OSTARA | The First Turn of the Wheel: The Door in the Mountain

Something stirs beneath the frozen earth. Deep, slow, and inevitable—the ice is thinning, the roots are waking, and the world is stretching in its sleep. 

Season 5 of When Walls Can Talk begins at Ostara, the spring equinox, that perfect balance point between dark and light where the scales finally tip toward warmth and renewal. Thousands have whispered stories about this night, calling it a threshold we step through intentionally—and perhaps one that steps through us.

This premiere takes you on a journey through an original tale of Astrid, a young woman born into endless winter who feels a mysterious pull toward a forgotten door in a distant mountain. As she battles doubt, exhaustion, and the bitter cold to reach her destination, we discover what happens when spring has been forgotten and what price must be paid for its return. It's a story about thresholds, about the courage to move forward when everyone else has accepted the cold, about what we must leave behind to embrace what waits on the other side.

The episode weaves together ancient mythology, pagan traditions, and a tarot reading that illuminates not just the season ahead for the podcast, but the collective journey we're all undertaking. From the World card marking completion to the King of Pentacles asking what is truly ours to build, the reading reminds us that we stand at a powerful turning point.

As we step into this new season together, you're invited to join a special project—creating time capsule messages about who you hope to become by the time this season concludes. These messages will be opened in our finale, revealing what seeds planted now have blossomed in ways expected and unexpected.

The wheel has turned, the door is open, and what was buried is no longer sleeping. Will you step through?

Chapters

• 0:21 Something Stirs Beneath the Earth
• 0:49 Welcome to Season 5
• 3:00 The Story of Ostara Begins
• 13:37 Astrid's Journey to the Mountain
• 21:53 Opening the Door
• 30:55 The Wheel of the Year
• 36:42 Tarot for the Season
• 42:38 Creating Our Time Capsule

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:21

There's something moving beneath the earth. You wouldn't hear it, not unless you were listening, not unless you pressed your hands into the frozen ground and felt it stir beneath your palms Deep, slow and inevitable. The ice is thinning, the roots are waking, the world is stretching in its sleep and once something wakes up, it does not go back. Welcome to Season 5 of when Walls Can Talk, the podcast. Tonight is March 23rd.

Speaker 1: 0:58

Ostara, the spring equinox, the balance point between dark and light, the moment the scales tip and the world begins to wake up again. Maybe you believe in that sort of thing, maybe you don't, but either way, tonight is a threshold. For thousands of years, people have whispered stories about this night. They say it's a time of renewal, of rebirth, a portal, a threshold we step through intentionally, and a threshold perhaps we don't. When I planned this premiere, I chose this date because of Ostara, because this is a gateway, a moment of balance, of endings and beginnings, of something stirring just beneath the surface. But now that we're here, now that I'm sitting in front of this mic, speaking to you at the turning of a new season, I can't shake the feeling that we're not just stepping into something, that something is stepping into us.

Speaker 1: 2:07

I've been thinking a lot about questions lately, how they pull at us, how they make us lean in, tip forward, step just a little too close to the edge of something we might not want to see. Maybe that's human nature to want answers, to believe that if we just keep looking, if we just ask the right question in the right way, then eventually the universe will have no choice but to answer back. But I wonder, what if the real thrill isn't the answer at all? What if it's in the asking, the chase, the search, the act of peering into the inky blackness of mystery, knowing full well that whatever's lurking there may never fully step into the light? That's the thing about curiosity it doesn't always lead you somewhere safe. Sometimes it takes you down twisting quarters, through locked doors, into places where you get that itch at the base of your skull telling you to turn around, go back, forget you ever wanted to know. And yet we go anyway.

Speaker 1: 3:20

And that's what this season is about Following the questions, chasing the stories, knowing full well we may never find the answers, but looking for them. Just the same words passed from voice to ear until no one remembers where they began. And then there are the stories that aren't stories at all, just pieces of something older, scattered through time like bones beneath the thawing earth. Maybe this one is one of those. Maybe this is not a myth but a lesson, not a history but a memory, one one we all carry whether we know it or not. So shall we begin. Let me tell you a story, this time one of my own creations.

