In the midst of grime and despair, the smallest act becomes unspeakably beautiful.
The Steampunk Tarot, Six of Cups
A Quiet Writing deep-dive Tarot Narrative each Monday to share intuitive guidance, wisdom and insights from aligned books – for the week and anytime…
This week: simple pleasures and acts make a world of difference
Theme for the week beginning 23 April
The underlying theme for this week to guide our overall focus is from Lisa McLoughlin’s Life Design Cards deck – #38 Discover simplicity through the senses
This week builds on last week’s theme of the essential matters of life and of the heart and remembering what really matters. This week, we focus on the value of simple pleasures – through the senses, memories, remembered joy or gifts and thoughts from the heart. Often ephemeral and fleeting, we are reminded of the power of simple pleasures like laughter, sunshine, flowers, music and play. Engaging with our senses to heal, connect and ground ourselves is especially highlighted this week. And we reminded that these simple pleasures can make a world of difference to us and to others at critical times.
Advice from the Life Design Cards Guidebook is:
Though you are infinitely complex, find serenity and peace through simple things.
Challenging times can make us get overwhelmed. But how many times do we find that it is simple pleasures like hearing a song we love, a gift of flowers or a walk on the beach can be just what we need to connect with ourselves and settle.
This week’s guidance is about remembering the value of simple pleasures and how they activate our senses. Music, scent, candles, feeling our feet on the ground whatever the surface, remembered joyful moments and the connecting value of simple pleasures and gifts are all highlighted this week.
Tarot Narrative for the week beginning 23 April
Tarot Narrative:
In the space between endings and beginnings, in the space between darkness and light, there’s an opportunity for simple pleasures to light the way forward. Remembered joy, getting back to what you love, a smile, a small word or gift, flowers, the pleasure of the senses being fired by an offering. Where you or someone else is vulnerable, simple pleasures, moments and memories can light the way to a new cycle.
Reading notes:
Cards: Six of Cups and The World from The Steampunk Tarot and #33 Chaos and Conflict in protection (reversed) position from Wisdom of the Oracle.
(Love The Steampunk Tarot deck – not a new deck but new to me and deck interview coming soon here!)
Book notes:
I’m reading Liz Fenwick’s The Returning Tide right now. I’m linking this book here because the experience of reading this novel is one of finding joy. This is through the act of reading, losing myself in a novel and also in my mind going to lovely Cornwall where it is set. That remembered joy of being in Cornwall is stirring as I read. It’s a special place for me and even the names of places – Helford, Falmouth, Boscawen – all create strong feelings. I would love to be there for a long time to explore its joys. Unfortunately, I can’t get there right now. But I have my memories of going there and this story which brings them alive.
The story also is one of how simple joys get complicated in life as events overtake. In this case, wartime experiences make life and especially relationships challenging. Liz Fenwick takes us through the journey of a family where joy and simple pleasures seem buried in layers of circumstance. It’s powerful to reflect on in the light of our own story and how we respond to what is happening.
So this story and the simple, sensual pleasures of reading a much-loved author in the warm sunshine of a balmy Sydney autumn have been sustaining and joyful of late. And if you haven’t read Liz Fenwick, do read her fabulous novels.
Simple pleasures and remembered joy
In last week’s tarot narrative, the Five of Cups reminded us it’s helpful to feel any pain fully as we move through it. If we don’t, we can miss valuable lessons.
The Six of Cups steps in to remind us of some practical tricks in moving through challenges. This card speaks of the value of small acts of beauty – gifts of time, thoughtful acts, flowers, moments of simple pleasure like reading in the sun. We are reminded to engage our senses – to feel, see, hear, taste and smell.
The Five of Cups focuses on sorrow, lost opportunity and regrets. The Six of Cups dwells in the hope and peace of life’s simple pleasures now and as positive memories.
The World card reinforces this via the World Dancer surrounded by symbols of the four elements: air, fire, water and earth. The world is open for us to engage with if only we lift our eyes from our pain or circumstance. There is joy in simple pleasures, even if life throws up some curve balls we hadn’t anticipated.
The Chaos and Conflict card says there is an opportunity for simple pleasures to become moments of real insight. The guidebook says:
Even in the seeming chaos, there is a kind of Divine order, a complete re-sorting of the elements.
We need to open ourselves to this.
Last week’s message was: We can focus on the dark clouds or we can focus on the light coming through. This week’s message is to seek light in simple pleasures and allow solutions and healing to evolve through these spaces.
We so often want to fix situations for ourselves and others. But often the simplest acts of self-care like reading, taking photographs or a walk on the beach at sunset can create answers.
Engaging in simple pleasures to heal
One of the big learnings for me going through extreme life experiences in the past 18 months has been the power of self-care and simple pleasures.
It’s important to know what lights us and others up and to do this. Here are a few of my favourites:
- reading a great book – a novel by a favourite author or non-fiction book in an area I love
- a cup of tea
- a walk on the beach especially at sunset
- a swim in the ocean
- taking photographs as I walk and notice
- flowers especially natives growing amongst wildness
- green ferns and mosses
- water flowing – fountains, rivers, cascades, waves
- succulents and their quirky ways
- listening to favourite songs, revisiting songs I’ve loved (this week: ‘State of Independence’ by Donna Summer!)
- the feel of our companion animals’ softness as they sit close by
- being inspired and learning through listening to podcasts (today, Discussing Jung’s Studies in Astrology by Liz Greene)
- the smiles and laughs of special friends and family members
- seeing healing occur in loved ones
- breathing in and out and really feeling it move inside me
- remembering the joy of holidays and places I love even if I can’t be there now
- working with tarot and oracle cards
- writing morning pages, feeling my hand move across the page
- handling crystals, enjoying their texture and energy
What simple pleasures work to bring you joy even if life is tough?
How can you bring joy to someone else through the simplest pleasures of life?
It’s a great week for steeping ourselves in self-care and care of others through simple pleasures. Filling our well through our senses and remembering joyful moments can be the passport to healing and the bridge to new insights.
Love to hear your thoughts!
I’d love to hear what is working for you as you focus on the simple pleasures of life this week.
All best wishes for this week of moving through challenges by focusing on self-care and care of others through celebrating simplicity, the senses and remembered joy.
May you find joy in the simple things of life and may this make a difference for you and yours. And let me know what you think of this post and this weekly Tarot Narrative!
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