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Taking a leap of Faith – The Fool

Ah Ms Shadowscapes, you always find a way to strengthen my belief in you, you cheeky thing. Before you begin to read this post, I would suggest that you read yesterday’s post for some background information! Ok, done? Good, we may begin :). So after yesterday’s rather appropriate visitation by the Seven of Pentacles I woke up this morning wondering what else I needed to learn or be informed of before I receive tomorrow’s news. So as I was shuffling the cards I kept the situation in my mind, rolling it around and allowing my thoughts to blend with my shuffle. Then I drew and what came up, well you wouldn’t believe it but it was The Fool. The Shadowscapes’ representation of The Fool has got to be one of my favourite cards in the deck, its energies completely jump out from the card with so much power, enthusiasm and vitality, it’s truly beautiful.

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The Fool – Shadowscapes Tarot

The Fool is the first card in the deck, given the number Zero. Zero in fact, is not strictly a number, but represents the absence of a number and hence holds all numbers within itself. In this, we see it as representative of infinite possibilities. It also represents that there is no difference between possibility and reality. If all possibilities are open to you and like The Fool, you are open to all of them with a total emptiness of hopes and fears, then your reality is whatever you wish it to be. If you look at 0 closely, it resembles an egg, that from which life emerges! Everything is open to a being who is willing to go in any direction, who is completely free with a total openness to life. This is what The Fool represents.

As card Zero The Fool lies at the beginning of the Major Arcana, but also somewhat apart from it. Along with unlimited potential this card also stands for the fact that in any moment anything goes, she brings to mind the spontaneity inherent in every moment. She represents the fact that by living in the moment, with nothing expected and nothing planned, you will begin to feel uninhibited and carefree. In this she symbolises a complete faith that the universe is worthy of trust, that it is ok to let go of your fears, for if you trust in the flow of life then you will be protected and loved. This brings us to another aspect of The Fool, that of new beginnings or a change in direction. She will often come up when the querent is about to enter a new phase of their life, starting something new, or going on an adventure.

Above in the Shadowscapes representation we see a young woman who has travelled far, called to this high pinnacle by a unknown voice, standing tippy toed in a posture of complete openness and faith. What I like about this image is that unlike the RWS image below, she carries no belongings with her. Rather she stands completely open and free, ready to set out on this new beginning. She is dressed in a loose wrap of white cloth, a symbol of purity of being, and if you look at both the flow of the dress and the light around her it looks like the outline of a bird in flight :). All that holds her up from the iminent fall are the doves who have wrapped her in red ribbons of faith and folly, red being the colour of passion and the senses. Doves in and of themselves are a symbol of faith, and here represent her belief and trust in the world. Her faith will hold her up and her passion will keep her going!

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Appraising the Results of your Efforts – The Seven of Pentacles

Late last night I received an email from HR with regards to the takeover of the company I work for. As you know, the last month or so has been quite stressful as a result of this takeover and the potential of my store no longer being in business. In the email it said that all transferring employees would recieve a new contract by email on Monday the 25th and that any staff not transferring to the new entity due to a closure would be told personally on Monday. Freaking frightening right?! So now the state of limbo has been intensified over the first full weekend off I’ve had in a long time. Not fair I say! But I guess at least now I know the date on which I find out my fate. Anyways, as I was shuffling my cards this morning obviously this was playing on my mind, and when I turned over the card for today I was both shocked and pleasantly surprised, for it was the Seven of Pentacles.

To me the Seven of Pentacles represents a time where we are appraising the results of our efforts. It’s a time-out card where, after a rush of activity, we have time to sit back and assess the fruits of our labours, quite often also suggesting a reward coming our way! So assessment is a key to this card. When we are busy, working hard towards a goal, we can sometimes get so caught up that we actually forget why and what we are working towards. The Seven may appear when it is required for us to stop and ask “am I still on track?” “Is this what I really want?” In this the Seven also represents being at a crossroads, for it is so very easy to continue with our routines, even if they are not overly fulfilling. The Seven may appear when it is time to consider a direction change, it may be asking us to start questioning our choices and ponder the alternatives.

