so Audre says,

“Advocating the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reformism. It is a total denial of the creative function of difference in our lives. Difference must be not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between which our creativity can spark like a dialectic. Only then does the necessity for interdependency become unthreatening. Only within that interdependency of difference strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage and sustenance to act where there are no charters.

Within the interdependence of mutual (nondominant) differences lies that security which enables us to descend into the chaos of knowledge and return with true visions of our future, along with the concomitant power to effect those changes which can bring that future into being. Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged.”

When I read these words, I cannot help but think of the way difference is being weaponized and exploited at this moment. Right-wing politics encourages contempt of difference to accrue power and increase oppression of the marginalized. This has been framed in response to diversification efforts that began to flourish in recent decades – which, as Lorde points out, mostly strove for superficial rather than structural change. The institutional and corporate response to the murder of George Floyd and so many others was an accelerated version of this, in which many of the same organizations now funding fascism moved to increase visible difference in May and June of 2020.

These tepid efforts feel like a fever dream today, only five-ish years later, because they never even pretended to step outside of the master’s tools. The true dismantling of white supremacist capitalist patriarchal imperialism, so necessary if we mean to survive as a species, is a restructuring of our systems to hold difference as the necessary means for creation, in the words of Lorde. This is a restructuring from hierarchy to interdependence (3 of Discs), and Minnesota is courageously and righteously showing us one way of using different tools.

As I read Audre’s words, I see the necessary polarities in the 2 of Discs, the potential of creativity in the reversed three, and the Ace of Swords as our liberation tool. All of us, but white people in particular, class-privileged people in particular, have to undertake the arduous and discomforting work of heeding this call.

We have to truly be willing to sacrifice our own privileges and positions – institutional and otherwise – to dismantle the systems that created them.

It is time for us to question and interrogate all of our assumptions and worldviews, unconsciously internalized as a means of safe passage through an unsafe world (Six of Swords). This is ongoing work of self-reflection and unlearning, self-reflection and letting go. The Page of Cups shows that we can do this with love, curiosity, and even imaginative play sometimes. We do not need to punish or abandon our parts of self that have not known better until now, for that is also a master’s tool. Carceralism is a foundational pillar of this oppressive system, and a practice we in the US have been taught to uphold and internalize all our lives.

But punishment and ostracism do not change others or our own parts of self, only love, belonging, and acceptance do.

This two of discs is also making me think about the opposing sides deepening right now. There are the lying, murderous fascists, and there are all of the people who oppose them. We do not have to achieve ideological purity and universal agreement, the only thing we have to agree on is that we need to stop our neighbors from being murdered and killed, and yes, that means putting our lives on the line.

In finding this common cause and endlessly pursuing it, together, we are also building a transformed world, using our fresh tools.

The truth of our interdependence feels so alive right now. I am so bolstered by hope witnessing the acts of love, care, community protection, safeguarding, and service happening in Minneapolis. Neighbors opening their homes, sharing resources, building networks of solidarity to support one another through a door to door onslaught of “show me your papers” fascist violence.

The only way to beat this system is to build a network of interdependence, rooted in our shared humanity; this is an ethic of love. There is no returning to an earlier form of the systems and structures that brought us to this breaking point.

The only way out is through the deep discomfort of molting, shedding, and transforming.

We don’t have to master another way of being right now, we only have to practice it.

What does a system look like that acknowledges and respects the interdependence of all beings?

How can we return to our home, there?

Questions to sit with, to venture into, to return to, as this month unfolds.