Lineage Magic with The Hermit Card

Last Thursday night, I went to Linda Shannon Hill‘s house. I felt like I had been summoned by the queen.

In her front yard, a rock was painted with a great horned owl. Inside, a low table was covered with little, painted-rock masterpieces.

Linda is a queen of getting things done. You know people like this right? They are the ones who bring people together. Linda makes the art walk happen in my mom‘s retirement community: almost 20 houses full of photography, paintings, pottery, blown glass, textiles… all with a laminated walking map and a Facebook page.  

I sit with my mom and Linda in her shaded courtyard. We drink white wine and talk about art and organizing and what to do about certain kinds of back pain. The corner fountain fills the room with heart-calming water sounds. Outside, the desert is beginning to bloom, wildflowers of every color responding to days of rain.  

As soon as the art walk is over, Linda will focus on organizing the block party, complete with food trucks and a karaoke machine.

Like my mom, Linda is one of the weavers.  She tends the fabric of their retirement community. This is lineage magic. This is the wealth that is possible when elders can share their time and wisdom and love of community.

In Tarot for the Great Turning, this is the magic of The Hermit and the 9th family.    

I came to Arizona because my dad is now in hospice. His Parkinson’s disease has advanced far enough that he can’t speak clearly, walk; his oxygen levels drop suddenly and dangerously. But when I visit him, even though he is saying “sneakers salad pick up,“ his eyes are twinkling with his signature kindly Midwestern humor. I know this face. I know this look. He is making a joke, and it doesn’t matter what the punchline is. I laugh and he laughs too and he squeezes my hand. 

Lineage magic.

All week, everywhere I go, strangers come up to me and say, “I heard about your dad.” Say, “I’m so sorry. How are you doing?”

Everywhere I go. I’m breaking into tears in front of strangers.

But the alternative is the frozenness of locking this grief in my heart. The alternative is grieving alone.

This care that I’m receiving is happening because of Linda, this queen of making things happen, and dozens or maybe hundreds of other queens like her, who keep people connected. The fabric that they have woven includes my mom, my family, and even me –  the daughter who lives far away, who comes with the rain.

These little kindnesses are extended over and over here, the result of hundreds of hours of invisible labor, so that we know when someone’s husband or friend or father is dying. 

Imagine our world, so woven.

Imagine your life, if you were the recipient of such kindnesses, prompted by an intact web of community, fed by elder wisdom, woven by Hermit archetypes: The ones who have gone on a journey, acquired skills and wisdom and then say to community, “I am back. I know a little about what is needed. My wisdom is in service to you.”

Imagine that you are one of the wise too. And are becoming more so, with every breath, every risk, every heartbreak, every tear that doesn’t stay locked in your heart.

 And then imagine that you have the time to offer your sacred gifts. As these retired queens do.

 We are changemakers. Let us imagine that option for our future. As we reject the other: the Republican party’s Work-Until-You-Die proposal to raise the age of Social Security eligibility and give massive tax breaks to the super rich.

 Let us call in a future where the fabric of community is woven by wise ones, by our Hermit selves, rich with love and art walks, food trucks and relationship, grieving together and karaoke and the magic of lineage.