“It’s not fair!” I remember saying that as a kid only to be responded to with a curt, “Life’s not fair.” Not exactly the kind of thing you want to hear with you are in the fullest throes of despair. It’s not even a comprehensible concept for a child to wrap their meager brains around. I most certainly did not understand, thinking my caretakers to be horrendously cruel in their issuing of such a statement. The truth of the matter is that life is not fair, and we do come to realize the depths of that proclamation at some point throughout our lives.
We are taught that all men are created equal, with liberty and justice for all. It’s written into our constitutional rights and into our textbooks. And as we get older we realize how untrue these statements actually are. BIPOC people are policed at higher rates than white people, and there is basically a war on women occurring all over the United States and other parts of the world. It is becoming all too clear that there is a vast difference between our earthly laws and the universal laws taking place all around us. And we must strive to consciously be aware of what we believe to be true and what we believe to be fair and ethical. Things are never as clear cut as we think them to be, so the key is to constantly question and explore new areas of our belief system.
Ruled by Libra, Justice is at its core the search for that truth, which can be uncomfortable at times to say the least. People can often feel like that by accepting the reality of any particular moment means that they have to like it. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Acceptance simply means allowing yourself to go with the flow of this life, surrendering to the fullness that it has to offer. You can absolutely still hate every minute of it if you want. No one can deny you that.
Justice is truth in action.
Benjamin Disraeli
Ma’at, the Egyptian goddess of justice, would weigh the hearts of those who had passed with her feather of truth. If the heart and the ostrich feather balanced the scales, that soul could then move into the Afterlife. If not, then all was lost. People of that time lived their lives according to this standard, one that I think we could all stand to envelope into our own lives a little more. They say that karma is a bitch, but it is merely the sum of one’s actions. While we all will say or do things that don’t align with our values, not meaning to cause harm, it does happen sometimes. It’s the intention that matters more here, the underlying desire to do no harm. That’s what is really important in the grand scheme of things.
The Card of Peace
You have two options: you can either blindly follow along with the masses or you can dare to explore and look inside yourself for the answers you seek, to go beyond the obvious. Our culture teaches us to use our heads, while nature says to trust our intuition. So which one are we supposed to be listening to exactly? The Two of Swords is our guide from September 23 to October 2, and this tarot card is telling us that “intellectual manifestation…abides above the onslaught of destruction” (Book of Thoth). This is our friendly reminder that many of life’s decisions are awfully difficult to make, and there is rarely ever a black and white answer to any of it. We make our decisions with the best of intentions, aware of the outcomes that may prevail.
I have often found myself to be at an impasse, unable to make any decision, a stalemate within myself. I am caught between wanting to do “the right thing” and wanting to be true to myself. I can sit here and logic my way out of something, but that tends to lead me into rumination instead of resolution. And I often confuse my intuition with my anxiety, but all those butterflies could also be the result of my IBS acting up again. It’s putting the head and the heart on the same playing field that I can find the gift of space and presence. In true Libra fashion, it’s a balance of these two realms. Balance doesn’t always mean equal; sometimes it’s about what is needed in the moment.
Life presents you with so many decisions. A lot of times, they’re right in front of your face and they’re really difficult, but we must make them.
Brittany Murphy
According to Ayurveda, your third eye chakra is essentially your sixth sense, your intuition as we like to call it these days. When we can find a balance between the land and the water, our dreams and our realities, are we able to tap into these higher instincts. It can help us to come back home to ourselves, even when it becomes challenging to do so. ‘I only need to do what is right for me’ is the motto for the Two of Swords. With that comes the need to establish some unfuckwithable boundaries, those sacred lines of protection around our physical bodies. Honor the emotions that can come up, while simultaneously acting in accordance to the wishes of the Higher Self.
The Card of Sorrow
The thing that people don’t tell you when you begin to set boundaries is that establishing them is the easy part. Maintaining them is a whole other story, mainly because all the people around you are going to test every last measure of restraint you have. They will then fall into one of two categories: those who want to remain in your life and honor this new space you have created for yourself and those who were only there to take advantage of your kindness anyway. It will come all too apparent as to who your true friends and family are, and who you can tell to fuck right off. There will be grief and there will be heartache as we discern between the two. Be with what is painful, and drop into the heart to fully honor the wounding that is there. It won’t last forever.
Three of Swords, our guide from October 3 to October 12, “it is so to speak, the womb of chaos. There is an intense lurking passion to create” (Book of Thoth). This card is all about the heart space, but it’s not necessarily about the piercing of said heart. It’s the self-care that is really important here. We will have sorrow in our lives. It’s the price we pay for loving, for living on this earthly plane. The first sword is that unexpected trigger, the sucker punch to the gut that we weren’t ready for. It can sometimes be that second sword that makes the pain all that more difficult for us to surmount. We get hurt and then we shame ourselves for letting it happen or blame ourselves for not getting over it quickly enough. The world abandons and betrays by turning its back on the destruction of beauty and the rending of a fragile emotional state.
Don’t let your heart become a murderer’s pit.
Through faith, self-love, forgiveness, and time we humans can conquer a vast majority of life’s obstacles. Wounds can heal if they are treated properly, and sometimes that does require professional intervention. There is no shame in that. Other times it merely requires a pause to stop the cycling of that emotional drama our minds like to invent. Our thoughts can and do have a tendency to create feelings, and that’s the time when we can respond by gently coming home to the heart, wounding and all. We can then begin to grow with the love that is already there.
The Card of Truce
There are times when we need to establish boundaries with other people, and times when we must set them with ourselves. There are days when we just need a break from our lives, a mental health day if you will. The Four of Swords, our guide from October 13 to October 22, “represents a refuge from mental chaos” (Book of Thoth). This tarot card is literally telling your brain to shut the fuck up. We know that the brain is only trying to keep us safe, as that is its job. But now is the time to relax, so that we can focus on the actual issue at hand. Besides if you don’t choose to rest, the Universe might make that decision for you in a not so very nice way.
The times that I have found myself laid up in a forced rest, it was because I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t honoring the signs that I can see so clearly were there the whole time. I was too caught up in the doing of it all that I missed out on the being part. I was in essence sleepwalking through this life. Well, no more. Through therapy, meditation, journaling, and a shit ton of self-work I have been able to detangle myself a bit. People really love to push their energy onto others. I am now better able to discern what belongs to me and what truly wasn’t mine to begin with. The key is to remember that sometimes we must take a step back in order to gain some perspective.
Most of the things we need to be most fully alive never comes in busyness. They grow in rest.
Mark Buchanan
Rest is difficult for me, as my worth still gets caught up in my productivity. I am, after all, still a work in progress. The Four of Swords invites us into this place of contemplation, this place of recuperation, and yet it is never an act of passivity. This gives us the opportunity to draw from our reserves, the place where our inner strength lies. We have more than we often give ourselves credit for. Before we can expand into these new, evolved versions of ourselves, there will be a contraction. Rest, dear heart. Don’t quit. For there is something much greater out there, just beyond the horizon.
Mad love, Jenna
deck credit: Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, drawn in 1909 by Pamela Colman Smith under direction of Arthur Edward Waite, Motherpeace Tarot Deck by Karen Vogel & Vicki Noble, Shadowscapes Tarot drawn by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law
