April 2018 Self-Care Tarot: make some damn Me time

That's Dermalogica Daily Microfoliant face wash powder NOT cocaine. Calm the fuck down.  

I spilled a family-sized tub of Wholly Guacamole™ onto our rattan area rug in March so I'm hoping for a better April. If you are too, read what Cassandra and her cards have to say about that. 

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Welcome back to Self-Care Tarot, our monthly check-in, reflection, and one card guidance using Fountain Tarot. For April we are being called to The Hermit, number nine in the Major Arcana. (We’re still on a Majors streak, which means there’s lots of big energy and ideas surrounding us in 2018 so far.) Nines in the tarot are about completion, and this Hermit is no exception. Whatever healing, coping, or self-care processes you’ve been working through, this is the month to stretch for those final goals so you can move on to the next chapter in your epic journey.

Traditionally, The Hermit is about hunkering down for some solo time and retreating from the stresses of the world. While this card can sometimes show up in the negative (like when we’re a little too fond of escaping instead of dealing), usually it shows up to signify that we need some capital-A Alone time. That alone time should be used for deep, powerful work though, not just idly rewatching Gilmore Girls for the ninth time. If you’re spiritual at all, this is time to work on some Big Magic or Prayer, working alone by moonlight to accomplish your goal. Regardless of if that part rings true for you, April is a huge time to work on your relationship with yourself and with solitude.  Spend some time alone processing some of the hardest things you’ve been mulling over for the past couple of months. Know that your inclination to isolate isn’t necessarily a bad thing right now, so long as you use that time well. Know that this time alone should be used for big, important healing, and there’s a reason you’re being called inward.

Negatively aspected, The Hermit could allude to feelings of loneliness with your mental illness journey. We might feel this month like we are the only person going through this, or like we are driving away friends and family by having nontraditional needs. Sometimes we need to sit with loneliness and let it have it’s say so we can find something out about ourselves--but in the artwork of almost any Hermit card, we see the light shining through even in this night we’re supposed to be enjoying. Look for the light. Physically count your blessings, keep your gratitude lists, and remember those times your therapist told you to look for evidence that you’re not alone. Seek company if you need it, but know that it’s there always.  -Cassandra Snow

Isn't Cassandra effing great?! Give her a follow HERE or better yet - set up your own tarot reading with her right HERE!

About the Deck: The Fountain Tarot was created by Jonathon Saiz and designed by Andi Todaro. The book was written by Jason Gruhl. The deck offers fresh, creative, modern perspectives while staying true to the heart of traditional decks like the Rider-Waite Tarot. This is an independently published deck. You can learn more and buy your own here.

A Severely Boring But V Important Disclaimer From Me to Yew: Take-Your-Pills.com is not affiliated with The Fountain Tarot or its makers. I do not receive monetary compensation should you decide to click the link and/or purchase their products. As Cassandra noted in our interview, these monthly tarot card readings, along with the accompanying advice and tips, should NEVER replace medical care. Cassandra and I are NOT medical or mental health professionals. Any self-care tips given by Cassandra, myself, and the cards, are simply opinion and intuition-based, and NOT to be used as a treatment or medical advice for mental or physical illness. The advice/tips in these posts and card readings are NOT the final words on your health, wellness, illness, relationships, existence, fortune, loved ones, misfortune, personality, future, present, past, life, etc. This blog segment is meant purely for the purpose of providing the reader with a fun monthly blog post. Xoxo thank you!

March Self-Care Tarotscope: Get Some Sunscreen, You Golden Stallion

Not #spon but should be

It's 1:20 am on Friday, March 2nd which means this post is officially late. I'll keep this short. Read below to see all the gud shit from Cassandra Snow and her cards. March is going to be just fine, guys.  

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"The Sun from The Fountain Tarot is our March Self-Care tarot. This card follows the Moon (last month’s card) tarot immediately, so I reshuffled and pulled three different times and kept getting The Sun! The card does make sense as we slide into Spring. Anyone dealing with Seasonal Affective Disorder over the harsh winter months will see that slip away in coming weeks as The Sun comes out. It also makes sense that if we spent February contemplating our deepest traumas and hurts, that those weeks of processing would lead us to a card as hopeful and positive as The Sun. The Sun is a card that primarily exists so that good omens exist in The Tarot. This card promises success in our family lives and careers and essentially gives us the Midas touch. 

