Burning Bright

My friends! We have a positively zesty reading for this week! I often feel like the Charlie Day conspiracy theory meme when I try to explain the connections between our weekly and monthly forecasts, but I do it anyways. I just can’t help it! The tarot connections are fascinating!

Interesting and, I believe, helpful. You see, this week we have our theme card for the past month - the King of Wands - in the central position for the first week of the new month. I love this carryover. It’s as if we’ve spent the past month holding up the King of Wands like an action figure, playing with their energy and practicing enacting it in our lives. It’s felt engaging, helpful, but also somewhat playful and clunky. Like it’s not quite us yet.

This week, however, the King of Wands is showing up front and center. Perhaps we’ve achieved some breakthrough with our willpower, ambition, and creative energy. Where have you found a place for this side of yourself? How have you been incorporating it into the everyday? And, most excitingly, where is it now showing up naturally and with minimal effort?

Beyond this delightful sign of integration, the King of Wands also casts a fiery glow on the whole week, inviting us to take the opportunities for movement, growth, and visibility it offers. We might also simply be feeling good. Having spent the month of May practicing, warming up our muscles, we’re now primed and ready to go. Use this week to get things done, leap into the fray, and advance your goals.

I’m going to back up now and mention another tarot connection, a moment of cross-pollination from another reading. Our first card, the Nine of Cups, starts us off this week feeling connected to our emotional resources. It’s looking lush and abundant over there! Think of and uplift all the sources of connection that feed your heart. Celebrate the work you do to care for them and the work that others do to support you. I’m using the word work here intentionally because we often devalue our emotional exchanges, ignoring the very real time and effort it takes to keep them alive: the phone calls, acts of care, supportive conversations, and time spent together.

This week, our connections are fueling and supporting our outward ambitions. I like this recipe as it gives meaning and even safety to an otherwise very fiery situation! Think of the Nine of Cups like an array of water bottles (yes, this is a somewhat heinous analogy, but I’m going with it) waiting on the sidelines as you engage in a strenuous and exciting challenge. Our two other cards are the potent and experienced King and Queen of Wands, so while the potential for danger is low, we’re still playing with fire. Hydration will be key and, just in case we need it, we also have plenty of water to put out any fires that burn out of control. Keep your friends, allies, and loved ones close, engage them with your plans and maneuvers, and enjoy the success that comes from acting from an integrated and expansive mindset grounded in real feedback.

Okay, so I promised another Charlie Day tarot connection and here it is: The Nine of Cups is like The Empress brought down into the Minor Arcana. You might remember that we had The Empress in last week’s reading. Think back to how you worked with this energy and practiced its message in everyday life. How did you bolster yourself with love and enjoyment? How did you care for your realm and cultivate pride in your powers and values?

Having the Nine of Cups at the beginning of our reading shows how we’ve translated this powerful, otherworldly archetype into human terms. This is a huge accomplishment! Again, since the cups are often denigrated in our society - tender love, carework, parenting, domesticity, nature, spirituality - we might have to do some extra work to brush them off and put them in their rightful place of honor.

Where have you showed up for yourself? Your home? Your community? Your loved ones? How has it made you feel more connected with yourself? More powerful and aligned? We don't have to do much here but just notice, appreciate, and continue along the same path.

So, about this path… it’s rather spectacular. We have both the King and Queen of Wands in play this week. The fiery power couple of tarot. Again, integration is a huge theme this week! In this case, we’re on our way to integrating our kingly aspects - outward-facing action, motivating authority, and irrepressible charisma - with our queenly ones - creative innovation, impressive flexibility, and a direct relationship with our own inspiration and potential.

What can we do with this alliance? Well, anything. These two fiery rulers cast a warm glow across the entire week, so we can use their energy to do whatever we want so long as its aligned with our values.

Things move quickly with wands, to-do lists get checked off quickly, and our messages are heard loud and clear. Lean into this, don’t overthink it, and enjoy feeling effective, alive, and bursting with creativity. If things careen towards a conflagration, however, just remember that you have the Nine of Cups on the sidelines ready to quench any wildness with measured opinions from loved ones or a moment to step back and enjoy the beauty you’ve been cultivating in your everyday life.

Zooming out, we can see that there’s also a gentle comedown, as we move out of the realm of the King and into that of the Queen. The rapid-fire action of the past week and a half starts to slow as we approach the weekend; perhaps we’ve laid the groundwork for a project or change and now that it’s set, accomplished in a burst of action, we can calm down a bit. The Queen of Wands is a little more settled than the King, still vibrant and powerful, but ready to relax enough to enjoy the work and continue tending to it.

Since wands are the element of fire, it’ll be important to stay aligned with the traits that make the King and Queen masters of their suit. Dealing with themes of action, energy, and movement, these cards show the importance of pacing yourself, adding fuel at regular intervals, and delegating tasks like a pro. These cards excel because they don’t do it all (just look at the Ten of Wands for a cautionary tale!) and this week we’ll be wise to follow suit.