Writing a newsletter about Tarot after a morning spent absorbing the world’s atrocities through my phone feels profoundly at odds. What’s happening in the world can’t be ignored, so how do we respond?

Do you fight, hide, gather, lead?

That will depend on your predispositions: your character and your life experience.

Would you rather know these things about yourself, so that when and if the time comes, you feel confident you’ll know what to do?

There is something steadying about knowing your own tendencies. About recognising the part of you that mobilises, the part that seeks shelter, the part that wants to convene, the part that feels called to lead. If you know these aspects of yourself, you are less likely to freeze. You are more likely to respond with intention rather than panic.

Know that you’re not alone.

Connect to yourself, to others, to Spirit, to prayer, to meditation.

Gather around you those who feel like community and support.

Keep pulling cards.

And on that note – let’s see what the cards have to say.

I asked: “How can the Ground & Rise® community find support during turbulent times?”

If there’s something the Tarot does well, it’s reminding us that turbulence is part of life. And that this too shall pass.

We have two Major Arcana cards, Temperance and The Tower, both reversed, with the Two of Pentacles reversed between them.

When I look at these cards, I feel discomfort. They seem to reflect that discomfort back. Temperance reversed feels out of balance, but also quietly encouraging. “You’re close,” it whispers, “but not quite there yet.” You may already sense this – the integration of holding light and dark at the same time is underway. Clarity comes when you can hold both discomfort AND comfort as truth.

The Two of Pentacles, as our acceptance card, asks: “Can you accept that this constant weighing up is leaving you feeling off balance?”

The Tower reversed hints that we’ve been here for a while. We’ve been feeling these feelings for some time, and we are working them through. The Tower is in process. It’s falling. We are breaking away from previous behaviours, choices and patterns that no longer serve. This is already happening. It feels turbulent.

Which brings me to what is absent from this reading: clarity, ease, pause, arrival, knowing. This spread reminds us that difficult times happen, but they do not last forever. They are necessary moments of adjustment and disorientation. Clear skies will come.

And when they do, you will know yourself more deeply if you spend this time tending to yourself – listening, loving, practising compassion, and resisting the urge to make big decisions in haste. This is a time to feel confused. Do not leap into action. Your springboard needs to settle first.

Join Sam Starr in community either in person on Thursday 26th March for a Tarot CPD day in Muswell Hill, London, or online at the Monthly Tarot Gatherings.