CW This week’s blog does mention a hanged one and poison.
Hi 👋🏽, I’m Stacy Casson. I have over twenty years of continuous improvement experience. I’m calm in a crisis unless you are that jerk in the White Tesla who does not understand how indicators work. Get ready with me. Is your calendar packed to the gills? Are you constantly double or triple-booked? Do you groan when your alarm goes off? You don’t have to face the overwhelm alone. I write this blog to help us get ready for the week ahead. “A problem well defined is a problem half-solved.” – Dan Martell.
It is good to remind yourself of your wins. My major win this week actually came from a mistake and rest. I realized that the images in my painting are at odds with the title. I am unsure whether I can salvage and rework it or if I should start from the beginning. What have you learned from your mistakes?
This week, I’m returning to THE LINEAGES OF CHANGE TAROT, Copyright © Lineages of Change (Adrienne maree brown, LLC; Alta Starr; chelsea cleveland; and Krista Franklin) for inspiration to guide us in the week ahead.
Our questions this week come from Liz Cooledge Jenkins from her article linked here, What Howard Thurman’s Jesus and the Disinherited Says to Us Today. I thought they would help us navigate the overwhelm of our current times.
“How do we respond to empire’s oppressive actions in our time?” We begin with Judgement reversed. It is a collage of a black and white photo of well-dressed Black people kneeling on top of a piece of torn newspaper and what appears to be reversed, exposed bamboo. I believe that we can learn a great deal from our ancestors and how they responded and persevered in the face of adversity. They managed to organize and work together without the benefit of the internet. The actions and policies for the past several hundred years are long overdue for a reckoning. We are going backwards and losing ground daily. Depending on who you are, you may have very different views about what progress means and who exactly is under attack. Our forbears figured out how to survive and left us a creative legacy of art and music. They had a guiding vision, and their internal compass firmly pointed to freedom and collective liberation. What have we learned from the survivors who came before us?
“How do we preserve our sense of self-value and self-worth under an administration that has no concern for it?” The Hanged One may be a bit too on the nose, given current events. We can’t let fear get in the way of our transformation. Octavia E. Butler would urge us to shape Change. We are in the midst of birthing a new world order. The carved figure has a glowing open space where its stomach and chest would be. We have become a little too complacent and accepting of the current status quo. I attended a community meeting yesterday, and many group members wanted to be allowed to exist. We exist. We are here. The Power Center wants to erase us and our contributions. They want us back in our place. Get in the kitchen and have babies. I love an Instagram video created by @refreshing_view reminding us that our grandparents had poison. 🤷🏽♀️I am not advocating that we poison people, but it does bring to mind all the hidden methods of communication, such as songs and hairstyles.
“Not the world, not what’s outside of us, but what we hold inside traps us. We may not be responsible for the world that created our minds, but we can take responsibility for the mind with which we create our world.”
― Gabor Maté, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction
“How might we find inner peace—not a willfully ignorant, head-in-the-sand kind of peace, but one that acknowledges our violent reality and discerns how to live well within it?” The Nine of Air is another card that reflects the problem. It is about our worries and fears. The airy tendrils each hold a blue bead. This card reminds us to confront our fears. Traditionally, it depicts a figure sitting up in bed with their head in their hands, with swords behind them. It feels like the sword will pierce us, but it’s more like a trick sword, since the body has not been harmed. Our fears can feel like they are happening to us as we ruminate on the news and awful images, or perhaps our personal horrors. At any given moment, someone learned they have cancer, or that they are being laid off, or that their relative has been murdered. I hearken back to the first card. Our ancestors still dared to dream and create. The wispy tendrils seem to erupt from a knotted shape, almost as if the ideas have broken free and contain the seeds to plant a new world. It’s okay to embrace the suck, but we don’t have to embody it as our only truth. Will you embrace the power of stillness and remind yourself that you have the power to choose joy? Namaste
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Picture Descriptions: 1. Judgement reversed – a collage of a black and white photo of well-dressed Black people kneeling on top of a piece of torn newspaper and what appears to be reversed, exposed bamboo. 2. The Hanged One – a carved wood or bronze figure suspended upside down. It appears to be birthing something, and the blue circle at its feet seems like peering at the sky from inside a pit. The stomach and chest area are open like the figure was a carved catch-all. It has halo lighting around the head and seems at peace. 3. Nine of Air – A knotted shape has nine airy, smoky tendrils breaking through, each one holding a blue bead.
