Tarot Time: We need to change

^{Narrated by Shae Strong}

This month's tarot column is a single community reading instead of a pick-a-card experience. The theme is to have the cards indicate what we need to keep in mind to weather the big shifts and changes that are occurring in our world, and to do so from an authentic place. While I feel there is a time and place for love, light, and comfort, true authentic spirituality and personal growth has contrasting moments of discomfort and the facing of truths. With that said, the cards for this reading are the Five of Cups, The Moon, and The Tower.

Something we need to keep in mind is that hopelessness is a tool to keep us complacent, and it turns our attention to maintaining peace at times when we should be shaking things up. The Five of Cups is a card of grieving; but to do that, we have to first acknowledge that things have spilled and made a mess in the first place. The other aspect of this card is the moment the figure turns to see that they still have cups to tend to, the two that haven’t spilled yet. We must grieve what we see in the world, but we also have to turn our attention to things that need our care and focus. If you have ever had to push yourself to process your grief when you felt like giving up because there are people in your life who need you, you know this card. Don’t ignore the pain in the world, but don’t let it break you down into hopelessness either. Your energy is needed and valued.

The Moon card is one of anxiety, fear, and uncertainty. The fact that it is followed by The Tower card in this reading is very telling. Many of us talk about the need for change and being ready for it. But collectively, there is still an energy of being afraid of what that change will cost and a motivation to keep things the same. How many of us are ready to sacrifice our comforts for a better world? Can you walk the less certain road?

This leads us to The Tower. It is upheaval, radical change, and destruction of the old ways. There is a lot of fear surrounding this card when it comes up in readings. However, I take the stance that if you have been noticing cycles that seem to be unbreakable, this is the card that tells you something is finally going to shift. It is going to be uncomfortable, and it should be. It rattles us and shows us that things we once saw as certain and stable may be built on the most fragile of foundations. If we ignore The Tower, it doesn’t go away; we just might get caught up in the shakeup more than we need to by not taking the right steps to prepare.

To summarize: We need change. The worst thing we could do as a collective is to pour our energy into trying to maintain an ill-fitting normal, or to go backward. Some things will never be the same again, and that’s the point. Start looking at where your environment, self, and perspective may be trying to ward off important and necessary change. We cannot create the change that is needed when the environment we uphold is hostile to it. To embrace this is a challenge, and to maintain hope during such transitions is even more difficult. 

So many of my collective readings come back to the community in some way — we need to take this in shifts and look out for one another. We can keep heading in a direction that is causing a lot of harm in the world, or we can do the work to create the light at the end of the destruction that we see around us.

Jae Melland is a tarot, palm, and rune reader serving the Tri-Cities. You can schedule a reading with Jae by visiting seidrwhispers.com Instagram: @seidr_whispers