Rebel Rebel
This week my only child, barely on the other side of adulthood, is traveling in Italy, alone.
And I’m desperate to just be cool about it.
In other news, historian Heather Cox Richardson mentioned a few days ago that after China slapped unexpected retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. Trump took to his social platform in the early morning hours to decry: CHINA PLAYED IT ALL WRONG, THEY PANICKED—THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO! And twenty minutes later: TO THE MANY INVESTORS COMING INTO THE UNITED STATES AND INVESTING MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF MONEY, MY POLICIES WILL NEVER CHANGE. THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH, RICHER THAN EVER BEFORE!!!
The last sentence makes me physically shudder and (in light of the cards that came out for this spread) I recall a particular discussion a few weeks ago when my husband assertively said: “If only we could give the reigns to the grandmas for a few years.”
Yes, I know what you’re thinking: grandmas can be great but they can also swing from well-meaning to misguided to overbearing to indifferent. Granted.
But you know things are getting interesting when elder maternal mojo is becoming a potential solution—and a rebellious act.
How we’re feeling right now
Three of Swords is known to be one of the worst cards in the deck :(
But let’s take a deep breath and elaborate.
The 3 of Swords is about pain caused by external circumstances—and this is where we are.
It’s important to note, however, that this 3 of Swords looks very different than the traditional version. Usually this card is just a massive red heart with three swords gutting it.
From Dreaming Way Tarot by Rome Choi, the character pictured here could be asleep or dead, but they look to me like they’ve closed their eyes because they’re just taking it. There’s a ‘fine-do-your-worst’ sort of resignation about them, a ‘yes, I know there’s a bunch of scary, trigger-y stuff going on and I’m going to deal with it because there’s not much else I can do about it at the moment.’
If I shut my eyes and pretend I’m not getting stabbed in the heart, so be it.
Ironically, this is a description of my nerves as my daughter solo-traipses around Florence, Italy, on the other side of the world this week. I’m happy for her; it’s the trip of a lifetime.
But it’s scary too.
And our clarifier, from White Sage Tarot by Theresa Hutch, is The World card.
So, the best way to put this?
We feel like this big planet is breaking our hearts this week, and we have to just take it—all of it.
Hard-earned savings circling the drain (I realize the markets are bouncing back for a millisecond, but for how long?) and all the other terrible stuff: U.S. citizens trapped in CECOT prison with no due process (a prison known as a ‘black hole of human rights’) and industries around the globe in tariff-fear, as Trump waves his Willy Wonka gold card and the Saudis make him richer and richer via a ridiculously tone-deaf Mar-a-Lago golf tournament. Don’t worry, though. Anyone who shows up at his door with a suitcase full of cash and no morals is going to be okay.
I’m sorry, I know I’m ranting.
The obstacle or challenge this week
Our first queen arrives in a reading with a weird amount of queens.
I didn’t pull a clarifier for this queen because I recognize her right away and I get her drift. The Queen of Pentacles—and this exact card also appeared in the Valentine’s reading in February.
To recap, if we had to nutshell the four wise queens in tarot, who have all reached a level of mastery in their domains (that’s why they are ‘queens’), it would look something like this oversimplified shorthand:
Queen of Pentacles = Mother
Queen of Swords = Nerd
Queen of Cups = Intuitive
Queen of Wands = Popular Girl
I confessed in the Valentine’s reading that in my life (thus far) I’ve identified mostly with the ‘mother’ and ‘nerd.’ Of course, we all carry some mix of sword, pentacle, wand, and cup energy, but I’m most comfortable in realms where my daughter’s needs have needed meeting (pentacles) and my mind is valued (swords).
(More on the Queen of Swords when she pops up in the ‘advice’ with the Death card later on.)
The queens in tarot encompass a variety of maternal inclinations. The mom, grandma, and auntie in all their power and nuance, showing us what this energy can do, and the tricky bit this week seems to be around a particularly deep urge to protect.
The Queen of Pentacles is nurturing. She is sensible and trustworthy, and has a kind of power that is the very opposite of the ‘show-me-the-money’ values flagrant in the recent forefront. Mom and babe relaxing in stability on this card remind me so much of that first phase of motherhood (which I still miss sometimes)—when, yay, you’ve birthed the baby, and you’re doing the work of sustaining that small, vibrant life so that he or she can flourish.
