Your Creative & Magical Life

12. Strength: Embracing Self-Love & Inner Resilience w/ Madeleine Gunhart

• Cecily Sailer / Madeleine Gunhart • Episode 12

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Can the path to healing and self-love be found within the cards of the Tarot? Join me as we explore the profound lessons of the Strength card in the Major Arcana and its themes of self-love, tenderness, and resilience. Through personal reflections and stories, we unravel how this card invites us to embrace and nurture all aspects of ourselves, even those parts we find difficult to love.

For this episode, I'm joined by Madeleine Gunhart, a cherished member of the Typewriter Tarot community, who shares her journey of navigating and overcoming emotional abuse, finding solace in the Tarot, and the transformative power of self-acceptance.

In this conversation with Madeleine, you’ll discover how an unexpected spiritual journey, sparked by a fascination with witchcraft and nudged along by a perceptive therapist, can open doors to personal growth and inner peace. We also confront common misconceptions about spirituality and the societal judgments that often accompany it. Through vivid discussions about the recurring infinity symbol in the Strength card and its connection to renewable spiritual energy, we illustrate the ongoing journey of self-acceptance and love. Madeleine’s insights into the Swords suit add depth to our conversation, highlighting the importance of confronting and nurturing our inner thoughts and beliefs.

We also get into topics like: our deep love for animals, Rachel Pollack's 78 Degrees of Wisdom, the therapeutic power of writing, and setting boundaries.

You can learn more about Madeleine and connect with her on Instagram or via her website. And read Madeleine's essay, "Plucking Out and Picking Up the Swords," on our blog.


This podcast is a production of Typewriter Tarot. Learn more & join us:

Speaker 1:

Hello and welcome to your Creative and Magical Life, which is hopefully your actual life, but is also this podcast, a show that explores how tarot, divination and spirituality can help us live a life that sparkles with magic and creativity. I'm your host, cecily Saylor. Let's make some magic. Hello, creative spirits, Welcome to another episode of your Creative and Magical Life. I'm so glad you're here. I appreciate you listening.

Speaker 1:

This episode is an exploration of the Strength card, which is card number eight in the Major Arcana. It comes after the Chariot and before the Hermit, and this is one of my favorite cards to see. It always feels really sweet, really tender, really loving to see this card and I always feel really held by it. My sense on some level, when this card comes up for me, is that the universe, the great consciousness, the great mystery you know, I don't, I don't know what to call it all the time, but I feel like that great force beyond me is inviting me to love myself even more fully, even more deeply, to bring love to myself, to parts of myself that I find sometimes difficult to love or that I assume other people find difficult to love and maybe they do. But it's as if the universe is saying you belong here, you are loved in this great cosmos. Can you love yourself as fully? There's a really beautiful conversation you're about to hear where we get into different facets of this card, different aspects of it, different ways to read it and think about it, and I'm really excited to share this conversation.

Speaker 1:

It's with Madeline Gunhart, who has been a part of the Typewriter Tarot community for several years now. Madeline has attended workshops and classes. Madeline has attended workshops and classes and she has also worked with me for a time in a coaching container and I was supporting her both with her writing but then with other things that were coming up in her life around that time and related to the work of her writing. And it's been a really beautiful thing for me to get to know Madeline over time and build a relationship with her and get to know her writing, which is really incredible. She often writes for young readers, but there's a beautiful sense of humor and playfulness and also seriousness and tenderness in her work. And then, more recently, madeline has been helping out with Typewriter Tarot, sometimes behind the scenes, sometimes out there on the stage. She's written pieces for our blog.

Speaker 1:

She's helped in various ways and has been a very welcome supporter of the many different things typewriter tarot does and she's just an incredibly thoughtful, sweet person, not only a writer, but a tarot reader herself and also an animal lover an empath, I think, and, yeah, I'm just a big fan and she shares in this episode very tenderly and vulnerably about her relationship with this card and also some difficult experiences in her life, which include emotional abuse. There's not a lot of detail that she shares about that, but I want to mention that up front in case that's a tender spot for you as well. Listen with care. But Madeline recently wrote a piece for our blog about working with the sword suit and how that suit, initially to her, felt quite harsh and scary, especially having felt some of the emotional attacks she had experienced in the past. But over time she's been able to work with that suit in interesting ways and really find more freedom and more peace and more self-love through working with that suit. And I think that's the kind of work that strength is inviting us to do when it shows up is to look at our thoughts, look at our beliefs, look at the parts of us that are calling out for a bit more love and attention.

Speaker 1:

So I wanted to bring Madeline on the show. For that reason, her piece really inspired me, really moved me. You'll find a link to it in the show notes. But yeah, I hope this conversation helps you see this card in the big, expansive, multifaceted way that I think it can be related to. So yeah, let's get into it. Hello Madeline, welcome to your Creative and Magical Life. It's so nice to have you on the show and I'm excited to talk about the strength card with you. Hi, cecily, it's so nice to have you on the show and I'm excited to talk about the strength card with you, hi.

Speaker 2:

Cecily, I'm so excited to be here. Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, my pleasure. It's been really wonderful getting to know you over a period of years and lately you've been doing some work for Typewriter Tarot, you've been helping with the blog, you've been writing beautiful essays, you've been doing tarot scopes and helping with other little things, and we've also worked together in a coaching container. And I don't know how long has it been since like we first connected, and do you remember how that happened?

Speaker 2:

I want to say it was 2020 when I first started following you and then coming to events and things. Um, I believe that's when I first made my Instagram and at that point, um, my face was not connected to it or anything. Um, it was just a place where I posted, like my personal tarot readings and, um, I pretended that I was like a mouse. I had this little mouse puppet and.

Speaker 2:

I had, uh, the mouse always in my tarot pictures and a friend of mine was like I found this really cool tarot account. I think you'd really dig it. And at the time, I think like every Monday you were reading out one of the mystic message poems and I just immediately was like who is this person? She is so cool, I like so vibe with everything that's going on here. So I followed you and I ordered some mystic messages and then I started coming to the events and classes and, you know, eventually I guess I just kind of became a familiar face who was like always showing up at your events.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, well, I'm glad, I'm so glad that happened and, um, I've, like the whole time, been connecting with your vibe too and it's been really, um, yeah, lovely for me to get to know. You know different people in the community, but but today we're focused on you and it's been really fun getting to know your work. You're a writer, a fiction writer, and a tarot reader now, and so we're going to talk about the strength card, but first I thought, maybe would you tell me how you got into tarot and how tarot came to you. Yeah, when did that start? What did that look like?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's kind of interesting. So I think it was about like six years ago, it's like 2018. And, um, you know, I wasn't on Instagram yet, but I still love following other like writers and artists online and I was doing through doing so through um um tumblr, which is like a blogging site. And then I saw, like started seeing all these posts, um on tumblr about people who are practicing witchcraft and I thought it was so cool. But I thought, like this is not a world for me. This isn't something I've been initiated into.

