While reading 36 Secrets by T Susan Chang back in the Spring, I was struck by the chapter dealing with the 7 of Swords. In it she uses the term “the divided mind”, and that is a concept I’ve been mulling over ever since; both as it relates to the card as well as how it shows up in my own life.

First of all, what exactly is a divided mind? Essentially, it is a common occurrence where one holds two opposing values/ideals/thoughts simultaneously. For example, and this came up for me very recently, we may love social media and the way in which it allows us to share and connect, but on the other hand, we despise the underbelly; the manipulation, impossible algorithm, questionable content, etc.

I have never, in all my years of reading tarot, been a daily drawer. To me, it felt too burdensome to commit to, but another part of me just disliked the idea of starting the day off with some kind of definition. It’s all fun and games when you’re pulling The Sun, but for a morning to begin with The Tower just felt like a bunch of unnecessary anxiety.

I realize there are lots of ways to approach the daily draw that could have circumvented these concerns, but I also hadn’t been inspired to seek alternatives. That is until I finished T. Susan Chang’s 36 Secrets at the beginning of April. While the book is intended to illuminate the decan associations in tarot, it included many of her own daily card reflections and this got my wheels turning. Maybe I didn’t have to make this so personal. Maybe instead of approaching daily pulls as a “what can I expect today?” I would be better suited to approach them as a “what card am I bound to learn more about today?”. In this way, the teaching can take any form! Maybe it’s a stray thought, a conversation I overhear, a movie I watch, something in the news. And of course, it could also be something more direct, but it doesn’t HAVE to be and that’s an important distinction. So essentially, when I’m doing these draws now it’s like this: Don’t tell me something about me - tell me something about YOU!