September's CIF Cards: You Can't Make This Shit Up

Every December, as part of Coming Into Focus, I draw a card for each month of the year ahead.

I jot down intuitive impressions and maybe give the guidebook a quick look, but I don't really go into depth during this process.

Instead, about a week or two before the next month, I return to the card I drew and spend some time exploring its message. Sometimes I pull additional cards. Sometimes I go back through the guidebook. I sit with the card and make notes, following the threads that catch my attention, and explore how the message relates to the intention I've been walking with since December.

Some months offer a gentle nudge.

Some confirm something I've already been noticing.

And then there are months like September.

The kind that brings the immortal words of a friend and mentor back to me:

"You can't make this shit up."

Because September didn't give me one card.

It gave me four.

And somehow those four cards managed to weave together my year-long Coming Into Focus intention, the work I've been doing within myself, and The Sacred Unravelling—the five-week journey I've spent months creating and that begins this September.

The deeper I went into the cards, the more ridiculous the synchronicity became.

The intention I've been walking all year

My intention for this year has been to stop being the Good Girl.

Not because there is anything wrong with being kind, generous, thoughtful or caring.

Those are parts of myself I value deeply.

The Good Girl I'm talking about is something different.

She's the part of me that learned to look outside herself for the rules.

What am I supposed to do?

Am I allowed to want this?

Am I doing this correctly?

What will people think?

Over the course of this year, I've realized that letting go of the Good Girl isn't really about becoming her opposite.

I don't need to become rebellious for the sake of rebellion.

I don't need to become harder.

I don't need to stop caring about other people.

What I've actually been learning is how to step into my own authority.

And then September's cards arrived.

The Ace of Air — Reversed

The first card is the Ace of Air, which corresponds with Major Arcana #1, The Magician, in this deck.

Aces contain beginnings and potential, but there was something in the guidebook description that immediately caught my attention.

An Ace isn't only about a beginning.

Like a seed containing the blueprint for the entire life cycle of the plant, an Ace already contains the possibility of the whole.

But my Ace of Air was reversed.

As I explored its shadow, I found myself thinking about fragmentation.

Heart and mind in disagreement.

The parts of ourselves we show and the parts we hide.

The ways we can divide ourselves into acceptable and unacceptable pieces.

And I wrote this in my notes:

Making yourself digestible rather than letting others choke on the totality of you.

Well then.

Hello, Good Girl!

Because one of her most subtle expressions isn't people pleasing at all.

It's self-editing.

Making ourselves understandable.

Palatable.

Appropriate.

Showing this part, but perhaps not that one.

Softening an opinion.

Explaining a decision.

Containing our intensity.

Hiding something we love because someone else might think it's strange.

I'm also beginning to notice another way I do this—one I hadn't fully recognized as self-editing before.

When someone shares something they know, something they've created, or a skill they have that I also possess, I often make my own experience disappear.

An acquaintance tells me she's created a community on Skool, and I don't mention that I have one too. A friend talks about making jewellery, and instead of sharing that I've been creating intentional jewellery for years, I stay quiet—or sometimes even minimize my own skill.

Somewhere along the way, I seem to have learned that making space for someone else means making less space for myself.

Don't compete. Don't overshadow. Don't appear to be one-upping them. Let them have their thing.

Except their knowledge doesn't diminish mine. Their creativity doesn't require the absence of mine. Two people can be talented in the same room. Two people can know the same things. Two people can create similar things without either one taking something from the other.

I don't need to disappear in order to let someone else shine.

There is room for both of us.

And somewhere along the way, we can become so practiced at presenting only the pieces of ourselves that feel acceptable—or leaving pieces out entirely—that we forget we're doing it.

The reversed Ace seemed to be asking:

What happens when the pieces are allowed to become whole again?

And because the Ace of Air is connected to The Magician, the question doesn't end with simply seeing those pieces.

It leads directly into creation.

The Magician — Spirit made manifest

The Magician is Major Arcana #1.

Potential.

Intention.

Creative power.

Spirit becoming matter.

The unseen becoming seen.

But one line from the guidebook jumped off the page:

It isn't enough to have focus and intention. You must also follow with action.

My immediate note underneath it was:

Time to make things happen!

The Magician isn't waiting for permission.

And that feels particularly important when I place this card beside my Good Girl intention.

The Good Girl asks:

Can I?

The Magician says:

I can.

Not power over someone else.

Not control.

Not force.

Agency.

The willingness to recognize that I am an active participant in creating my life.

But there is another layer here.

If the reversed Ace is showing me where I have divided, hidden or edited pieces of myself, then The Magician isn't simply telling me to take action.

It's asking:

What could I create if I created from my wholeness?

