The Mystic Decides

ICYMI, we’ve released a bouquet of podcast episodes all about intuition. This is all to celebrate and promote the Moon Studio’s upcoming container, Secret Studies. It is a course on expanding your intuition, trusting yourself, and becoming besties with life again. Read more, and sign up here—enrollment ends tomorrow!

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Gentle reader, I write you from the high desert, where yesterday I woke up with a sore throat so bad I couldn’t speak. I had to cancel a Tarot class I had planned to give my patrons today, so decided to write instead.

This past week has been a whirlwind, so much to process and integrate. The start of the Fire Horse year came in fast as expected, with a major womanifestation I had wanted for 6 years coming to fruition. The speed at which it happened was a shock; I earnestly began making moves towards it (again) in November, fully expecting the process to take up to a year. But, as usual, eclipse season was generous to me, and this goal took shape exactly in the houses of mine that the moon recalibrates in.

I had wanted this letter to be filled with some resolutions I’ve been marinating on for the first stretch of the year, but I truly have not had the time to sit down and decide where to start. I understand that this is meta; a lot of the year will feel like this. Gotta take those reins and hold them lightly.

As a mystic, I am a direct interpreter of life. I’m taking the speed of this manifestation as an omen for the year; maybe what we want can come to us more swiftly than we could imagine. I’m seeing, in real time, how much our minds support or hinder us in our experiences of perception, interpretation, and relationship.

As I attempt to molt the last 6 years/lifetimes off of me, I need to put a name to what I was doing, so I can cease repeating the unwanted with this shed. The word, of course, is fighting. I was fighting for my dignity, fighting for my marriage, fighting for the truth, fighting for my business, fighting for my reputation, fighting for my cognition, fighting for my experiences of reality to matter, fighting for my health, fighting for answers, fighting for help, fighting for my life, and when I could, fighting for the well-being and safety of others.

I’m exhausted, but I am the Chariot, the life path 7, after all. I was born to fight.

The Chariot moves fast through tension, fighting gravity. They must be strong and sensitive, overly attuned to the energy of the powerful beasts that drive them forward. Most ancient races were 7 laps, which is where the numerological correspondence in the Tarot comes from. Most Charioteers were enslaved, competing not only for entertainment, but for the money to gain their freedom.

What does a Charioteer do when they don’t want to fight anymore?

If the Magician is Body as Conduit, the High Priestess is Body as Portal, the Empress is Body as Vessel, the Emperor is Body as Protector, the Hierophant is Body as Temple, the Lovers is Body As Connector, then the Chariot is Body as Vehicle.

Charioteers are excellent but unlikely channelers. People are surprised at my psychic abilities; I can come off as guarded, feisty, spiky, fierce—decidedly unspiritual. Shouldn’t I be acting like the mother they never had? Where are my linen pants? Where is my dulcet, quiet, well-modulated voice?

People forget that warriors are mystics, too. Look at Bruce Lee.

“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.” —Bruce

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Earlier this week, I found myself driving to the desert to celebrate my friend Jeff’s Travel Tarot Launch. Because of my illness, I usually have to wait until the last minute to see if my body will cooperate. It’s a funny joke the universe plays on me, because I used to judge people who decided to come to events at the last minute. I thought they didn’t care, I thought they were flaky, I thought it was rude. Now I know better to make assumptions about anyone or anything.

I snagged the last space available on the invite; I took that as a sign. A few hours later, I got the last room at a motel 5 minutes away from the venue. It was called the Harmony Motel; I took that as another sign.

As I drove down the 62, I connected to the swirls of anxiety tracing figure 8s in my stomach. On the event guest list was someone who had done terrible things to me that cost me time, energy, money, reputation, and relationships, which lasted for years. This was someone I admired, someone I respected, someone I thought was a friend.
If they came, it would be the first time I would be in a room with them in over 6 years.

What are you scared of? I asked my inner child.

I’m scared they will be mean to me, and then everyone else will be mean to me, and I will be all alone and unprotected, and I won’t be able to escape, my inner child replied.

This is what used to happen to me when I didn’t have access to a car and a credit card. This is how I know it is a younger part. The adult me fights, the adult me does not put up with bullshit, the adult me stays for the bare minimum she has to, and then gets the fuck out of there with a full tank of gas.

Well, it’s a party with a lot of people there. There’s not a big chance that will happen. If it does, we’ll leave, ok? We don’t have anything to be scared about. We didn’t do anything wrong. They did terrible things, not us. They should be ashamed, not us. We didn’t do anything wrong. I told my inner child. That unraveled a bit of the larger knot I’ve been picking apart for years, that eventually, I’ll get to smooth out into a clear, long path.
A less bumpy ride.

