November 20, 2016: The Lovers by Mary Allen
My card of the month in this 2016 election month was the Lovers. Right before I picked it, about a week before the election, the image of Donald Trump passed across my mind and when the card I turned over turned out to be the Lovers, I thought that was a good sign, a sign that my candidate, Hillary Clinton, was going to win the election. Having that card on my mantle in the days leading up to the election made me optimistic—I pictured myself being happy and relieved on the night of November 8—and I kept thinking that the only possible interpretation of that card had to do with me loving what she stands for, my values, my democracy. I even thought of that card when it started to look like Trump was going to win the election, I kept thinking that there was still some hope because, after all, I picked the Lovers.
We all know how that story turned out. So now I’m trying to figure out what, on a deeper level, the Lovers could have been talking about. Of course, there’s always the possibility it could be talking about something in my own personal life instead of the public arena. And there’s also the possibility it could be talking about… nothing, that is, as we sometimes say when the cards don’t seem to be talking to us at any given moment or we hate what we think they’re saying, Oh well, it’s just a deck of cards. But I don’t think so. There’s nothing in my personal life right now that’s even close to being as compelling to me as what’s going on in America and if there was ever a time the cards were going to talk to me, I think, this would be it. So how I can interpret the Lovers in this moment?
To me, this is a huge moment in history, much bigger than what we usually think of as politics. Probably opportunity as well as danger, as the Chinese symbol for crisis tells us. So maybe the Lovers is about the opportunity this crisis represents. Maybe what’s really happening here, on a larger spiritual plane, is that this current crisis in our public lives in America—it is a crisis, I don’t care what anyone thinks, we have a guy who insists there’s no global warming becoming the head of the EPA, white supremacists being appointed to key positions where they can make decisions and influence the whole country—but maybe all that is somehow bringing us to the opposite of what it looks like now. Maybe on a deeper level this is what we need in order to truly become the Lovers, with the king and queen finally getting married, with women getting equal power with men, with everyone, white, black, brown, gay, trans, anything, becoming included in the cosmic love, becoming equal members of the couple with everyone else.
It doesn’t look like that’s happening right now. In fact, it looks like just the opposite is happening. It looks like instead of being a time for the Lovers it’s a time for Haters. The Haters are in ascendency. (Stephen Bannon, about to move into the White House as Donald Trump’s right hand man, has actually said he celebrates hate, and DT himself got where he did by playing on his supporters’ fear and hate.) But maybe this will be a kind of healing crisis, where even though we don’t know it we’re getting what we need, where we’re getting real, bringing the poison to the surface, seeing what happens if we ignore the poison or coast along without worrying about it. Maybe we’re getting motivated to go deeper, fight harder, to get to where we need to go, so that everyone can get behind being the Lovers instead of the Haters.
December 14, 2016: A Short Note from Tania Pryputniewicz
Mary and I decided to shift our Tarot Card of the Month writing lens to write about current events this month. We spoke for a moment, our usual, “Hello, love you, talk to you on the other side of writing,” and hung up to write. And don’t you know I didn’t--couldn't yet face--writing a thing about the election. I know I’m not alone, as a writer, in terms of having this stunned response to the results.
I loved what Mary wrote so much and I feel blessed to have her words during this month in which I lost mine.