Speaker 1: 4:20

It was the end of winter, but winter did not end. It was the end of winter, but winter did not end. The snow should have softened by now, retreating in shrinking patches, curling at the edges where the earth warmed beneath it, but it didn't. It clung to the fields in thick, unbroken drifts, suffocating the ground where crops should have been rising. The rivers held their breath, locked in ice so thick and deep you could swear they had never moved at all. The trees stood brittle and bare, their branches stretched toward the sky like grasping fingers waiting for something, anything to change. And the sun? It was there, technically hanging low in the sky, pale and distant, like an old man too tired to get out of his chair. It cast long stretched-out shadows across the frozen fields, but there was no heat in it, no promise, just the cruel trick of light, without warmth, and beneath it all, the earth held its breath.

Speaker 1: 5:30

They say Ostara walks the fields this time of year barefoot, silent and listening. You may not see her, but if you've ever stepped outside on the cusp of spring and felt the weight of something watching from between the trees, maybe you already have. But this year she had not come, and the world knew it. And the people were waiting, waiting for the thaw, for the rivers to move, for the first bite of green to crack through the frostbitten earth, waiting for the air to shift, for the sharp, metallic scent of ice to give way to the damp, rich breath of soil waking up, waiting for the birds to return, not just for one or two, confused and off course, but all Filling the sky with the sound of something alive. They were waiting for spring to remember them, because that's what it felt like, didn't it? Like they had been forgotten, left behind, like the world had moved on, had turned its face towards something else, something warmer, and simply forgotten to bring them with it. The waiting stretched long, spilling from days into weeks, from weeks into months, until time itself felt slow and syrupy, sinking into the snowdrifts. And still nothing changed, nothing moved. And that kind of waiting. It does something to a person. It turns patience into dread, it turns faith into something thin and brittle, something that breaks when you hold it too tight, because deep down, the people knew what they weren't saying, what they didn't dare to say. Spring wasn't late, spring wasn't coming at all.

Speaker 1: 7:34

The elders had spoke of a mountain in the coldest, quietest part of the land, where the wind spoke only in whispers. And in the mountain there was a door. No one knew who had built it, no one knew how long it had been there. It did not belong to the village, it did not belong to their fathers or their father's fathers. It belonged to time itself, a great slab of stone pressed tight into the mountainside, its edges worn smooth by centuries of wind and wading. It had no handle, no key, no mark of a maker. It was simply there, a part of the land, a scar upon the world. And though no living soul could say where it had come from, the people knew what the old stories whispered. They said that on the other side of that door, spring slept and that one day, perhaps, someone would have to wake her.

Speaker 1: 8:42

The village spoke of Spring like a thing half-remembered, like a dream slipping between their fingers. The moment they woke, they spoke of it to their children, trying to shape the words into something real and something solid. They told stories of soft earth and warm rains, of fields gold and heavy with grain, of rivers that did not sit frozen and still, but moved, laughing, rushing, dancing. They told these stories because they had once lived them.

Speaker 1: 9:17

But Astrid had not. She had never known spring. She had been born in the cold, raised in the dark, a child of long nights and quiet hunger. Where others carried memories of warmth, she carried only the weight of winter, the silence of it, the sharpness, the way it pressed against your ribs, whispering that it would never end. She had never walked barefoot on warm soil, never seen the first green shoots break through the thawing ground, she had never smelled the damp sweetness of the world waking up after a long sleep.

