Adventure, Uplift, and Celebrating Your Strength

Hello, dear readers. I’m so happy to bring us a jovial group of cards after last week’s doozy of a reading. How have you all survived the Three of Swords and Five of Pentacles? The intensity of Judgment? Well, thankfully the clouds have parted to reveal something much more lighthearted this week, and we start it all off with the jocular Two of Pentacles.

The first word that comes to mind with this card is “experimentation.” This is a week to put down the big feelings and the effortful presence they required. We’re being asked to shake things off, much like a charming and canny dog after some rough play, and do a little dance. What is it you want to explore? How can you inject a sense of wonder and adventure into your daily life?

We’re dealing with the suit of pentacles here, so there’s blessings behind all our efforts to make little tweaks to our schedules here and there. Book a spontaneous trip, try a new grocery store, take a walk and explore the alleyways of a new neighborhood. Bite-sized adventures could have a surprising impact.

If we were to attach this reading to last week’s, the two figures struggling through the snow in the Five of Pentacles would look up and find themselves on the charming beach in the Two of Pentacles. I like this and it might take a while to adjust to the new situation this week is bringing us. There’s also the possibility that we’ve shed some pentacles-related burdens and that our newly lightened load is inspiring us to move more freely. Trust that you’ve made it through and that the ease you’re experiencing now is the result of (very real) hard work.

What did you give up last week regarding your sense of worth, your relationship to your material resources, and your vision for your future? Take a moment to celebrate this! Judgment appeared in our last reading blasting their trumpet (vigorously? … obnoxiously?) and causing a reckoning of sorts in our relationship to and experience of suffering. Let yourself a) relax into the new and less stressful landscape and b) commend yourself for whatever work you did to push forward.

I can’t think of two more affirming and fun cards to greet us on the other side of Judgment. Let life be easy by enjoying the low-stakes fun of the Two of Pentacles and see if you can touch base with your friends, family, and trusted allies for some good old fashioned merriment. The Three of Cups raises a toast in the middle of the week, an echo of the Three of Swords from our last reading. Who has been supporting you through recent challenges? Who just gets it? Spend time feeding the connections that uplift you and toast to your resilience, bravery, and achievements.

Both of these cards are early in their suit’s sequence, so remember that not everything has to be a serious endeavor with a consequential goal. Play, joy, and the details of daily life are shining brightly this week. And they may also be showing us how the reward for pushing through challenging situations is a beautiful life, well lived.

Our final card, Strength, supports this, casting its glow on the playful and loving energy of the rest of our reading. Savvy readers may recognize this as the card for 2024, and its presence here (on the week of the summer solstice, no less!) invites us to mark the halfway point of the year and gaze back with loving appreciation at all the hard work we’ve done so far.

Strength represents the hard work we do to get to know ourselves - both our idealized, virtuous selves and our feral, wild nature. What have you done so far to bring these two facets into a respectful, even loving, relationship? What have you learned about who you truly are? The lightness of our other two cards also invites a bit of fun as a reward for this hard work. Lighten your load as much as possible and uplift the enduring, important, and sometimes enervating work you’ve been doing to better understand yourself, your place in the world, and what makes life meaningful.