Tarot from Conscience (or the Traveling Moth)
A space for tarot reflection for the day, week, or moment it comes across your screen. Each of these is reworked intentionally for The Edge, from the egregore of GroupTarot’s Card of the Week, to center education, diversity, and intuition.
Partial content copyright 2021 GroupTarot, week of February 14, 2021. Used with permission.
Blessed almost New Moon! If you have yet to join a New Moon Group Tarot event, I hope you will! This week’s is a bit early for those of us on Turtle Island, 6:05am for those of you in Central time. The Zoom room opens 30 min beforehand for folk to settle in and get ready, catch up with friends, familiarize yourself with the technology. Promptly at 6:05 am Central, the room locks and the reading begins, so do arrive early. Register here
All NMGT’s are live captioned for Deaf/HOH.
All NMGT’s are donation based through PayPal or Venmo with 50% going to different b.e.s.t. organizations – ones working to build a beautiful, equitable, sustainable world in a timely fashion. This month is Arab American Action Network
Their Executive Director and I met in the streets of Chicago protesting after 9-11, before the war in Afghanistan started and have stayed friends since. Protesting the Patriot Act, racial profiling, the disappearing of individuals, the increased militarization of police forces. I remember facing down some of the first robocops in Chicago, on the front line, arms linked with Jesse Jackson. They have been strengthening the Arab community in the Chicago area by building its capacity to be an active agent for positive social change for years.
But onto our Card of the Week from a deck I have yet to introduce y’all to, The Portland Tarot by Theresa Pridemore (full disclaimer, she’s also the web designer for grouptarot.com and I unabashedly ADORE her work. This is not any type of paid sponsorship, just my genuine love.)
The Vista Bridge
Things are likely to be harder before they get easier.
And still, you’re doing the work! You’re trying, you’re feeling, you’re learning, you’re gathering experiences which will buoy you later.
When you’re feeling shitty, can you find a place of beauty to go to, take refuge in, even if it’s only for a few minutes?
One of my dear friends and former lovers once said to me that the strongest leaders show their pain, show their hurt, share their vulnerability. I didn’t really grok her at the time but was glad she wasn’t trying to hide the pain of loosing her brother from me or the world, and that I was able to be there for her.
I couldn’t just leave this week with such a difficult card. So I asked the same deck, “what can we do to get through these difficult hardships/challenges?”
The Fremont Bridge
Keep doing your work, or adding carrots to the scale as Daniel Stein used to say.
Keep an eye on your finances in a loving, know-abundance-wants-to-be-the-way-even-when-the-bank-account-is-low or overdrawn. Like the 6 of Cups, celebrate the small things, the small gifts, the small changes.
Reach out to your friends.
Share words of encouragement with your friends, family, community, strangers.
Make vacation or dream plans, even if they are for years in the future, or seem like HUGE pipe dreams. (I have one from undergrad of being part of the first theatre troupe in space. Never thought it had a chance of happening, but with commercial trips to space starting, maybe it will happen before I die at a strong age of 120ish).
Remember everything is temporary and the only constant is change. The Autumn weather is a constant reminder of this for me the places I have been!
Like the Wheel of Fortune, what goes up, must come down, and the cycles always continue spiraling round. When things suck, we remember that they’ll get better, when things are AMAZING we are grateful because we remember how wretched they have been, and round and round and round, sometimes having this cycle multiple times a day!
I also find it fascinating that two bridge cards were drawn at random.
These are additions to this Major Arcana deck, so quite the minority. Three out of 26 odds, then 2 out of 25 odds. I even did these pulls with my eyes closed to not be inadvertently drawn to the bridges because of their two sided illustrations. All cards in this deck are equally smooth on both sides.
AND STILL these were the cards that wanted to emerge. So there’s an invitation to be a bridge, build bridges, recognize that we are bridging worlds literally and metaphorically. Empire is crumbling. Lots of tender green shoots are growing up in its collapse.
And not all of them will survive.
Not all of them have survived. From the huge list of Black and brown and Asian and Arab lives killed by police without just cause to the millions killed by Covid, and everything in between. One of my friends said to me, we’ve build lots of other worlds, other economic systems over the years. Most of them haven’t survived because the umbilical cord of white supremacy was wrapped around the baby’s neck and killed it before it had a chance to grow and thrive.
As a white person in this world, part of my work is to make sure the umbilical cord of white supremacy is cut after the baby’s beautiful birth, and that new vision, new child, thrives.
Another way of thinking about things…
Redwood cones have 14-24 seeds. One tree can produce 6 million seeds in one year. Redwoods can live HUNDREDS to THOUSANDS of years.
That’s reaching BILLIONS of seeds in the lifetime of ONE Redwood.
Less than 5% of these seeds germinate and even fewer grow into seedlings.1
Will it potentially hurt when seeds don’t sprout, or fail to maturate, or die?
Yes.
Will life continue onwards and the majesty of the Redwood be all the more magnificent knowing the massive odds it survived?
Yes.
Is 5% of one billion still a HUGE amount of seeds making it in some capacity?
Yes.
50 million is an impressive number on its own in a way that 5% of one billion isn’t. Thank you for continuing to show up, do the work, and be a part of this global Redwood forest.
More about the deck’s creator – Theresa Pridemore https://www.sovereignspirit.biz/
To purchase this deck – from the source! My favorite. Directly support artist whenever you can. https://www.sovereignspirit.biz/products/the-portland-tarot-23-card-major-arcana-deck
Further recommended reading – Or watching in this case. AAAN was interviewed and it is excellent. Watch it on YouTube
1 http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/s2009/hemmeric_nata/reproduction.htm
By Kate Mura, Owner of Group Tarot and Creator of Conscience (or the Traveling Moth)
Find out more about Kate in her YouTube interview Welcome to Group Tarot with Kate Mura
Special Offer for The Edge Community
Use promo code “TheEdge” for 25% off Kate Mura’s readings and private coaching
Please Join Us
“I do find the New Moon Group Tarot event to be ever-so-wonderful. Your energy, as perceived by me, is suffused with warmth/friendship/vitality. Amazingly this energy is perceived even when channeled by Zoom.” David Browning, regular participant.
Every month with the exact New Moon, Kate facilitates a New Moon Group Tarot reading.
In addition to shared community and seeing how your individual path aligns with the group’s, every month donations received are shared 50/50 with different b.e.s.t.* organizations. You will be invited to donate through Venmo or PayPal at completion of the session. All events are Live Captioned for Deaf/HOH. Register here
*b.e.s.t. = beautiful. equitable. sustainable. timely.
