Surrender
The reading is a bit late. ‘Surrender’ can mean many things and we’ll get into it, but for starters it’s influenced my decision to post these free readings only twice a month (as my time allows).
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So, mid-May.
Intense, opposing cards seem to be appearing simultaneouly of late—as if this is the new normal and it’s just how balance and harmony work now. I get the feeling our best bet is to learn to hold space for both the really great stuff and the really sh** stuff at the same time.
As I shuffled The Field Tarot by Hannah Elizabeth Fofana, right away The Sun fell out.
Oh nice, I thought.
Vitality. Joy. Clarity.
When The Sun appears, people love you for being you and things are warm and straightforward, and who doesn’t want that?
Coupled with this GLORIOUS spring weather, this makes sense. Forsythia, forget-me-nots, grape hyacinth, tulips, and our neighbour’s pink redbud busting all over the place.
I forget about this all winter because how can the world possibly be so alive and beautiful? Then suddenly, it’s here.
But then The Devil came out :(
Yes, this know-it-all.
It’s the substance, fantasy, or pattern you know is serious and unhealthy enough to require your attention, ie: Netflix, procrastination, porn, booze, cake, organizing your bathroom for the 10th time, cannabis, sex, fantasizing about sex (with the wrong people?), pizza, overworking, shopping, Instagram, YouTube, video games, etc.
Though this version of the Devil with the flower-horns is very pretty— that’s how it gets ya.
Your Devil (usually plural) is the most personal thing about you and ultimately it will make you feel powerless. And it’s relentless too, with a grip that will not loosen until you make a conscious change.
To hell with it, I thought, and took some oracle cards next. (Heads up: we’re not quite keeping to script today.)
Trending on polar opposite intensities (like our recently elected government—I’m kidding) I grabbed Nick Bantock’s powerful Archeo deck, and pulled the Inventor and the Fatalist.
At face value, these cards also seem in opposition and, to be honest, the whole reading feels so dramatic—like a sweeping epic. But I’ve needed it lately, a big inspiring speech by someone or something smarter than me.
My artist/inventor self for a few weeks misplaced the backbone to stand up to the profoundly wired part who thinks, “There is no point to that. Don’t bother doing that. Who cares.”
And it’s deep and old. Inventor-me and fatalist-me have always been at periodic war. Call it lack of confidence bred in childhood; call it anything you want. But inventor-me is my better Jekyll, and I mostly wish I were that side of me more often.
Nick Bantock, the creator of this deck, says:
“The Inventor can show you both the subtle art of innovation and the importance of patient resolve […] Most importantly, you need the Inventor or your heroic journey will be halted by the first broken wheel.“
Agreed.
The Inventor starts a new project with enthusiam, innovation, and momentum.
That is until I get disoriented about three months in (especially if it’s enormous and will take a long time) and become anxious and lose my way: ‘Wait. What am I doing again? I don’t know this place. Where does it go? Lemme off.’
The Fatalist arrives.
But—that’s odd—the Fatalist on this card isn’t quite so dark and nihilistic, apparently.
Bantock says:
“The Fatalist brings the gift of acceptance when you are thrown into the slings and arrows of fortune. When you are in danger of losing your balance and fear you’re about to fall, the Fatalist will teach you how to ride the wheel of fortune with dignity.”
So.
Let’s consider that the blindfold the Fatalist wears could be there for good reason.
To better focus our concentration on staying balanced. To help us feel our way along and go slower than we thought we were going to.
So we aren’t lured into distraction by The Devil and fall off that slim wheel maneuvred by small, mysterious grey men.
In the I Ching there is a translation of one of the hexagrams and it’s about what achievement does in its early stages. It says that when you’ve climbed a great height, don’t stop and turn around to look back. The past is closer than you think and the danger of falling back (into your old ways and old patterns) is very real.
I always seem to turn and look down.
Maybe you do this too. But in order to stay the course, it requires that we inch SLOWLY along the turning wheel. And if your problem-solving Inventor could turn away from The Devil for a bit, you would see that The Sun is right there at your back.
