Temperance - the card I never associated with sobriety

Temperance Card Rider Waite Smith Tarot Deck

Welcome to Heartsnacks!

I’m Hannah Green MFT and depth psychotherapist, and this is my newsletter. We’ll be exploring relationships, art, and personal alchemy as I share impressions from work and life with you - my community of friends, clients, and colleagues.

I'm glad you're here!

Dear friends,

Yesterday I had hand surgery, and today I'm in that particular stillness that follows a hospital visit or procedure. The kind where your body insists you stop and listen. My bedroom is warm and cozy. The candles are lit and my partner has made my favorite - a huge pot of chicken soup. I've been spending these restful hours with Charles Frazier's Thirteen Moons. He also wrote Cold Mountain, which I've listened to many times over the years. These stories of the American west always capture my imagination and there's something about his voice as he reads aloud, the rhythm of his sentences, that matches this moment of necessary quietude perfectly.

In the opening chapters, Frazier writes about the Temperance Movement - a 19th and early 20th century social and political campaign that advocated for no alcohol consumption. Something shifted in me as I listened. I found myself thinking about the Temperance card in the Tarot, about the angel mixing water between two vessels, about the alchemical marriage of opposites. And then, surprisingly, after all my years with the cards, I realized I had never connected this card with sobriety.

This astonished me. This elusive and magical card has always been one of my favorites and sobriety is such a profound part of my life. Treating addiction is central to my work in depth therapy. And yet somehow I had kept these two things separate: the Temperance card with its gentle angel and flowing water, and the practice of recovery that so many of my clients and I know intimately.

The Angel's Work

In Jungian terms, Temperance represents what he called the transcendent function, which I keep writing about and is the focus of my January workshop in San Francisco. It is the psyche's remarkable capacity to hold opposing forces and create something new from their union. The card doesn't show restriction or denial. It shows integration. The angel pours water from one cup to another, endlessly mixing, blending, finding balance not through force but through flow.

This is nothing like the white knuckled or forced abstinence we sometimes imagine when we think of "temperance" through the lens of the old Temperance Movement. This is something else entirely. This is the slow, steady work of finding your true path, the one that isn't about restricting but about discovering what serves your deepest becoming.

The Long Unfolding

Working with people in recovery has taught me that this process is rarely linear. There are twists and turns, setbacks and breakthroughs, moments of clarity and long stretches in the fog. The work isn't to become "fixed" or "cured." The work is to keep showing up to the mixing, to the integration, to the slow discovery of what balance actually feels like in your body, in your own lived experience.

Jung understood that true transformation doesn't come from transcending our struggles but from making them conscious, from bringing what's been hidden into the light and learning to hold it alongside everything else we are. 

In my practice, I watch people slowly find this third way. Someone who has learned to hold both their vulnerability and their strength, their desire and their boundaries, their shadow and their light in the same open hands.

The Fertile Ground

Recovery, like all deep psychological work, asks us to tolerate enormous amounts of uncertainty. To keep showing up even when we can't see the outcome. To trust that something is working in us even when progress feels invisible, perhaps like an achey hand wrapped in a cast.

The Temperance card reminds us that this mixing, this blending, this patient work of integration never really ends. Life keeps offering us new opposites to reconcile, new edges to meet, new versions of ourselves to discover. The angel keeps pouring, keeps mixing, keeps finding balance in the eternal flow between what was and what wants to emerge.

As I rest here after surgery, my hand healing in its own mysterious timeline, I'm grateful for my loved ones and for all the doctors and nurses that did their jobs so well. For seeing how the Temperance card has been teaching me all along what my clients in recovery already know: that wholeness is found in the willingness to keep showing up to the mixing, in trusting the slow alchemy of our own transformation, in believing that we are becoming something we cannot yet fully see.

With love,

Hannah Green MFT

P.S. If you're feeling called to explore the Tarot more deeply, I offer psycho-spiritual coaching sessions centered around the Tarot. These sessions are different from psychotherapy and yet seek to support you at your depths. Come and see me for a New Years reading!

This month's recommendations: Thirteen Moons by Charles Frazier Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier Caravaggio (film) The music of Celia Hollander and Mary Latimore

The Fertile Ground of Not Knowing

Hello friends,

As we settle into November and the year begins its quiet descent, I've been thinking about patience. About the difference between resolving and remaining open to what wants to emerge. Above is a photo of the little Shepards hut I have fixed up on the land, a place to rest and retreat, a place that can remind me to slow down. 

