Tarot lady said I’m very fertile. Uh-oh.

Posted on Dec 20, 2011

Patricia, the tarot lady gives me a hesitant look before divulging that come January/February I will be very fertile. Oh, really? Who knows if she suspects I’m not into having babies or if she can see that secret in my cards, but either way, she warns me. I don’t bother trying to hide my displeasure. I make a face and shake my head. No, I’m good, thanks.

Not every healthy young woman wants babies, okay? the Hermit tarot card

She reminds me that being fertile doesn’t have to be about actual babies. Thank God. It can mean creativity, like birthing an idea. I like this interpretation much better and I smile my relief back at her.

You see, I have good reasons for not feeling the requirement to produce off-spring. Some of them are selfish and some are rather noble and humanitarian indeed – evolutionary in fact!

I have much to do in this life. So much that I can’t imagine being consumed with baby brain. I see it in my girlfriends the same age. They’re nearly all either having babies, trying to, or dreaming of ‘the right time.’ They are positively consumed by it. It occupies most of their waking hours (as it ought to, it’s a big fricking deal!).

What gets my goat is that they seem to lose themselves even before said baby shows up. Everything is about baby. I wonder where their sense of self disappears to? And, let’s be straight here, I’m talking about the healthy sense of self, where you are conscious of your own patterns, dreams, desires and how you relate to others and the world. All this seems to vaporize. And it’s so few times that I see it return once she has settled into motherhood – hello, ladies, is this not a major cause for concern?

I don’t doubt I’m stepping on some toes here, but dare I say it seems some women undertake the thing of baby-making as trendy/should-do or simply by default that that’s what’s next in life for them?

I’m not into default decisions. Hell no. I shudder at the word ‘default’ whether in my Microsoft Word template or the prescribed ‘normal’ life path for a North American Caucasian girl. Blech.

The candles on the table flicker and my mind spins off to my late mother-in-law. Though I never met her, I’m told that in her final days, she pleaded with her daughter to not get married until she was at least 35. Presumably this meant to not have children until then also. There was so much she wanted to do, to see, to experience…. and she never got to. She was an artist and as soon as the babies came she devoted her life to them. By the sounds of it, she lost herself along the way. Canvases were left unpainted. Countries went untraveled. Self was left unexplored. Cancer overtook her in her early 40′s – just when a woman is really coming into her own…

And so for my “selfish” reasons – I simply mustn’t participate in babies because I see the world as my oyster. There is so much to be seen, tasted, experienced on this planet that I can barely contain myself sometimes!

the World tarot card From a more global—even humanitarian and evolutionary—perspective, if I really want a baby, there are many out there who need love and a good home. I don’t need to go reproducing just for the sake of it. I don’t need to guarantee I’ll have someone to farm my land or carry on a name. Nah. We’re beyond those times.

My mind snaps back to the tarot cards laid out before me and I wonder to whom I’m silently justifying my perspective. Rather bizarre that I’m voicelessly pleading my case…to no one…. Hmpf. I re-focus on Patricia with the feather in her hair.

Her information comes in as broken sentences and snippets… She says there is some kind of creative idea in me that is wanting to be birthed. …and that “you do this work at home, yes, it’s in your house. It’s just part of you.”

She says that she sees many women around me, yes, women working together, but I have to direct it/guide it, it’s my thing. Goddesses, yes, she says that it (this idea/business/project) has goddesses all around it.

And so you can see why I shook my head when the tarot lady told me I would be fertile…

I have much to do. And right now my seeds are those of creativity. And as a modern woman I also know that I can change my mind whenever I so choose.

My cards were read by the lovely Patricia Cosgrave. She does readings at the Psychic Studio on Granville Island in Vancouver and also has a private practice, ScorpioSun.