Leo Full Moon Reading: Nine of Keys

Deer Sweet One,

Have you contemplated making a significant change but putting it off because you want a guarantee that everything will work out in your favor?  Have you been making smaller shifts here, hoping to appease the Gawds of Change?  Have you fantasized about what’s waiting for you on the other side of change?  

First, lemme tell you that significant changes are not synonymous with burning everything to the ground or earth-shattering revelations.  However, they can be (I’ve burned my share of shit to the ground more times than I wanted to).  Significant changes include sharing how you really feel (aka being vulnerable), establishing a boundary, or asking for help.  It can be prioritizing rest even when people are texting and asking if you’re available to support them.  It’s letting go of a problem you can’t figure out and trusting that other people can come up with a solution, too.  It’s responding with a No, Yes,  or I don’t know.  These seemingly small changes can bloom into revolutions, waves of change that alter your life and the lives of others because we're all connected. 

I pulled the Nine of Keys for this full moon in Leo.  This card affirms that the changes you are making and planning will work out in your favor.  If you need this kind of sign before making a decision, THIS IS IT.  But you gotta work for it by trusting the signs and internal nudges ushering you along.  And you can trust because the Femmeivers knows and loves you and would never lead you astray.  

The Nine of Keys represents the inevitability of facing something that feels unfair -- insurmountable, like it could end you -- and blessings rather than strife. This is the lesson and promise of confronting the hoop on fire.  The card takes us to the circus, beneath a yellow and orange striped tent, showcasing a brave soul wearing a yellow bodysuit and a matching yellow cap covering their head.  The brave soul is mid-air, halfway through a hoop on fire, with their arms tucked behind them like the wings of a diving bird.  They seem to have leaped from a small diving board-like platform, aiming for another similar small and narrow platform.  ALL WITH CLOSED EYES.  This is the secret to their success.  Without relying on their physical eyes, they are choosing to trust that their body, mind, and spirit will get them exactly where they wanna be.
  
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In January 2006, I attended a heart-focused workshop with my Cancer bestie.  During a group meditation intended to help us commune with our hearts, my mind slowed enough to receive my heart’s message, and three words rose and broke through the barrier that keeps my unconscious and conscious thoughts compartmentalized.  “I’m not happy.”  I lost my breath.  I knew what those three words were referring to, and they pierced through every layer of armor I had carefully constructed over the past five years.  They were referring to my five-year relationship with my baby kiddo’s dad.  I’m gonna call him the Bird.

I met the Bird a year after I graduated high school.  I worked at a dry cleaner, and he worked across the street at a coffee shop.  He wooed me with free coffee and a smile, and I called him my coffee boyfriend in secret.  To avoid getting off track, let’s skip forward a couple of years to the summer of 2004, when we decided to get married.  We were hanging out at the mall (probably stoned) when he said, “Come here,” took my hand, and ushered us through the clear doors of a jewelry store.  I had never been in one before, and scenes from movies flashed through my mind as I surveyed the array of shiny, glittery adornments through the glass countertops.  We meandered silently, still holding hands, until I found my way to the amethyst section of the store.  

“Do you want to try anything on?” the salesperson asked with a sweet smile, looking at me. I looked at the Bird, and he smiled, too.

“Yes,” I said, avoiding eye contact. Can I look at that one?” I pointed at a ring with a heart-shaped amethyst and a white gold band. It fit my left ring finger perfectly, and I felt giddy as I moved my hand slightly from side to side, admiring it.  

“If I bought it for you, would you wear it?” the Bird asked with an emotion I hadn’t sensed before.  He looked kind of scared and sweaty.  “Let’s go talk outside.”  I took the ring off and followed the Bird.

Outside the store, as we sat on a wooden bench, the Bird’s tone became serious.  “I asked if you’d wear the ring because it wouldn’t be just a ring…I wanna marry you.”  Was this a proposal?  We hadn’t discussed marriage before, but I knew I loved and wanted to be with him, and he cared for me.  He had a good heart and loved his mom.  I quickly flipped through a list of things I didn’t like – angry outbursts, questionable behavior, super stoner status, didn’t like my friends – but the good outweighed the bad.  So, I said yes, and off he went to buy my heart-shaped amethyst engagement ring.  

While he was inside buying a token of our future, I was assessing the commitment I was making, and I decided marriage meant I would never leave him again.  Never.  Ever.  No matter what.

In the years between our coffee courtship and me sitting alone on that wooden bench at the mall where the Bird just proposed, our relationship was on again and off again.  Months were marked with hurt, regret, and distance, but we got back together every time.  And as the one who did the breaking up, I carried a lot of guilt, and though he said he forgave me, there were emotional scars that didn’t seem to heal.  I hoped that saying yes and getting married would erase the unspoken disappointment and resentment.  I wanted to prove that he could trust me to stick with him, no matter what.  I wanted to devote my life to love, to loving him, to being happy, to creating a home opposite to the one I grew up in.  I wanted him to love me forever.  

