Major Forces 11 :
The Activist

You’ve come across a young gorilla carefully watering a garden of budding flowers, creating a rainbow while doing so. This is The Activist, the card of justice, participation, and the enduring creative power of hope in action. Gardening captures the healing, growing power of creativity and creative flow. Even the smallest act, when rooted in care and integrity, can ripple outward and inspire meaningful change.

The Activist invites you to examine how your creativity serves not just yourself, but the world around you. Creativity is not only for self-expression. It is also for impact. Art, ideas, and imagination have long been tools of resistance, healing, and vision. Whether through storytelling, painting, designing, organizing, or reimagining systems, creative acts are deeply intertwined with activism. The Activist reminds you that your voice matters and that creativity can be a radical force for justice, awareness, and healing. You don’t need a megaphone or a podium—your everyday actions, creations, and choices shape the world just the same.

This card also reflects the truth that change rarely comes all at once. It’s cultivated patiently, like a garden: watered with kindness, protected from harm, and grown in collaboration with others. Even when no one is watching, even when results feel distant, your contribution is real and meaningful. The rainbow in the gorilla’s wake is symbolic of the unseen magic that trails behind every sincere effort to make things better.

The Activist calls on you to live your values creatively and courageously. Speak up in the ways you can. Craft with intention. Use your art or your work to imagine more just, inclusive, or beautiful futures. Whether your activism is quiet or bold, personal or public, this card honors your efforts to use your gifts in service of something larger than yourself. And it reminds you that joy and justice are not opposites—they often grow from the same soil.

When Feeling Blocked:

If you’re feeling stuck creatively, The Activist may be asking you to reconnect with your "why." Has your creative energy been disconnected from purpose? Are you feeling disheartened, unseen, or overwhelmed by the world’s pain? It’s easy to become discouraged when your work feels small in the face of big problems, but the Activist is a gentle reminder that even the quietest gestures matter.

Sometimes creative block stems from forgetting that your voice carries weight. You may be internalizing the false belief that you must have all the answers, change the world overnight, or never mess up. But real progress—real art, real activism—requires showing up imperfectly and consistently. Take a breath. Look at what matters most to you, and begin again from there.

Reconnect with the causes, communities, and stories that stir your heart. Create in service of what you care about. Your art doesn’t have to be overtly political to be powerful. Simply choosing honesty, compassion, or beauty in your creative process is a form of resistance to apathy, cynicism, and despair.

And if you feel too burnt out to create, that’s okay too. Rest is part of the cycle. Trust that your energy will return—and when it does, your creations will carry the depth of your experience with them. The Activist assures you: You are part of something bigger. You are not alone. Your creativity is a candle lit in the dark, a seed in the soil, a note in a much larger song of change.

 Creativity Exercises

  1. Plant some seeds: Literally or figuratively, sow the beginnings of something new. Decorate an old sauce jar and turn it into a pot for the seeds of your choosing, place them in a sunny location and remember to water them every day. While you’re at it, that list of ideas you have for future projects? Write each item down on a separate piece of paper (or what have you) and “plant” them where you can see them.

  2. Reduce, reuse, repurpose: Turn discarded or forgotten items into something new and beautiful. Create art from recycled materials, refurbish furniture, or sew scraps into quilts or clothing.

  3. Volunteer: Use your unique talents to support a nonprofit or a cause you care about. Offer to create content for a nonprofit or campaign, donate your artwork or design promotional materials, play at events or create soundtracks to raise awareness for something you believe in.

  4. Design an Infographic or Poster: What’s something you think the world needs to know? Do some research, gather some facts, and put it all together in a way that is visual, unique, and captures attention.