Welcome to the Greenhouse š± where we plant seeds for the week ahead with a tarot reading, a digital altar, and more! Consider this your digital quiet place to exhale, read, and nourish your busy lil brain to ground you for the upcoming week. Maybe weāll bask in the sun a little, too (wearing SPF, of course!) So if you havenāt already, please consider upgrading your subscription!
This weekās seed š±: Your resilience exists because you are wondrously imperfect
The compost šŖ±: The Nine of Wands
For my 27th birthday, I took my first solo trip. Iād had a terrible year (including breaking my back) and wanted to do something nice for myself. I chose to go to Palm Springs because it was familiar, I felt comfortable enough getting around by myself, and it was relatively inexpensive to fly there.
At the start of my trip, it felt like nearly everything that could go wrong did indeed go wrong. I had multiple issues getting a rental car, which I needed to get to my Airbnb an hour into the desert. My phone died on my way there so I had no directions for half of the drive in. I could barely see anything on the road because it was so dark and my contacts were outdated. I was starving, stinky, and panicked.
Eventually, after some tears and anxiety sweats, I made it to my Airbnb. I remember getting out of the car and hearing complete silence. It made me realize how busy my head had been that entire day. All I could hear inside my brain was a cacophonic traffic jam of anxiety, scrambling, and self-doubt. I hadnāt even noticed how loud it all was until contrasted with the resolute silence of the desert.
Once I settled in and took some deep breaths, thankful that the antics were over with for the evening, I sat outside with my tarot deck under the full moon and cried.
For a few years now, Iāve felt an affinity toward the desert. My partner raises his eyebrow at this, preferring the wet, misty greenery of the PNW to the harsh, unforgivable sand kingdom. But the desert has called to me many times, and on this trip, I realized why.
After a year of feeling broken down, battered, and bereftāand trudging forward like everything was fineāI finally cracked.
The desert does not accept the costumes and masks we don to hide and protect and lie to ourselves; it will strip us down until we are bare, exposed with nothing but our rawest selves to offer. The desert does not care about who we think we are or who we pretend to be or even strive to be. It forces us into the truth of who we actually are, illuminating the shadows we avoid and the light we fear to step into. In its fortress of sand and silence, it demands that we connect with the truth of our resiliency. Much like the Nine of Wands.
Our card for the week very much feels like a continuation of the story weāve been in the last couple of weeks. Beaten and battered from battle, the Nine of Wands offers you a moment of pause, of stillness, of intense silence. It asks you to take inventory: Where are you hurt? Where are you aching, longing? Where are you defeated? Where have you triumphed? What are you carrying that you no longer need?
The Nine of Wands is a call to gather your energy back to you. If youāve been porous with your boundaries (with others or with yourself) or something has been siphoning your energy, now is the time to call it back. Replenish that which you have lost, shed that which does not energize you. Think of the desert: You can only take what you need, but what you need, you really need.
This week, I want you to find moments of stillness to check in with your physical, emotional, and energetic bodies. Treat yourself like a patient and offer yourself the care and attention you require. I want you to celebrate that you have made it through chaos and sandstorms, and you are still here. You have been stripped down, tested, and broken open. And you are still here. Heed the desertās reminder: You are resilient because of all that you are, shadows and light. You have nothing to hide.
So go forth and drink some damn water! Put your SPF on in the morning like you are performing a ritual. Say ānoā to whatās not right for you like youāre saying a prayer. Come home to your body in all of its beauty and flaw. Open your arms as wide as you can and call your energy back to you; ask it to be as resolute as the silence of the desert, only tolerating the real, the raw, and the true.
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