I have one fail-safe tradition I hold on to every year, and that’s creating a vision board with one of my best friends to hang up in my room and look to every day for something inspirational and beautiful. We set aside two days sometime in the beginning of the year, and spend the days looking through magazines, cutting out pictures, gluing and taping, and making a general mess. My body generally aches from getting progressively older and sitting in one position for too long. We make sure to have lots of snacks. We might put on a cute ASMR room in the background and light a candle. It’s a whole vibe I look forward to every year. As the years have passed we’ve added more structure and intention to how we make them, and a few years ago I started to pull a Major Arcana card from my Rider Waite deck to kind of show what the general energy around the year will be. For 2024 I pulled The Star.
I’ve been working with Tarot since about 2018. I like to use the traditional Rider Waite deck because I feel like it’s no-nonsense. If I want a straightforward answer, if I don’t want my feelings spared, I pull out that deck. It’s well used over the last six years, but I am by no means a proficient tarot reader. It’s why it’s not a service I offer to people, just myself and my closest loved ones. I intended to share that pull earlier in the year, but the downward roller coaster of 2024 kept increasingly speeding up, and time got away from me. The next thing you know, it’s the day before the next New Year, and you’re finally making time to do something you wanted to do a year ago. Oh well. Honestly, I ended up liking the idea of doing a more retrospective look at the year reflecting on how The Star moments showed up.
I’m going to approach this from two different perspectives. First, referencing the more traditionally understood meaning of The Star. The second is what came to my mind considering the year I’ve had.
The theme most attributed to The Star card is Hope. Hope during times of hardship, hope for guidance to persevere. Hope for better days awaiting in the future. In “Tarot for Change” by Jessica Dore, she speaks about how the capacity to hope is hard for some people. I am those people… An old friend used to call me Negative Nancy, I am that pessimistic friend, you won’t get any of that toxic positivity over here! If things are shitty, I’m gonna tell you they’re shitty. Some may not find that endearing, but it is what it is.
Man, did this year call for an ENDLESS string of situations that called for me to hang on to hope?... When I was hoping to find more suitable accommodations in the UK. When I was hoping to be able to sleep. When I was hoping that my aunt’s health would make a turn for the better. And so many other times this year that feel too personal to share here, but called for hope. Referencing what I mentioned about hope being hard for some of us, more often than not, I was fighting my tendency to feel swallowed up by the dread of it all. It becomes exhausting to feel like you always have to be hopeful because shit is always hitting the fan. Like, it would be nice to not need to rely on hope, because life is just nice and calm for once. But most of us don’t live with that as our reality. That’s what “Tarot of Change” was referencing. Sure, it’s nice to call on hope when needed, but what about when you have a lifetime of experiences that have made developing that muscle of hope extremely hard?
2024 provided me with ample opportunities to strengthen that muscle. Metaphorically, it was a consistent year at the Gym of Hope, which was not the case at the physical gym. That’s okay! I will say this, though: With how hard this year has been and how often I’ve had to rely on hope, I feel like it was preparing me for what will be needed in these coming years. Honing the skill of hope will be much needed as we move towards our collective future.
Now, The Star from my perspective. When I pulled that card last January, the image that came to mind before diving into the widely accepted interpretations was that of a golden-age of Hollywood movie star. A Vivien Leigh, a Theda Bara, a Hedy Lamarr. The vision of a black & white headshot taken in some really good lighting.
I feel like I might’ve shared this before, but I have always considered myself a more “behind the scenes” entity. I don’t like to be the center of attention. For the most part, if there was a big group where there was a center of attention, I’d rather not be there in the group at all. Not big on huge parties or crowds, I gravitate to things that are small and intimate. It’s where I feel most comfortable. It’s a large part of why I didn’t give myself some magical moniker and build this business around me as the center because I don’t feel comfortable there. It’s too exposing. It feels dangerous. That requires too much vulnerability from me. So I’ve strayed away from doing things where my face is the focus and stuck to highlighting my work and the services I provide.
But this year, my avoidance was brought to the forefront. I was fortunate enough to participate in a several-week Healing Money Trauma workshop with Meenadchi, and I had a family constellation done with the help of the group. I’ve never had constellation work done, but one of the big themes that came up for me in that session was my rejection of being seen, and this tendency to want to hide in the background. This hit home because it’s not like I wasn’t aware of that. It was absolutely true. But that fear I have of attention being drawn to me is also something that is actively holding me back. It’s keeping people from getting to know the work I do and my business, and it’s also affecting me in other non-career areas of my life.
In the following months, many things happened. I finally got around to having a more professional headshot taken to display on my “About Me” page. For the last 3 years, I used an old Snapchat selfie as a kind of placeholder, and before I knew it 3 years had passed and it was still there. A peer referred me to CanvasRebel to interview me to talk about myself and my work (you can read that here). And one of my best friends relaunched her podcast a few months back and had me on as a guest (which you can listen to here). I also was a guest teacher for the second year in a row for Living Systems. My face showcased prominently in each of those instances. An uncomfortable feeling at first, but felt synchronistic following what came up for me in my constellation. And what are constellations made of? Stars…
That is how my year of The Star has panned out for me. I recognize 2024 has been a shit storm for most of us, all I see on this New Year’s Eve are memes being shared of “Please God, let this next year be better.” I do hope that is the case for all of us. No doubt that it will be difficult and taxing as hell, but all we can do is keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Happy New Year everyone💜.
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