Living with Uncertainty
with a little help from the Tarot.
Friday 27th June 2025. An example…..
I asked for a card that would inspire me to write today’s blog and also perhaps give me some insight into a dilemma that was lurking….. to play tennis (still with a bit of a dodgy wrist) or… to give it some more time to heal and get on with very necessary packing/sorting/writing this blog! Superficial I know.
What are you allowing to steal away your power…you may have to surrender something, for your long term benefit…
The first card I pulled was the old seven of Swords which begs the question, to whom or to what are you (or might you) be giving away your power? Not my favourite card, and not exactly a cheerful topic of conversation for this blog. I was hoping for something more uplifting, as I was feeling uplifted, having got myself out of bed and walking barefoot in the park before 7 am. The first time this week, which might have explained the lethargy up to this point!
So alert. Seven of swords. Might playing tennis before my wrist was strong be a bad idea and steal away my power?
Come on, I said to my tarot deck still spread out before me, I need another card with a little bit more explanation or oomph. And got the Hanged Man! You have to laugh, albeit ruefully! Talk about a card that says sometimes you have to surrender something you don’t want to, for the greater good, your greater good. No tennis for me this morning.
Actually there is something wonderful about SURRENDER….letting go, and if we take a leaf out of the Hanged Man illustration, although he is being forced to look at the world from a completely different position, with more of a long term view, he looks pretty relaxed. Therein lies the freedom. Rather than fight, by letting go and giving yourself some time in limbo, you might learn something new, see things differently. And become enlightened?! See the halo around his head.
I think what I am trying to say is there is a power to surrender. I could literally feel my shoulders relax down with a huge sigh of relief.
To apply this to a more universal theme that I have been experiencing, as have many, which is a sense of struggling in an underlying soup of anxiety and fear to live a so called ‘successful’ life, have good relationships, jobs, feel purposeful, and be happy. It’s a constant pressure and push/pull between …disbelief, fear, horror, compassion, helplessness, about what is going on in the world and how we navigate it. With questions like what is true? what are we supposed to think, what are we supposed to do, and can we help? So plenty of guilt mixed up in the fear and anxiety.
These are the feelings that take away our power, our sense of personal autonomy, that we as individuals matter. Our little lives seem so inconsequential compared with what is going on in the world not to mention the big fear….the future ??
An answer, or perhaps antidote, the tarot gives us is the hanged man card that suggests that there is a surrender to be faced, a let go of ‘knowing’, of our world view, modus operandi, its as if we are being forced to look at the world turned upside down. We don’t know how to do this, what the answer is….but perhaps being prepared to hang in limbo for a while might lead to a ‘do know’, a light bulb moment, and head us in the direction of the enlightenment we seek. Toward the new world we are trying to herald in, but don’t have any idea what it could look like, except fear of AI ….and hope this chaotic and terrifying time is some kind of ending.
I think I’ll hang up my firm opinions, and belief that I should have firm opinions, and see if just being in limbo for a while will bring enlightenment. I certainly like the idea of surrendering the struggle with (against) uncertainty.
P.S. Surrendering ‘knowing’ doesn’t mean giving up our own autonomy and what we do know!
Do come and have a tarot reading with me in Battersea, or online. In these turbulent times, while a tarot reading won’t give you certainty, it will help you thrive rather than just survive :-) while living in uncertainty.