The problem with the kind of love this queen embodies is that sometimes it means your heart is on the ‘outside of your body,’ as they say, on the other side of the world travelling in a non-English-speaking country for the first time, alone on a bullet train from Bologna to Rome, and you keep your cellphone under your pillow and then steel yourself through each task of the day until your sweet heart is confirmed safe in a Roman airbnb with her older half-sister.
And you may breathe, briefly, before she launches herself back out on her own to visit Florence, alone, a few days later. Argh!
That kind of feeling—however the metaphor and the Queen of Pentacles is showing up in your own life this week—is going to be challenging.
The advice
Let’s call the advice ‘rebel heartbreak.’
Victory is not only found in the early years when you nurture and build. It’s in the triumph that comes when you’ve gone as far down that road as you can, and it’s time to let go.
The 6 of Wands literally means badass success and prevailing.
It’s paired with another queen: the Queen of Cups, who is half in our world and half in the world of intuition, such that there may be no place for this dreamer amidst the disproportionate influence of capitalism and tech-bros. This lady somehow though—through sweat, tears, education, contemplation, and personal development, dang it—has the capacity for the kind of altruistic love that can transcend her more selfish desires.
She will let her child do whatever they want if it’s right for them and it’s what they need (with gentle guidance, when their kiddo asks for it), and she will fight for compassion, even if it’s terribly undervalued in the world at large at every turn.
Motherhood is as much animal instinct and a deeply distessing experience, but the 6 of Wands says there is victory in that kind of love. Keep going.
See, that’s me—a chilled-out otter, waving at my daughter across the pond, with my cup of tea :)
The babe will make it safely to the airbnb, and then to her hostel in Florence, and then on to London to meet up with school friends, and so on, and the world is mostly kind and good (I think) even though it doesn’t feel that way right now.
Our advice is further clarified by the Death card and the Queen of Swords, and it’s not as ominous as it looks.
If you refer to my oversimplified queens list from earlier, the Queen of Swords is the nerdy one who relies mostly on thought, communication, and mental gymnastics. She’s paired with the Death card here, which is about an ‘end’ to something—a transformation.
This combination asks us to relinquish (or transform) an approach we may be taking that is only intent on solving problems, or figuring everything out, or knowing why.
Basically: please leave you mental rumination in a back room this week.
The really interesting thing about so many queens in a reading is that, sure, some of us are dealing with maternal feelings that the queens tend to give off, but the appearance of a ‘three-of-a-kind’ highlights a more subtle message, a nudge to think about these three facets of the self this week:
The practical builder self
The emotionally intuitive self
The hyper-rational self
The practical builder is going to feel powerless to protect a daughter vulnerable to god-knows-what (even if she is among palm trees, eating fresh pasta with sea bass and caper berries), and the practical builder may also be watching their savings disappear via Trump’s ‘winner-takes-all’ bullsh**.
Precious, hard-earned valuables are in the balance.
But the emotionally intuitive part of ourselves—the self who decides to TRUST for absolutely no reason at all—is set to come out victorious here. According to this reading, I (or we) likely don’t have much other choice.
And the hyper-rational, chatty, deliberating self?
Who cannot actually think their way through any of this?
Pipe down already, and go away for a bit.
Further oracle advice
The most apropos guidance for this first oracle card, ‘Rebel/Revolutionary,’ from the Wild & Sacred Feminine, is a poem by Ocean Vuong:
Remember: The rules, like streets, can only take you to
known places. Underneath the grid is a field—it was always
there—where to be lost is never wrong, but simply more.
As a rule, be more.
And ‘Kairos,’ invoking instinct, with an unwavering gaze. Kairos belongs to a serious set of cards in Kim Krans’ The Wild Unknown Archetypes Oracle, called ‘The Initiations.’
These are heavy-lifters and Kairos represents synchronicity, which has me believing that if we can let go and just trust this week, we’ll reap greater alignment and moments of synchronicity as a bonus.
“We have all had the experience of timelessness … of time standing still, or in slow motion, of losing track of time on a walk or in conversation. Time becomes a living thing that watches over us and tells us precisely when to speak or act.
When this card appears, it is all about patience and precision.”
Resources
Choi, Rome. Dreaming Way Tarot. U.S. Games Systems, Inc., 2012.
Dewart, Niki, and Elizabeth Marglin; artwork by Jenny Kostecki-Shaw. The Wild & Sacred Feminine Deck. Shambhala Publications, 2022.
Hutch, Theresa. White Sage Tarot. U.S. Games Systems, Inc., 2018.
Krans, Kim. The Wild Unknown Archetypes. HarperCollins, 2019.
