Shifting into Strangeness

Okay, this is a strange, topsy-turvy reading, friends! The Moon exerts its gravitational pull on us this week, stirring up a bevy of emotions. We’re doing a complicated and time-honored dance between the mystery of this card and the bravery of The Sun from last week. Also holding the central position, that card showed us stepping into our true selves and acting from a place of joyful integrity. Now, what once felt certain and clear feels murky, even frightening. Our task this week will be to treat this shift with calm and curiosity, resisting the impulse to react, change courses, or rewrite our entire story in the face of The Moon.

I can’t help but notice that this reading is taking place not long after a new moon, a time when we’re asked to rest, release, and re-set, turning away from ambitious new projects and endeavors. The thing with The Sun from last week is that it’s effects are somewhat addictive; our culture prioritizes action, visibility, and breakthrough. The slower, stranger, less-translatable parts? Not so much. Yet these two cards are inextricably linked, and this week we’ll need to commit to elevating The Moon as an important part of our process. Listening to our internal rhythms, facing fear and trepidation, and engaging with sources of information that aren’t linear and easily-digested will all help us tap into the powers of this card.

I’m seeing our other two cards in our reading as ways we might try to contain the effects of The Moon. Put simply, we’re primed to want to continue our Sun epxerience from last week. It felt so good to be clear-headed and full of energy! Yet now we need to go inward (touching on our card for January, The Hermit) and feel out these recent changes. Like all tarot cards, however, these two also contain helpful ways to channel energy that would other wise be distracting or destructive.

We begin with the Four of Pentacles, a card that wants to keep everything the same. It’s likely that concerns about material resources - just how practical are all the plans we hatched under The Sun card? - are coming to the forefront. Rather than buying these worries wholesale, we can use our natural fixaction on money, logistics, and strategy to assess where we’re at, but from a place of power isntead of fear. What if we channeled the warmth and optimism from The Sun last week towards these practical matters? Sure, the Four of Pentacles can be stingy, but they can also be wise. There may be ways to move forward and actualize our dreams that are grounded firmly in reality and maybe even cheaper/less destabilizing/more sustainable than we expected.

Our final card, the Seven of Swords, is a little trickier. If the Four of Pentacles gives us an opportunity to slow down and plan out our moves, this image shows a desire to cut corners and skip steps, especially when it come to communication and storytelling. We’re wanting to run away from complexity, in other words, and it would be a shame to do so as we cycle towards something bigger.

Be wary of the ways that you identify with the shadow side of The Moon. How do ou tend to label yourself with the negative connotations of this card: lazy, indecisive, dreamy, impractical. I’m sensing some healthy channeling is in order. What if we devoted some time to really sink into the magic of The Moon card this week? Got weird for the sake of getting weird. Spent an afternoon daydreaming. Watched a trippy movie. Made some inscrutable art. Embracing this card as an invitation to relish and explore the unknown can help us stay true to ourselves - both the light and the dark, the lunar and the solar - as we continue to grow.