What Endures

Content Warning: This essay contains references to suicide and grief.

Recently, a dear friend of mine took their own life. It’s the third suicide this year that I’ve been close to. I feel like I’ve been walking with grief as my shadow.

It's been standard practice for me to draw a tarot card each morning from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, but recently I've been reading from The Faeries' Oracle. It's a beautifully illustrated deck by Brian Froud, with inspiring text by Jessica MacBeth. I've worked with it for decades, but a couple of years ago I sent it to a dear friend for safekeeping. The deck and the book were recently returned to me, and working with it again feels fresh and interesting.

I really appreciate this deck because it contains so many layers of beauty and meaning, in both the art and the text. It feels magically and psychologically profound. The faeries are a quixotic bunch by nature, and I appreciate their mental diversity. It's a helpful mirror to my own. Pulling cards with The Faeries' Oracle feels like having a tea party with fascinating guests.

The deck—like the faeries themselves—can be silly and serious in tone.

I decided to pull three cards today for a reading in which I specifically asked for some insight and inspiration. I wanted to have a conversation about how to honor and alchemize the grief with which I've been inundated.

Today’s cards certainly gave me a perspective that instilled in me a sense of hope and a desire to create more and express more.

The Dark Lady specifically speaks to grief, as well as to all of the mysteries of life. I see her as very powerful crone energy. Having her appear first helped me feel seen by the faeries, and I found myself adjusting my breathing with deep inhales and slow exhales. However, she was reversed, which means I have yet to come through the other side of the darkness. And it’s important that I find some light so that I don’t become consumed by negative emotion. This message resonated with me, because it was why I chose to have a reading in the first place.

The middle card, The Oak Men, speaks to the wisdom of age and experience, gained through time and reflection. Oak trees are often revered as bridges or gateways between the earthly and divine realms, and they represent unwavering stability and patient growth. In my reading, The Oak Men suggest we include the counsel of trees in our daily conversations. They reminded me that even in the midst of my grief, I have been enraptured by their changing autumn colors, and that their presence has already been a balm for my soul. I promised them I would spend more time outside with the trees.

The third card, The Singer of the Chalice, speaks to all of the good emotions that we can channel when we activate appreciation. In this cup, we find feelings of trust, joy, kindness, and support (and many more!). In this deck, Singers are seen as a kind of angelic aspect or evolved magical energy. The chalice that this card speaks of is similar to the Ace of Cups in traditional Tarot, which has correlations to the Holy Grail as well as to Love itself. I see it as having a heart full of love waiting to be expressed, and it's my favorite card of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.

This Singer (for there are others in this deck) reminds me that we get to feel all the feelings in order to appreciate them all. Sadness helps us appreciate joy, and when we grieve for what we have lost, we can more readily discover that which endures.

And for me, what endures is the writing, the art-making, making calls and writing letters to those who are still here. I have found that sharing our experiences of those who have left this world helps all of us muddle through the anguish of loss, as we honor the myriad stories that weave in and out of our lives.

May what endures most of all be love, and may we keep sharing our own innate magicks with each other.

Magickally Yours,

~STORM⚡