tarot and psychology

Slow Progress Is Still Progress

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IMG_9414Today’s meditation was just under seventeen minutes and was a guided meditation from the Oak app that was the first in a series of lessons about using mantra in meditation.  I included the interval timer for my piriformis stretches as well.

I actually liked the lesson.  I especially was appreciative of the fact that although it started out asking you to verbalize the mantra (something I’m unable to do due to my mutism), it moved quickly on to it being in the mind instead of passing through the lips.  This makes my participation much easier and I found the meditation itself relaxing.

Black Line Tarot 1st Edition and Thera-Pets Emotional Support Animal CardsToday’s draw is the Page of Pentacles, which is traditionally a representation of a receptive omega energy, personality, or person in the area of one’s finances, resources, home life, health, or manifestations.  This is the energy of a learner, student, or novice in these specific areas and includes an energy of openness and growth.

I love the sprigs of plants as a representation of growth and manifestation in this card’s imagery, and the cherry blossoms above as an indication of innocence and beginnings.

When combined with the Thera-Pets card for today, what I see here is a reminder that it’s okay to struggle and that we are our own worst critics.  When doing something that makes us feel vulnerable or trying something new, it can often feel like we’re sucking ass at whatever that thing might be even when maybe we’re not doing bad at all, or are even doing extremely well.  That “level of expectation” can often make us feel like we’re failing even when, in truth, we’re making great strides towards growth and learning.

I relate to this today in my personal climb out of the pit of depression I’ve been struggling with.  I found bottom, I’ve begun my climb.  But there are times when it doesn’t feel like I’m getting anywhere.  The reminder in these cards encourages me that I need to keep trying, and keep climbing… because just because I feel like I’m not getting anywhere right at the moment doesn’t mean I’m not making progress.

DECK USED:  BLACK LINE TAROT AND THERA-PETS EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMAL CARDS

The Radical Love Tarot Challenge Prompt
Topic:  Boundaries
Question: What boundaries have I been neglecting lately?

The Uncommon Tarot

Reading Summary: Using a combination of gratitude (Ten of Coins) and family (Six of Cups) to help in keeping me grounded (Four of Coins) as I work through my personal challenges (Strength).

Take Away:  The boundary that has been neglected is the boundary with myself. I need to stop my solitary “I’m strong enough” bullshit and allow others to help me.  Especially during the major depressive episodes, I have a habit of trying to retreat into myself, not wanting to subject those I love to the “ugliness” of the depression.  My family (both blood and chosen) has the ability, though, to help foster my feelings of gratitude and give me the extra oomph of grounding that I need right now.  Neglecting the boundaries I’ve set for myself and allowing myself to retreat as I have does not help me in my recovery, but can instead hinder my progress.

DECK USED:  THE UNCOMMON TAROT

#DiscordTarotolicsFeb2021 Challenge Prompt
Question:  What is the best and worst thing about getting older?

Black Line Tarot 1st EditionWhat is the best thing about getting older?
Queen of Swords and Ace of Swords

Older and wiser means better new beginnings.  I’ve always been pretty good at picking up new things. New ideas, new projects, new skills… there’s never been much that’s intimidating about all that for me.  But I feel that with a lot of people?  There is a great deal of intimidation in trying something new.

As we age, though, and try new things again and again, we gain confidence in ourselves and that feeling of “newness” and worry about how it will go seems to ease and become more manageable.  It becomes less about “what if I fail?” and more about “how do I succeed?”.

What is the worst thing about getting older?
Three of Wands and Eight of Swords

Uncertainty about what’s ahead. This is something that I never understood when I was younger, perhaps because I had no fear of death when I was younger.  But, as I age and I find more and more value in life, I have begun to understand this fear and uncertainty.

When younger and willing to let go so easily, there was no concern over the when or how, no worry over what would happen after or where I would go next once this life had come to an end.  I have found, though, that as I have come to value this life more and more with age… I come to think about this uncertainty with a far less lackadaisical view.

DECK USED:  BLACK LINE TAROT

Daily Self Kindness

You know, I often sit down at this end of the post and get stuck at this section.  I can’t think of a single kindness that I did for myself today.   I mean… okay so yeah.  I took the day off.  I haven’t opened up my shops even once today.   That’s something, right?

Morning Bonus Read – Changing Seasons

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Changing Seasons Spread - Hoping Soul Lenormand

Card to represent this new season of my life.

