In today’s post

Nature writing and a tarot card. Simply standing still in a field like the solstice sun. Inviting you to join me in spirit.

The elderflower scent is thick in the air. Not sweet like syrup. More pungent. I won’t gather any elderflower this year. Several times in my life I have made cordial but have always been alarmed by the amount of sugar needed. The elderflower tea I dried last summer is in an olive jar on my desk. I enjoyed the foraging and bottling but less so the taste.

Bees and bluebottles buzz around blackberry flowers. The fruits are already showing, hard and green with the promise of autumn and crumble with custard.

A red admiral flits between the nettles loaded with seeds. For me, early spring is nettle at its finest when the long winter is woken by green again. Fresh green. So good with mint. The window for fresh nettle tea has been and gone though. You know the leaves will be bitter once the flowers come. Some herbalists harvest nettles with bare hands. Ouch. The sting is seen as a blessing from the plant. But I once fell into a nettle patch at school and memory stops me from touching the leaves.

I sit under an oak on a log and pull out my cards. Carrion crows, wrens and blackcaps call. Summer is heavy with life. And death. Nettles yellow and curled at the edges. Empty acorn cups from autumn past. The stem of the English ivy devoured by blackfly and the field maple leaves already dark, weighing the branches down.

There is no real reason for drawing a tarot card. No questions in mind, nothing to discover or know. Only creative curiosity and a need to pause. Stand still. Stand still. The ritual is in being here now.

Drawing a card in a field makes me feel wild and at the same time conspicuous. I hear two walkers chatting behind the elderflower trees and wait for their voices to fade before witchery commences. Will the witch wound ever fade?

The wood pigeons beckon me. The sun dried oak leaves sigh. Mixing the cards in my hands, I draw the ace of pentacles and place it on the earth next to my feet.

Pentacles, like seeds, belong to the ground. I wonder if I leave this seed here what would grow?

The parkland is full of seeds. The yellow dandelion flowers have turned to clocks. I no longer tell the time with them. The last seeds always cling on for dear life and the hour is always later than I hope it will be.

The tops of nettles bend heavy with nutty seeds, which I once read can be sprinkled on salads. Rusty red sorrel seeds wait to be stripped from their stalks by passers by. There's wild oat, foxtail and barley too. Summer is teeming with seed and hope.

The summer solstice is near. Summer is only beginning, and already we sense the birth of darkness. A sombre light. For a few days the sun will stand still. Pause. Then darkness becomes a seed in summer’s womb. The days are shortening. The pentacle on my card is like the sun, sinking towards winter. For a while we won’t notice the fading light, perhaps not until the first harvest.

Summer joy is in my heart alongside the sultry descent into death. The ace of pentacles is a marshmallow over the campfire. A beachball blown across sands. Olive. Tomato. Grapes, strawberries, raspberries, peaches and nectarines. A five pence piece in the slot machine on the pier. The ace of pentacles is the promise of summer to come.

Tell me. Will you stand still long enough to take summer in?

Claire

With gratitude to for passing on her knowledge of foraging.

If you enjoyed this please do press the tiny heart and make a solstice wish as you do. Thank you.

Subscribe now

Subscribe now

Body Image at Midlife

• Card one- My body image in my twenties

• Card two- My body image now

• Card three - A healthy body mindset moving forward

Card one: my body image in my 20s. The Star.

I have never thought of the star card as a goddess before but as I turned her over there she was. Like the Venus di Milo. Beautiful and out of reach. A body unafraid to be on show. A woman at ease with herself.

I did not see myself this way in my twenties. Like a goddess I mean. Maybe there were moments. I do remember one summer in Sicily. I lived on Mediterranean vegetables, swam in the sea, tanned myself beyond recognition. I felt confident then. But on the whole I remember always trying to have a better body.

I was a teenager when supermodels came on the scene. When Wonderbra arrived. I knew I could never look like they did. But I must have unconsciously swallowed the message that I was meant to. So the Star was a card of ideals for me. An image of how I was meant to feel and look.

*

Card two: my body image now. The Wheel of Fortune.

Maybe you think that now I am in my fifties the Star card represents a healed version of me. You might think I have kicked society’s idea of beauty out of the high tower and landed on my feet, content and more at ease.

It isn’t so. I am still hoping for a better version of my body.

A few weeks ago a woman asked me whether I was pregnant. I forced a smile, managed a quiet no, then sloped off to my room. There I inspected myself sideways in a long mirror, then sat on my bed and cried. So when I turned the Wheel of Fortune over I thought not of change or the cycles of life or forward motion. I think of the word ROUND. I feel round.

Round like jam doughnuts. I see the card and think of the jeans I donated to charity because the zip no longer goes over my round belly. I think of my apple shape.

Then I notice, there is no person in this card. Just a wheel. I feel distant from my body. I rarely look in a mirror. I delete photos of myself. I wear shapeless T shirts that cover the tops of my arms and wear trousers with elasticated waists. The card tells me of alienation.

But the wheel is about forward movement. Maybe that is where I start. I really need to get into my body and move. I could look up swim times at the local pool. I could charge up my step counter and actually use it. The wheel is about seasons and cycles. Summer is here. I could eat June’s strawberries and raspberries.

As much as I am resisting change, this card wants me to look change in the face. The increase in weight. The change in muscle tone and the stiffness in my knees and ankles in the morning are part of the ageing process.

*

Card three: a healthy body image moving forward. The Chariot.

I saw a beautiful naked woman in the Star card but now an armoured figure looks me straight in the eye.

Does the Chariot want me to just cover up my body and get on with it? Am I meant to hide under oversized clothes?

The armour does not speak to me of hiding away. The Chariot is a strong and confident card. It makes me want to stand tall, take control and actually move. This is mountain pose in yoga. A runner at the start line waiting for the pistol to fire.