When I was an early clinician, I felt it viscerally: that powerful urge to fix. People came to me wanting relief from their pain, their conflict, their confusion. And I wanted so badly to give it to them. To resolve their struggles. To smooth the wrinkled fabric of their lives and hand it back to them, clean and whole.

But my clients taught me something different. They taught me, slowly and sometimes painfully, to relax into the process. To stop grasping for resolution and instead learn to stay curious, to stay open. To let things breathe and unfold according to their own mysterious intelligence.

As I look toward next year, I find myself preparing to dive even deeper into this practice. I'll be connecting with my intuition through art in the Porthmeor program at St Ives School of Painting and studying with some local Jungian analysts and teachers who understand this work of staying open to what wants to emerge. And my partner and I will be planting a garden, something entirely new to me that will initiate me into a completely different pace and way of being. The garden doesn't respond to urgency or impatience. It teaches only one thing: trust the process, tend what's before you, and wait.

Two Practices, One Teaching

Both psychotherapy and art practice offer us profound training grounds for this essential skill. In the therapy room and at the easel, we face the same fundamental question: Can we tolerate not knowing? Can we resist the compulsion to resolve prematurely and instead remain present to what is unfolding, like watching a watercolor bloom across wet paper, like waiting for dreams to reveal their meaning, like sitting with a client's tears without rushing to make them stop?

From a Jungian perspective, this is the work of psychological maturity. Jung understood that the psyche doesn't want to be "fixed." It wants to be witnessed, to be held, to unfold according to its own deep knowing. He spoke of the tension of opposites, the holding of paradox, the willingness to sit in what he called the "temenos," that sacred container where transformation happens not through force but through patient attention. The way alchemists understood that transformation requires time and heat. The way love teaches us that true intimacy cannot be forced.

The immature ego demands certainty. It wants answers now, wants the story to resolve before the final page, wants to know how things will turn out before committing to the journey. It cannot bear the tension of the unknown. But emotional maturity, true psychological development, requires that we learn to meet our edge differently. That we develop the capacity to dwell in what I've come to think of as "the open growth place," that liminal space between question and answer, between wound and healing, between who we were and who we're becoming.

Turner "Light and Colour (Goethe's Theory)" All swirling, indeterminate, refusing to resolve into clear forms - pure atmospheric presence.

Learning to Tolerate This Together

In my early years of practice, I didn't understand this. But my clients and I learned it together, the way travelers learn a foreign landscape: slowly, with stumbles and discoveries, with moments of grace that arrived only because we'd gotten lost first. We learned to tolerate the discomfort of not having immediate answers. We discovered that the urge to resolve, while understandable, even noble in its origins, often cuts short the very process that wants to lead us somewhere deeper, truer, more alive.

This isn't about resignation or passivity. It's about tilling the soil. It's about creating fertile ground to meet life's constant mysteries, unknowns, and frustrations. Because here's the truth, spoken plainly: they never stop coming. Life keeps presenting us with uncertainty, with complexity, with questions that have no simple answers. The river keeps flowing, whether we stand on the bank demanding it be still or finally step into the current and learn to swim.

I'm learning to orient myself around this reality. To open to an examined life rich with compassion, not as a martyr or saint, but as a gardener who knows that growth happens in the dark soil long before it reaches toward the light.

The Way of Curiosity

What does this actually look like in practice? It means learning to emotionally regulate ourselves through the body: through conscious breath, through grounding, through self-compassion. When we can anchor ourselves in the present moment, when we can turn toward ourselves with kindness rather than judgment, something shifts. We discover we can stay present with discomfort without needing to immediately resolve it. We find we are more spacious than we knew, more capable of holding paradox.

This is how we move beyond the compulsion to fix. This is how we stay in the fertile place where real growth happens.

Jung spoke of individuation, the lifelong process of becoming more fully ourselves. Not the resolved and finished version we imagine is waiting at the end of enough therapy sessions, but the self that is always unfolding, always in process. This process asks us to trust that something is working in us and through us, even when we cannot see the outcome. To trust the intelligence of our own unfolding.

An Invitation

Where in your life might you be rushing toward resolution? What if the not-knowing itself is the teacher?

I love exploring this work through individual therapy, couples therapy, and psycho-spiritual coaching sessions centered around the tarot. Sometimes we need a companion for the journey into the fertile ground, someone to hold space while we learn to stay open, to help us find our breath when the urge to resolve becomes overwhelming, to remind us that the not-knowing is not a problem to be solved but a mystery to be lived.

This is the practice. This is the art. This is how we learn to meet our edge and remain in the open growth place, where life continues to surprise us, challenge us, and shape us into who we are becoming, who we have always been becoming, one breath at a time.

