Part two of my episode with YUMIKO KADOTA is here! A beautiful reading I designed called THE STAR:
S: The spirit. What light do you shine on the world?
T: Truth. What truth are you here to illuminate?
A: Arising. What's arising in you right now?
R: Retreating. What energy is retreating?
Thanks to Yumiko for being so kind and generous with her time! I know Tarot isn't for everyone, but if you're listening to this then I'm glad it's for you.
Follow my new Tarot newsletter on Substack: The World Turns
Buy Emotional Female by Yumiko Kadota here: Emotional Female
If you're enjoying Untethered, please consider rating and reviewing the show and becoming a subscriber!
You can follow Clementine here, and support her work and the podcast:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/clementine_ford
Substack: www.substack.com/@clementinef
Part two of my episode with YUMIKO KADOTA is here! A beautiful reading I designed called THE STAR:
S: The spirit. What light do you shine on the world?
T: Truth. What truth are you here to illuminate?
A: Arising. What's arising in you right now?
R: Retreating. What energy is retreating?
Thanks to Yumiko for being so kind and generous with her time! I know Tarot isn't for everyone, but if you're listening to this then I'm glad it's for you.
Follow my new Tarot newsletter on Substack: The World Turns
Buy Emotional Female by Yumiko Kadota here: Emotional Female
If you're enjoying Untethered, please consider rating and reviewing the show and becoming a subscriber!
You can follow Clementine here, and support her work and the podcast:
Instagram: www.instagram.com/clementine_ford
Substack: www.substack.com/@clementinef
Hello everyone and welcome back to part two of my episode of Untethered with Dr Yumiko Kadota. My name is Clementine Ford. I'm the host of this podcast. Every week I do a straight interview that drops midweek and on the weekends, a tarot card reading with my guest. I know that tarot cards aren't for everyone, but if you're here I'm glad they're for you. I'm recording today on the lands of the Wurundjeri. People Remember wherever you are know whose land you're on. Let's get even more untethered with Dr Yumiko Karota. Hello Yumiko, welcome to your tarot reading.
Speaker 2:Oh, I can't wait. I'm so excited how are you feeling? I feel good, I feel calm.
Speaker 1:You've never had one of these before, have you? No, I haven't. What are your thoughts?
Speaker 2:about tarot, especially as a doctor. It's funny that you say that, because I think we're allowed to have interests outside of science.
Speaker 2:It's funny because both of us are such supporters of science because I remember during you know the heart of the pandemic you even had your own vaccine profile, vaccine profile, but no, I love all of this stuff and I remember being criticized for posting a picture of a rose quartz and talking about something as benign as self-love, and someone's like you're a doctor, how can you post something like this? And I'm like I'm not saying that you can cure cancer with crystals. I'm allowed to enjoy things outside of science.
Speaker 1:That annoys me so much because I mean, apart from anything, just let people like what they like. It's one thing if you're saying, if you buy my crystal tea then you'll be cured of cancer, Obviously that's really bad. And as someone whose mother died of cancer and I bought all the teas, you know, it is playing on people's grief and hope, and so that's one thing.
Speaker 1:But if you just like I'm a crystal girly, I like to have my crystals around my house, you know what does it really matter? Like I saw this fuckwit on some Netflix special recently and I can't even remember his name, but people some people will know who I'm talking about and his whole like the trailer on it on Netflix, his whole thing was like just making fun of girls with crystals and I thought, firstly, not very original, fucking comedy, because everyone's been making fun of things that traditionally girls like for a long time, mocking this idea that, like that piece of rock's not going to protect you, debbie. And I just thought, well, we as women have been told our whole lives that men will protect us and that's turned out to be a big fucking lie.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I'm going to trust the rose quartz. I am much more well versed in tarot than I am in astrology, but I'm learning about astrology. A couple of cards, just thought I'm just going to pop them onto the side, but just from the outset. So I looked at your chart. You have a sun in Leo, so your sun sign is Leo, so that's your identity, how you shine in the world. Leo is fire, so it's very passionate. It's the lion, obviously. So you roar and sometimes I think with you because you have this fiery nature to do, how you exhibit in the world. You coupled with some of the stuff we're going to get into with communication and your chiron and gemini.
Speaker 1:There's a feeling in you. I think that you, you roar sometimes and you roar, you, you feel like, oh god, I've roared too loudly, I've spoken too loudly, I've I've exerted myself too much. So there's this tension in you between how you are and how you present in the world this like fiery element of Leo, with this sort of internal shame of I'm too much, I'm too much for people. And so, as your sun is in Leo, your moon, which is like your body and your emotions, you know the internal kind of like swirl of you, the intuition of you. That's an Aquarius, so that's Aries.
Speaker 2:That's the only bit of my birth chart that surprised me. I'm like what? How can I be Aquarius anything? Because there's so much fire in my chart? I'm like so much Leo everywhere else. So to see that Aqu query was actually quite surprising.
Speaker 1:so I'm keen to hear what your interpretation of my moon is well again, like I'm not super well versed with astrology, but just uh, tapping into my intuition here. Um, I think the air is interesting because you do have a lot of fire in your chart. But the air is sort of I mean, obviously fire needs oxygen, fire needs oxygen to burn, but there is this sense of you escaping through the mental realm which is, maybe you know, you went and studied pretty hard for a number of years to become a doctor, but I, it's to me it's not. When I think about it, actually, when I tune into you, it's not about, interestingly, you you don't, you don have with this sort of big three. You've got no earth and you're not in the air to kind of ground you in the earth-based thinking realm.