My body is mine now. Not something to be admired or shown off. The armour is about being upright and strong.

Most of all the Chariot reminds me to build physical strength for the future. I think of lifting my dumbells. I think of a body that gets me round and lets me move.

Where the Star was wistful and gentle, the Wheel and the Chariot are asking me to get my arse in gear. Where the Star was a submissive bow to society’s expectations of beauty, the Chariot is a strong stance. I am not going to book a gym induction to finally look like Kate Moss. I am going to do it because a healthy body means enjoying a powerful, strong body. Time to crack the whip and get those sphinxes up off their feet.

Thank you for reading this post. If you enjoy my writing consider a tarot reading here with a discount code JYC5JLA6 until the end od July.

Reading

Meet me in the comments

Claire

In today’s post

A three card tarot spread to help relax into being a nobody for a while.

This one is a reflective one. Not a problem solver. For the thoughtful folk who are changing their idea of what success is. Not practical guidance. More my queen of cups voice today.

Little warning. Somebody has made a copycat account in my name. This has been reported now.

Welcome back

These early mornings are a pause between the dream world and the day and my chance to enjoy being nobody. I’m nameless. I have no role to play. Nobody to listen to or guide or say the right thing to. My age doesn’t matter. My gender is irrelevant and nobody asks me what I do for a living. In these moments before the family gets up and the street becomes noisy I’m free of labels and demands and projections and duty. Being nobody feels alluring and soft.

This morning my tarot cards are in a rough pile on the coffee table next to a mug with cold tea at the bottom. My car keys, the remote control and a comb sit next to a book about meditation. It’s all a strange mess. I am a strange pile of objects too.

I clear the comb, the keys and the mug with its tea stain as if to make space for a little more time being nobody before the world wants me to be a somebody again.

I tap the tarot deck on the coffee table to gather the pile together and shuffle the cards. My journal is open and I write down a few spread positions and arrange them in a way that will allow a story to emerge.

If you, like me, find yourself a little later in life wondering what all the fuss and bother was about being somebody and getting somewhere, if you are wondering whether you could let go, even if just a smidgeon, then this tarot spread is for you.

The art of being nobody tarot spread

Card one: How do I feel when I think I have to be a somebody? The Nine of Swords (keywords anxiety, nightmare, fear)

Description: In this Nine of Swords you’ll see a bird who has made himself a nest amongst nine swords. The bird sits enclosed within the nest. Almost safe.

Guidance: In the tarot the swords are an interesting suit. Each sword is a narrative. One we tell ourselves. Or maybe even a narrative we’ve picked up from the culture we live in and the people we hang out with. When you want to be a somebody you make a safety net out of narratives, you’ve collected along the way. You tell yourself you need a successful career, a certain amount of money, a good house. But the narratives are bothersome. Once you have built a sense of who you are, once you are somebody, it has to be upheld. You become entangled, eager for the story not to let you down. The bird sits in his nest of swords. He is almost safe yet threatened by the very things that protect him.

Card two: How life feels when I give myself a chance to be nobody at all. The king of cups (keywords emotional mastery, compassionate leader)

Description: In this card a squirrel sits on a rock, the fish in the water below jumping freely, the waves ungraspable and unpredictable around him. He has the freedom to plunge into the waters at any moment. Not trapped by his own stories. The king's cup is ready to receive. This is an animal led by fluidity and movement, unlike the bird who is ensconced within the house he built for himself.

Guidance: When you give yourself the chance to be nobody, the sharp edges of your demands on yourself disappear for a while and you are left with more flow and softness. In being nobody you no longer need to be any better than you already are. You are, like the kings, at the top of your game as you are with buckets of kindness to boot.

When you don't have to be a somebody you can go where the current of life would like to take you.

Card three: The bridge from somebody to nobody The Empress (keywords ease, abundance, belonging)

In this card a little squirrel sits on top of a log throne and looks around at the trees and rabbits and plants and mushrooms growing on the forest floor. This squirrel is queen of her realm and the scene is comforting.

This is one of those cards whose message feels simple and direct. The Empress is a card of total ease, relaxation and pleasure. She is the card of being happy in your own skin. The bridge from being a somebody to relaxing into being nobody is about ease at heart. An ease in not having to present yourself in any particular way, but sitting back and being you. When you are easy with yourself do you even need to be special? She relaxes and yet still knows she belongs without having to force herself into the shape of a somebody.

Wishing you ease.

If you enjoy my writing please do press the heart button and restack it. Thank you.

Claire

Subscribe now

In today's post

• A three card tarot spread you can use any day

• How to use it

• A reading I did with it recently

• 💬 An invitation to share your cards

Rather imaginatively, I've called this the Any Day Spread. Took me ages to come up with that, you know.

This is one of those spreads you can reach for in all sorts of situations. A way to check in with yourself, understand the ground you're walking on and notice the tools you have to get through the day. It's a way of meeting your situation with a creative mindset.

Card one | You

This card represents YOU today. How you are before you get going. A chance to check in with yourself before you do whatever it is you're doing. You could ask yourself how you are without pulling a card, of course, but how often do you do that really? And don’t you think an image says more?

Card two | The Ground

This card is the ground you're walking on, the feel of your day. The terrain and the conditions you'll meet, both inner and outer. You could think of this card as the metaphorical landscape.

Card three | The Tools

A card to represent the support you need as you face your day. What will you pack in your backpack to help you through? It might be literal or symbolic. It might be a quality or a mindset.

See, it's simple. One to come back to over and over, in all sorts of ways, and especially lovely as a journaling go to.

When might you use this reading?

