It's Easier Than You Think

This, too, shall pass.

I recently had tea with a friend I hadn’t seen in a minute.

She’s seen her fair share of struggles lately — health, financial, the juggling act of trying to keep it together while caring for two young children. The last time I saw her, it felt like every part of our conversation came with a warning: the dangers one might encounter by making similar life choices. But this time, it was a different story.

“The last few years have been hard,” she said, echoing a sentiment I’ve heard from many people, applied in as many ways. “But I wish I had realized how finite that phase was, because I would have appreciated it more. I was afraid that life would always feel that impossible. Now I miss it.”

Isn’t that so often the case? We don’t see the beauty of a moment until after it’s passed. Many are the times I’ve mistaken something as the shape of my life, when really, what I was beholding was only a season.

It reminded me of this excerpt from Sylvia Boorstein’s It’s Easier Than You Think:

“My fourth child was born when my first child was five years old. I was very happy about my situation, and it was overwhelming. I painted the line ‘This, Too, Shall Pass’ across the rafter of my kitchen. It did. Now I recall those days with great affection. When I realize how quickly they passed and how fast everything else in my life passed, I have the sense I will wake up tomorrow and find that I am eighty years old. My mother-in-law used to sigh and say, ‘One turn around and it’s all over!’ I used to think that was just her experience of her life. Now I think she was right.”

That was written nearly thirty years ago, in 1995. Today, the author is eighty-six years old, and I wonder how her perspective has changed.

This Thursday is American Thanksgiving, a holiday built on lovely sentiments and problematic roots. The way we were taught about it back in school strikes me as all wrong, not only from a historical perspective, but from a philosophical one, as well. Gratitude was presented as a comparative thing — be thankful for what you have, because someone else wishes they had it. As though misfortune amplifies our experience. As though we aren’t all connected.

While it’s always good to have perspective, mindfulness teaches us that true gratitude is governed by presence. Rooted in the current moment, we can observe our reality from a place of non-judgment. We aren’t focused on whether we have more or less. We aren’t mired in fears of the future or regrets of the past. We aren’t pondering what could be better or worse. We just are.

Trees! So spindly. So tall.

As I go about my days, there is a meditative practice that I often employ: Pretend that you are experiencing something for the first time. Pretend that you are experiencing it for the last.

A tree morphs from a piece of humdrum ornamentation to a branched wonder. The sun or a hand or a dog becomes nothing short of a miracle.

Without much effort, paying careful attention inspires a thankfulness that is both granular and sweeping. For light and scent and shape and temperature. For breath. For beholding. For being.

It’s easy to get caught up in “shoulds,” something that extends all the way to gratitude itself. Thankfulness has been marketed as a practice to be recorded in some specific way — something to buy, and do, and keep up with — then if we fail to do so, we’ve found one more thing to feel bad about. But really, gratitude is an internal shift.

And so I’ll end the way I started, with another quote from Sylvia Boorstein:

“It’s not a question of whether the cup runs over or not. The world is so full of wonderful things, there is no end of things to put into the cup. It’s a question of clear seeing. When we see clearly, we see there is only one cup.”

Wishing you kindness and comfort, this week and always.

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 Abstract Futures Tarot by Hilma’s Ghost

An introductory physics or chemistry lesson will likely include the Law of Conservation of Mass: Matter can neither be created nor destroyed.

Pentacles are the suit of matter. This is often interpreted as meaning wealth, property, stuff. But the Queen of Pentacles knows that matter doesn’t stop at material possessions. It includes every substance imaginable. Earth. Nature. Flora and fauna. To quote Mufasa, everything the light touches.

The Queen of Pentacles adores matter. She loves beholding it, collecting it, luxuriating in it. Though she is often labeled as a materialist — the type who loves to be swathed in a cashmere throw, with big cozy slippers and an eye mask, or else swimming through a room full of coins like Scrooge McDuck — that isn’t really fair.

The character on this card has a profound love for the world around her. If she is no stranger to abundance, it is only because she sees it everywhere. In good friends and kind strangers and blue skies. In independence and spontaneity. In sharing and commiseration. In other words, she appreciates. And what she appreciates, she amplifies.

The Queen of Pentacles is a creator who operates under a few natural laws of her own. The first is that everything is connected. The second is that we all carry a little bit of magic. She has a talent for recognizing worth — both her own, and the value inherent in others. She trusts herself fully. She is a glass half full kind of person, spinning a narrative of possibility where others see only pitfalls.

Among her many lessons is the importance of self-care, though not the type you’ll see peddled in an Instagram ad. She knows that ignoring one’s own needs isn’t a way to prioritize others, it’s a recipe for burnout. And that’s something she tries to avoid, as she brings her full self to everything she encounters.

The Queen of Pentacles works hard, plays hard, and gives generously. She’ll show up at your door with whatever is needed — ice cream, therapy dogs, a shoulder to cry on. And she encourages us to do the same. “Show up,” she says, “with every fiber of your being.” She promises there is no better way.

The queen collects moments, knowing they are the most precious form of currency. She embraces the flow of life, even when it doesn’t line up with her ideal schedule — as it often doesn’t — for she knows that (most) things take time.

One gains perspective by changing position. By moving, investigating, approaching from a different angle. This doesn’t happen instantaneously. But when you find yourself in a situation where you cannot see the light, this card encourages you to keep the faith. Nurture yourself in the meantime. Keep looking toward the horizon. Don’t forget to engage your senses along the way.

Too often, we act like progress is reinventing the wheel. As though the creation of matter were all up to us. But what if creation as we know it isn’t about starting from scratch, but adapting what is already at our disposal? What if it’s about listening to our intuition and acting accordingly? What if the answers are already out there, and our job is simply to seek?

As we move forward, the Queen of Pentacles wants us to remember this:

Matter can neither be created nor destroyed. But it can change form. And so can we.

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