#8: When Gratitude Strikes
Put Down Your Chopsticks
This Week’s Tarot Reading
MIND: Strength
BODY: 2 of Wands
SPIRIT: The Devil
“YOU SHALL NOT PASS” came to mind as soon as I revealed these cards. There’s a great battle this week between your personal willpower and the long term commitments you’re entwined with. Things are likely to come to a standstill, which might be frustrating (or even boring)…but it’s probably better than an unnecessary explosion. Notice where your impatience is getting the best of you and how, like it or not, you might be the very reason you’re here. Take a deep breath and remind yourself that everything is temporary.
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This Week’s Astrology
Monday, April 4th: Mars conjunct Saturn 23° Aquarius
Tuesday, April 5th: Venus enters Pisces
Thursday, April 7th: Mercury sextiles Saturn
Friday, April 8th: Mercury sextiles Mars
In short, there’s some annoying astrology that serves to slow you down…but with lots and lots of love. Tomorrow’s meetup of Mars and Saturn is like sitting at a red light that seems like it will never change- but then being in the car just long enough to hear the thing you were supposed to hear on the radio. Things will feel like they’re coming to a halt, but it’s because there’s a greater, KARMIC plan that you might not yet be able to see. Try to be patient and in the meantime, enjoy the newfound expanse in love. Venus is exalted in Pisces and everyone (frustrated or not) will be much more inclined to whisper sweet nothings. Savor it.
If you’d like to book a personalized Astrology reading, you can find my offerings here. 11% of every reading purchased is donated.
I wrote a (long) newsletter for y’all this week about the labels we place on ourselves and how when we hold them too close, we start to confuse them with our actual being. I talked about them operating like armor- helpful in certain situations, but cumbersome and downright inappropriate in others.
I acknowledged that while life might feel like a battleground, especially now, even legitimate soldiers would tell you there’s a time and place for putting on all that gear. Sometimes it’s necessary for survival, but other times it’s just in the way.
I felt good about it and was getting ready to hit send…and then I started crying into my sushi.
I was eating dinner (aforementioned sushi) and was overcome with a blissful moment of true presence. I wasn’t stressing about the workweek ahead, and wasn’t reminiscing about the weekend. I was viscerally present, in my body, and completely overcome by emotion and gratitude for my life in that exact moment.
With tears streaming down my face and into my soy sauce, I put down my little six inch chopstick weapons. I couldn’t keep going through the motions- I needed to pause. I came back to my computer, deleted everything I had planned, and decided to come here and be vulnerable about my little sushi battle sob fest.
It was a moment of pure BEING and while I might not have anything to “show” for it (besides especially salty soy sauce) it was perfect.
I wish these moments would overtake me more often. Even working in the spiritual world and being generally “tuned in” I’m distracted by deadlines, grocery shopping, and any other number of mundane tasks day to day. Doing, doing, doing, going, going, going, but not as much being, being, being. I’m working on that.
While many astrologers (myself included) have talked about Aries energy as initiation and forward momentum, this powerful moment reminded me that it’s so much more.
Sometimes, it’s not go time. Sometimes it’s rest time. Sometimes, it’s reset time. And just because it’s not obvious that you’re doing all the things…just by being here, you’re doing enough.
Make time to repeat to yourself, this season and always: I AM. I AM. I AM.
Nothing more, nothing less, labels or not, you are you and simply by existing, you matter. I hope the magnitude and beauty of your embodied soul will find you as often as possible.
Until next week’s magic,
Erin River Sunday