you're too wild to be consistent
The fool card is your guide today. This post isn't about becoming more consistent like everyone wants you to. It's about finding the beauty in your unstoppable changeability
The fool card a quick guide
The fool card is card 0 in the major arcana
The fool is your wild nature. The part of you that can never be pinned down.
The fool is your completely open heart.
What a beautiful card the fool is
Claire Amritavani Brown
Dear you,
Hello! I’m just back from a holiday in the Lake District. Walking through beautiful landscapes was a much needed boost for my creative juices and I’m enjoying writing this week. I’m trying to break free from conformity these days. Trying to bring my own voice to the tarot. I hope you’ll find time to stay with my words. Enjoy!
You try to do your best. You try to be THAT person. The one who writes in their journal every single day. There are no gaps when you look back at your gratitude practice at the end of the year. The ink in your diary doesn’t change colour from black to green to orange because you always know where you’ve put your fountain pen, the one meant for journaling only. Its in the jar where pens go of course. A consistent organised life is a virtuous life so they say.
There’s more…
You know the secret to a healthy diet. Consistency. The statistics don’t lie. People who choose the same healthy breakfast in the morning tend to make wiser food choices throughout the day. It takes the work out of the planning. It helps you avoid mid morning slumps and reaching for the lonely shortbreads at the bottom of the biscuit barrel.
We all know this. A steady approach makes complete sense. In fact it makes so much sense that you spend your hard earned cash on ways to make you more consistent. I’ve done this so I know. There is an unfinished copy of James Clears book Atomic Habits on my bookshelf. Printed on the front are the words
Atomic Habits
An easy and proven way to build good habits and break bad ones
I started to read this book with good intentions. Trouble is, I never finished it. My interest waned and I moved on. Sorry James! It’s not you, it's me.
So, with the unfinished book on my shelf I began to wonder recently…
Isn’t it a bit odd to live a life where you try to be something you’re not. You try over and over to become that steady person in the hope that people will trust you more, love you more maybe.
But when you’re pushing 50 you step back and understand that when you try so hard to be something you’re not it is the opposite of growth. It’s a rejection of who you are.
In fact, at this age your transformation ought to be less about self development and more about inner acceptance. What if you could sink with ease into the comfort of your own skin. Like the women in their 80s who bob up and down doing breast stroke at the swimming baths. They emerge from the water like proud goddesses, their apple shaped bodies, spider veins and sagging triceps on show for all to see. No shame, no hiding. Just the rawness of who they are.
But perhaps you’re not like those women yet. The problem of your inconsistency still bothers you.
Just to get personal for a moment part of my own softening around inconsistency has been to turn to my natal chart this year for a deeper understanding of my inability to stick to routines.
I won’t bother you with a whole load of what my family call Astro Babble and tell you the ins and outs of my chart. However,what I found there did help me to understand why I badly want routines in my life and yet why it feels like swimming in glue when I try to stick to them.
Birth charts are wild and wonderful blue prints for what you’re here to discover about yourself in life. Studying your chart reflects life back to you in the same way the tarot does. Your chart doesn’t make you feel deflated in any way. Quite the opposite. It encourages a compassionate acceptance towards the patterns you’re in the world with.
So, back to inconsistency. There’s a choice to be made here.
Do you keep up the fight? Strive for neatness and a one step at a time approach to life? The rewards will be many won’t they? Finished books and a sense of mastery, a thriving business and clients who trust you, a smaller muffin top because you actually kept up with those squats. Your consistency will make you feel whole. You’re a success at last.
But you’ve learned by now. This isn’t working out is it? You've tried and tried this consistency game but it isn't really for you.
But there is another way to see yourself.
The fool
This is why everyone needs a deck of tarot cards. Who else are you supposed to have these conversations with? The tarot cards always give you a way to see yourself outside the box and today is one of those days. The beautiful Oak, Ash and Thorn tarot deck presents us with The Fool.
It couldn’t be more reassuring . The fool is card zero. She is always at the start of her journey. She returns to a state of mind which is so fresh, consistency can’t even exist. The fool is the essence of spontaneity and the freedom to move in any direction.
The fool wouldn’t know a routine if it hit her in the face. Even the seasons are too cyclical for her and the waxing and waning of the moon is too regular an occurrence to keep up with. Do you know this feeling? Do you know what it’s like to have four seasons in one day? To have micro climates like they do on the West coast of Wales. Torrential rain one minute and the next you’re slapping the sun cream on it’s so hot. The fool tells us nothing is set in stone. Everything changes.
If you strive to have discipline in your life maybe you could think differently next time. You’re not “disorganised” the word the teachers would scrawl across your school reports every year. ADHD wasn’t a thing back then clearly, nor was encouragement it seems.
You’re simply a fool in the most positive sense of the word. Your sensitivity to life means you could never really settle into one thing only.
Maybe it’s time to get to know your inner fool. Surely you’re too wild and open hearted to be consistent. Is it time to soften into this possibility of a life of limitless change?
For your reflection this week.
Notice how many times you berate yourself for not keeping up with the goals you set yourself. Then try to see this through the eyes of the fool.
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My favourite thing recently is to read your comments on my posts. Thank you to anyone who has done so and thanks for the restacks too.
This essay is essay 2 of the 24 essays club
I’ve been thinking a lot about congruency over consistency. Congruency is about aligning our actions with our beliefs, ensuring that what we do feels true to who we are. Whereas consistency sometimes leads to a rigidity that doesn’t necessarily reflect our values. Congruency feels more flexible somehow…it allows for change and growth and create honest connections, with ourselves and others. I feel like there’s a branding post in this 😂
Yours is the second post I’ve read at the beginning of the week calling us (me) to embrace the wild, deeper inner me. So there is definitely something there for me to work through and ponder on, especially under the dark phase of the new moon later this week.
But, your writing about acceptance gave me a whole different way to approach the depths of my soul and knowing who I am and how I relate to the routines and rituals in my life. So much goodness to soak in, thank you! 🫶🏻