Don’t be a grumpy monkey. I’m often a grumpy monkey when I’m working too hard. When I’m refusing to rest, when I’m so caught on the various choices and plans that I’m making. I can be a grumpy monkey.

That’s where the archetype of the fool comes in. Our ability to flip and stop and laugh with ourselves, to giggle at our cute imperfections, and to go have some fun. So I keep this guy, my grumpy monkey, on my desk to remind me not to take myself too dang seriously. Because Roger here takes himself very seriously. Look. These are intense times, and there’s a lot of tragedy happening in the world, and you may be going through some rough waters of your own.

You have serious work to do here in the world. If you’re doing your soul’s work in the world. You may feel the weight of your soul’s contract. You may feel the heaviness of your Saturnian duty in these times of great change. But here’s the thing that I’ve learned from my teachers and from the cycles of creation. Before power comes play.

And if we don’t play first. Our power goes off kilter. And if we take ourselves too seriously, our energy becomes dour and our transmission becomes sour. So the archetype of the fool. I remember Beatrice, my teacher of tarot, teaching me that the fool card, it’s like the zero. The first card of the deck in tarot. The Joker is the most powerful card of all, because it is in the moment where we leap with joyful enthusiasm into the unknown from our instinct and our playfulness and our depth.

Yes, that is the moment of the greatest power. When’s the last time we just let ourselves play like kids? I know it’s been a minute for me, and so I feel a little hypocritical giving you this lesson. But today’s the day. Because, as usual, we teachers teach what we need to hear. We share what we need to learn.

And so I’m claiming it: more play more play more. Giggling. And even though these are powerful times and we have powerful work to do in the world, we have to prioritize play or we will lose our way.