Dear Kindred Spirit,
For a long time, I believed there was a finish line.
Somewhere around 45, I thought, you arrive. You’re an adult now. You know what’s up. You’re the wise one.
I’m 47, and this is when I experienced one of the deepest, most intense periods of healing I’ve ever been through.
I’ve done big transformation before. I got sober in my early 30s, and that was a time of triage, just learning how to live each day. After that came the work of becoming a life coach, learning how to connect with my own authenticity and make choices from there. It was a beautiful time of settling into who I was.
Honestly, I didn’t expect another excavation. Then, about a year and a half ago, I hit a different kind of bottom. This one was about relationships, codependency, and my pattern of rescuing people it was never my responsibility to rescue. It landed me somewhere really painful, and it asked me to change how I show up in every relationship, not only the romantic ones.
I’ll admit there was embarrassment in it. Isn’t 45 when I’m supposed to have made it? I can see now how silly that thought was. But I truly believed it.
Two books that showed me I wasn’t alone
In the middle of all this, I read two memoirs I couldn’t put down: Awake by Jen Hatmaker and All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert. They’re very different stories. Hatmaker’s begins with a discovery in the middle of the night. Gilbert’s centers on the dying of her partner Rayya and her own reckoning with love addiction. Underneath, both are midlife reckonings, women looking honestly at their own patterns and finding a deeper level of truth.
Reading them, I started to notice how different this healing felt from my earlier healing. I wasn’t starting from scratch. I didn’t have to rediscover who I was. This was a targeted initiation into a new level of maturity, aimed at one deep part of me that was still wounded and still making choices that didn’t serve me.
A crone threshold?
I’ve been wondering about what it means to cross a threshold into what some call cronehood. I haven’t done a lot of research on it yet, so I’m holding it as a question. But I know how I feel now compared to a year and a half ago. I have boundaries I never had before. When I turn inward, I feel stronger, more confident, more like a pillar. I’m simply not willing to take what I used to take.
What the Queen of Pentacles said.
So I asked the tarot: What do we need to know about healing, growth, and transformation in midlife? I pulled the Queen of Pentacles.
In the image, she sits on her throne, holding a big golden pentacle in her lap as tenderly as you’d hold a baby. Traditionally, she’s about nurturing and about managing resources with care and generosity.
Here’s the message that came through for me: when we’ve already done a lot of healing and we revisit a pattern, we come to it as the Queen, from a place of leadership. We know who we are. We have strength.
And that strength is exactly what allows us to go deeper. At the start of our journey, there’s only so far we can go. As we grow stronger, we can reach places we couldn’t reach before. So if you’ve ever felt shame about a choice and thought, I should know better by now, try seeing it this way. You’re not behind. You’re now strong enough to heal what was out of reach.
Nothing you’ve learned is lost. Every round of healing brings more truth, more authenticity, more love, and more empowerment. And you can approach the next round with a deeper trust in yourself, because you know you’ve changed before and you know what’s on the other side.
A few questions to sit with
Where am I judging myself for being “back here again”?
What strength do I have now that I didn’t have ten years ago?
What am I finally strong enough to look at?
To find out the specific answer this card has for you, download your free Tarot Journal, which guides you step-by-step through reading the card.
If you want support
If you’re in the thick of it and want a companion through the process, you can book a 1-on-1 session with me. We’ll pull cards, talk through what’s happening, and get you clear. And if you know you have a soul mission, something you’re here to give, I’m now offering 2027 Soul Mission Tarot Readings.
Book recommendation: A Dragon Rider’s Guide to Retirement
For the lighter side of midlife, I loved this cozy romantasy by Julia Huni. A Fire Witch whose magic is waning retires to an island and takes over her aunt’s bookstore, and then the dragon rider from the country she’s been at war with for decades retires to the same island. It’s a slow burn with no spicy scenes, plus some very funny perimenopause moments, including a hot flash that sets her hair on fire.
Listen to Episode 2 wherever you get your podcasts, and find me at @tarotandclarity and Emma’s Reading Room.
—Emma
Disclaimer: This blog is a resource guide for educational and informational purposes only and should not take the place of hiring a life coach, a therapist, or of seeking medical attention. No information on this blog creates a coach-client relationship between us. You are fully responsible for the decisions and actions you take in regard to your life and affairs.