This morning I read that Canadian Conservative Party leader, and potentially our next Prime Minister (I’m Canadian), Pierre Poilievre was endorsed about a month ago by Elon Musk.

Poilievre is a darling of the American right—made pretty obvious by his use of demeaning nicknames (my intuition says he’s a bully who cannot be trusted, but who can know for sure?). When asked whether he accepted the endorsement, he sidestepped the question: “My three-year-old has just told me he wants to go to Mars, so I guess Mr. Musk would be the right guy to put him in touch with… And wouldn’t it be great to have some Tesla factories in Canada?”

What the eff?

Mind you these words were spoken before the insanity of the last few weeks broke out south of our border, but still.

Heading into a shorter-thus-heavier work week due to the Family Day statutory holiday yesterday, what I’m feeling—plainly put—is anger. The kind of anger that takes up space because there is just so much to be pissed about and, at the same time, whether my closest people understand why I’m acting like a bear or brat depending on the hour, or if they feel some version of their own frustration too (likely), we can all agree it’s warranted. It doesn’t make it/me/us feel any better though.

This week’s reading suggests that what is underneath that anger (because my day-to-day life objectively speaking is pretty good and I’m thankful for that) isn’t so much fear (which is where my anger usually comes from) but sadness.

So, let’s start there.

Where things are right now.

Yesterday afternoon—before a deep lonliness swept in around 9pm—I wrote this:

The future exists nowhere but in the mind, and yet the loss of a feeling of ‘safety and security’ is real. It reverberates in a WhatsApp call with my daughter (she’s on an exchange in Wales at the moment) when we don’t 100% agree on what constitutes a ‘safe’ place to travel on her school break as a young, beautiful female—and I’m standing my ground.

Sure, I’d be concerned about her traveling alone around a continent I’ve never visited, regardless—and why isn’t she still small in her little bed with her cat? Because kids grow up (suck it up) and I can’t truly protect her in the world. I never could.

But it’s much more than that.

So bear with me.

Four of the six tarot cards (not counting the oracle cards) in this reading are cups. That’s a LOT. This week is going to feel emotional. Ok. Got it.

And this particular 5 of Cups (from the White Sage Tarot by Theresa Hutch) isn’t f***ing around. See all those cups piled on top of the big cup? The image in this deck is explicit: this stuff has been weighing you down for a long time, and there’s quite a bit of it.

Post-Family Day dinner (we hosted my elderly mom and two brothers and my husband made chicken), I described the feeling as loneliness (before crawling under my double duvet to sob). Just after they drove away, I gave an analogy to my husband about it feeling like most of my ‘close-ish’ people seem dotted on an assortment of bluffs with a canyon between us. This excludes my daughter; with her I have a relationship that is supportive/honest/loving, even with her an ocean away these days. But with my mom and brothers (and often my friends too), they are WAY over there across a chasm too deep to cross, even when they are right there at the kitchen table eating my husband’s delicious roast chicken, and why does it feel like this?

Even rougher, it seems no one notices the incredible distance between where I am and where they are, and that what burbles up from it is a subtle passive flack that I just don’t measure up. Why haven’t I called or visited more?

Because it doesn’t feel good.

I make coffee and drink it with them quietly. The part of me who speaks is the part where all the people in the room safely overlap like a Venn diagram, and I wait for my oldest brother to decide it’s time to drive them home.

The clarifying card with the 5 of Cups is the 7 of Cups from Tarot of Mystical Moments, by Catrin Welz-Stein, a card about fantasy and distraction, about seeing, perhaps suddenly, through an illusion. The jig is up. I also call this the ADHD card (and with affection; neurodiversity is alive and well in my household) because the cups depicted in the traditional deck are each filled with something different. Seven of Cups points out that there may be too many things in my head and I feel a bit scattered; it’s impossible to settle my mind on any one of them. This checks out, now and usually. (Remember I mentioned neuro-diversity?)

A third meaning whispers as well—like good poetry, according to poet Dionne Brand, where every line means at least two or three things. The image in this 7 of Cups is not as ominous as in the classic Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck (on which modern decks are based or re-imagined). Instead a woman languishes, with multiple possibilities within her reach. She reaches up to pick her next juicy experience, reminding me of a curious daughter with her back to me.

And I DO get it—my daughter and I are not that different; I do remember being young—and I have as many dreams at 51 as I had at 20.

Let’s roll this into ‘where we are’ too. Why not?

If I’ve lost you at this point, I’m glad you’re feeling sturdier than I am.

Maybe you’re harnessing your inner sorrow and daydreams so that you’re moving your life forward in a really positive way, and you aren’t wallowing in anger about the imagined actions of other people (Elon Musk, or sexual predators on a distant continent, or a mother who doesn’t seem to see you).

And you aren’t eating too much carrot cake with cream cheese icing left over from a disappointing Family Day dinner, or feeling the kind of loneliness that sends you to bed early so you can cry to Tom Odell.

Or maybe you’re a Poilievre fan :)

But if you’re still with me, let’s look at the energy coming at us this week—so we can get to the advice at the end.

Obstacle/Challenge:

To get more info about the way I spread the cards, you may want to have a look at my V-Day reading, but essentially these are 3-card spreads that I read from left to right.

Our base spread this week is this:

How you may be feeling right now (5 of Cups)
The potentially challenging energy in the next short while (Ace of Swords)
Some positive guidance you can use to reframe things in your mind (Page of Cups)

According to the brilliant Jessica Dore, who wrote Tarot for Change, aces represent the capacity for the development of understanding.

