What Would Frida Do?
Some feedback, first, about how the last reading hit—which is something I don’t tend to share but ‘friendship’ and new aims in friendship did present themselves this end.
I spent a Sunday at a Scandinavian spa with one of my oldest friends and we don’t do that sort of thing—we normally go for walks and have tea. Post-spa on the Georgian Bay Surf Club patio (which I recommend) we made a pact to be more adventurous.
And it (again) became relevatory how my friendship with my husband continues to endure, especially in the more difficult times when it feels like our long marriage has entered some kind of twilight zone. Sharing a life doesn’t come easily to some of us; I’d argue most of us. But then I came in late from work and set eyes on my husband’s famous pad thai in the fridge :)
‘Because you had a hard week,’ he said, and I’m not sure why I keep forgetting that he is fu**ing amazing.
My older brother, too, had me stumbling into profound thanks for sibling-closeness we weren’t able to find until our 50s (but we’ve tied that down now).
So where are we this week?
Great question.
Probably since Elon’s chainsaw act (Elon who? hehe), the Death card keeps coming up. A constant reminder—it won’t let us forget about decimation and transformation—but perhaps its repetition is helping us get used to a brave new order of things.
The shift isn’t out there somewhere. It’s taking shape in our own day-to-day.
Giving 19th century vibes and eyeing the past (to harvest what is useful and discard the rest), this is the most elegant Grim Reeper I’ve seen by far, and she’s not particularly scary either. She just pulls her hair back and does what must be done.
Fast forward a hundred years, and we get some further insight into our present moment from the 3 of Fire (traditionally the 3 of Wands).
Where we are right now is somewhere between two entirely different worlds, between the death of the old world and the embodiment of a drastically different future.
Still.
Yup.
I don’t love it, but it’s comforting to see the contrast staring up from the table—because it seems to fit.
A little backstory … the 3 of Wands, more specifically than 3s of other suits, is about making the jump from the 2 to the 3. (Definitions from numerous sources clearly note this acceleration.)
The 2 is about dreaming, daring, and the inventive planning of a fresh goal.
But the 3 of Wands is what comes after you’ve laid the groundwork and taken your first tentative steps. It’s next level. Ambitions have more clarity. You’ve left security behind and that’s why this dapper astronaut is in outer space, truly committed now and embracing the role of maverick on an entirely other planet.
Psychologist and tarot scholar Jessica Dore says about the 3 of Wands:
“You are no longer in the comforts of home … [but] out on your own in the haphazard, incoherent wilds of the uninterpreted life (the hero’s quest), where you must do your own transcribing and arranging.”
So we’re still in limbo, but we’re starting to understand the point.
What’s Coming In
The Magician, this bespeckled weirdo, is known as the ‘manifestation’ card, a definition I don’t love that gets lobbed around on the new-age corner of the internet.
And it’s the kind of energy that is both wonderful and hard to express in words.
You know it when you feel it.
We have Magician energy in those moments when we’ve somehow conjured our own mystical power that—poof—makes 100% real exactly what we want.
We aren’t just a conduit for it. We are it.
It’s when everything you touch just … works.
Effortlessly.
The 6 of Fire (which is the 6 of Wands) flags victory (!), so in the last half of June Magician energy is readily available to us (ie: when you find yourself riding the magic-train do not get over-analytical, or jump off at the first stop).
This particular 6 of Wands, from The Rosebud Tarot, is so like a 2 of Cups too, which suggests a partnership in some way. Someone in a cute swimsuit with a flower-crown makes things more fun for someone else, and maybe you’re that cutie or you just agree to go along with it.
It doesn’t matter if you instigate it, or you attract it—magic is about!
And it wants to be shared.
The Advice
With a reading this nice, who needs advice?
But there is a little work to do too, with the Star, the King of Swords (they both fell out at the same time), and The Tower.
Albeit a lovely card, I struggle with The Star (I like it much better here in the advice position though).
It’s the ‘healing’ card and represents that anomolous, undefined territiory where we root around slowly and quietly in the murk of a life that has probably become all but unrecognizable.
It’s about trust, of course—and hope, and that uncomfortable place where one foot is on land and the other is in water, and you just don’t feel like yourself. (I’m reminded of the earlier Death + 3 of Wands combo as I write this, when a transformation has indeed begun, but we’re still on a rickety rope bridge swinging between two lands.)
Couple the healing, hopeful energy of the Star with the King of Swords and the Tower.
And whoa.
In a loud and clear nutshell?
It’s now time to USE what you’ve learned.
Kings in tarot, especially in the advice position, ask us to act the way they would act, and this king proceeds in a particular way—sword-y, as opposed to coiny, or cuppy, or wandy—cutting through confusion with logical analysis, articulately telling the truth, and fixing attention and discipline at will.
We’d be well advised now to put all the healing we’ve done to work, and use every bit of wisdom we’ve gathered from those experiences to become more disciplined in the coming weeks.
But wait a second, starshine.
Don’t forget about this little number in the mix … The Tower.
Better known as the most feared card in the deck, in other positions this would be bad-ish, it would alert us to an incoming change that may make a painful mess of things. In the advice position it’s different. The Tower is not coming to hurt you.
Instead, we are instructed to be our own agent of drastic disruption in our lives. The King of Swords looks at the tools he’s collected over so many years and says: What do I want? Then, the Tower makes him cutthroat about it.
Even if it wreaks a bit of havoc—because the kind of change you must make here is the equivalent of a tectonic shift.
Think … radical.
Like the art of Frida Kahlo—which she made because she simply had to (and boy that stuff was made from pain). When she couldn’t use her body, she grew outward in a new way, a way no one could comprehend for a while. Was it beautiful? Who knows? But it said stuff no one had heard before.
If you don’t know about the life and art of Frida Kahlo, think about a revolutionary figure whose experiments (and courage) you truly get.
What would they do if they had your life?
Then do that.
And if your loved ones don’t understand you in the last weeks of June, that’s GOOD. It means you’re on the right track.
Last Thoughts
I pulled the oracles first, but they make more sense here at the end, in sum up. A soft pastel landing in the realm of La Rana/The Frog and the Snowheart.
From Loteria Remedios Oracle:
“Consider the animal medicine brought by La Rana, who evolves through various stages of life, the way few beings can (from tadpole to frog). They even lose a part of themselves at some point in order to become fully grown, traversing land and water with ease.”
Did I mention that land and water thing re: the Star?
So, a bit of reinforcement about our magically evolving parts :)
And the Snowheart, from Nick Bantock’s odd and wonderful The River Oracle, leaves us with a sort of pep talk (Just keep going!), but put this way it sounds pretty nice:
“Courage, tenacity, a heart pierced and broken but not pumped out, for it has fortitude, and life still beats within its quarters.”
Yep, the heart goes on.
I’ll see you in July for the next report.
Resources
Bantock, Nick. The River: Sailing the Stream of Consciousness. Llewellyn Publications. Minnesota, 2023.
Choi, Rome. Illustrated by Kwon Shina. Dreaming Way Tarot. U.S. Games Systems, Inc., 2012.
Dore, Jessica. Tarot for Change. Using the Cards for Self-Care, Acceptance, and Growth. Penguin Random House, 2021.
Gonzalez, Xelena. Artwork by Sotelo Yamasaki. Loteria Remedios Oracle. Soulful Remedies & Affirmations from Mexican Loteria. Hayhouse Inc., 2024.
Lee Stilwell, Amanda, and Diana Rose Harper. The Rosebud Tarot. Weiser Books, Inc. 2023.
