Finding Resilience: Lessons from Grief and Tarot Insights

Standing on the Ledge, Rebuilding from the Rubble

Hey there — welcome back to Standing on the Ledge, Rebuilding from the Rubble. This vlog (and the blog) is basically a live log of what it looks like to navigate a systems-collapse moment from the inside: job loss, survival-mode triage, trying to find footing… and somehow turning that rubble into something real.

Side note before we go further: today is one of those dates for me. I had an older sibling who passed away from injuries received in a car accident on January 25th, 1985. So I’m posting this early on purpose — not because I’ve got some grand plan for the day, but because I don’t. I’m taking it easy today. I’m going to veg out, decompress, and not force my brain to wrestle with everything at once.⁹

Quick housekeeping: the book editions (because Amazon makes this annoying)

If you’re looking for my book, it’s titled Standing on the Ledge:Field Notes: Rebuilding from the Rubble. There’s a first edition and a second edition. Amazon will sometimes show the first edition first — and if you grab that one, you’ll notice it’s only 24 pages. If you click “Other books in this series” (or the “other editions” area), you’ll see the Second Edition. Completely different cover. Expanded content. The version I actually want people reading.

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Animals: “they can’t be trained” is usually code for “we weren’t consistent”

Okay. Dogs. Animals. This is the thing that’s frustrating the hell out of me lately. Some people act like their dog is a mystical chaos-goblin that can’t possibly learn rules. My position is simple:

If you aren’t consistent, they aren’t learning.¹

You want boundaries? Then enforce boundaries. Every time. Not “sometimes.” Not “when you feel like it.” Consistency is the whole game — for animals, for kids, for adults, for all of us.²

• No dogs in the kitchen while cooking? Then remove them from the kitchen every single time.
• No whining beside you while you eat? Then don’t “sometimes” feed them scraps or reward the noise.
• No begging? Then don’t negotiate with begging. You’re training the begging.

Inconsistency doesn’t create “untrainable dogs.” It creates confused animals who keep trying the same behavior because, once in a while, it works. And if you’re wondering why I’m hammering this point: because it’s the same pattern that wrecks human systems too — mixed rules, mixed messages, mixed enforcement. That’s how you get chaos.

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World events: I’m watching a line get tested in real time

Now the hard part. From what I’ve watched and what’s circulating right now, it looks like things took another turn for the worse in Minnesota. If what I’m seeing is accurate, the use of force shown is beyond excessive — and I’m saying that carefully, because words matter, and so do outcomes. My condolences go out to that man’s family.

And I’ll say this plainly: leaders don’t get to wash their hands of what happens under their mandates. When people act under your authority, you own the consequences.³

I’ve also seen claims that the National Guard has been called in. If that’s true, it can’t be “sort of okay.” It’s either stabilizing — or it’s gasoline. A line gets drawn. Clear mandates get given. No more run-amok.

And yes, I’m going to name the historical alarm bell: interference with elections is one of the clearest “we crossed the Rubicon” markers a society can hit. At that point, you’re not arguing politics — you’re arguing whether the system still exists.

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Back to me: “Moon child” work — resentment, release, and the Fir

Today’s message hit a nerve (in the useful way): you may be carrying resentment for someone who wronged you — and it’s been building for a long time. Moon child energy (Cancer energy, for those who speak astrology) tends to hold things close, protect the soft spots, and replay the hurt in private. That can turn into anxiety, agitation, erosion of confidence, and spillover into work and relationships.⁴

The instruction isn’t “go confront the source.” The instruction is: find peace so the event loses power. Give yourself permission to release the anger and the sadness. Make it matter less.

Now weave that into the Druidic Fir: evergreen resilience. Longevity. Quiet honesty. A perceptive mind that sees what others don’t — and a tendency toward isolation when the world feels unsafe. Fir doesn’t pretend winter isn’t winter. Fir endures it. But Fir also doesn’t thrive by freezing forever. The work is to stay rooted without turning into stone.

And on an anniversary day like this, that Fir lesson matters even more: you don’t have to “fix” winter today — you just have to stay green enough to get through it.

