Words
And the Two of Cups
I encountered1 the following quote from Anne Sexton today:
“My words will either attract a strong mind or offend a weak one.”
I shuffled my Tarot deck while considering the quote, and drew the Two of Cups to explore it:
I started regularly writing about Freemasonry here on Substack back in February of 2021. I followed that with writing about Tarot here on Substack in September of 2022. Those Tarot posts though, here on The Keystone, weren’t regular. I wouldn’t say that I started regularly posting about Tarot here until quite recently.
Both of those endeavors grow when I regularly publish the words I write. Maybe not quite as fast as I’d hope, but steadily grow they do. Indeed I’m quite proud to wear the “Bestseller” badge here on this platform.
The thing is though, these endeavors shrink as well.
When I publish an essay, I gain a subscriber or two. At the same time, when I publish an essay, I lose a subscriber or two. That’s what makes growth slow, gain two, lose one. Over the march of time though, these endeavors grow.
As I spend an awful lot of time here on the Substack platform, typically hours each day, I talk with an awful lot of my fellow writers. From that, I can say that a really large percentage of those writers obsess over those subscriber numbers.
They feel bad when someone unsubscribes.
They take it personally.
I’m different. I don’t really even acknowledge it’s happening. I see it happening because the platform sends me an email when someone either subscribes or unsubscribes, and I encounter those emails when I’m deleting things out of my inbox, but I don’t open them, and certainly don’t spend any time thinking about them.
I think that the reason for that is implied in both the quote above, and in the Two of Cups.
I don’t see an unsubscribe as someone who I somehow failed, nor do I see a new subscriber as someone really keen on me and the words I write.
Rather I see the whole process as one of finding my people.
People subscribe because they think that they might be interested in what I write, and how I write. They check it out. If they aren’t, they unsubscribe.
This process is nothing but a filter.
It is a sieve that filters out my own people from all of the other people in the world.
If you are here, and you are reading The Keystone, and you enjoy it enough to read it again and again, well then you and I are each other’s people. And that’s what it’s all about for me.
Finding each other.
The Two of Cups.
The quote: “My words will either attract a strong mind or offend a weak one.” is a truly effective sieve whereby we can find each other.
So, Thank You for being here, and for reading The Keystone. I truly appreciate it, and I truly am honored by the fact that you are willing to give me a bit of time and attention when I write.
A fellow member of our local Tarot group has just started offering readings on ko-fi. If you are in need of a reading, check out: The Nerdy Oracle.
When I started my Substack in 2022, I sent an invite to 22 people I know who I thought might be interested. Most of them subscribed and are still with me. Since then my number has rising to something in the mid 90s. This makes me happy.
But I also realize that "views" do not necessarily mean "reads". Sometimes I wonder how many people actually read what I write. But I try not to think about it too much. If you gotta say something, saying it is the important part.
I have to admit, I’m a bit addicted to your writing at the moment! Yet again, I’ve never seen the Two of Cups explained in quite the way you’ve put it. It really struck a chord — the Two of Cups actually happened to me.
I often feel like I’m walking on glass with certain people. What you wrote made me realise that I do tend to people-please, because I don’t want to upset them. And then today, someone said just one sentence to me and I felt so weak-minded.
That ties in with the other card you were discussing, six of pentacles; that people are only as strong as you allow them to be. It makes me wonder: what card would counteract that energy, to help balance it out? or can we kick them out of the deck lol