By Amanda Moreno

I’ve recently quasi-broken up with the Tarot. I still read for clients, but I’ve decided it’s no longer in my best interests to use it for myself. You see, I haven’t been using it in healthy or responsible ways. The result is that I start looking at certain questions or areas of life compulsively, feeding my neurosis and essentially projecting all of my power outside of myself. It’s become the antithesis to developing my intuition.

Photo by graywacke/A Landing a Day

As I sat down to write this I decided to flip over a card for a bit of inspiration — to use the cards in a different way. I got the Two of Disks: Change. Change is definitely in the wind. I suppose it’s a wind that has become fairly consistent, but it seems to be gusting in hot, dry, gale forces right now. As above, so below — we can see this change at the personal and collective levels and have been able to for some time.

For me, however, the change has shifted from the realms of the Death card — emotional upheaval and transformation — to the Judgment/Aeon card. The dawning of an entirely new era after death has occurred. Both cards resonate similarly, as one corresponds to Scorpio and the other to Pluto. There is a difference, however. I see that difference in the ways it seems the world must have gone mad — the center cannot hold. The new world seems to have arrived and many don’t quite know what to do with it. Rather than an emphasis on internal transformation it sometimes seems as if the new way in the outer world is defined by chaos.

I’m finding, however, that the madness of the collective situation as well as any personal ups and downs I’m going through seem to be receding into the background in an increasingly distant hum. I’m aware that something major has shifted and I get to play with what that might look like. This reprieve is likely just a phase, but it’s a remarkable one for many reasons.

I’m also aware that my much remarked upon feeling of being untethered in time also makes it so that when anyone asks how I’ve been doing, I’m stumped for an answer — almost as if my memory is being wiped out and the present moment is all that sticks out. Hopefully that’s not a sign of impending Alzheimer’s. But it is kind of nice to be able to just respond with, “Well, I’m pretty great right now, here in this moment.”

I draw another card: Seven of Wands. In this deck, the image is depicted as a person leaping over a crevasse. Victory through making the leap — through taking the risk.

I’m noticing that being more present is also allowing me to focus more in ways that allow for more risk taking. My ‘professional’ life — which is really just my life in that my purpose, my passion and my career are deeply entwined  — tends to grow in very rapid and somewhat unexpected spurts. I’m currently in one of those phases. There has been a flurry of opportunities and openings that I can direct any sense of anxiety and dis-ease towards.

Being immersed in the calling of one’s soul can be such bliss — when it’s not isolating and painful, that is. The resulting flow of energy when the immersion is on the light end of the spectrum is always welcome.

It’s always surreal for me when I start getting a barrage of astrological emails, each of which I willingly subscribe to, that start commenting on the intensity and potential volatility of a given time — especially when I’m not feeling that at all. I’ve noticed a trend, which is that often when the collective energy seems to be reflecting the shadow realms and encouraging us to dig deep and change, pushing anger and revolution to the surface, I feel just fine — happy, even. Of course, give me a good Mercury retrograde in a water sign and I’m typically an emotional wreck. But I’m fascinated by the ways in which some challenging energies seem to force constructive transformation and rising to the occasion, whereas others pound us into the ground.

So what’s the wild card, there? Well, I suppose the wild card is all the little idiosyncrasies of our unique individual experiences. Astrology is a useful language and timing mechanism.

I draw another card: Six of Cups, which in this deck is “Desire.”  I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Mars moving direct erupted for me in a flurry of even more sexual energy than normal, and in an explicit conversation or two with people in my life regarding what my desires are — taking it way beyond the sexual into the arena of “you’re an important person in my life and I need you to know what I’m working towards.”

I’m also well aware that Saturn’s stationing direct seems to have added to the mix in ways that have brought all libidinal energies to the plate when it comes to focusing on taking new risks where my vocation is concerned.

Sometimes I’m in absolute awe that I get to do the things I do — and make money doing them. Sometimes I get a glimpse of what’s at stake, even just at the personal level, and I recognize why I don’t dwell on those thoughts often.

A very wise Ms. Amanda Painter once wrote an article about her first visit to Burning Man. There was a quote in the piece that I wrote down and stuck to the wall in my office. It reads: “There is a certain terror that can come when standing at the edge of what life could be if you actually show up to live it.”

Now, I found the quote to be utterly inspirational and relatable, articulating quite beautifully just how humbling standing on the precipice of what life might look like can be. But I don’t mean to cause harm or sadness to those who feel that process of showing up is too much or impossible. We are living in fucked up times. There are people in the world and people in my life who have gone through things that are soul shattering, sometimes in multiple onslaughts. I don’t know the reasons why, but the realities of the disparities here also fuel my urge to engage my oath with wit and grit and heart.

There is a grace that comes through sometimes when I find myself standing in the eye of the storm, calm and quiet, recognizing the turbulence all around me and realizing I have no choice but to try to engage with an intention to serve the highest good of my clients, my friends, my loved ones and myself. I find myself doing something I found utterly impossible just a short time ago: trusting the universe. The paradox of trusting in a world where there is so much pain is sometimes unfathomable to me and sometimes a source of absolute fuel.

Showing up to live life is a tricky thing. Showing up to live the life of your dreams has its own pressures and challenges. The risk of failure once you step out into the unknown can be a massively weighty force. We can see this playing out in the collective via our refusal to change so many horrendously physically, emotionally and spiritually toxic aspects of our ‘civilization’ because change — and striking out into the unknown — feels impossibly overwhelming.

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I wrote the above just over a week ago, and am reading over it from my bed where I have been for most of the past 24 hours. I had to laugh a bit as I read the parts about not feeling the intensity of the astrological weather. It would appear that this Mars-Saturn conjunction has knocked me on my ass. Or maybe I’m getting sick. Or maybe I overdid it last week.

My guess is that those three options are all probably linked together. What I know, however, is that I have no choice right now but to listen to the wisdom of my body. Rest. Eat well. Don’t take in too much information or stimulation.

And then there’s the wisdom of my intuition. Wait. Something is being seeded now. Sleep. Pay attention to dreams. Don’t push it, girl. Just be inside.

I turn over a final tarot card: Six of Disks. Success. It corresponds with the Moon in Taurus, where the Moon is exalted. Confidence, self-esteem and inner strength and security. Calm, grounded and centered. May we all move towards that now.