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Seven of Pentacles – Radiant Rider Waite Tarot

To the left we see the RWS representation of the Seven of Pentacles. Here we see a young man resting on his hoe, appraising the results of his harvest. His work has resulted in lush greenery and the Pentacles are blossoming :). He has put in the effort required and is about to recieve reward for his hard work. He stands back, appraising his efforts and admiring his handiwork. That satisfying feeling that comes with success. But if you look closely, that look of appraisal could be construed as a realisation that what he worked so hard for is in fact not what he wanted. If this is the case then the Seven suggests a direction change, presenting the fact that you are never committed to a certain path and change is always possible.

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Seven of Pentacles – Shadowscapes Tarot

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Hearing and Heeding a Call – Judgement

So far this month I have drawn a card each day, 21 cards as of yet, and I am starting to see a pattern emerging. For the first two weeks or so I was pulling a lot of Pentacles. The King of Pentacles and Queen of Pentacles actually came up four days in a row, going King, Queen, Queen, King. I found this quite intriguing because I have been feeling a real lack of connection with my surroundings, maybe they were trying to tell me to get back in touch. The plethora of pentacles ended however and since I have been pulling Major after Major. Ten Majors in total with two repeats, The High Priestess and Judgement. Today in fact my card for the day was Judgement, which I feel to be quite apropos this being my first card post in a while.

Judgement is an interesting card, with themes that maybe seem on the surface to be in juxtaposition. The name itself has quite negative connotations, for when do we ever really feel that being judged is anything but negative. Whether this stems from the fear instilled in us at Sunday School that the ‘Day of Judgement’ will come and only the ‘saintly few’ will be brought up to heaven, or maybe as a result of bullying at school, a feeling of judging eyes always upon us, most of us link the word judgement to a negative feeling. But it doesn’t have to be that way, and in fact the card Judgement is quite a positive one.

Judgement is the second to last card in the Major Arcana, and if you split the cards into three lines of seven it is situated in the third line representative of the release of archetypal energies and development of spiritual awareness. First we break free from The Devil’s chains, from our attachment to the physical world and belief that nothing exists beyond personal desires. Next we come upon The Tower and experience a shattering of illusions, one which alters our perceptions of materialism and releases our repressed energies. Then we journey through the three forms of light and experience beginning with the inner revelation of  The Star, through the mysterious unconscious energy of The Moon and finally into the conscious warmth of The Sun. Once we have had our experience with The Sun we realise that we are in fact part of the whole, come out reborn and find a sense of our inner and outer having merged with Judgement. Feeling reborn, finding absolution, making a judgement on our past life, and hearing and heeding a call. These are all represented by Judgement.

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Judgement – The Radiant Rider Waite Tarot

In the RWS depiction to the left we see an angel, usually said to be the archangel Gabriel, blowing a trumpet and awakening the dead below, ready to send those worthy up to heaven. Here we have, in my option, the most symbolically ‘Christian’ card in the whole deck, easily linked to the ‘Day of Judgement’. Now of course when we conciously link it to that, negative connotations are plentiful, but when you actually look at the card, no one looks fearful, in fact they look joyous, arms stretched open towards the angel in the sky! This to me links the trumpet blow not to an apocalyptic end of the world, but to a spiritual awakening, a change in conciousness. Which in fact is an important aspect of this card.