With love,

Hannah Green MFT

The Swans of Becoming

Dear friends,

There is something about Hilma af Klint’s swans that arrests us mid-breath.

In The Swan, No. 17 (or perhaps another from her series, each one a meditation on union), we see it: the intertwining of black and white, shadow and light, held within a single form. Not opposing forces locked in battle, but lovers in an eternal embrace. The swan becomes a vessel for what Jung called the coniunctio oppositorum - the sacred marriage of opposites that marks every genuine spiritual awakening.

Hilma painted these swans between 1914 and 1915, during her own profound opening to what she called “the temple.” She understood that transformation doesn’t come from transcending our darkness but from finally, courageously, including it. The black swan and white swan are not two swans - they are one being, whole and undivided, their necks forming a heart, their bodies creating a circle with no beginning and no end.

Lately, these swans have been appearing in my sessions. One of my brilliant clients homed in on this image, and it has stayed with me these last few weeks, teaching me something I’m still learning to articulate. I find myself learning to love, in my core, in my bones, the nature of this reality, which always includes the dark and the light. It’s inescapable. And isn’t this exactly what the swans teach? That wholeness is not a destination but a practice of return. A daily choosing to stop splitting ourselves into acceptable and unacceptable parts, into the persona we show the world and the shadow we hide even from ourselves.

Perhaps it’s no accident that these swans have found me now, as we cross the threshold into November - into the season of darkness. In the Celtic tradition, this is Samhain, the turning of the year when the veil grows thin and we’re asked to turn inward, to tend the inner flame as the outer world retreats into shadow. The ancient ones understood something: that darkness is not the absence of light, but its necessary companion. That we keep the light alive by honoring the darkness, not by denying it.

Jung wrote: “One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

I often feel guilty for my shortcomings. I feel I’m not doing enough. I feel I am not emotionally mature, not giving, and supportive enough of those I love. I still feel shame around my shadow sides which feel young, wild, reactive, and sometimes overwhelmed and confused. Very slowly I’m learning to love and open to these parts. I know it sounds trite - what a million therapists before me have said - but the depth of this truth dawns on me daily and deepens with every passing season.

These young, wild, reactive parts - the ones that feel overwhelmed and confused - these are not obstacles to spiritual maturity. They are the work itself. They are the black swan asking to be held with the same tenderness as the white. Every impulse to push them away, to shame them into silence, is a rejection of the wholeness I’m learning to embody.

Living here in Cornwall is teaching me what the city couldn’t because it refuses to let me escape the cycles. The tide doesn’t apologize for receding. The garden doesn’t feel guilty for its dormant season. Nature simply is - dark and light, growth and decay, wildness and rest - and it asks nothing of us but our witness. As the days grow shorter and the light fades earlier each evening, the land itself is teaching me about the sacred necessity of descent, of turning inward, of letting things die back so they can be reborn.

And being a caregiver to three children - what better initiators into the mysteries? They will not let me maintain the fiction of the “good mother” who never feels rage, exhaustion, or the desperate wish to run away. They crack me open daily, asking me to meet them (and myself) in the full catastrophe of aliveness.

This is the dance I’m learning: not the performance of spiritual bypassing where we exile the shadow in pursuit of perpetual light, but the integration - the trembling, imperfect practice of making room for it all. The joy and the pain. The passion and the mundane. The moments I feel flooded with love and the moments I feel despairingly alone.

Hilma’s swans show us that the sacred is found not in choosing one over the other, but in the union itself — in the point where opposites meet and discover they were never truly separate. The heart-shaped space between them is where life actually happens. Where we actually live.

I truly am a whole person, and those I love are truly whole. My relationships are whole, and in that wholeness they hold the light and the dark, the joy and the pain, the passion and the mundane. Any tension, depression, and anxiety has a root in my resistance to this fact. It separates me from the deepest love I know is possible.

This tension - this depression, this anxiety - these aren’t evidence of failure. They’re the tension of a soul learning to hold more than it once thought possible. Jung called this the *transcendent function* - the psyche’s capacity to create a third thing from the conflict between opposites, something greater than either pole alone.

We are all becoming that third thing. Not light, not dark, but whole. Not perfect, but real. Not without shadow, but finally, bravely willing to dance with it.

The swans have found me for a reason, and perhaps they’ve found us at this threshold moment - as the wheel turns toward winter, as we’re invited to descend into our own depths and discover what light we can tend there. The Celtic peoples knew that this season asks us to become like the swans: to hold both the darkness and the light within the same body, the same heart, the same breath.

