psychological challenges
Tarot Forecast August 2025: Strength
This month’s card is the Major Arcana’s Strength, which symbolizes inner fortitude, patience, and compassionate control. This month, we are invited to look within and embrace the quiet, enduring courage that lies beneath the surface.
The Strength card traditionally shows a calm, confident woman gently taming a powerful lion. Her white robe symbolizes purity and spiritual focus, and the lion represents raw emotions, instincts, and untamed passions. The infinity symbol above her head denotes eternal wisdom and the balance between the material and spiritual realms.
This scene beautifully captures the harmony between courage and compassion. Rather than dominating the lion through fear or brute force, the woman subdues it through love and understanding.
Her calm demeanor reflects her inner strength and her commitment to responding rather than reacting. Overall, the scene symbolizes the triumph of the soul over the ego and the mindful over the impulsive.
Instead of seeking power through force or dominance, the Strength card reminds us that true mastery comes from the heart, through calm resilience, loving intention, and unwavering self-belief.
The card calls for emotional balance, urging us to act from our higher self, even when faced with chaos or challenges. It’s time to align with your spiritual center, trust your instincts, and rise above fear with the grace of someone who knows their worth.
Embracing The Shadow Within
When I first began to intentionally and consciously walk a spiritual path, I remember doing so because it just felt so right. Every step I took toward ‘enlightenment’ in this lifetime seemed to bring more brightness into my life, and so many more blessings.
In those early days I was really rolling! I was expecting this to be an easy ride – all joy and light and love. It was wonderful.
What I hadn’t expected was the inevitable emergence of my shadow through as a result of all my spiritual work. And it was not something I was going to be comfortable with – admitting I had places of darkness within me, unloved aspects of myself, disowned pieces of my soul which had been abandoned and in such pain.
Through a series of, what seemed like, unfortunate events, I was given opportunities to face my shadow side. Challenges in relationships with friends and loved ones arose. I couldn’t understand it at first, and felt very alone and misunderstood. I was shifting the blame for this onto the people around me, instead of going inward.
Going inward, into the light, was totally okay, but going inward into the darkness was terrifying. My ego-self raised every defense to keep me from going there. Eventually, I could avoid it no longer.
My life at this point had endured tremendous change in the course of only a few years- so much so, that the entire landscape of my existence and the people in it were now different. While many of the changes were positive, the magnitude of the differences between my ‘old life’ and my ‘new life’ forced me into robust self-reflection.
The Spiritual Wisdom Of Butterflies
My grandmother was a poet. When I was a child, she wrote a beautiful poem about me. It was about a fairy girl who spent all her time outside chasing butterflies. The poem had a poignant message:
In time, the pendulum swings,
and you can’t hear the butterfly’s wings.
It was her way of reminding me to hold on to my youthful passion, to nurture the light within, and to resist life’s inevitable disappointments.
This wisdom has stayed with me long after her passing, and in the years since, butterflies have become more than a reminder of her — they’ve become her messengers.
Butterflies often appear in my life when I’m feeling overwhelmed, under attack, or grieving a loss. They flutter around me, landing gently on my skin and hovering close as if to whisper a reminder: “Don’t let anyone steal your light.”
These delicate creatures have become symbols of resilience, hope, and the enduring connection between my grandmother’s spirit and my own.
Butterflies hold deep spiritual significance across cultures and belief systems. They are seen as symbols of transformation, freedom, and the soul’s journey.
Their life cycle — from caterpillar to cocoon to winged beauty — mirrors our own processes of growth, healing, and self-discovery. They teach us that even in our most confined and vulnerable states, there is the potential for magnificent change.
The Spiritual Significance Of 555
Have you ever noticed how a certain number keeps popping up, almost as if it’s trying to get your attention? It may appear on receipts, license plates, or clock times – seemingly random places, yet it keeps catching your eye. Numbers are a powerful way for spirit and the universe to communicate with us.
Numbers have their own frequency and vibration, each conveying a unique message or symbolic meaning. Even in Tarot, numbers can play a crucial role in interpreting the energies and themes in a spread.
By paying attention to the numbers or number sequences that appear in our lives, we can gain valuable insight into the influences at play, empowering us to act with greater intention, awareness, and certainty.
