December: Learning to Receive

Where November was the tentative opening, December is the moment you realize that openness does not exempt you from the ache of being human. The Five of Pentacles arrives not as punishment, but as a mirror: a reminder that healing includes the seasons when the light feels scarce, when the ground is cold, when the old wounds still know your name.

This is the card of perceived scarcity. Did you catch that? It is perceived. Because so often the isolation it evokes is not about what is truly absent, but about what feels unreachable. December brings the awareness of need, the tender admission of lack. Not lack as failure, but lack as truth. The place where something hurts precisely because it mattered.

The Five of Pentacles doesn’t demand self-sufficiency. It isn’t a command to “be stronger” or “push through.” It is the quiet pause at the threshold where you realize you’ve been walking with your shoulders up around your ears, bracing against a cold you didn’t name. It’s the moment you recognize how alone you’ve felt, even while surrounded, and how much energy it takes to pretend otherwise.

This card doesn’t ask you to deny the loneliness or the fear. It asks you to stay with yourself through it.

December is not the month of collapse, but of noticing the fractures. Not so they can shame you, but so they can guide you. The Five of Pentacles says: You’ve carried something heavy for a long time. You’re allowed to admit it now.

Where November offered the possibility of connection, December exposes the places that still believe support is conditional. The places that learned long ago to go without, to shrink desire into something manageable, to ration hope.

The quiet alchemy of this card is this: scarcity reveals longing, and longing reveals direction.

The Five of Pentacles reminds you that need is not a weakness, it is a compass.

This month may bring the discomfort of reaching out, or the humility of being seen in a moment when you feel unpolished, uncertain, undone. It may reveal relationships that cannot hold you in this shape, and ones that gently can. It may show you the warmth just on the other side of the door you haven’t dared to knock on.

The lesson is not in enduring the cold, but in recognizing when you’ve mistaken solitude for safety.

December’s archetype is the Sage: calm, contemplative, and rooted in reflection. The Sage closes the year with wisdom and grace, honoring all that has been learned and guiding us toward a peaceful transition into the new year. This archetype reminds us that reflection is not idle; it is nourishment. The Sage teaches that the cycles ending this month are part of a larger journey, and that the insights we gather now are the groundwork for what comes next. December asks us to pause, acknowledge growth, and approach the turning of the year with clarity, acceptance, and gentle presence.

This month does not promise immediate comfort.
It offers something quieter:
the courage to name what hurts,
and the willingness to believe you don’t have to hurt alone.

December doesn’t say, “the warmth has arrived.”
It says:
Look up. There is light ahead, even if you don’t feel it yet.
Keep walking toward it.

Always,

Your Trusted Friend ❤︎

“The Hearth Finder” Tarot Spread

Before pulling, sit with the imagery of the Five of Disks.
Let yourself feel the atmosphere of the card—the cold edges, the longing, the quiet resilience.
Shuffle while asking: What is December teaching?

Then draw your three cards and let them unfold the story from The Threshold → The Inner Hearth → The Path to Warmth.

As you interpret, trust what rises.
Let each card speak not just to what you see, but to what you feel,the subtle invitations, the emotional texture, the places where recognition lands in your body. This spread isn’t about prediction; it’s about companionship through the landscape of the month.

Embrace what these cards reveal, and let December become a chapter of emotional honesty, unexpected warmth, and the beginnings of inner restoration.

This is the last entry for this year’s 12 Days of Dreaming. If you want to participate later this month, you can buy the journal here.

We start on December 20th with the Winter Solstice.