Speaker 1:There's something about the fire is too much for you sometimes. So you escape into this like internal intuition, the moon, the shadowy parts of yourself. It's like your mind is out there in the atmosphere, because sometimes even just being in the world physically and um, uh, like energetically and sensorily is a bit too much for you, which kind of tracks with being autistic and having ADHD. I think there's this escape. It's like there's this escape path through your head, but your inner self is up there in the ether because it's too much down here and in the physical realm. And it's funny because you know you mentioned on instagram the other day me me saying otters when I talked to ajababa and when I was looking at you before and I was thinking about I was trying to kind of me seeing otters when I talked to Ajababa and when I was looking at you before and I was thinking about I was trying to kind of see with that sight or whatever, I think of the crow when I look at you, oh wow, I'm sorry, Greg.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I just got a very strong image of a crow, which you know.
Speaker 1:Obviously a crow is a bird, so there's that aspect of of it flying through the air but also crows are incredibly loyal and crows like, if you feed a crow, a crow will come back to you and bring you gifts, and crows gather together in their community to kind of um like assess what happened to other crows. So there's this sort of, there's this mysterious element to you that crows are also considered by some people to be bad omens. And I don't think that they are and I'm not saying you're a bad omen, but there's this sort of sense of like, there's this loyalty within you, this incredible loyalty that is not always perceived by other people to be not welcoming to the wrong word, but to be it's. Some people are a bit scared of it, it's too mysterious and you're sort of like this mysterious figure to them. Your ascendant sign, your rising sign, is in Pisces, so that's the fish, so that's extremely sensitive. That's your reason for living.
Speaker 1:What you, what you're basically like moving towards in your life, is this kind of um, tempering your fire a little bit with the waters of emotion and with softness and sensitivity, and these are not things that necessarily feel to you like they come easily, but there's this deep desire in you to have softness in your life and to feel, I think, because that we're coming to your Chiron now, which is your Chiron, is the, the asteroid of, like the wounded healer, and sometimes people say teacher, and your Chiron's in Gemini, in the fourth house. So Gemini is all about communication and the fourth house is home, family roots and emotional foundations. So your wound, your karmic wound that you're sort of like working through in this lifetime, that drives a lot of your pain inside and your emotional pain is this sense of being unable to properly communicate yourself in your not at work, but in your emotional realm not at work, but in your emotional realm. So the Pisces is like the rising sign in Pisces is all about sensitivity, all about you know this like unapologetic softness of the fish swimming in water, like water in tarot as well, but also in astrology, and just in kind of like understanding how water is, about intuition and emotion. So you are striving in this way, like, even though you've got so much fire in your chart and you're a leo, you're really trying to figure out in this life how to move towards a softness in yourself and and actually a way of forgiving all of this wounded feeling that you have about being unable to express yourself emotionally, being unable to be understood. So I'm going to do your cards now.
Speaker 1:I've got a spread that I've um, it's not quite as long as the one I did for Aja, because that ended up being like an hour and a half but this is four cards and it's called the star.
Speaker 1:The light that we see in the sky being emitted from stars was sent millions of years ago, and maybe the star that we're looking at and we're thinking, gosh, it's so beautiful, look at how it's lighting our night sky. Maybe that star doesn't even exist anymore, maybe that star has burnt out long ago. And I love in the symbolism of that, this idea that we shine even if no one's watching. We live even if no one is there to see it. We have inside us all a spirit that wants to exist despite anyone seeing that light. And, as a sort of, I hesitate to call myself an activist, because there's so many different things that I do and activists are active in a way. I think that I'm not, but I think when you're invested in creating a better world, either for everyone or for your immediate community, whatever it might be, there is something really powerful in thinking I do it even if I'm not around to see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know we do the work, even if we're not around to exist in the benefit of that work. We do it for the people in the future who will be able to sit there and bathe in the light. So the reason I designed the star spread is because I I wanted it to speak to people like you, who I'm doing the reading for. I wanted it to speak to who they are spiritually, who they are beyond you know, like, oh, what kind of job am I going to have? What kind of relationship am I going to have?
Speaker 1:It's really, hopefully, like a guide to that inner spark inside you that, with you especially, is like yearning to be understood and to be seen. Your son is Leo, which is represented in the tarot by the sun sign and by the strength card. You know, there's something very beautifully kind of reflective in doing this reading for you, because I think a lot of the time you feel very unseen and misunderstood. But this is all about showing you, hopefully, some aspects of yourself that you either aren't aware of or that you you feel like other people don't see and I like what you were saying before about even if someone doesn't see your light now, they might see it later long after you've existed yeah, exactly, okay.
Speaker 1:So the star reading is four cards. Star just spells out star. So the s is the spirit, the spirit of what is inside you, how you shine. Uh, the t is the truth that you are trying to share and illuminate in the world. Um, a is ascending. What is an horizon? What is emerging within you? What are you ready to show the world in your life? And r is retreating. What is it that you're ready to let go of? What energy are you ready to pass out of you? Um, now, as I was shuffling just then, a card fell out which? Um? In tarot sometimes we use cards called significators, so it's kind of like the overarching vision of the spread, I guess.