Speaker 1: 9:58

But she had heard the stories and when she closed her eyes and tried to imagine it, and when she closed her eyes and tried to imagine it, truly imagine it, her mind found only ice. Because how can you long for something you have never known, how can you believe in something that has never come? And yet something inside her knew it began as a feeling, small, subtle, a whisper, beneath her skin. It wasn't something she could name, not at first, not in a way that would make sense to anyone else. It was just there, like a sound, too low to hear but still pressing against the inside of her skull, like a scent carried on the wind from somewhere far away, familiar but forgotten. She felt it before she understood it. In the way the wind moved against her skin, not sharp and merciless as it had always been, but restless, tugging, pulling. In the way the frost on the tree seemed thinner, weaker, fragile, as if it were losing its grip. In the way the earth, silent and unyielding, seemed to shudder beneath her feet, as if something deep beneath the surface had stirred. It was nothing, and yet it was everything.

Speaker 1: 11:24

The others did not notice, or if they did, they did not speak of it. They were used to the waiting, used to surviving, used to telling themselves that this was the way things had always been and always would be. That change, true change, was a thing for other people in other times, that whatever warmth had once existed in the world had long since left them behind. But Astrid knew better. She didn't know how, she didn't know why, but she could feel it, the pull, the quiet insistence of something just beyond the edges of understanding, a thread unraveling one strand at a time, drawing her forward toward the mountain, toward the door. They told her not to go.

Speaker 1: 12:17

The elders, wrapped in furs, stiff with age, sat close to the fire, their hands curled inward, their voices like old trees bending beneath too much weight. They had lived too many winters, they had survived too many winters and survival had made them certain. The world had always been this way, they said cold, silent and unchanging. They spoke of green fields, the way a dying man speaks of his childhood Distant, half-forgotten and not entirely real. They spoke of the rivers that used to run, the warmth that used to come, the door in the mountain that was said to hold a sleeping goddess. But the way they spoke of it was worse than disbelief. It was grief, a sadness so deep, so settled into their bones, that even hope had frozen solid, even memory had turned to ice. There was no spring, they said, only winter and only survival.

Speaker 1: 13:21

And maybe if Astrid had been anyone else, she would have believed them. If she had been born a generation earlier, she might have accepted it. If she had been older, she might have learned how to wait, how to sit still and let the cold press in, how to wrap herself in silence and call it safety. But Astrid was young, and something inside her was younger still, something that did not belong to the long dark, something that had not learned yet how to keep quiet, something that had been waiting for this exact moment to wake up. She had spent her whole life watching the cold press in around them, watching her people shrink beneath it. She had listened to the stories of what once was, had seen the way the elders' faces softened when they spoke of warmth, the way their voices carried the ache of something missing, and she had felt the shift, the change in the air, the whisper in her blood, the truth of it, undeniable and vast air, the whisper in her blood, the truth of it, undeniable and vast. Something was waking up. Whether the elders saw it or not, whether they feared it or not, it was happening and she would not stay behind to let it pass her by.

Speaker 1: 14:39

The mountain was further than it looked it always is From the village. It stood like a dark smudge on the horizon, a shadow against the sky. It had always been there, pressed into the land like a scar, but no one ever went to it, no one ever needed to, and so it became the kind of place that only existed in the corners of their eyes and the unfinished endings of old stories. Corners of their eyes and the unfinished endings of old stories. But Astrid saw it now clearly, and the distance between them stretched wider than she had imagined.

Speaker 1: 15:20

The first few miles were easy enough. The snow had packed itself solid beneath years of wind and wading, and her boots found their rhythm. But the further she walked, the deeper it became. The drifts rose to her knees, then her waist, then higher still. Each step became a battle, her legs aching with the effort of pushing forward and refusing to be swallowed. The wind worked against her. It was not loud, not howling, it was worse than that. It whispered, tugged at her cloak, slow and consistently, like a pleading hand, trying to convince her to turn back. But she didn't, because there was no turning back. Not really, not when every step had carried her further from the life she had known, not when the village was already too small behind her, shrinking into a past that no longer felt like it belonged to her.

