Friday Tarot Prompt

I did today’s reading a little bit differently. The thoughts below are my “reading” of the card. You might find different meaning in it. That’s cool. Tarot is flexible that way. Regardless, I hope you find some inspiration below.

Today’s card comes from the Art of Life tarot by Charlene Livingstone. The card I drew was Temperance.

I like this deck because it uses works of art and quotes to express the energy of the card.

The panting depicted in this card is Woman Washing Her Feet in a Brook (detail) by Camille Pissarro, 1894.

The quote on this card reads:

“The unlike is joined together, and from differences results the most beautiful harmony.” -Heraclitus

Temperance

Key Words: Balance, Harmony, Moderation

Inner growth combined with outer harmony.

When I first started getting the Temperance card (it pops up a lot for me), I thought it was “temperance” as in “the Temperance League.” Meaning, the universe was telling me to indulge my vices less often.

But with some time and study I’ve realized “temper” has multiple meanings. We temper chocolate, for example, to stabilize the fatty acid crystals of cocoa butter so that the final product has a smooth and shiny finish. You do this by heating and then cooling the chocolate (this is overly simplified to make the point—don’t @ me).

We’re like chocolate. When things heat up, we have a tendency to separate. Stress makes it harder to hold everything together. In order to bring us back together, we have to cool down, take some time with ourselves.

Tempering ourselves consciously can make it easier to stay stable.

One of the major tenets in alchemy is “Solve et coagula.” It means “dissolve and coagulate.” The idea is that in order to progress in our transformation into our truest selves, we must first break down into our component parts, understand those parts, leave out anything that doesn’t work anymore, and bring it all back together. In order to manifest our highest selves we first have to become aware of, understand, and consciously work with our shadows.

Otherwise, when we try to do all sorts of self-improvement, we end up dissatisfied because we end up like untempered chocolate—dull and grainy.

I recently mentioned that I read Existential Kink by Carolyn Elliott. If you’re looking for a starting point for doing this tempering work, check that book out. It’s really good and I use her exercises all the time.

Anyway, when I get the Temperance card, I think about this idea of self-tempering. This is doing internal work and external work at the same time. “As above, so below.” The more aligned you can get inside, the more aligned outside will be—and vice versa.

Writing is like this, too. We put our characters through the Solve et Coagula process, too. We break them down and make them face their fears so they can pull themselves back together without all of the detritus of their damaged egos standing in the way of their potential.

Also? The process of writing is Solve et Coagula. We break down our life experience and use it to seed ideas for fictional people. We use our trauma to inform our stories and thus gain deeper understanding of our own human experience. Through the process of writing story after story we mine our own subconscious for clues, and eventually, we can start to see patterns emerge.

Some questions to journal about today:

-How are you combining your internal and external resource for growth?

-What needs to be brought into balance?

-Where are you being tempered right now?

-What no longer serves you and needs to be left behind?

In comments let’s discuss: What does Temperance say to you today?