Is it urgent? Or are you creating the urgency?
This week, The Hanged Man and The Four of Pentacles remind us that nothing is more urgent than your body's needs.
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This week’s seed 🌱: There is nothing more urgent than the needs of your body
The compost 🪱: Four of Pentacles + The Hanged Man
Hello, dear readers. I apologize for being a little inconsistent with these missives this month, but we’re here today with some juicy—and potentially frustrating (sry!)—food for thought.
A couple weeks ago, my family and I looked at an income-restricted apartment to move into. We started the application process right away, but, as is expected during a Mercury retrograde, there was miscommunication: We were sent the wrong application initially, had to do the actual one which took us days to finalize, their office was closed when we finally finished, and our agent responsible for seeing if we qualify for this apartment was out of office the following week. ALL of this just for a “yes” or “no”. We still haven’t heard back. It’s been two weeks.
This process is one of many reasons I feel like, lately, life is doing this awkward dance between reigning chaos and urgency, and yet not allowing anything to move forward. Teasing opportunity, but withholding clarity. I wonder if you have felt any of this energy, too. For me, it’s been incredibly frustrating.
Because so much of my life feels like one big question mark, I try to find the little hints the universe sends my way so that I’m not consumed by cynicism. I found one such hint on someone’s Instagram story: A quote from a Haruki Murakami book they were reading:
“The point is, not to resist the flow. You go up when you're supposed to go up and down when you're supposed to go down. When you're supposed to go up, find the highest tower and climb to the top. When you're supposed to go down, find the deepest well and go down to the bottom. When there's no flow, stay still. If you resist the flow, everything dries up. If everything dries up, the world is darkness.” From The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
This message felt reified when I pulled our cards for the week: The Hanged Man and The Four of Pentacles.
The Hanged Man making an appearance doesn’t surprise me at all. His energy is very much that of a cocoon. Something’s baking, but it’s not ready to come out of the oven yet. There are things happening all around us, but nothing is quite ready to come to fruition… yet. And while this is frustrating, especially if you’re on a tight timeline or if you’re just an impatient queen, it’s also comforting to know that whatever situation you’re in right now that kind of sucks will soon transform—hopefully for the better.
The Four of Pentacles builds on this message: Don’t rush it. Don’t create urgency. Don’t let yourself spiral (you know, if you can help it.) Don’t spend your energy this way, because it’s wasted. Instead, hold your ground and wait. Bring your energy back to you and watch. That’s it. Frustrating, I know!
The Four of Pentacles is also not a card about doing per se, but more of a restoring, recharging. This card asks us to focus our energy on staying grounded in our bodies, which, in this context, feels like it’s challenging us: When the chaos of the world swirls violently around us, can we stay grounded in our bodies? Can we remember to take care of our basic needs first?
Speaking of which: Are you thirsty? Are you hungry? Do you need to use the bathroom? Are you hot or cold?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, go take care of that and come back. I’ll wait. I’ll actually go drink some water, too.
This is very much what is being asked of us this week. The best thing we can do while we sit inside the unknown, waiting for the next thing to become clear or to arrive, is to take exquisite care of our bodies. It’s easy to forget to eat when you’re nine bank statements deep into a housing application that you just wanna finish. But what this current Mercury retrograde is teaching us is that there is nothing more urgent than the needs of the body. And this week, I want you to try to pay extra special attention to that. And also: Hold those boundaries. Say no when you need to, please.
The water 💧: A digital altar for the week ahead
The glass 🪞: Outer wisdom
Read: This article from The Atlantic: “How to Embrace Doing Nothing”. You already know why I’m asking you to read it so I’m not even going to explain.
Watch: The back of your eyelids while you take a rest. Go, now.
Listen: TO YOUR BODY!!!
The sunshine ☀️: Some levity
Thanks for reading 🪴 See you here next Sunday!
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