The glorious impermanence of everything
May 2024 Collective Offering
My bbyz, tapping the heart button is a fabulous, totally free way of showing your support for these monthly mailouts (hint hint)
Friends, digital coven, vaguely interested lurkers,
Welcome to May. For me, it looks set to be a mixed bag, a little like Spring's offering so far this year. I am busy with possibly too many creative projects - 7 at the last count! - but actually all of them really are a source of nourishment and connection for me. So underneath the hectic juggling and scheduling, I feel quite sparky, present, and very much alive.
My hope for us this month is that we all get a chance to feel glimmers of excitement about something, no matter how big or small...
ilayda x
Wtf are the cards saying?
This month's offering brings an unusual move (on my part): I pulled a specific spread, with questions for each card placement. Why? I couldn't tell you. Maybe it's just a passing phase.
What is the overarching theme of this month's message? - Just Passing Through
What is worth accepting at this time? - Wheel of Fortune
What is worth releasing at this time? - Five of Pentacles
What is worth embracing at this time? - Ace of Swords
So what does it mean?
Just Passing Through reminds us of the transient nature of life. In the grand scheme of the glorious clusterfuck known as the cosmos, life (yours and mine) is just a moment - and one day we will be gone from it, or it will be gone from us. This is also reflected in the events and circumstances we encounter while we actually live our lives - nothing is or has to be permanent - and we would do well to remember that this month.
This message is reinforced by the Wheel of Fortune, asking to be accepted. The unknowable rhythms of fate and tickings of time that bring about change in our lives ensure that no one stays on the bottom forever, and no one stays at the top forever, either. How can this be integrated in your life at this moment? Again, there's something here about embracing change, about accepting the impermanence of both the good and the shitty things in your life, about trying to work with rather than against them.
You know in films when someone falls asleep on a bus or train, and they wake up to the sound of a whistle blowing, the vehicle stationary and empty in some unknown, scary place, with a conductor moving down the aisle shouting: “Last stop, everybody off, all change!” ??? Well, The Wheel is a little bit like that. Whenever it enters my readings, its usually because I've been emotionally or mentally asleep about something and hurtling down a path that leads to a dead end at best, calamity at worst. The Wheel's arrival is usually an invitation for me to see that, address it, and do something differently to what's always been done before. In the context of the other cards on the table, the presence of The Wheel this month seems to be encouraging us to remember that old patterns and habits that don't serve us don't need to be baked into the blood and bones of who we are. Change is possible. Actually, it's a fact of life.
For what we need to release, the Five of Pentacles is almost laughably heavy handed in it's presence in this spread. There's myriad of reasons why people get stuck in unhelpful patterns and cycles (per the indication of the Wheel), and so it makes sense that there's also whole bunch of ways people can break their cycles too. For me, the most visceral and long lasting changes in my life have been created through working on my relationship with worthiness. There have been moments where, for a moment (a split second, a day, a week), I have understood with absolute clarity all that I am worthy of. It's a glimmering feeling, something that feels like a divine truth (Ace of Swords), rushing through me. And that glimmer, that rush, when I’ve taken the time to access it, understand it, and embrace it, has been leveraged to facilitate much needed change.
So, even though people often fear the Five of Pentacles - because of its connections with impoverishment, abandonment, and ostracisation - the essence of the card just speaks to a struggle with worthiness. Are we not all worthy of compassion and love? Are we not all worthy of dignity and safety? And, in the context of the other cards in this spread: are we not all worthy of feeling like this short moment we've been gifted in existence, is one that can be enjoyed? Of course we are. So, when it comes to releasing things this month, it might be worth examining our relationship with worthiness... and by extension, unworthiness. What can we relinquish that weighs us down? What circumstances make us feel alone, misunderstood or small that we can let go of, or at least gently detach from? How can doing this help us not just accept but embrace change?
And finally, we come to the Ace of Swords, the thing to embrace. We love to see her, to be honest. If the suits of the tarot represent different domains of the human experience, then the swords are symbols for the domain of thought, cognition, intellect, reasoning... ideas. So in this context - the context that has so far spoken about the impermanence of all things, the embracing of change, the breaking of old cycles, the examination of worthiness - the Ace of Swords whispers to us about new ideas, new beginnings, and acting with integrity. This isn't about going all guns blazing into the fire, just because. No, it’s more measured than that, more dignified. It’s about about embracing the idea of a new start. It's about imagining that there could be more to this life; to your world and mine, to our interactions, to our relationships, to the way we see ourselves. It's about little by little, not just imagining this but also believing it. It’s about slowly understanding that whatever this 'more' is, we just might have the capacity to create it, to feel it, to live it... If only for a moment.
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