Alaska was tugging at me again. Old photos, a friend’s posts - I could feel the pull like a craving.

They reminded me of when my dad was alive, when Zephyr was healthy, when my daughter was still little. 

And the adventure of it! Wild blueberries and bears, orcas and puffins– that one day when traffic had to stop because a sea lion decided it owned the road.

It was an exceptionally magical place.

What the pictures don’t show is the mundane, the day to day challenges like months of rain and darkness, canceled flights, the isolation of solo parenting. Yes, it was breathtaking, but it was also hard.

The agitation every time I saw a picture pop up had been going on for a while and it finally got loud enough that I knew I needed to stop skimming the surface of this and sit with it intentionally. 

So I grabbed my tarot deck and pulled a card: the Four of Wands.

The card is about home, foundations, about belonging. And it helped me see that what I was really longing for wasn’t Alaska itself. It was the version of home I’d stored in those pictures - the highlight moments, the friends, the energy of place.

And it also pointed out that part of my agitation was simply that I don’t feel fully settled in our new location, yet. I’m still in the “establishing a foundation” stage. 

It might not be wild blueberries and sea lions blocking traffic, but when I step out on my deck, I see the ocean. A very short walk down and I’m on the beach. It’s different, but still good.

Once I named that, things softened, diffused. It was a reminder that awe and adventure will come, in its own form in this new place. For now, just focus on building roots.

And that’s why I love working with tarot so much–it gives a new way of looking at things, helping to see what is beneath the surface, so you can move forward with a little more confidence and direction.