Dancing the liminal:

Thoughts on a rough week

I’ve been drawing Major Arcana XII, the Hanged One, a lot lately in my card pulls. I suspect I’m supposed to be developing a new perspective.

It’s freaking hard, but also somewhat inescapable. As humans, we’re constantly challenged in our perspective, or we are if we’re paying attention and weighing the information we consume instead of mindlessly guzzling it. Plus, according to my horoscope, I’m going to face and discover a lot about myself this month.

For example, I realized something uncomfortable while reading one of my students’ homework in preparation for Wednesday’s accelerator class. Apparently, I’ve been building my Psych Up Academy business because I feel like I need to justify my creative pursuits by helping people.

Yeah, that was one of those spiritual punches in the gut, like, “Okay, Boo, what are you gonna do now?”

Luckily I had a chakra business reading session with the awesome Supriya Prasad this morning and got the message that I can do both.

Phew, because on the same day that realization hit, someone told me that I light up when I talk about helping other writers. And after giving an individual coaching session yesterday morning, I once again see that’s true.

Being a writing mentor helps me to bring all my sides — witch, psychologist, author, and chaotic ADHD self — to that process. I’m finding that instead of being a hindrance, my ADHD is proving to be one of those mythical superpowers that people talk about because I can make unexpected connections.

Plus, as an author with ADHD, I can help other authors with ADHD. That’s a lot of us.

I also found an interesting area of alignment with regard to management philosophy with my client. Who knew? Seriously, talking to other people does help to clarify what’s going on in my own head.

Crap, does that make me an extrovert?

Nah… I’m still a strong introvert. In fact, when I was talking to my two grad school besties, who were also in my wedding twenty (?!) years ago, we agreed I’m the most introverted of us all. I just happen to be an affiliative introvert.

I’m also the mystic in the bunch, at least in this lifetime.

This week has also been rough because my heart, my sweet kitty Timothy Mouse, had a dental cleaning on Wednesday that turned into a molar extraction, which became him staying overnight at the vet’s office. Now, three days later, he’s mostly over the sedation, but he’s still holding his tail weird.

Part of me is frustrated that he’s still not quite right. Did the vet break my cat?

But he’s also snuggled on my lap, and he’s fallen asleep as I’ve written. He gets incrementally better with each hour, so maybe it’s just taking him up those full 72 hours to get through the effects of the sedation.

I’ll freely admit that part of my fear comes from past experience. Hubby and I had a cat who was scrambled from some sort of neurological event in 2014. Tabitha, the Dowager Kitty, lived until she passed away in her sleep in 2019 while we were away and she was boarded at the vet. It was super hard to get that phone call, but we also didn’t have to make that final awful decision about whether to assist her across the Rainbow Bridge.

The experience with waiting for Timothy to get through whatever he’s going through has been giving me flashbacks, and it’s been hard. The worst has been his difficulty settling down and relaxing, although that at least is resolved.

He does get better with every hour, and he’s already miles ahead of Tabitha. He’s used the litter box, and he can jump both up and down from the loveseat and desk in my home office.

And if you’re wondering, Timothy is ten years old, so technically an “older cat.” He hasn’t had general anesthesia since he was neutered at four months old. And he was staying at the vet during that time because Hubby and I were on vacation, so I don’t know how he reacted.

I feel like I’m rambling, but there’s a point somewhere.

Oh, right, the Hanged One is encouraging me to take a new perspective. Or at least to pause and give myself time to examine stuff. But is it too much to ask for my cat to be okay after a routine procedure?

Indeed, this liminal time between the pagan new year of Samhain and the secular New Year feels like a time of taking perspective and resting in order to figure out what’s important to focus on in the time to come.

I also feel like time is folding in on me. Timothy Mouse is ten years old. I just celebrated my twentieth wedding anniversary with my husband.

And yesterday evening, we saw a performance of the Nutcracker, in which two of my best friend’s kids danced. I introduced her to her husband almost thirty years ago as an experiment. Seriously, I didn’t think anything would come of it except two of my friends meeting each other and having potentially entertaining (to me) interactions. They ended up getting married the year before I did, and they have three incredible kids. Seriously, I count that whole situation as my greatest accidental success.

The best part, besides seeing my best friend happy? Introducing her oldest daughter, my goddaughter, to Tarot this past summer.

Sometimes I still can’t believe how well that whole situation with my two friends worked out. No, I haven’t managed to match-make successfully since, so please don’t ask.

So, as I write with my kitty asleep on my lap, I can only be grateful and try to take the perspective that everything works out in the end, even if I don’t know how. That was another message from this morning’s session with Supriya — detachment from outcome.

That’s definitely a Hanged One perspective: trust that things will work out, even if I can’t imagine how.

Thank you for reading. I definitely appreciate any comments, shares, and other encouragement.

How is the Hanged One showing up for you these days? Do you feel like you’re also dancing through a liminal space right now?