nine of wands: embers of mercy

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now: take a deep breath, let it out slowly, and let's explore the nine of wands together.

one of my favorite things to think about is the names we almost had: the names that would've been ours if we'd been assigned a different gender at birth, or if we'd been born at a different time, or been birthed by different people. those discarded names tell stories of their own: how names are chosen, who we might've been, who the people who named us thought we could become.

my parents knew before i was born that i would be assigned female at birth, so the debate eventually got whittled down to two options. the first was megan, as a tribute to my great aunt margaret, a relative on my mother's scottish side. margaret means god's pearl. but megan, the welsh derivative they ultimately preferred, can also mean mighty shield.

the second option was mercedes, a name my father wanted for reasons that he has never clarified, meaning many mercies.

usually when i imagine my dad advocating for me to be named mercedes, i give a little sigh of relief. not because i don't love the name, but simply because in 1985, when i was born, he couldn't have known that i would've had to live with the name mercedes jones during the glee years, a reality which i am endlessly grateful to have avoided. many mercies, indeed.

however, i eventually learned that my father's mother luella (a scorpio sun like me) was born in new mexico, that her family emigrated from spain to mexico, and that my grandmother's entire lineage is spanish and mexican. even though he's never said it explicitly, i can only assume that my father wanted to name me mercedes as an homage to that part of his own heritage, a part that we've never talked about. a part that, given that i am fully estranged from my natal family, i may never know much about beyond what I am able to find poking around on ancestry.com.

knowing all of this, i think often about the concept of mercy, and about who i might've become if i'd lived these last 38 years of life bearing that name. i wonder if i would've moved through life any differently, wanted different things, made different choices, if i held a virtue name like mercy and had to answer to that rather loaded moniker on a daily basis.

growing up, mercy was a gift that was attributed specifically to the only god i knew. a willing removal of force, a chosen release of rules or consequences, clemency. stronger than grace, fiercer than compassion, mercy feels sharp to me, a recognition that something or someone has been pushed to an edge and rescued at the last moment by an extended hand, a decisive tug in another direction. a deus ex machina. a saving.

"mercy" as an exclamation is a desperate plea, a hungry cry: someone so overwhelmed by pain, or pleasure, that they can only gasp out a single word in the hope of relief. in many contexts that begged-for mercy is bestowed — given freely rather than earned. but in a personal context, in an individual context, it's something that we have the power to extend to ourselves, if we so choose.

as jessica dore wrote in a recent offerings newsletter piece, "if i give the capacity for mercy only to god, for example, or a teacher, or the president, i relinquish the need to stay troubled about what mercy entails here on earth." mercy can be offered not only from the powerful to the vulnerable, but also by us, to us.

and when i think about mercy in the tarot, when i think about a practice of extending mercy in the tarot, the card that first comes to mind is the nine of wands.

the nine of wands is the final stage in the journey of fire: the last gasp, the crossing of the finish line, the grateful knowledge that our work is wrapping up. this is passion pushed to its limits; an awareness that we are hovering right on the edge of burnout. there can be deep satisfaction in emptying ourselves out for a cause or ambition that means so much to us, in losing ourselves to our effort — but there can also be danger in walking this fine line between victory and exhaustion. are we willing to give all that we have, all that we are, to our current pursuits? are we in too deep to pull back, slow down, take stock? have we lost our agency along the way, or are we making a conscious choice to stay here, to keep going?

in the story of the suit of wands, a tale that we have been exploring all year long, we begin with a spark of an idea: a focused point of energy that holds a promise of creativity, transformation, vibrant satisfaction. that spark grows into something magical, becomes more sustainable, initiates major change, develops into something that many can rely on, explodes into rapid movement, and now begins to slow and solidify.

this card as the end of the path can represent many things: a challenge to persevere and finish strong, a reminder to ask for help if we need it, or even a warning that we might be close to burning ourselves out or overextending ourselves. banked embers, that can either be coaxed back into flame to finish the job or instead, allowed to die completely.

perhaps these embers need one last push in order to achieve everything they were built up for. or perhaps, just maybe, we can let them rest instead.

in this way, the nine of wands whispers: what is left to do? what is left to give, to accomplish, to prove? what if you showed yourself mercy?

in this late-stage-capitalist-nightmare that we live in, we might approach mercy like we do rest — as something we have to earn. like we have to be good enough, productive enough, valuable enough, to eventually be worthy of respite, to be granted relief. the systems want us to be too exhausted to challenge the status quo, to be too desperate for pleasure in our brief moments of reprieve that we don't have the energy to step back and question why we're demanding so much of ourselves. mercy is something few are given, whether in the form of student debt forgiveness or institutional assistance — and even then, there will always be someone waiting in the wings to say that we don't deserve it, that we're not worthy, that we should suffer instead.

the nine of wands offers a different kind of medicine: what if you didn't insist on doing everything yourself, didn't push yourself beyond your own limits for someone else's benefit, didn't demand perfection of yourself because of a self-imposed deadline or hard limit? what you embraced the evolution that's at your fingertips, that you've been working towards, that now lies within your grasp?

breathe, my friend.

the nine of wands gives us a chance to look carefully at the embers that we have carefully built and tended, to note the sparks of light and magic and transformation that we have left in our wake, to inhale passion and exhale possibility. this card can be an opportunity to honor the work we have already done, while also giving ourselves permission to slowly detach, set down, move on.

this is the end of the story — one that is beginning to set up a new start, somewhere else. this is the single ember that we might choose to carry forward, leaving the rest to smolder and still. this is the approaching dawn, that reminds us of new sparks on the way. this is reclaiming passion, and perhaps, redirecting it.

and also: this is honoring the names we might've carried, the people we could've been, the work we may still accomplish someday. this is holding space for the liminal, the transient, the what ifs that live inside the finished accomplishments. this is releasing the old dreams, and beginning to make space for the new ones. this is respecting what is real, instead of longing for what may never be.

sometimes there is grief here: in the uncertainty, in the recognition that at one point we had to commit to a certain path with a particular destination, rather than leaving every door open just in case — and grief, too, in the knowledge that we have reached a far-off place that once deeply mattered to us, a place that may feel different now that we have finally arrived.

what if you gave yourself permission to recognize the changes you have undergone, to stop pretending you're still who you were at the start of this journey? what if you recognized what was already good, beautiful, finished, and also what may still be messily, perfectly imperfect? what if you let these final moments in this story of fire be about collective triumph instead of individual achievement, about what is done instead of what didn't get done? what if you didn't completely burn out in the name of hitting some invisible metric, some mark of success that will quickly be forgotten when the next spark finds you?

i may not carry the name mercy in this lifetime; might bear a strong shield rather than serving as some paragon of virtue. but i can still remind you with my words that you don't have to earn rest, or comfort, or support. you don't have to give every shred of energy and dignity you have to something that doesn't really matter — or even to something that does matter. even if the thing is the most important thing in the world, you still get to have space to breathe, room to think, opportunity to recover. you still get to change your mind, say goodbye, or just take a moment to breathe before finishing strong.

if you still need permission from someone else before you can offer yourself mercy, i'll give it to you right now. just reach out and take it: it's yours.

you do not have to be good. you can recognize your own capacity, fill your own cup, honor your own limits. you can ask for help, share what you have in excess, transform and evolve, recognize endings. you can celebrate something being finished, recognize a new beginning on the horizon, give yourself rest in the moments between.

what do your own embers need? what if you gave them many mercies, too?

wishing you a merciful, joyful, empowered and inspired september, friends. and if you could use some help slowing down, showing yourself grace, or listening to your heart, queens of spirit begins tomorrow.