When the pain of staying is worse than the pain of leaving, you leave.
This has been my life experience anyway, especially in spots I stayed much longer than felt healthy. Sometimes I did end up staying, but it was only workable because I found a way to frame it in my head.
That’s the kind of cage and keys I’m thinking about, and it’s exactly what the cards are talking about right now.
Coming Up in the Cards
The Star Tarot Deck with richly symbolic imagery brings us our message this week. This spread pairs heavy suffocating status quo with a wild-leap‑into‑the‑unknown advice.
Outlook: The Devil
Many will be feeling trapped. The trick with the Devil, though, is that the bondage he represents is pretty much always tied to our own patterns somehow. One way or another, we’ve landed ourselves in that cage or at least, allowed ourselves to remain contained..
Very often, the cage itself is built out of guilt, obligation or fear—this feeling that if we stop pretending everything’s fine, we’re the one being hurtful. Or that we ‘just can’t’ do the one thing we must do if we ever want to break free. And there we are, lamenting the imprisonment without even letting ourselves consider exits that have always been there.
The Devil represents the pain of staying (not so much in a specific situation, but certainly within a specific framework or perspective).
Advice: The Fool
The Fool doesn’t have a plan, at least not really. The Fool has curiosity; that’s what drives him. He approaches life with openness, engaged and present. He’s not sure what’s coming next, but he’s interested to find out. Here, he’s suggesting a completely different approach.
The Fool may or may not make visible changes in outward circumstances. But his perspective very much does change, and in a big way. A Fool move might be treating an old situation like a brand‑new choice, with your current self, current boundaries, and current truth at the table. Maybe it’s bringing a seasoned, adult perspective into a long-ago set of ‘truth.’
Or perhaps it’s just asking, “Why couldn’t I do something different? What assumptions might I reconsider?”
Taken Together
Expect to see the ways in which people essentially become their own worst enemies. I mean, this is true more often than not anyway, but it’s highlighted right now. The Fool as advice doesn’t actually require leaving the situation, although it could look like that. What it does require is a completely fresh take, questioning the assumptions that you’ve lived by thus far.
Now For You
Where have you been feeling trapped? What constraints on your perceptions or choices might be open to a more “foolish” approach?
If you notice yourself saying “I have to” or “I can’t” this week, especially if it’s accompanied by a feeling of having no choice, pause and ask: is that your Devil talking? And what would your Fool say?