• Before work

• On a Monday

• At the start of an astrological season

• At new moon

• Before a creative project

• Before meditation

• Before a day with the kids or grandkids

• Before a trip away

• Before a hard conversation

• Before writing a Substack post

• Before giving a talk

• Before meeting a client

• Before cooking dinner even. I mean why not?

• Before bed on a hot day

• Before doing sweet Fanny Adams

My reading

I'm on a roll with meditation after my recent retreat, so I thought I'd try this spread before a morning sit. Partly just to get my imaginal world flowing because that helps in meditation.

You don't have to be a meditator to enjoy this reading though. I think it helps to read through other people's tarot readings, just to see how different readers work with the cards.

Today I’m keeping it simple.

You | Five of Wands

This card is telling me my energy is a bit all over the place. Scattered. It helps to name how I feel. And yes, the cards are right. I do feel this like a firey jumble.

It's really hard sitting still when your energy is bouncing around like a bunch of foxes (see card)

A week of heat has made sleep difficult, I've been travelling lots, and I have visitors today. It's understandable that my energy would be ungrounded.

It helps to know that when I sit down to meditate, I might expect movement, thoughts and scattered energy. I can be with that more fully Without pushing it away now.

The Ground | Six of Swords

I can expect the ground to be rocky at first, with a smoother path ahead especially when it comes to thoughts. This makes sense. A scattered energy leads to bumpy thought.

Looking at the card, the rocks aren't obstacles, they're the launch pad. Start with thoughts as they are rather than what you think they ought to be and you fly in meditation.

In a way, this card encourages me. The scattered energies of the five of wands and the initial rocky ground of the six of swords hold the potential for more freedom of mind if I treat them well.

The Tools | Page of Cups

The pages are all related to the high priestess through their numerology, so pages are open and receptive. If I'm all over the place with some rocky ground to cover, of course I need an open heart and lots of love in my meditation. The page has this in spades in his toolkit.

But you know, the most important tool in my meditation toolkit is to expect the unexpected, as the page of cups does. This is the most creative way to meditate. The cards may tell a story of what my meditation will be like but I must stay open and look beyond the cards.

A little synopsis, based on the imagery in the cards above

The path of meditation today moves from restless to still, from heated to cool, from messy to mindful. There are rocks to climb, but transformation is possible.

💬 It's been a while since I started a discussion thread. Why not go and fetch your deck, think about the day ahead, pull three cards using the spread, and chat with me below about what came up.

Love Claire

Subscribe now

I am officially overheated with a fried brain in this heat. Hope my writing makes sense ☀️

I am home from my meditation retreat, still trying to cling on to some of the spaciousness and energy I found there. You may have read in my last post that we were in silence. No podcasts. No emails. No small talk. No screens. No talking for more than a week. I really loved it although once in a while I missed telling jokes and I ought to say I did text my kids twice. They deserve to hear from their mum.

The silence made everything so simple yet rich. When I say simple I mean small worlds I might normally bypass had a fullness of their own.I remember how a greenfly on my journal watched me write. He crawled across the page towards the nib of my pen and I let him explore with me. The page was as much his as mine. When you simplify life, you see life is full of goodies waiting for you.

I freely admit, I had been giving my energy away before the retreat, mostly by consuming too much media. I knew I was doing it but could not stop so I have tried to reduce the unnecessary noise since my return. When I say noise I mean information. Imput. I have been taking too much in. At least I quit social media around six weeks ago. That’s a flipping good start.

I have made some tweaks in my life at home.

For now at least bath times are only for bathing. Not podcasts. Just me and water. The dripping tap and heat lapping over my body. Car journeys are for driving. No Radio. No audiobooks. Just me and the engine. I wind the window down and I let the air cool my neck as I drive. Bedtimes are for lying down on my back. The phone is downstairs and the window is open. Tonight a crescent moon sits near the tops of the trees. We share the quiet.

Of course I pulled a card with all of this in mind. I wondered how I could nurture the quiet I’d found. The seven of pentacles came out.

The seven of pentacles message for reducing the noise

Traditionally the Seven of Pentacles is a card where you stop and consider how far you have come and how you managed to bring about your achievements. It is a card of patience, pauses and slow progress. At first glance it’s not the obvious card to receive for this question.

Perhaps here, the seven of pentacles seems to point at reducing noise as something we have to nurture. We have to treat our own awareness, or minds, like we would treat a plant and prune away unnecessary noise.

If our minds are like plants, we have to feed them only the information that lets them grow. We have to water them regularly with time offline. We have to not leave them wilting on the window ledge of overconsumption of news and media.

The Seven of Pentacles is a card of taking time out and assessing our lifestyle. Each moment we have to step back and consider whether we growing a busy mind or a quiet mind through our actions. If you want a mind like a ripe tomato plant or a trellis full of fragrant sweet peas, what care do you need to give it? If you feed your mind with too much information, how would the plant look?

How are you reducing the noise in your life? Tell me below.

Hello and welcome

You really are welcome here. There are millions upon millions of pages dedicated to tarot cards and yet here you are on mine. I have no idea whether this is serendipity, or the wonders of the algorithm.

I have read loads of advice about how to write an about page. But I am ignoring it (ha) because they never sound like me. So here goes.

I am Claire, and I have been writing this page for three years now. I once was a Bestseller with a bright orange tick, but these days I make all my posts free. I feel happier this way.

So if you subscribe, you will find me in your inbox fairly regularly.

I write about all sorts. Sometimes I am down to earth. Then something takes over and my voice becomes more poetic. More magical. I have no say over where or when this happens, so I am learning to go with the flow.

I meander around many themes. The seasons, Buddhism, nature, life in my fifties, creativity, everyday life, and magical things, but always through the lens of a tarot card. Three years in, I have learned that I can talk about anything under a tarot umbrella.

What I would like to offer now is thoughtful writing. I am a deep thinker. I am sensitive to life, to beauty, to people, and that comes through in what I do.