The number five holds powerful mystical symbolism in various spiritual and esoteric traditions. In Hinduism, for example, the god Shiva has five faces representing the five senses and the five elements (earth, water, fire, air, and ether). In Islam, there are five pillars that form the core of Muslim beliefs and practices. In Christianity, Jesus Christ is said to have received five sacred wounds during his crucifixion.
In numerology, the number five is associated with the planet Mercury, which symbolizes communication, intelligence and adaptability. The Hierophant, the fifth card in the Major Arcana of the Tarot, represents tradition, authority, and spiritual guidance. The pentagram, or five-pointed star in Paganism and Wicca, is a powerful symbol associated with protection, balance, and the five elements. The human body has five senses (sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell), five fingers on each hand, and five toes on each foot. This connection to the human form adds to the symbolism of the number.
How To Deal With Toxic Drama Royalty
These days, there is drama, crazy-making and toxic behavior everywhere you turn. And it’s not just on social media and public transportation…many of us have to deal with people in our personal and professional lives who are overly demanding, entitled, melodramatic, mean-spirited, always in victim mode, or just plain unhinged.
Sadly, many of these spiritually handicapped souls are people close to us, people we care deeply about. It can be daunting to deal with their toxic actions and volatile behaviors, and trying to ignore them is exhausting and even impossible in the long run.
But other people’s dysfunction and drama doesn’t have to weigh down your spirit, and it doesn’t always have to be so difficult to deal with, especially with some spiritual support and backup.
The first rule to remember is that love works better than anything else. So, the first step should also be to offer the “drama royal” plenty of compassion.
Chances are the drama king or queen in your life is wounded in some way. Dysfunctional behavior and toxicity often stem from unresolved hurt or deep trauma.
Many people who exhibit dramatic or demanding tendencies often aren’t aware of how their behavior affects others. They may be caught in a cycle of emotional turmoil and, as a result, seek external validation through attention and theatricality. Rather than focusing on the label “drama,” it’s helpful to think of these behaviors as expressions of unresolved pain or unmet emotional or spiritual needs.
How To Navigate The Chaos Like A Champ
The physical life adventure we signed up for before we were born has many twists and turns. From our careers and relationships to personal health and world events.
While these ups and downs of life and love are exactly what we came here to experience for our personal enlightenment and soul evolution, they can sometimes throw us into moments of chaos, frustration, anxiety and even instense despair.
The key to not becoming disoriented or deflated in these difficult moments is to always remember why we are here in the first place, no matter how crazy things may get. Every time we face adversity or have to overcome setbacks and obstacles, we are making progress on our amazing soul journey.
Embracing the dynamic and sometimes very challenging nature of our existence is essential to fulfilling our spiritual mission. Staying balanced in an ever-changing environment is not just a possibility – it is an exciting opportunity for self-discovery and spiritual empowerment.
Change and uncertainty are inevitable. Developing a mindset of flexibility and adaptability can help you navigate the chaos with greater ease. Surrender to the knowledge that you can’t control everything, but you can control your thoughts, mindset and reactions.Amid chaos and despair, remember: every setback is a step forward in your amazing spiritual odyssey!
Three days ago, a deer collided with my car two hours from home. It did not survive and my vehicle is no longer drivable. The hardest thing for me was the grief of killing one of God’s beautiful creatures. Why did I not see it earlier and react sooner?
The Hidden Wisdom In Our Traumatic Life Experiences
In the thousands of readings I have done over the years for people from all walks of life, I have repeatedly witnessed how the crucible of life’s trials and tribulations offers profound opportunities for spiritual growth and personal transformation.
It never ceases to amaze me how there is always a spark of wisdom or hidden blessing to be found in every life challenge or traumatic experience. Even in the worst-case scenarios, Spirit is always able to reveal the life lesson or karmic opportunity in these situations.
In a psychic reading, spirit in the form of our ancestors, spirit guides, angels and the divine can offer profound insight and guidance into our hardships and challenges.
With the akashic wisdom gathered through many generations, your higher self, ancestors, and members of your soul family can offer perspectives and experiences that shed light on your current life circumstances.
Their presence in a reading can provide a deep-rooted understanding of family patterns, ancestral karmic debts, and inherited gifts, allowing you to navigate life’s challenges with newfound clarity and resilience.
In addition, our spirit guides and angels serve as divine messengers, offering support and illumination on our journey through life. Their presence in a psychic reading brings messages of encouragement, protection and divine intervention.