I pulled a Rumi Oracle card for America this morning.

What's going to happen to our country?

Card No. 10: Celestial Rose of Ma.

The card says a spiritual gift is on its way. It marks the end of a period of suffering and the opening to a time of flourishing.

But to receive the gift, this rose, America has to go through the thorns first.

The thorns are the points of pain. The things that tear at us. Whatever they are, we have to be willing to face them, deal with them, release them.

✧

Here's how I'm reading this: good days are coming, but not until we face the thorns.

And to me, the biggest thorn is racism.

Slavery. Native genocide. Redlining. Segregation. These weren't unfortunate byproducts, they were the foundation.

And because we've never fully faced that truth as a nation, racism just keeps shape-shifting and changing itself under new names: "tough on crime," "border security," "preserving heritage."

✧

Racism needs ignorance, fear, and silence to survive. It falls apart when people question it out loud, when they teach against it, and when they refuse to normalize it.

Real progress isn't erasing the past, it's refusing to let the past continue to write the future without being challenged.

So maybe that's the thorn we're being asked to face. That's what has to be released before the rose can bloom.

I don't know if America is ready, but the card says the gift is already on its way. So we just have to be willing to go through the thorns to get there. 🌹