Admittedly, I “huh?“-ed when I pulled the Justice card as a part of my self-love tarot spread last week. My question was:
“What is the one kind thing I can do as an act of love for myself?”
Alas, I let them take the lead and braced myself to explore together.
The Justice in the Fifth Spirit Tarot deck is drawn as a bad ass person. I love everything about them from the expression, attitude, the down to the outfit. Did they appear to remind me of my own bad-ass-ness? To bring it out more often as an act of self-love?
I also noticed that on the scale, unlike on other Justice tarot cards I have seen ━ including the classic Rider Waite Smith, the heart weighed more than the feather. (I can’t wait for the guidebook to arrive to read the artist, Maria’s, reasoning behind this).
Are they trying to convey that heart matters more than the mind? Is it asking me to listen more to my heart instead of my mind when it comes to self-love? Or is it reminding me to balance it out since I tend to operate the other way around?
Wille of A Little Spark of Joy tarot blog said this about the Justice card in relation to love:
“(it) represents decision and choices. Do you know your worth? settling for far less than you deserve, whether single or committed, is never an option.”
Well said!
Back to the card I pulled, my attention kept going to the tattoos covering their upper body. Maybe my self-love act can be of getting the evil-eye tattoo on the same part of my body. And that my friends, is what I call wishful thinking.
Happy Valentine‘s Day! It’s the second day of the third lockdown. Gah! As soon as I typed it, I realised how polarising those two first two sentences were. Alas, both are valid.
My morning routine stays the same ━ bed coffee, morning journal and tarot cards.
Today’s card was The Hermit. I also pulled another card to honour Valentine’s day and wrote a semi-lengthy journal about it. I continued with yoga, short exercise and a 5km run at the Albert Park, which thankfully is still within the 5km limit set by the government.
We then stopped by the South Melbourne Market where I got free-range eggs, honey-lemon potion, pumpkin-seed bread, and other things to make a typical Aussie brunch menu: chill scrambled eggs on toasts with smashed-avo on the side.
I quickly prep the food back home, declaring it as Valentine’s day meal made with lots of love when I served it to Fafa. He got me a bunch of gorgeous pink tulips and pre-ordered a tarot deck (I KNOW!) for Valentine, the least I could do was to cook the man a warm meal.
After lunch, Fafa went to study to read up on his upcoming project while I did a bit of reading. Then I started watching Contagion and dozed off half-way before waking up to Fafa sitting beside me, watching the finale of Your Honor.
There is nothing much to share about the lockdown nor my feelings about it, except maybe it looks like it’s going to last more than five days which gives me a bit of anxiety. But I have decided no point in dwelling about it today and ruin my restful Sunday.
Before I leave for the day, let me share one of my favourite poetry about love by one of my favourite poet, Bianca Sparacino:
My god, I hope you find love. And I don’t just mean that in regards to someone you wrap your tired bones around at night. I mean that I hope you find love in every aspect of your life. I hope you find it tucked into early morning sunrises, and the smell of your favourite places. I hope you find it strung between the laughter you share with your friends, I hope it bounces off of you when you hug the people you care for, I hope it swells within your ribcage whenever you hear your favourite song, or discover something that moves you. I hope you fall in love with growth, and change, and the messiness and the beauty of fucking up, and making mistakes, and becoming exactly who you want to be. I hope you find love in places that were once void of it, in places within yourself that you could have been softer to, kinder to, in the past. Because if there is one thing I have learned, it is that love is so much more than a boy, or a girl, who holds your heart. Love is everything around you. It is everything.
I truly hope you had a love filled Valentine day. Sending you virtual blessings and love 💌.
Here are some tarot decks I am lusting over — and willing to part with my a portion of my pay-check in exchange for, in 2021 (I updated the list hence the repost).
Sorted by my level of obsession from top to bottom. Prices are in USD, excluding shipping.
A queer and inclusive deck for a world beyond binaries, Fifth Spirit Tarot, by Charlie Claire Burgess. It will be my next purchase once the Australia stockist, Seeker Tarot, has it.
Update: I bought it! It’s here, I have been practicing with it and absolutely enjoying the artwork and the card quality. Highly recommend it.
