July: The Month Ahead, as told by Yulian

Hi everyone,

I am Yulian, Sarah's main guide, and her companion throughout her whole life. I have been with Sarah since she drew her first breath as an infant, and it is my honor to speak alongside her now, and to share our wisdom with the world.

I am coming to you now in the middle of the summer. It is June as we write this, and it is a time when the Northern hemisphere is hot hot hot. The solstice has just passed. The days have been on fire with the intensity of the world's conflict and with the natural heat of the season. June has been a testing ground for our most audacious growth and July pushes us to new heights, to the furthest bounds of our growth edge.

This is the peak of summer, a time for the bursting upward of plants, the flowering and fruit ripening on the vine, and the cold of winter is but a faint memory in our hearts. I speak of the Northern hemisphere, of course, but no matter where you are in the world, it is likely you are feeling the fruit ripening even in a metaphorical sense. We are in Cancer season, the season of the Great Mother Figure, the matriarchal one, the one who gives birth, whose womb ripens with the fruits of humanity. Jupiter exalts in this sign. In Cancer, Jupiter is at its absolute ripest.

I speak of giving birth, and I mean this to apply to any body, any gender: the energy of growing something within you and birthing it into the world. This is a human thing. The need to gestate and to give birth. To create. To be life-giving, life-bestowing.

Jupiter, though, is not in Cancer, but in Aries, ruled by Mars, the god of war, that which cuts and severs with a ruthless efficiency and sometimes without thinking.

Do not reach up your sword to cut down the fruit from the vine before it is ready, before it has ripened fully. You do not want to be left with green hard things, holding them impatiently in your hands, wishing you could reattach them to the vine so that they may gestate some more.

Now is a time for patience, as frustrating as that may be. You will thank yourself later. Future You will reach back and thank the You that is living through this July and biding your time, watching the sun rise and the rays hit the orchard, watching as the fruit grows and deepens in its color.

Your Autumn Self will thank you for waiting and considering what lies available to you before acting upon it.

The way to harness this Fire energy is not by adding even more fire to it. You do not stoke a bonfire that is already burning too bright. The way to channel this is by balancing the elements. Look for what is missing in your life: do you have enough Earth in your day to day? Do you have structures and a container to hold yourself and make you feel safe and cared for? Do you need more water to enter into your life, whether in the form of baths, pools, oceans, rivers, or the water that you drink or leave out for your spirits? Do you need the element of wind, with its ability to lighten the moment and add a delicate touch to that which you contemplate? Air and wind can bring your attention to that which connects us, rather than keeping your focus on that which you can sever or cut away.

This moment calls for balance. As much as it pains me to say this, because I am someone who loves to charge ahead and not look back, and I can stoke this quality in Sarah's work. But this is a time for patience, for balance, for contemplation, for care and consideration, even as the Fire of the season rages around you. Do not get swept up or consumed in it. Take your cue from the fruit on the vine. There is a divine time for everything.

And now on to these cards...

The Tower Reversed

The whole world has been moving through a Tower moment in the last two years. This is a time that has brought great, sweeping change and heartache and fallout. Structures have been swept away that were never firmly built in the first place. This nation, the so-called United States, was founded upon a lie—the lie that justice was codified for all, when really this country's birth was a terrible Tower moment posing as a liberation movement, which was actually a genocide and a colonizer's dream all along.

The Tower moment is not always a good thing. Sometimes it brings necessary change, and sometimes it just brings heartache. The meaning of the Tower depends on the perspective of the Tower-ee. The ones falling from the windows. The structure they're falling from. What lies at the bottom.

The Tower reversed reminds us that change is just change, and what matters is what we make of it. Destabilization cuts both ways. The whole world is shaking right now. Structures are crumbling. In some ways this is liberating, and in some ways this is scary. Some of these shake-ups bring more liberation and progress to those who need it, and other shake-ups cause safeguards to crumble, the Earth to split open, and the most vulnerable to fall through the cracks.

At the start of the pandemic, many people rejoiced at the chance to pause, to take time at home, to see the Earth breathing again and nature starting to flourish as the skies cleared and roads grew empty. But others were trapped at home, shaken out of their normal routines, destabilized from their source of income, and even stuck at home with family members or partners that caused them harm.

This pandemic, and these past two years, have brought great changes—humans all over the world can unite in that truth—but these changes have been wildly unequal and have been experienced in many, many different ways by many different people.

Tower Reversed asks you to take a moment to think about what has changed, and why. Sometimes there won't be a why; sometimes there will be. Sometimes the Why is because the divine hand of fate has intervened to push you one way or the other. Sometimes the Why is due to late-stage capitalism forcing you into choices you do not want to make. Do not overly attach your self-worth to this Why. Accept that much has changed, and that much of it has been out of your control. Now, the things that you can control in the aftermath are: how you care for yourself, how kind you are to yourself, and what you do with the pieces that are shattered and leftover.

The Sun

The Sun teaches us to turn our faces upward. To tilt them towards the source of life. Think of the sunflower, which turns with the Sun as it moves. It knows that the Sun is important and that the most important things in our lives deserve our focused attention.

Our joy can seem so fragile sometimes. Overtaken by the realities of the world's fate, and bulldozed by the linear needs of living in an Earthen, human timeline. Joy is something that requires cultivation, for many of us. It requires time, attention, regular watering, care and sunlight to grow and to flourish. It is not something that just happens of its own accord, most of the time. For joy to be an ever-present source in your life, you need to make time and space for it and hold it as a need that is prized above any of the pressing but false concerns of your day-to-day schedule.

Living life by default can make for an empty existence. It takes effort to reclaim childlike joy and wonder in the midst of hard times. It takes you believing in the worthiness of joy and in the sanctity of your Inner Child. It takes faith, because faith is required when you decide to prioritize things that are considered to be invisible, unseen by the rest of the world, and unacknowledged as important. It takes bravery, as well.

The Queen of Wands, Reversed