We’re just over half way through February and I’m starting to see a pattern emerge in my daily draws. So far a third of my draws have been made up of three cards, Death, the Three of Swords and The Hierophant. To be exact it has gone Death, the Three of Swords, Death, The Hierophant, the Three of Swords and The Hierophant. Whenever instances like this take place I take note, for they usually have a strong meaning behind them.
Death – Shadowscapes Tarot
Since the last time I posted a few things have changed in my life. February the 3rds daily draw of Death was definitely fitting. I was going through a transition in the workplace, from acting manager of a store that was potentially closing down, to manager of a store which was now staying open. I had to make a decision as to whether this was where I wanted to be and allow all the past thoughts and fears to wash away. In a way, like the Phoenix on the card, who is death, rebirth and life encapsulated in one image, I was going through a rebirth. I needed to cleanse myself of the negative thoughts and feelings towards my job during that unstable period, so as to begin afresh under this new ownership.
Three of Swords – Shadowscapes Tarot
Then came the Three of Swords on Feburary 7. Whenever this card comes to me I have a whole body reaction to it, it’s one of the only cards that does that to me. I think that subconsciously there is still a lingering link to my most recent heartbreak. I am so much better now than I was 6 or so months ago, but to be completely truthful I am not fully healed. The Swords have been removed, but the scars are definitely still there. I am still afraid of opening my heart back up. When this card first came to me I wasn’t 100% sure whether it was to do with that past situation or to do with my present. For recently a new person has entered my life, a person whom I really enjoy spending time with and who makes me feel happy inside. It wasn’t until the next day when I drew the Two of Swords, the card of conflict between heart and mind, that I began to think of the Three’s potential meaning. To be honest with myself previous to this draw I felt like I was split in two, half of me really wanted to pursue this budding relationship, to throw myself in completely, but the other half, the logical half, kept bringing up the fact that I had been planning on leaving the country in August (if not for good then for a long period of time). I was and have since been stuck in this conflict between what I’m feeling and what I’m thinking. And I fear that heartbreak may ensue, I’m just not sure whose heart it is that the Swan represents.
So first and foremost, on Monday I recieved the news that my store will in fact continue to trade with the new ownership. The Fool’s message of trust and faith in the universe came through for me. As soon as I received the news I was of course elated and felt a great weight fall from my shoulders, but with further thought I’ve begun to question whether I actually do feel happy and rewarded or whether I feel like I am simply plodding along, like the lovely SJ brought up in my Seven of Pentacles post. I feel like this may require a reading in the future but at this moment in time I’ve decided to create a free flow reading from the 6 daily draw cards I have drawn so far this week. I’ve never done anything like this, so bare with me, as it is a learning process more than anything else :).
Self Constructed Daily Draw Reading – Shadowscapes TarotPage of Swords
Starting with Monday’s card, the Page of Swords, we see a young girl allowing herself to be lifted and carried away so as to have some time to think clearly. The Page of Swords can represent a messenger bringing us challenges, and often it is these challenges that stimulate personal growth. To me this is representative of receiving the news that we would continue to trade. In the Shadowscapes representation the Page cradles a Cygnet in her lap which I see as representative of how this dilemma or quandary may affect the smaller things in our life. Another aspect of this representation I like is the use of black and white, symbolic of her ability to look at the balance of black and white around her without condemnation. I need this right now, for truly neither side is positive or negative, but rather holding both posibilities within themselves.
The Hermit
Linking this to both Tuesday’s card The Hermit, and Thursday’s card The Hanged Man, I am feeling a strong pull towards the need to spend some real time thinking about what I want out of this life! My job is not overly stimulating, and a lot of the time I feel mentally weakened purely from a lack of said stimulation! The Hermit is all about being alone and discovering truths about yourself. And coming after the Page it suggests a need to remove myself even further from distractions, for as we see on the card he has climbed even higher than the Page, above the flight of the birds themselves.
Queen of Cups
The fact however that these two cards fall either side of the Queen of Cups makes me feel that this personal development will both lead to and out of a connection to my true well of emotion and what it is I really want. I have always been drawn to the Queen of Cups, seeing her as the person I wish to become. I am deeply emotional, but can often allow these emotions to overpower me unlike the Queen of Cups who has full control over the waves of emotion!