This deck portrays ghosts, folklore, and traditional Japanese artwork. All things that I am drawn to. I hesitated a bit to when I saw the cards, because it’s grey and well.. creepy, but I can’t think of a better deck to accompany me on the Kumano Kodo pilgrimage I have been planning for.
This deck uses humour to illuminate different life situation and with a keyword written on the bottom of the image, it has a bit of oracle vibes. But the illustrations are colourful, light and funny. Feels like a deck we all could use to navigate during this period of uncertainty. Also free shipping to Australia. Yes pls!
I am surprised this deck hasn’t got a cult following. The beautifully hand-illustrated cards have subtle shades of grey, making it the third grey-dominated deck on this list. It might just be the the theme of my deck choice for this year.
Finally, the deck that fits our current life collectively. If you tend to lean against dark humour to navigate through life’s woes, as do I at times, maybe this is the best deck to get this year.
Created by Martina Razo and illustrated by Miriam E.G. This deck has been on my list for more than a year. I almost bought it last year but it was cancelled at the last minute by the seller due to international shipment issue no-thanks to Covid.
I pulled Ace of Swords from the Fifth Spirit Tarot deck today. Ace of Swords is about clarity, and my mind is anything but that.
My un-caffeinated brain (Fafa was out so no bed coffee for me this morning) is riddled with period haze, pending work-tasks, impendinglockdown announcement, the messy desk, the even messier cupboards, and the ever-growing to-do list seems out of control, the floating-in-the-air goals and sans travel plans in the horizon.
So yeah, I feel anything but clear right now, but maybe that’s precisely why the Ace of Swords made an appearance. As in I am invited to bring clarity into my mind, my list and my life.
My hand is being offered the knife (Sword). Therefore, it’s my choice to grab it — or not. And if I do, what to do with it. Maybe it’s for me to use it to sort through things mentally first, before tending to the rest.
I pulled the Eight of Wands and The Chariot (Cancer) as the cards of the day. It wasn’t a surprise. It has been a tradition of mine to travel on the 26 January; even before I moved to Australia, which has it as the first public holiday of the year.
This time though, what caught my attention was The Chariot card.
Along with The Magician, The Chariot was one of the first few tarot cards that I liked and understood. Or so I thought.
When I first started learning tarot based on the images, I associated The Chariot with travelling. Obviously, as the guy on the classic Rider Waite Smith tarot deck is riding a chariot. He is on the move or about to move. So is the witch who is riding the bike on the Everyday Witch Tarot deck.
But the Chariot on the deck I used for the reading today, the Moon Void Tarot, shows pages and pages of papers. Each one dated by month. July 2016, August 2016 and so on. There is a hand holding a pen writing on one of those pages. As if the person is scheduling and making plans. I don’t see anything that resembles travelling, which ironically fitted my situation of being unable to travel this time.
Alas, it got me curious about the artist’s interpretation of the card, and I dug through my piles of to-read books and found the guide book for the deck which I bought separately (one of the best tarot related decision I made so far: When in doubt, get the guide book). It says:
“…connect with our momentum, as we develop a clear vision, we begin to take action. …daily practice becomes the structure that takes us from one phase of life to the next. Small steps in physical reality will be met by large leaps from the Universe, but first, (you) must begin.”
I then went through The Spacious Tarot deck wondering how The Chariot is depicted there as I don’t think I have ever pulled this card from that deck. The image on the card itself reminded me of the Milford Sound in New Zealand South Island. Again travel related. But the mini-guide book offered an explanation closer to one given by the Moon Void above:
“…define exactly what is it that you want to do. What hard things do you need to do at this time? Affirm that you are capable and go do what you need to do.”
Wow. Reading it was like peeling another layer of The Chariot card.
The one that I didn’t even know existed.
The one about taking inspired actions.
I love it when that happens. That is also why I am love learning about tarot. The more I understand, the more interesting it becomes.
I haven’t been writing for a week here, the longest period since I started this blog last year. I am feeling a wee bit of a writer-FOMO, so here are some random observations I noted down in the journal recently —
I use a 400-page black Moleskine to journal. It was a birthday gift from Fafa. At first, I thought it would be my annual journal. But now, only five months in and having used up 3/4 of it, I think I will be getting myself a new journal for my half-birthday in March.