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Judgement – Shadowscapes Tarot

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A Passage Away from Difficulties – The Six of Swords

So as it turns out The Hanged Man’s message (seen in my last post) was much harder to take in than I expected! As those of you who have been reading my blog since it’s birth would know, 2015 has been a tumultuous year for me. But while there has been a lot of pain this year, it has also been a year of self-discovery and a deep questioning of what it actually IS that drives me! While this was spurred on by a negative emotional event, which to be honest has pretty much bled into most of my year, it has in turn helped me develop more positive and helpful ways of looking at pain and ‘negative’ emotions. But like most things, this is a stage of development that is going to require a lot of effort, and a lot of time! And during this stage there are of course going to be ups and downs, which I understand, but the fact that I have little control over this is starting to get to me! A month or so ago I was finally starting to feel like I was on the right track, and beginning to open myself up to the world again! To let my vulnerability see the light of day and venture out of the cage of safety I had created for myself since May’s events. But I never imagined it would be this difficult! It’s such an odd experience to feel like you aren’t the person you used to be, I find myself questioning every little thing I do, which is incredibly draining, and I no longer feel comfortable when in new or unfamiliar situations. I’ve tried to put myself out there lately, to meet new people, and get out of my comfort zone, but in these situations I find myself questioning every little thing I’m saying and wondering if the person sitting opposite me is even interested. And I am trying my best to listen to The Hanged Man and his message of letting go, I really am, but I think I’m scared that if I let go of the semblance of control I feel I have, I will be completely lost. And that thought frightens me! So after spending some time with The Hanged Man, I decided that it was time to pull another card of the day to see if the Shadowscapes had anything to help me through this process, and up came the Six of Swords.

The Six of Swords represents a state of despondency, those times when you feel like you are only just keeping your head out of the water, your not incredibly sad, but your not happy either. It’s a dull, listless feeling. But it’s not all bad, it shows that there is a way out! Quite often this card represents the beginning of a new phase after a time of upheaval, a journey away from a stage of unhappiness to a better place. It can represent a change in your frame of mind, or an actual physical journey away from a negative situation. And on top of that, there is help on this journey, you don’t have to do it alone!

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Six of Swords – Rider Waite Smith Tarot

Here in the RWS image we see a cloaked figure and a child, huddled together, being ferried off to an island in the distance. The figure is cloaked, which to me represents loss and sadness, that all too familiar feeling that occurs when you are leaving something behind in your past! Another important image that solidifies this is that the water to the right of the boat is rough and choppy, whereas the water to the left, towards the island and hence the direction they are going, is smooth and calm. This shows that the woman and the child are moving away from turmoil and conflict towards a calm and tranquil future. And this I think is the key to this card. Although we may be sad by our loss or predicament, as we move away from the past and its turmoil there is a sense of moving into a brighter future.

And then there is the ferryman, representative of the help that we may find along the way, and also importantly the 6 upright swords in the boat, representative of the importance of a logical frame of mind in these situations. Another way I like to look a these Swords is in the fact that they are not sinking the boat, nor weighing it down! In this respect it is important to realise that on this journey we may carry our past with us, but it will not weigh us down or sink us! Also I feel that the fact that they are coming with the woman and child on this journey shows that they represent something that the two figures have been dealing with for a long time, something that may no longer be painful but that stays with us throughout our life.

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Six of Swords – Shadowscapes Tarot

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A Willing Surrender to an Experience or Situation – The Hanged Man

I’ve been in a weird place over the last week or so, getting stuck in overthinking and worry. It’s funny, because nothing overly bad has happened, in fact there have been some really positive things that have occurred! But these positive possibilities have also been laced with downfalls, which I think is the main reason why I’ve been a bit stuck! The day before last I drew Strength, which is the card that the Tarot keeps sending me when I’m feeling at a loss. Ever since it came up as my major tool for this coming birth year in my New Years Spread, it has popped up as a reminder every time I’m feeling a bit weak! And then yesterday I drew The Sun, as if the Tarot was trying to tell me not to worry, all will be ok!  But I was still feeling frazzled, stuck in this cycle of thought centred on a situation I really have little control over! So today while drawing a card I decided to ask the deck outright what I need to do to get out of this energy, and what was her suggestion, The Hanged Man of course :P.