The Hanged Man
So maybe this is saying that as a result of this introspection I will find a deeper connection to my wellspring which will in turn lead to The Hanged Man’sacceptance and willing surrender. For what does The Hanged Man represent but an end to the constant struggles we impose upon ourselves. He urges us to let go of our control, and what we think we need, to in turn reverse our view of our situation and hopefully come out with the realisation of where we then have to go.
Page of Wands
Following on from this personal reversal we find Friday’s draw, the Page of Wands. I see the Page of Wands as someone who has just discovered/rediscovered their sense of Self, what fuels their Passion, or something Inspiring. The place in the spread to me suggests the re-discovering aspect of this Page, but it could also mean that out of The Hanged Man I may discover something new. She urges us to be Creative, Enthusiastic, Confident and Courageous, all things which I wish to be more prominent and know I am, but are just currently lying dormant.
Six of Pentacles
Then finally we have today’s card, the Six of Pentacles, the card of flowing material energy. This was the hardest card for me to interpret in this constructed spread. I don’t know who I feel more connected to, the Plant receiving the energy or the Piper releasing it. I feel like I put so much of my energy into this job and all I receive back is a monetary reward. My soul receives very little nourishment! But if we look at the card more closely we see that the balance between the two is more delicate than otherwise assumed. For while the Piper releases his energy in the form of the flow of Pentacles feeding the Plant, the Plant is in turn adding buttress to the wall on which he sits. I see this as symbolic of the cycle of dependency between those who have and those who don’t and that by helping out someone less fortunate we may in fact allow them the opportunity to do so for someone else in the future. An interconnected cycle of energy :). But how does this link to my situation? If I look at it as flowing on from the previous 5 cards then maybe it is telling me that through this journey I will receive knowledge of where I wish to be and then with that self knowledge I will in turn be able to feed back into the universe and help others who wish to grow and expand as well.
I think it is clear from this that I need some time alone to think over where I am and where I want to be, and that hopefully by doing so I will get back in touch with my true inner self and discover what it is that makes me happy and feeds my soul! I really enjoyed trying to find a thread through these daily draws, and might even do them more often. I hope you also enjoyed this experiment 🙂
Today I decided not to pull a Daily Card in favour of doing a reading. And as I am working my way through the The Alternative Tarot Course, created by the beautiful Beth from Little Read Tarot, I decided that I would do my third weekly reading :). Chapter 3 of the course was all about getting in touch with the Major Arcana! The Majors represent the larger aspects of our lives, the big changes that send us on a tailspin, those moments when we feel we are trapped in a situation, but also the times where we come to terms with our inner truth and learn that we in fact have everything we need to achieve what it is we want. It’s been a really good week and I may post a bit about some of the exercises at some point, but today is all about the reading for this chapter, entitled “Courtroom Drama”. This is a Majors only spread originally created by the French Tarotist Oswald Wirth in the 1920s. In this spread we imagine we are in a Courtroom and our situation is being discussed and judged by the ‘Majors’. It is a five position spread, where the fifth position is deciphered using numerology, an addition which I really liked :). You lay the first four cards out first, which are representative of:
Position 1: “In your favour” – What is ‘for’ your situation. A person, energy or influence that may be of help. Your key strength.
Position 2: “Against” – The negatives. Things working against you in your situation and hindering your progress.
Position 3: “The Judge” – This is the card that looks through the evidence presented by cards 1 and 2 and try’s to clarify where you stand, giving advice as to how to proceed.
Position 4: “Decision/Sentence” – The outcome. The lesson to be learned.
Once these are laid you add up the numbers on cards 1-4 and then if they are over 22 reduce them by adding the two numbers together. For example, in my reading the total was 36 – 3+6=9. So my centre card was The Hermit. The centre card is Position 5 in the spread but it is read first. This is because this card is what everything else depends upon and hence is the most important part of the reading! Now this spread can obviously be used for many different questions but in this instance Beth asked us to ask the cards a specific question, “How can I become a truly brilliant tarot reader?”
