Three days ago I drew the Tower, the Six of Swords, and the Ace of Wands. I did rattle the foundations of a Christian propagandist who approached me on the street so I thought that may have been the Tower. I thought I was the flash of lightening that made her ask the questions she needed to about her faith before she tries to sell it to people.
But the next day I drew the Tower again. This time, the Rider on the white horse, Death, clopped along beside it. Clipty clop, clipty clop.
“What the fuck?” I exclaimed as my boyfriend smiled at my disapproving glare. “I don’t get it,” I continued. “I don’t feel like anything that reflects these cards is happening in my life right now …”
Then the apprehension set it. The last time I drew Death and The Tower together, I ended up in one of the biggest earthquakes in recorded history so of course, I felt a little concerned. I couldn’t help it.
But I brushed it off and went on with my day.
Cue major work drama. Cue almost getting fired. Cue almost quitting. Cue illumination into the reality of what my work situation really is and two days of nothing but time to think about it and deal with it. Mix that with a good shot of PMS and you can guess how I feel.
Pretty shitty and honestly, I’m pretty sad.
there, I said it. I feel sad. Saddness was a feeling I took out of my spectrum of emotions years ago because I was taught that feeling sadness is not OK. Sadness is “negative”.
“No one wants to be around a sad person.”
“Sad people don’t have any friends.”
And on and on I let the sadness sink deeper and deeper into me.
Until Sacred Circularities. All of a sudden, I was told “It’s OK to be sad, just don’t hold on to your sadness.” It was a safe place to allow myself to understand my sadness. I retreated periodically that week and really experienced my repressed sadness for what it was. I cried when I needed to and then went back to play. For the first time in years, I admitted that I was sad. I admitted that I’m lonely and that I need friends.
All of this festered like a blister rubbing against the heel of my shoe as I retraced the miles I traveled to get to Bali. When I got back to Louisville, I was so depressed that I slept for a week. I didn’t eat and I felt sick just being here. I find everything about this town repressing and revolting, except the nature. Despite the ugly people, there is beauty in nature here.
This week I was back on track but something was different. People said halfway through Sacred Circulatireits that I looked different. And I see it too. I think it’s because my emotions that I held inside are coming out finally. I let myself feel and then I let what I feel go. They’re like thunderstorms in the summer, popping up in the heat of the afternoon. Blowing in and blowing out, like the natural waves of things. They’re like those lanterns people release to burn up in the sky.
The walls I have built around me are tumbling down.
The Tower and Death have revealed their meaning.
So tonight I went for a drive through Cherokee Park and really let myself feel sadness. I chose the melancholy, spooky, dissent, very ahead of it’s time album, Adore (1998), by the Smashing Pumpkins for my soundtrack. It was beautiful feeling the sadness as I rolled through the foggy woods and coasted through puddles. The sky was occasionally punctuated with flashes of lightening and my inner goth from high school came out and found the beauty and bliss in extreme sorrow. When I came home, I parked the car and watched the stillness of the night. A rabbit hopped into the road and listened to the ambiance, oblivious to my presence. I felt the dark beauty of the night and the sorrow of the repressed Feminine Divine, the darkness in the hidden mysteries; the moon cloaked with a robe of flashing clouds. I’ve been searching for a mother for 30 years and tonight, in my sadness, she comforted me. She is the Crone. She is Hecate. She is Kali. She is Morgana.
There cannot be light without darkness, nor darkness without light.
I would just feel so much better if I could just cry whenever I needed to, wherever I needed to and then move along with my day.
Magdalena Tarot 