The Three of Swords and the bowl that only comes out once a year

SATURDAY, 31 OCTOBER

TODAY'S CARD

THREE OF SWORDS

III

the three of swords is the card of a grief that has been named, and it lands on the last day of october, a saturday, when the house tends to show you exactly how it feels.

halloween can be an odd day for grief. the doorbell rings, small people in costumes hold out their bags, and in between you might find yourself thinking of whoever used to love this night most, or carved the pumpkin a particular way.

loss tends to live in ordinary things. a carving knife, a recipe card in someone's handwriting, a bowl that only came out once a year. nobody else notices them. you notice them every time.

the card does not ask you to be over it. it asks you to let the hurt be accurate, no bigger and no smaller than it is, and to notice that the love it comes from has not gone anywhere.

what is worth leaning into today: doing one small thing the way they did it. the same bowl for the candy, the same song while you carve.

what is worth staying away from: pretending the day means nothing to you so that nobody worries. you are allowed to feel it quietly.

my advice for today: tonight, somewhere between knocks at the door, say their name once out loud. it does not need an audience.

is there something that belonged to someone you lost that only comes out at this time of year. tell me what it is.

The Founding Fathers Had A Soundtrack

George Washington heard it.

Benjamin Franklin heard it.

Paul Revere heard it.

For over 300 years, this was locked inside private ceremonies performed by some of the most powerful men in history.

No recording existed.

No outsider had ever witnessed it.

Until one man… a member for twenty years… broke his oath of silence and captured it.

>> Hear what they heard

This isn’t a modern creation.

Nobody "designed" this in a lab.

It comes from a living tradition that predates the founding of America.

The same ceremony.

The same tones.

Passed down through generations behind closed doors.

The man who recorded it says he felt the effects in his bones the first time he heard it. Goosebumps.

Tears.

A sense that something ancient had just woken up inside him.

He’s now sharing it publicly for the first time.

The men who guard this tradition are not pleased.

But he believes it’s too powerful to keep hidden while good people are struggling.

>> Hear the recording before it’s taken down

P.S. He’s an accountant, not a guru. That’s part of why I trust him.

/ a reflection

the things we keep doing their way

families hand things down that nobody ever writes down. how the pie crust gets crimped, which song gets sung in the car on the way home.

after a loss these small habits change their weight. some people cannot bear to do them anymore. others hold on tightly, as if doing it exactly right keeps the person close.

i suspect most of us do both, depending on the year. one autumn you carry the tradition with pride, the next it is too much and you skip it, and both are a way of loving someone.

what i keep wondering is which of their ways you want to hand on, and which you are ready to let end with you, gently and without guilt.

tell me one tradition you still keep because of someone. and if you have quietly let one go, you can tell me that too.

The Three of Swords and the bowl that only comes out once a year

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