Today I drew the Princess/Page of Cups. Traditionally I interpret this card to indicate being open to emotional situations, immersion in the realms of emotion, being comfortable and at home with communicating emotional needs and concerns and being empathetic and caring. The sense I have always gotten of the Page of Cups is that sometimes this is someone who feels things deeply and is unable to erect shields for protection. There is a youthful energy and joie de vivre that is both a joy to watch and a challenge to preserve and protect. It makes me think of teenagers who are like raw, open nerves. Everything in their lives is painful and traumatic and it seems as though the world revolves around them. They are so focused on themselves they cannot see beyond the day to day. They can be giving and generous as well as malicious and spiteful. If you hurt them, they immediately strike back.

But I also get the sense of fearlessness, a willingness to deal with emotional issues that we lose as we get older. Think of how often a child or teenager will ask us why we tolerate something (sometimes with a comment like “I’d smack her upside her head”) and we just shush them. As we get older we add layer after layer of shell over our hearts to prevent ourselves from realizing how inauthentic we’ve become. We lose that connection to our emotional nature, our heart. Instead we become more cerebral and political, working our way through the maze of social and professional interactions we are forced to deal with every day.

To me this card is a reminder that I’ve been struggling for several years now to reconnect with that inner emotional child. I don’t want to live an inauthentic life and I don’t want to just accept that that is the way things are. I don’t want to be phony and have to be biddable to supervisors even when I disagree with them. I refuse to deny that the emperor has no clothes simply to preserve my job.

In my heart I know that my tenure at my current employer is growing limited. Someone said something to me today that resonated so clearly I was amazed I hadn’t seen it before. We were discussing my birth card (the Hierophant) and he said that as far as career choices go I need to find one that makes me part of something bigger, something that does good for others. And I had that once. I truly felt that my agency was providing services and opportunities for kids that could change their lives. I was one of those kids once and I have wonderful memories of my experiences at my center. Now it’s becoming all about the money. We create programs to gather funds, not to help children explore their horizons. We spent so much time contemplating our navels (or revisiting our mission, vision, values and goals) that we don’t see how we’ve reduced services. Our upper management is so focused on managing that they don’t see the negative impact all of their progressive techniques have had on personnel and morale.

I’m not quite ready to leave yet. I still have hope. But if I reach the point where I can no longer be true to my inner Princess of Cups, I will have to leave. Otherwise I am damaging myself and I can’t do that anymore.