This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Four of Swords

Well, hello there. This is me crawling out from under the worst migraine headache I've had in almost three decades. It was so bad I was convinced my skull was going to crack and shatter and shards of bright pain-light would escape. There was nausea, agony, weeping incomprehensibility. I couldn't make words. My world was a double-visioned, ever-tightening vise of pain.

So I didn't draw any tarot cards. I didn't do anything but crawl under blankets in a mercifully dark and cold room and let painkillers and ice do their healing work. And now I am back among the living. But I have gotten so very little work done. This always makes me uncomfortable, to be starting with a backlog, already behind schedule for the week.

And so—as I sometimes do—I pulled a card deliberately this week instead of drawing one randomly. This week is definitely a Four of Swords week.

Here is what I had to say about it last time it appeared:

That's the advice from the Four of Swords, another one of those cards where the nature of the suit—in this case the active masculine properties of the Swords—is at odds with the number of the card. Fours are about stability and foundations—think squares—and as such, like to arrange all the ducks in a row.
Easy to do when the ducks are dead. But ah, there are depths to this particular dying, which of course isn't about physical death at all. There is tension in this card between action and passivity, and it is best resolved by remembering how the tarot looks at death.

And how does the tarot look at death? As transformation. Which means that this card isn't about being dead as much as it's about feeling dead, and sitting with that discomfort long enough to realize that, hey, you actually aren't dead, perhaps you're just being very very still, which can feel the same way.

When I look back at this migraine, I brought it upon myself. I pushed beyond my normal limits, which normally wouldn't have been a bad thing, but which, when coupled with events out of my control—a series of thunderstorms, especially—turned into a small horror.

The Four of Swords asks us to recuperate. It requests that we lie in effigy for a while. This may feel like wasted time, worthless seconds ticking by and nothing getting done. My Virgo soul is recoiling at the thought, even now. But as much as I like to check items off a to-do list, today I have to spend some time out of the world and in my body. My slightly-broken but rapidly healing body.

And so I will.

This week, you might be inclined to push past barriers, through limits, beyond obstacles. Which is all very well and good. But make time to retreat as well—into yourself, into a moment, into silence and solitude. Be passive and receptive, but protected and secluded as well. It may feel like death, like the walls of a coffin around you as the world pays brief respects and then moves on with its bright agenda.

But it's not death; it's simply stillness. Welcome it for a little while this week. Tomorrow and tomorrow will welcome you back to the stage. Today...rest. It will be good for your soul, I promise.

This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Four of Swords

It's been that kind of week here. One thing after another, deadline upon deadline, tedious detail work and odious clean-up work and work that's just...ugh. A week like this one puts paid to the old adage that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. You might not have kicked the bucket, but you certainly don't feel stronger.

The tarot has a suggestion: play dead.

That's the advice from the Four of Swords, another one of those cards where the nature of the suit—in this case the active masculine properties of the Swords—is at odds with the number of the card. Fours are about stability and foundations—think squares—and as such, like to arrange all the ducks in a row.

Easy to do when the ducks are dead. But ah, there are depths to this particular dying, which of course isn't about physical death at all. There is tension in this card between action and passivity, and it is best resolved by remembering how the tarot looks at death (which you can read more about here).

The Four of Swords is about death, certainly. The swords it depicts are no longer put to martial use. They are now symbolic reminders, much like the effigy of the deceased on the tomb. In the tarot, death is always transitional. It is always active, even if it looks as still as...well, you know.

For busy folk, being still can feel like death. The Four of Swords understands. And yet, it asks us to be still anyway, to move through the discomfort, and to find ourselves whole and healed on the other side of our stillness. Creative work often feels like a 24/7 gig, and it often is. Even worse, it often comes with a terrible taskmaster of a boss, one who insists on squeezing the productivity out of every second.

Ignore that bossy boss this week, says the tarot. If you can take a nice long break, take it. But even if you can't, you can make time to sit with stillness. Breathe around the sharp discomfort. Unyoke yourself from the oxen of duty. 

Rest. Sleep. Perchance to dream. Who knows what dreams may come?

This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Four of Cups

It happens to the best of us. That sense of...not exactly boredom. Ennui perhaps. A jittery anxious nothing of an emotion that manages to feel both heavy and ungrounded at the same time. Quite the trick, that.