Heart – A thawing and rising of warmth as the ice that the depression has encased your emotions within begins to melt and ease.  Contentment and feelings of love and warmth return as the depression is being left behind. The new season that is rising up at this time in your life is one of return… of life and love and emotion that was once shut down is now being given the freedom to grow and thrive again as you begin to find the light you’ve been striving for.

How will I change in this new season of my life?

Clover – Good stuff lies ahead with a return of a more optimistic outlook and the ability to get in touch with and feel happiness once more.  The closer you get to the edge of that pit of depression and pulling yourself out of it, the better you will feel.

Something important I will learn.

Cross – There is reinforcement in the journey, and in the familiarity of the slippery slope and the climb back out. In repeating this journey it is not something new that is learned, but rather an assurance that the depression is indeed temporary and will be again in the future when it eventually returns as it has in the past.

Something I need to embrace.

Broom – Finding balance again will not be easy.  The climb out of the pit is hard, and there’s a lot of struggle involved.  It’s important to accept that there will be slippery spots in the climb, places where your hand or foot might slip.  Remember that the pain is a part of the journey and keep your ass moving upward.

A challenge I will face this season.

Scythe – When to let go. Too often you spend too much time fighting the good fight when the battle is already over.  Instead of being so rigid, you will have the opportunity in this season of your life to let go more easily, to let things flow more smoothly, and accept change without the resistance and struggle you habitually put forth at these times.

A lesson I must learn from this challenge.

Cloud – To live with uncertainty rather than fight against it. The unknown can be terrifying, or it can simply be something you’ve yet to discover.  In letting go of the fight against change, you will learn to better accept the unknown and not let it give rise to your anxiety.

How this challenge will make me a better person.

Lily – You will find yourself feeling calmer and more peaceful, and able to handle changes in a more mature and measured way. Remember that if you don’t take the lesson and learn from it, you don’t end up with the boon at the end when you grow from the experience.  Growth is very much the boon of this particular lesson.

DECK USED:  HOPING SOUL LENORMAND

Survival Tactics

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Today’s meditation was just over twelve minutes long and was (for once) not a guided meditation.  Instead I meditated to some new music that I came across (or, well, new to me anyway), with the interval timer added in for my piriformis stretching. The meditation was relaxing and the music felt like it went through a seasonal shift that was really nice, flowing from spring to summer to autumn throughout the length of the track.

Lonely Ice Tarot and Thera-Pets Emotional Support Animal CardsToday’s draw is the Seven of Swords, which is traditionally a representation of taking off with that which is not yours, leaving behind that which you cannot carry, strategy and cunning, betrayal, and other themes to do with deception or subterfuge.

There isn’t really a lot to go off of in this card and yet what’s depicted here looks a whole lot like seagulls, which I feel is the perfect bird for this card because they are absolutely sneaky as fuck.  Ride enough Washington ferries and you learn not to take your food outside.  Any type of food. Or anything shiny, for that matter, either.

They will steal from you at the first opportunity and they are as slick as snot about it too.  They can hover silently in the air just out of sight behind you then dip in and swipe what they want without a sound. Over a lifetime of riding the ferries, I have watched them steal french fries, hamburgers, sandwiches, cookies, ice cream (that one was interesting), hair clips, key fobs, and more.  Although this makes them thieves, this also makes them very cunning and great survivalists.

And that carries us over to what is said on the Thera-Pets card today, which is that above all else? Survival will happen.  When we fall, we rise.  We don’t stay on the ground forever, melt into the pavement and rot away right there on the ground.  We get up.  We move on.  The scrapes on our knees heal up and we learn from the experience and move on.

Tripping and falling on pavement is not the only way in which we fall… in which I fall.   Depression. Pain. Dropping a knife to run clean through my foot.  All of these things make me feel fractured sometimes.  But as fractured as I might become…. I will rise and I will heal.  I will survive and find a way forward… because I’m a survivor and it’s what I do.   We are all survivors… and we do what we need to do to survive, to learn, and to grow from each bump, scrape, and fall that we experience along life’s path.

DECK USED:  LONELY ICE TAROT AND THERA-PETS EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMAL CARDS

LionHart’s Mercury Retrograde Tarot Challenge Prompt
Question:  What have I learned or has come to my attention during this Rx?

