This is the seventh spread in a collection designed in response to the ongoing covid crisis, and all the rapid changes and shakeups it has wrought.
This is a disabled/ill friendly space and comments are moderated. The fact that Covid is still happening is not up for debate. That this still matters to higher-risk communities is not up for debate. Any anti-vaxxing noise, pseudo-science, or eugenics masquerading as spirituality will get deleted & blocked. Check out The People’s CDC for quality updates on transmission rates and how you can help protect yourself and your community.
This is a disabled/ill friendly space and comments are moderated. The fact that Covid is still happening is not up for debate. That this still matters to higher-risk communities is not up for debate. Any anti-vaxxing noise, pseudo-science, or eugenics masquerading as spirituality will get deleted & blocked. Check out The People’s CDC for quality updates on transmission rates and how you can help protect yourself and your community.
Soooo… tying up loose ends and completing unfinished series. Woof! I’m sure the first spreads in this collection have aged interestingly by now—ha! I designed the whole batch back in 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic, then burnt out hard on writing about them. More truthfully, I burnt out on communicating much at all, watching the US navigate this plague.
My loyalties lie with the chronically ill and disabled communities, but my bandwidth for speaking outside close relationships and long-form projects has been pretty low these past few years. I am excited to wobble back online and share some of the projects born of secluded time. (Check out the Black Ink Tarot on Kickstarer!) But I’m sure I’m not alone in exploring the busy side of burnout as our new forever-normal. Those who read the room tread through grief.
CW in this post for eugenics, ableism, politicized mass death, and pandemic grief. Feel free to skip the intro notes and skim down to the spread heading if you don’t have the bandwidth to go there!
And here’s your usual friendly disclaimer that tarot is not a substitute for therapy, licensed counseling, or medical advice. These spreads are shared as self-directed brainstorming exercises, journaling prompts, entertainments, and supplements to other resources. They can help us spark ideas, problem-solve, and sort through our patterns, sure, but they’re not gonna fix all our shit. There’s no shame in tagging in outside supports or pausing your reading if a tarot session kicks up too much for you.
My loyalties lie with the chronically ill and disabled communities, but my bandwidth for speaking outside close relationships and long-form projects has been pretty low these past few years. I am excited to wobble back online and share some of the projects born of secluded time. (Check out the Black Ink Tarot on Kickstarer!) But I’m sure I’m not alone in exploring the busy side of burnout as our new forever-normal. Those who read the room tread through grief.
CW in this post for eugenics, ableism, politicized mass death, and pandemic grief. Feel free to skip the intro notes and skim down to the spread heading if you don’t have the bandwidth to go there!
And here’s your usual friendly disclaimer that tarot is not a substitute for therapy, licensed counseling, or medical advice. These spreads are shared as self-directed brainstorming exercises, journaling prompts, entertainments, and supplements to other resources. They can help us spark ideas, problem-solve, and sort through our patterns, sure, but they’re not gonna fix all our shit. There’s no shame in tagging in outside supports or pausing your reading if a tarot session kicks up too much for you.
The Cleansing Quagmire
So let’s talk about cleansing. This spread started as a play on words around hand washing as a protective measure. It’s geared towards cleansing as meaningful action during times of crisis or high stress, which is a bit different than routine cleansing practices when things are running smoothly.
We’ll talk about defining and approaching cleansing in spiritual, psychic, and creative practices in more detail in our next Page’s Journey post. For now, let’s acknowledge that cleansing means quite different things to different people, and some of those concepts have deeply harmful legacies. We have to be careful, when we talk about cleansing, not to tacitly lend religious support to -isms and caste hierarchies. When we conflate cleanliness with qualities like holiness and purity, it’s all too easy to drawing dehumanizing lines between the clean and unclean, righteous and condemned, pure and impure. When groups then feel compelled and emboldened to practice collective cleansing by attacking or expelling persons, we commit violence and injustice in the name of divinity, or public good.
