Path, Practice & Posture

a tarot spread by Carolyn Cushing

Lately I have felt somewhat pathless. This isn’t new for me; over the years I’ve often felt like I’m bushwhacking through the wilderness to create my life. Sometimes it is quite the adventure, other times it feels exhausting, lately it feels like I’ve stopped creating the path altogether and simply holed up in a hideaway.

This year has been brutal on a personal level, as I cared for my mom through a horrific illness, sat by her side as she passed away, and now carrying that grief for the rest of my life. Of course, it has also been an unbearable year on a collective level, you don’t need me to tell you about that.

So yeah…between my personal sorrow and the collective anguish I have felt pretty adrift. To some degree I’ve accepted this. I’m not pressuring myself to make huge strides during a tender time. But I do find myself wishing I had some type of path, even if I could only see the next step.

(Side story: a few weeks ago I went to re-order the cards in my personal copy of the Spacious Tarot and discovered my deck was missing the Chariot but had two copies of the Moon. This very much felt like a metaphor for my life.)

These thoughts have already been with me, and today I randomly thumbed through the guidebook for the Gaian Tarot (one of the best tarot guidebooks ever written in my assessment) and was drawn to this spread, created by Carolyn Cushing. There’s a twist here in the way you divide the deck for the reading, described in the graphic below:

I’m using the Spacious Tarot.

For my path, I have the Ace of Pentacles. This is equal parts fascinating and frustrating as instead of a clearly defined path, there’s infinite paths available to me here. As I wrote in the guidebook for this deck, “contained within is the entire spectrum of the suit of pentacles. Solid, healthy things can grow from here as you tend to this seed.”

In a way, this is an affirmation of what I said earlier about not necessarily pressuring myself to find a specific path, just a better sense of direction. And perhaps I can start by assessing my material realm (represented by the suit of pentacles).

I’ve already been doing this to some extent. I’m slowly returning to yoga. Been walking daily. Going on the occasional bike ride. Perhaps one reason this card came up is to remind me to give myself credit for what I’m already doing. To trust that these small actions are building a foundation.

The bigger questions of how to exist in this world feel too huge to grapple with right now. But the Ace of Pentacles affirms that even grappling with smaller questions of what to have for lunch and how to find my way into downward dog are part of the path.

Let me try to phrase this simply. At this time my path is: being in my body. Not looking too far ahead. Observing new developments in my energy and tending to them in each moment. Letting potential reveal itself at its own pace instead of trying to force it.

For my practice, Nine of Pentacles. We have a manicured, potted tree in a walled garden. There’s similar vibes to previous card here. I’m invited to practices of (for lack of a less cliché term) self-care. There have been times in my life where my self-care game is strong. I will admit that lately I’ve been kind of like… what’s the point?

The world is a cruel, dark place. I have so much privilege to even have the potential of self-care and although I’m grateful for that it also makes self-care seem… trite. What kind of person would I be to wall myself up in my own little world, and take care of my own little self, while everything around me crumbles?

But of course I know that on the other hand, not taking care of myself does not make the world crumble less. And it makes me less resilient when it comes to doing anything (even something tiny) to partake in forms of healing. I’m never going to be able to ~*save the world*~. But I can’t even make little contributions here and there if I’m stuck in freeze mode.

Siiiiiigh. All things I’ve thought about before, but sometimes you have to learn the same lessons over and over again, ya know?

So. My practice is to remind myself (again) that self-care is in fact not trite. I need to become more resilient internally so that I can be a part of building external resilience. I need to allow myself to accept any kind of stability and protection available to me if I want to offer any form of stability and protection to others. Easier said than done but okayyyyy.

And my posture, Guardian (Queen) of Cups. This is very sweet because I’ve long thought of this card as representing the best version of me (Cancer Sun, INFP, calm cool mature healer vibes). But lately I feel adrift from her. Life has made me a lot more bitter and cynical the past few years.

It actually low-key breaks my heart seeing this card and yearning so much to reconnect with that part of myself. Last week I re-shared the free Foundational Tarot course I created five years ago. I went back and listened to part of the recordings and I was like “wait, that’s… me? She seems so sweet and calm and spiritually assured.”

I’ll never be who I was five years ago, but maybe I can continue to reclaim some of those traits. I think to some extent, I’ve developed an unconscious belief that if I’m on-guard and cynical and jaded there’s less of a chance that life can harm me. But life can harm you no matter what. Maybe my inner Guardian of Cups is ready to start peeking through just a little bit by bit.

I could go on but tbh the rest is probably better to stay between me and my (non-existent but I’m looking for one) therapist. :)

I hope you will try this spread for yourself as I think it is a quite good one.

Be well my friend,

Carrie