Speaker 2:

And then I decided like, well, maybe I'll write a book about witches and then I can just like research it and that can be like my reason for looking at all this witchy stuff. Um, so I was like very much an admirer of all these spiritual things and then it hit a point where I'm like, oh, I think I really want to get a tarot reading. Um, but then at that point I was still kind of denying myself and I was like, no, maybe what I really need is therapy, because I want to like talk to somebody about my life. Maybe I need like to go to a therapist, not a tarot reader and it was really funny because my therapist ended up being pretty woo woo.

Speaker 2:

When I walked into her office, one of the first things she said is like you strike me as like a green witch, is that true? And I was like Whoa, holy shit, like I had not said anything to anyone about, like my interest in witchcraft and she just like pegged me immediately and, um, she gave me the homework to go out and get a tarot deck Cause I was interested in it. And uh, another really fun element is, um, one of my best friends also kind of like secretly was getting into tarot at the same exact time as me, so we became tarot buddies and he is a teacher, so he learned super fast and kind of like helped me on my journey. And yeah, initially it was mainly a tool kind of for my own mental health and like connecting to spirituality and exploring internally, but then at a certain point I started reading for other people and I discovered I really loved doing that too.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, beautiful, I love it. I love that you found a therapist who could, who could, see you, as you maybe wanted to be seen very quickly. And I think you're also bringing up something that's really common, which is like when people get into tarot, they're kind of like really hush hush about it at first, and it's a very like tender thing. If you haven't been working with it before. It's like you kind of like creep up to it and you're like am I gonna do this? Yes, um, and then it takes a while to kind of come out of the broom closet and uh, yeah, so it's just for you. I'm curious for you. It sounds like it was partly like should I be doing this? Like is this for me? Or like do I have permission to do it? Was there anything else that felt like it created any trepidation for you?

Speaker 2:

About like engaging with the world of spirituality. I'm like what if I accidentally like summon something weird or like step into something strange? I shouldn't like. I was very afraid there was, like there were, forces out there that I might like anger or something I don't know. And you know I was raised in a household that was very like I don't want to say anti spirituality, but, like you know, my parents were both raised Christian and decided to leave the faith and religion was always kind of treated as a joke and like I think there's this perception a lot of people have that like spirituality is for people who are like flaky and detached from reality. So I had worries about that.

Speaker 2:

Like you know, if I do this, am I going down a path where I'm like losing my mind?

Speaker 2:

Am I, like you know, going into weird territory? And then there's also the social element of, like you know, people are going to think this is really weird. This is not something that I've ever engaged with before. And, um, the first person not the very first person, because I uh told my husband first and he is just like always so supportive of everything I do he's amazing. But the person I told after that laughed at me when I said, like you know, I think I'm a witch, I'm reading tarot, and they felt bad afterwards, but it was like it was a little bit humiliating and you know, it took me a while to kind of completely come out of the broom closet. It was definitely a long process and people said things to me like oh, I'm so surprised that you were, like, you're too sweet to be a witch, or you know, um, there's this whole perception about what it is and, um, you know, I'm sure we'll get into it a lot more because we're talking about strength, about my journey with, like, stepping into myself.

Speaker 1:

But that was, it was difficult to deal with what other people thought at the time yeah, that seems like a big part of it is like other people's perception of what that means or what it says about you, and just like not having people in your life who had related to you in that way or understood that as part of who you are. And I kind of wanted to get into that just for anyone who's listening, who's in that space of trepidation, that like it's normal to sort of be grappling with some of those questions, and I think there is a lot of preconceived notions or cultural messaging around, like what a witch is or, yeah, like you said, how spiritual people can be, like just really floaty and abstract and like vaguely positive or something like that. Like it doesn't seem grounded or practical or sensible, though I found that like having a spiritual life or having spirituality as part of my life makes helps my life feel more grounded and helps me move through practical things more effectively. So I'm glad you thank you for sharing that.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I feel the same way about spirituality being so grounded, Like I was worried it was this thing that was going to like take me floating off into like this weird sphere. But it's helped me get so much more in touch with myself and the earth and community and it's been such a beautiful thing in my life.

Speaker 1:

Yes, amazing. So let's get into the strength card before this episode gets on too much longer. And first let me ask you I'm gonna pull up the card for us to look at and kind of describe together but let me ask you if you have kind of a personal story with this card or if there's like an initial thing you want to say about the strength card yeah, I have a lot to say about this card.

Speaker 2:

um, I guess I will start with the fact that and I won't get too much into it before we describe it, but I I love that. It's a very unexpected depiction of strength. I would say, in like modern society, what we think of as strength, most people would not conjure this image and to me, this has become a beacon of what strength truly means for me in my inner and outer worlds, and I just think it is a beautiful and powerful card and I am so excited to talk about it.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's get into it. Yeah, I was having a similar thought this morning as I was thinking about this episode coming up or this conversation, and, yeah, I was like you know, it would have been really easy for something like the chariot image or some sort of masculine, like warrior image to be presented with this notion of strength, and instead we get something. We have a female figure, for one thing, and this depiction of tenderness, and so, yeah, maybe tell me what you see with this card, or will you help our listeners imagine it or visualize it, if they're not already familiar with it?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so we have a woman or a femme figure in this beautiful long white gown. She has a flower crown and like flowers kind of draped around her middle and she has her hands on the head of a lion. And the lion, you know, kind of depending on the day I changed my mind about what his expression means. But you know you could say he's a little bit agitated maybe, but it looks like he's licking her wrist and in the background is this beautiful vista of trees and mountains. But the two figures, the woman and the lion, loom so much larger than all of that. Above her head is an infinity symbol and then the background is yellow sky.

Speaker 1:

And that infinity symbol is something we also see over the head of the magician symbol is something we also see over the head of the magician and in the chariot episode and maybe in another episode, I can't remember.

Speaker 1:

But I've talked about how you can arrange the major arcana into those three lines of seven and when you do that, the magician is directly above the strength card, so that infinity symbol is like upstairs and downstairs in both of them and with the magician it's this like manifestation connecting to source, or that's the way I understand it, connecting to source and I think that infinity symbol also is a reminder that we can connect with that spiritual resource or that spiritual energy at any time, like it's a, it's a renewable energy, it's a sustainable energy.

Speaker 1:

It's always available to us. What, for you, does this card represent? Or, if we take, you know, if we notice that the lion might be agitated but that it's also licking her wrist and how she's kind of caressing its head on the top, like she's petting him, and on the bottom, how she's kind of caressing its head on the top like she's petting him and on the bottom like she's kind of stroking his chin what does this mean for us as humans who get this card like what is this an invitation to do for you?

