For the second full moon in a row the lunar light calls us to an encounter with the Devil.
Ecstatic in our renewed love, we set out in our Chariots at the new moon. Love—in one or more of its many forms: for partners, friends, planet, strangers under attack—may have expanded our vision of the possible, of the place that we want to go. Drawing upon the traditional Tarot guidance of gathering our will to move forward toward our commitments, dreams, and visions, we set off.
But now The Devil—again—stands in our way.
What expletive would you like to utter?
As I ponder this disruption to what seemed like positive—even perfect—movement, lots of possibilities for Devil lessons are coming to mind. I am going to focus on two seemingly opposite lessons to integrate: dangers of individual will and a rejection of powerlessness.
As I mentioned above, the Tarot tradition ascribes to the Chariot the exercise of will. Will is vital for forward movement. A belief that something is possible and the gathering of resources to make the possible real birth great and necessary things into our world from new rights (yes, universal suffrage for women and the formerly enslaved) to amazing technologies (hello, handheld computer that is my phone) to medical breakthroughs (thank you, COVID vaccines arriving in record time).
But untempered willful energy becomes dangerous energy. This is the energy of those pursuing a goal who forget to check if conditions have changed, who ignore the warnings of their conscience, or who just follow orders even when unjust. This is the energy of the leader who believes that they alone have the solution and refuse to listen to other perspectives and may even demonize those who question them. You may be noting these Devils in our politics today and possibly in your personal life getting in the way of your Chariot.
One of the greatest balances to individual will run amok is collective will.
While collective will might be a beautiful vision—remember the rights, technologies and medical breakthroughs above—getting to it is more often a messy process. Because each individual in the collective first brings their singular ideas about how to move forward. And even when a vision is shared, perspectives and strategies for getting there can be wildly different.
Coming to agreement about shared perspectives and strategies requires that individuals surrender some of their personal will to the collective will in order for the pathway forward to become clear. This is what the (helpful) Devil interrupts when we are focused only on the movement of our own Chariot. And this is a necessary gift because from the birthing of a baby to the creation of art to the politics that shape our world, we don’t do anything alone.
And together we are more powerful.
Really? The Devil is asking me to pause and examine that statement. This Devil is wearing the mask of the controller. This Devil wants me to doubt this collective power.
Because there are many places where collective will is concentrated, but we can’t breakthrough to reach the Chariot vision. Just a few examples:
~ Two-thirds of voters in the US want a ceasefire and de-escalation of violence in Gaza. I don’t have a global stat but I would think it is at least that.
~ Fifty-six percent of U.S. adults want stricter gun control.
~ At the start of the year, people in the US didn’t want a rematch of Biden and Trump for the presidential election.
Still, we seem stuck with these realities. Willful individuals and entities unaccountable to the collective hold them in place. We can’t break through. Or rather The Devil wants us to believe that we can’t break through. The Devil doesn’t want us to realize our power.
We may stamp our feet in frustration thinking about our power in situations such as the above. We may have been pulling all the levers of power that we know for months or years to no avail. We may start to believe the story the controlling Devil whispering in our ear: “There is no use. Just give up.” We begin to believe in our powerlessness. And from a systemic point of view, our powerlessness may have some truth to it.
But we are never totally powerless. Our power may be only internal. But our thoughts and our imagination, what swirls inside our body and soul, this is our reservoir of power to draw upon—even when the controlling Devil has us in their grip.
I am reminded of a powerful yielder of this internal power: Robert Desnos, the French surrealist poet, who in the 1940s was arrested by the Nazis for his work with the Resistance.
One day in the concentration camp, he was loaded along with a bunch of men into the truck that went out each day but from which no one ever returned—its destination was the gas chambers. Both guards and prisoners were silent. Death was inevitable. But when the men were being loaded off the truck, Robert Desnos grabbed the hand of one man and read his palm. Using the stream of consciousness gift of a surrealist poet (because I don’t believe he was a palm reader), he began to tell the man of his long life and the children to come. He read other palms showing great futures for his fellow prisoners and the guards began to wonder. The mood changed. It was enough for the guards to shrug and load everyone back on the truck that returned to the camp. The prisoners survived the day.
In the camp, Desnos was utterly without external power but in a moment of extremity he drew forth his great internal power: the ability to tell a different story.
And the different story changed reality. The controlling Devil lost that day. A Chariot headed in one deadly direction changed course.
This is a story that thrills me even as I have to temper my elation by telling you the end of Robert Desnos’ story: He died of typhus a few days after the liberation of his camp. The larger circumstances of his life closed in on him. His individual will was extinguished and his voice went quiet.
But what of his impact on the collective? What came of his joining hands together to make a different story (he couldn’t have told the future without taking the hands of the others)? I can’t say for sure. I have heard this account only from the writer Susan Griffin who doesn’t tell of the fate of the others in the truck. But surely some survived and perhaps inspired by their palm readings believed they could have a better life, find love, have children. Their lives then entwined and rippled with his life, his will, his story even after his death.
Robert Desnos shows us that even in the most extreme situations we still can tell a different story.
We may not know the impact of our story. May not see our results as dramatically as Desnos. But we can know that the telling of our story is the claiming of our power.
Our encounters with The Devil test us and in that testing remind us that it is in the complex mixing of our personal stories and collective will that we will find a way forward. Not directly, perhaps not smoothly, almost certainly not immediately, but a way exists for us to move together, in power. In the cycle of the Tarot that way forward from The Devil takes us through further upheaval and shifting light and dark, but culminates with the World dancer embracing the call of the soul. And then it all begins again.
To encourage a revelation on these themes as we continue through this moonthly cycle, you are invited to one, some, or all of these practices:
~ Moon bathe by sitting or lying under a window or outside on the ground. Let go of your thoughts and soak in the light.
~ Take out any reading or your reflections from the new moon and look at them in a new light. How does your understanding of the cards shift now that time has passed and light has shifted? (If you haven’t done a reading yet, no problem, just do it now under the light of the full moon. You can try the one from the new moon.)
~ Bring out your Chariot and your Devil cards from your Tarot deck and connect them to your new moon reading / reflections. You could place/imagine these cards on either side of your reading or above and below, and then look at how they add meaning into the story your original cards offered you.
~ Reflect on questions such as: Which Devil are you dancing with: the helpful illuminator or the disempowering controller? What of your individual will might you shift to contribute to an effort of collective will? What story can you powerfully contribute to the collective right now? What direction to go in? What power is the Devil encounter calling up from within me? You could, of course, pull cards as responses to any of these questions. You may want to engage in Visio Divina to find the layers of wisdom within the cards.
When you are done, remember to offer gratitude for what you have received. Consider what gift you now want to return to the world. Pulling a card for guidance on the gift is always a fine thing to do. In the coming weeks and before the moon returns to dark around August 2nd offer your gift to the world.
As you may remember, not only is this the first of two full moons in a row associated with the Devil, but also we are in a year that began and will end with Devil new moons. You may want to find some supports for checking in on what the Devil as a trickster teachers wants to offer you by attending to these moons, bringing out the Devil card in your deck regularly for check ins, and or have a periodic (weekly, monthly, at Winter Solstice) reflection/journaling on what is bedeviling you and what lesson might it be trying to offer you as another kind of angel.