Mini-muse 008: Shed

+ replay link for our latest tarot journaling session

Hi little coven.

The keyword my astrological planner offers for today’s Full Moon in Cancer is: “Shedding”.

Reading it, I first think of the tumbleweeds of pet fur I vacuum up most days. Then, the hot, stinging work my womb does when my cycle is at its most painful. I think of a blistered scab that will soon slough off my finger, and of snakes leaving a fragile shell of themselves behind. I think of shrugging off what’s dead and embracing the slick new skin of a second chance — raw and ready.

I think of my partner and friends encouraging me to “let go” of an issue I faced in my working life last week, one that felt like suffocating in skin I've been desperate to outgrow. I think of the phrases I taped onto a visionboard on Saturday night: “new chapter,” and “rethink everything”.

I think of a particular version of the Ten of Swords tarot card from The Cosmic Slumber Tarot by Tillie Walden.

Looking for the recording of our most recent tarot journaling club session? Find it here.

Walden’s colourful and fantastical deck was one of the first ones I bought myself, after I’d committed the Rider Waite Smith to memory and started getting serious about the tarot. It’s become one of my most trusted companion decks and holds some of my favorite takes on the cards.

Where the Rider Waite Smith’s Ten of Swords foregrounds violence and death (albeit with the distant promise of a brighter horizon), Walden’s version manages to capture the sense of a definitive ending whilst also offering a much heartier comfort: you are more than what gets left behind.

I bought the Cosmic Slumber Tarot some years ago from the fantastic Atlantis Bookshop in London, and next month things are coming full circle! I’ll be author-in-residence for a day at Atlantis, teaching a full-day workshop on Shadow Work for Creatives. If you’ll be in London on 7 February, I’d love to welcome you into the cohort!

That the flying figure in the Cosmic Slumber’s Ten of Swords resembles the blond and windblown Page of Swords in the RWS deck (the card directly following the 10 in the tarot’s narrative order) feels exactly right to me: one has to break away from what’s come before in order to arrive fresh-eyed and open-minded to the new chapter ahead. Rethinking everything requires shedding the masks and costumes and protective gear we wore to survive what’s happened up until now.

In Walden’s artwork, the Ten of Swords becomes less about dying to ourselves and more about being born from our own ashes. The figure sheds what’s no longer viable, no longer functional, and flies toward new things.

At the same time, the card, washed in pink and gold, sheds the RWS’s doom and gloom (without spiritual bypassing — the stabbed-through figure in the bottom half has undoubtedly had it rough).

Letting go becomes letting ourselves live.

Tell me in the comments:

What are you shedding?

What have you been musing about, lately?

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