Speaker 1:And the card that fell out for you was the page of wands. All the pages are students. So the pages are part of the court, the pages the knights, the kings and the queens. The pages are all students. They're all learners. They're hungry for knowledge and they're open-hearted. They're like children really. They're in the world and they're like I want to learn, but also, because I'm a child, there are no limits in my mind to what I can do. So there's this beautiful energy from the outset within you, of this page of wands and wands, as well as the suit of fire. So you have always been this person who feels childlike in some ways in terms of how you want to create action in the world. You're a, you're a student, you want knowledge, you crave it and you crave to like, learn how to act, to how to be, to how to do things. The page of wands is sort of, you know, sometimes represented as a child standing in the middle of the desert, just holding a wand and looking out into the distance, and we don't know what they're looking at, but they see something and they're like I'm going to make my way to that, that place, and I'm going to make things happen for me, um, whilst at the same time acknowledging that they don't know everything, that they don't really know anything yet, but they're ready for it. So that's you kind of in a nutshell. So the S the spirit of who you are.
Speaker 1:I've turned over the queen of crystals, slash the queen of swords. I'll show you the card, yumiko. It's very kind of um. There's a lot of purples in it. Purple is, you know, it's the correlating color to the high priestess. It's very intuition based.
Speaker 1:The queens in the court are all. They're all representative of the water suit, so they're all kind of like, highly emotional. They're the nurturers of the suit, the care. But they're older women as well. There's an older female energy, an older feminine energy. There's an idea that, like there is the knowledge that they have. It's not page like, it's not childlike, it's knowledge that has come from years of experience, so there's a maturity to them. So the spirit that you have in the world is the queen of swords, which is this very like mental kind of you know, air again. So the swords is all air. So you've got water and air correlating together and the Queen of Swords is no nonsense, basically.
Speaker 1:So in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which is, you know, this sort of classic kind of tarot deck, the Queen is depicted facing the right. So she's sitting on her throne, she's facing towards the right of the card. She has one hand up with the palm facing towards whatever. So she's sitting on her throne, she's facing towards the right of the card. She has one hand up with the palm, facing towards whatever it is she's looking at and her sword straight up and down. And the queen of swords and the justice card are the only two cards in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck where their sword is straight up. So there's a sense there that the sword is the representative of like mental intellect, an intellect that can cut. It can either cut or it can defend. And with the swords being straight up and the justice card is representative of Libra, the scales. There's this sense with the Queen of Swords that she sits exactly in the middle of. Being ready to attack is the wrong word, but being ready to move forward with a mental kind of defense and being ready to defend people behind her in the hand that she faces out towards people is also a suggestion of like I decide who comes past me, I decide what can penetrate me, I decide what I get involved with. So the queen of swords is probably the most reserved of all the queens.
Speaker 1:So your spirit in the world is as of someone who pursues knowledge.
Speaker 1:Your overarching thing might be this student of fire, but your spirit and how you shine in the world, what people see when they look at you is someone who is very knowledge oriented and who is maybe a little bit impenetrable as well. There's a kind of um, and this is maybe like what you wrestle with with this chiron of communication is that you don't feel necessarily like this impenetrable force that other people think when they look at you and and there is a way that you almost want to use the sword that the queen carries to slice through that perception that people have. But you're unsure how to do it, because you've been I guess that is how you've existed for so long, that's what people have seen for so long that it's hard for you to even know how to just how to you know, let alone dismantle their ideas of who you are, but how to dismantle this persona that you've kind of erected around yourself, of this very unfuckwithable kind of uh, dowager of the mental realm and it's funny you say that.
Speaker 2:I was actually just thinking about this last week, but I've had three different men in my career tell me that I make other people feel dumb and they said that as almost a criticism the way I speak to people.
Speaker 1:They mean, you make them feel dumb.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like I can come across as quite intimidating to men and I don't see myself as that at all, and we were talking before about my Pisces energy. I do kind of think of myself as quite dreamy and I don't think of myself as a smart person, even though I do like to intellectualize everything and I like to read a lot. But I think the reservation comes from not being legit, you know, because there's just so much information in this world and you just and I think that partly my perfectionism comes into it where I know that I'll never, ever, read enough to be satisfied, I'll never be satisfied that what I know now is what is everything that I need to know and want to know about the world around me. And I feel like sometimes I hesitate to speak on topics because I think, well, I'm not really knowledgeable enough to talk on that topic. I'm not an expert in anything, um. So there is a reservation there because, um, unless I'm the most knowledgeable or the best at something, I don't want to do it.
Speaker 2:So I'm very black and white in that sense, um, but I did also relate to what you were saying about um, I've just lost my train of thought now I think.
Speaker 2:I think it's interesting yeah, that's the one that when you said that nonsense in cut through the crap, and I think that's where my bluntness comes out sometimes and that's probably where people find me intimidating, because if you say something and I see right through you, especially if I can see some sort of intention there, I'm just going to be like, no, I'll just say it how it is, and and I've had to learn to soften that a little bit so that I don't come across as rude or too critical but that's yeah, that's me wrestling with my natural tendency to want to do that.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting and it's not saying anything, that any woman with similar experiences out there wouldn't feel that if you're a man, that, and particularly if you're a white man, that you wouldn't experience that same criticism of your sharpness or that criticism of what is perceived in you to be rude. We were talking on your episode earlier this week that, particularly being an Asian woman, that there is this racist kind of expectation that you will be submissive and sweet and almost kind of um, that sexualized idea of the Japanese woman. You know that when you, when you kind of present to the world as as very much not that, because, surprise, you have a complete interior subjectivity that is shared by you and every other Asian woman in the world, their own subjectivity and their own way of being, and that they're not like this kind of like white male fantasy. But that is, it's not just embarrassing to the people who confront that, because they don't want to confront their own assumption of you. They feel that you've betrayed the contract somehow, that you're rude, that you don't know what you're, you're making them feel bad, you're making them feel intimidated and therefore that's a you problem, not a them problem. So with this kind of like, it's almost as well thinking.