Could I have been sent a more suitable card? I don’t think so! The Hanged Man is all about letting go, and not in a forced way, but as a surrender or acceptance. It asks us to give up our hold on control, to surrender to our experiences, to be open and vulnerable and to end the constant stuggle that for so many of us is self-imposed! And I think it is this that is most important for me to take away from today’s card! Life is already hard enough, without imposing any other hardships upon ourselves! The Hanged Man also tells us that sometimes, in order to really see a situation for what it is/has to offer, we may need to suspend action, pause for a moment to reflect, and take the time to just simply be present. And if this doesn’t work then we might just need to take a real leaf out of this man’s book and reverse our view of the world.

The Hanged Man
The Hanged Man – Shadowscapes Tarot

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Something that can only be understood through Experience – The High Priestess

Today’s card is one that I have always been interested in, I don’t think I can say why exactly, but in every deck it always stands out, as if it is calling to me. Lots of people are drawn to the Death card in a deck, or sometimes it’s The Devil or The Lover’s that make or break a deck for someone, but for me it’s The High Priestess who keeps calling out to me, taunting me with the secrets she holds. I see her as representative of why I wish to use Tarot, to learn more about life’s mysteries and to look beyond the obvious surface of the situations I find myself in, to what is hiding beneath.

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The High Priestess – Radiant Rider Waite Tarot

The High Priestess is card number 2 in the Major Arcana and stands for mystery, potential, pyscic awareness and all things unconscious. She comes to tell us to look deeper, both within ourselves and in the world around us, to see what could be, to seek what is concealed or hidden, and to open ourselves to our own intuition. By doing so we can begin to trust our inner voice and in turn become aware of a larger reality!

In the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot we see a mysterious dark haired woman sitting before a veil, in between two stone pillars representative of ‘Boaz’ and ‘Jakin’, the two pillars in the Hebrew temple in Jerusalem. The dark  pillar here represents passivity and mystery, while the white represents conciousness and action. And she sits between them both. What I see as important however is that the letters inscribed upon the pillars are of there opposite colour, showing that within two extremes there is always an aspect of its opposite, that duality is in fact an illusion and the world is made up of a spectrum, not a one or the other dynamic. This is what The High Priestess promises, knowledge of the true nature of all things.

As in the RWS representation she most often sits before a veil, which represents the thin layer of consciousness that seperates us from our inner awareness. It is often thought that we are not allowed behind this veil until we have been initiated, for what we will find will be to unrational for us to understand, but I feel it is there to show us that there truly is little that holds us back from inner awareness. And what is behind the veil, not a dark and mysterious temple, nor symbols of magical power. It is a lake and hills, a body of water representative of our unconscious and the truths hidden within. And it is important to note that this body of water is still and calm, for that is the only way to come to terms with our inner reality, we must become calm, passive and receptive!

This brings us to the fact that The High Priestess is often seen as the ying to The Magician’s yang, where he is representative of the active principle, and she the passive. And more often than not activity is seen as a positive masculine trait and passivity is seen as a negative or weak feminine trait! I want to break this ill-conceived and outdated belief. For without passivity, we would never have the time to sit and think about what we have learnt from our actions. Passivity gives the mind a chance to think and in turn to learn from what we have experienced. And more importantly passivity allows the unconscious to come to the forefront, to emerge from beneath all that constant action and movement that we all too often burden our lives with. For if we are active, we never have to truly think about what it is we are doing, and question the motives behind our actions. I feel that this is a real problem with our society today, we build success upon outer involvement in the world, upon what it is we do, and how ‘important’, we are. And this creates a fear of the unconscious, a fear of our inner truth. And what’s worse is that this has grown to be such a persistent trait within our society that in a way has become unconscious. We need to conciously break this pattern, to in turn come to term with our true inner awareness.