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The manager at the motel was unusually curious. She asked me many questions when I checked in, which I loved. Usually, I am the one asking all the questions, and everyone hates it. I secretly love to be asked questions. It makes me feel like people care about me.

Maybe that’s how I ended up giving her a free reading.

Most of the people who checked into the Harmony Motel, with its bright red No Vacancy sign flashing in the desert night, were also there for Jeff’s event. A lot of Tarot and Astrology conversations had poured into her small office all day. By the time I checked in, the last guest to arrive late in the evening, her interest had ripened.

Are you a Tarot reader? she asked.

Yes, I replied.
Usually I say no, because I don’t do it much anymore.
I also don’t want random people to project things onto me.

Do you believe this stuff works? she asked. She wasn’t being mean; it felt curious in tone, so I wasn’t offended.

Listen. If I didn’t believe it worked, I wouldn’t do it, I said.

Do you want a reading?

After the reading, which she definitely needed, we chattered a bit.

Life is really just so much work, isn’t it? She mused.

Yes, it is, I replied, but we’re lucky enough to get to choose the kind of work we do. And the point of work is to infuse it with meaning. When it isn’t meaningful or an expression of our nature or true essence, everything feels pointless, and then we lose our way.

I think that’s why it’s been hard for me to make resolutions; it’s been hard for me to choose because now I finally feel like I have access to choice. After years submerged, feeling like the universe was holding me under water whilst I thrashed around like a worm on the hook, I now feel her loving embrace. I can choose. I could always choose the whole time, but I forgot that, so it felt like I was trapped. Now I know I am not because the knowing is embodied, my vehicle. And I want so much. I want to touch rose petals everyday and the people of Gaza to truly know peace and steaming udon soup on cold gloomy nights and free healthcare for all and a thriving creative career and for fascism to end and for my leukemia treatment to go smoothly and for late night snuggles and early morning cuddles and to birth a new book and for the earth to be respected again and for the end of corporations and for time with my friends and for all billionaires to be shoved into a rocket ship and launched into outer space. They did it to an innocent dog named Laika; why can’t they do it with all the parasites?

I want, I want, I want. So much more now, because I think I could possibly have some of it.

The spiritual mission of the 7 is to make choices from free will, not fear, aversion, or resistance. To move out because we consciously chose a beautiful new home, not because our landlord kicked us out with no notice. To forge our own path, not the one we should take because it will be easier. Our greatest spiritual victory is to nurture a creative project or dream from seed to stalk with complete consciousness and undivided concentration. It is rare that one has the opportunity to do so. One must work very hard to get free.

Because spiritual lessons are learned through direct experience, 7s often learn through contrast, through being held to the fire. We often feel as though we are always making choices from between a rock and a hard place; either pathway feels compromised and crunchy, an escape route, or the best we can do with the lot we’ve been given. The conditions we are dropped into are often adverse: a family that doesn’t understand us, friends who secretly hate us, a body that betrays us. Never our choice, never enough time, never enough resources, never enough support, always having to force, push, or fight our way through the morass of impossible conditions that surround us. The shadow of this archetype is believing that we must have something to push up against to take action. That we don’t exist without our resistance. Self-sabotage comes from unnecessary shadow boxing with our demons and unnecessary conflict within ourselves and others. We have to remember: what you resist, persists. Or even worse, as a teacher always says: what you resist, you become.

The Charioteer kept a knife handy, ready to cut the horses free at the first sign of a crash. 7s need to learn how to drop the rope, cut cords, and clear away the hooks that threaten their will. They also need to discern false alarms and stay the course. After all, cutting all ties is quitting, and quitting means losing the race.

When we become the vehicle, the flow of life takes over, and we lose ourselves in the divinity of movement. When we move as—as love, as peace, as calm, as the elements, as that which we seek, it doesn’t matter where we are going. It’s the experience that matters. It’s the connection, redirection, and distribution of energy made in a conscious manner that opens up the road before us.

When I take the drive back home later today, I’ll pray in the quiet. I’ll ask what I can do to practice acceptance with more swiftness, so I can move along on the road of life. I’ll give myself the gift of contemplation that I know I need before any big decisions are made. I’ll open up to the cloud angels in the sky and see what they have to say. The knots will unravel, the road will become smooth and open, not because I can control the future, but because I now trust myself to practice grace.