Speaker 1:You know, the queen in this particular card is sort of like very purple-oriented, as I said, and the purple is the color of intuition, but it's also the queen of swords, represents the air realm, because the sword is all realm. And so your Aquarius, as your moon, your internal self, is air and it's dreamy and it's intuitive and it's radical. Aquarius is revolutionary. Know, we've just moved pluto's just moved into aquarius, um, at the start of this year, ending like a long cycle with something like 270 years since pluto's been in aquarius. The last time pluto was in aquarius, we had the french, haitian and american revolutions. There's like change in the air and so there's something about this kind of like Aquarian internal impenetrability of you. And as well, with the Queen of Swords in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, she has a bird, a black bird, flying above her. So that's interesting that I pulled this card for you and I saw the black bird before that.
Speaker 1:Looking at you, there is a kind of essence with you that I think is represented by this Queen of Swords. When people look at you, there is a. There is a kind of essence with you that I think is represented by this queen of swords. When people look at you, what, what they see when they look at you and how you kind of admit to the world of being hard to pin down. You're a bird that they can't trap, and that's very frightening for a lot of people, because they like to feel comfortably, like they can put women like you in a cage.
Speaker 1:It's troubling, though, because, as free as that might make you, in some senses it also contradicts this softness inside and this Piscean energy of wanting to like, swim towards connection, wanting to swim towards community and wanting to swim within the waters of emotions because you feel in some way like you've also.
Speaker 1:This is you, but it's. Is it you because it's you, or is it you because you've been forced to make this? You to protect yourself through the world, not just even in work, but, like, protect yourself from other people's judgment, protect yourself from, it's almost like okay, well, if they're going to judge the way that I communicate, if you know, prior to understanding, that you're autistic, this sort of sense of disconnection, if they're going to judge that, well, fine, I will just sit here on my throne in my castle in the air and I'll put my sword up and I'll put my hand out and I'll decide who gets to come in and, and you know, quite a few people have said to me that I seem like a free spirit, so and that bird thing's kind of making a little bit more sense to me now.
Speaker 2:And I think also, you know, I've had to learn to move from place to place because I haven't lived in so many different countries, so this. But I do have a yearning to actually be grounded somewhere. I don't know where my forever home is going to be or who, if I'm going to have a forever person either, because, um, and I can't, it might be like ADHD related, this kind of problem with relationships, but um, you know, I don't have that grounding and the soft side of me does want that kind of comfort and the companionship I've always, I think I've come across as very fiercely independent. It's interesting because I did. I was in a four-year relationship but when I was catching up with people who I had befriended online, they were like you give off such single energy online. They had no idea. So it's interesting, I think, that people pick up on, you know, my independence and the, I guess, my unanchored self.
Speaker 1:If you have a queen of swords on your side, she's a very powerful ally. Let's move on to the truth, the tea of the star, the truth that you are trying to share, the truth that you're here to illuminate, whether or not you do it to the best of your capacity. It's what you want to illuminate in the world. Your purpose in shining the Four of Stars is the Four of Pentacles. It's a tricky card because it's about stability. The Four of Pentacles in the traditional deck is represented as a kind of like, a sort of a not very happy looking, miserly kind of person who's sitting on a chair clutching four pentacles. And the pentacles are like their, their coins, their, um, their material wealth, their material stability. And you can see in this card, in the dreamy moons deck, but they're pictured in the same position, but they've also in the bottom two stars or coins. Their feet are like anchored and handcuffed to the coins. So there's this idea that if we fixate too much on material wealth and material comfort, if we fear too much what it means to strike out and take a risk, that yeah, sure, we might like secure our bank accounts, but are we then just stuck in the same position for the rest of our life afraid of moving forward. You've gone through this whole actually. No, this is exactly it.
Speaker 1:You've written this book, emotional Female, about the trauma of basically like pouring yourself into study, pouring yourself into this dream that you held onto much like this person is holding onto their pentacle this dream of like I'm going to grow up, I'm going to be a doctor, I'm going to be a surgeon, I'm going to do all the things and then I'm going to lock my life in place. I'm going to have everything I've worked for, everything I've striven for, everything I've sweated for and it's going to be mine. Everything I've I've sweated for and it's going to be mine. And obviously that didn't work out. In fact, you, you were miserable in that scenario. You reached massive burnout. You were not supported by the people around you. So, actually, what you're here to illuminate that truth in yourself. You had to learn it very like, painfully at first.
Speaker 1:And now what you're trying to do to other people, you know, like writing your memoir is to say you know, sometimes what we want or what we think we want sometimes, how we plan our life out, is not actually what's going to liberate us, it's what's going to trap us and if you persisted in sticking with medicine, if you persisted in that with medicine, if you persisted in that place of you know, burnout and just being absolutely miserable and completely eroding your mental health, that's not stability, that's destruction and that's that's entrapment. So you're here to basically say to people reassess what it is that you think you want. Never be afraid to unshackle yourself from dreams that have now become cages to you, because you're afraid of what it means to step back from what it is that you've been working so hard for. But life is so short. But yeah, okay, you might have spent 7, 10, 15 years, even starting to be a doctor or surgeon, but if you spend 50 years doing something that you hate, that makes you miserable, 15 years suddenly starts to feel pretty short.
