Balm for Spiral Bodies: Tarot Anchors for Chronic Pain and Illness

Photo by Ankhesenamun on Unsplash

“Then came the morning not so long ago when two carloads of friends and family members took off for the beach without me. From the girl who had to be pulled from the water at suppertime, I became the woman who was no longer able to walk on sand or swim in the ocean…I felt ripped apart by grief and loneliness. In the midst of my tears, I was aware of a single longing. “Please, please, may I find a way to peace, may I love life no matter what.” –Tara Brach, True Refuge

I. It feels like there are knives in my head. 

I am nauseous, overloaded on all levels. A small headache has erupted into the most painful migraine I’ve ever experienced, which is a strong statement for a chronic migraine sufferer. I have a (stable) brain aneurysm, so migraine medication is off the table for me. I have three ice packs pressed into my temples, the back of my head, and the top of my head, respectively, muttering prayer after prayer to please let the pain pass quickly. 

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I am on day two of my cycle – a cycle wracked by endo, fibroids, and abnormal bleeding — one that has me regularly receiving iron infusions for chronic anemia — and my interstitial cystitis is flared, making it temporarily challenging to walk, or even sit without discomfort. My cramps are so strong, my pelvic pain so immense. I am in the bath, the water twinged pink, praying for my medication to kick in quickly. 

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I am excitedly walking over to see a tree when my right ankle – the one with osteoarthritis – gives out from under me. I can hear it pop, and know it’s broken. This happens in front of my two year old daughter, my partner, and strangers. I am in searing pain, a pain I’ve known many times before, with three broken ankles, two foot breaks, and a leg break under my belt. I regulate my breathing, and try to show up for my daughter at the same time. “Mama fell! Mama got a little hurt, but I’m okay. I’m gonna take a moment and get up when I feel ready.” I don’t want her to be scared or worried for me. 

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I live with several chronic pain conditions and multiple autoimmune diseases. I have good days (which still contain some fatigue, as well as some pain and aching in my body) and really, really bad days¹.

On all of these particularly bad days, I have fumbled for my Tarot deck, feeling my way with my eyes closed shut to keep the light out, or in the dark of my bedroom, or in the middle of the night. I place my deck on my heart if I’m able, and ask a variation of the same question: “How can I show up for myself in the midst of this? What am I needing right now?” 

To be in a particularly spiralic body is to know change, adjustment, resistance, despair, and surrender all too intimately. And if we wish or want it to be, the Tarot can be a steady resource to us in the midst of this. 

The Tarot doesn’t fix, cure, diagnose, or solve the issues at hand. It can’t tell us when a season of health challenges will be over, when a pain flare will normalize or regulate, or when we will have more answers about the conditions we live with. 

It can, however, offer us gentle and expansive counsel when we are in pain, or are lonely, or are laying in our bed in the dark in the middle of the day. It can help us to release some of the internalized ableism that all of us are surrounded by, including (but certainly not limited to) within the wellness industrial complex. It can help us to be present with the shame and embarrassment that can come with repeated injury, and the pain that can come with being misunderstood as flaky or unreliable when we need to shift plans or cancel things unexpectedly. 

It can help us to breathe through and be with the moments of unbearable sadness, injustice, and rage at the days, weeks, months, or years of our lives being upended in directions that we didn’t expect. It can offer us allyship around missed get togethers and delayed projects. It can offer us a balm around the devastation we feel when we hear our child laugh and play in the other room, and we are unable to go play with them. It stays with us, and doesn’t leave our side. 

Indeed, the Tarot cannot predict the future or offer us a reliable endpoint to any challenging situation, but it can help us to meet the moment. It can help us to be with what is, and find our way back home to ourselves within it.  

In this piece, we’re going to talk about some alternative ways of engaging with our Tarot decks for these kinds of experiences, sense into a few select Tarot cards that can be beautiful anchors to us in these moments, and explore some gentle prompts and that we can consider working with.