Using Tarot To Navigate The First Days After Loss
The following is a partial excerpt from my forthcoming book Sacred Tears: A Witch’s Guide To Grief which will be hitting the shelves on June 8! But if you pre-order, you’ll get it even sooner!
After your loss, you may be surprised, or even disturbed, by how the world looks much as it did before.
Dishes unwashed before your loss remain undone. Yesterday’s pants may still be on the floor. Birds still sing, the neighbor gets the mail, the garbage gets collected. New shows and movies are released, and social media content is shared. People talk about things that have nothing to do with your loss.
Yet, the world has changed.
It’s your life.
But it’s not.
After loss, life feels like an impeccably detailed movie set reflecting an exact model of the life you used to live. To the outside eye, everything is the same. But you know it’s not your real life. Perhaps you’re like me and you want to shout at everyone passing by, “Hey, a**holes! Don’t you know the world is completely different?
But the truth is that the world is the same. It’s we, the grieving people, who are changed.
Amid our grieving, we must learn to navigate this identical, but foreign, world.
This week’s Thursday Tarot tips include an exercise to help you navigate the toughest time: those first tender days after your loss.
But first…
I’m thrilled—I’m hosting a virtual conversation on Healing With Hekate on Sunday, May 19 with Sorita d’Este! Sorita’s was INSTRUMENTAL in my writing Hekate: Goddess of Witches and I am SOOOOO excited to be speaking with her, live.
We would love to have you with us. If you can’t make it live, it WILL be recorded and emailed to all ticket-holders after the event!
A conversation on the history of the Goddess Hekate and her relationship with healing, as well as a discussion on how modern Witches, Hekate-devotees, or other Magickally-minded people can embrace Hekate as a patroness and guide on their personal journeys of healing. Virtual Event. Closed captioning provided.
Event WILL be recorded and sent to all ticket-holders after the event.
(Can’t join us live? Purchase a ticket and check it out, later!)
There will also be giveaways and other exciting announcements.
How do we navigate the world, post-loss?
One of the first gifts I gave myself after my loss was acknowledging that although the world was the same, I was different. The days were long, individual moments even longer and nights were eternal. I struggled to respond to emails, forgot appointments, left dishes undone and laundry unfolded. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to do these things. I honestly did not have the mental focus to do them. I would sit at my computer, my email account open to reply to a message, and I couldn’t remember who I was writing to and why. I might sit and stare at a pile of laundry, as the thought of rolling socks and folding shirts felt exhausting. And I scolded myself for failing at such simple tasks. It was an unfair scolding.
Sadly, few of us have the luxury of avoiding all responsibility in the wake of our loss. Animals need care. Bills need to be paid. Children or elders will need our assistance. Hopefully, we’ll have loved ones to help us with these things, but even so, there will be
Pulling a single Tarot card as an anchor to help you navigate the first days after grief can be helpful.
Example:
In a standard reading, the Magician might mean communication, writing, Magick, or even trickery.
If you pull this in response to how to navigate your grief, here is what it might mean:
- Journal your rage, sorrow, confusion, frustration—whatever may come up in your feelings.
- Talk with someone: a therapist, spiritual advisor, friend or otherwise. Talk to someone who will listen.
- Perform ritual in support of your grief. NOT rituals to banish it. I have examples of grief supporting rituals in Sacred Tears.
- “Fake it ‘till you make it.” I don’t advocate on this being the permanent default option for navigating grief, but it can be a good metaphoric band-aid in the short term. You don’t HAVE to pretend like everything is okay. But if you need to get through a workday and find it’s easier to focus when you can temporarily pretend that all is well.