But such paradoxes are the heart of the Four of Cups (which visited us before here, almost exactly a year ago). To understand it, you need to develop what Keats called the negative capability—the ability to be in uncertainty, mystery, and doubt without any irritable reaching after fact and reason.

The tension comes from the pairing of a Four, a number associated with stability, with the suit of Cups, the suit of flux and emotion. So yes. Tension. Writers and other creative folk are familiar with this feeling, which strangely enough comes most often after some kind of success, especially a long-running one.

The key to resolving that tension is to first of all acknowledge it. That can be harder that you think, as our gentleman on the card illustrates. He knows something is off. He's puzzled why he's feeling so disenchanted—he's got three shiny golden chalices, after all. He's so consumed in his confusion that he can't even acknowledge the cup coming straight from the freaking Hand of the Universe. That is a Cup of Destiny, right there. And he can't see it.

This week, you may be feeling a touch of divine discontent, which is like regular discontent, except deeper and more tied to destiny and existential purpose and a whole lot of other Big Things. Fortunately, divine discontent comes with its own solution.

First, sit with the discomfort. Be itchy and restless. Fold your arms and whine if you need to. Second, look hard for the glimmer of gold. It will be close to you, perhaps as the memory of an achievement or a literal reward of some kind. Be grateful for that glimmer. It is a real accomplishment. Give thanks for it...and then look away.

Because the third step is the hardest. Unfold your arms. Let go of plans and worries and efforts. Sit for a moment exactly as you are, in present time and space. Let your mind wander. Ponder. Dream. Make way for the potential to come.

You'll feel the spark when it does. You'll know. And all you have to do at that point is wrap your hand around it.

 

This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Four of Wands

We're having quite the all-suit summer—last week was the Five of Cups, the week before the Three of Pentacles. I'm betting the Swords will make themselves known next week. But for now we have an emissary from the suit of Wands, the suit of energy and passion, and what a welcome image this four presents.

We have been visited by this gracious card recently (you can read about that here) but in light of what has gone before, the card has a different flavor this week. The Wands are the suit of creativity, yes, representing the element of fire in all its sparky, jazzy, hot lick glory. Wands do tend to run wild, though, except in this card—the Four tempers all this fiery goodness into a slow, steady burn. Fours contain, which may seem anathema to an energy as vibrant and vital and free as fire, but in some cases, this tension between running free and staying put is a useful one. Think campfire versus forest fire.

Fours can also represent culmination, but I'm not getting that feel this week, at least not in an end-result kind of way. Chances are good, though, that you will be finishing an important stage in a larger project (think of the detail work of the Three of Pentacles) and fully moving through some emotional challenges and discovering some latent good in a situation that seemed very all-is-lost  (think of the spilled chalices in the Five of Cups, and the upright cups still remaining to be tasted— thanks to The Daily Compost for that insight!).

The Four of Wands is a moment of celebration. It exists only because we choose its existence, because we honor and hollow a moment of gratitude. This week, string up what garlands as ye may and raise a cheer. You have good work behind you and good work before, and that is truly a blessing.

This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Four of Wands

There's a saying about laurels—you shouldn't rest on them. They make a comfy nest spot, tis true, but comfort can lead to laziness. And laziness leads to more laziness and soon you're in a laziness spiral.

However...there's no reason you can't hoist your laurels high and dance under them for a while. Which is exactly what the Four of Wands suggests you do.

The Wands are the suit of passion and creativity, the element of fire and all the sparking and igniting and kindling and blazing that accompanies it. Writers recognize this feeling as being "in the zone" of a creative project, the feverish, timeless burn as the words flow and entire universes of potential shimmer into being.

The Fours, however, are the stop signs of the universe. They straighten the edges. They capture all that energy and hold it, however temporarily, in one spot. You might think this kind of clash would result in tension, but the Four of Wands manages a yin/yang balance—fiery but contained, if only for a short time.

This week, let the Four of Wands remind you to celebrate all that your work has wrought. Instead of looking ahead to deadlines and tallying up word counts, take time to rejoice and honor this present moment of accomplishment. For me, this means having a beer on the beach with friends and celebrating the publication of my fifth book (woo-hoo!) even as the deadline for the sixth approaches.