I’m letting them keep teaching me what they taught Hilma: to recognize ourselves as the place where light and dark have always been lovers. There is no shortcoming in this becoming. There is only the eternal return to wholeness, and the courage to keep opening when every instinct says to close. May this season of darkness teach us all to keep the inner flame alive — not by banishing the shadow, but by finally, tenderly, welcoming it home.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

With love,

Hannah Green MFT

Matrixial Moments

Dear Community,

Happy Autumn! I am enjoying warm apple cider and cool sunny weather here in Cornwall. I am also looking forward to spending some of the upcoming winter in California and hope to connect with some of you there. I am envisioning a day long workshop to welcome the new year. I will keep you posted.

Some of you know that I am in love with imagery. An image can hold our conflicting desires and our deepest wishes, pains, and fears all at once, as if by magic. An image is a sanctuary where seemingly opposite ideas can coexist, and an experience of wholeness is possible for a beautiful, precious moment. An image is a kind of metaphor, and the metaphor is always safe because it can hold us in all our complexity.

In April I took a wonderful class with Kate Southworth and Greg Humphries called Magical Landscapes. We explored surrealism as a bridge between psychoanalysis and magic. In psychoanalysis, we explore the conscious and the unconscious world and the relationship between the two. In magic, the focus is on the relationship between “this world” and the “other world.” Seasonally, this liminal place is what Autumn is all about.

Surrealism and artists like Ithell Colquhoun bridge this seeming gap between psychoanalysis and magic. They give us an experience of their subjective inner world meeting the external, so-called outer world. The result is an image that holds what it is like to be human, where what we see is actually what we feel inside. I believe that psychotherapy, like surrealism, is all about bringing the inner and outer worlds together. I have a theory that this axis between the worlds of the inner and outer is not only where healing occurs but is also where home is. No matter where I am in the world, if I can center myself in this place where the inner experience and the world around me meet, I feel at home within myself.

When we make or see a painting, a sculpture, or a landscape and we are able to bridge the inner and outer world for a moment by beholding the world at the same time as beholding ourselves—connecting with our thoughts, emotions, and sensations—we have what Bracha Ettinger called a matrixial moment. The matrixial gaze, which gives birth to the matrixial moment, was developed by artist and psychoanalyst Bracha Ettinger and I love her way of thinking about making and looking at art that focuses on healing and connection. Kate Southworth introduced me to her theories during the course.

Instead of the usual perspective where the viewer is in control and the artwork is a passive object to be analyzed, the matrixial gaze acknowledges that both the person looking and the artwork affect each other in a shared encounter. This shared encounter relies on compassion and is based on intersubjectivity. This perspective is deeply valuable for art-making and art therapy because it creates a safe in-between space where painful or traumatic experiences can be explored without causing more harm—the artwork acts as a bridge that allows us to connect with difficult feelings and memories in doses we can handle and integrate.

For those of us dealing with trauma, grief, or experiences of being marginalized, the matrixial framework recognizes that making art is relational and that meaning emerges through connection. In therapy, the matrixial gaze allows us to look at our own or others’ artwork with openness and vulnerability and create these emotional connections. We don’t take over someone else’s story through too much interpretation or sit back, remaining distant or removed. Ettinger’s theory articulates what I have experienced, that art is a special place where healing happens—not through control or analysis, but through the caring, shared experience that flows between people across the flexible boundaries between self and other, through the inner and outer worlds.

I treasure these moments in life and with clients. I find the bridges we build through art transformational for both my clients and me. Working this way can help us envision new futures, heal old wounds, and find parts of ourselves that feel lost.

I find in my own art making and in my work with clients that imagery and the matrixial perspective invite healing by intertwining inner experience with the outer world, creating a safe space where wholeness can emerge. It's my kind of magic.

If you’re curious to explore this, I’d love to connect. New clients are warmly welcomed. If you’d like to schedule a first session or learn more about working together, please reply to this email or use the link below to book a session.

Warmly, 
Hannah Green MFT

Interdependence

Dear community,  
  
I hope your summer is going well!

In my own life and work with clients, I see how many of us are drawn toward a deeper understanding of relationship—one that empowers us to go beyond dependence and embrace interdependence as a vital, developmental goal. I am on this path, continually learning to cultivate genuine connection while remaining a whole person—connected to myself and rooted in love. It’s challenging! I’m grateful to be with others doing this same work—watching us all build relationships that nourish, evolve, and help us grow.  
  
Simone de Beauvoir teaches us that true connection requires respect for the other's independence—a love rooted in freedom, mutual recognition, and shared growth. I am inspired by her example and her long relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre, which seemed to embody these principles. They maintained their own homes and identities, choosing to live separately yet remaining deeply connected. Despite its challenges, their relationship defied convention and embraced freedom, illustrating that authentic love can be based on independence rather than possession or dependence.  
  