That might sound dramatic, but these patterns are playing out right now, and there’s a direct line between pop-spiritual cleansing lingo and covid era eugenics. There aren’t that many occult books on the market focused solely on cleansing, and at least one of the main classics contains a chapter treating ill and disabled people similarly to psychic vampires, with language so ableist that I won’t repeat quotes or recommend the title here. It might serve as a historic or cultural reference, but I can’t stomach passing it along, personally.
Guru types often use illness and healing as focal points for either inspiration porn or cautionary tales. The disabled psi-vamp trope in pop-spirituality parallels and feeds into capitalist views we’re taught to take for granted, that ill, disabled, and “weak” people are drains on family and society. Such beliefs prime us to collapse the distinction between undesirable illness and ill people, and to equate vulnerability with disposability. That’s how we wind up with situations like former CDC director Rochelle Walensky publicly celebrating how “encouraging” it was that Americans with prior health problems were dying en masse from Omicron, as the White House rolled back public health protections for the sake of business-as-usual. As long as “the right people are dying.…” Our beliefs justify and enable our purges, and this purge has claimed over 1.1 million down and counting. When it came down to it, most Americans would rather cleanse the population of elderly, disabled, and immune compromised citizens than continue to suffer mild inconveniences like masking and hand-washing. And here we are.
Cleansing isn’t always a nefarious concept, but when it goes there, it goes way too far.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t value and practice things like cleansing and protection at all in our home practices. It does mean we need to be careful how we talk about them, and think twice over what we mean by them.
Taking inspiration from pop-psychology, and the concept of “good enough” in parenting, relating, communication, work, etc., I like to approach cleansing in terms of feeling “clean enough” in the context of our situations and environments. Constructive cleansing isn’t about purity, perfection, healthism, walling off, enforcing mainstream beauty & body standards, never having problems, or feeling super great 100% of the time. Constructive cleansing is about reducing risks, clearing up blockages, and keeping things tidy, clear, pleasanter, and safe enough to keep on alright within the environments and resources we each have to work with.
We don’t all have the same abilities to meet idealized standards of hygiene or housekeeping, and we don’t all enjoy psychically peaceful home-bases. Appropriate and beneficial cleansing techniques can vary widely from person to person. Some tidiness is better than no tidiness if you can’t manage perfect tidiness. It’s okay to set aside comparisons and ideals as you figure out what actually works for you.
Washing our hands is just one way to practice cleansing, and we can approach this physically, symbolically, or both. But washing our hands of what ails us in not an invitation to wash our hands of necessary obligations and moral culpability. Like so many of our social justice-y spreads, this breakdown tempers action and rest, stress and relief, by tracing where we can or should wash our hands of something, versus where we need to step into responsibility and action. We let go of what isn’t ours in order to take up and work with what is ours to tackle.
We’ll talk about defining and approaching cleansing in spiritual, psychic, and creative practices in more detail in our next Page’s Journey post. For now, let’s acknowledge that cleansing means quite different things to different people, and some of those concepts have deeply harmful legacies. We have to be careful, when we talk about cleansing, not to tacitly lend religious support to -isms and caste hierarchies. When we conflate cleanliness with qualities like holiness and purity, it’s all too easy to drawing dehumanizing lines between the clean and unclean, righteous and condemned, pure and impure. When groups then feel compelled and emboldened to practice collective cleansing by attacking or expelling persons, we commit violence and injustice in the name of divinity, or public good.
That might sound dramatic, but these patterns are playing out right now, and there’s a direct line between pop-spiritual cleansing lingo and covid era eugenics. There aren’t that many occult books on the market focused solely on cleansing, and at least one of the main classics contains a chapter treating ill and disabled people similarly to psychic vampires, with language so ableist that I won’t repeat quotes or recommend the title here. It might serve as a historic or cultural reference, but I can’t stomach passing it along, personally.