Speaker 2:

for me, this card has always been about befriending the parts of me that feel beastly, and showing tenderness to every part of me, even the parts of myself that have hurt me, the parts that I don't understand, the parts that scare me, and, um, just how it truly takes a lot of strength to love yourself and accept yourself. And it is this journey and um I something I think about with the infinity symbol too, even though I wouldn't say like yes, this is the meaning of it. But it reminds me that, like we're constantly on this journey with ourselves, it's like a never ending journey. Our love story with ourselves never really has an ending, at least in my opinion, and it's constant work to love and accept ourselves. But it can also be constant joy, or maybe not constant, but it, you know, it can bring so much joy and fun. And, like the infinity symbols, sometimes it makes me think of like a racetrack and you're just kind of always going, and you know I don't love like the race car imagery, but maybe it should be more like a river that's just always flowing. But I do think that we often aren't really bold to tend to the relationship to self, unless it's a way of like, fix yourself, go to therapy and fix yourself, and we're not really invited to befriend ourselves and have fun with ourselves or like even romance ourselves.

Speaker 2:

And to me, this card is very much about like accepting all of the parts.

Speaker 2:

It actually reminds me of something we talked about when I was getting creative coaching from you, getting creative coaching from you.

Speaker 2:

And so I am somebody who has struggled with chronic depression and anxiety and you helped me see that, like you know, often my depressive episodes are there to kind of help me, like force myself into this rest that I very much needed.

Speaker 2:

And that's not to say like depression is all good and fun. But you know, there have been times luckily not so much anymore, but where I've had to just like stay in bed for a couple of days, and, you know, for a very long time I villainized my depression but it, you know, in its own way it was working to help me, to help me, and often these things that we think are really scary and beastly and harmful are just, you know, these animals that need our love and attention. Looking at this card, I think of like the big dogs I've had in my life who are just kind of like too rambunctious, and you know they'll sometimes accidentally jump up and hurt you or scratch you, but they don't mean to and you know, if you just show them that love and that affection, um, they will show it back to you.

Speaker 1:

Um, I love what you said, like, like, there are these, these parts of us that maybe we are tempted to try to fix or we want to fix, or we feel some perhaps shame about, because we haven't figured out how to address them or make them go away as these animals that need our love and attention. And, yeah, I think everything you described about the card you said so beautifully it does take so much courage to look at yourself honestly and to look at the parts of yourself that feel to you dangerous because they may damage relationships or they might not be palatable to normative society like, um, or you know, we've been through periods of life that were chaotic and we did and we got lost and we did things that we're not proud of. And for me, this card started to mean a lot in the early months. Well, I mean in the after. I'm talking about when I quit drinking alcohol and I it was still a year after that before tarot would come into my life. So there was like that first year. You're basically like a new baby in an adult body. It was like learning how to live again.

Speaker 1:

And then tarot came in and I started to understand some of the cards and I remember reading Rachel Pollack's 78 Degrees of Wisdom, which for me was kind of the first time that the major arcana started to mean something really significant and like profound. Because they're big archetypes Like it's hard to kind of find a story in them. Sometimes they just kind of show us, you know, like the emperor is just like a dude sitting there. In a way there's plenty of information in the way he's sitting there, but it's hard to like see a story sometimes in the major arcana. And that book was really rich in terms of like oh, this is what this conveying spiritually and I think I was pulling this card from you know with some frequency and it really felt like this validation that I had started for the first time this process of like looking at myself and parts of myself and things that I had done or failed to do, when, you know, alcohol was such a big part of my life and was just like suppressing me from doing things like with integrity or doing things with courage or doing things with like boldness and really like saying, you know, that's what happened and that's like the journey I went through and it wasn't beautiful and it was not like good and I'm not real proud of it, but that's also like how I am here now and it just felt like such a sweet reflection of that.

Speaker 1:

Really difficult because, like you know, for me when I and I'm sorry I'm sort of like getting too deeply into the story, but suddenly I'm feeling very connected to the card. You know, like the thing like drinking could not allow me to look at myself honestly and it required a lot of denial and, um, when it went away, like when I quit, that was not, I couldn't use that anymore. And the way to like keep staying sober was to go through this process of self, self-acceptance and like learning to love myself in a different way. So, yeah, I've just like went down, went down a whole rabbit hole there with that, but, um, this card is just really special.

Speaker 2:

That was really beautiful and powerful. I'm so glad you shared that. Thank you, and, um, I completely relate to just getting very emotional about the strength card. So I love, I love that we're having this conversation. I think it's great.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, good Thank you for being part of it. A couple of things were coming up for me as you were talking, and one of them is your own relationship with animals. You and I are both like deeply in love with animals, like generally, and, um, I remember during our work together there was like some conversation about creating like a plan for yourself. Like maybe you were waiting for news about something, you know, would this thing be a yes or a no? And we kind of crafted this plan for you. What were you going to do regardless and how are you going to celebrate your efforts anyway?

Speaker 1:

And you chose to go to this animal refuge and be with the animals and I just I was like that's perfect for you and like that sounds so fun and so lovely. And I wonder, like, how do you feel a connection with animals? And like can you talk a little bit about what it's like for you? Because what we're seeing in this card is like when you make that approach with an animal that doesn't know you and we have to kind of you know we can't just like throw our arms around like a horse that we just met right, like that's gonna be fucked up, like that energy of like approaching in a certain way. Do you know what I'm saying?

Speaker 2:

I totally know what you're saying and, um, you know, in some strange ways I almost feel like it's more intuitive for me to communicate with animals and other humans, cause with humans we have all these, all these, like you know, the veneer of small talk and how much can I share and when.

Speaker 2:

But like animals, I feel like you know, just look at them and you kind of are reading each other's vibe and connecting on the soul level and reading the body language and, um, I don't know, to me I've always had such an easier time with animals and people because there's not all this kind of weird societal veneer of shoulds.

Speaker 2:

It's just like this is how we are and this is how we relate and we are really taking the time to observe each other and you know, as you mentioned with the horse example, like there's a lot of consent that needs to happen with interactions with animals. It's interesting because I was just talking to a friend who's a new mom and she was talking about how awful it is that people just come up and feel like they can like touch her daughter and talk to her when she's out and about, and I have very vivid memories of being a young, young child and being held and just wanting to be out and just feeling like a caged animal and um. So you know, perhaps that's part of it too why I, you know, connected with, you know my cats from such a young age. That was like the first pet I had growing up because, you know, they understood those boundaries and we could see it in each other in a way that people I feel like kind of often bulldozed past, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, totally, and I think with you know, with humans that have a respect for animals and a love for them, there's this like curiosity seems to be the way to connect. And curiosity is something you can hold in your own space and you can kind of like open your field, you know, or like you can look at the animal and sort of watch to see is the animal also curious about you? And then you can kind of like move closer together and there can you know if you're meeting a new dog, we like give it the back of our hand to sniff. I know my dog. Even when you like give the hand, she gets even more mad, like she's very suspicious of new people, and so you actually have to like just sort of do nothing and then she comes and sniffs your crotch and then there's like a relationship that can start. And yeah, that curiosity is the same kind of thing I think we have to use in the self love process.

