1. Dear Temperance: if I leap, will the net appear?

Major Arcana XIV Temperance. Rider Waite Smith Tarot, Pamela Colman Smith, 1909. Sometimes called Art, Temperance symbolizes moderation and modulation; the skillful alchemical balancing of everything in its proper measure; clarity, peace, serenity. It’s what I wish for you, for me, and for this column.

Greetings and hand-to-heart welcome to the first ever edition of Dear Temperance, a tarot advice column for paid subscribers to Home + the World!

Have a query for Temperance? Submit your burning life questions via email to homeandtheworld@substack.com or through the contact form on my website www.jodirhoden.com. Your anonymity is guaranteed. If your letter is published, you will receive a one-year paid subscription for yourself, or to gift to someone else.

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Dear Temperance,

I’m a single mom with no financial safety net. I make a good living and I am good at what I do. I don’t love it, but it pays the bills. I’ve been told I should start my own consulting firm over and over my entire career. For the first time, I’m really considering it. What holds me back that 1. don’t love the work and 2. like I said, I’m a single mom with no financial safety net. What if something happens, especially to my health? Should I throw caution into the wind and start my own business? 

On The Precipice 

Dear OTP,

There’s nothing more disconcerting than an in-between. That nauseating dynamic tension between where you’ve been and where you’re going is never so nerve-wracking as when you are right at the edge of a leap, or a fall. You can’t go back, and you can’t stay where you are forever. But when to jump? And HOW?

The first card to help us delve into this question is in the position of The Significator, or the situation at hand. This card speaks to where you are at right now, the most salient issues you are facing. Pay attention to where it might bring up an underlying aspect of the conundrum of which you might not be consciously aware.

Two of Cups, Rider Waite Smith Tarot, Pamela Colman Smith, 1909.

The Significator: Two of Cups.

The Two of Cups represents fruitful and loving partnerships of all kinds: friendship, business, romance, marriage. There’s a twinning, a reflection, an experience of being really seen, really valued, and really matched communicated in this card. This very human and very reasonable need for supportive partnership (which our society is terrible at fulfilling and nurturing) is at the heart of the matter, OTP. This card asks, who are your partners? Who sees you, supports you, and values you as a parent, as a professional, as a person?