I am trying to be as much me as I can here. In a way, writing on Substack is about becoming oneself more and more. Writing is about learning who you are.

Join me, and I will bring you something thoughtful about the cards while learning to write more like myself along the way.

I don’t run a subscription as such, my health doesn’t allow for it,but some kind folk support me anyway. I think they just like what I do. I am super grateful for that.

Subscribe now

On Friday I begin a nine day Buddhist retreat near the Malvern hills and have been trying to slow down before I go. There’s no good turning up to a retreat feeling rubbish, otherwise it takes a week to unwind before you can really get into anything. However, with food shopping to order, clothes to pack and housework to do, not to mention the horrible cold I have, realistically I will be tired on arrival.

I haven't been away from the kids for this long for years, and even though I know they will be loved and well looked after, I will miss little things.

Mostly we will be in silence on retreat. Silence is beautiful once you are into it. Silence is often rich in sound, birdsong, morning tea being poured into cups. Sometimes people sigh or giggle.

Despite the silence, there will be a way of being together for us retreatants. We won’t do sign language or writing in the air. We won’t mouth words. But we all know we are in eachothers company. We pass one another the salt at dinner. We sit together on the bench near the pond. We sit quietly after meditation in the stillness of the shrine room. Companiable silence I’d call it.

It feels timely that I am going and I want to find my feet with meditation again. I am so off and on with my practice. For years I would reguarly meditate for forty maybe fify minutes in the morning, but I lost momentum which I deeply regret.

Despite this wavering in my meditative life, there has always been a thread of practice, even if it is off the cushion. My writing, my tarot practice, my connection with nature all support mindfulness.

I will be turning my phone off for the nine days, except for when I take photos that is. If you have been reading along, you will know that I left social media. That was a month ago and honestly, I haven't missed it at all. I wake up feeling less anxious as a result and thankful I don’t have so much stuff in my head.

I am looking forward to having time to do less. When on retreat I notice the slower pace. How much care I am able to take over the small things. I make up my bed, fold my pyjamas, put my clothes on unhurriedly. I eat porridge, sometimes taking time to peel the skin from an apple all in one go and chopping the fruit into neat chunks to mix into my breakfast with cinammon and sugar. I notice other retreatants moving slowly. The birdsong. The sound of the tea urn. These small things become a source of contentment, so much so that I wonder why I don’t do the same at home.

I have been wondering whether to take my tarot cards with me. I have taken my cards with me before but they never get a look in there. It isn't because I am busy. Retreat has a richness to it and nourishes my heart in a way I am rarely in touch with when I am home, and somehow it doesn't occur to me to get the cards out in these circumstances.

I know I have been painting a pretty picture of retreat but things can be hard sometimes, which you have to work through kindly. In silence, all you have is you and your own mind. But the retreat, being skillfully led in the context of Buddhist practice seems to be able to hold all that.

I look forward to seeing you on the other side.

Claire

Maybe this exploration sounds messy but it isn’t to be hard on myself. I just find honesty quite freeing.

Self care

I don’t think I really need to flip a card to know why I can’t write. I am tired. I’ve started working a few days a week. This takes time and energy and my writing tends to go on the side. Then when I get tired I tend to look after myself less well. The opposite of what is needed. I eat rubbish things like crisps to keep me going, or drink cans of coke instead of water. I also slump on the sofa more rather than go for a walk. Walking is where nearly all my creative ideas happen, so when I don’t walk my writing feels forced. On top of this, this is the first week for a long time where I’m not journaling quite so much. Journaling helps me feel more connected to myself, and therefore more connected to my writing.

Comparison

Something else going on too is that I am getting frustrated with my writing style. I’ve hit a plateau. I don’t have a clue about writing really. All I know is that I want to keep my voice thoughtful, clear, honest and readable. It does admittedly makes me feel inadequate when I read stuff by other authors here on Substack, there is SUCH talent here. All this is blocking my way to writing anything coherent, except for when I write about not being able to write. Which is flowing out just fine because it is live and honest.

Shoulds

There are a lot of shoulds that can get in the way when you are a writer, especially when you are seen as a bit witchy. When you are a tarot reader, the shoulds come out. You know. I should be talking about Beltane. I should have done some nature writing. I should do a full moon spread. I should write in my more magical voice. I haven’t written about midlife for a while. I should.

Right now

But honestly, my connection with Beltane and Taurus season consists of me walking and stopping to sniff lilac or gaze at buttercups, and there is not much more to it than that at the moment. I don’t think I can stretch it into a whole article right now. As for midlife, well It can’t be pinned down in writing without sounding like one big fat stereotype and so I tread round the topic befuddled.

Why pull cards then?

I don’t pull tarot cards because I don’t already know the answer. When I pull a card I do so because I need my imagination to be engaged. I know the answers logically, but the tarot takes what I know and takes it deeper. I decided to type all this out without pulling any cards, so I am going to pause and do that now. I’ll keep it simple because I am probably too tired for anything elaborate. I’m going to ask what is blocking me, and what will help my writing flow again. I hope it is something you can use in your art or writing or gardening or whatever else you love.

The cards

In this photo the king of pentacles is the block and the the nine of pentacles is the flow.

Mastery

Is there part of me that wants to have mastered the skill of writing before I put it out into the world? (king) Maybe it helps to think more in terms of leaning into what I know, and finding joy in knowing there is always more to learn. You are never done. (9)

Bogged down

The pentacles suit can have quite an organised feel. Everything has to be sorted and tidy. Maybe I am a bit bogged down by the routine (king) and I just need to throw caution to the wind and enjoy the craft in a more organic way that suits me (9)

Responsibility

In the first card the king is with a guard dog, and I can feel how this king is overloaded with responsibility. The King of Pentacles can sometimes be responsible for everything, and then he freezes and can’t get around to anything. When you have too much to do, this gets in the way of creative freedom. The 9 of Pentacles feels like a nudge to go and do something you really enjoy before you write.