For you? Well, I'm not the one to answer that, am I? But I'll look for you under a beribboned canopy somewhere, and we can hoist our glasses to each other. At some future point, we can get back to work. But for now? OPA!

This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Four of Swords

Rest and recuperation are the key concepts of this card. And I'm taking them seriously, since I am suffering from a bout of what my mother always called The Crud.

I hope you'll find a space this week outside of busyness and your hamster-wheel schedule to heal the parts of yourself that need it. I always look at sickness as a reminder that if I don't take time out on my own accord, my body will time-out me in its own fashion. And that, friends, is never pleasant.

Back to bed I go, Vitamin C toddy in hand. Lesson learned. Until next week...

This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Four of Swords

Here's another card I picked myself, this one for the post-Bouchercon week -- The Four of Swords.

This is not cheating, of course. Sometimes it's good to let the Universe choose cards for you, especially in situations where you might be confused about the paths before you, the contributing factors behind you. Situations where you'd like to get a perspective beyond your own.

But sometimes you know what you need. And in those cases, the tarot is an excellent tool for reminding yourself of that.

This week, I'm reminding myself of the Four of Swords. Rest. Recuperation. Silence. A return to stability. Swords are about conflict and mental activity, but fours represent foundation. Think four corners. Think squares.

And think graves.The prayerful person in this image is an effigy atop a tomb. But don't be frightened. This isn't a card about death, not exactly. But for busy people, taking time away from the busy-ness can feel like death. The stillness can feel like an end. It is necessary, however. It is required. It is part of the cycle.

So for this week, the Four of Swords. The stillness of marble. The silence of statues. The fine and private place that in the tarot, and in life, serves as the cradle of rebirth. May it be yours this week, and may you emerge refreshed and renewed back into the wild rush of life.

This Week's Writerly Tarot: The Four of Cups

You know the routine. And that's the problem.

The Four of Cups describes a situation that is somehow both stable and crawling with tension. That's what happens when you take the number four, which is associated with structure and regularity  (think squares) and combine it with the active flowing nature of the Cups (think fountains and geysers and other gushy things). A mismatch in energies, like when a Virgo and Aries try to go on a date.

Often called the card of Divine Discontent, the Four of Cups represents those times when there's nothing wrong exactly -- no blood, no fire, no drama -- but a sludgy gray ennui holds you down nonetheless. You may try to procrastinate your way out of this feeling. But unlike the time wasting that happens when we're trying to avoid hard work, this kind of wasting happens when we've stopped setting ourselves to deep, satisfying work.

Straightening your desk won't help. Neither will checking your e-mail, or emptying the paper shredder. This is a soul problem, my friend, and it needs a soul solution.

It would be very helpful if the Universe provided such a solution as obviously as it does in this image. Look! A golden chalice filled with meaning and purpose! Take it, you fool! Drink and find your true destiny!

Alas.

I've never had the clouds part and a literal arm come out holding literally anything. Thank goodness, I suppose -- that would send me right off. But lacking such direction, what are we the divinely discontented to do?

First of all, this kind of situation has Cups written all over it. The suit of emotion and feeling, it emotes and feels. The Four tries to contain that feeling, which leads to stagnation, so to break the cycle, we have to spill something. Get a little messy. Let the jostling liquid parts of you slop over the edges.

How to properly greet your Muse
 (art by Thalia Took)

Forget your routine, just for a minute. Yes, I know, all the how-to-be-a-writer books tell you to make an appointment and the Muse will show. But the Four of Cups indicates that your Muse may be tired of being summoned to your desk every morning at nine, as if she were some kind of cosmic personal assistant. As if she didn't have better things to do. Maybe she needs a little courting, a little surprise, a little shiny newness? Maybe she needs an enthusiastic welcome (see the image at left). And maybe, when she does come, she'd like to be asked what she'd like to do for a change.

Last week's card was the call of rebirth -- this week's card suggests you're avoiding answering that call until a more appropriate time, when you've finished whatever it is you've been so diligently persevering at. Like the taxes.

Stop that this instant. There is a freaking chalice of purpose and destiny hovering in your vicinity. Maybe it's within your reach. Maybe it's not. Reach for it anyway. It's the reaching that matters this week.

So what are you waiting for? Reach.