Speaker 1:

Like I'm thinking back to my long story about when I quit drinking, like the only way to kind of enter that chasm of like the person I had been and some of the things I had done that I wasn't proud of, or some of the things I had ignored or not taken care of was this curiosity like how did that happen? Or, you know, my dad was a heavy drinker growing up. Both of my grandfathers were alcoholics and, you know, died in some their their deaths were associated with their addiction, and so and I'm not saying that was the only contributing factor, but it certainly like set me up for something, not to mention how casually they like drank and how drinking was just kind of like what you do at the end of a work day or something, or what you do when you're relaxing. It was just like part of that way of living. And so that wasn't the only thing. There were also like wounds or like voids inside of me that I was trying to fill with alcohol.

Speaker 1:

But having curiosity became a way for me to say, oh, this is how I got here and this is how it kind of took the path that it did. And even if that wasn't something I could like get super excited about, it was something I could start to understand and give, give myself compassion for, and I think, like I love what you said too about animals, how they don't have like the pretense and there's no posturing, and it's just kind of this like feeling sense with each other and that that feels really genuine. Yeah, it also something else got me thinking as we were talking and you don't have to respond to this, but there was another moment in our work together where, like big cats, like the lion in this card, started to play play a role in some way and would would you feel okay sharing anything about that, do you? You know what I mean?

Speaker 2:

I would love to share. I um, I was hoping this would come up and thank you for reminding me because I might have forgotten, but, um, yeah, so, uh, we did a guided meditation and, as I recall, in the guided meditation I was on a boat on a river and then, rounding a corner, there was this tiger that was just sitting there and staring me in the eye and it was like powerful and it was also really scary. And as we dug deeper into that, I shared that I was having these recurring dreams of these big cats attacking me, where they would just run up and jump on me. And it was always these really scary dreams, like the kind that I would wake up and my heart would be racing. Cecily did this like really amazing, like detective work with this and was kind of asking, like, oh well, does the cat ever attack you Really, like are the claws coming out as you're biting, like not in a judgmental way, but just kind of like trying to understand the picture of these dreams, and I realized, like you know what?

Speaker 2:

No, it's, you know they're always jumping on me and I'm terrified, but it doesn't progress beyond that and Cecily said you know, I wonder if these big cats are actually trying to hug you and like, get your attention and show you love. And that just like exploded my brain a little bit. I was like holy shit. At the same time my mom was cleaning out her garage and she brought out this porcelain painted tiger that my maternal grandmother had painted. And my maternal grandmother died well before I was born and when I was a really young kid. One day I just went up to my mom and very confidently said I'm your mom. And according to my mom, it felt different than like playing or goofing around, like I just was like dead serious, told her that walked away. So there's this kind of belief in my family that I might be my grandma reincarnated and it was just so powerful that, you know, just as we were happening to do this work, my mom pulls out this tiger of hers. And then Cecily and I were like oh, wow. So maybe you know the big cat in this dream is like my grandma giving me a hug and you know if I am, you know any part of my grandma that's also like self-love, like me hugging myself Right, it's wild.

Speaker 2:

Since then I have not had those dreams anymore. So I feel like I really feel like that was the message that was trying to come across to me, and the big cat was like you finally did it. You finally got it. I'm going to move on. I've been trying to tell you this for years, you know. Um, so it was, uh, really really just fucking cool and mind blowing and amazing. And, um, after that, we kind of developed like the tiger as a symbol of my confidence and strength and resilience, and I would be out walking my dog and you know I'd be getting in my head about things. And then I was like no, I've been imagined the tiger walking next to me and I would suddenly just feel so much more powerful. It really is like wild how it was like the strength card coming to life and like coming in my dreams, to me. So yeah, thank you so much for bringing that up. I, I like still get goosebumps thinking about that honestly yeah, it's funny because it's.

Speaker 1:

I don't think I made the connection with the strength card at the time, but now it seems quite obvious. But there's a lot, there was a lot to unpack and yeah, I just thought that was so beautiful and so magical that also, like this literal porcelain tiger from your childhood, connected with your grandmother, appeared I don't think I knew that you had said that to your mom as a kid um, which sort of just adds another layer of magic to all of this. But I do remember how that the cats were this like fierce, scary thing and then there was this ability or capacity to transform that into like an ally and to sort of see yourself as strong and bold and like proud as such an animal. Um, and you know, for you as a lover of animals, like they pick a scary animal for the strength card on purpose. And there's like another aspect of that card that I've heard that that like she and maybe this comes from Lindsay Mack but that like this idea that no one would encourage this human figure to approach this cat, like everyone would say you need to stay away from that lion, don't pet lions. But there's this felt sense in her that the lion is not going to kill her and she will like survive this encounter and perhaps even come away with it with something like more valuable.

Speaker 1:

And so, in spite of what everyone would say and you know, similarly like, in spite of conventional wisdom, which is mostly implicit, to like hide, sometimes explicit, actually, more and more now but like to hide these parts of yourself that are strange, queer, you know, not normalized, not socialized properly, that are wild, to like keep all that down, keep it in check, don't approach it, don't even look at it, much less like befriend it, because what happens when you befriend it is like you can bring it back into yourself.

Speaker 1:

It's like like what you were saying about depression was trying to like show you something and again, we're not saying like depression's great, such a beautiful teacher, or like that that's always the case for everyone but that there was something trying to speak from deep down inside of you and your ability to like open up to listening to that, rather than just trying to like hey, can someone get me free, can you just like stop this depression for me? Or like, do you know, chemically, do whatever you can, but there was like a, the harder work of like what might be going on here and like what part of me might be needing something and how can I look at that, find acceptance and that it can come live inside me without making me sick yes, absolutely, and that that's so powerful.

Speaker 2:

That's something I've never really thought about with the strength card before, about like there's a strength in this woman going up to the lion with, like you know can imagine, people in the back are like no, what the hell are you doing? Stop that, you know. And not only is it strong of us to accept and love and examine all these parts of ourselves. It's not always encouraged work. It transforms us in ways that, um, I think often, you know, other people are not going to be receptive of immediately, and so there's kind of just both this internal and external strength at play there.

Speaker 1:

I should have a better grasp specifically on this quote and who it's from. I almost feel like it's Octavia Butler, audre Lorde, and shame on me. I also have terrible recall when I'm trying to think of something spontaneously. So please, please, forgive me out there, but this notion that, like, if you've fully accepted yourself, there's nothing anyone externally can do to shame you because you've already like done that work of like digging around and like saying, okay, that's part of me too, and I choose to love myself, or I practice loving myself, and so you know, yeah, any jerk who's like you're this, you're that, you're too, whatever it doesn't have to. Your strength is like in being unaffected by that or not taking it as truth, but someone else's filter, which is what it is.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely yeah, and I I might be getting ahead of myself here, but in the work that Cecily and I did, a lot of it was work on kind of undoing a lot of negative voices inside of me and it got to a point where I realized that I was trusting other people's voices above my own all the time, and it wasn't even just these voices. I kind of have been, you know, yapping at me for all these years, but even sometimes I, you know, would trust like a stranger's judgment over my own, like oh, you're probably right, you know, if you disagree with me, it's probably me, it's probably something going on. So it really was a big part of my strength journey to trust my own judgment and trust my own mind and my own perception. So that that really rings true, you sharing.

