As each year comes to its inevitable end, we are invited into a new cycle, a new turning of the wheel that is life. The Lovers was our tarot card for 2022, and it asked us to look at the ways in which we could possibly find some balance between the feminine and masculine energies within ourselves. It can be quite scary, yet intensely freeing to go against societal structures and the ruling cultural influences. I have personally had to deal with my fair share of unrecognized internal misogyny, both within myself and from those who feel the need to comment on my choices in life. At the end of the day, as long as no one is being hurt or injured, I say do what you want.
In order to figure out the tarot card of the year, we must simply add the individual digits together (2+0+2+3=7). The Chariot is the seventh card of the tarot deck, which is sort of like the planetary shedding of a crab shell. It’s the hard carapace holding all of your softness inside. However, much like those hermit crabs we find at the beach, eventually we will outgrow this one, and need to move into something much greater than before. Contrary to popular belief, we may not always know where we are headed, even though we know that this thing is no longer working. They say that what got you here won’t get you there, but we must first realize that the burnout is real. We can be exhausted, grieving, and raging throughout all of this, and simultaneously knowing that things cannot stay the same.
The Air Horn
Ruled by Cancer the Chariot represents a vehicle under control, one that is self-disciplined and firmly grounded on the physical plane. The man depicted in the card is a cocky little shit, one who seems a little too confident in his ways. We all need that self-assured energy from time to time. It’s the amazon consciousness that allows a person to take charge of her own life and make their own decisions, agreements and responses. With focused action and determination we can choose to stay the course, no matter what obstacles may come our way.
The Chariot is the end of line one of the tarot, the life line. This is the ‘I am’ line that determines your birth, identity, and ego. The invitation there is to discover and embody yourself, and everything you desired as a kid. For when we are children, we care less about what others think, and are only out to find what joy we can imagine up for ourselves. We lose that magic as we age. We become all too caught up in some monetary version of success that we lose that childlike spark, the one that made us so individually unique. “The Chariot has echoes of the other four cardinal cards in the major arcana. It mirrors the love and emotional balance of the Lover’s card, the clear judgement of the Justice card, and also hints at all of these qualities combined in the Chariot helping us triumph over the material vices of the polar opposite, the Devil card.” (Astrology.com) In some depictions of this tarot card, the Chariot isn’t moving. It’s actually being pulled in two directions by a set of horses, which only manages to leave you at a standstill. It’s the artist who only wants to create, but never wants to post on social media, then complains that no one is interested. It may feel as though you are being dragged by the algorithm, but at some point you have to let one of those two things go.
You always have two choices: your commitment versus your fear.
Sammy Davis Jr.
Although the Chariot in the Rider Waite Deck isn’t in motion, he is turned away from his house, his homeland. Some things we just can’t do from the comfort of our own security. We have to put ourselves in the proverbial arena. As Teddy Roosevelt once said, “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” This whole time the man in the Chariot has had a map of the stars above his head, telling him where to go. All he had to do was to look up.
Safe Container
Even when we are putting ourselves out into the world, there are times when we may need to come back to ourselves, to ground back into nature and our actual lives that aren’t imagined onto a screen. In the midst of all this technology, sometimes we are reminded that we are human and we cannot run our lives as though we are machines. I am not the Energizer Bunny; my batteries do need to be recharged. It took my entirely too long to learn this, but here we are.
I had to learn how to feel safe before I was ready to learn how to be confident. As someone who did not learn this stuff as a child, my emotions have often gotten the better of me. This has resulted in me lashing out at others, but also hurting my own feelings at times. I’ve had to learn when and where some emotions are appropriate, and also who is safe or unsafe for me to confide in. The truth of the matter is that some people in your life aren’t going to do their own work and it is going to leak out all over everyone around them, you included. Some people are not going to be able to hold that space for you that you so desperately need. Find those who can, even if you have to pay a professional, and establish some boundaries with those that cannot.
An additional tool that my therapist taught me is the use of a safe container. This is where you stuff all those emotions for a temporary time (that is the important part) until you can get to that safe person or your next therapy appointment. My container is a suitcase, nothing fancy. It reminds me that I need to unpack it. Emotions are the same way. You can’t just leave in all there. Your dirty laundry will fester; that beach sand will start to trickle out and get tracked all over your house. We have to unpack our emotions to get at the core of what is ailing us or on the contrary, to find out what it is that lights us up on the inside. Aren’t you the slightest bit curious as to what this is all about? I am. I am nosy as fuck.
Medicine for the New Year
A Reading for the Collective
a card to represent my journey
the path that lies ahead
What is helping to drive me forward?
We are all trying to figure out how to balance our personal selves with the self that is accepted by society and our peers. Those things don’t always add up, often leaving us feeling as though we’ve dropped the ball on all parts of our lives. The Two of Pentacles Reversed is that friendly reminder that you can just say no to anything that doesn’t align with your values or your goals. This card is all about reprioritization, whether that be your business goals or becoming the type of person you want to see expressed in the world.
When I was a child all I wanted was to be a grown adult, and now that I’m there, I want to be a like kid again. The Six of Cups invites us to embrace those childlike pleasures that we once left to the side. Sometimes that means giving ourselves the permission to be playful, to be spontaneous, to creatively connect with our intuition at the source. As children we used to do things just for the sake of doing it, for the pure adulterated joy that we get from it. As adults we now must relearn everything we have forgotten, for there lies the ultimate freedom.
As we search for this independence and freedom, we will probably make a few mistakes along the way, mostly due to our own impatience of the process. We don’t always have as much life experience and maturity as we think we do. This false thinking can come and bite us in the ass if we aren’t careful. The Knight of Swords Reversed is the friendly suggestion to slow down. You can do anything you want, but you cannot do everything, as the saying goes. The key to getting all of your goals accomplished is to tackle them one at a time, otherwise you may find yourself burned out and exhausted without achieving anything.
A Rune for this Cycle
Ehwaz is the rune of transition and movement, of physical shifts and new attitudes about life. “There is about this Rune a sense of gradual development and steady progress, with the accompanying notion of slow growth through numerous shifts and changes” (Ralph Blum, The Book of Runes). As we learned through the story of The Tortoise and the Hare, slow and steady wins the race. Putting that into practice takes, well, practice. One definition of “practice” is to exercise oneself by repeated performance in order to acquire skill. It says nothing about getting it right the first time. We must keep trying in order to build that proverbial muscle. Practice may not get you perfect, but it very well may get you further than you have ever been.
Mad love, Jenna
deck credit: Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, drawn in 1909 by Pamela Colman Smith under direction of Arthur Edward Waite
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