We all have situations and challenges in our lives we’d just as soon not look at. Often, these situations affect and influence our creativity.
This idea of being stymied and challenged while refusing to look at the source of the challenge is represented in the tarot by the Major Arcana card number 15, the Devil.
I’ve written about other meanings for the Devil card in other articles—as the shadow side of the writer and as the energy that encourages us to be willing to break rules in our creative work.
But when the card turned up in a recent reading, my visual focus was on the Fool, sitting on the hourglass with his hands up before his eyes so that he wouldn’t see how the Devil is tying things up (symbols of the four elements) and keeping the Fool from moving forward in his journey.
Why would the Fool do this? Why would you?
Because if you don’t see it, it can’t be true, it can’t exist–like the toddler playing peek-a-boo who covers his eyes believing that if he can’t see you, you can’t see him.
Unfortunately, refusing to see what is challenging you or holding you back from fully expressing yourself creatively, won’t make the challenge go away. And your creativity and productiveness will suffer.
Sometimes what you don’t want to see or deal with is actually bigger in your mind than in reality (an 8 of Swords situation) but you won’t know that if you don’t look. If you look, your creativity might kick into gear and generate new ideas or solutions to meet the challenges facing you.
But first you have to look.
Of course, if you look, then you often have to deal with the tarot card that comes after the Devil in the tarot…the Tower. 
The Tower is what I call the Rock ‘n’ Roll card.
The Tower often represents the structures in your life from which you draw your sense of self, your identity.
Something earth-shattering happens—parents die, jobs are lost, physical well-being is temporarily or permanently changed—and your sense of self is shaken.
I often tell clients, when this card appears, it’s time for you to rock ‘n’ roll before the Universe does it for you. That is, you can choose to shake things up around your creative work or, sooner or later, something else will.
But old habits are hard to break. Change is hard to accept and deal with. So we’d rather get stuck at the Devil, refusing to see what holds us back, than confront what binds us and deal with the momentous changes that might occur because of it.
Fortunately, after the Tower comes the Star in the tarot, the Star of healing, illumination and inspiration.
But you don’t get to the Star without moving past the Devil and the Tower.
That isn’t easy. For that, Strength (number 8) is needed, the card I wrote about recently. You need fortitude to dare to look at where that dang Devil has you tied up.
But if you gather your Strength, if you dare to confront the Devil, then you discover that really looking into the dark to see what challenges you not only leads to transformation but to new levels of insight and creativity.
Dare to see. Dare the Devil.