So now that you know the basic outline, here is my Courtroom Drama 🙂
Alternative Tarot Course Weekly Reading Number Two – Courtroom Drama
For those of you who have been reading my blog for awhile you may be wondering what’s been happening with me and The Alternative Tarot Course! It’s been three or so weeks since I posted my last weekly reading, which means that I have been on week two of the course for way too long!! It’s not that I have been struggling with it per say, it’s more that the procrastination bug has taken hold. That and life has just seemed to run away from me recently. So, having a few hours spare today I decided that it was high time for me to do the Weekly Reading for Chapter Two: Four Suits, Four Elements. This chapter was all about the four suits/elements of Tarot and how they interact with each other. It’s been an interesting chapter for me, as I struggle a bit with open ended exercises, probably the perfectionist in me wanting to get to the right answer :P. But at the same time it’s been great to think further about how the elements interact and what it means when they aren’t present.
So here we go, “The Four Elements Spread” by Beth Maiden. The idea behind this spread is to look at how the four elements influence a situation in your life. There are five positions in this spread, which are as follows:
1: Your situation at this moment (centre)
2: The Earth of your situation (bottom)
3: The Water of your situation (left)
4: The Air of your situation (top)
5: The Fire of your situation (right)
When I sat down to begin this reading I was unsure exactly what I wanted to ask the deck about, do I ask about my emotional state, about where I am in my life right now, or a way to move to a place where I am more stimulated and satisfied, I had so many things to ask that I decided I would let Shadow and my subconscious tell me what I should focus on. So here we go 🙂
Today is my birthday 🎉, and instead of doing a daily card I decided that I would give myself a bigger challenge and in turn learn a little more about myself and the year to come. So I popped over to Little Red Tarot, my go to for all things tarot related and decided that I would do Beth’s New Years Spread, for your birthday is truly the beginning of a personal New Year 😃. And as you can see Cosmo decided he would like to help out 😊
While there are 10 cards in the picture above this is actually a 5 position spread. Beth constructed it with the interactions between cards in mind, how their energies support each other or if they show any tension/conflict.
So for those of you who don’t know, as part of The Alternative Tarot Course you are required to do a weekly reading to assist in your development as a reader. I started the course on Saturday the 19th and last Sunday I did the first week’s reading entitled “The Reader’s Reading”. I had quite a busy weekend but really wanted to fit this reading in and I have to admit it was quite hard to interpret some of the cards so this may be a little shorter than I had hoped but here goes.
Now for those of you new to tarot, you may not know what a ‘Card of the Day’ is. Put simply it is a widely used exercise in the tarot community, where you draw a card each day, and contemplate how it’s energy may be playing out as the day progresses. To expand upon this you can also take the card as being representative of something that may happen during the day, or how I think I will proceed with this excercise, as possible messages of things to work on/towards.
I’ve put this practice off for quite some time for various reasons, but it is a big part of The Alternative Tarot Course so I wouldn’t be doing the course justice if I didn’t partake in this ritual. Let alone the fact that it is a really good way of learning the cards 😃. So this morning before getting ready for work I took out my deck, shuffled my cards and drew my first Card of the Day…the Page of Pentacles.
So a couple of weeks back while reading through the Little Red Tarotblog I stumbled across a few posts in which Beth interviewed her decks to learn a little more about them. After a quick perusal I thought that it would be fun to interview my Shadowscapes deck, and hopefully become closer in the process. And here is what she had to say about herself…
I need some help. I’m sick of falling into sadness without a way forward. I feel as if the energies are better today than they were last night so I’ve decided it’s time to consult the cards about the issues I have been having, which I outlined in yesterday’s post. I decided to go with a simple three card spread asking “How best can I deal with my thoughts and feelings around my breakup? This is what came up…
Four of Swords, The Moon, Ten of Wands – Shadowscapes Tarot
So for those of you who haven’t read my previous three posts the last four or so months have been really hard for me emotionally. In May my partner and I broke up, and this truly shook me to my core. I always saw us moving through our lives together and when I thought of my future I always saw him by my side. Travelling to Europe for the first time together, having a place we could call our own, getting our first pet, all those small things that you take for granted until you realise they are no longer possible. And while I wish things didn’t have to be this way, and that I could speak to him again, unfortunately we only have true control over ourselves and our own actions. We have no real power when someone has made up their mind.
Before I came to realise this, I decided that I needed some guidance, so I pulled out my deck, and using a lovely spread I found on Little Red Tarot, which I believe Beth got from a friend of hers, I asked, “How can I move on from this stage of sadness?”
Two of Swords, Ten of Wands & Two of Wands – Shadowscapes Tarot 21/08/15
the fox and the otter 