A Five-Minute Vacation

Because I think we could all use one.

The holiday lights are up in Downtown Brooklyn.

Massive, glistening snowflakes dangle from traffic lights, while pumpkins with sunken grins still grace nearby stoops.

I love twinkle lights as much as the next person. I want them to fill me with merriment and cheer and that particular breed of emotion that only exists in the presence of Hallmark movies.

In practice, though, I was not pleased to see them. “No!” I called out, in the middle of the street. “I am not ready!” Because I’m not. I want to sit still for a minute, to figure out what day it is, to drink up the sunlight before it sets while I’m still eating lunch. (Hyperbole, but barely.)

A glimpse of precious daylight.

Have you ever been nostalgic for a moment before it’s even passed? Or for an age, or a season, while you’re still inside it?

To that end, how many times do we rush past a demonstration of natural beauty because we’re in a hurry, or because we’re distracted by some vague future stressor?

How many days are we so focused on where we’re going that we fail to notice where we are?

In my sight line, just beyond the prematurely hung snowflakes, there is fall, with its leaves like a warning flare, demanding to be seen. I AM CREATING A MOMENT, they say, SO PLEASE ENJOY IT.

I planned on sharing a longer piece this week, but then I thought, ehhh. The leaves say otherwise. The leaves have instructed me to keep it short and make it mindful, both for my sake and yours.

This week, I’m instituting a five-minute vacation. Starting right now — and whenever else it feels necessary — I am giving myself five minutes to slow down, regroup, recalibrate, and breathe.

Wherever you find yourself on this November day, I invite you to join me. Take a moment that doesn’t ask to be filled with effort, in any direction. Just stop in this exact place, and as Thaddeus Golas once wrote, “Love it the way it is.”

That glorious underfoot crunch.

Card of the Week

Here is this week’s card for the collective, as well as some thoughts to carry into the days ahead. As most modern readers will tell you, the tarot is not about fortunetelling, nor is it about neat, definitive answers. The cards are simply one path to reflection, a way of better knowing ourselves and others through universal themes. If this reading resonates with you, great! And if not, no worries. Take whatever may be helpful and leave the rest.

Featuring the Intuitive Night Goddess Tarot Deck by Linzi Silverman

There’s a fairly good chance you’ve heard the Anais Nin quote, “We see things not as they are, we see things as we are.” In a nutshell, that’s the message of the Seven of Cups.

On this card, a person is confronted with seven cups full of fantastical things — depending on the deck, this could include wealth, jewelry, flowers, a love interest, a home, a snake, a ghost, a wreath of laurels that may or may not be poisonous…

Much like life, there’s good and bad, along with plenty that may not be how it seems.

If you’ve ever had the particular pleasure/horror of using a dating app, you know exactly how this feels. Some profiles seem dazzling. Others seem horrifying. How do you trust what you see? How do you know who’s going to show up IRL? How do you keep an open mind while doing your best to protect your heart and your time? The best you can do is to exercise your judgment and hope for the best.

One traditional reading of the Seven of Cups is that it is a card about fantasies, in which the cups are filled with vices. It can sometimes hint at addictions, or illusions, asking us to check ourselves and make sure we are in touch with reality.

This week, however, the message I’m getting is to examine which cups are filled with your stuff — your own dreams, thoughts, and plans — and which are filled with everyone else’s. It’s important to recognize the difference, although our society doesn’t do us any favors. One scroll through social media or browse through the paper is often enough to supplant your own life metrics with entirely new ones.

In the days ahead, ask yourself: What beliefs have you picked up along the way that may not ring true for you? What is your definition of success, outside of anyone else’s? What makes you happy, despite what anyone says?

The bridge between thought and reality is paved with action. But without knowing what to plug into the GPS, how can we chart our course?

This week’s message asks us to get clear on what we want. Whether that’s a big-ticket item like a job or a partner, or just what’s for dinner, the more clarity you can create, the better the chances that you’ll recognize it when you find it.

Ask yourself, what do you want to pursue? What will it look like? How will it feel? If you’re so inclined, write it down, so it feels concrete.

Then, and only then, it’s time to let your mind re-fill those cups. Be inventive, and don’t hold back. As Einstein said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.”

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