This month, we have some powerful cards gracing us with a call to find balance through our emotions as we learn how to adjust to the intense changes we've gone through. As a start of a new year, it has the potential to be a naturally more hopeful time, but how do we actually tend to hope and direct it in an impactful way? How do we do this while still taking time to slow down and absorb what we need to process?

Community Reading

The first thing that strikes me about this little collection of cards is the abundance of water in the art and meanings. This tells me that we will continue to go through a time of heightened emotions, and not all of us will be prepared for that. This can be a rather enlightening time, however, for those who can allow ourselves to open up and read what our emotions are telling us.

The Star comes forward to first tell us that we have plenty to hope for, and as feelings spill over unexpectedly, it can be hard to remain optimistic and centered enough to work on the journey ahead. This card reminds us that it is okay to stop for a moment and collect ourselves. We must take it all in as observers and suspend our need to fix it all. While we also have a call to action this month in our other cards, it is equally important to adequately process the changes we are going through.

The hope that this card heralds in is the kind that sustains us as individuals and as a community—the reminder that our efforts are worthwhile, and that our steps (no matter how small) do matter. The Star also invites us to reflect on some new goals and to allow ourselves to hope and dream in our unique ways. This hopeful spark is just what we need, and we are all called to tend to that spark in any small way we can (for ourselves and others).

The Queen of Cups tells us a little more about how we can tend to this spark of hope and change. This figure wishes for us to remember the power behind even the smallest act of kindness and compassion, and that being vulnerable and open in this world is a beautiful act of rebellion. It is not easy to engage emotionally and to allow our emotions to have room to breathe, but when we honor that side of ourselves and give others room to do the same, we can create the compassion and empathy in the world that we wish to see. We tend to underestimate the power behind what may seem like a small adjustment or contribution, and a vague ‘be kind’ does not fix all of the world’s problems, but the impact of compassion when it is well placed with those who need it is remarkable and incredibly healing.

The Temperance card brings balance and harmony to the reading, asking us to become skilled at blending things in our lives. It will be too easy to view some moments as one thing or the other—a time to give or a time to take—when it is time for both simultaneously. It is a reminder that as life is complicated, sometimes solutions are not so ‘this way or that way’. I think at a beginning of a new year, many of us will feel a temptation to try and invite great change into our lives all at once, and expect ourselves to keep up, when in fact our pacing may not be sustainable. Let us find a way to balance the coming change with our energy and emotional limitations so that we do not burn out completely.

Healing exercise

Here we have some questions to ask ourselves this month. Feel free to express your answer in any way that is natural to you, whether that be journaling or a form of art.

What emotions have you perhaps been avoiding? What are these emotions trying to tell you? What kind of changes need to occur in your life? Is there any tending to yourself or others that needs to be done before you prepare yourself to move forward and invite these changes into your life? What do you think your biggest obstacle is when trying to sustain the new changes that need to enter your life?

Jae Melland is a tarot and rune reader at Lotus of the Moon in Richland. You can schedule readings with Jae by emailing her at jae.melland@gmail.com. Jae also has walk-in hours at Lotus of the Moon Fridays and Saturdays noon–3 p.m.