Such Great Heights

I sit here on the July 1st holiday, in the cross breeze of open windows, amazed we’re already halfway through 2025.

My daughter’s semester in Wales has come and gone—she made it to fourteen countries in her school breaks and in the weeks before the flight back to Canada. And she’s back to her summer routine just like that, running drinks around a busy patio.

For me, the summer weather has set something at ease. It feels as if an entire era is on its way out and a brand new something is slowly rising—and the reading says as much.

Where We Are at the Moment

I do love me a 4 of Swords.

The 4 of Swords from Mindscapes Tarot, by John A. Rice—a marvelous deck a friend gave me for my birthday—is called the 4 of Spires, and it means you may be (and probably should be) taking a well-deserved step back in some way.

It doesn’t mean sitting on the couch watching YouTube for a week, but you can take a nap, and please say no to anything you don’t feel like doing, and order take-out for dinner if you feel like it, and sit in the yard on a nice day.

Lately I could easily go to bed at 7:00 every night; my battery is drained and I yearn for stillness and to watch the grass grow, frankly. The first half of this year has been exhausting.

Luckily right now we’re best served with rest and contemplation. It’s not about how much you’re doing or at what speed but, rather, it’s about your mentality, the approach to your days—and it looks like we’re giving ourselves more grace and kindness lately.

So, that’s lovely.

The second row of cards (and some of them are oracle cards) are the clarifiers for this reading, and the extra info with the 4 of Swords is ‘The Weasel and Pine,’ from Jessica Roux’s Woodland Wardens.

Introspection.

Carving out the time and space to make observations, to give a think about how we might better understand and truly care for and protect ourselves no matter what happens out there.

And this may require a little solitude and it may feel a little lonely too, and so be it. It’s temporary.

What’s Coming In?

Quiet preparation is a great energy to embody at the moment—because The World is apparently hurtling toward us in the next couple weeks.

That’s not exactly what The World card means (and I’ll get into its definition in a sec), but I’m an introvert so this card often does mean the literal world to me, the loud, busy, uncontrollable bustle beyond our cottage by the river.

I don’t pass easily from my sacred-home-as-temple into social gatherings (I never have), the office, or just going from my front door to my car. There’s a profound threshold there for me for whatever reason, and I overthink it and never run toward it.

Most people don’t realize this about me because I hold my own pretty well once I’m out there, but did I mention how exhausted I get?

But in July something is coming in that makes it feel like the world is at our doorstep, and look at this card, how gorgeous it is. This is exactly the kind of world I could jump into with both feet.

The traditional meaning behind The World card is wonderful, really.

Experiencing wholeness, working in symbiosis, flourishing, realizing a goal, or the sense that everything is working together in harmony.

It’s a feeling that can come over you as you sweep the fallen crabapples off the patio, or do your dishes, or fold into child’s pose in yoga class. All is right with the world and everyone and everything seems miraculous, safe, and good.

Albeit it’s a rare feeling, but you know it when you feel it. And it’s bittersweet because what hasn’t been clear to you is suddenly obvious. You belong :)

Couple this with ‘The Duck and Chrysanthemum.’

Luck.

I don’t necessarily believe in luck—a fickle and mysterious force—but I do believe that good things happen when preparation meets opportunity.

So the quiet introspection and prep of the 4 of Swords is bound to serve us well in the weeks to come—when luck comes knocking.

The Advice

This is the most open and airy 8 of Wands I’ve ever seen (in this deck, it’s called the 8 of Branches).

It’s all sky, and the cards along the top row of our spread all have this quality—another message.

There’s a sense we’ve climbed to a great new height and we can see for miles in all directions, and there is accomplishment here. (Check out the inspiration for the title of this reading, the song ‘Such Great Heights,’ by The Postal Service.)

The World card, the last card in the major arcana, also signals completion and the end of the hero’s journey. As one era closes, another begins, and it’s time to think about something new. After you’ve had a good gaze at where you’re at—and I’m just the messenger—it’s go time again!

Have you had any unexplored and intriguing ideas bubbling up?

If so, The Empress (called The Lifegiver in The Rosebud Tarot) shows us how to successfully send our arrows soaring through the mountain air.

Hold up.

Ancestor alert. (!)

I can now see—blown up in this digital format—that the teacup and saucer on that small table on The Lifegiver card is my Grandma J.’s fine bone Royal Albert china.

This is always very cool, when an image on a card is so obviously linked to one’s life that the connection can’t help but come into the reading.

One of only two adults in my childhood who actually played with me (the other one was my dad), my Grandma J. made the best egg salad sandwiches and let us have ginger ale. Unfortunately, my most prominent memory of her, hardwired over all the others, occurred one Sunday at dinner when I was fourteen.

I was talking about school and I said innocently, ‘I want to be a writer,’ and she didn’t skip a beat (and this would be a good time to warn you she was an evangelical Baptist).

‘Try to play god and you’ll burn in hell,’ she said, dignified, continuing to cut at her pork chop, not looking up—and everyone just went on to some other dinner subject, as if this statement was somehow common knowledge.

Her words hit me like a bullet of course, and did some damage—along with the subtle and not-so-subtle external hints that glommed onto this message over the years, making the artistic path for which I’m most suited feel like assured suicide.

Sorry to get off track here but perhaps you are also finally getting loose of something that inadvertently delayed your dreams, that made everything harder (because Grandma J. showed up here for a reason).

The Empress (The Lifegiver), as your alternative, is gentle, compassionate, and never binding. She means growth—madly off in all directions. A universal matriarch who is affectionate, curious, and who does not fear her hopes and goals, or squash anyone else’s either.

Put devoted attention toward anything you take aim at in the days ahead—anything you want to grow and nurture—and the world will begin to shine and sing with meaning. That’s what The Empress says.

It’s time to wave from your great height, and not come down.

Resources

Rice, John A. Mindscapes Tarot. Hay House LLC.,2025.

Roux, Jessica. Woodland Wardens. Andrews, McMeel Publishing, 2023.

Stilwell, Amanda Lee, and illustrations by Diana Rose Harper. The Rosebud Tarot. Weiser Books, 2023.

The Postal Service. Such Great Heights. Sub Pop Records, 2003.