I am the dichotomy of two seemingly opposing ideas made flesh.
A queen of action,
fiery and creative,
associate of cats and their unabashed weirdness.
A hermit flying solo
And happy to be
cantankerous on a mountaintop
with all the
“don’t you know there’s a little old lady trying to get some sleep up here”
energy for days.

When I tell people I’m an introvert
they scoff
“but you’re so loud!”
as though decibel level denotes personality trait
as though vibrancy indicates peopling preference
as though the words gregarious and loner
have no business cohabitating at all,
much less contentedly.

As though there was never a method to my obstreperous madness.
As though all of the noise wasn’t a smoke screen
to keep hidden from those parts of self
I wasn’t ready to hear from.

A hermit seeks the solace of the proverbial mountaintop
to find the quiet space required for some real proper delving.
I’m sure there are ways to unravel the mystery in the midst of a maelstrom,
but then it just gets everywhere,
and the clean up takes forever.

And a queen of wands,
in some ways,
might define herself by work,
by purpose,
measure strength in units of productivity
in missions accomplished,
in projects and plans and pursuits.

Imagine if she allowed herself to take a breath
to step away from the hustle
to find stillness in the flow.

Imagine if she learned the difference between
sought out
and thought out,
learned patience with self
and discovered depth
as a result
of learning how to listen.

 

~~~~~

Today’s deck is the Black Violet Tarot by Heidi Phelps. It’s one of the most compassionate decks I’ve worked with. I really love how gentle it is. Often when I’m faced with a question that requires a bit more tact or patience, this is a good deck for that. I also like the pervasive femininity of the deck, and the art gives me joy.

The deck showed up for me not long after my mum died, and I read that the creation of it came about during a time when she lost her mum while becoming one herself. Losing one’s parents has the strange surreal quality of being cast out into the world as the representative of one’s lineage. It’s a tragically necessary way to level up. For me, this deck showed up at a time when I needed the compassion and tenderness I found within it.
As for the Hermit and the Queen of Wands, I’m not sure there are two cards I identify with more. When I was younger, I aspired to be like the High Priestess or the Empress, those impressive archetypes of womanhood. But I’ve come to realize that archetypes are aspects of character, not the completion of them. So I’m perfectly content to settle for embodying the qualities of a queen, with hermit-esque tendencies. Especially if it means I don’t have to wear pants.