Speaker 1: 16:16

She was alone now, just her, the cold and the weight of the world pressing down from above. She did not know how long she had been walking and the sky gave her no answers. It was the same dull gray. It had always been heavy and unreadable. There was no way to tell if it was morning or night, only the slow, merciless pull of time dragging her forward. Merciless pull of time dragging her forward.

Speaker 1: 16:44

Her body was screaming now. Her limbs ached, her lungs burned, her hands stung with a kind of deep, creeping cold that makes itself at home beneath your skin. She pressed her fingers into her sides, clenched them into fists, trying to keep them warm, trying to keep moving, and then, without warning, the earth beneath her gave way. She landed, hard chest first, into the snow. Her breath punched out of her lungs. For a moment she couldn't move, couldn't think, just lay there, face down, listening to the quiet ringing in her ears. She could stay here. She thought, just for a little while, just long enough to breathe, long enough to stop hurting. It would be easy, and that was the worst part of all. But something she knew was waiting too the mountain, the door, the drive that pulled her forward when she hadn't even known she was moving. And so she pushed herself back up, gritted her teeth against the cold, the ache, the exhaustion, forcing herself to her feet, and she walked One step, then another and another.

Speaker 1: 18:11

The last stretch of the journey was the worst she had thought. The hardest part was behind her. She had survived the deepest drifts, the wind that clawed at her skin, the fall that had nearly stolen the breath from her lungs. She had risen, kept moving, kept climbing, but the mountain had been watching and it saved its worst. For last, the ground turned steep beneath her feet, the snow turning to ice, slick and treacherous. Every step was a gamble. Every foothold threatened to give way, to send her sliding backward into the dark.

Speaker 1: 18:53

Her body was weak now, her limbs heavy, her breath shallow and ragged. It was not just exhaustion, it was something deeper, pressing against her ribs and curling into her spine Doubt. She had come all this way, given everything she had, to this journey. And for what? For a door that might not even exist, for a goddess who had long since abandoned them, for a world that, for all she knew, had never held warmth in the first place. The voices of the elders rose in her mind, their words laced with certainty, with years of resignation. The world had always been this way and, for the first time since she had set out, she wondered if they had been right. She could still turn back. She could return to the village, to the familiar cold, to the people who would shake their heads and say we told you so. She could return to the silence, to the waiting, to the endless stretch of winter where nothing ever changed. It would be easier. And that was the cruelest trick of all.

Speaker 1: 20:12

She closed her eyes, listened and in the quiet beneath the howling wind, beneath the scream of her aching muscles and the gnawing edge of doubt, she heard something else A whisper, a knowing. Not in words, not in sound, but inside her it told her you are already too far, you are already too close. And so she kept climbing, hand over hand, step after step, ice biting at her palms, her fingers raw against the stone, until the slope evened out, until the wind eased, until she could finally see it. But there was nothing. The peak of the mountain was barren. There was nothing. The peak of the mountain was barren. No great stone archway, no temple, just rock and ice and sky stretching endlessly in every direction. There was no door.

Speaker 1: 21:18

She let out a sound, half laugh, half sob. It had been a lie, a myth spun by the desperate, the hopeful, the foolish. She had given everything for that legend. And then her fingers brushed something beneath the snow. She froze, clearing the frost away with trembling hands. And there, beneath the ice, it was Not grand, not carved with symbols of gods and forgotten worlds, just a single, solitary slab of stone, old and unremarkable, pressed into the side of the mountain, of the mountain, she had imagined something towering, imposing a barrier meant to be overcome, to be broken through.

Speaker 1: 22:10

But the truth was simpler, stranger. In a glance, she discovered that the door was not locked. It never had been. She had imagined it sealed, bolted shut by time, by ice, perhaps something older than both she had imagined. She would have to fight her way through that, she would have to break something open. But it was none of those things. It was just here. She reached out, let her fingers graze the stone. It was smooth, worn down by wind, by waiting. It was cold, but not like ice, not like winter. It was the kind of cold that comes from something untouched for too long, the kind of cold that feels like silence.