Speaker 1:

That makes me want to kind of take the bridge to the essay that you recently wrote for typewriter tarot, which was about working with the swords cards, and it's a really beautiful piece. I'm going to link it in the show notes. Everyone should read it. But like people most people do not like the swords. They're really hard, they're kind of hardcore. They're the suit that presents, I think, more challenge than the cups, the wands or the pentacles.

Speaker 1:

And the swords are about the mind and what you were just describing like taking other people's thoughts or not trusting your own thoughts as more of a default, and then also these like harsh thoughts that you had about yourself and kind of realizing that your inner dialogue, which is the mind talking to us, was not supporting you.

Speaker 1:

Then that's the work of the swords to kind of examine what's happening in the mind and see if there's anything we want to change or just look at like how our minds are functioning and whether that's helping us or whether that's hindering us and like what could be possible to shift.

Speaker 1:

It feels to me like I don't think the the strength card is exclusively about like swords kind of work, but I think it probably like would have some kind of swords work involved, cause there is this like cognitive process, like for me in the example I've been sharing. It's like that curiosity, like how did this happen, what? How did I end up on this journey and you know why. Sometimes it was like why did it take me so long to change? Which was a lot of fear, a lot of like over-identification, a lot of habit, and a lot of like actual neurological, like, uh, truly biological, you know, like a kind of addiction, what happens in the human body to substances that are addictive. And so, yeah, will you talk a little bit about that piece and how you see the swords connected to the strength card?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, jumping off of what you just shared, there was a piece in my essay where I said something along the lines of you know, I needed to see, with the clarity of the swords and I do think that, you know, connected to what I was saying about like trusting my own truth I feel like there's an element of swords that is like kind of cutting through the bullshit, cutting through all the mess and leaving standing just like what is really there in front of you, and I definitely think that's part of a strength journey as well is like understanding your own truth, understanding the truth that every part of you wants to share. Also, like I think there's a piece of kind of like defending yourself, and I don't mean like literally picking up a sword and like fighting people off, but for me at least, a big part of my strength journey was learning to love and respect myself enough to protect myself and do things like setting up boundaries, for example. That helped me feel more protected and understanding that I deserve that protection, that I am not, you know, somebody who should just be a punching bag laid out for everyone to use as they will. Like you know, I am this powerful person with a tiger by my side and I love being gentle and I love being sweet, but also, you know, there's this phrase I learned recently that I really love and it's called.

Speaker 2:

The phrase is even a worm will turn. And what that means is like even the most like docile creature, when provoked, will attack. And that's just something I've had in my mind a lot, because I very much relate to all those species of animals who are like I'm going to mind my business. Unless you fuck with me, then I'll fuck with you back. And again, I'm not saying it in like a revenge or like a violent way, but, like you know, I have my defense mechanisms. I will puff up my quills or feathers or whatever they may be if you try to attack me, which is something I didn't really do before I underwent this whole journey.

Speaker 1:

We also, like in our work together, came to this. There was a sort of the clarity. I guess there was like a moment of clarity, perhaps, and push back if this doesn't feel right, but where, like, you had been a punching bag in a way and really had had experienced some abuse that you didn't even think, or like you hadn't yet let yourself think of as that, because no one else yes, seen it that way and you had done, like all of your, all of your mind, your, your mental work had been sort of either trying to downplay the severity of it, maybe telling yourself you were too sensitive or that you were at fault for provoking something. And then there was this moment of like no, you didn't deserve any of that. Like none of that is cool. And then this, and I shut up, I think, because this is your story, but I wonder how this kind of plays. That's something. It's something you write about in that essay as well.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so, um, what Cecily is bringing up here is, um, kind of this discovery that we made together during our coaching time that I had been emotionally abused for years and I had been severely gaslit about it. And, um, for years and I had been severely gaslit about it and, um, you know, part of the reason I feel like you know why the gaslighting was even more potent was because, um, my abuser was not didn't fit into the typical narrative of what society described an abuser, as I feel like there are certain roles in your life, um, that like a very narrow set of roles that society is like. You know, if you faced abuse, it's from this kind of person or this kind of person in your life. And, um, I am intentionally being vague for my own safety, but I do think it's important to recognize that, like, abuse can come in so many forms. It can come from so many different types of people, that different relationships, different things.

Speaker 2:

So you know that that was just kind of part of the cocktail of me never allowing myself to name it as abuse, and you know, it was very downplayed by people in my life who didn't understand, for people who enabled my abuser, and often it was turned back on me and said like, well, you know they, they wouldn't hurt you if you just did this or if you just acted like that. And I very much internalized that my behavior was a trigger for this abuse, that it was up to me to make myself small enough and docile enough and palatable enough so that I wouldn't get hurt and docile enough and palatable enough so that I wouldn't get hurt. Yeah, so it's. I feel like I might have lost the thread of what we initially were saying there, but those are some initial thoughts on that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I appreciate you speaking about it in the way that you have and speaking about it at all, and I think you know what you describe is this situation that's very common in an abusive dynamic and there's like the harm of the abuse itself, but then there's this extra layer of harm when people who see the abuse do not intervene or do not say anything or side with the abusive person, and so then this shame develops because you're there, perceiving the abuse through. Like you feel terrible, it's painful, painful, it hurts, and no one else around you will identify your pain or join you in it or come to you to say, like that was fucked up, that shouldn't have happened, like what do you need? And so, in the absence of that, people who experience abuse develop a bit of shame around, like this idea that, yeah, you're. This is sort of like this mechanism. That's the opposite of the strength card, where it's like I better contort myself into someone I don't even recognize, or I need to become this person that is not naturally me in order to just like get through the situation or survive.

Speaker 1:

And yeah, like I just want to celebrate your courage and exploring that and also moving at a pace that was feasible for you to start to like reclaim what had to be suppressed and to then go beyond that and sort of find your strength again and then create boundaries that were based on your needs and what your heart needed for you and what you're just like spiritually, energetically, you needed for yourself to be the person that you want to be, the person that you are, and so it's really painful to excavate what you've tried and to also like re-encounter the fact that some people abandoned you in that process and I mean that in the sense of like not leaving you in a relationship but did not come to help you, you know, or didn't affirm your experience. So having to kind of look at that again and say like, yeah, that's really fucked, is very painful, and then then the healing you know starts to starts to occur and these changes can be made.

