TAROTSCOPES | JULY 8 - JULY 14
XIII DEATH
Dear old death, familiar friend. Kind confidant. Core aspect of the cycle of our psyche. When we are unhappy, caught in painful stories of unjustly forced decisions, we are also invited to let go. When we are at our most desperate, we are ensconced in opportunity to surrender. To liberate our shoulders of the weight of words that are intentionally vague and in all likelihood untrue. Death throws the pebble that cracks the glass illusion of control. It reminds us to terminate the strain of grasping at something we never held in the first place. Or, if we held, or thought we held it, perhaps death is the realization that is isn’t ours to own or command.
As the Sun and Venus move through Cancer this week, they build towards oppositions with Saturn and Pluto in Capricorn, emphasizing many of the movements already set in play over the last month. Meanwhile, Mars in the early degrees of Leo prepares to square Uranus, sure to set off some earth-shattering (yes, this is somewhat literal) fireworks. Amidst this chaos, Mercury is retrograde, we are building toward a full Lunar Eclipse, and on Monday, July 8th, Chiron stations retrograde in Aries, kicking up dust around the seemingly eternal conversation of identity politics. Chiron squaring the Cancer/Capricorn axis challenges our ideas about what it means to “return” to something, or someone we once were, whether in this life, or through ancestral lineage.
I’ve been watching, waiting, exploring, and dreading the insistent grasping at labels that inundates our infinite scrolls. Appropriated practices, call-out culture, activism and healing arts as an identity I’m not sure I want to own as I begin to reclaim (this word, too, sends sickening shivers up my spine) my voice in this world. Everyone seeks to heal themselves and heal the world and is operating under an ingrained notion that there is a right and a wrong way, and is looking for specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely results. We are so unconsciously absorbed in a culture of goal/lack dichotomy that we forget to question, not the thing for which we are aiming, but the act of aiming itself. We cannot return to something we have never known. Why are we consistently grasping at an ideal of indigeneity (see Bayo Akomolafe’s letter to White People - I think - valuable for anyone “made” by/of American culture), something so long and far dissolved that we don’t really understand what it means, when we could be curious about creating something from the current that is here? Now. Downstream.
The natural world teaches connection with a nitty gritty element we will evade at all costs. Death. We are taught to fear death because it inevitably leads to a yin phase. To empty space waiting to be filled. To not knowing. To sifting in the dark. To sitting still. Death is the act of not trying to fix. Of losing the planned outcome and winning the opportunity to do nothing about it. Cultivating a relationship to death, to the unknown, challenges our society’s heavily masculine persona. It demands we confront the fear of “not doing (enough).” Of not trying to prevent a problem. Of not attempting to repair. Or struggling to fight for ourselves. Or straining to stand up for others. Even our activism is capitalist in nature. Death shatters every illusion in which we live. The fear of death is ultimately a fear of seeing. Also, a fear of stopping. But even in stopping, something starts.
Death arrives far before the boundary line of the cycle in the major arcana. It is not the end. It is a necessary step in the turning of the wheel. It is kind. It promises relief when we unchain our ego from its shackles. And within this narrative, Death itself is also an illusion. The illusion of the end that clears the path forward but requires we have no goals while clearing it. No plans to devise or detect what is on the other side. Death, perhaps, is the moment we make the decision to no longer buy into the illusion. This decision is not forced. Death reminds us how much power we do not have. We don’t get to choose when death happens. We cannot plan our surrender, nor what it brings us. We can only prepare ourselves for the act of letting go. We can practice getting ready to receive the elements as they arrive. We practice by trying to return until the realization of death dawns on us. In that emergence, death is fleeting, fragile and already shifting.
WHAT EVEN IS A TAROTSCOPE? We often think of horoscopes as predictions that are specific to each astrological sign. In Ancient Greek, the term horoscope simply means "I watch the hour." To astrologers today, a horoscope is a chart that maps the planetary bodies in the sky. From this chart, we derive meaning that can influence how we work with energy. Regardless of our unique individual charts, we are ALL working with the same energy from above. Each week, I examine this energy, pull a tarot card and write a guided meditation with the collective in mind. My tarotscopes are meant to be read as inspiration. Please note that because we are all operating with our individual energy, some elements will resonate more than others. Take what you like and leave the rest. Tarotscopes are offered freely in an effort to cultivate collective healing. I am always grateful for your support in sharing this work with anyone you think it might help. If you are inspired or find support here, please consider making a donation to help sustain these weekly offerings.