Not the edited version of myself.

Not the digestible version.

Not the version constructed around what someone else might think.

Me.

All of me.

And then September's reading moved from the energy of one into the energy of four.

The Four of Fire — and The Builder

The Four of Fire corresponds with Major Arcana #4—the Emperor, or as this deck presents this archetype, The Builder.

This is the energy of structure.

Foundation.

Boundaries.

Sacred space.

Authority.

Building something capable of holding what we are creating.

And suddenly another piece of my Good Girl intention clicked into place.

The Good Girl follows structures.

The Builder creates them.

The Good Girl looks outside herself to determine what is allowed.

The Builder decides what belongs within her sacred space.

The Good Girl asks what the rules are.

The Builder asks:

What am I building?

There is a line in my notes from this card:

Clear boundaries + discipline bring security.

And I think that's important.

Because stepping into our authority doesn't mean becoming rigid, controlling or closed.

Healthy authority can create safety.

Boundaries can create freedom.

Structure can give our creativity somewhere to live.

The answer to unravelling isn't necessarily having no structure at all.

Unravelling allows us to finally recognize which structures were never ours in the first place.

Then we get to choose what we build instead.

Then I noticed the other pattern

This is where things got interesting.

The Sacred Unravelling begins on the Autumn Equinox.

I've spent months creating this five-week journey around a simple cyclical healing loop:

Notice.  Allow.  Release.  Embody.

Again and again.

I didn't create that framework from these September cards.

These cards were drawn back in December.

But sitting in my office this morning, surrounded by my notes, I suddenly saw another four-part movement emerging from September's reading:

Reveal.  Reclaim.  Create.  Build.

And I just stared at the page.

Because look at them together.

Notice → Reveal

When we're willing to notice without judgement, what has been hidden can begin to reveal itself.

Allow → Reclaim

When we allow what has been revealed to exist without making it wrong, we can reclaim those parts of ourselves that were hidden or suppressed. This belongs to me too!

Release → Create

When we release the patterns, roles and stories that no longer belong, we create space.

And that void isn't empty space. It's the fertile void—pure creative potential.

It's the Magician.

Embody → Build

Living insight: The Builder gives embodiment structure.

It becomes the boundary we actually hold.

The decision we make differently.

The thing we create.

The way we speak.

The way we lead.

The way we choose ourselves.

Building life from the point of what we now know to be true.

Trusting myself on the path rather than the map created by others.

And there it was.

Notice. Allow. Release. Embody.

Reveal. Reclaim. Create. Build.

Two cycles speaking to each other.

One describing the unravelling.

The other showing me what can emerge from it.

Unravelling isn't the opposite of building

I think this may be the message I'm carrying most deeply into September.

Unravelling can sound like destruction.

Like everything needs to come apart or fall away.

Like we need to burn the whole thing down and start over.

What if instead...

Unravelling makes conscious building possible.

When I notice the Good Girl, I can begin to see where she has been making decisions for me.

When I allow myself to understand why she existed, I don't have to shame her or fight her.

When I release what she no longer needs to carry, I create space.

And when I embody my own authority, I begin building differently.

Not from rebellion.

Not from the need to prove anything.

From myself, for myself.

Which brings me back to the Ace.

The seed already contains the whole.

Perhaps this year hasn't been about becoming a more empowered version of myself.

Perhaps it has been about unravelling the beliefs that told me not to trust the power that was already there.

And perhaps that is what so much of our inner work actually is.

Not endlessly fixing ourselves.

Not becoming better versions of ourselves.

But noticing what we've accumulated around who we already are.

Allowing ourselves to see it.

Releasing what no longer belongs.

And embodying what has been waiting underneath.

Then—

Reveal.

Reclaim.

Create.

Build.

Again and again.

So, as I step into September, I'm carrying different questions with me.

Not:

What else do I need to fix?

What am I supposed to become?

Am I doing this right?

Instead:

How good can this get?  What else is possible?

How good can this get when I stop making myself digestible?

What else is possible when I trust my own authority?

How good can this get when I allow what is unravelling to make space for what I'm ready to create?

What else is possible when I stop asking for permission to become something that was already seeded within me?

I don't know.

And for once, I don't think I need to.

I'm curious enough to find out.

—

The Sacred Unravelling begins this September.

It's a five-week guided journey through Noticing, Allowing, Releasing and Embodying—creating space to recognize the patterns, stories and roles we carry, meet them without judgment, release what is ready to be released, and begin living from what remains.

Maybe you're not falling apart.

Maybe something within you is simply ready to be seen differently.

And maybe unravelling isn't the end of something.

Maybe it's how we make room to build what comes next.

Thank you for reading...

Always,

Juniper