02/27/19
#soultarotchallenge Day 27: Q: What am I gratefully leaving behind in February?
A: 8 OF COINS- the first thing that comes to mind is that I’m going to be really happy when this #tarotchallenge is done. It’s been really great doing this and I really appreciate the amazing response that I’ve gotten to this practice but wow, it’s a lot of work. I feel like doing this has revealed a lot for me about where I’m going and what I’m going through, but it’s definitely been intense. I think I’ll be happy to leave it behind and get back to my vacation, drinking Shirley Temples and listening to Jimmy Buffet tapes. Actually, I feel like that will last about 36 hours before I start freaking out about what I’m gunna do next.
I think the real thing I need to leave behind is the narrow focus around what the work is or what it should be. I feel like in a lot of ways I don’t have a map about what it is I’m actually doing, which is kinda great because I can go anywhere and do anything, however, I’m not really sure where it’s taking me or how to achieve my vision. There is a lot of imposter syndrome around this work for me, around Instagram around art and around putting oneself into the world. I’m learning that the only way for me to be is to be genuine but at the same time there is the core belief that my genuine self is probably not good enough. This gets compounded by the myth I tell myself that:
1) If it’s easy it’s probably not worth anything, and definitely not worth doing
2) Only hard work is rewarded.
3) If you are not working hard you are lazy and you suck.
It is this myth that kept me miserable making pentacles for other people most of my life. Now that I have shifted into a more vagrant fortune teller lifestyle which is more in line with my weirdo bohemian soul I am constantly gripped by the fear that I am not doing enough and that I’m a failure. I recognize that that’s a bunch of bullshit and the work I’m doing is the work of healing and growing which is pretty invisible and perhaps not quantifiable in the same way as producing products.
I think about Bruce Nauman’s brilliant contribution to Art which was this formula: I am the artist so everything I do is Art. Ergo I can be like I am a wizard so everything I do is Wizardy AF. Sometimes I forget that a pentacle is a symbol of magick and that each one that I craft is a magical act. Maybe what needs to be left behind is the illusion that I’m separated from the work, or that it is separated from me. The truth is that I’m already doing it and I’ve already committed to living a magical life which means no pension, no salary, no problem. All I can do is trust and then keep cranking out magical coins that some how get exchanged for what I need to thrive. What gets left behind is the fear that treasury agents are going to kick in my door and bust me for counterfeiting pentacles. But that’s some yesterday February bullshit because this magick is real and for whatever reason it’s what I got brought here to do.