Your Perfectionism Is Killing You
Or, diving into an often overlooked detail in the Queen of Wands (Part 2)
This post is Part 2 - a continuation of Part 1 on the Queen of Wands published a couple weeks ago. If you didn’t catch that part, read it here.
I’ve been thinking about the Queen of Wands’ black cat a lot lately. It doesn’t show up in every tarot deck, but I love when it does.
In Part 1, we examined the black cat as this tarot queen’s familiar, guarding her energy and protecting her peace.
This week, I want to explore the black cat as the queen’s shadow self. In fact, when considered through this lens, I can’t imagine excluding it from this court card! Plus, I have a tarot spread just for you, which I call my Illuminating the Shadow tarot spread.
I hope you enjoy, and I can’t wait to hear to your thoughts!
The Black Cat as the Queen’s Shadow Self
In Part 1 of this post, I mentioned the visual effect of that bold, black cat on the Queen of Wands card - the saturation and imbalance of all that black ink on an otherwise golden image.
I called it, in the most loving way possible, a stain. A splotch.
Another word for it might be a shadow.
Without this scraggly, silly house cat at her feet, this Queen would reek of luminous perfection. And as I write this, so appropriately in the season of Virgo, perfectionism is the enemy.
Perfectionism never helped anybody.
Perfectionism sets us up against impossibly exacting standards that will by definition guarantee our inevitable failure.
In the words of Liz Gilbert in Big Magic:
Perfectionism is just a high-end, haute couture version of fear. I think perfectionism is just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it’s just terrified. Because underneath that shiny veneer, perfectionism is nothing more than a deep existential angst that says, again and again, “I am not good enough and I will never be good enough.”
Our perfectionism is killing us. It is unsustainable and unrelatable. All humans need to feel safe, nurtured, and connected to other humans. Perfectionism gets in the way of all of that.
So for me, a recovering perfectionist, the amusing little house cat in the Queen of Wands, when a much more regal specimen could have been depicted, tarnishes the perfection of that card’s “shiny veneer,” to use Gilbert’s words, in a way that is wonderfully realistic.
Nobody’s perfect - not even this gloriously beautiful, confident, passionate, and admirable Queen. Even she has a shadow side.
As I’ve written before in relation to the Moon card and the Devil card, our shadow refers to the parts of us, whatever they may be, that we deem unacceptable and that bring us fear, shame, or self-judgment. While the term shadow sometimes refers to repressed emotion or even subconscious wounds and desires, the concept of our shadow can also encapsulate our more conscious tendencies of self-suppression and hiding.
And what does the Queen of Wands do with her shadow?
She puts it front and center!
How extraordinary!
The Queen of Wands doesn’t deny or suppress her shadow (as far as she can help it). She sits there basking in all her glory - and that means all of it, not just the parts she wants us to see and not just the parts she knows people will be comfortable with and accepting of.
For me, the inclusion of her black cat makes her a complete, integrated, whole being. And that’s what allows her to shine so authentically and makes her so magnetic and inspiring.
The Queen of Wands is downright regal, yes. But she is also messy and dark sometimes.
She is charming AF, yes. But she is also awkward and insecure, and she’s able to admit that rather than pretend otherwise.
She is supportive and kind, yes. But sometimes she is petty and judgmental, and she can ask for forgiveness and do better next time.
She is inspiring and leads by example, yes. But she is also anxious and has humiliated herself more than once. And rather than discredit her, those relatable failures actually make her even more inspiring.
So how can we start showing up as this perfectly imperfect Queen, ready to put the parts we might be tempted to hide front and center instead? It’s not a clear-cut answer, and it’ll look different for all of us. It’ll even look different on different days and in different situations.
Here’s a tarot spread that can help you explore your shadow side a bit more and see where you can let yourself be a little more vulnerable and a little more human and, in doing so, become an even brighter light in the world than you already are.
I call it my Illuminating the Shadow Tarot Spread and it contains four questions, or tarot spread positions:
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