I think today is the last day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

I use an astrological calendar, not a Jewish one, and anything but a Jewish calendar usually gets this stuff wrong — because the J Holidays start in the evening. In either case, today is the last day of Sukkot, or tomorrow is, and I woke up thinking about Sukkot this morning. About the Sukkah.

Not because I miss having a Jewish community, one to my liking, which is indeed part of my weekly ennui, but this morning it was my Rented Apartment ennui. Woke up feeling like it’s Sukkot year-round for many of us. From rented space to rented space to rented space. I have clients like this — moving every year or every few years. Pack. Unpack. Settle in. Time to go.

On Sukkot, we build temporary structure, shelter, and we live there all week. Eating our meals inside it. The devout sleep there. As you can imagine, there are many many rules. And sure a Sukkah isn’t as strong as a turn-of-the-century three story building on Staten Island but maybe it is… if we go a bit deeper.

What makes you feel safe? What makes you feel secure? What makes your home feel like home? Is it the roof? The walls? The plastic fruit? 😉 The people? The Sukkah is bare bones but not bare bones at all.

When I was a kid, my father used to put up the Sukkah out back, by the pool, in the right hand corner of the patio. We would hang up plastic fruit and our colorful kids’ drawings. Pretty typical probably for North Miami in the 1970s. Not artsy but not these super strong heavy duty plywood ones that I used to see in my old neighborhood.

Looking at pictures of Sukkahs on-line, I felt a pang in me so sharp. Some of them so magical. This is a question that I don’t have an answer for yet: how to blend my creativity with my eclectic spirituality and desire for community.  Sure the Sukkahs I used to know were filled with people and food and bees, but they were utilitarian and symbolic — not these living breathing sheltering magnificent temporary palaces. Sometimes I feel so hungry for ritual and art that I can’t breathe.

Oh. The Moon’s in Cancer today. Moon in Cancer always feel vulnerable in its crab shell. The Moon will trine stable Saturn, make a quincunx to Mars in Sagittarius, and square the Sun and Mercury in Libra. It squared Venus in Libra this morning. Yeah, kinda tense. Not so cozy.

I suggest you do things to make yourself feel better, rather than moping in your ennui. I’ve been doing housework all week, dusting, de-cluttering, organizing, sweeping. Lots and lots of sweeping.

What does this have to do with the Tarot? I couldn’t help but see the lulav (date palm fronds that are an intrinsic part of the holiday) as emblem of the Wands suit, especially as depicted in the Palladini Tarot, my new favorite deck. We shake and wave and bless with the lulav in the four directions and up and down, as if nodding to God: yup, you’re in charge!

According to some Kabbalistic sources, the lulav represents the spine, your spine. Have you ever shaken a lulav? Remember how stiff and strong it is? You could hurt someone with that thing. Remember the sound of the shaking leaves? So you shook and you shook and oh good lord I want to quote John Donne right now and why the heck not. “The world is charged with the grandeur of God. It will flame out, like shining from shook foil.”

The lulav is your strong place. The lulav is your strong spine. So when you see WANDS in your Tarot readings, even the harder Wands cards like the Seven and the Nine and the Ten, please know that you shook and you shook, from life, and you did not break. You are strong. Have you ever seen a broken Wand in a Tarot card? Nope. We see spilled cups. We see Swords on the ground. We see inert Pentacles. But Wands are fire. It never goes out.

Wishing you good cards xx

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