Get wild

The king has a domestic animal sitting loyally at his side. The 9 of Pentacles is setting her falcon free into the wild. This is permission to get wilder in your writing. Write about the unsaid things. Get them out in the open rather than what you think is your duty to write.

Generosity

The king writes for others. He loves to be generous. But the nine of pentacles knows she needs to luxuriate in writing because it is what she loves. Maybe I just need to write something for myself.

Get outside

There he is, this king in his red room. He looks caved in. And to be honest I am not getting out much either a bit like him. The 9 of Pentacles is prancing about in her garden. She is stretching out. I think I’ll go and find some buttercups then.

Are you a a writer? What frees you up? Claire 🍄

Subscribe now

My morning pages are a bit of a scrawl but reading over them again, I see that for quite some time, I have been fed up with how often I glue myself to my phone. I have been stuck in this pattern before.

When I spend less time on a screen, I feel quiter within myself. The quiet gives me a chance to see how I really am, where scrolling takes me away not just from myself but from life.

Just on Sunday, I was waiting for my husband in the car and rather than filling the moment with scrolling, I rested. In resting, my senses came alive. I became aware of clouds moving through the sky. A blackbird landing in a treetop. There is nothing I could ever find on my phone that could offer this kind of goodness.

With this in mind, I have decided to make more of an effort to create healthier boundaries around phone use. Pretty much everything is on my phone though so this will be a work in progress.

My first step was to delete my Instagram page as well as Facebook. My only online space now is here. However, just because Substack is a more creative platform than other online spaces doesn’t mean I always engage with it in a creative way though. I am not free yet.

Journaling has helped me reduce my screen time and my tarot cards have too. As I explained, my morning pages showed me a repeated wish to move away from my phone, which formed the basis of the tarot spread I am about to share.

Maybe you find yourself with the same heavy heart as me when you think of how much time is spent on a screen. If you would like to have a healthier relationship with the online world, perhaps this tarot spread could be your first step.

The three card spread

The spread is easy to lay out. All you really need to do is shuffle your deck whisper the spread position to your cards one at a time, then place them in a row left to right. Spend some time allowing the cards to show you your own wisdom.

🍄Card one Discomfort

The first card symbolises your discomfort. With this card ask yourself what is making you feel uneasy? Why are you picking up your phone?

🍄Card two Longing

The second card is the longing. With this card you would like to understand what you are really longing for?

🍄Card three Another Way

The third card symbolises another way. How else could your longing be fulfilled?

The discomfort

The four of pentacles.

You reach for your phone out of habit or when you are bored. Life can feel like groundhog day and routine can make you feel average. The discomfort beneath it all is the humdrum.

Perhaps you have been sitting at your desk in the same position again. Perhaps an hour slipped by before you remembered to stretch. The energy in your body has stagnated and when discomfort builds it looks for relief.

Notice how often you reach for your phone out of boredom or habit. Do you just need to move?

The longing

The wheel of fortune

This card says when you pick up your phone, you are longing for a change in gear, for freedom in movement, for forward motion.

In the four of pentacles you were trapped in the confines of your little life. In the wheel of fortune you sit there thinking there must be something bigger and bolder to be found. You feel like life is rolling on without you. The longing is to be part of the web of life again. But your phone will never fully provide this.

Notice whether you are longing for a change of scene, spontaneity or connection with life next time you reach for your phone.

Another way

The five of pentacles

This card shows your next honest and practical step. You have been longing for a shift in your energy as the wheel of fortune suggests.

Moving from the four of pentacles to five of pentacles in this spread clearly shows only one simple everyday step is necessary. So, instead of doomscrolling, get up, stretch out on the ground, get outside in the fields. Your longing may be met in this way.

Turning away from your phone and reaching for something more wholesome may feel uncomfortable at first. But don’t feel sorry for yourself for too long because the tiny change in movement will reconnect you with goodness again.

Do one simple movement with your body next time you need to reach for your phone. This will turn things round for you.

In this day and age it is hard to be off screen so I hope to move through this process with understanding and kindness. Wishing us all an authentic connection to life off screen. Claire 🍄

One of the best things about tarot is how it encourages me to notice its card energies in the world around me. I see them in the seasons, myself, flowers, art. To be a tarot reader is to be a magpie collecting meaning wherever I go.

I often find card energies through books, so I’ve been trying to make space for reading as part of my morning routine. Recently, The Heart’s Awakening by Bodhipaksa, has given me food for thought.

I came across this passage the other day, and it sparked a reflection on how I think about the suit of cups.

I think I subconsciously see the suit of cups as a journey towards happiness, which of course it can be. But what if the path led to kindness?

Happiness, as Bodhipaksa says, comes and goes, but kindness can be present no matter what. I hope you find the journey through the suit helpful.

The path of kindness through the cups suit.

In the ace you cups you tune into your own natural capacity for kindness even on sad days.

In the two of cups, this natural kindness flows towards the people you meet and the things you do, even when you are not at your best.

In the three of cups kindness spreads and harmonises. Even if community is a hard place to be happy, you can still be kind there.

In the four of cups, making space for your feelings is the kindness, even if the feeling is an unhappy one.

In the five of cups kindness leaves no stones unturned. It allows everything be felt, not just happiness.

In the six of cups kindness flows easily and life feels safe and sweet.

In the seven of cups kindness holds uncertainty in our lives. Which choices feel kind?

In the eight of cups kindness means saying no to the things that no longer feel kind.

In the nine of cups kindness is integrated .Cups can easily spill but now you know how to handle it.