Speaker 1: 22:58

And for the first time she hesitated, because what if she was wrong? What if the elders were right. What if there was no goddess, no spring, no warmth waiting on the other side? What if she had come all this way for nothing? Or worse? What if she was right? What if she opened the door and the world changed? Because that's the thing no one ever talked about, wasn't it? Change wasn't just about gaining something, it was about losing something too. If spring returned, winter would end. And if winter ended, then the world, her world, would never be the same. After all, she told herself, once the wheel turns, it does not stop.

Speaker 1: 23:50

Astrid exhaled the first breath of spring, stolen from winter's mouth, and she pushed from Winter's mouth, and she pushed. At first there was nothing no warmth, no movement, just an open doorway yawning into the dark, a space where something should be but wasn't. And then a flicker, then a blast. It was not gentle, not soft, not the timid blush of sunrise or the slow bloom of dawn. It was something wilder, golden, blinding, pouring out of the open threshold in a rush so sudden, so violent that Astrid staggered back.

Speaker 1: 24:39

The air changed, it thickened, heavy with something rich and unfamiliar. The sharp, clean bite of frost was gone, replaced by the scent of damp earth, of loam, of crushed petals and moving water. And then the ground cracked. A sharp, splintering sound rang out as the earth beneath Astrid's feet shuddered, fractured, broke. The rivers, silent for so long, roared back to life, shattering through their frozen cages, rushing forward in wild torrents that carved paths through the snow. Trees, once brittle and skeletal, groaned as they shook, free of their burden of frost. The ground, hardened by years of cold, heaved, splitting open in jagged seams as something underneath, something old, forced its way to the surface. Flowers did not bloom. They erupted, tearing through the snow, desperate hungry, filling the air with the electric green scent of new growth. They spread too fast, overtaking the frost in heaves and waves of color swallowing the white world whole. Astrid felt it in her blood the pull, the weight of something shifting, rebalancing and correcting.

Speaker 1: 26:04

The earth had been waiting for this, and standing in the doorway was a woman, a figure framed in golden light, still as stone, blinking into the brightness of her own rebirth. She did not step forward immediately, she simply stood there, breathing, steadying herself against the weight of existence, as if remembering what it meant to be alive. Her hair was the color of ripe wheat, her skin held the warmth of sunlight through leaves, and when she exhaled, the wind changed, warm now carrying the scent of blossoms of fruit still ripening on unseen vines. Ostara, the name rose in Astrid's throat, unbidden, tasting unfamiliar in her mouth. Not a prayer, not a plea. A fact, a recognition, a moment of return. She blinked and then, slowly, she stepped forward. She moved slowly, deliberately, as if testing the ground beneath her feet. The golden light behind her pulsed and flickered, bright and wild, licking at the edges of the doorway like an untamed fire. Bright and wild, licking at the edges of the doorway, like an untamed fire.

Speaker 1: 27:21

Astrid could not move, could not breathe, she could only watch as this woman, no, this goddess fixed her eyes on her and smiled. It was not unkind, not cruel, but it was not entirely human either. It was a smile that belonged to something vast, something that had always been. Ostara tilted her head, considering, astrid, the way one might study a seed before deciding whether to plant it. You have woken me. Her voice was not loud, but it filled the space between them, seeping into Astrid's skin like sunlight through ice. It was warm, too warm, and Astrid could feel the last chill of winter slipping from her. Ostara lifted her hand, palm up, fingers curled slightly, waiting. Now you must decide what is left behind, she said. Astrid swallowed the words, settled deep inside her, threading through her ribs like roots taking hold. Because this, this was the part the stories had never told, the part no one had ever spoken of, though she assumed would come.