With the ace we have here—the Ace of Swords—this potential capacity is in the realm of mental energy: the intellect, thought, reason, or communication. There is a bunch of fresh mental clarity these days—great!—but because of the extra focus and communication required, it may feel challenging too.

I have a busy week ahead in my ‘real’ work, when I’d much rather work on my blog and another writing project I’ve backburnered for a few months. Figuring out how I can fit all of these pursuits into the weeks and months ahead is going to be mentally draining for me. I can already tell.

Overanalysis and frustration lurk.

But maybe the clarifying card can put a bit of flesh on it.

I’ve always been fond of The Hanged Man, especially in this deck. Maybe because he or she can instruct us to wait, and I’m used to waiting—it’s familiar.

That’s not what I’m picking up from The Hanged Man this week, however.

Something will require a different perspective.

That’s closer to it.

It may also feel like you’re moving forward and standing still at the same time. There are things outside of your control—like work tasks that require a lot of focus, or heavy analytical conversations you’d rather not have but that can’t be dodged, and you’ll have to just hang (in) there and deal with it, and maybe not get to do the fun stuff so much.

Better yet, this gives you an opportunity to figure a way (Ace of Swords!) to maneuver your headier pursuits differently and more efficiently than you’ve done in the past. It helps that this figure doesn’t seem at all tortured by it. She hangs there looking pretty chill, relaxing into inevitable discomfort? Taking on a new perspective and figuring out a new approach to this problem because she simply must? Yes.

The Hanged Man is also the only major arcana card in this week’s spread (more on the difference between major and minor arcana cards in future posts), so he/she is speaking louder than all the other cards here. A change of perspective could take root for the long-term—take note—and it may feel a little painful while you work out the kinks in your game plan but your new method may become your new normal.

The Advice

Anything is possible, and Page of Cups wants to remind you of this.

Echoing the Valentine’s read I put out on Friday, probably our best bet is to muster a childlike and loving enthusiasm as best we can, and stay curious.

It’s a bunch of stuff my husband sort of said to try to make me feel better before I went to cry in the dark last night, and I was like, ya, ya, ya, I know.

I get that the advice in a tarot reading can feel patronizing, sappy, or childish. Believe it or not, I’ve never been a particularly sentimental person. But this is also why, as I soften into older age, I need more positive and loving sentiments. I’m tired of looking for ‘answers’ when there really aren’t any in a super concrete way. Most things can’t be categorized into right or wrong, or black or white. Not really.

So the advice this week?

Assume a more loving attitude.

You officially have permission to act upon your more sentimental emotions, and a sweet otter drinking coffee is instructing us to validate those feelings in ourselves and in others.

This could mean adopting a bit more of my daughter’s travel excitement in order to better understand and converse with her about her plans in a rational way—instead of being led by the nose by fear. (Pages in tarot, interestingly, sometimes represent a literal child in one’s life.)
And the clarifier is an even more love-y card—the *most* love-y in the deck (barring The Lovers, which can be more complicated than this).
Two of Cups is the card that can tend to point to romantic love (!) so be on the look-out.
I can’t help thinking that this ‘twinning’ Two of Cups is also asking me to, if I can muster it, love my opposing *selves* in a more recipricol sort of way (and we’re getting there with reciprocity in the oracle cards in a minute).
The employee who has too much work to do, *and* the one who wants to indulge in her own ideas instead. The mom who advises her daughter, *and* the one who wants to understand, support, and connect with her. The daughter who still feels frustrated with her (now elderly) mother, *and* the one who laments we are not closer. The me who feels angry and lonely, *and* the me who wants connection and love.
So aim to be kinder to all of your selves—and the more grating sides of the people you love (I know, a tall order).
Keep your heart open (especially if a good cry has already swung the gates wide).
Find affection for whomever and whatever appears on your doorstep this week, and then double down.
Unexpected love could stumble into your life.

Further Oracle Advice

Well, well, well, look who’s going on about gratitude and reciprocity. Tarot readings have a lovely way of dovetailing in sum up.

Both of these figures have, in a very literal way, become the landscape where they dwell.

Red Garden, from the Oracle of Mystical Moments by Catrin Welz-Stein, achieves this through gratitude and wants us to get out into nature too, although we’re in a maze of snowbanks where I live at the moment. Don’t let it stop you. The snow this year is, admittedly, a sight to behold—just wear a big coat.

The Wild & Sacred Feminine Deck, by Niki Dewart and Elizabeth Marglin, with art by Jenny Kostecki-Shaw, leaves us with these last thoughts on love and reciprocity. Connect the dots however you wish.

“The true secret of Pachamama is this: all flourishing is mutual. As Earth Mother of the Andean Indigenous people, Pachamama’s body is your body too. It begins with learning how to thank the land and enlarge your circle of devotion. Cast it wide and high and long.

All beings are equally alive, have agency, and relate to one another through mutual nurturance. Knowing is to grieve—but grieving is to love.”

Resources

Dewart, Niki, and Elizabeth Marglin, and art by and Jenny Kostecki Shaw. The Wild & Sacred Feminine Deck. Shambala Publications, 2022.

Dore, Jessica. Tarot for Change. Penguin Random House, 2021.

Hutch, Theresa. White Sage Tarot. U.S. Games Systems, Inc.

Onishi, Norimitzu. “Trump’s Threats Against Canada Upend Conservative’s Playbook” The New York Times. February 17, 2025.

Welz-Stein, Catrin. Tarot of Mystical Moments. U.S. Games Systems, Inc., 2020.

Welz-Stein, Catrin. Oracle of Mystical Moments. U.S. Games Systems, Inc., 2017.

Relax and Get Uncomfortable