Founder's Note: As we enter the holiday season, I’m planning all the little ways I can rest and recharge my creative brain amid seemingly endless gatherings, travel, and shopping.
I’ve also returned to a regular tarot practice to reflect each day and set a productive tone every morning. This has been a really important part of how I’m reclaiming my creative energy and making my productive hours work best for me and my business.
So it’s fitting that my guest columnist, Ariel Fox, pitched the following article, which reflects on self-care for artists through the lens of tarot. Whether you’re feeling more like a Hermit, Empress, Magician, or Chariot, I hope this inspires you to give yourself the gift of a creative recharge.
- Abi
Do you find that you let your creative businesses’ admin and operational work pile up until the teetering mental pile of to-dos shames you into action? Have you been meaning to research your next grants or residencies, but you’ve got ongoing projects or commissions blocking you from securing future opportunities? Or maybe business is going well, but you’re only able to function on a day-to-day basis and don’t really know how to plan out your operations in advance so you could, maybe, I don’t know, take a vacation? Or are you the person who must work in a frenzy a few days before a deadline, foregoing food, water, basic hygiene, and sunlight?
If any of these sound like you, it might be time to learn how to incorporate self-care into your artist's toolkit. We’ve broken this down into four categories (in line with four of the major arcana of Tarot) so it’s easy to remember, but ultimately the more you approach this consciously, the sooner it will become a habit of your working rhythm. We can use Tarot’s wisdom to help us approach our artistic practice and creative businesses from a place of self-awareness and intention.
Pro tip: Use the subheadings as prompts to journal through where you might add more self-care in your routine.
The Hermit- Start with the basics
The Hermit is the foundation of this whole practice. Without it, the whole card castle tumbles. The Hermit reminds us to meet our basic needs before tapping into our creative magic or channeling our inner rain man to do our accounting.
Dedicate time and resources to perform this basic self-care:
Hydration
Rest
Movement
Nourishment
Fresh air/sunlight
Boredom
Preferably, do these things distraction-free, e.g., without looking at a screen, listening to a podcast, or calling your mom. Multi-tasking, no matter how small, distracts from the benefits of mindfulness. The more mindful you can be during your physical experience, the better. Log off and reset.
Embrace your inner Hermit through gasp true boredom, aka doing nothing. This gives our minds room to breathe and play. When we tap into our Hermit energy, we unlock incredible creative power by filling up our tank with things like water, sleep, food, and sunshine. When we ignore these basic needs, our lives lack equilibrium, and our creativity suffers.
The Empress- Ignite your pleasure
The Empress is deeply in tune with the rhythms of the natural world, and by dancing to its rhythm, she unleashes her sensuality. The Empress tends to her pleasure so her inner world can flourish.
Summoning your inner Empress means doing the things that bring you joy. What about your artistic practice feels like playing? Start there. Try a hobby that you normally don’t have time for which lights you up: baking cookies, karaoke night, miniature model building, or fiendish sudoku puzzles.
Whatever your desires are, don’t deny yourself them at the expense of your art. Figure out how they can live in harmony. Without your Empress energy, you’ll lack motivation for the less fun or downright awful parts of being an artist and running a creative business.
The Magician- Turn ideas into reality
Expressing our inner Magician means suspending disbelief to make things happen. It’s time to break down your vision/Pinterest board into your actual to-do list. The Magician is about conjuring confidence in your ability to manifest.
To create magic, tune in to your schedule and natural productive cycles. Are you a night owl but keep trying to do your social media first thing in the morning? Knock that off. Be objective about when you have the time and the inclination to get things done. Are you saying “yes” to every favour and social invitation and scrambling to finish your own work? Stop it. Boundaries are a double-edged kindness.
The Chariot- Momentum through balance
The Chariot is all about putting the wheels in motion so you can reach your destination. By incorporating the other arcana/practices into your routine, you will be energised into moving forward with your work.
If we don’t have the balance of the Hermit unplugging, the Empress’ pursuit of joy, the Magician’s bending ideas into reality, then the Chariot cannot propel you through willpower alone. Through discipline, you can find victory in your business and art, but not without tending to your needs and desires which feed the creative machine. Think of the Chariot as a reward for the repetitive and replenishing habits which keep you on track.
Ariel Fox is a queer writer, artist, dreamer and mother sustained by beachcombed treasures and life-affirming friendships. Something wild and ancestral calls her to island life. A devoted sea swimmer on the West coast of Ireland, the nominative determinism of her namesake is not lost on her. She has been published by Lemon Jelly Press, Twisted Tongue Press, The Feral Globalista and Opol. Her debut poetry collection, Maldita, is in progress.
