When you’re connected to your unique form of creativity you align. When you’re in the flow of sharing your creativity with the world you feel fulfilled. Don’t think that creativity means painting a picture or making pottery. It’s anything that you create that expresses how you think and feel. It could be building a community, developing a strategy, building a beautiful process. It’s learning to hear your creativity, trust it, put it at the heart of your life, and share it that’s the journey.
The themes in the Tarot are great guidance to navigate this journey. Follow the themes in the cards and you become the artist of your life.
The video is a bit longer this week. I wanted to share some personal examples of how these themes show up in my life. Are the additional anecdotes helpful? Let me know in the comments .
I also kept the structure loose this week. Mostly because the Release, Remember, Grow container I’ve been using was feeling too constrictive. Ultimately, the cards aren’t about predicting anything. They way I like to use them is as visual aids that teach lessons about how to navigate the human experience in a fulfilling way. So much meaning is contained in symbols and pictures.
Here’s a bit more about what I pulled.
III of Pentacles
Clarity, creativity, and ultimately alignment come by engaging with others. Community is the secret. Collaboration turbo charges everything. For me, working for myself, it can be easy to stay at home behind my computer and get stuck in my own world. Or it’s easy to get stuck in a pattern of our current reality, our work, our friends, our family. If you’re trying to make a change, find clarity, create momentum, it comes through connecting and creating with others interested in the same things as you. This is the wisdom of the III of Pentacles.
As I’ve been building this new business and new identity I’ve created a lot of clarity by talking about what I’m figuring out with people interested in the same topic. I’ve create opportunities to share my work and expand my voice by collaborating with other people. I’ll be sharing my photographs at a small exhibit in New York in April! This came by talking to a friend who also takes photos about potentially doing an exhibit together. My podcast and this Substack has been an incredible way to meet other interesting people in New York. By hosting these conversations I’ve put my creativity to the test, coming up against the edges of what I’m comfortable with and growing into someone who can create a great conversation and promote it - something I’ve always wanted to do but haven’t yet mastered.
Who can you talk to help you answer a question or create something cool together?
The High Priestess
Your creativity needs time and space to be heard and cultivated. You will not be able to hear your creative ideas if you are constantly stimulated by work, socializing, to dos, your phone, Netflix, etc. The more I’ve created time to meditate and free flow write down whatever’s in my brain, the clearer my ideas have come. This is one of the main tools that has helped me progress from a state of total confusion to greater clarity. This is the wisdom of the High Priestess.
If you listen to interviews with prolific creators, they’ll talk about being a channel for creative ideas. The ideas come in, they honor them by working on them, and then share them with the world. This starts with creating a habit, a ritual in your life to hear your intuition, your creative ideas.
If you do nothing right now I think the easiest place to start is writing. I do an exercise called Morning Pages, popularized in Julia Cameron’s seminal book, The Artist’s Way. Basically you write stream of consciousness whatever’s in your brain for three journal pages. It’s like clearing the gunk out so you can get to the good ideas.
VII of Pentacles
In our journey to finding our alignment, to sharing our creative work, it’s easy to look out ahead of you and what you haven’t yet achieved and feel a sense of lack. This is sometimes known as the happiness treadmill. I’ll be happy when I achieve… But then you achieve it and the next goal is still out in front of you. Instead, you want to approach your journey from the felt place of one foot in gratitude, one foot in desire. By staying connected to and proud of what you’ve achieved and created so far, you create the right frequency in your body to call in what you’re working towards. This is the wisdom of the VII of Pentacles.
For me, it’s a reminder that my career alignment work, The Career Studio, is still so great. I genuinely love working with my clients on this and after taking a few months off of this work it feels energizing to pick it back up with fresh eyes. All the work I’ve done to create that program and business is what is allowing me to create this new body of work. I wouldn’t have the clarity and ideas I have now without all the experience and work that’s come before. It’s a reminder to stay present in the process of creation and sink into the messy middle.
What from your past experience are your proud of?
What experience from your previous chapter is supporting you to navigate this next phase? Tangibly, intellectually, emotionally.
What are you grateful for in your life right now? What’s working? Big or small.
PS. I offer one-off coaching sessions that combine deep inquiry, somatic therapy, and the Tarot. You’ll leave clearer mentally and physically with specific actions you can take immediately to create or maintain momentum.
PPS. If you like this weekly series I recommend My obsession with destigmatizing Tarot next.