Living in the wild beauty of Cornwall has deepened my interest in deep ecology. Founded by philosopher Arne Naess in the 1970s, deep ecology encourages a fundamental shift in how we relate to nature—moving away from a human-centered view and toward recognizing the intrinsic worth of all living beings. It promotes sustainability, respect for biodiversity, and a moral responsibility to protect the natural world, viewing humans as an integral part of the Earth's ecosystems rather than separate from or above them. It calls me to see myself as part of a vast, interconnected web of life, where our well-being depends on recognizing the mutual reliance between humans and the ecosystems around us.  
  
Both de Beauvoir’s ideas and deep ecology highlight the importance of fostering interdependence—an understanding that true connection and growth come from respecting each other's autonomy and recognizing our place within a larger web of life. In my work with clients, I see how embracing this ideal—where love and relationships are practices of mutual growth—can transform bonds, creating relationships rooted in respect, authenticity, and shared evolution. We don’t have to live separately like Simone and Jean-Paul to honor independence, but we can learn to take space and enjoy our own lives while nurturing deep, lasting connection.  
  
These principles aren’t just theories—they’re deeply personal. They challenge me to live with greater awareness, humility, and compassion. They remind me that love, community, and ecological health all require a shift from dependence—often driven by fear or unmet needs—to interdependence rooted in trust, respect, and shared purpose. It’s a lifelong journey of learning to stand firmly in my own truth while remaining open to the web of connection that sustains us all.  
  
The Developmental Shift: Moving from Dependence to Interdependence...  
  
In my work and personal reflection, I see how dependence—especially when rooted in early wounds or unmet needs—can lead to emotional dysregulation and a fragile nervous system. I’ve observed both clients and myself caught in cycles of trying to fix, control, or overly rely on others—what we call codependence. It hurts and can stunt our development.  
  
My goal is to help clients develop interdependence. It’s about cultivating self-regulation and self-compassion as guiding principles. From a Jungian perspective, individuation—the process of becoming your authentic self—involves differentiation: creating a healthy separation from external influences while maintaining meaningful connections. This is how we grow into balanced, whole beings.  
  
After experiencing significant losses and separations, my partner and I are navigating the delicate art of creating a web of interdependence that crosses oceans and challenges old ideas. With both my current partner and my first partner, I am exploring a new way of relating—one that honors our independence while remaining connected. I am learning so much about the fluidity of connection, self-care, and openness to change.  
  
My partner's three children challenge and inspire me daily to develop patience, presence, and authenticity. I’m reminded that relationship is a continuous act of giving and receiving, of creating space for being an individual while belonging to a community. They encourage me to balance my desire for control with gentle acceptance of life’s unpredictability.  
  
In midlife, I see that emotional, psychological, and spiritual dependence no longer serve my growth. Dependence feels chaotic and can disrupt my nervous system, diminishing my capacity for self-regulation and compassion. I am learning that true resilience comes from differentiation—standing apart while remaining connected, honoring my unique self, and nurturing compassion for myself and others.  
  
An Invitation... 
  
If this resonates with you—that longing for authentic connection and the desire to nurture a balanced relationship with yourself and others—I invite you to explore therapy as a way to deepen these themes. Whether you’re seeking individual support to cultivate self-awareness and emotional resilience or couples therapy to build relationships rooted in growth and mutual respect, I am here to walk with you.  
  
Together, we can create a safe, supportive space to examine patterns, heal wounds, and develop the skills necessary for relationships that nourish, evolve, and are grounded in genuine interdependence. It’s a chance for you to nurture your capacity for self-regulation, embrace your uniqueness, and foster connections that uplift and sustain you.  
  
If you’re ready to take that step—toward greater self-love, healthier relationships, and a more balanced life—I encourage you to click the link below to book your first appointment. Please keep in mind that I often have a waiting list, so if you don’t see an available time that works for you, reply to this email letting me know whether you're seeking individual or couples therapy. My hope is that everyone who wants support will find a place with me, or I’ll be happy to refer you to a trusted colleague.  
  
I look forward to supporting you on your journey of growth and connection.  
  
Love,  
Hannah Green, MFT  
  
P.S. If these ideas inspire you, I invite you to explore these books and authors to deepen your understanding of interdependence, authentic love, and ecological consciousness:  

The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir  
Deep Ecology: Living as if Nature Mattered by Bill Devall and George Sessions 
The Ecology of Wisdom by Arne Naess  

Art in progress