In the ten of cups kindness has no limits. There is always room for more. Kindness was always the way to a happier heart.

The page of cups is the part of you willing to know what kindness is.

The knight of cups is the part of you willing to try kindness out.

The queen of cups is the part of you that knows kindness starts with yourself.

The king of cups is the part of you that naturally offers kindness to others because it is within yourself.

With kindness Claire

If you have enjoyed this post please do let kindness flow outwards and like and restack. Thank you. I also love hearing from you. Let’s chat. Which cups card feels relevant to you?

I was sitting on my balcony today, enjoying the fact that journaling and tarot can be an outside thing now the weather has warmed up.

I have to admit, mornings and midlife don’t go together terribly well. I mostly wake up with a low mood, one that I tend to move through as the day goes by and usually end up feeling more buoyant by late morning. My low mood is often what nudges me towards my journal and my cards.

Journaling and tarot make me happy. I feel like when I get my pen and cards out, I am making a positive choice for myself, and that in itself makes me feel better.

I quite often ask my cards what I need, and today was one such day. So when I pulled the Five of Swords, a card classically attributed to mental conflict or conflict in communication, I felt annoyed at first if I am honest.

But I have been at the cards for long enough to know there is always a message to be found that goes further than traditional meanings. I don’t mean everything has to be sugar coated. That would be no good to me or anyone else. But there is always a way.

So I stared at the card. A crow perched on three swords, looking at a field of wilting daffodils. Two swords lying flat as if dead.

And the dying daffodils in the card became the strongest image. Even something as bright and jolly as a spring flower that cheers us up after winter, ends up crumpled like tissue paper.

And sorting out your head is about acknowledging what once was. Like the daffodils in the card, it’s seeing ideas that once had vibrancy but might have lived out their natural course.

So, I started to move my pen. Moving my pen on the page helps me understand what the card is about.

Quite often when I read the cards, phrases come into my head. I do wonder whether this is what other tarot readers mean when they say they download messages from their guides. I don’t know. For me it just feels like a wisdom trying to make itself known to me. I don’t have a clue where it comes from. Anyway I digress.

And as I journaled and let the image speak to me, I felt this was a ‘wheat from the chaff’ kind of card. Today I need to sort the wheat from the chaff.

And the cards, as they often do, were seeing something already in process. I have already been sorting wheat from chaff in my life actually. For instance, I deactivated my Instagram because, frankly, I am sure it is doing me no good whatsoever.

And sorting the wheat from the chaff just feels like knowing what kind of thoughts and ideas are bringing me down and which ones need some new life breathed into them.

The Five of Swords is a big rug shake of the mind, it’s a walk in fresh air to blow the cobwebs out, it’s scribbling down all the crap in your notebook until things start to turn themselves around. It is acknowledging and letting go.

And these kind of days are a necessary part of life and I love the Five of Swords for that.

Five of Swords journaling

What needs a good sorting in your head right now? How can you sort the wheat from the chaff today?

This is a free post from me and you are welcome to share it. What do you think of when you get the five of swords? Do you love it or loathe it?

Subscribe now

Here are five king of cups reflections. I hope they bounce off the page and light something in you too. The king of cups as artist, midlife woman, witch, meditator and woman with ADHD.

The cards are like prisms or mirrors.

Today the king of cups casts reflections across a room. One of those beautiful crystals you hang in a window, and the walls are lit with rainbows. Each ray is a fractal of my being with different energies and forms.

King of cups as five mirrors

The artist’s mirror

The inner artist is the part of me who knows how to turn life into poetry or beauty. Artistry only really goes as deep as your connection to life, and the fully fledged creative sees this and is led by the spirit of it. Perhaps the true artist is not one who is at the top of her game in the creative world. The king of cups lets their deep sensitivity lead the way to the masterpiece.

The midlife mirror

As a woman in my 50s I have found at least some emotional resilience. My inner king of cups leads life knowing that there are highs and lows. There is sadness and there is deep joy. There is loss and connection. A woman in midlife has lived fully enough to know you don’t reach an age when life smooths out and hardships disappear. All emotions swim together. This is the very definition of emotional maturity. To live in the world having integrated this wisdom.

The witch’s mirror

The inner witch as king of cups is deeply intuitive. She is fully in touch with the element of water. She does mirror work, makes moon water, bathes in herbs, journals her dreams, and swims in the wild. When she honours the spirit of water in her life, she allows the mystery and the unknown to be her guide.

The meditator’s mirror

The king of cups is the moment in meditation when whatever thoughts or experiences are moving through you, you are able to open yourself fully to them rather than push them away. You approach your feelings with care until they are transformed and you are able to experience a sense of relaxation and ease. You don’t master your emotions by bossing them around. You master your emotions by serving them with great care.

The ADHD mirror

People don’t often make a connection between ADHD and emotional mastery. I have been called a dreamer, a scatterbrain, flaky, too sensitive over the years and from a young age. But I am starting to understand my deep sensitivity as the monarch I would like as ruler in my world. I wear sensitivity like a crown and am less afraid to share it.

For journaling lovers

How is the king of cups a mirror to your life right now? Mother, creative business owner, home owner, Substack writer? There are no limits to who the king of cups can be.

Chat with me below if anything resonated and do feel free to share and restack this if you enjoyed it to help me keep my words alive.

Subscribe now

Hello,

I drew a card for my day with the question How can I best resource myself today? I received the nine of cups, which felt like a pretty good start.

But I can get a card like the nine of cups and think to myself, Yeah, but that’s too obvious. How can I resource myself? How is sitting in fron…

Read more

Being unwell in February has really messed with my routines. Even now, I feel a little out of connection with the season and myself. Spring is here (almost), and I am not quite into it yet.

Usually, even through the winter, I get out for my walks, journal about what nature is up to, take photos, and so on.

