How can we best navigate this difficult time in our country and the world?

Yesterday, with that question in mind, I grabbed an old magazine, took a deep breath, and spoke this question aloud. Then I opened the magazine at random and ripped out the page under my hand. Quickly scanning the page I circled words and phrases that jumped out at me. Those words and phrases, arranged into a rough poem, answered the question this way:

When clouds pass overhead,

new incandescent beings are spotted all the time.

Bioluminescent,

they express themselves

with light.

A signal fire,

helping us to find our location in the blackness.

Shimmering

glow sticks,

displaying intense cheek lights,

luminous dappled bellies,

glowing lures

dangling from nose or arms,

deep sparkling eyes

If met with a startle response, they can also match the color of moonlight.

Oh yes, I thought, let’s do all we can to shine brightly, so we can find each other, strengthen each other and dazzle the new world into being! (Or if necessary, glow more quietly like the moon.)

Yet I was uneasy with this answer; I wondered if it glossed over too quickly the looming darkness…

So I turned to the Tarot. Again I centered myself, asked the same question, and pulled a card from each of three tarot decks—and to my delight they worked beautifully together, affirming the message from the poem and putting it into a larger context. Here are the cards, along with what I heard when the cards popped up.

The 10 of Fire from the Gaian Tarot, a raging forest fire:

Yes, I am scary and can well threaten you, your home and those you love. You must acknowledge this danger, and pay close attention to minimize it whenever you can. But a forest fire is part of nature’s cycles and there is only so much you can do to fight me. I am the fastest way to clear away dead and cluttered underbrush and all that stifles new growth, for the long-term health of the forest. Remember, too, that new growth is gradual, it takes time. But it will come, once the way is clear.

0 Fool from the Tarot of the Crone:

You are uneasy because you are entering the void, the unknown. All your certainties are dissolving. You must walk a new path. Be fearless about letting go of your ideas about the way the world “is” and open to vast fresh possibilities. Walk forward with what you deeply know (in your heart and belly). Make a new world happen by BEING it. Whether it seems “foolish” or not, seek and embody the world you most want to live in. Trust the Universe; it embraces all that supports Life.

19 Sun in World Spirit Tarot (2nd edition):

Connect with the love and spiritual light all around you—it IS there even when things look dark. Feed yourself with all that makes you come most alive, and then SHINE that light unashamedly, for it will nourish and inspire others even as it gives you a powerful strength. (Don’t forget to absorb the rays of the sun and the shimmers of the moon.) Be willing to be as delighted and innocent as a child, naked and vulnerable and unafraid. Entertain the “impossible” (like riding a unicorn) and allow your imagination and humor to run free. Dare to enjoy your life, and dare to SHOW that you do!

Which reinforces the poem’s suggestion to allow our light to lead—our love, our creativity, our humor, our quirkiness–because out of that will come joyful ways to create the world we want to see and the people we want to be.

Or if we are not so shiny at the moment, to practice what lights us from within. And to hang around with other bright souls who spark our inner flame, make us laugh and with us dream up wild, useful ideas.

Not to ignore the darkness as it arises, but to refuse to spar with it or be diminished by it.

Amidst the miasma, shall we resolve to shine ever more brightly?

(though I’m not sure about the glowing lures dangling from the nose…)