Good morning, beautiful souls. ☀️ Friday again — we made it to the edge. This was a good week, mentally and socially both, and it started right: nails done, coffee with my Dez (I call him my shaman, half-joking — the man knows a little about everything and isn't afraid to have an opinion on it, and I love him for it even when we don't agree).
I spent a lot of this week buried in Renaissance art, matching old paintings to the tarot, and I think that's exactly what primed me to find what came next — a card that isn't in the deck anymore. Between readings at Bula and a night spent studying how to sit with the dying, I found Prudence, and she led me somewhere I wasn't expecting. More on that below.
The rest of the week was hands, feet, and heart — a good talk with a young man named Cody about how his generation and mine see the world differently, lunch served at the shelter, a gym I don't even like but showed up for anyway, and a heat wave that's had me negotiating with my own body all week. Let's look back before we leap into the weekend. 🌊
🕯️ The Candles Are Lit
This morning I'm burning three candles, each holding an intention for us as we close out the week:
📖 The Word
"I, wisdom, dwell together with prudence, and I find knowledge and discretion."
Proverbs 8:12
I went looking for Prudence this week because I couldn't accept the tidy explanation that she just got folded into tarot's other cards when she was cut from the deck. I found her here instead — not swallowed by Wisdom, living right alongside her. That distinction matters to me. Solomon had wisdom in a measure almost nobody else has been given, and it still wasn't enough on its own to keep him steady. Wisdom without her neighbor is a different, riskier thing. I've been carrying that thought all week — into a conversation with Cody about a generation everyone loves to say has lost its way, and into my own stubborn insistence on visiting people instead of resting my swollen feet like I'm supposed to. Prudence isn't the boring cousin of wisdom. She's the one who keeps it honest.
🃏 The Cards
Three cards this morning, and I opened the Bible right alongside them. It landed exactly where it needed to.
Sword raised, standing on high ground, scanning for whatever's coming before it arrives. This is my mind all week — sharp, restless, wanting to move. Studying Renaissance faces against tarot cards, chasing Prudence through Proverbs instead of accepting the easy explanation, sitting with Cody turning an assumption over to see if it holds. The Page doesn't sit still with not-knowing. She goes looking.
My mind wants to go. This card says: not yet. Upright, the Wheel is motion I trust — cycles turning in my favor without my help. Reversed, it's the same wheel, just felt as friction instead of flow: ankles swelling in heat I can't argue with, small commotions I didn't ask for. I sat with this one the longest, because it felt like something had gone wrong. Then I opened the Bible and landed on Mark 5:39 — Jesus walking into a room already grieving, telling them the girl isn't dead, only asleep. That's this card. Not broken. Not stopped for good. Just not awake yet, on its own time, not mine.
And there he is at the end, quiet, already sitting on what he's built. He isn't pacing the way the Page does, or waiting on the Wheel to turn like I have been. He knows there's nothing to be done, because it already is. He's not chasing the outcome — he's holding it. That's the piece I needed this morning: the provision was never actually in question. I'm just the one who has to stop treating the pause like a loss.
This week comes down to a pairing I almost missed: wisdom is only as good as the prudence it keeps beside it. Solomon had one without enough of the other. And this morning's cards said the same thing a different way — my mind wants to go, wants to solve, wants proof the wheel is turning. The King doesn't need proof. He's already holding what he came for.
The candles are burning gold, red, and green this morning — wisdom paired with discretion, the body's honest signals, and service given without needing to approve of where it's planted. The Word reminded me that Prudence was never erased, just misplaced. The cards reminded me the wheel isn't stopped, only sleeping. Nothing exciting has to happen for this to already be true.
🕯️ Rest. Restore. Rise. 🕯️
📖 One More Word
"And when he was come in, he saith unto them, Why make ye this ado, and weep? the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth."
Mark 5:39 — KJV
I reached for this one right alongside the cards this morning, half-remembering it wrong at first — my eyes aren't what they used to be, and I landed on the wrong verse before finding this. But it was the right chapter all along. A room full of people already mourning something that hadn't actually ended. I've been treating my own stalled week a little like that room — the heat, the swelling, the small frictions — like something had gone wrong instead of something just resting. The King of Pentacles already knew that. I needed the Word to catch up and tell me the same thing.