Speaker 2:

So I also just want to applaud you for the, the love that you've given yourself, like the strength card experience that you've curated for yourself, and also the beautiful way that you've um written about it in that essay thank you so much, cecily, and um, I always have to thank you too for your role in my understanding of this, because and this is not me dunking on my therapist, but I I was in therapy for five years and I got a lot of really good stuff out of it, but this was something we didn't really tap into or explore. It was not named as abuse and you know, part of that might very well have been that, you know, I was so gaslit and so used to thinking like, oh, I have to present this like it's no big deal. So, like you know, maybe I just did not kind of show enough how big of a deal this abuse was in my life and how it really shaped so much of myself For me to come to Cecily after like a very raw moment where you know, I had interacted with my abuser again and it got really bad. And I remember, coming to Cecily that morning we had, you know, our scheduled chat for coaching and I was like I have some like really intense shit to bring to the table. I don't know if you're feeling prepared for that and Cely was like, yeah, let's get into it.

Speaker 2:

And you know there's probably a lot of specifics of the conversation I don't remember, but just like I will never, ever forget the feeling of having that experience validated for the first time as abuse and being able to like hold that label and being held by somebody who I so admired and trusted and saying like, yes, this happened to you, this was real. This was not in your head, this was like a big fucking deal. Yeah, it's just. Oh my gosh, this is so powerful and just you know that kind of started this whole journey.

Speaker 2:

I've been on, like you know, I feel like I'm on like several journeys at all times, but that really got the ball rolling on this like massive, massive journey I did with self work and self love, and I was finally able to crack things that I hadn't been able to for years, because I was finally understanding where they were coming from and finally understanding my truth in a way I hadn't before. Um, so, yeah, this is just a little like love circle, saying like thank you, cecily, for just like seeing me and validating me and acknowledging me and continuing to lift me up. And I don't want you to feel like you were fishing for this in any way. You were not at all, but you just really have been such a guardian influence in my life and I just think it's so magical, but also meant to be, that we have connected.

Speaker 1:

I feel that way too and feel very honored that you trusted me to you know, work with you and that part of your life and support you and I'm, you know, just really so glad that you have a different like you're in a different place with it and again just really celebrate you for the way that you've led yourself and loved yourself. That's been really beautiful to watch.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I'll just highlight like the clarity part, and that's not to say like I don't think the clarity we don't have any clarity about, like exactly why the abusive person behaves in this way, right, like there's some theorizing or something, but that's like really not your business and not mine, right. But the clarity for you became like, oh, this is why this feels so bad and this is why it's like, this is why, uh, this is probably why I talked to myself in certain ways and it just happens without my awareness. It's because you had like internalized some of the language of this abuse and so that that clarity, I think, is part of that strength card. Um, of like moving toward the love is like starting to see something, and it kind of takes me back to, like the animal thing. It's like we're trying, you know, with an animal we don't really.

Speaker 1:

The difference between ourselves and the animal is kind of a good thing because it creates more curiosity. Sometimes, like I mean, I see my dogs every day, all day long, and sometimes I look at my dog and I'm like are you real? Are you like an actual, real creature? You're amazing. And so like looking at this animal that's so different, that has like a different experience of life that we cannot access, and that curiosity of like how are you Like, what are you? And we can't really find out. I think I'm probably making connections a little bit um, uh, fumbling in the dark here, but um, the curiosity maybe sometimes gets us to the clarity we need, at least for ourselves, and sometimes I think maybe just seeing an animal being curious about an animal helps us turn that back around on ourselves, like, oh yeah, I'm an animal too. Like, how the hell am I like on this planet living this?

Speaker 2:

life. Yes, absolutely, you know, I I was vibing with that the entire time and feeling it so hard and, um, a moment, I have been thinking about a lot with the strength card too. Um, so I am a huge fan of Hayao Miyazaki, who is a filmmaker and animator and director, and he just makes these gorgeous animated films. There are always these messages of environmentalism and anti-war and kind of loving and respecting our earth and also ourselves and each other, and I rewatched one of his films the other day. It's called Nausicaa and the Valley of the Wind.

Speaker 2:

The main character, nausicaa, at one point, meets this little cat-like creature and it's like this feral little thing and people are telling her to be cautious of it.

Speaker 2:

And she's like no, no, I got this, it's okay. And the little cat creature crawls up on her and she offers her hand and it sinks its teeth into her finger and instead of like yelping or getting upset or like pulling away, she's just like no, look, you don't have to be afraid of me, it's okay, it's okay. And like lets the cat bite her, even though it's like obviously hurting her really badly. And then, um, the creature eventually like gets back and then just starts licking her finger where it bit her and um, to me that very much feels strength, journey too, of you know, as we've been talking about, like some parts of ourselves, whether they're like parts that live within us or parts of our past, you know, maybe seem kind of feral or unlovable or scary to us, but we can still offer them that love and they might fight back a little bit, but I, I personally believe that we can love ourselves fully if we just kind of keep trying and keep offering our fingers with the understanding that we might get bit a little bit.

Speaker 1:

It's not without a little bit of pain, and I think that's just from life. It's not because of like who we are, it's just life. Life has pain in it but we heal. We, we have a scar, we, uh, we lick the wound right, or the, the little cat we found, like for us.

Speaker 1:

I want to talk a little bit about your writing and something else that I got to enjoy in our work together, and one thing you were working on at the time was this novel about a 14-year-old girl who was a tarot reader in her high school and she also, um, experienced anxiety and there's this whole yeah, there's like a great thing with like tarot and bullying. I mean, the bullying is never great, but as a plot, as a plot construct, it was um, very like interesting in the story and, um, I also love the idea of like a young girl reading tarot in high school and also kind of using it as a way to sort of because she's very shy, like she doesn't like to be seen, but she's also very. She's the narrator in the story. She's very lovable, very interesting, she loves animals. She reminds me a little bit of you, but I wonder, and it was also just like wonderful to read.

Speaker 1:

You're a fantastic writer, thank you. But yeah, like, how do you see? I believe her name was Lily Lily, yes, yeah, I hope I'm not sharing too much. No, no, no, how do you see her in a strength kind of way? Or maybe a parallel question is like does writing about characters that have some echo of you help you in, like, cultivating strength for yourself?

Speaker 2:

Yes, yeah, absolutely On both of those points. I think the hardest parts of my life were probably around age 14. So there is something very healing about writing a character who has, you know, similar qualities to me in some ways and kind of giving her this journey earlier in her life and just giving her some kinds of care and attention that I did not receive at that point in my life. That I did not receive at that point in my life.

Speaker 2:

One thing that I personally think is really fun about Lily is that like she has a hard time expressing herself and like conversations and sticking up for herself, but like when she's reading tarot she can be so direct and so, like this is what I see, this is the message Like she's such a different communicator when she's reading tarot than when she's just, like, know, speaking out in the world with people, and that is something that in points in my life, I have related to as well.

Speaker 2:

Um, a big part of her journey is kind of reconciling what she sees as like this tarot reader version of herself, who's very like, cool and informed and able to tell people things, and this other part of herself that struggles with that more and realizing that like they're all the same self.

