Day: November 20, 2020

Chocolate Cake

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Today’s meditation was skipped because nobody would leave me the hell alone this morning.  I swear to god some days the girls are so totally self sufficient, and then other days?  Every five seconds they’re in my hair bugging the fuck out of me.  Although… Z did make chocolate cake this morning.  So she’s forgiven.

Traditional Manga Tarot - Nine of CupsSpeaking of chocolate cake…

Today’s draw is the Nine of Cups, which is about obtainment and completion in the area of one’s emotions, relationships, intuition, and creativity.  This card is about emotional contentment, and taking time to be grateful and enjoy a sense of satisfaction in where you are at.

On Wednesday, I did a reading about whether I live to eat or eat to live, and here we have a card that is, in its depths, very much a “live to eat” card at its core.  It’s about enjoying what you have, finding pleasure and peace in the moment… and the imagery very much makes me think of eating cake.

The message in today’s card is to savor the good stuff.  Don’t let those things and experiences go to waste.

DECK USED:  TRADITIONAL MANGA TAROT

LionHart’s As Above So Below Challenge Prompt
Neptune Question: A dream, hope, or desire I am asked to feed, or honor {more}.

Ring Cycle Tarot

A Dream I Am Asked To Feed – Emperor (Wotan) – Independence and strength, but with the balance of a softer and more understanding edge. Independence has always been my dream, and one I feed regularly, but that softer edge is new and something I have been working on over this past year.  Learning to find that softness and encourage it is something that needs constant fostering.

A Hope I Am Asked To Feed – Two of Nibelungs – Working off my mortgage is something I’ve been focused on for a very long time and I have a timeline on that I’ve been hoping to stick to.  I’m creeping toward the end stretch of my mortgage over the next few years and I need to keep this hope alive by feeding it and not giving up on it regardless of the state of the world.

A Desire I Am Asked To Feed – Two of Gibichungs – Balance and fairness in all things is something that I am constantly in need of.  When things are unfair and imbalanced, I struggle under the weight of this knowledge and a nearly righteous need to fix it and make it better. No matter how much some may look down upon this need, it is not a bad thing and is a directive that comes straight from my moral compass. Don’t be shy about these values.

A Dream I Am Asked To Honor – Six of Gibichungs – This card echos the above theme of fairness, but here we see a need to foster it not just one individual case at a time but within a community where all understand and treasure the fairness that is fostered and grows there.  There have been many times that my personal need for fairness is all about a personal drive, in this case I am asked to honor the dream within myself that such fairness would be valued by all and that everyone would work together to sustain it.

A Hope I Am Asked To Honor – Justice (Wotan’s Spear) – We reap what we sow, and in my heart?  I hope that this is true.  I hope that, through the workings of the balance of the universe, the truly horrible and evil people in the world really do reap the pain and misery that they have sown. If not in this life, than upon their spirit to be carried forward into the next.  To honor this hope, it is important to remember that you don’t always have to right the wrongs yourself… you instead need to foster the faith that the universe will do that for you.

A Desire I Am Asked To Honor – Nine of Nibelungs – I desire to trust.  I look back on the innocence and naivete that I had a decade or more ago… and sometimes I ache for that gleaming golden faith that has been scored and chipped and peeled away over time.  I used to have such faith in people as a whole… and I miss it. I understand I cannot go back, but I hope to never lose the memory of that time and, as a result, become truly and irretrievably jaded.

DECK USED:  RING CYCLE TAROT

#DiscordTarotolicsNov2020 Challenge Prompt
Question: Advice I need to hear at this time concerning my love life.

Ride or Wait TarotReading Summary: Lean on Gideon as needed (King of Cups) and depend on him to keep hope and positivity alive (The Star) rather than retreating into yourself or hiding from him (Four of Cups Rx).

Take Away: It’s so damned hard for me to reach out sometimes and I really don’t understand why.  It’s not as if he’s going to look down on me for needing him.  If anything, any time I express my need of him, he is ready to leap into action and be there for me with eagerness, love, and strength.  

And yet, my first reaction when I need support or a pick-me-up?  Is to sink into myself rather than reach out to him… even after being together over twelve years now.   Why is that?

Obviously, this is a good reminder… and one I need to hear pretty often, especially in times of stress.

