On the night of the election, I watched an Agatha Christie movie and went to bed by 9 p.m., uninterested in watching Donald Trump win in real-time. I didn’t have any psychic insights into the election, but I know plenty of men—across nation, creed, and political spectrum—who hate women and plenty of white folks who dig fascism and are nervous around Black people, so I went to bed assuming that I would not wake up to the news that America elected its first Black woman president.
There’s no joy in having your most cynical thoughts confirmed. It just leads to a numbing fire, something that hollows you out and makes you want to give up on your fellow human being.
I’ve written columns before about political upheaval (after the insurrection, gun violence, when Roe V. Wade fell) and talked about how to move forward as a united front.
But people must want to be united, and I’m not sure that’s the case. So, this is not a column for the country as a whole. This is for anyone who has felt the cancerous growth of cynicism over the past four years, eight years, decade, 20th century. My question, for myself and anyone else wanting to combat it, is this: how do we keep hope?
Because, honestly, I don’t know.
I drew five pairs: Six of pentacles (reversed), King of Pentacles; Ten of Wands, Full Moon; Three of Swords, Knight of Pentacles (both reversed); Last Quarter, Ten of Pentacles; The Fool (reversed) The Star
The first step is a triage of care. Both King of Pentacles and Six of Pentacles can mean charity, but they exist within a power structure: there is the giver and the receiver. Plenty of people will need resources, and we need to figure out who needs what first and provide it, grassroots style. It’s a call towards anarchist ethos, the kind that brought us Food Not Bombs and free stores. We have to take care of each other because the price of “freedom” is responsibility.
This exact moment feels completely overwhelming, with the burden of the Ten of Wands and intensity of the full moon. Right now, it may seem like there is no future without the heavy weight of this tomfuckery crushing us down. But, while the Ten of Wands is brutal, it is survivable. We have to see clearly by the light of the moon and figure out how to keep going.
The way to move forward is to ride this bronco from hell as the Knight of Pentacles. This knight is a doer, a builder, someone who is steady and calm and can handle the pressure and responsibility needed for them in a time like this. And with the Three of Swords, this is something we must do despite our mourning. This is what we have to do because we are mourning. The Three of Swords is a card of loss, heartsick, betrayal but also of survivors. We can hold space for grief and anger but must keep going. As both cards are reversed, we must bear the responsibility and balance our grief with our momentum for some time.
What we are striving towards in the Last Quarter and the Ten of Pentacles. The Last Quarter is about connection—to each other and the divine—and letting go and letting serendipity move us. In that sense, I don’t think the Ten of Pentacles represents “family” in the traditional way but in the all-encompassing way of Anima Mundi, The World’s Soul.
The belief that everything is connected, that everything has in it a pinch of the divine, is a hopeful one. It doesn’t allow for dehumanization, but it does allow for evil, which keeps things from getting too Pollyanna. All beings—good, evil, or indifferent—are part of this web. We exist in a spec of time. We come from a past of great love and great violence, and we’ll probably have a future of that too. We have to strive for love even though evil exists alongside it. The world is a collective, like it or not.
Which brings us to the two cards overarching this entire spread: The Fool reversed and The Star. The Fool, as an archetype and in history, existed outside the rigid social order. There could be holy fools, who heard the words of God, or court jesters, who could say mad shit to a king and live. The Fool in Tarot is often the start of a journey, but it can also be staying on a path that doesn’t make logical sense.
And that path leads us to the all-connected, every-hopeful card of The Star. After nearly 20 years of reading tarot for people, The Star is still the hardest card for me to explain. Inside The Star is this divine spark, one that comes when the unconscious mind, conscious mind, and outer world are in balance. It’s what the Gnostics call pneuma, a connection to the divine that you’ve probably felt before when listening to music, reading fiction, or floating in the ocean. It’s when everything—the light, the sounds, your feelings—clicks into place, and for a fleeting moment, you feel the oneness of the universe.
It’s a moment of hope realized. And that is what we must strive towards, even if it feels like a fool’s errand. That is how to combat cynicism. We have to feel that hope and feel that connection to all.
When situations are dire, when we’re in danger or have been deeply betrayed, it can feel impossible to imagine a future where things work out—irresponsible, even. If you’re there, give yourself grace. Hope, like cynicism, is learned.
Our journey, then, will be to find them, to discover that truly, we aren’t alone. Perhaps when we find each other, we can build a better world. If we can’t, perhaps we help each other survive this one.
I hope we won’t have to look long, that we’ll see each other, like little fireflies glowing in the dark.
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This article appears in Nov 14-20, 2024.
