Discerning readers will notice that we have two repeat cards from last week’s reading on the table: The Moon and The Star. And before you accuse me of lazy shuffling, I’d like to point out that this is an entirely different deck. In fact, I went to my tarot drawer and plucked out one that’s been out of the rotation for months now - my borderless version of the RWS.
This synchronicity is making me laugh a) because I’ve been floundering (and sometimes luxuriating) in the weirdness of The Moon card this week and b) because the message of this reading is that we need to spend more time immersed in its generative confusion. Call it a continuation or a redo - we clearly have something else to learn from being lost in the soup of inspiration, transformation, and instinctive change.
Let’s go back and start with our first card before we delve further into this tarot mystery. The Five of Wands shows us starting the week at odds with either ourselves or others (and hopefully not both). While it’s a challenging card, the Five of Wands is more of a well-meaning jumble than nefarious betrayal like its cousin, the Five of Swords. Here are some ways this could come up for you this week:
Overzealous scheduling and/or ambition: trying to escape from the out-of-focus looniness of The Moon from last week by preemptively filling your schedule with tasks that don’t have a larger vision or focus.
Awkwardness and challenge in collaborations and connections. This is a classic “too many cooks in the kitchen” card. Are the cooks aspects of yourself or other people?
Things simply not gelling.
While it’s not fun per se, the Five of Wands is showing us that our mishaps, frustrations, and mistakes this week actually point us to areas we’ll need to edit as we continue along our larger path of growth. Embracing these experiences as messengers will help soothe any annoyance they produce. That this is our only Minor Arcana card shows us that this is extremely doable if we welcome and then harness the magnitude of the other cards here. What’s a small change in your everyday routine, a “no” to an invite that’s stressing you out, or a snippy remark from an acquaintance in the scheme of your growth as a person?
In fact, a little tension right now isn’t quite so destabilizing. See what’s annoying you and ask yourself how you might change or eliminate it altogether, preferably with a wildly creative solution. The Moon is back and asking us to continue our dedication to strangeness, risk, and trust in the unseen. Maybe you thought you could play it safe but this week is a reminder to keep going. Are there areas where you’re holding back, trying to have it both ways?
The reversal in order of our two Major Arcana cards suggests a cycle, a rising of the tides that’s now receding. If we lean into the lunar strangeness in the middle of the week we’re poised to see it soften, retreat, grow gentle, and leave some sustainable lessons for us to unpack. Moving from The Moon to The Star also suggests that being stranger is an act of self care. Stretching our boundaries and taking risks helps us better understand ourselves and, perhaps with some relief, we’ll be returning from the trippy landscape of The Moon and into the coziness of The Star by the end of the week.
This will be a time to check-in with yourself. What have you been learning by stretching your boundaries, practicing self-acceptance, and peering into less traditional sources of information? Spend some time integrating and simply resting. It’s likely that an important realization will be ushered in by gentle, patient, and consistent care.
This week, embrace:
Conflict, annoyance, & overwhelm as indicators of where you need to make small changes.
Not taking the above personally!
Returning and recommitting to the lunar weirdness you experienced last week: self-expression, spiritual exploration, creativity.
Letting go of finding answers and making room to receive wisdom.
This week, avoid:
Getting mired in tense dynamics, overbooking yourself, getting preoccupied with other people’s business and/or drama.
Turning away from your uniqueness.
Forcing wisdom, explanations, making big choices.
Seems like (another) good reading for Mercury in retrograde and this week’s full moon!
This felt very prescient to read today (and backwards into yesterday) — now I’ll see if I’ll actually take the advice to slow down/pare down my expectations of what I’m able to accomplish right now. Thanks for the read!