Guru types often use illness and healing as focal points for either inspiration porn or cautionary tales. The disabled psi-vamp trope in pop-spirituality parallels and feeds into capitalist views we’re taught to take for granted, that ill, disabled, and “weak” people are drains on family and society. Such beliefs prime us to collapse the distinction between undesirable illness and ill people, and to equate vulnerability with disposability. That’s how we wind up with situations like former CDC director Rochelle Walensky publicly celebrating how “encouraging” it was that Americans with prior health problems were dying en masse from Omicron, as the White House rolled back public health protections for the sake of business-as-usual. As long as “the right people are dying.…” Our beliefs justify and enable our purges, and this purge has claimed over 1.1 million down and counting. When it came down to it, most Americans would rather cleanse the population of elderly, disabled, and immune compromised citizens than continue to suffer mild inconveniences like masking and hand-washing. And here we are.
Cleansing isn’t always a nefarious concept, but when it goes there, it goes way too far.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t value and practice things like cleansing and protection at all in our home practices. It does mean we need to be careful how we talk about them, and think twice over what we mean by them.
Taking inspiration from pop-psychology, and the concept of “good enough” in parenting, relating, communication, work, etc., I like to approach cleansing in terms of feeling “clean enough” in the context of our situations and environments. Constructive cleansing isn’t about purity, perfection, healthism, walling off, enforcing mainstream beauty & body standards, never having problems, or feeling super great 100% of the time. Constructive cleansing is about reducing risks, clearing up blockages, and keeping things tidy, clear, pleasanter, and safe enough to keep on alright within the environments and resources we each have to work with.
We don’t all have the same abilities to meet idealized standards of hygiene or housekeeping, and we don’t all enjoy psychically peaceful home-bases. Appropriate and beneficial cleansing techniques can vary widely from person to person. Some tidiness is better than no tidiness if you can’t manage perfect tidiness. It’s okay to set aside comparisons and ideals as you figure out what actually works for you.
Washing our hands is just one way to practice cleansing, and we can approach this physically, symbolically, or both. But washing our hands of what ails us in not an invitation to wash our hands of necessary obligations and moral culpability. Like so many of our social justice-y spreads, this breakdown tempers action and rest, stress and relief, by tracing where we can or should wash our hands of something, versus where we need to step into responsibility and action. We let go of what isn’t ours in order to take up and work with what is ours to tackle.
The Wash Your Damn Hands Tarot Spread
1. WASH (Cleanse & Purge): Something to cleanse, release, or banish.
2. YOUR (Own Your Shit): Where to step up and take responsibility.
3. DAMN (Avoid Regret): A point of likely regret should I fail to exercise caution.
4. HANDS (Make, Mend, Make Do): Where and how I’m called to act, to craft, to care, and to make the best of what I’ve got to work with.
NOTES:
You can direct this spread primarily toward your cleansing and protection practice. In that case, card one will show what needs releasing or where to focus most on cleaning house. Then cards two through four break down how to get that done—where to own your side of the mess, a hazard to address or foil to avoid, and crafts you can draw on to make the process sing.
You could also direct this spread more generally toward balancing action and release in your creative projects or activism. In that case, card once covers where you need to cleanse, release, and let go, while the remaining cards cover areas and reasons to step up elsewhere. This breakdown could also outline something you need to clear out or unblock first in order to get to the meaningful action you’d rather be doing.
2. YOUR (Own Your Shit): Where to step up and take responsibility.
3. DAMN (Avoid Regret): A point of likely regret should I fail to exercise caution.
4. HANDS (Make, Mend, Make Do): Where and how I’m called to act, to craft, to care, and to make the best of what I’ve got to work with.
NOTES:
You can direct this spread primarily toward your cleansing and protection practice. In that case, card one will show what needs releasing or where to focus most on cleaning house. Then cards two through four break down how to get that done—where to own your side of the mess, a hazard to address or foil to avoid, and crafts you can draw on to make the process sing.