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Tarot (Rider–Waite): today’s four-card spread

Deck note for the curious: I’m using the classic Rider–Waite style deck (and yeah… I’ve had a version of this deck in my orbit for decades).

Position	Card	What it’s saying (in plain English)
Past	Knight of Pentacles	The slow grind. The builder mode. The “do it properly even when it’s boring” energy. This is discipline, routine, and stubborn follow-through — the kind that rebuilds a life brick by brick.5
Present	Eight of Wands	Momentum. Messages. Sudden movement. Things accelerating whether you’re fully ready or not. This can be opportunity — or it can be stress-speed. Either way, the pace just changed.
Future	Knight of Cups (reversed)	Emotional turbulence. Idealism getting dented. Promises that don’t land. Mood leading the steering wheel. Reversed Knights can be “I want the feeling more than the work,” or “I believed what I needed to believe.”6
Me / Querent	Six of Cups (reversed)	Nostalgia with teeth. The past calling your name — but not always with good intentions. Reversed can mean: “I can’t go back,” or “the old story isn’t safe to live in anymore.” It’s also a warning about getting stuck in memory as a hiding place.7

So what’s the actual reading?

Here’s what I’m seeing when I lay these beside each other:

The Knight of Pentacles says I’ve already been doing the hard part — slow, consistent rebuilding. That’s not glamorous. It’s not fast. But it’s real. Then the Eight of Wands shows up and basically says: “Okay, now the pace changes.” Sudden messages, sudden shifts, sudden demands.

And here’s the trap door: when life speeds up, I’m at risk of slipping into the Knight of Cups reversed — reacting emotionally, chasing relief, chasing the “right feeling,” or getting pulled into someone else’s emotional theatre. That’s where resentment lives too: it keeps the nervous system activated, keeps the story running, keeps the wound warm.⁴

Meanwhile, I’m sitting here as the Six of Cups reversed — which, to me, is a clear instruction: stop living in the before-times. Stop asking the past to give you safety it can’t give you. Stop letting nostalgia become a sedative. If I want peace, it has to be built in the present tense.

This is where the Fir comes back in: endure the winter, yes — but don’t confuse endurance with isolation. Resilience doesn’t mean “I do everything alone.” It means “I stay upright long enough to find my next foothold.”⁸

Field notes for today (actionable, not fluffy)

• Stay in Knight of Pentacles mode: pick one practical task and complete it cleanly.
• Ride Eight of Wands without panic: respond to what’s real, not what’s loud.
• Watch for Knight of Cups reversed: don’t make decisions while emotionally flooded.
• Six of Cups reversed boundary: don’t use the past as a hiding place — use it as a lesson.
• Fir practice: resilient, honest, perceptive… but not frozen. Rooted, not walled off.

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Footnotes

1. Operant conditioning basics: behavior that gets intermittently rewarded tends to persist (and intensify). See B.F. Skinner’s work on reinforcement schedules. ↩
2. Social learning: consistency and modeling shape behavior over time. See Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. ↩
3. Authority and responsibility: classic sociology on bureaucracy, obedience, and the diffusion of responsibility (e.g., Weber on bureaucracy; later work on obedience and institutional harm). ↩
4. Rumination and resentment can keep the stress response activated and distort decision-making. Related work: emotion regulation research (e.g., James Gross) and clinical models of rumination. ↩
5. Behavioral activation principle: steady, values-linked action often restores stability better than waiting for motivation. ↩
6. Cognitive distortions and mood-driven reasoning are well-covered in CBT traditions (e.g., Beck). ↩
7. Narrative identity: when we over-identify with an older version of the story, we can get stuck in “meaning loops.” (Broadly linked to narrative psychology and memory research.) ↩
8. Durkheim’s concept of anomie (social breakdown / normlessness) is a useful lens when “the rules” feel unstable; Mills’ sociological imagination helps connect personal strain to public context. ↩
9. Anniversaries can intensify grief reactions and body memory; allowing intentional low-demand time can be a practical form of self-regulation rather than avoidance. (General grief/anniversary reaction literature; aligns with phased “triage” approaches to stress.) ↩