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The High Priestess – Shadowscapes Tarot

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A Stable and Abundant Legacy – The Ten of Pentacles

I have to admit that I’ve never really had much of a connection with today’s card, even when I drew it this morning I thought, hmm this is going to make for a hard post to write. I don’t know if I really have an answer for why this is, all I know is that it is one of the few cards where nothing really jumped out at me on first glance. So I think to help me learn a little more about the card I’m going to look into both the RWS version and the Shadowscapes card I actually drew :). What card could be causing this problem you ask? Funnily enough it is from the suit of Pentacles (I know right, shocking 😛 :P), not a card that often causes difficulties in interpretation, but definitely one I can’t quite grasp yet, the Ten of Pentacles.

Ten of Pentacles - Radiant Rider Waite Tarot
Ten of Pentacles – Radiant Rider Waite Tarot

Traditionally the Ten of Pentacles shows an elderly man bedecked in an affluent looking robe, looking out upon his children and grandchildren. He is comfortable in his retirement, living off the fruits of his labour, knowing that he has accomplished everything he has wanted to and that now he can provide joy and security for those he cares for. It is a card of enjoying affluence, feeling financially secure and seeing your ventures flourish. It is about searching for permanence in the world, creating a secure foundation off of which your can flourish and live happily. This links to a conservative way of life whereby you follow convention, trusting in your methods. For when you become successful in a material sense, why would you wish to rock the boat by shaking things up? I think this aspect of the card is one of the reasons why I’ve never connected too well to it. I’ve never really been one for following the established patterns of living, and if I was to become financially successful I would want it to come from a personal and imaginative source.

Like the Ten of Cups, this card shows a scene of ease and contentment, although it is one based more upon the material comforts of life rather than an emotional/spiritual contentment. What we must remember however, as we are shown through the progression of the suit of Pentacles, is that monetary wealth and prosperity can be gained and lost suddenly, dependant on your circumstances and life choices. Because of this fact I feel that the Ten focusses more on reaching this stage in your life, where you are financially stable, and then using it to start new ventures, and to share your wealth with others.

Ten of Pentacles - Shadowscapes Tarot
Ten of Pentacles – Shadowscapes Tarot

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The Power of Internalised Worry and Regret – The Nine of Swords

Fear, Worry, Anxiety, Regret, these forces have such an affect on us as human beings, and if left unchecked they can be so strong as to completely overpower us. I have definitely fallen victim to this during my life, most recently during the aftermath of my breakup, where I was constantly going over and over all the things I could have done wrong, all the things I could have changed. This got so bad that I could hardly escape from my thoughts! See this is the thing about these ‘feelings’, they are all well and good as pure emotion, some may even save us from a dangerous situation, but as soon as we feed them with our thoughts, they have the power to completely take hold off us. This fact is epitomised within my Daily Draw today, the Nine of Swords.

Nine of Swords - Radiant Rider Waite Smith Tarot
Nine of Swords – Radiant Rider Waite Smith Tarot

These forces are the keystones to the Nine of Swords. Traditionally we see a figure, lying awake in bed, head in hands, with nine swords hanging above them in the dark. This is such a powerful image, for who hasn’t sat awake in bed at 3am, filled with worries and anxieties that just won’t leave us alone. Nighttime is when our griefs and fears have the most strength as we no longer have the distractions of the day to get us by. We sit there worrying, brooding over an issue, making everything seem worse than it is, despairing over all that we could have done differently. This card represents the deepest sorrow and mental anguish that the suit of Swords represents. Unlike the Queen who has been able to turn this sorrow into wisdom, or the Three which shows pain which seems to come from something outward but with a suggestion of acceptance and cleansing, the Nine shows the moment of agony overpowering us, the pain that we generate within ourselves!! The Swords which usually represent thought, communication and action have turned into weapons against us rather than tools of progress. The fact that the swords hang directly above the figure, and not through their back like the Ten, shows that quite often this pain is not something that’s happening directly to us, but as a result of someone we love. This is further evident in the pattern on the blanket. Here we see roses, the symbol of passion, interspersed between all of the Zodiac signs. This to me represents someone who can’t help but take on the pain of others.

Nine of Swords - Shadowscapes Tarot
Nine of Swords – Shadowscapes Tarot

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