But I have been indoors in a slump of late despite this gorgeous weather. I feel like a bear who got a bit too comfortable in her cave.

Even when I hear the morning birds or look at the daffodils, I am not quite there with them yet. It’s as if I am looking at life through a cloud.

I’m sure this is quite a common winter to spring transition.

I seem to remember from my Traditional Chinese Medicine studies that the masculine yang energy rises quickly in the body in spring and can get stuck, causing tension in the body and mind.

So it seems like a big shake of the proverbial rug is needed, and I haven’t picked the rug up yet.

Anyway, I thought I’d share with you a tarot spread that I wrote for myself about meeting spring from where I am.

I did this spread at my kitchen table this morning.

When I am writing more casually like this, in my bed with a cuppa or in my dressing gown in the kitchen with my family walking in, I don’t always do the little things that make journaling more of a ritual in the traditional sense.

But however I journal, I always love it.

And I am saying that because however you choose to mark the season, whether with elaborate rituals or sitting with your humble notebook and pen, a tealight, and a bunch of daffs from your local supermarket, I hope you feel nourished by it.

Shake Your Rug Tarot Spread (photo below)

The invitation is for you to try this spread, perhaps for the new moon which was earlier this morning or on the spring equinox.

I have made a few very simple notes about my cards below too, and you will be able to see that sometimes the images on the cards speak louder than traditional meanings for me.

How am I now?

The Seven of Cups

This card is spot on visually. I feel as though I am looking at spring from behind a wall of fog or a cloud. I am emerging from a fuzzy state.

What am I shaking off?

The Star

The dust is still settling from my ill health, which had a tower like feel. Healing is still happening. I am shaking off any stuck energy that has been gathering. This card feels like my Tai Chi card today. Energies are realigning.

What would help me meet spring more fully?

The Eight of Swords

This is me in my safe little cave, not wanting to face the world too much. The cave walls are mind made though. My attention is drawn to the broom outside the circle of swords. Perhaps a bit of actual sweeping around my house would get me out of my hibernation mentality and into an embodied sense of spring.

I would enjoy hearing from you if you have time and as this is a free post and if you enjoyed it then do press the heart and restack it. It helps my article reach others. Thank you.

With gratitude

Happy new moon and spring.

Claire

Receive regular posts and become a paid subscriber here today.

Subscribe now

Hello to you

I have been doing some meditation online since Friday, so when the Hierophant card appeared during my morning journaling, I wasn’t surprised. The image showed a meditation teacher guiding a few students.

At first I took the card quite literally. I thought of it as one of those days when the tarot wants to give you a wink as if to say, I see y…

Read more

Read more

Hello there

I would like to let you know my new way forward in the Moon Shed now I have taken a little time out ( well almost but not quite). Three of cups thoughts are at the end.

The foundations

Tarot will still be the foundation of my writing. I love the cards and they hold everything I want to write about. Everything else I love will fall under that umbrella. Tarot feels like the ground. The catch all. I don’t write ABOUT tarot, I write WITH it now.

Themes

I would love to keep the themes I write about (under the general tarot umbrella) more spontaneous. I am a thoughtful woman who wants to be open, creative and intuitive in her writing and approach. Nothing is off limits. Everything is allowed. I would like to drop the labels I attached to my page and be a little more free. I can feel the life coming back to me just saying that.

Kind to you and me

I have more of a sense of what I can manage as a writer now and I would like to write in a sustainable way.

I would also like to give you less to do as readers. I would love for you to feel you can tune in, read and never feel there is anything to catch up on or do.

If you leave the page with a new thought or different way to think I will be happy. This can be enough. This is my offering to you.

Promises

So the only promise I make is not to make BIG unsustainable promises anymore. I suspect I have ADHD and I burn out very easily. It is really hard to manage and I am not at all on top of it.

Paid subscribers

I know this sounds like a promise already but I will send you four posts a month exclusive to you. The themes are not set in stone but tarot will be the catch all for what I write. I hope to write with thoughtfulness, honesty and kindness with pauses on subscriptions when I need breaks.

All subscribers

I would like to send out an additional two posts a month to all subscribers where possible. Some may be short and sweet, some longer.

About Substack

Substack has exploded and the offerings people are creating are incredible. There are a bazillion tarot writers too doing amazing things.

I got caught up in a wave of trying to match the capacity of other people. God it is a bit cringe saying that out loud.

But the truth is I have to pare back and give from a different place.

The capitalist voice in me is screaming ‘nobody will want you unless you give more and more’. The caring voice whispers ‘this is enough’ ‘you give enough with the resources you have’

Unpausing subscriptions

I said I would unpause this week but I have had still have a virus and frozen shoulder so have not been on top of things. I will unpause on my next post.

3 of cups

I drew the 3 of cups this morning whilst sipping a lemsip and sitting in bed in my dressing gown.

I wrote a ton of things about it in my journal but one theme was softness.

The three women in the card are looking out at stars in a calm pink sky. The atmosphere is soft and I have the impression that I too would like to look around me to see what is soft? What is gentle in my immediate environment?

Then I open the blinds and there is a morning mist and sunlight. I let my eyes linger there for a few minutes and take in the softness. The landscape outside my window mirrors the three of cups and I feel peaceful for a moment.

This feels like what tarot is about today. Not finding answers but shifting my internal landscape. Noticing what is soft in a difficult world. Moving forward in a softer way in this creative community too.

Journal prompts

If you soften your eyes in this moment what shifts?

What does creative softness look like in online communities?

Thank you to you all who read my stuff. I appreciate you. If you read this through and would like to help me grow as a creative please do like, comment and share this by restacking it.