Speaker 1: 28:41

The cost Spring did not arrive freely. It took its place. For warmth to return, the cold had to retreat. For rivers to run, the ice had to break. For life to bloom, something else had to wither. This was the balance. This was the wheel turning. It always had been.

Speaker 1: 29:06

Astrid turned, looking back. The way she had come. The world she had known stretched out before her, familiar, quiet and untouched. The snow-covered fields melting away, cracking into life, the stillness, the certainty, the safety of an endless winter, a world where nothing changed, a world where nothing grew. She had lived in that silence her whole life. It had been cold, yes, unforgiving, but it had been known. It had been safe. The wind stirred behind her, warm, against the back of her neck, the scent of something new, something growing.

Speaker 1: 29:50

Spring does not return without cost. The wheel does not turn without something left beneath it. Astrid had always known this, maybe not in words, not in warnings, but somewhere deep buried in the marrow of her bones. Nothing is given freely. Something must be left behind.

Speaker 1: 30:14

She could have turned back. She could have returned to the village, to the people who had already made peace with the endless frost. She could have let the cold settle into her skin, into her ribs, into her heart, until she became just like them, silent, waiting and surviving. She could have stayed, but staying is not the same as living. She closed her eyes and stepped forward, not back toward the village, not back toward the cold, but through the door. She was never seen again and winter was left behind.

Speaker 1: 30:59

But that spring, the rivers broke open, rushing wild and hungry through the valleys. The trees groaned and stretched toward the sky, shaking loose the last brittle remnants of ice. Flowers did not bloom, they tore through earth, desperate, starving for light. And the village, the people who had waited, who had doubted, who had told themselves that this was the way the world had always been. They woke to a warmth they had not felt in a lifetime. Spring had returned, but Astrid had not, because the wheel does not turn without cost.

Speaker 1: 31:41

The stories never said it outright, but it was always there, hidden in the space between the words. Ostara is not just about renewal, it's not just about light or balance or beginnings. It is about what must end to make way for what is next. Astrid was not a hero. She was not chosen, she was not even special. She was simply the one who stepped forward when no one else would, and maybe that is the only choice that has ever mattered. Spring has arrived, not just in our story, but in our world right now, as I sit here speaking these words, the earth is shifting beneath us. The days are stretching longer, the air is thickening, softening. Whether we notice it or not, the world is waking up. Because that's the thing about Ostara. It isn't just an old story, some forgotten myth buried in the past. It's happening Right now.

Speaker 1: 32:48

Ostara, this season, sits at a threshold. It is one of the eight Sabbaths of the Wheel of the Year celebrated by pagans, witches and those who still follow the rhythms of the earth. It falls on the spring equinox, the day where light and dark are held in perfect balance before the sun tips the scales toward the warmth of summer. This is a festival of renewal, of growth, of life, forcing its way back from the edges of death. But the stories we tell about it, those shift, twist, change, because the turning of the wheel is not owned by one people, one faith, one history.

Speaker 1: 33:29

The name Ostara is often linked to a goddess of the same name, a figure half-remembered, her origins tangled in time. We find traces of her in the writings of an 8th century monk who claimed that in ancient times, the month of April was named for the goddess of the dawn, eostre or Ostara. We don't know much about her no temples, no sacred texts, just echoes. But echoes are enough to follow. Some say she was a goddess of the returning sun, a bringer of fertility and life. Others tie her to the hare, an animal associated with mystery and magic. There's an old story, one of the few connected to her, that tells of a bird who was wounded in winter and, in her kindness, ostara transformed it into a hare so that it could survive. But the change was not complete. And so, once a year, in the heart of spring, the hare lays eggs, as a memory of what once was. And maybe this is where the idea of the Easter Bunny was born.