Speaker 2:It does. And I think one of the things I learned as well is that there's no guarantees. There's this idea that medicine is a very stable job, that you will have job security, but that wasn't the case at all. When you're a junior doctor, you have to reapply for your job every single year and you may find yourself unemployed one year, so there is actually no stability at all in the in this career.
Speaker 2:So to to learn to let go of that idea that there is stability in life is, and also even with the pandemic in the last few years, we had to learn what does it mean to have an essential role in society, what is considered essential and what is non-essential? And also, if I had been stuck in that career, I definitely would not have had time to think about social justice issues that I care about. I barely had time to watch the news Like half the time. If you asked me who the prime minister was, I probably wouldn't have known, and we did have a lot of changes during that time anyway. But now I feel like I can care a lot more about things that I didn't give attention to before.
Speaker 2:And also, when I first started as a medical intern, someone said to me at the orientation like you're too creative to be doing medicine, you know, and I always remembered this guy saying this to me, because now I feel like I am able to do creative things. And I was actually thinking about our conversation last night about how you enjoy making flower crowns and I'm like if you ever had a flower crown making party, I would be there. That's like my virginal full moon party. You know, like I'm gonna invite you to the next one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll be making flower crowns till midnight well, there's something really beautiful about that as well, that that realization in you, that, again, with this card, kind of fitting in this, this spot of like, the truth that you want to share, what you're here to illuminate is you're a perfect example of what. Who are you living for? You know, you have this idea of what you want to be but, like in your case in particular, are you living for your parents? Are you living to represent? You know, you mentioned in your book, you talk about this sort of stereotype of the studious Asian, you know, medical trainee, et cetera. Like all of these stereotypes who, even with the Queen of Swords, with you know other doctors saying to you oh, you're very intimidating, you make people feel whatever it's like. Who are you here to live for? So I love that in this, in this kind of spot as well, it's like the pentacles that people put there, the coins, the earth, the materialism that people put their um hope into, that they pour their self into. There's a lot of like benefit to the earth cards. Obviously, we need living in the world, we need material structure, we need, we need um, we need to be able to buy food, we need to be able to plant food. We need to have security, but it's about reimagining. I feel like this card for you and how you're now kind of like using that um again, that queen energy to sort of like send this message to other people is about saying what what matters and what doesn't.
Speaker 1:If you're working 15 hours a day and risking burnout because you you don't want to disappoint people, that's not great. If you're working 15 hours a day and risking burnout because you want to buy a house in Turak, that's also not great. That's not great. If you're working 15 hours a day and risking burnout because you want to buy a house in Turak, that's also not great. That's not what happiness looks like. All of these things that like there's a difference between material need and material comfort and material greed. With this like softness, you know you're wanting to kind of lead people back to this idea of like. What is it? What is the point of it all? You don't always communicate the way that other people expect to be communicated with, and that's because you're a straight talker, because you're not going to mince words, and you're here to actually use that sword from the queen to cut through people's the, the, the chains or the ropes that are tethering to them, to this like material aspiration.
Speaker 1:And you're to be like what happens if you're free? What happens if you just float in the air? That's your quest, Got it? Does that feel resonant to you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1:What is it rising in you? How is your star beginning to burn you? Yeah, it does. What is arising in you? How is your star beginning to burn brighter? Oh, ten of Cups, so beautiful, such a beautiful card to get.
Speaker 1:Is that a horse? Well, there's a horse in the background. So the Ten of Cups, cups is the water suit. So it's all emotion-based, it's all very like. It's about how we connect with other people, it's our softness, it's all of that Piscean energy. There's a river running through it leading to the sun your Leo and there's a house in the background. It sort of depicts a family which can sometimes be like.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I struggle a little bit with the depictions of the Ten of Cups being very heteronormative. Even in a Pride deck that I have, it features two women who are kissing at a pride rally and one of them's pregnant. And I feel like I resent this idea that the culmination of our journey through the cup suit you know the suit of emotions, that the happy ending, culminates in family. That's still very kind of like nuclear, because to me I'd much rather think of the culmination of the emotional connection being we're none of us an island. We can't survive alone, and I saw some a really good interpretation of um. So basically, through the, through the suits, you've got the cups, water, wands, fire, th, thorns, air and pentacles, earth, and each suit goes from the ace to the 10, and then we have the court on top of that. But it's meant to be like a journey through the sort of lessons of that suit. Now some tarot readers and I count myself in this too see it more that we spend our time flitting in between those. So we might start on the eight and then come back and relearn the three. But either way, this idea is the 10 is the culmination of the end, and 10 in numerology as well. If you add the two numbers together, 10 goes back to one. So it's this cycle that in the major arcana the wheel of fortune is the number 10, and it's meant to be. The wheel always turns as one cycle ends and a new one begins, basically.
Speaker 1:So the 10 is the culmination in the sword and the wand suits in tarot, the fire and the action, fire reaction and the mental air. Both of those final 10 cards depict a single character that is struggling under the weight of the pressure of the suit. So the 10 of swords has someone with 10 swords sticking out of their back which is like God, everything has just collapsed on top of me. I can't handle the mental stress. The more we know, the harder it is to be alive. Right With the wands it's like the more wands a person carries by themselves, the harder it is to carry that burden.
