I laughed when the Nine of Pentacles showed up for this week’s forecast.
It’s the card of education, and right now the exJW world is buzzing like crazy: leadership just “clarified” that college is now an acceptable (if still spiritually dangerous) option for Jehovah’s Witnesses. Up until now, they wouldn’t shun you for it, but they made it beyond clear college was ‘the wrong choice.’
When I graduated high school, my friends packed for college. I packed my stuff, looking for a cheap place to live. Their parents had savings plans for their kids’ education; mine had Watchtower and Awake magazines.
I wasn’t expected to figure out what I wanted to do with my own life—I was expected to marry, maybe have kids, and spend my days knocking on doors to tell people if they didn’t join us, it proved they didn’t have the “right heart” and God would destroy them at Armageddon.
Who needs college when the world’s ending any minute?
Now, exJWs are facing what those pointless sacrifices really cost: scholarships gone, dreams abandoned, lives redirected into marriages or endless meetings and door knocking. It stirs chaos—but it’s the chaos of finally seeing clearly. And once you see it, you can’t unsee it. It brings out in living color the impact of the lives we’ve lived and the lessons they taught us.
Regardless of the path, you’ve gotten an education of some sort.
Next Week in the Cards
Cards from the Legacy of the Divine Deck–well-loved but still beautiful.
Outlook: Nine of Wands
Yes—we’re really “getting it.” The Nine of Wands isn’t just knowing your stuff, but really knowing your stuff. It speaks to hard-earned mastery: insight that comes from experience, not theory. Whatever the subject, you’ve learned the lessons deeply and can stand strong in what you know.
Advice: Eight of Wands
This isn’t a call to push harder. The energy is already in motion. Think arrows mid-flight—there’s no speeding them up or changing their direction. Your job is to watch closely, let events land, and take in what they reveal. That observation itself is part of your education.
The dust won’t take long to settle. When it does, you’ll see clearly what comes next. While many exJWs grieve the opportunities stolen from them, I expect us to uncover new ones in the fallout—and better understand the options we have right now. And maybe, in that realization, they’ll find something useful too.
I hope so. Because that’s what we’ve got at this point.
Now for you:
What do you understand now that you didn’t before? And what motion is already carrying that understanding forward?