You could also direct this spread more generally toward balancing action and release in your creative projects or activism. In that case, card once covers where you need to cleanse, release, and let go, while the remaining cards cover areas and reasons to step up elsewhere. This breakdown could also outline something you need to clear out or unblock first in order to get to the meaningful action you’d rather be doing.
Patron Arcanum: The Star
The Star itself is the light of navigation, hope, perspective, and possibility following turmoil and breakdown. The Star card’s traditional landscapes bring the soothing energy and regeneration we want to draw on here. Consider the night river, the cool air, faintly humid yet un-cloying, as sweet and blue as the taste of cold water when we acknowledge that “cold” is its own flavor. Consider the flicker of unidentifiable, reflective eyes in the rushes and weeds. Consider the long-haired, silver-edged lady on the banks of the river, drawing from the flow and pouring back into the ground without end, like water is a tendril that needs even more watering, or she’s got nothing better to do. Consider the doves cooing in the orchard on the hill. Consider the presence of spirits indistinguishable from the living on the dreaming/dying side of consciousness, and the presence of ghosts tracing boughs drooping with pears, indistinguishable from doves. Imagine sucking every ounce of heartache, venom, resentment, and spite up from the floor of your body through your breath, and spitting your venom down a compost-y little sinkhole, or out to the Void. Imagine primal screaming at sentient plasma blazing five thousand years away, while no one cares. Consider every millimeter of your skin caressed by dark and gentle water, dark and gentle grass, and dark and gentle air that doesn’t know how to do anything but move in grace.
Elements: Water & Earth
We’re grounding, centering reality, and showing up to act and create. We're also indulging in dissolution, fluid motion, shape-shifting, and release. We’re working with one foot each in the material, and emotional/intuitive realms. We’re practicing generative erosion.
Variations
In general readings, you might like to draw two cards under the first placement, one for what to cleanse and another for how to go about it.
Under placement four, you could try pulling a card each for making, mending, and making do. Brainstorm something to create, something to fix or heal, and something to creatively transmute from lead to gold, or lemon to lemonade if you’re zesty.
Under placement four, you could try pulling a card each for making, mending, and making do. Brainstorm something to create, something to fix or heal, and something to creatively transmute from lead to gold, or lemon to lemonade if you’re zesty.
Guidelines For Sharing:
If you’d like to use this spread with paying clients, do cite the source, link back to the blog, and please use your own photos in your listings. My spread & web graphics are not licensed for commercial use.
This policy has always existed to deal with stuff like artwork getting ripped from the site and bundled into paid downloads, psychics I can’t vouch for using my content for their branding, etc. You're welcome to share the spreads non-commercially with friends and on social as long as you tag back!
Folx ordering the tarot decks will also be welcome to share photos of your deck in your blogs, reading photos, videos, and posts! If you’re supporting this work, I’m delighted to see you use, enjoy, and share the decks as you like.
I usually ask pro readers working with these spreads to tip the blog, but if anyone would like to tip the blog this season, please kindly donate to Doctors Without Borders instead. Bless bless. Ceasefire now.
If you’d like to use this spread with paying clients, do cite the source, link back to the blog, and please use your own photos in your listings. My spread & web graphics are not licensed for commercial use.
This policy has always existed to deal with stuff like artwork getting ripped from the site and bundled into paid downloads, psychics I can’t vouch for using my content for their branding, etc. You're welcome to share the spreads non-commercially with friends and on social as long as you tag back!
Folx ordering the tarot decks will also be welcome to share photos of your deck in your blogs, reading photos, videos, and posts! If you’re supporting this work, I’m delighted to see you use, enjoy, and share the decks as you like.
I usually ask pro readers working with these spreads to tip the blog, but if anyone would like to tip the blog this season, please kindly donate to Doctors Without Borders instead. Bless bless. Ceasefire now.
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