Speaker 1: 34:35

Eggs, like hares, have long been tied to this season, symbols of birth and renewal, of something held inside waiting to break free. In pagan traditions, eggs were often dyed and buried in fields as offerings to the land, a promise of what was to come. In the equinox itself, it was a moment of perfect balance, a pause between dark and light before the sun takes hold and summer begins its slow ascent. This theme repeats itself across cultures and across time. The Celts did not call it Ostara, but they celebrated the balance of the equinox, honoring the shift of the seasons. In ancient Persia, nowruz, the new year is still celebrated on the spring equinox, marking the rebirth of the world. In Japan, it is observed, too, a day for honoring both nature and ancestors, recognizing the turning of the seasons. And then, of course, there is Easter, with its eggs, its rabbits, its story of death and resurrection, a newer tale layered over something far older.

Speaker 1: 35:44

It's fascinating how we return to the same symbols again and again, even when we do not remember why. Even when the names change, the meaning remains, life comes back, the cycle continues, the world does not stay cold forever, and maybe that's why we start this new season, this new chapter in our show's history. We start it here Because, like Astrid standing before the mountain, we are at a threshold. The door is open, the path forward is unknown, but there's only one way to go. So, as we step into spring, into warmth, into light. Remember this the wheel turns. It always does, and just as the world shifts, so do we.

Speaker 1: 36:37

The question is, what waits on the other side? And for that answer I turned to the tarot. The first card drawn is the world. If ever there was a card to mark a transition, this is it. This is the card of completion, of standing at the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. It carries the weight of Saturn, the planet of lessons and time. It is a reminder that the work we've done has mattered and that we are not stepping into something new by accident. We have arrived here because we are ready.

Speaker 1: 37:15

For me, as the host, this speaks to the journey of the show. Four seasons behind us, a new season ahead, and the question is who am I now in this space? I have created, what have I outgrown? What is calling to be transformed? For the show itself, this is an evolution. Stories do not simply end, they become something new. So I'm forced to ask myself what stories are ready to be told now that could not have been told before? What doors are opening? And for you, listening, wherever you are, you too are standing at a threshold. You have completed something, whether you recognize it or not. The cycle has turned and you cannot return to what was. There is no turning back. So I ask you, what part of your old self is ready to be left behind? What have you carried through the winter that does not need to follow you into spring, through the winter that does not need to follow you into spring?

Speaker 1: 38:26

The King of Swords steps forward next. A card of clarity, of wisdom, of cutting through the noise to speak what is true. This is a call, a reminder that this season is not one for small words or half-truths. It asks me, as a storyteller, to speak from a place of deep knowing, to trust what I see, what I feel, what I understand, at a level beyond language. And for you, the listener, this card holds an invitation. Where have you been quiet when you wanted to speak? Where have you softened your truth to make it more comfortable? Where have you softened your truth to make it more comfortable? The King of Swords does not wield his blade recklessly. He does not seek conflict for its own sake, but when something must be said, he says it. So I ask you, what truth have you been holding inside? What needs to be spoken before this season can fully begin.

Speaker 1: 39:21

Next, the sun, but reversed. The sun is a card of joy, of clarity, of stepping into the light, but upside down, it speaks to hesitation, to the fear of being seen. For this show, for this season, I ask myself where has this podcast held back? Where have I played small, even while knowing there is space to grow? The sun reversed whispers. You are safe to shine, step forward, let yourself be seen and, for you, listening. Have you ever felt this too, that deep aching desire to step into something bigger, but with it the fear of being too much, the fear of stepping into the light only to find you don't belong there. The sun reversed asks what part of you is afraid to take up space, what part of you still believes joy must be earned rather than received? Spring is not subtle. When it arrives, it does so with force. The flowers bloom, whether they are watched or not. The rivers run, whether anyone listens, and you are allowed to do the same.