Speaker 2:

She has all of these attributes in her at the same time and she kind of goes on this journey about finding her voice and being able to stick up for herself and what she believes, and being able to stick up for herself and what she believes. When I write for teens, that is very often kind of something that's woven into my books Because, you know, partially because I struggled with that so much at that age, but I feel like you know, it's so fucking hard to be a teenager honestly, like that is such a hard time of life because there's like so much expectation of you to be one certain way or to not be this way or that way. So, um, it's a bit of a way to show love for, you know, my inner 14 year old that still lives with me, while also, you know, hopefully one day, you know, other teens will be able to read this and maybe kind of contemplate their own strength journey to some extent.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yeah, I definitely think the book offers that and needs to exist in the world for that reason and others.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I wanted to kind of get into because I think you you write about things that you love and you care about, but you also seem to have a good sensibility around like the palability of a story and like, maybe, how a story needs to move and keep a reader engaged, and particularly like writing for a younger age group.

Speaker 1:

Um, and so you have, I don't like, from my point of view, you've got like all the chops and the commitment, um, and you know, like so, in terms of the creative, you seem to do well for yourself and like be good to yourself. And then for every writer seeking publication, there's this like turning point where you finish the creative part and then it's like will someone take this and publish it? Journey is a whole, completely different set of circumstances and one that I think requires a person to dig into a strength at a very deep level. Will you talk a little bit about that and kind of that very the two worlds you have to kind of travel in as a writer, going from, like, the creative to the publication process?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely that has been. Um, you know, if the past like six years of my life were a book, that would be like the main story arc is me like moving through this and, um, my character development would very much be around, um, around how I relate to my writing and publishing and how that is, you know, separate and how it's not One of my. So the first book that I went out with the publishers so we don't have to get into the nitty gritty of it. But basically, you know, my agent will send my book out to publishers who might be interested and then there's kind of like a whole process internally within the publishing house of like multiple steps if they're interested.

Speaker 2:

The first book was another young adult book and it almost sold. It got like the very closest it could get to selling without it actually selling. And, um, I yeah, I did not do that the whole week that I knew that, um, these meetings were happening, I literally got hives all over my body. I had to like put on Bob Ross to like calm myself down and watch like multiple episodes of Bob Ross, um, and watch him like paint and be very calm.

Speaker 2:

You know, I I had a very hard time after, um, that book ultimately got rejected and my therapist at the time actually said like you are like legitimately going through a grieving process right now and you have to like, let yourself, you yourself, you know, um, treat it like that. That process is hard, no matter where you're at mentally, I think, but part of what made it just excruciating for me was that, like, to me, that book was like a part of myself that was still like attached to me, it was like an organ of mine or something and like, by rejecting it, I felt like I was getting rejected again and um, you know, I have some very deep wounds about that and, um, I, I just had this feeling like, okay, it wasn't good enough, there was something I needed to do differently or a way I needed to think differently or something that I needed to do different and kind of wasn't really allowing myself to accept that. You know, it's not all in my control, and something that's really helped me with that is kind of befriending other writers and reading their unpublished work and seeing all this amazing work that go through the same process that mine did right, like eventually didn't get picked up. And it's also infuriating, because I like fall in love with these books, that I so want them to be real and out in the world and I'm like what the hell are these people doing? Why can't they see how amazing this is? Yeah, so it's kind of like in some ways I have the opposite journey of my character, lily, who had to kind of like realize that all these parts of her were like the same thing and for me I kind of had to take some realize that like my work is a part of me but I am not my work. And when my work gets passed on, it's not somebody telling me I'm not a good enough human, it's just, you know, business decisions about like number crunching or you know whatever they do in those locked rooms.

Speaker 2:

I feel like for a long time I knew I needed to get to that place of detachment, but it was very hard for me to actually get there. It was like a journey of years and you know it's never going to be perfect, but I feel like I kind of finally had this tower moment last year where I was like I like cannot do this anymore, I cannot go on like this, but I uh realize I still, you know, writing is always what I have loved to do and, um, I didn't want to give up trying. So what really needed to happen is like I needed to kind of like move around some Jenga blocks within my own mind and kind of collapse this structure of how I thought about my writing and publication. And, um, so I, I was very heavily raised on Disney movies and a very common theme in Disney movies it's like you have one dream in your life and your life is fulfilled when you um achieve that dream. And for a long time I was like getting a book published is my dream. It's my big like shiny Disney star in the sky that I need to like grasp onto.

Speaker 2:

And part of the work I did was kind of realizing my life around the book in writing. And you know how writing a book is just part of my life and hopefully, you know, getting published one day will just be part of my life. But there is so much else about me, um, so many other rich experiences that are worth living for. And life isn't some video game where there's just one end goal that you're trying to get to as fast as you can. Um, so, yeah, I, you know I'm still working on it in some ways, but um seeing myself in my work and the industry of publishing as three very separate things was very instrumental for me and like healing this wound I had around feeling like I was being personally rejected all the time.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that contrast you make between Lily and her discovery and the way that you had to go about it for yourself, and I think that is such an important like framework or perspective to adopt that, for one thing, disney movies I don't think are doing anyone any favors, other than they're lovely and entertaining and good stories yes, but yeah, they sort of hinge on a very narrow definition of multiple kinds of things. And yeah, I think we have this idea that, like we have one purpose in life and we need to figure out what it is, and then we need to like do a bunch of things, like really hard things, to sort of actualize that purpose, and I do think having a purposeful life is really important. I also think our purposes can shift, or our sense of purpose, let's say but yeah, like what? I think that's what's just such a beat down for writers, but also all kinds of creative people, is that there's no part of it's so hard to have a creative experience that is not influenced by capitalism in some way.

Speaker 1:

So if you're trying to be published with a traditional publisher, like, you're absolutely interacting with a capitalistic enterprise.

Speaker 1:

You know art purchasing and buying has capitalism baked in, unless you're sort of like making art at a beautiful picnic and kind of like exchanging apples for you know, like paintings or something, or just giving things away.

Speaker 1:

Like you have to sort of confront this thing that is this institution or the system that's very impersonal and doesn't really care who you I mean kind of cares who you are, but in a capitalistic way and yeah, but it's hard to suddenly like make yourself into a machine that can relate to capitalism without being affected by it and be like, oh well, that's just business, I don't care, you know, because you put in hundreds of hours of work.

