“Cherish bliss, and know that the hard times will pass.” -Biddy Tarot
I pull Tarot cards a few times each month, and every time I open up to a fresh month in my Many Moons planner. When I was a kid, tarot seemed like a spooky tool used by witches to predict death and betrayal. It scared me a little, but I was also intrigued.
As I started learning more about it, I realized that the media falsely represents tarot and modern witches. Satan worshiping and goat sacrificing, as it turns out, are about as common as being struck by lightening, and none of the above are a part of or even related to pulling tarot cards or being a modern witch.
The fact of the matter is, tarot teaches us to tap into our intuition and is a tool to find the answers already within ourselves. When you pull a tarot card, there is no exact, distinct fate or answer. Instead, each card serves as a guide to help pull the answers out of our subconscious.
The past two months, I’ve pulled the Wheel of Fortune.
The Wheel of Fortune teaches us that life is always moving in cycles, and the wheel is always turning. What this means is that the good times, along with the bad and everything in between do not last. The Wheel of Fortune tells us that good luck is coming, karma is real, and to know that the bullshit will pass.
The Wheel of Fortune also reminds us to cherish the good times, because they, too, do not last forever. So remember when you are in deep shit, it’s going to pass. And remember when you are feeling blissed out, it’s also going to pass, so savor your bliss like it’s the last piece of Ferraro Rocher.
Abraham hicks refers to hard times in life as “contrast.” Contrasting experiences help us clarify what we want by showing us what we do not. When you are in the midst of a contrasting experience, the last thing you’re thinking is, “well, thank God for this contrasting experience. It sure is helping to clarify what it is I really do want.” More likely, in a contrasting experience, your thought process is more like “god fucking Damnit I swear I’m gonna lose it.” What Abraham Hicks would want us to know, however, is that by focusing on the thing we don’t want and giving our attention to it, we create more of it. In other words, remember the Wheel, and try to think of better times to come, even if it puts you in Fantasyland.
Sometimes we’re human and we forget to breathe and realize these “contrasting” moments pass. It’s ok. It happens. We forget that we can say, “so what,” and put our attention elsewhere. Often, the situation resolves itself when we just let go and focus on something more pleasant to think about.
Sometimes when things are good, instead of feeling blessed and reveling in our joy, we wait for the other shoe to drop. We dig for evidence that things aren’t as good as they seem instead of enjoying the crap out of them. We do this because when we have something good, we can fear losing it. Uhh, stop doing that!
But honestly, as Kurt Vonnegut wrote,
“One of the things [Uncle Alex] found objectionable about human beings was that they so rarely noticed it when they were happy. He himself did his best to acknowledge it when times were sweet. We could be drinking lemonade in the shade of an apple tree in the summertime, and Uncle Alex would interrupt the conversation to say, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”
So I hope that you will do the same for the rest of your lives. When things are going sweetly and peacefully, please pause a moment, and then say out loud, “If this isn’t nice, what is?”
If we hold on to tightly in fear, the sweetness is gone before we really allow ourselves to enjoy it and we look back and think, “dang, I should have savored that.”
So if you’re having work stress dreams, your heart was smashed, you have $30 to your name, you’ve caught your coworkers gossiping about you, or you’re in a riff with your sweetheart or your best friend, know that it will pass.
And maybe most importantly, if you’re feeling good in your skin, having fun with your friends, killing it at work, traveling the world, feeling creatively juiced up, going on fun dates with someone special, or falling in love, fucking cherish it. Nothing is permanent, but when we relish in the good times and allow ourselves to deeply experience joy, it is that much easier to remember it will come back to us when we are in the dark.
Whatever you are going through, know it won’t last, but it may return again.
Wishing you peace and pleasure in the darkest days of the year and hope for when the light returns.
