Heart Reading … Day 50

Karen Willard Ribeiro
2 min readSep 4, 2021

I don’t want to go down this rabbit hole, but…

I like playing solitaire — especially when my computer freezes, like when I’m transferring files from my phone to the remote area network. And the past couple of times I’ve played, I have felt my mother’s presence with me, guiding the cards. If I’m focused, the cards “magically” get better.

This could become problematic. You see my mom passed away many years ago and it is natural for me to cling to this game in order to feel connected to her. So I say that “out loud” so as to keep a level head about me.

I also like the queen of hearts, generally speaking. Having not read or watched Alice in Wonderland in many years I had forgotten what a power mongering murderous lunatic this character was, shouting “off with their head” if anyone perturbed her. Some sources say the queen of hearts was modeled after Elizabeth of York because she loved playing cards and died so young in childbirth that Henry VII made this tribute to her. The queendom of Mary Tudor or Elizabeth of York means little to nothing to me but the card itself seems special. My mom loved playing cards too.

So I played solitaire with her again just now. A few lovely messages came through — from my mom, from my subconscious, from the simple act of slowing down and preparing myself in a special way … it doesn’t matter how or why they came through, but they did.

The key messages are (1) to tell stories more proactively — like going slightly against the grain and telling my daughter about Rosie’s escapades at the dog park today despite seeing her bloodshot eyes and knowing she wanted to go straight to bed after a long work week, and (2) to actively stress less — like driving around giving thanks for the trees (and their resilience during hurricane weather) instead of staring blankly at the other metal boxes zooming around me on the road.

There were so many great cards that seemed to follow perfectly, one after another. I know mom had a hand in it. And the last key message … is to trust all will be well.

I suppose I could have waited until day 52 to have a “full deck” at play here, but She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it).”

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Karen Willard Ribeiro

Beyond Karen: emerging from the depths of an epic epithet is available at innerfortune.com and at your favorite independent bookseller. Thanks for reading.