Speaker 1: 40:35

The final card is the King of Pentacles, a card of grounded mastery, of doing the work you were meant to do in the world. This card is for the collective, for all of us stepping into this season together. It asks what is yours to build, what is yours to tend? The King of Pentacles is not about seeking. They know what is theirs. They do not chase purpose, they live it. They do not need external validation, they are rooted in what they create. So I ask you what distractions have pulled you from your true work? What noise have you allowed to confuse you? What is calling you back to center? The King of Pentacles does not demand that you do more. They ask you to do what is yours to do. Nothing more, nothing less. And so we return to the threshold. The world tells us you have reached completion. Honor what has come before and step forward. The King of Swords says speak truthfully, do not shrink back from what you know. The sun reversed, reminds us you are allowed to shine. Step into the light. And the King of Pentacles asks what is yours to tend? What are you here to build?

Speaker 1: 42:02

This reading is not about indecision. It is not about questioning whether or not we are ready. It is about knowing that we are. Winter has ended, the door is open. The only question left is how will you step through? I want to invite you to do something.

Speaker 1: 42:23

This season is about stepping forward. It's about change, about cycles turning, about moving into the unknown, and I want to mark this moment, not just for myself, not just for the podcast, but for all of us. So here's what we're going to do. I want you to imagine yourself at the end of this season, this next journey we're about to take together. Maybe it's months from now, maybe it's deep in the heart of autumn, when the air is crisp and the days are growing shorter once again, maybe it's winter, but you are standing in the future and from that place, I want you to look back at yourself right now, in this moment. What do you see? What do you hope will have changed? What do you want to have stepped into? What will you leave behind? What feels inevitable? What feels inevitable? What feels impossible? What is the version of you that exists on the other side of this season?

Speaker 1: 43:28

I want you to send it to me A prediction, a hope, a fear, a moment sealed in time, something you believe or something you're afraid to believe. You can send it, however feels right A voice memo, a video, a letter to your future self, and at the end of the season, we will open them together here on the podcast. We'll listen, we'll see what came true and what twisted into something else entirely. Because this is what Ostara teaches us that the seeds we plant now will grow in ways we cannot predict. That stepping forward into the unknown is not just an act of hope but an act of surrender. So if you want to be a part of this, send your time capsule to jeremy at whenwallscantalktarotcom and together, at the end of the season, we'll see what became of the things we whispered into the dark. The wheel has turned, the door is open and the future is waiting.

Speaker 1: 44:31

I want to leave you with something, something to mark this moment. Something small, maybe meaningless, maybe not. In older times, rituals were not just performances. They were interactions, conversations with something larger than yourself, a way of setting something into motion, of letting the unseen world know that you were paying attention. So if you are listening to this, if you feel called to, I want you to do something Sometime before the day ends tonight. Preferably, step outside. It doesn't have to be anywhere special your front steps, a balcony, a patch of grass, somewhere where the air can touch your skin. And when you do, bring a flame, a candle, if you have one, a match, a lighter, anything that holds the shape of fire, strike it, watch the flame catch, feel the warmth on your fingertips and then speak. Not a wish, not a prayer, just a statement, a sentence that marks where you are standing in this moment, at this threshold. It can be as simple as I am here or the door is open, or maybe something else will come to you, maybe your voice will catch in your throat, maybe the wind will shift, maybe nothing will happen at all. But if you do this, know that you are opening your own door, and once opened doors do not always close the way they did before. Does this mean anything? Maybe, maybe not, but you'd be surprised how many people feel something when they do it.

Speaker 1: 46:30

And with that, season 5 has begun. Every story has a moment like this, this moment, this breath held between what was and what's about to be, a threshold where one foot still lingers in the past and the other steps forward into something unknown. We've stood here before. We will stand here again. The wheel turns and we turn with it. Winter held on longer than it should have, but spring is not polite, it does not ask permission. It arrives wild, rushing in, shaking the earth free from its long sleep. Some will welcome it, some will fear it, but none of us can stop it. I hope you're ready for what's coming, because, if you've been paying attention, ostara really isn't just about beginnings. It's about what wakes up when the frost melts, because the ground is softer now, the ice has cracked and the things that were buried, they are no longer sleeping. Thank you,