Iara Lima

After writing about the cards we fear finding in a reading, I found myself thinking about a question.

Are there really good cards? I don’t think so.

Or perhaps there is another way of looking at it.

Because, if some cards ask us for courage to cross through a difficult phase, there are others that arrive almost as if to say:

“Breathe.” “You made it.” “Rest a while.”

These I like to call rest cards.

Not because life has finally stopped testing us, but because it also knows how to offer small places where we can catch our breath.

It was thinking about this that I came to the Four of Wands. Whenever this card appears, I feel like moving into it.

The four poles decorated with flowers. People celebrating.

The feeling that there is a home waiting for someone. It is not necessarily a house of bricks. It is that rare feeling of belonging.

Of arriving somewhere and realizing you don’t need to prove anything to exist there. Perhaps that is why this card moves me so much.

Happiness does not always appear as a great achievement. Sometimes it arrives in the form of a set table.

Of an embrace. Of a long conversation. Of a “stay a little longer.”

Then comes the Star. I find it hard to look at this card without remembering the sky after the storm. It does not promise that all problems have disappeared.

It only shows that there is still direction. Hope was never the absence of suffering. Hope is continuing to walk even knowing there is still road ahead.

And there is the Sun.

Perhaps the most luminous card in the entire tarot. What enchants me most about it are the sunflowers. The more I observe this plant, the more I believe it teaches a beautiful way of existing. The sunflower does not produce the light.

It simply chooses to turn toward it. Perhaps that is what this card tries to remind us.

We cannot always control what happens to us. But we can still choose where to look.

Even the Aces, which so many people celebrate when they appear, I have learned to receive gently.

An Ace of Cups may announce a new affection.

An Ace of Pentacles may open an opportunity.

An Ace of Wands may awaken an idea.

But they remain seeds. Beautiful. Full of possibilities. And seeds do not bloom on the same day they are planted. Perhaps that is precisely what is most beautiful about them.

They promise a future. Not a guarantee.

In the end, I still think no card is completely good or completely bad.

Everything is movement. Perhaps the true gift is not finding a “perfect” card.

Perhaps it is realizing that, after crossing so many winters, life also offers us moments of rest.

That is what a Four of Wands is for.

Not to say the journey is over.

But to remind us that we can celebrate every stretch we have traveled.

Because, sometimes, arriving does not mean reaching the destination.

It only means looking back and realizing we survived the path.

Siamo arrivati.