Speaker 1:So there's this idea in, and then in the 10 of cups and the 10 of pentacles it depicts groups of people in happiness. There's this idea in all of those cards that we can't ascend to a level of like, ease and happiness unless we share our burdens with people. If you're just insisting on doing everything alone, then you can't. You will struggle under the weight of what that means. So, in terms of this kind of like falling in the, what is arising in you?
Speaker 1:There is this sense in you that, as as tricky as it might've been to connect with people in the past, now that you have the knowledge of why that is and this sort of the neurodivergent diagnosis, you're finding community in people in that and you're, you're learning, you're rediscovering and reacquainting yourself with yourself.
Speaker 1:You are becoming you're. You're really kind of like channeling that beautiful piscean softness with yourself. You're being kinder to yourself, less less rigorous, less judgmental. You've released yourself from the shackles of the four pentacles, that sort of like insistence on stability to please everyone else. And now actually you're like okay, I know more who I am, I'm more comfortable with who I am, I love myself more, I'm less afraid of how I might not fit into the world. And now what is arising in me is, through the kind of like seeds that I'm planting with it now, that are not quite fully at fruition but that are getting there is how essential community is to my life, how much I love being part of groups of people, when previously I always felt on the outside of them, and now I know who I am and I know who my people are.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:But now actually that's what I love, I crave like it's like you're talking about coming around and making flower crowns. There might've been a time in the past where you're like that is a nightmare to me, not because I don't want to make a flower crown, but because I don't know who's going to be there and I don't know how to talk to them, whereas now you're like I know I I know how to talk from myself, from my truth, from my like faith in me, and if other people don't like it, that's their problem. But I'm not going to let that stop me from forming this beautiful kind of like 10 of cups community with people where I'm driven by love.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of what I've learned in the last few years as well as who is safe company, and I think that now that I know a little bit more about why I don't pick up on red flags, for example we were speaking previously about narcissistic people I can now pick up the red flags a lot easier now that I have gone through a very difficult experience and so I feel like now that I can identify who are my people, I'm a lot more open to community. I would still say that I'm quite introverted and I think when I burnt out it made me even more introverted. But it's interesting that the very few friends that I do have seem to all be neurotypical. I've got so many autistic friends and ADHD friends and it's interesting that and I mean like more recent kind of friendships in adulthood and I think finding community can be very liberating because you feel like safe in that space there's a difference between being introverted, though, and being anti-social.
Speaker 1:You're not anti-social and I think that you can be introverted and you know it's not the this sort of like when I say you're kind of like realizing that you crave connection. It's not that you crave to like walk down a street with 5,000 other people at a street party. You know that's, that's not it, or even necessarily that you would feel comfortable at a party, but it is this sense of like you're dropping. Basically, you're dropping your guard to people who you trust and you're finally at a point where you feel like I don't have to be so guarded around every single person. I can let people in and, yes, if they fuck with me then I'm going to cut them. But there's a softening of the ice around you, there's a welcoming of what that means and I I think as well listening to you speak before too it's also that it's sort of like a rising truth in you. It may be not even necessarily that you're like well, how can I join a club, but it's like from moving away from that burnout and that reassessing really everything that you thought you wanted and then getting to the point where you're like it didn't make me happy, now, actually, that what is arising in you at a very simple level, a simple and beautiful level, is.
Speaker 1:In my life, what I want is to be happy. I don't need that to be successful, I don't need that to be respected in my industry. I actually just really want to be happy, respected in my industry. I actually just really want to be happy and that's that seems.
Speaker 1:A lot of people don't say that about themselves and a lot of people don't allow that for themselves because on one level it feels simplistic but it's actually the most complicated thing that we can. Kind of it's one of the most complicated things I think that we can admit to ourselves is that I just really want to be happy, and sometimes being happy means being honest about stepping away from things that other people ascribed to like is this, is this confusion between well, if you have a lot of money, then you must be happy. If you have a lot of like success, then you must be happy. If you have a respectable work title, then you must be happy. If you have a respectable work title, then you must be happy. But who says that you're going to be happier as a surgeon than you know this?
Speaker 1:great, like the great Japanese book Convenience Store Woman about this amazing autistic woman who's like I just want to be a convenience store worker and finding happiness there and there's. You should read it if you haven't read it. It's like I just want to be happy. For a lot of people can mean I just want to plant flowers in my garden, I just want to, like, make flower crowns, I just want to learn how to cook. You know, as a, as a, as a, as a humanity, I think we all need to, and this is where that Aquarian like radicalism and you comes through too. We all need to, and this is where that aquarian like radicalism and you comes through too. We all need to start like, really thinking about what is the fucking?
Speaker 2:point of all this? Yeah, let people enjoy the simple things and I can tell you that I have worked with so many surgeons worth millions and millions of dollars, owning lots of properties, and they were fucking miserable and they were awful to people and I just don't aspire to live that sort of life. And I think you know studying I think it was a Harvard study on happiness showed that after a certain amount, a level of income, the happiness doesn't increase after you reach a certain number. So I reject this idea that money buys happiness.