Speaker 1:

But I love what you're talking about in terms of expanding your view that, like you make books because you love them and there will hopefully be a time when they are published, and I'm one of those people like reading your books, like this book needs to exist somebody and if you're listening out there, if you're an agent or a publisher, call Madeline. It's really good. Um, but yeah, the sense that, like you're going to do it because you love it and you're going to continue to pursue this dream, but that you can't let yourself be wrecked by decisions that have like to do with, yeah, data and the market and profit and loss statements and how much is sitting in a warehouse and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2:

Definitely, and it was kind of another area where I had to put up some more like tangible boundaries in order to, like, make these distinctions in my head. It used to be that, like I would ask my agent to see what every single um editor or publishing house had said when they passed on my book and the notes they gave. But then I kind of realized that, um, it wasn't really serving me at all and um, so now I told my agent, like you know, if there's something you feel like I really should hear you know, let me know. But otherwise I just kind of want to be in the dark about what's happening. You know, once the book has left my hands, I don't really want to know what it's doing out there. I also removed myself from Twitter, now known as X, where there is kind of I don't know what's going on over there anymore, but for a long time it was very much like a watering hole for writers and there was a lot of anxiety and a lot of comparison and a lot of competition and a lot of discourse that I feel like was not really serving the community, but that would still crop up every now and then. So it's, you know, part of it was kind of this mental shift.

Speaker 2:

But in order for that to happen, I had to put down these more tangible boundaries of like I am not going to let myself obsessively read what people you know didn't connect with in my book, or you know, I'm not going to get involved in, you know, whatever bleak publishing news there is today.

Speaker 2:

Um, and to be clear, I don't, I don't think you know, um I don't believe in just like turning myself away from news in general.

Speaker 2:

Um, I do think it's important to engage with things happening in the world, um, even when it's like very hard to witness them. Um, I do think it's important to engage with things happening in the world, even when it's like very hard to witness them. I do think that witnessing is a very important part of being a human, but I don't think that witnessing includes, like paper prices have risen or you know little things like that. Like I don't need to be in tune with all those little things that are going to make me freak out about publishers buying less books or whatever it's like. That's Like I don't need to be in tune with all those little things that are going to make me freak out about publishers buying less books or whatever it's like. That's not. That's not somewhere my energy needs to go, so um, and in doing so, I have freed up a lot more mental space to actually think about my books and my characters and my stories instead of um, and my stories instead of having all these other voices inside my head.

Speaker 1:

Beautiful. How about we close with any advice you would give to someone who is pulling the strength card?

Speaker 2:

Ooh, yes, that's a good question. You know, in all this talk of being gentle with ourselves, I know I have been on this journey where I it's like it's so funny to think about it from a distance, but like even getting there is a journey. So, you know, don't put that pressure on yourself to pull the strength card and just immediately love everything about yourself. You know, for me this has been a years-long journey and it will probably continue my entire life.

Speaker 2:

Strength card something you can do, if it feels right, is kind of just kind of listen to any thoughts that come up in your head and maybe try to trace them back. Where are they coming from? You know, what are they really trying to tell me? And like, maybe you can even remember, like the cat that I thought was attacking me, that was actually giving me a hug, and you know giving me a hug and, um, you know, even if you can't get to a positive place with it, that is totally fine.

Speaker 2:

You know, not every reading is going to be some revelation, but if you see the strength card, just kind of you know, if you can just nudge yourself in the direction of, like I want to befriend myself or I will befriend myself one day, even if it's not today. Just kind of keeping that in mind as something there that you can get to. And I know it's hard to believe I. You know there are points in my life where I would have thought like I'm never gonna be my own friend. But here I am. So you know, no matter how you're feeling when you pull the card, try to keep some openness about you know your eventual relationship with self, even if your current one is not not feeling exactly cuddly at the moment.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I love that and it's making me just think of that, the touch that she gives the lion, like it's not a whole like spooning situation or but like how can you sort of tend to yourself or give yourself some kind of gentle caress to sort of take off any of the frostiness? Yeah, where's which part of you is the lion that needs a little bit of love today? Yes, absolutely, madeline, thank you so much for having this conversation with me and everything that you shared. I think your story, your writing, the things that you're working through are really powerful medicine for people and I'm just really grateful that you're part of the typewriter tarot ecosphere and it's it just means a lot to voice these thoughts and for you, encouraging me to go up to the lion, even though other people think it's bonkers.

Speaker 2:

So thank you.

Speaker 1:

My pleasure. I want to offer deep, heartfelt thanks to Madeline for coming on the show and sharing all that she did in this conversation, both being vulnerable and exhibiting and sharing her strength with us and her wisdom, her sense of humor. I hope that this exploration of the strength card is opening a new portal or two for you, maybe softening a couple new places in your body. Maybe you're feeling little well, springs of love inside you open up, spill out, pour forth to new parts of you. You'll find more information about where you can connect with Madeline in the show notes, and you'll also find a link to her piece about working with the swords, which, again, I highly recommend you check it out. I also want to thank Chantal De Felice for creating the beautiful sounds for this show and also for editing this episode, and thanks to Ami Plas for creating our logo. You can find links to both of them in the show notes as well. And then, thank you. Thank you to you for listening, for being here, for coming on the journey. If you've found me or Typewriter Tarot through this podcast and this is serving you in some way If you like what's going on here, I want to invite you into the Typewriter Tarot Garden, where you will find workshops, classes, tarot readings, a beautiful blog space that has personal essays about creativity and divination, as well as our monthly tarot scopes. If you sign up for our newsletter, you will get the tarot scopes in your inbox every month and then, as Madeline discussed in this episode, I also offer one-on-one support, where I help folks nourish, nurture and reframe their relationship to creativity and spirituality, and sometimes business.

Speaker 1:

I have come to know, both through personal experience and through the work that I do, that having a healthy relationship to creativity and spirituality which for me, the two things are connected. I think creativity is a spiritual energy and I think it's one way for us to have a concept of our own spirituality. I'm not saying they're exactly the same thing. I don't know, it's still a mystery to me but developing that relationship that you want to have with creativity requires doing some of the work of the strength card and really looking at what's holding us back. What have we internalized from our parents, from being in the workforce, from living inside of capitalism, from living in a country that does not do a very good job, caring for the many communities that are part of the fabric of our society All of that is impactful. It takes its toll, and we're not encouraged to just have a flourishing relationship with creativity. So if you're struggling with it, it's no wonder why and so many people do and I think that having a relationship with creativity that feels open-ended, that feels flexible, that feels exciting, that feels nourishing, can really change our quality of life so tremendously.

Speaker 1:

So that's why it's important for me to help folks make their way in that direction, and I do that from the perspective of my work as a tarot reader, someone who's been piecing together a spiritual framework for myself that works for me and that continues to grow and evolve and have new layers and facets, and also as someone who is a double Capricorn with a Taurus rising, and who is very grounded in the real world.

Speaker 1:

I like to look at the bigger vision that's a Capricorn kind of thing and I like to break those big visions down into smaller pieces and help myself and other people or whoever may want it kind of move forward in a way that feels accessible and practical. This isn't just about talking about abstract spirituality, but also how do we live that down here on earth, in our homes, with our families, with our friends, with our jobs, all of that. So if you're ever interested in exploring that kind of work, you can go to typewritertarotcom. You'll see the coaching page and I offer free curiosity calls so you can set one up and we can have a chat. I'd love to talk to you. Thank you again for being here and for listening. I'm sending you lots of magic and creativity and I'll talk to you next time. Thank you.