Fast forward to February of 2006, at the weekend workshop with my Cancer bestie, and my heart confessed that I was not happy. Naturally, I started crying.  How could this be true?  I was engaged!  We already had a baby!  And she wasn’t even a year old!  We were planning to get married in his mom’s backyard!  I had a heart-shaped amethyst engagement ring and a wedding (?) ring with more amethyst and opals!  

But my heart wasn’t lying.  I wasn’t happy.

After my life-altering, soul-crushing, blow-my-life outta-the-water realization, I had to sit throughout the rest of the group exercise and listen to everyone share their epiphanies of the heart.  I was livid because nobody wanted to share about how their hearts wanted them to break a forever promise.  Instead, they proclaimed things like “My heart wants me to run!” and “My heart wants to go on a hot air balloon ride!”
  
“I can’t leave him,” I cried into my Cancer bestie’s neck while she held me.  “I promised not to do it again.”

“You don’t have to,” she said calmly.  “Just feel your feelings.”

“But I don’t waaaant toooooo,” I told her as I tried to muffle my sobs.

“I know, but that’s all there is to do,” I heard her say as she rubbed my back.

“What if I never stop crying?” I asked, peeling myself out of our hug.

“That’s ok!” she assured me.

I cried through the rest of the workshop exercises.  I cried as we walked to the car, drove to the grocery store, and through the aisles as she looked for snacks because there was no way I could eat a whole meal.

It was strange to trust that all I had to do was feel my feelings – the disappointment in myself and the Bird; the grief of failing to be a family where my baby kiddo’s parents lived together harmoniously and happily; the fear of what would happen to me and baby-kiddo if I did leave the Bird because how would I take care of us?  Was the unhappiness my heart spoke of so unbearable that I had to leave?  Would the Bird want to share custody of the baby kiddo?  How did custody work if we weren’t officially married?  Would the Bird keep us on his insurance?  What would I tell people – my parents?  The Bird’s parents?  I was heavy with shame.  How could this happen?  Why did I have to be the one to leave again?

But Cancer bestie was right.  I didn’t need to worry about figuring anything out.  Within a month, the Bird left me.  The day the Bird flew the coop, baby-kiddo cried all day.  I held her and bounced her on my hip, tuned on Cars, and brought out her little castle to play with, but nothing soothed her longer than a few minutes.  When the Bird got home from work, he picked up baby kiddo, and she stopped crying. 
I don’t know where the words came from, but they flew out of my mouth. “What does she know that I don’t know?” 

“I’m leaving,” the Bird replied with a steady voice.

I looked at him with disbelief as my tears started falling.  What?  Why?  He already had a plan?  WHAT THE FUCK?!?  My sobs bubbled up from my broken heart, and I let them flow.  I was bewildered.  What had gone so wrong?  What did I do?  He doesn’t love me anymore?  I collapsed upright onto the bed his mom bought us and trapped any howls in my throat because it was too vulnerable to show that kind of pain.  I didn’t want to scare baby kiddo either.  Five minutes into my meltdown, my head cleared as I remembered what my heart had told me, and I realized this was the answer to my prayer.  

“Ok.  I trust that you’re doing what’s best for you and that it’s best for me and [baby kiddo],” I said calmly with a deep sigh.

“That’s it?  You’re not gonna scream at me?” he asked, his blue eyes wide with uncertainty.

“No.  I trust this.”  I was surprised, too, but rather than analyze it, I just coasted on peace that seemed to come out of nowhere.  Since then, I’ve learned that the peace I felt directly resulted from choosing to accept what was happening and surrender rather than fight.

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This is a Nine of Keys story.  I have so many, and you probably do, too.  I hope mine reminds you of the blessings made available once you choose to dive into the unknown without proof or a guarantee that you won’t regret it.  I wanna remind you that the Femmeiverse knows your name, your heart, and your desires and will take you to the front door of the life you deserve.  If surrender.  (You can totes get to that door without surrender, but it’s gonna hurt more than it needs to.) Take that leap.  Let yourself fall.  Trust that unimaginably good things are happening to you and for you.  Say goodbye to this cycle of lessons.  You are entering the realm of unimaginably good things.


xo
Violet

P.S.
I'd love to sit and read cards with you!  Either in person (if you're in Tucson) or over the internet, which is how I do the majority of my readings.  Relaying messages from your guides and ancestors is such a joy because I get to utilize the assortment of skills I've collected throughout my life.  With the help of my ancestors, my gramma Lettie and gramma Lucy, to ground and protect us, I can guide us through the unknown with ease and care.  Send me an email with any questions! 

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