Speaker 1:You are emerging now to this point where you're like there are so many other things they want from my life that will make me happy and that is the least of it. We'll go to the last card, retreating. What are you letting go? What are you moving away from? What energy in your star has burnt up and died? Now Temperance Balance. You moving away from what energy in your star has burnt up and died now temperance balance?
Speaker 1:You know this card can mean so many different things just to in so many different readings. And this is the thing about tarot is that a card will appear and you know a lot of tarot readers will say that they, when they started doing tarot, they learned all the keywords and they, they learned all of the like the book meanings. And then a tarot, they learned all the key words and they, they learned all of the like the book meanings. And then a tarot card would appear in a spread and you'd be like, oh well, that doesn't make any sense, like, why are you letting go of, like spiritual balance? Because that's not the reading right, it's how you interpret it in the spread. So I think actually what you're letting go of, with temperance coming up, is and and this is a major thing as well, because you've got this is the first major arcana card that has appeared in your spread, so it's a real like unleashing. It's a real letting go. Everything else is sort of they're all um part of the minor arcana, so it's just day-to-day moments really. I always talk about the major arcana as being like a season and the minor arcana as being a day. So the major arcana is like summer and a card in the minor card is like a hot day in summer, you know, um. So temperance is this big shift in you.
Speaker 1:What you're letting go of, I think, is people pleasing. It's this keeping this very strict balance between who you are and who other people expect you to be, or who who you think other people want you to be. It's making sure that you don't rock the boat. It's making sure that you keep everyone's emotions in like an on an even keel at the sacrifice of your own. It's essentially being the angel in temperance who is holding these two cups and balancing the flow of water between them. It's you're done with that. You're done with being everyone's kind of like scale of balance. You're done with being everyone's person or like system or reassuring thing that they look to. I mean, even in terms of like what we talked about with the stereotype of Asian women. You're done with indulging people's idea that the Asian woman is kind and submissive and sweet. You're the queen of swords. Now he's like fuck off. If you're pissing me off, I'm going to give it to you straight.
Speaker 1:You're also done, I think, with apologizing, for now that you've got had this diagnosis and you understand your neurodivergence, you are coming home to yourself and so, in a way as well this 10 of cups, this like symbol of home what is arising in you I think that's a really nice reading is that you're coming home to yourself. You're finding joy and connection and happiness within yourself, rather than feeling, as you may have done before for much of your life, that yourself was a site of discomfort and unease and that you didn't feel at home in your skin. Now you are actually becoming really at home in your skin and in your mind and you're understanding yourself more. You're trusting your voice more and you're feeling more confident in your voice. And what you're letting go of is the masking. Is this very rigorous kind of like? How do I present in the world? You're just saying nope, I'm stripping myself of every expectation that other people put on me, and I'm showing them exactly who I am.
Speaker 2:It's so liberating. Honestly, does that feel true? Yeah, it feels really true, because and I know that people overuse the word, people pleasing but that is what I've always done, and if I didn't do it, I was told that I was a bad child. So a lot of it is in a child healing as well to tell yourself, your younger self, that you're allowed to have needs and you're allowed to exist and you're allowed to voice your opinion.
Speaker 2:But no one wants to hear the opinion of an Asian woman, but sorry, but I do have one, sorry.
Speaker 1:Sorry, not sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:And I think that part of it comes with age as well.
Speaker 2:Now that I'm, you know, in my my late 30s, I don't really care what other people think about me and sometimes when I find myself arguing back with people like idiots on the internet, I'm like why do I even bother? Like what am I trying to achieve by arguing with somebody I might not be able to convince you know individuals and strangers onto internet about you know minor points.
Speaker 2:I just think my energy can be spent better than arguing with people sometimes and just stick to more big picture movements rather than getting bogged down on the on the petty things and not giving my energy to certain people. I do feel like a lot of people take advantage of people like me because they know that and my sister's had this as well, where you, you know she was being poorly treated at work and people were like, oh, but she'll never leave this idea that we're, all you know, japanese people don't move jobs.
Speaker 2:It's just one of those things where, if you enter a career, you stay with the same company for like 20 years and this idea that they're exploiting the loyalty of Japanese people because we are seen as loyal and you know, even when I think about Japanese wives who stay in their marriages for way too long, it's this idea that we're caregivers or we're service providers and we're there to serve others, and this idea that someone like me might put myself first is so radical and something that people find difficult to accept and I think when people you know, especially when I'm not dating now but when I was dating, I think people get shocked when they realize that I am this fiery personality and I am very different to the Asian stereotype of the quiet, submissive, cute Asian girl who just wants to be there to be your silent partner and your supporter you know, before the page of wands came out, when I was initially shuffling, talking to you, these two cards fell out and I just popped them to the side because, you know, sometimes you feel like, okay, those cards want to be seen.
Speaker 1:I'm going to read these now and I feel like this is I talk about getting messages from your higher self. So I believe that we have like a higher. You know, we don't use our brain to their full capacity. We have like a higher knowledge, and I also am spiritual and I obviously believe that there is something so much bigger than this earthly realm, even if people listening to this don't believe that. I can't imagine that they'd be listening to this if they don't believe that in some sense, but even if they don't, you know, yeah true.
