The TAROT FOR ARTISTS project began in the spring of 2021. This is number 68 in a series of 78.
QUICK HITS
Fully Fractured Attention / Burnout / Misdirected Energy / Too Many Passion Projects / An Excess of Duende / Torch Song Performance that Torches Your Voice / Ten Pots Bubbling on the Stove / Out of Control Fire Energy / An Unsustainable State of Frenzy / The Numbness of Overstimulation / Unconscious Addiction to the Endless Grind / The Belief that Chaos Is the Closest Approximation of Freedom Available / Refusal to Surrender Control / A Resistance to Finishing / Perpetual Overwhelm that Blocks Your View / The Feeling That You Can’t See What’s in Front of You / The Feeling That No One Sees You / An Inability to Maintain Eye Contact with the One Who Loves You / An Intense Burden That Must Be Shifted /
An Image
A hunched figure carries an unmanageable bundle that blocks their ability to see or be seen.
STORY
“I’m too busy to write this newsletter” is the first sentence I wrote in response to the TEN OF WANDS. “Too busy” is a classic TEN OF WANDS mantra.
I wrote that first sentence months ago, on a Saturday in early June, the same day my son and I walked in a parade with his hockey team. I don’t like parades and I don’t like street fairs, and this was a parade marching through a street fair. Mike was away and I wanted to be a sport. Kids love parades, kids love street fairs; suck it up and smile, I told myself. Make it fun.
e’d spent several hot hours stuck behind a float that blasted a looping fragment of music designed to insist itself upon a new audience every few minutes. Overheated and under-caffeinated, I would have described the soundtrack as “frenetic concertina, belligerent bass drum.” Coffee, I’d thought, would help, and yet I ended up buying an awkwardly large tropical fruit with a straw stuffed into it that cost as much as three or four fancy coffees. My son stayed at the street fair with his friend and I walked home stressed about my to-do list. TEN OF WANDS had been on that list for more than a month even then. I wrote my first sentence and then noticed a typo. I had accidentally written ‘I’m too bust to write this newsletter’ instead of ‘I’m too busy. to write this newsletter.’ Womp-womp.
TEN OF WANDS is the story I tell myself when I say there isn’t enough time to do what I say I want to do. TEN OF WANDS is me chasing a million ideas all at once and yet not meaningfully moving forward on any individual project. TEN OF WANDS is also me pausing a project just as it begins to find its momentum because what about these other very worthy projects that need my attention? TEN OF WANDS is spending three or four months trying to write about TEN OF WANDS. Sometimes TEN OF WANDS takes the form of procrastination and avoidance, the maddening resistance to practicing the task you most long to master. Sometimes TEN OF WANDS takes the form of an anxious perfectionism, spending untold hours on an introductory paragraph.
TEN OF WANDS is a common modern experience. It’s that sensation that if you could just get over this hump… this next stretch of time… this last series of clustered-together obligations… It’s possible to spend decades in this state. (Please don’t.) One of the biggest challenges of the TEN OF WANDS is to recognize that if you’re exhausted because you’re running in place, then nothing terrible will happen if you stop to regroup. The truth is, nothing will change unless you stop to regroup. You can’t even see the vague cloud of cosmic dust you’ve been chasing. You don’t even remember exactly why you’re after it. You’re overheated. It’s ok. Surrender to the conditions of what you can’t control. Take a nap on the cold ground. Go for a long swim in deep water. You are allowed to protect your energy.
QUESTIONS
Does your life feel unmanageable? What does the state of unmanageability protect you from? What would acceptance look like? Why has your desire splintered? What are you chasing? What is chasing you?
ACTIONS
Rest. Get sexy with time. Submit to its restrictions. Prioritize the activities that give you energy. Clear the space in front of you. Embrace efficiency wherever possible. Learn to trust the simplest solutions. Practice the advanced martial art of not worrying about what you can’t control.
THE READING: THE NUMBERS GAME
This is the 68th card in the series and 68 reduces to five (6 + 8 = 14 = 1 + 5). As I was reviewing this today, I couldn’t help thinking that the TEN OF WANDS is like a double-dose of the FIVE. Fives are a state of uncomfortable change. Five introduces the crisis that inspires transformation.
A note on this newsletter and the phrase “GOING PAID!”
In the spirit of sustainability, I’ll be restructuring this newsletter over the coming months. I’ve turned on the “paid” feature, though I won’t slide anything behind a paywall until I’ve settled into a comfortable schedule here. For those who are able to “upgrade to paid” at this stage, please know that you’re contributing to the process of me hiving off more space from other paid work to focus on finishing the Tarot Series and developing this space in other ways and that I’m very grateful for that support. I’ve thrown up some incentives as well.
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LOVE THIS
interesting it came into my orbit in between eclipses
🪄✨🌹
Wow, I never realized how TEN OF WANDS I am. Coincidentally, this post arrived on the day I finally made actual progress on a project I first had the idea for SEVEN YEARS AGO and have been actively planning for three. Now, to keep it going...