Not a reader, it’s OK, I read the newsletter for you. Let me know what you think. I appreciate the feedback!
Background music by Axlefree from the “Music from A Hampshire Farm”
I don’t know how they do it. Here I am, a married, childless, without the grind of a 9-to-5 job, household managing, servant-less woman in America, and yet I struggle. A lot.
There is this never ending to-do list that replays in my head every day. I find boxes ticked off and then added, bringing me back into consciousness even during the utmost quiet of my meditation. Despite giving myself the excuse of going through a necessary diagnostic and preventative medical procedure that required my body some rest, I still felt the balls being thrown at me, gathering the pile in the basket of my forearms. When can this grace period of rest be over? I needed it to be over yesterday because there’s just so much to do!
This made me think of the Two of Pentacles. In the realm of earthly matters, the tangible everyday of doings and things - our jobs, money or lack thereof, bodies and health, we juggle.
Looking at the traditional Rider-Waite Smith card, we see a court jester like figure wearing a tall hat, seemingly able to contain all the goings on in his mind said Benebell Wen in “Holistic Tarot”, balancing on one foot and the other raised as if in a dance, juggling two pentacles in his two hands. The coins held, not only by his dexterous fingers, but also by a ribbon in the shape of the infinity symbol. His face, not stressed, but rather both focused and proud, as if to say “Hey, look what I can do!” Behind him is the ocean going through the biggest swells with two galleons, once symbolized trade, riding them with ease.
When this card is pulled in a reading, you are literally juggling a lot of things at the moment. Are you thriving or are you struggling? It can be both. At the same time, this card can be a call for balance. After all, juggling is a balancing act.
Often, I shy away from asking my fellow women on how they actually manage. I look at my own mother and sister, who is now also a mother, on how they do it. But they just do. Lack of sleep nor exhaustion does not deter them from doing things they’re supposed to do for their children and themselves.
Too often, taking care of themselves comes last. Too often, rants are not shouted from the rooftops nor God forbid end up in explosive breakdowns, but in restrained whispers. Because somehow modern women are supposed to be able to do it all. Be a homemaker and mot
her, have a thriving career, while still looking the glossy, kept together, always beautiful part and remain compassionate and nurturing.
I dropped the ball of motherhood as one of those things I chose to not to juggle decades ago. Even when I was a child, groomed by society to be mothers by handing them baby dolls, I knew in my gut that I wasn’t to be one. As I grew into puberty with menses that introduced the actual bodily possibility of producing a child, that instinct never kicked in. Even as I eventually, prematurely stepped into the role of “mother” and head of the household, I was 110% sure that I didn’t want any of this. I still don’t and yet I feel that I fall short. That I need to introduce a new ball into the current cycle of juggle. That my existence is still incomplete. That I still to prove myself to be worthy to be called a woman.
There’s this never ending, infinity loop, perpetuating the inadequacy of women like me. Whether by external forces or the intrinsic voices that echo the outside.
In the Catholic faith, we were taught that we only have this one chance to live our lives to determine where we go in the afterlife - heaven or hell. While I’ve learned and am learning, how the concept of reincarnation continues to be a cornerstone of Hinduism that reverberates in the Vedas, thus in Jyotish or Vedic astrology. That the one soul does not live just one life, but many. That the rebirth of the soul on this earth, the state of the life one will get to live again, is determined by how one plays out its fate in the previous one. The life on earth is not entirely lost, but another chance to be tested again, hopefully correct past mistakes, learn new lessons and lead a “better” life.
This is seen in one’s birth chart. While not a single planetary placement points to this, but the chart as a whole. I wrestle with this idea with my Catholic roots. And yet, karma is a commonplace term we use. The boomerang, the inertia, of what goes around comes around.
But here’s the rub, karma, according to the discourse in James Kelleher’s “Path of Light: Volume I, Introduction to Vedic Astrology”, is not just what we get in THIS lifetime, but even beyond. There are three types of karma: sanchita, prarabdha and kriyamana. Sanchita karma is the “total pool of karma that has been stored up from all past actions,” meaning including that from all your previous lives. Prarabdha karma is the one seen in birth charts. It is the baseline we work from that “which is scheduled to be shed in this lifetime.” Finally, kriyamana karma is the karma that we actually “(create) in this lifetime by our own free will” It, from what I understand, eventually gets added back into the total karma of one’s soul for the next reincarnation.
Alas, truly, the soul’s life work never ends.
So I now wonder on how womanity’s karma will evolve into something “better.” What lessons has life thrown to us in this generation that we have the power to take head on, so that we are able to live different lives in the next reincarnation? Are we able to finally accept letting go of one or two or three balls in the air - motherhood or a career - to someone else? Will there be someone else who’d be willing to take on the challenge? One thing I hope for is that we do learn, so I don’t need to go through this same flagellation in the next one.
Sources:
“Holistic Tarot” by Benebell Wen
“Path of Light: Volume I, Introduction to Vedic Astrology” by James Kelleher
What I’m watching:
We just finished the series finale of “Ted Lasso.” While heartbreaking for the heartwarming series to come to an end, there is satisfaction in knowing that there is an ending to things, especially on TV. Because the end means there are beginnings in the horizon. And I hope that “Ted Lasso” inspires more shows in the similar genre of wholesome, inspiring fun when tackling the most serious things in life.
We started “Super League: The War for Football” (The REAL football guys, not the one that hardly ever uses the actual foot!) also on AppleTV+, which is a documentary about the attempt or rather still ongoing pursuit by the European Super League to revamp the existing power structures of the largest, most powerful professional football world, the UEFA or Union of European Football Associations. This, if you’ve watched the former mentioned show, was incorporated in its storyline. So I call this a mashup of power and money grab of “Succession,” the football led“Ted Lasso”and thrown in a generous sprinkle of shifting global economy and politics. It is a great look into the few men that shape the sports world and its impact on its wildly passionate fanbase. At least as far as I’ve watched.
If you’d like to read more about tarot cards and their meanings, head on over to what I’ve written below:
Major Arcana
Minor Arcana