This was originally sent as a newsletter for Of Pens & Paintbrushes. If you’d like to get this directly in your inbox, you can sign up here, at the Newsletter sign up page.
First off: I am sure there’s something new in the shop between the last letter and this one, but I can’t remember specifically what. Probably the last three ink colors of the initial launch of Third House Inks. I’ve been working on website bits that fell into disrepair and catching up on projects that have been waiting for me, which means I’ve had my nose to the grindstone, or more accurately, the lathe, and what with the end of the school year being today, time has been a little… wobbly lately. I’m proud of myself for just making it to today in better shape than last year. (Why is a long story for another time.) In the mean time, I’ve been thinking about the Queen of Coins from Tarot a lot lately. Probably because I keep running into her lately.
And off we go.
Background: I collect tarot decks – mostly for the art, but I favor Tarot decks over other kinds of decks for the way the archetypes in the story running through the cards mirror the journey we undertake when we commit to knowing ourselves, to seeking out Reality and Truth. (It does not go smoothly in the Tarot story any more than it does for us, which just makes it even more valuable as a tool for finding questions to ask myself that may help me along my own journey towards understanding and healing, which is also bumpy. I enjoy the Tarot story even more for that.)
As part of my own spiritual/ritual practice, I pull cards randomly and look for patterns between them, trusting that my subconscious is going to trot out the Frequency Bias (also known as The Baader–Meinhof phenomenon) and Confirmation Bias and something usefully relevant to what I’m dealing with will show up in the patterns I notice. I am rarely disappointed, and often I find solutions to problems that I knew the answer to, but maybe was too overwhelmed to see clearly. There is substantial power in ritual to calm the anxious mind, remarkable inner stillness to be found in routine, and a clarity that no self-help article can touch when you notice your own patterns for yourself.
(I free-write with pen and paper for similar reasons. Seeing my words after just dumping them on paper often reveals things I didn’t realize I was feeling or struggling with, connections I hadn’t realized existed. We are unaware of so much of ourselves. It can get a little surreal at times.)
I’ve been pulling the same card often lately – and by often, I mean nearly daily, for over a year. It’s not a card that made sense with its standard meanings: the Queen of Coins is said to be about a personality or person in your life, or traits you embody – none of which seemed like they applied to me. I’m not what I would consider traditionally motherly or home-makery. I am not overly-affectionate, and I don’t typically consider myself regal, for that matter. Even when read as a card for advice, the advice it gives is typically that of doing nurturing, caregiving type stuff. She is sometimes said to be extravagant, relishing luxury, so pampering yourself is sometimes the advice. Caring for others and your home. Here’s this woman on an ornate throne surrounded by an abundance of blooms in a garden she built and tended, what do I have in common with…
Oh. OH.
We both got our hands dirty to build what we love – what we value, our currency and coins. She put her time and energy into what she valued – her garden, kingdom- and she did it with the confidence of a Queen. Show up, get your hands dirty, do the work- don’t just talk about it or think about it. Do it, and with confidence that what is meant to bloom, will bloom.
(Which, if you don’t do the work, is absolutely nothing. Something I know, but tend to get paralyzed by overthinking about, ironically enough.)
Do. The. Work. Plant the seeds, take the steps, care for what you love, nurture what you value.
She is also a reminder to be physically present. To not numb out – to allow myself to feel, to place importance on my own creature comforts, my own castle walls, to tend to my own garden. Breathtaking resplendence – the creation of beauty – takes conscientious tending, pruning, and judicious weeding. (These are things difficult to do when you finally feel safe enough to breathe for the first time in years.)
The Queen of Coins asks with no shade or side-eye: what matters most to you? This coin I hold, a representation for what we each value, what is yours? What caretaking is required to nurture and support those things, and yourself?
For me, it’s my work, my kids, my home, healing.
She reminded me to get my hands dirty in building and nurturing those things – to do my work and stop overthinking — and to shore up my garden walls against anything that didn’t add to the life I’m building for myself. Where was I spending energy in ways that didn’t align with what I valued and wanted?
Tough questions. Worthwhile to answer.
I don’t have blooms to show for the work I’ve been doing yet, and I am still working on the Queenly Confidence of not needing to perform for validation, but the important thing right now is that I am doing the work, and there is so much peace in that.
Sometimes, I get so wrapped up in worry, anxiety, performance, that I forget that the reason I perform, so to speak, is because of how much I love the work. I love it so much that I want to share it, not the other way around. I don’t do the work so I have something to share. With social media and marketing and the economy being what they are, that can be easy to lose track of. The Queen of Coins has been trying to remind me – over and over again – that the work comes first, the work always comes first. Being able to do the work I love is the reason I do everything else. Even if I have found more things I enjoy in the process, the work is the why – and the effort and energy I put into it is the proof that I value it.
Love is a verb, as they say. I hope you find or make time to tend your own garden of whatever it is you value.
A.Markov
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This was originally sent as a newsletter for Of Pens & Paintbrushes. If you’d like to get this directly in your inbox, you can sign up here, at the Newsletter sign up page.