DECK USED:  RIDE OR WAIT TAROT

Heal & Transform November Challenge Prompt
Question: What or who in my life is draining my energy?

Oak Ash & Thorn Tarot

What in my life is draining my energy?
Page of Swords atop Nine of Swords, Six of Pentacles

My ambition and worries that I’m not doing enough. This has been especially troubling for me this fall, as I have procrastinated a good deal of the fall away without getting my shit done as I should have.  For some reason, even fighting against the lethargy of the weight of that procrastination, I couldn’t manage to get my ass in gear.

Who in my life is draining my energy?
Extra Card (In the Weeds) and Queen of Pentacles

Those that are dependent on me are draining my energy at the moment, although through no fault of their own, but rather because I’m not getting away enough for some alone time in nature. Self care is sometimes such a fucking pain in the ass and it feels like a waste of time… and then I don’t do it and end up in a situation of self harm through neglect as a result.

DECK USED:  OAK ASH & THORN TAROT

#ConnectWithYourDeckChallenge by E Roebuck-Jones
Question: How have I acted on that advice given to me from yesterday’s reading?

Puppet Theatre Tarot

Reading Summary:  Developed strength of determination (King of Wands) combined with a built up strength of foundation in home and finances (King of Pentacles) allows me to then use these things I’ve learned to better assist others than I could have otherwise (Six of Cups)

Take Away: Yesterday’s advice was about looking after myself before others, and thus by putting myself first.  Here we see that in having helped myself first and become strong both in my determination and my foundations, I then am able to help others in more effective ways later.  Sometimes those you refused to help earlier in life aren’t able to forgive that refusal, and you have to allow for those “spilled milk” people and let go of them so that you can use your resources to instead help those that are open to your assistance in the ways you chose to help.

DECK USED:  PUPPET THEATRE TAROT

Timing In The Tarot

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Abundant Life Tarot did a video in September of last year about timing in the tarot and how she works with timing in relation to doing a reading.  I found her methods really interesting, and ended up doing a bunch of research on this.  I find it fascinating all the different ways that people deal with the timing issue in their readings and I thought I would share mine here.

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First and foremost, in my day to day readings with no intention of seeking beyond this time period, the majority of my predictive readings lie within a three month span.  So in day to day readings, I can dependably expect anything predictive in my cards is going to be within that span.  I can then sometimes use intuition to narrow that down even further.

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Aside from that understanding, my main method of working with timing in tarot readings is through “landmark cards”.  It’s not about having prior warning that “three months from now this will happen” so much as it’s about identifying when you have arrived at the time when the reading is relevant.

How this works is that you pull a “timing card” and that card indicates a “landmark” of sorts.  ie: “Start looking for what’s going on in this reading when this (the timing card) happens.” or “Start looking for what’s going on in this reading when you find yourself feeling like this (the timing card).”

This is my most common method of establishing when something will happen.  It allows for timing adjustments due to the choices of others and the fluidity of the future, as instead of the querent stuck focusing on a specific week or month or date, they are looking for the “landmark” that has been established, providing flexibility for timing shifts and outside influences.

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The second way in which I use timing is by specifying timing in the reading itself.  This is how Year Ahead spreads are done and can be used for any type of predictive reading.

In this method, you specify as you do the reading that “next week” (any time period can be used) is what the reading is about. Alternately, you can specify that each card is for a different time period such as… Card 1 Next Week, Card 2 Next Month, Card 3 Next Year, etc.

So for example if doing a Year Ahead reading, you would pull one or two cards for each month in the year ahead, and those cards apply specifically to the month they were pulled for.

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The third way in that I have worked with timing in tarot (and sometimes still do, although far less often than the other two methods already mentioned), is through the suits and their corresponding seasons.

Earth – North – Autumn – Touch

Air – East – Winter – Scent

Fire – South – Summer – Sight

Water – West – Spring – Taste

In this method, like the “landmark” method, you specifically pull cards with the intention of timing, and the cards indicate to you the upcoming season that the reading is for.  I rarely use this method as I find that the others mentioned above work better for me personally.

There are methods that can be used to chart days, weeks, months, and even specific dates through the cards that come up, but they are not methods I use.  Because the future is fluid and ever-changing, getting down to the brass tacks of hours and days can sometimes be tricky, as there are so many variables that can cause timing (or even the reading’s results itself) to shift.