Tarot is a mirror that reflects to us whatever is circulating through our being in this moment. For the last couple days, I was feeling a lot like The Moon, whose nocturnal light summons up from the subterranean depths of the self all of the creepy-crawlie emotions that aren’t always allowed their time on the stage of conscious awareness.

Why are those creep-crawlie feelings kept at bay? Probably because they’re intensely palpable, yet bafflingly ambiguous. They are the feelings that slap you out of nowhere and baffle you, leaving you in a state what-in-the-actual-fuck?! bewilderment. They are emotions that can be exhaustingly and viscerally pervasive, yet leave you clueless as to where they came from.

When these moon-shiney tides of emotion come up, they're usually so baffling that I am left at a total loss as to what to do with them, other than just surrender to them. Not to be defeated by them (though I may certainly feel that way), but let them wash over me, and notice the specific ways they ripple through my body, thoughts, and feelings. Usually, it's some variation of pain. I try to surrender to it. See if I can watch it and listen to it, without wallowing in it.

It's easy to say all of this now, when I don't feel like shit. But last night, when I was feeling all of the aforementioned moods of WTF-bewilderment, it felt pervasive and all-consuming. If I surrender to it, it seems to shift.

How the heck does this happen?

Major Arcana XVIII: The Moon, from the Tarot de Marseille

My guess, informed by observing this recurring pattern countless times, is that when pain arises and it's distinctly palpable but its cause is difficult to discern, it's something that has been repressed. Because it's been in the shadows for so long, I don't recognize it or understand it when it first pokes its head out of the soil and into the light.

This is where surrender is key.

That pain is a form of energy within me that has been shoved deep down and told to be quiet. When pain is buried, it gets stuck. It stagnates. Like a body that's been buried, which is now rotting and festering within, the fungus of unsaid words growing out of its ears and the worms of evaded emotions sliding around its fingers. When previously repressed pain emerges (or explodes) into conscious awareness, it is finally starting to move. Even though it hurts, and probably hurts like hell, this can actually be a sign of progress because it means that energy which was once stuck is finally circulating again. Yes, it hurts. But it's moving. If it's moving, it's shifting. And if it's in a state of shifting, that means there's potential for change, transmutation, healing, and fucking MAGIC. Even while I write this sentence you are reading, it feels weird to say that pain can be transformationally magical. I know. But it's true.

What helps pain be utilized as a catalyst for healing magic, rather than a force that continually restricts us and clobbers us while taking highly inconsiderate dumps all over our heart?

Surrender!

Surrender comes to save the day like a stallion of sweet salvation riding over the hills. Except surrender usually feels less exultant and more like, "Gee, this hurts and I’d love to be feeling anything else right now, but I don't know what else to do so I guess I'll surrender and let it happen?"

What happens then?

When we surrender to pain, we allow that once-buried and neglected wound to emerge from stagnation and enter a state of circulation. That means shifting and flowing. Yes, it will hurt. But it can be a release. Sort of like vomiting up poison that was stuck in your depths. It's ugly, miserable, and messy, not to mention embarrassing if other people can see you barfing your emotional guts out, but it's transformational.

If I don't surrender to the pain, then I'm fighting it, resisting it, attempting to keep that stinky corpse of misery buried. Of course, that only makes it worse. It's going to keep on rotting and festering until its fumes seep out into my daily life with such thickness that I find myself trapped in a smoggy cloud of my own suffering.

Repressed pain comes out to be seen, heard, felt, and processed. It's an unattended wound that needs healing attention. Surrender, even though it may feel like doing nothing, even though it may feel like it's not changing anything at all, allows the pain to move, to be heard and seen, and to do what it needs to do in order to begin the healing process. The pain might not ever go away, it might not ever finish healing and reach a point where I can say, "Ta-da, everyone! I'm finally fixed and have now achieved a glorious state of unblemished perfection!" The pain might linger, but surrender allows the process of healing and lightening to begin, so that, little by little, we feel a little less trapped and encumbered. We don’t need to be miraculously fixed overnight. It is sufficient to simply put one foot in front of the other and let the shifting occur at its own pace.

Having said all of that about the value of passive, receptive surrender, there is also immense usefulness in making efforts to actively shift pain-energy. In some moments, it’s more useful to sit back and let it happen (surrender). In other times, it’s more pertinent to get up and make intentional changes. But that's a subject for another writing.

For me, when pain emerges, surrender is step one.

On my blog, you can find more writings on art and alchemical thinking, interviews about creativity, psychologically-oriented reflections on tarot, and more. You can check out past posts in the categorized list below.

subscribe via rss

Art
- Jul 2, 2018 About the Folks Who Think You Stink (Notes on Performance and Life)
- Jun 22, 2018 The Freedom and Fear of Being Yourself (Notes on Performance and Life)
- Apr 3, 2018 Public Alchemy: Notes on Street Performance
- Dec 1, 2017 Why the Tutu?
- Sep 14, 2017 Art is a Portal
- Aug 17, 2017 Put the Potatoes on Your Face
- Dec 28, 2016 How to Make Magical Oranges
- Dec 19, 2016 Wakey Wakey, Inner Kiddo
Interviews
- Jul 18, 2018 Artist Interview: Kayle Karbowski
- Jun 4, 2018 Artist Interview: Sally Nicholson
- Apr 23, 2018 Interview: Yogi Ron Katwijk
- Mar 1, 2018 Artist Interview: Lawrence Blackman
- Feb 21, 2018 Artist Interview: Samantha Blumenfeld
Magical Thinking
- Jun 21, 2023 Magick for Reshaping Life and Transmuting Trauma
- May 18, 2023 Magick is a Sentient Entity: Using the Imagination to Co-Create with Magick
- Dec 4, 2020 The Healing Voice: Wounds, Addiction, and Purgation
- Aug 5, 2019 Celebrating Your Misery
- Jun 21, 2019 White Peacocks, Constipation, and Emotional Liberation
- Aug 23, 2018 Melting a Snowball of Misery
- Jul 2, 2018 About the Folks Who Think You Stink (Notes on Performance and Life)
- Jun 22, 2018 The Freedom and Fear of Being Yourself (Notes on Performance and Life)
- Apr 16, 2018 Questions for Limitations
- Apr 3, 2018 Public Alchemy: Notes on Street Performance
- Jan 5, 2018 Chaos' Playground: Finding Gold in the Shitstorm
- Dec 1, 2017 Why the Tutu?
- Sep 14, 2017 Art is a Portal
- Aug 7, 2017 Three Reasons to Destroy Yourself (Or Not)
- Jul 6, 2017 Nerves and Tutus
- Feb 19, 2017 Why Does Heartache Happen?
- Jan 15, 2017 Following Fear
- Dec 28, 2016 How to Make Magical Oranges
Tarot
- Oct 24, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #5: Why does my skin crawl with wonder and fascination as such important relationships in my life are connected by the eyes?
- Oct 11, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #4: How long will it be until I have a new job?
- Sep 25, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #3: Why can't I find more hours in a day?
- Sep 3, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #2: Do abusers know they're being abusive, or is that just their sense of reality?
- Aug 25, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #1: Why is the Present Moment So Much All the Time?
- Aug 18, 2019 Today's Tarot: Shifting Pain by Surrendering to It
- Aug 13, 2019 Today's Tarot: The Golden Devils Inside You
- Aug 12, 2019 Today's Tarot: The Moon of Self-Loathing
- Jun 27, 2019 Today's Tarot: Snot, Beauty, and Tea for Pain
- Feb 28, 2018 Today's Tarot: The World is in the Seed
- Aug 26, 2017 Tarot as a Tool for Reality Construction