Speaker 1:But it's also true that you know, when you tap into your intuition you can really pick up on stuff that otherwise you wouldn't know. So there's lots of stuff we can't explain. These two cards that came out, interesting Message from your higher self, again, both major arcana cards, so big season cards. We've got the lovers and we've got judgment. Oh, judgment, don't think of judgment as being like you're being judged. But these messages, if these, if these messages are coming to you, then I think that what it feels like the right interpretation of that again is this ascension, like judgment is about judgment, is the last card before the world, card in the major arcana and Rachel Pollack, who wrote 78 degrees of wisdom, which is like one of the definitive tarot texts. She says that the world as the completion of the fool's journey. The world is like the unconscious made conscious. It's merging everything that we've learned, it's's becoming more aware of, it's becoming more of who we are, it's becoming a higher being in our own life, and then we might make that journey multiple times in a life, but every time we complete a cycle we know something more, and judgment is the step before the world. So, again, this kind of like you are ready in your life and you're being reminded through by your higher self. You're ready to move on to the next stage. You're so primed for it, you're, you're in the process of doing it, Actually you're, you've done, you've been through this like really hard work. You know the hard experiences that you've detailed in emotional, female, and this is a reassurance that there's no, you don't have harder work to do to get to the next level, because you're getting there, you're, you're moving into it. You're there already, you know. So it's a relief for you, it's a, it's a, it's a reassurance that you've done the right thing, basically.
Speaker 1:And then, with the lover's card, the lover isn't necessarily, oh my God thing, basically, and then, with the lover's card, the lovers isn't necessarily oh my god, umiko, you're gonna find a partner. It's about balance, it's about, it's about connection, it's unity, it's, it's this sort of what is in you and it may be that you're about to find a partner, if that's what you want, but it's also, I think, that actually what feels right to me is that you've come home to yourself. But the two selves that you know you're moving away from temperance, which is also about balance, but the two selves that you've been kind of like separated. You've, you've, you've worked to separate and to keep separated from each other throughout your life, your real self and the self that you want other people to see, or that you think other people will can only see, because if they saw the real you, then it's too much. You know, that's sort of like wounded Chiron and Gemini in communication.
Speaker 1:Actually, you've come home to yourself through this whole process and those two parts are becoming unified, the part that you are inside, the person you show the world. They're becoming unified underneath the banner of who you really are. And so you're, through the judgment, you're ascending into your, your fullness of self. You're no, you know, like going back to the queen of swords with her. Like you, you shall not pass.
Speaker 1:You have, you have matured and you have been through hardship and this overarching energy of the page of wands.
Speaker 1:Remember, from the start, this student, this learner, this still. You still have this childlike energy and desire in you to learn, to keep learning, to keep being active. But you were stagnant for a while because you were trapped by all of these. You were trapped by the stability, trapped by the expectations, and now you've unshackled yourself and you've come home to who you are. You're emerging as the person you're always meant to be. You're balancing your Leo, your fire with your Pisces. You're like the roar of the lion, the loyalty of the lion with the softness of the fish moving through the water and the crow that I see when I look at you flying through the air. There's kind of like you're balancing all of your elements, and the one that is missing in that reading is earth, and that's because for too long you have been kind of too grounded and so you're reassessing what being grounded in this life means to you, and I look forward to the next time I read for you saying what transpires from that. That's the reading amazing.
Speaker 2:You're very generous of your reading for me.
Speaker 1:I feel like and I hope this is beneficial to the listeners as well I feel like what's emerging in me right now is a real desire to indulge my interests, to do what makes me happy and this makes me happy, and actually arguing on the internet doesn't.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it ever made me happy, but it really is not making me happy anymore. And so I'm moving in my own life towards like this different kind of softness, and I know that in doing even a tarot I'm doing a tarot newsletter now on my sub stack and um, as well as a feminist newsletter. But even doing these tarot second-parters, you know, I don't know how many people are going to listen to it. Maybe I've got 10 listeners, maybe I'm going to have 100. Who knows? But I sort of don't care, because actually I just want to do what I like and what I find interesting. And if other people find it interesting, then they are very welcome to come on board. But that living for other people I feel for a lot of us is no longer working.
Speaker 2:I love that you're into tarot, because I think that you're talented at it and you have the intuition for it, and I think that if it's something that makes you feel happy, I love that you're doing it. And who cares what other people think about tarot? They're gonna judge anyway, so it's like who cares?
Speaker 1:I like woo-woo shit, get over it I always make the mistake of thinking, oh gosh, this will just be like a 30 minute reading, but it never is, because I love like going deep into the cards with people and I just wanted to thank you, yuriko, for your generous provision of your time this week in recording my podcast with me, but also it's it's no like it is a very powerful thing to have someone allow you to record a reading and share it with other people. So thank you so much for letting me use the cards to kind of go deep with you.
Speaker 2:This has been wonderful, thank you thank you for inviting me onto your podcast. It was so fun to chat it's my pleasure.
Speaker 1:I think you're amazing and, um, yeah, keep on just on the the trajectory that you're on because you're you're just shining very brightly right now. And that was part two of my episode with dr yumiko karota, author of the memoir emotional. You can find a link to that in the liner notes of this episode. It was really fun reading for her today. Thank you to everyone who's listened, and I know that tarot is not for everyone, but for everyone who's here. I'm glad it's for you. I've also just launched a new tarot-based newsletter on my Substack, which you can find again at the line of notes of this episode wwwsubstackcom. Forward slash at Clementine F. The newsletter is currently in May change called the World Turns, and it's for beginners, intermediates, advanced, anyone really who's interested in tarot and who wants to explore that further and get deep into the esoteric. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode. Until then, stay untethered, baby.