Cosmic Slumber Tarot

Reading Summary:  Everything (The Universe) doesn’t have to be perfect (Ten of Pentacles Rx atop Ace of Torches) in order to make time for self care (Queen of Pentacles).

Take Away:  I have a habit of putting off self-care until I ‘feel like it’ or until it feels like there’s time for it. I will go from project to project, from task to task, saying “I’ll do this self care thing next… just after this is done” and prioritize my responsibilities and drive above the nurturing of my self over and again.   Over the course of this Mercury Rx I have been stuck within the depression, and through my experience with my depression this time around, I’ve caught myself in this habit again and again… and come to realize that putting it off isn’t doing me any good.  Instead?  It’s just making it impossible to include my self-care into my day at all.

DECK USED:  COSMIC SLUMBER TAROT

#DiscordTarotolicsFeb2021 Challenge Prompt
Question:  Who in my life needs extra attention at this time?

Lonely Ice TarotThis is me.  The Queen of Swords is the “mother’s son” that I am… and the King of Swords is the “better” I want to be.  It is about taking what I have been given and becoming more.  About not being my mother, but my own man and using those shared skills in better and safer ways.   The Knight of Coins is my desire to continue my growth forward, and determination take my own path based on what is right for me rather than the one others might try to lay out for me.

The person in my life that needs extra attention at this time is me.  It’s in the cards, but even more specifically, it was in my gut the moment I saw these faces, and the eyes that stared out from them in the Queen and the Knight as if piercing the soul.

DECK USED:  LONELY ICE TAROT

Daily Self Kindness

I’m staying up late to get some Gideon time, because today sucked and I wasn’t able to spend time with him earlier in the day.

Keep Climbing

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IMG_9387Today’s meditation was just over ten minutes long, and was a guided meditation from the Calm app with added interval timer for my piriformis stretches (which I did actually do today).

The focus of today’s meditation was about resistance to change and how when we stop fighting against the inevitable, it is no longer a battle at all but rather things begin to go more smoothly as a result.   This is something I’ve been thinking a lot about recently.   Mostly about how everyone says that they hate change (myself included) and yet change happens around us every day all the time and we don’t even notice it.  We just adapt and keep on keeping on, yeah?  It’s only when the change is something we object to that we struggle with it.  So what would happen if we stopped fighting these changes that we don’t want to happen or dread, and just let them flow over us as we do all the other changes we experience from day to day.  Would we adapt more easily?  Perhaps we would find the adjustment not quite as horrible as we might have imagined.

Existential Tarot and Tera-Pets Emotional Support Animal CardsToday’s draw is the Reason 7 card (Seven of Swords), which is traditionally a representation of cunning, stealth, and even betrayal.  It can also often be about strategy, and making sure that you only take with you (or take on) only that which you are able to handle.

What stands out to me in the imagery of this card today is the slump of shoulders as the forefront figure looks back at the one in the distance.   There is a sense of defeat in that slump of shoulders and angle of the head.  A sense of surrender that isn’t about having lost a battle but is instead about carrying an unwelcome weight.

When combined with today’s Thera-Pets card, what I see is an encouragement to not give in.  To keep climbing, keep striving… keep reaching for the light.  When the temptation to yield to the darkness comes, it is time to remember that there is light ahead.  I only need to keep climbing, and I will eventually get there.

DECK USED: EXISTENTIAL TAROT AND THERA-PETS EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMAL CARDS

#ConnectWithYourDeckChallenge by E Roebuck-Jones
Question: What makes me emotionally vulnerable?

Silhouette Tarot

Reading Summary:  When I am feeling my way forward instead of walking with steady steps. When I am exploring a new aspect of my connection to the world around me. When I am confronted with and exploring the avenues of new emotional growth.

Take Away:  This is all about growth and newness, especially in relationship to my emotional growth and how that influences my communication with others and how I see, relate, and connect with the world around me. The sense of uncertainty during these times leaves me feeling especially vulnerable.

DECK USED:  SILHOUETTES TAROT

#DiscordTarotolicsFeb2021 Challenge Prompt
Topic:  Do Spread 3

Existential TarotWhich one card do you feel sums you up best?
The Orphan / The Hanged Man

Each and every experience in life is a moment to pause and learn from.  A moment to find new meaning, new perspective, and new purpose.  I identify most strongly with the hanged man, because my life has been lesson after lesson, and it is within that pause to find sense and perspective where I find myself again and again.  Learning, adapting, growing with each experience, no matter what those experiences might be.