Anything we touch in March has the potential to turn to gold. That’s great, but this is very much a “be careful what you wish for” card. For those whose energy comes and goes in fits and starts, don’t start too many projects right now because when your energy wanes, you won’t be able to keep up with their demands. Instead, focus on one or two projects or areas of your life that feel really healing and good to focus on and pour that energy there. 

Sometimes tarot is very literal, so it’s strongly recommended that we get outside and GET some sun this month. We’re likely to have the energy to jump back into outdoor activities, and the weather is letting up just enough to let us go play. It’s important to remember that while exercise and time outdoors isn’t everything and won’t “fix” your mental health problems, it can be used alongside treatment to amplify that treatment’s effects. 

Overall, March looks to be better overall than February. We’re already working on some pretty big things regarding therapy or introspection, and this is not a time to add to that. Think about using that momentum to push further and heal even more than you ever thought you could. You might have a better month than usual, but don’t overdo it. You don’t want your energy sizzling out too soon, and you don’t want to agree to more than you can sustain should you hit a low point again. If all else fails: go outside! You can use that literally or as a metaphor to do anything that feels like self-care that gets you outside of yourself." 

-Cassandra Snow

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SEE WE'RE GUNNA BE FINE, OKAY?! Okay. xo.

About the Deck: The Fountain Tarot was created by Jonathon Saiz and designed by Andi Todaro. The book was written by Jason Gruhl. The deck offers fresh, creative, modern perspectives while staying true to the heart of traditional decks like the Rider-Waite Tarot. This is an independently published deck. You can learn more and buy your own here.

A Severely Boring But V Important Disclaimer From Me to Yew: Take-Your-Pills.com is not affiliated with The Fountain Tarot or its makers. I do not receive monetary compensation should you decide to click the link and/or purchase their products. As Cassandra noted in our interview, these monthly tarot card readings, along with the accompanying advice and tips, should NEVER replace medical care. Cassandra and I are NOT medical or mental health professionals. Any self-care tips given by Cassandra, myself, and the cards, are simply opinion and intuition-based, and NOT to be used as a treatment or medical advice for mental or physical illness. The advice/tips in these posts and card readings are NOT the final words on your health, wellness, illness, relationships, existence, fortune, loved ones, misfortune, personality, future, present, past, life, etc. This blog segment is meant purely for the purpose of providing the reader with a fun monthly blog post. Xoxo thank you!

Introducing: Monthly Self-Care Tarot With Reader Cassandra Snow!

I'll be pairing up with tarot reader Cassandra Snow for a monthly self-care tarot card reading! Starting Feb. 1st, look for some helpful self-care tips, to accompany the card of the month. Until then, check out the interview I did with Cassandra below to learn about our new segment. Find out more about the relationship between mental health and tarot, interpreting its messages, and how to enjoy this segment even if you think tarot is as legitimate as Gwyneth Paltrow in a lab coat. 

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A Note From Tarot Reader Cassandra Snow:

Thank you so much for bringing me on to Take Your Pills, Dominique. A little bit about me for those reading: in addition to being multi-passionate where my career is concerned, my life and identity has also been eclectic, and has led me and my tarot practice to where we are now. I have PTSD, C-PTSD, Avoidant Personality Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Persistent Depressive Disorder. I'm also physically ill which does not help the depression, let me tell you! I've got Rheumatoid Arthritis, PCOS, a thyroid that has never fully regulated, and a sexual dysfunction that is still super hard for me to discuss. After years of therapy and treatment for my physical ailments, I actually lead a fairly normal life (if you consider being a tarot reader & theatre artist normal, that is!)                                                                                              I'm super queer which means most of my free time is spent reading Autostraddle and glaring at Tinder. I live with my best friend in the whole world, and we share two cats who I regularly sing to instead of doing the work stuff I should be doing.

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-How should we use the advice from these cards to cope with our mental illnesses?

That's really up to you. You can read what energies or situations might arise this month and decide to handle it your own way. Or you might read the whole thing and decide my and/or Dominique’s tips for self-care is best. The big thing is, you can choose to use these tips to supplement any mental health care and self-care you're already doing.

-Can you share one golden nugget of self-care and/or mental health advice that's really been a game changer for you?

