6 of wands + strength

This morning I felt great. Powerful, introspective, motivated. Every morning I wake up to an alarm clock that my boyfriend has had since 1st grade which makes it exactly as old as I am. I have been working on breaking up with tech in the bedroom. I put my phone away awhile before bed–some days a couple hours, some days a few minutes. I finally quit bringing my ipad in the room to play mind-numbing games before drifting off. I’ve been watching movies from the 80s and 90s to remember what life was like before technology was insidiously omnipresent and crucial to our existence (looking at you, QR code restaurants). When I wake up I check my phone to turn off backup alarms and make sure there are no work notifications and then I leave it alone while I read and drink coffee. I’m sure that each of these little changes are restoring my mind to what it was before being inundated with unlimited screen time. I have this theory that the digital camera and the motorola razr were the last viable pieces of technology and everything after that is incompatible with the human mind. I wonder if this means I’m resistant to change–but even if that is somewhat true it’s irrelevant to the collective truth that I feel deeply in the root of my human nature that whatever is going on now was never meant to be.

All of that is to say that I cherish my slow, quiet mornings. This particular morning I felt confident, calm, ready to face day 6 of sobriety with ease. I have had many day sixes. Not as many as day fives but enough to know it would be easy enough. Usually at the turn of each zodiac season I do a more in-depth tarot reading to feel out the month ahead, but since Leo season was already underway and I didn’t feel the need for this, today I only got the notion to pull one card. On my 3rd shuffle through a card flipped over and revealed itself–the 6 of wands. A stoic figure atop a horse riding as if victorious with wands being carried by people surrounding them. In the classic Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) deck, the figure is facing forward. On the 6 of wands in the deck I have been using, she is facing the seeker (looking at you) with a stoic expression. This is an energetic shift from what the cards have been showing me lately and a grateful one. I don’t always feel like the one to embody the suit of wands, the element of fire. I have passion and leadership within me but I often feel so much more comfortable following. My leadership expresses itself through independence. I spend time listening, supporting, comforting, advising–and these roles bring me strength and satisfaction. However I have always felt there was a crucial element missing and that many people both near and far from my heart were not able to recognize me outside of my relationship to others. Or maybe this is something that comes from within; that’s always difficult for me to discern. The six of wands showing up on my sixth day of finally seriously giving sobriety a go feels, as tarot often does, almost laughably apt. I finally felt like my guides were giving me begrudging applause–”Okay girl thank you for finally heeding our call!! We were getting bored over here!”. I’m ready to lean into my independence, to my beautiful solitude, and listen to my internal compass where the little fire eternally burns. 

Sometimes I’ll feel like there is something else I need to hear so I’ll cut my deck and peek at the card. If it speaks to me I take it, if it doesn’t I leave it. Lo and behold today my sneaky little soul needed another nudge, another taste. And wouldn’t you know, another card that felt altogether too real. I found major arcana no.8, the Strength card. At the beginning of Leo season, a lion! The strength card always brings me comfort in the moment and somewhat ironically is usually followed by the need for me to access a ton of inner strength that I don’t always feel up to using. I am lulled into a false sense of security by taking it as the message that I am strong and for some reason my initial idea is that whatever challenge life throws at me I will swing at with ease for a home run. This is never the case, but when the challenge comes and I have to face it I can always imagine that particular shade of golden yellow in the background of the card.

Today, if you haven’t guessed yet, this challenge was the little addiction voice in my head craving a martini like an emaciated figure begging for water on the side of a desert highway. Holy shit the ice cold briney bite of vodka and olive juice. It took every iota of strength I had to not go buy some vodka and make myself the perfect martini. I stopped at the Kowalski’s on the way home from work for dinner ingredients and by the grace of god they had Sicilian marinated olives on sale. If I wasn’t going to get my martini I was at least going to get some extra nice olives. Because realistically I wanted the salt of the olives and the ice cold drink. I’m not sure there is a proper NA version of a martini because let’s face it, the point of this drink is to taste the spirits. I kind of hate that they’re called spirits; it gives liquor a mystical aura that it probably doesn’t deserve. Later I bought myself a THC drink and some lemonade so that I had some options if the cravings persisted but the olives did the trick. A couple hours of waxing and waning cravings later, after making and eating some homemade tuna noodle salad (a nostalgic dish that I was also craving), I felt so at ease sitting on the couch with my grapefruit sparkling water and my boyfriend’s feet on my lap. Yoga has taught me to become the observer and the alcohol experiment guide that I’m working through is also asking me to get curious so I’ve been taking a lot of deep breaths and asking myself how I feel and the answer has usually been: fucking wonderful. My heart is specifically so full and I have so much energy and awareness while still feeling calm. And here I am writing to y’all instead of freaking out or being avoidant on social media.

I’m really determined to rewire my neural pathways and return to a simpler life in the best way I can in this fucked up world, not to be cliche or dramatic but it is what it is. I’ll continue to be curious and for as much shit as I talk about the internet, it has allowed me to access the information and community I’ve needed to make these little life shifts that continue to lead to bigger and bigger changes and hopefully someday a whole ass earthquake like the ones that made the mountains. Feeling really at one with the universe today. TTYL –hailz 

Oh- P.S.- After I saw the strength card I got a little greedy and cut the deck one more time (after shuffling more) and got the 6 of wands again–there’s no question my deck has a great sense of humor.