Not to freak you out, but two Devils came out in this reading.
So addictions and longstanding unhealthy patterns are speaking LOUDLY mid-May (yo, they just want to be heard), but you may already know this.
This second Devil, from the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot by UUSI, reminds me of the Stink Spirit from the movie Spirited Away (but more pagan-y.)
Here, he gazes directly on the 3 of Swords. The heartbreak card.
What you thought you had—you don’t. What you wanted at one time is gone—and it’s not coming back.
Loss, separation, grief, and turmoil are always in some way tied to our crappier Mr. Hyde sides and the addictive habits we partake in when we are tired, or feel broken. Those habits are pleasurable and seem to make us feel better.
From author, tarot scholar, and psychologist Jessica Dore:
“Unfortunately, addiction also reinforces the belief that the thing we are avoiding is somehow dangerous. The elaborate ways we turn away from pain leads to the increase of pain. We think we’re free of the feeling, when in truth we’re enslaved by it. Make sure that what you’re scared of is actually dangerous before you go building a whole life around it.”
Truer words have never been uttered.
What eventually made me quit smoking cigarettes (it took me ten years) was to realize that every drag only further reinforced whatever thoughts and feelings made me want to smoke in the first place.
The Advice
I know I’m bouncing around (you were warned) but we can safely say we’ve arrived at the advice.
It asks us in the coming weeks to embody a few key energies, starting with the King of Cups, who wants nothing to do with that stinker. See how the king’s gaze is turned 180 degrees away from the second Devil and from the 3 of Swords to boot.
King of Cups is the part of you that has your best interest at heart.
He has made tenderness an art, and he guides with loving attention and a receptive approach.
Dore says the Cups suit (emotions) can feel slippery and confusing, as if there is no boundary and nothing to hold on to. So, you must give yourself over to its currents. You must go from walking to swimming.
Easier said than done.
But a similar message is put forth by the last two oracle cards, Compassion and Surrender, so I know there’s something to it.
From The Wild & Sacred Feminine deck:
“Avoid punishing yourself for being human. Having compassion starts and ends with having compassion for all those unwanted parts of ourselves. But if loving kindness is not what comes, can you give due regard to what is rising?”
The authors of this deck also mention something called ‘empathy fatigue.’ So, that’s a thing then? I def thought so. Just another reason, if you are someone who gives a lot of your heart away, to give yourself some grace and take unapologetic naps.
When I titled this reading ‘Surrender,’ I hadn’t read the description for the card yet (it’s some nice stuff about how a river can show us what it’s like to follow a path without resistance). What I’d rather tell you is that when I laid out these cards a couple of days ago and saw the Surrender card, my body completely relaxed. I so needed just that one word to hold onto (and maybe you do too), and to ponder an image of a woman floating in the current with some fish. Things have been better since.
Soon afterward I deleted my New York Times and Guardian apps and stopped watching YouTube, and cut out the food that makes me feel like crap—and these may seem like small, silly things but I don’t have much in the vice department at this point (and my addiction to doom news has been very distracting).
Instead I’m reading actual books and going for walks and consuming music like candy and slowing down, and I feel … not like a powerless fatalist.
It’s true. The less you take orders from The Devil, the more infrequently it comes.
I would also surmise that incredible joy and harmony are 100% within our grasp this month and that’s why The Sun and the 10 of Cups—the best cards in the deck—bookend this reading.
So exhale.
There’s just that sticky, stinky bit to contend with too.
Resources
Bantock, Nick. The Archeo. Understanding & Developing Your Archetypes. Llewellyn Publictions, 2021.
Dewart, Niki, and Elizabeth Marglin. Illustrations by Jenny Kostecki-Shaw. The Wild & Sacred Feminine Deck. Shambhala, 2022.
Dore, Jessica. Tarot for Change. Penguin Random House, Canada. 2021.
Fofana, Hannah Elizabeth. The Field Tarot. U.S. Games Systems, Inc.
Miyazaki, H. (2001). Spirited Away. Fathom Events.
UUSI. Pagan Otherworlds Tarot. UUSI.