I think my entire life changed the day I internalized the idea that I don't actually have to do anything I don't want to or am not comfortable doing. We live in a world where there's so much pressure to do or be so many different things. A good friend/tarot reader/partner/self-help author will tell you that said pressure isn't relevant to you, and that your job is to live your best life the best way you're able to. I don't think I understand that saying no didn't JUST mean I could turn down work if I were too overloaded or that I could put up sexual boundaries. Those things are super important, but so is opting out of holidays that stress you out, turning down food that isn't good for you, sticking to restrictive food plans that aren't good for you, and even agreeing to have coffee with a potential new friend when you're actually not that interested. You can literally say no to anything! It's amazing! But it took a really long time for me to really see or understand that.

-How has your personal health journey affected the way you read cards?

I definitely think I'm much more open-minded of a reader than you might expect or see elsewhere. Some of this is because my queer identity is so integral to who I am, but a lot of it is because I have been through hell and back physically and mentally and I make no presumptions about what a client has or has not been through, and how that may affect their worldview and decision making. I want clients to walk away from a session with me feeling as empowered and confident as they can feel, and that means not casting any kind of judgment on their decisions or lives.                                                                                                                                                       It also has helped me see the cards in new ways; I think any life experience does that. I used to see the cards as more of a prophetic tool, but I can count on one hand the number of times in the past year I've done my own readings looking for answers about my future. Instead, it's made me really focused on what the cards have to say about what I need to work on, where I've already grown, and what I should focus on now. I think these are my strongest readings for clients too. 

-What's the best way for a tarot skeptic/non-believer to use the messages from these cards?

I actually have a couple of close friends and regular clients who are staunch atheists and skeptics. Pulling tarot cards isn't that different from analyzing ink blots or finding meaning in a work of art or piece of entertainment to those clients. Our subconscious brings out the things we need to see and hear, and there are actual psychology and science behind that statement. I think with anything we're skeptical of; it's best to just come in with an open mind and see what hits or doesn't hit for you. Maybe what I say, or what you add doesn't mean anything to a skeptic, but something in the card itself does strike them. That's okay. Just come in looking for advice on self-care and healing, and trust that that's really all I'm trying to provide. I'm not trying to evangelize tarot or my own brand of Paganism on people--in part, because evangelizing doesn't work, and in part because people's beliefs and even their lack of beliefs are important to who they are as a person. I would never try to change that or try to get you to become a different person, especially while you're undergoing a big self-care/self-love/healing process.

-How can consulting the tarot, getting readings, etc., benefit those with mental illness?

First of all, any time spent trying to understand, heal, and build yourself up is time well spent. There's the time aspect alone. I actually stay really busy during the holiday season with clients, not because people are buying sessions as gifts but because people literally need to sit and focus on themselves for an hour with everything out in the world being so hectic. Otherwise, the cards do have a lot to say about protecting, healing, and taking care of yourself. The cards can also provide mantras and spiritual work that do not and should not replace medical care but can certainly help ground you and lift your mood.

-How should we NOT interpret the advice of the cards/these readings?

Nothing I say is set in stone! Also do not ever substitute any spiritual work for the care of your doctors and therapists. You probably need both, but you DEFINITELY need their oversight. Also, my word is not the final law on what these cards can mean. If you know tarot and learned a card differently or see something totally different in the art, trust your own gut. Tarot is basically limitless, so don't feel like this is it.

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Bio: Cassandra Snow (she/her/they/them) is a professional tarot card reader & teacher, writer, and theatre artist living in Minneapolis, MN. She has been reading tarot professionally for nearly a decade and writes about tarot at their blog and at Little Red Tarot. Cassandra focuses her tarot practice on healing and empowerment for marginalized people, trauma survivors, and those struggling with their mental and physical health. She's also GREAT at business mapping and planning out practical steps with the tarot. Cassandra Teaches classes like Tarot 101 for Creatives, Queering the Tarot, and Sex & Tarot as well as coaches new readers one on one. Cassandra recently signed a book deal with Wieser Publishing to publish their work on Queering the Tarot and now spends much of their time drinking coffee and staring at their computer. That book will be out in early 2019.

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A Disclaimer From Meeee: As Cassandra noted in our interview, these monthly tarot card readings, along with the accompanying advice and tips, should NEVER replace medical care. Cassandra and I are NOT medical or mental health professionals. The self-care tips given by Cassandra, myself, and the cards, are simply opinion and intuition-based, and NOT to be used as a treatment or medical advice for mental or physical illness. The advice/tips in these posts and card readings are NOT the final word on your health, wellness, illness, relationships, existence, fortune, loved ones, misfortune, personality, future, present, past, life, etc. This blog segment is meant purely for the purpose of providing the reader with a fun monthly blog post. Xoxo thank you!