Be Ready
Does anyone make New Year’s resolutions these days? Or is it just the olders who have gotten wiser, let those magnificent opportunities for failure go? (Maybe we are the only generation who ever did.) Some are really good—drink more water, stop scrolling social media, get more exercise—but who needs the pressure of “resolve”? Some of us have changed to softer “intentions,” providing an awareness of needs or wants, resolutions with no-guilt permission to blow it off. Others have a word for the year. I’ve had a few of those.
To be sure, if you do any of those (resolutions, intentions, word for the year), and it works to keep you motivated, yay you!
For the past several years, though, I have engaged in a more meditative practice: Tarot. My good friend Joanna Powell Colbert, created a deck that feeds my soul. Each year on the winter solstice, I draw five cards and see what they have to say to me about the year past. Or, more accurately, what I have to say for myself inspired by the cards. A question is offered for each card, but sometimes I just listen for them to speak to me. On New Year’s Day, I do a seven-card spread with questions to ponder about the new year.
As is pretty much always the case, this season’s practices blew me away with the resonance with my life and the insight they inspired.
The solstice practice led me from acknowledging my contentment with relative solitude, to inviting me to ask what I need now and what is keeping me from it, and on to what might I have to let go of to reach a new thing? Because, of course, we can’t live all the lives.
The new year spread led to this: Be ready. Call it a resolution. Call it an intention. Call it a word for the year. Call it inspiration. (Call it a kick in the butt.)
I’m not an astrology practitioner, but I do know Geminis are curious, and they love variety. They also struggle with indecisiveness. So me! I’m also a nine on the Enneagram: the Peacemaker. Sounds good, right? It’s a whole lot like Gemini: receptive, and also complacent. Everything sounds like a good plan. “You decide.” But when you are a solo, there is no “you.”
Like many of us in the third act of life, I’ve been thinking for a good time about where I want to be as I advance toward the inevitable years of changing health and function. Aging at home”—if that means the house I currently live in—is not an option. I’m not sorry. I’ve moved my home eleven times since I migrated across the country in 1976, returning in 2012. I’m good with change. But what? where? when? I’m ready to move to the next adventure. I want to stay near my hiking trails, and sunrises from my home. I’m restless. I’m stuck. Gemini /Peacemaker.
The cards have offered me the task for this year: Be ready.
I don’t have make a decision on what, where, or when. (Back off, Gemini/Peacemaker.) Be ready gives me the opportunity to make a list and check off items. (I like that.) Return to cleaning out the house of my parents’ belongings and my own. Complete end-of-life business. Get the house appraised and inspected, property lines confirmed. Get someone to look at the septic tank status, instead of just worrying about it. Pick up again pondering where I want to go and allow myself to dream without the “I can’ts” I tend to put on fantasies. I’ve got this.
Also, buy an orange toaster because color makes me happy. Goodness knows, we could all use some happy right now.
“We don’t have to have it all figured out or know exactly where we’re going. We just need to trust in the journey and stay open to the surprises along the way.” —Barbara Brown Taylor
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I would love to hear from you! Do you set goals for the new year? What are your longings? What holds you back? What urges you forward? Leave a comment below.
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The Gaian Tarot Three of Earth card, the one I think of as the community card, and which inspired the name I gave my family home (and Airbnb) several years ago—Three of Earth Farm—was drawn on the Solstice as my “companion card for the year ahead.” And in the new year spread as “hidden concern.” Gemini. Peacemaker. The internal battle continues, but I recognize the need for connections in these times. I wonder, what longings call to you?
Meet the creator, Joanna Powell Colbert, at JoannaPowellColbert.com.
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Be prepared comes as a warning to me now. I have warned friends and posted on Facebook about the coming of Fascism to our country and it’s happening in frightening ways almost too fast to process. How do I prepare for living this way? What happens if my Social Security (on which I depend) is significantly cut or disappears? In years past I wrote out my resolutions. But not this year. I am happy to read your post to tug me back to a time of serious consideration of the year ahead. The more I think the more I realize how worried I am. Preparation requires a plan so I must begin to develop a plan for what little, old (quite literally) me can implement in this time of looming trouble as a deeply concerned patriotic citizen.
Hi Beth Anne! How nice to hear from you. I hear you on the concern. If sad, mad, and afraid were a horse race, afraid took the lead week ago for me. But I quickly realized I can’t sustain that emotion and stay healthy. And it leads to nothing, when I just want to pull the covers over my head and hide. I took a physical retreat as well as a news break to quiet the quell in my body. I’m sticking to sad and mad, and what I can do with those, and refusing to give up joy. I’m preparing for my future, and trusting that I will have choices. One day at a time on the twisting road that is olderhood, regardless of the outside landscape. Thank you for writing. Gretchen
Thoughtful post, Gretchen. Love your orange toaster!
This year, at a luncheon with my women walkers, the conversation turned to our word for the year. I was instead inspired by something I’d heard one say earlier in reference to her focus on clearing out and simplifying: the question, “What is of enduring value?” A necessary litmus test for this age and stage. Xxoo
Thank you, Katharine. I love my toaster too! I like that question. What is of enduring value to me, though, may not be to those who will become the caretaker of “things.” But that is for them to decide. They might not care that I have my childhood lunchbox in a trunk! Okay, yeah, that is probably not on the list to keep. xoxo. Gretchen
I have barely taken a breath it seems as one year slammed into another. Like you, I have maintained a Gaian New Years tarot spread as my one surviving ritual. If I were picking words, last year was defined by uncertainty. If I had to choose one for this year it would be clarity. Clarity being the hopeful choice.
I love your interpretation of the cards and that you are laying a foundation for what it means to “be ready”. I wish my spread were as clear as yours as to the message. I’ll send you mine to have a look. Maybe you could identify a theme I’m missing. I read mine as being a time of deep emotional connections. (But, then again, I always see my life that way). The idea of being open and ready is one that resonates. It’s all about passive preparation when the details are sketchy. Carry on, friend. May it be a year that transcends the questions.
You have had a seriously challenge year transition. Your cards may be an affirmation of what you are already doing. Perhaps you are being guided in the coming months to find new pathways into emotional connections. I’ve long been aware of my need to be/get ready, but my focus has been more on the “ready for what.” So it’s more a re-visioning than a new thing. Love to you.
I married a boy scout, for whom being prepared is a way of life, but mostly that’s been about disasters. I like this take on being ready for opportunity, and opening, and options. It’s easy to say no when something comes along that seems scary at first, or too daunting. But the baby steps to get there are easier to take. I love watching your life unwind into the next steps!
I’m considering the difference between “prepared” and “ready.” Another commenter substituted too. They don’t read the same for me. I agree, prepared feels related to disaster. Ready is to take advantage of good things when the iron is hot, when opportunity knocks, all those cliches. Thank you for company on the journey!