One of the reasons that I haven’t been writing much on the blog is because I am hitting a tarot-reading wall. For some reason, I have been feeling a little less excited about journaling about tarot recently. Not sure whether I am even allowed to say that, but that’s the truth. I have come up with solutions, though. I have started journaling tarot with prompts given by the Moon Void Tarot‘s creator, Stefanie Caponi to honor the Aquarius season (my Moon sign).
I also bought another tarot deck—my first-quarter purchase (hey, I lasted 20 days! Now, I have to go through the next 70-something days without buying another deck). It’s the Fifth Spirit Tarot which sits on top of my 2021 tarot deck list. Yesterday, I saw that Two Sided Tarot has it listed on their website and with only AUD10 shipping, I knew I shouldn’t wait any longer.
One last thing about tarot: I am looking for a tarot deck with continuity or a similar theme throughout the deck. The Moon Void Tarot deck has been the closest I’ve got, but the non-human court-cards broke the singular theme thing that it had going for it.
Even though I haven’t been writing much here, I have been compiling random notes I wrote here and there — paper and digital — into my Day One App. Maybe I can share some of the not-super-boring ones here?
Also, even though I haven’t been writing much, I have been running. I registered for a measly 10km run in October. That gets me going. I am clocking in 3km every run, but with an embarrassing pace to be shared here.
The last best coffee I had was well, not a coffee. We went to Brunswick last weekend to feast on a crab at Miss Katie’s Crab Shack. On the way back, we stopped at one of my favourite coffee shops in Melbourne for some sit-down coffee chai.
This month, I dreamt of Fafa bringing and or showing me a ladybug. Twice. Google told me that it’s a symbol of good luck.
This week, I tried a new Thai dish called Hor Mok for the first time. It’s steamed fish cooked with coconut cream, curry and basil leaf served banana leaf cup. I ordered it because it reminded me of Kerala Meen Pollichathu, but it tasted closer to Cambodian Fish Amok.
Yesterday, I found out that all this while I have been cooking and eating butter that has expired in 2019.
Today, I woke up reminiscing about my Uni time. Jik and I used to sneak into each others class. Even though we majored in different subjects and went to different Universities. And hers was more fun than my boring Accounting lectures. Then, I realized that taking up CPA is like adopting the worst part of schooling-the studying and exam parts. Ugh!
I realize more and more that I am a creature of routines and rituals. So instead of ignoring it, I should use those things as a foundation of my daily life.
With space as the guiding word for my year, I went through my tarot-mental Rolodex, to pick a card, which best represents space for me.
Not able to associate the space I have in mind with any major arcana cards (not even The Fool nor The World), I moved to the minor ones in sequence starting from the Wands suit. It was then it clicked, without needing to review the rest of the cards on the deck – the space energy I wish to invite for this year is represented in the Seven of Wands.
TBR, the Seven of Wands has never been a favorite – both as a Seven (I prefer Seven of Pentacles) nor in the Wands suit (I favor the Eight of Wands). It’s also the only Seven suits that I haven’t journal-ed about as I had never put much thought into it, until this week.
Also, the image of the card in the classic Rider Waite Smith deck is not pretty. It shows a man, with mismatched shoes, standing on a higher ground, ready to fight other wands pointing at him. But then, when I envision conquering 2021 by claiming my space, I so want to be that man. Ready to defend my place, come what may!
In tarot, Seven of Wands traditionally means courage, persistence, competition, challenges. It can also be about:
Perseverance, defending one’s territory and expansion which for me translates to space, space and more space.
I drew the Eight of Pentacles, today, on my first day off for year-end break this year. At first, I was like what? What was it that the Eight of Pentacles want me to dedicate some hard work to ━ when all I wanted to do was to relax and enjoy my time off of work.
But upon reflecting on it, there were some truths on it. I have been neglecting my personal projects, including painting, reading, writing the morning pages, even my self-care routines like yoga, healthy eating, meditating and running.
Maybe the next ten days can be focused on building a solid foundation for the routines and rituals that will support me next year.
