Weekly Forecast: May 7-13
It feels so good to put a plan into action. After spending lots of time in our heads creating strategies, imagining outcomes, and weighing options, this week we're putting our feet on the ground and committing to making things real.
The Three of Wands is a card full of excitement, expectation, and anticipation. Our ideas are still tender and new, untested by the world, and yet we've tapped into something special within ourselves. It's the intoxicating feeling of choice. We can choose to do things. We can make things happen.
This card is big and visionary, and I love its bravery. It's one thing to imagine possibilities, getting lost in the world of lists and brainstorming. Making moves to bring these ideas into reality is a whole other ballgame, and this week we're walking onto the field, a little jittery, but mostly raring and ready to go.
And what do we run into? Why it's The Tower! Everybody's favorite card!
Of course I'm being sarcastic here. The Tower, with its themes of destruction and chaos, is usually met with groans or outright fear. Yet in this reading it has a very important message that gives us a helpful choice to navigate all the potential shown in the Three of Wands.
The Tower shows us the downside of structure, particularly what happens when the structures we have at work in our lives can't contain us, our energy, or our hopes and dreams. Left unheeded, this pressure can lead to destruction. Yet we always have the choice to look at The Tower and make changes, using it as a catalyst to take the change into our own hands and not let the pressure build to an inevitable, surprising explosion.
Action-movie level talk of explosions aside, The Tower this week is showing us how the buzz and action coming into our lives in the Three of Wands is tempting us to fall into old patterns. I love how the artist and creator of this deck, Jonasa Jaus, uses an insect as the protagonist of the Three. Is there a better metaphor for the early, exciting stages of creativity than pollination? And what a fascinating contrast between the vibrant, happy wildflowers in the Three and the epic titan arum in The Tower!
If we're the buzzing insect here, busy traveling from flower to flower, the gigantic titan arum represents a nearly-irresistible temptation. We're feeling a pull to go to The Tower despite the fact that it's not the flower we need to be pursuing at all. In fact, it's quite toxic.
What I love most about the Three of Wands is that is captures both the tenderness and bravery of setting off on any path. When we do this we have to be mindful of our energy. When something's new and budding it needs care, attention, and gentleness. Not to mention focus. In the early stages of a new project, creation, or endeavor we have to remain focused, humble, and in the moment.
In this reading, The Tower shows us a temptation to force our newly budding plans into repressive and overbearing structure. This can show up in a desire to overwhelm ourselves with expectations, judging each and every action and burying ourselves in a pile of "shoulds." Our plans should unfold this way. We should be feeling like that. It should look like this.
Clearly, some form of self-sabotage is at work. Why are we moving from the new growth of the Three of Wands to the cataclysm of The Tower? The Six of Cups appears as our final card to add some insight. This card speaks to nostalgia and early patterns of relating to the world. Taking a risk and committing to a plan in the Three of Wands is bringing up a lot of fear and pressure stemming from how we were taught to look at the world as children.
Interestingly, this card is also showing us a way through The Tower, one that has us bypassing its destructive intensity. Embracing The Tower wholeheartedly (or doing nothing to process the issues it brings up) is leading us towards emotional overwhelm and a desire to control and force our newly burgeoning plans into stale old frameworks. Hardly a goal any of us is consciously working towards! Instead, we can ask ourselves some loving and probing questions. Just what about our new plans and creative ideas is making us feel fearful? Why are we feeling the urge to snuff our our enthusiasm with heavy expectations and judgment?
If we can meet ourselves in this place, lovingly addressing our fears and traveling back to the conditions that they came from, we can enter into the healing space of the Six of Cups. Here, we have the ability to look back at the source of these pressures with all the wisdom we've accrued as adults. It doesn't have to be a big, frightening Tower moment. It can be a gentle moment of reconnection and an act of recommitting to taking our creativity and energy seriously. That means giving it all the space, lightheartedness, action, and bravery it needs to grow.