Claire

Subscribe now

5 things in my notebook

A quiet contribution I am making

-temperance

I don’t think of myself as an activist. Transforming my own mind in the day to day is my version of the work. When I breathe through impatience in traffic jams or speak kindly to telephone sales people, I hope that in some tiny way I am making a contribution to peace.

A seasonal noticing

-the moon

Evenings are a little lighter now of course. The daffodils have opened, but there are still bare branches and dead leaves. It’s neither winter nor fully spring really. This inbetween feeling is Pisces. An undefined space between worlds with the promise of light inside of it. calls this ‘Winterspring’ which I love.

A practice I’m following

-the empress

Tara Brach, a Buddhist teacher asks whether we are moving through life with a clenched fist. It’s such a simple image for tension. I’ve started asking myself whether I’m open handed or closed fisted in my day to day activity, and noticing how quickly I tighten. Relaxing my palms and opening is a positive practice.

A tarot question I’m using

-the high priestess

In her new book on the I Ching, the author , asks the oracle the question “What weather am I in?” And I love this question for daily tarot too. I love it because it helps me know my internal weather.

A quote I’m loving

-the knight of swords

“Maybe the reinvention I’m seeking isn’t about geography. Maybe it’s about finding a new way to inhabit my own mind, my own creative life” . This quote reminds me that I create my life inside my mind. The externals are secondary.

That feels plenty for today. You can tell me if anything resonates here. I love writing notebook style about everything. I hope you enjoy it too.

Claire

I have been watching, drawing photographing and journaling about snowdrops.

I go out and look at them most days. I write down what they are doing. The act of noticing something so small and simple feels medicinal to me and helps me in the dreary weather.

When the flowers first appear, the buds stay closed a while, they seem to quiver and I wonder how such fragile flowers put up with the cold.

After a few weeks they open into neat snow coloured bells. I have learned that Snowdrops are Schneeglöckchen in German which can be translated as little snow bells.

I imagine these first bells to be at the full expression of their “snowdropness” but I am surprised when they open further. Snowdrops look a bit odd at this point. They split into three, like helicopter blades or little alien flowers.

Finally the petals thin and fall to the ground or are eaten by insects.

I used to wish the winters away and but now I notice I want the snowdrops to stay. Not so much because I love winter. It is more that the seasons seem to turn so quickly the older I get and when the snowdrops go then this part of my life goes with them.

I did not know I could feel loss watching snowdrops. Is this an expression of the Japanese philosophy of ‘mono no aware’. The bittersweet transience of beauty? I have never been to Kyoto to watch the cherry blossom fall but at least I have watched snowdrops closely now.

For now, each snowdrop is a tiny lantern in the grey drizzly month of February. And my slow day to day noticing of one simple flower brings me in touch with the hermit card. When I stand still looking down at tiny flowers, with nothing else to do for even a few moments, I am the monk in his mountain hut looking for signs of spring.

Journal

Choose a flower and watch it change over time. Draw it, take photos, take notes and notice how the plant makes you feel.

What are you noticing about the season?

Claire

Subscribe now

Paid subscriptions are currently on pause. This post is for everyone and you are free to share it. Thank you for understanding.

Hi there,

As you may know, in the last few weeks I pressed pause on my paid subscriptions in order to have a break (and this is still ongoing)

Funny thing is, in the time it takes to boil a kettle, I understood why I needed to just stop for a bit. The pause flooded me with clarity. Funny that!

Lightbulb moments from the past few weeks. Honest thoughts.

ONE - I have cornered myself into a niche and niches and labels make me feel trapped.

TWO - I want to bring whatever is alive to the table. Planning a year of content and promising things dulls my creativity.

THREE - I get excited by new ideas, over promise then run out of steam quickly. I can’t work like that anymore.

FOUR- I want to write in a more sustainable way and it has taken me years to understand the importance of this. Sustainable work is kind work.

FIVE - The people who genuinely like my newsletter, and I know who you are, are those who like how I think and not how much I give.

SIX- I want you to enjoy my writing and not feel like each newsletter is another big thing to do or turn up to. You all have wonderful, busy lives to lead.

SEVEN- This is what I am like and it is about time I stop seeing myself as flawed and confusing. More boundless and ever changing. The right people will find me when I operate from a positive sense of myself.

So an idea is forming for the Moon Shed…

The idea comes from something that happened years ago, when I was asked to give a short talk about ‘one thing’ I was inspired by.

I felt strangely annoyed.

How dare they ask me to bring ONE thing.

So, with a somewhat rebellious heart I thought “right, I will show them'“

True story

I got a huge board, cut out pictures from magazines and printed off images and words from Pinterest and created a board FULL of all the ALL the things I loved.

I took one thing didn’t I? The board.

It is the same with my journaling.

I have ONE journal but limitless topics. I even call my journal my EVERYTHING JOURNAL.

Then it dawned on me. I want my Substack page to have this freedom. The page is my big ideas board, my everything journal.

Each newsletter post would be a digital notice board, of the thoughts and ideas stirring me or exciting me.

Because I think you like how I think. My honesty.

I will of course bring seasons, philosophy, cronehood, creativity, tarot (always tarot), the moon, the seasons, journaling, books, quotes, oracle and so much more.

Nothing is off topic but it is all held by MY VOICE in one place. And if it isn’t alive in me I won’t pin it to the board.

In 2026 I am giving myself more creative freedom and fewer labels and in the end of the day I write for women who feel the same.

Drop the labels.

Be yourself.

Live creatively.

There I told you about EVERYTHING

I have to say I am not sure of the fine details yet of all this yet, so I am keeping the pause button pressed down so no payments go out and annual subscriptions are extended. And I will keep you in the loop.

I would absolutely welcome your thoughts and feedback. I am so grateful to those women who support this page.

Please do feel free to share and restack this.

With lotsa love

Claire

Subscribe now