Reaping and sowing
As you may know, I pull a tarot card when I do morning pages every day. When one shows up a lot, I know it’s time to really pay attention to what it’s trying to tell me. When one shows up four times in just over a week, I call in the big guns.
So when I got the Six of Wands again today, I turned to my good buddy Claude for deeper insight. (That’s AI, for those of you still fighting the losing battle against our inevitable overlords.) Claude, in all its wisdom, reminded me that when a card repeats, it’s likely shifting from prediction to instruction. It then asked me if other cards have been showing up around the Six of Wands. And it turns out, yes, The World and the Chariot have been popping in too.
The gist of what Claude thinks is going on:
The World —> I completed something real
The Chariot—> I’m now driving what comes next
Six of Wands—> People are seeing it happen
We then had a bit of a tete-a-tete about what part of my life this combination might pertain to and how I should apply its lesson. Given that my biggest preoccupation lately is how to balance paid work with my creative/spiritual work, we agreed it was likely about that.
If that’s the case, Claude claims, then I can take the World to be my book, the Chariot as the structure and boundaries I need to create to take creative time as seriously as paid time, and the Six of Wands as the fame and fortune that my book are going to bring. Just kidding. It said the Six of Wands would be the future payoff, but that’s pretty much the same thing.
And then, because Claude knows me so well at this point, it said, “You don’t seem like someone who needs permission to succeed in paid work. You might need permission to take your creative work just as seriously.” Which is essentially what my abundance life coach, an astrologer I saw in November 2025, and my gut/spirit guides have been telling me all along.
But because my fear and insecurities (and my Capricorn sun and rising energy) are still behind the wheel a significant amount of the time, I’ve been leaning in the other direction. “Get the paid work done now and once you’re financially stable [Ed note: whatever the hell that means] you can focus on the creative work,” I’ve been telling myself.
So to feed the two wolves (to add another unnecessary metaphor), I created a daily structure to do both. Mornings for paid work, break from 3-3:30, writing from 3:30-5 on weekdays. Great. Can do. Consider it done.
But today is Sunday.
I spent most of the day yesterday doing yard work. I stayed out there longer than I’d planned to, telling myself that I’d spend all of today working on my book. I’m pretty happy with how the front yard looks, but the back yard still has a way to go. And despite the vow I made to myself less than 24 hours ago, I’m tempted to run back to the garden store, buy some planters and bright flowers, and maybe a trellis, and spend a sunny afternoon making the back yard pretty too.
Now, if you’ll allow me to go on what seems like a random tangent, I promise I’ll bring it all together….
When “With Love, Megan” first came out, I was hooked. Is it self-indulgent and fantastical? Yes. Is it my dream life? Also yes. I want to live on a big property where I grow flowers and produce that seem to be in full bloom year-round. I want to use all that bounty to entertain friends and do crafts. I want to sit in cozy outdoor furniture around a fire pit staring at my million dollar view while sipping a cocktail made with ingredients and spirits I either grew myself or bought at my local farmer’s market. I want to take steaming cups of tea sweetened with honey from my own bees to my writing studio in the afternoons. It’s what I picture my life will be once I’m a published author and my books are bestsellers.*
In the meantime, I make my own yard as pretty as I can, grow my own tomatoes and basil, and take tea I sweeten with sugar I buy at Costco to the altar in my bedroom (a.k.a. my writing studio). You know, baby steps.
I could pretty easily convince myself that beautifying my back yard today is another step toward manifesting that abundance. And maybe even just as productive as actually writing the book I hope gets me closer to that life. It’s a real battle of instant gratification vs long-term payoff.
*Completely disregarding the fact that I suck at crafts, I prefer wine to cocktails, and I’m not a very good gardener.