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Posted by Alice Wong Guest Blog Posts

The Graduate tarot card

The Graduate

By Anna Landre, Madeleine Gibbons-Shapiro, & the Georgetown University Disability Studies Class of 2021

 

The Graduate is at once grounded in the earth and floating in space, surrounded by pieces of paper scattered to the wind. In the center is a figure with a graduation cap perched carefully atop their head and a burgeoning phoenix at their chest. Behind the Graduate are two winding paths and a gilded, golden cage with flowers blooming from its partially broken bars. Illustrated by Kat Woodward.
The Graduate is the 21st card in the major arcana. She feels an internal conflict; a push and a pull between the utter exhaustion of the student experience and a longing for the impending freedom ahead. The Graduate fears the many sudden changes that come their way — the loss of a community and the pressure to cultivate new ones, the burdens of increasing instability and newfound opportunities. The Graduate knows that their journey brought them many answers, and with them endless questions. How can they turn their knowledge and privilege into something meaningful? The Graduate wonders who she is when she isn’t a student, and how her life will evolve outside the structure of the academy. Will she survive? Will she learn to adjust to these new patterns of trauma and violence? Will she find fulfillment and happiness? In the image, the Graduate is at once grounded in the earth and floating in space, surrounded by pieces of paper scattered to the wind. In the center is a figure with a graduation cap perched carefully atop their head and a burgeoning phoenix at their chest. Behind the Graduate are two winding paths and a gilded, golden cage with flowers blooming from its partially broken bars. Drawing this card means that you did it, and you should be proud. It’s okay to feel that pride along with your uncertainty, and the loss of what once was. Rise to — and from — it. The Graduate tells you that you have done enough, you are enough, and that it’s okay to rest. They impart hope in times of uncertainty, but also looming dread in times of triumph. Remember that some chapters of your life will close as others open. Know how much you’ve accomplished, and also that you are more than your accomplishments. Be kind to yourself in this time of change, be more you than you have ever been, and simply Be. Illustrated by Kat Woodward.

To commemorate and reflect upon our college graduation, members of the Georgetown University Disability Studies Program Class of 2021 created this tarot card, The Graduate. This card is a collective, community-built representation of our feelings as we leave college, and our Disability Studies community, during such a strange and stressful time.

In an hour-long session, we (Anna and Madeleine) gathered the hopes, fears, and knowledge of our classmates using mad-libs style prompts, and we then pieced the responses together to make the card’s description in real-time. Meanwhile, our illustrator Kat Woodward watched this process and drew the card as responses flowed in. We made final edits after the session. This exercise was facilitated and inspired by the work of our dear friend and mentor Dr. Mimi Khúc, who published her own tarot deck inspired by the need to decolonize mental health and highlight the Asian American experience in The Asian American Literary Review’s Open in Emergency project.

As students of Disability Studies, we have learned to reflect upon and question the world as it exists, and imagine radical changes for ourselves and those around us. Our time as undergraduates, defined in part by a raging global pandemic, has altered our senses of community, scholarship, and identity in ways that are often difficult to articulate. As we prepare to enter the vast world of post-grad unknown, we take this moment to share, honestly, our feelings of fear, excitement, responsibility, and uncertainty in anticipation of the years to come. We hope you find meaning in The Graduate, wherever you may be on your life’s journey,

With love and in solidarity,

The Georgetown University Disability Studies Class of 2021

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