Which one card do you feel represents your strengths?
Sisyphus / The Hierophant

I greatly enjoy teaching others, helping them in finding the path through life that is right for them.  I love helping educate on those things I understand or have experience in, in the hopes that by doing so and sharing these things, that others will find something that they are inspired to explore as well, or that resonates with them and helps them to find a better path, a better way, or a new perspective that works better for them.

Which one card do you feel represents your limitations?
Reason 9 / Nine of Swords

My mental health.  Out of all my limitations, it is my mental healthy that is, in my opinion, my greatest.  It causes me to “check out” from the world and from my support system, whether I want to or not. It creates setbacks and backsliding of progress on my growth, creates problems with moving forward and accomplishing goals.  It steals time from me… days and weeks, sometimes in the past whole months and more, that simply disappear… where no memory exists.  I am familiar with my mental health limitations, and yet there is only so much I can do to mitigate the influence.

What kind of issues do you feel that you need to work on?
Action 2 / Two of Pentacles

Finding a healthy and workable balance between work and home, between responsibility and self-care. For so long I have abused myself, forcing myself into working more hours than most can even imagine and sleep less than most can handle.  I’ve pushed for more from myself again and again, even when I was already doing so much.  Now, after a lifetime of doing this, I find myself struggling to find just what a healthy balance looks like and that journey, along with the healing and building of new methods and habits, is taking time.

What message do you want to convey to everyone?
Metamorphosis / Strength

You are stronger than you think you are.  The core of inner strength within you is so much stronger than you can imagine.  A survivor filled with strength resides within you and will support you when you need it most. You will not break. Do not give up.  Do not give in.  

DECK USED:  EXISTENTIAL TAROT

Daily Self Kindness

I spent the day in play with Gideon… and it was fucking glorious.

Accepting Guidance

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Today’s meditation was skipped because I was lazy and slept in late, then relaxed in bed fucking around on my phone instead of getting my ass in gear.

True Heart Intuitive Tarot and Thera-Pets Emotional Support Animal CardsToday’s draw is the Queen of Cups, which is traditionally a representation of a receptive alpha energy, personality, or person in the area of one’s emotions, relationships, creativity, and intuition.  Among other things, this often translates into themes to do with emotional support and advice from a trusted party that is easy to talk to.

What stood out to me the strongest in the imagery of this card is how the Queen holds her cup.  She holds it up like a torch, as if with her steps forward away from the comfort of her throne, that cup might light her way forward.

Combined with the Thera-Pets card drawn today, the message of today’s draw is that sometimes we all need a little extra guidance on our path.  This doesn’t make us less capable or even lacking, it means that we all have more to learn and will do so to get where we need and want to be in life.

DECK USED:  TRUE HEART INTUITIVE TAROT AND THERA-PETS EMOTIONAL SUPPORT ANIMAL CARDS

The Radical Love Tarot Challenge Prompt
Topic:  Expansion
Question: How can I (in a healthy way) expand my awareness to be more in touch with others?

Kei Love Tarot

Reading Summary:  Use that skill you’ve honed all your life (Eight of Pentacles) to see things from different perspectives and angles (Hanged Man) and use it to find a more balanced approach (Two of Pentacles) that is less anxiety inducing (Nine of Swords Rx).

Take Away:  You know, I’ve never actually thought about this much before, but there is a fissure of anxiety involved for me when I am interacting with others. This goes beyond “likeability” and and instead deals with a feeling of… unpredictability.  I find people unpredictable. And I struggle with that… a lot.  I struggle with the fact I always feel no matter what I do, people are going to surprise me.  These cards are reminding me that those surprises are not always a bad thing, and I need to look at them as a way to learn more and see things differently so that I can balance out that anxiety with potential value.

DECK USED:  KEI TAROT LOVE

#DiscordTarotolicsFeb2021 Challenge Prompt
Question:  How can I best approach setting healthier boundaries in my life?

True Heart Intuitive TarotReading Summary:  Allow more of a collaborative effort (Three of Pentacles) instead of trying to do everything myself (Nine of Pentacles). Your determination to go solo (Nine of Pentacles) is blinding you (Eight of Swords) to the potential of what is possible (Queen of Wands).

Take Away: This is about delegation, and about more evenly distributing my work load with others so that things are more equal and balanced between us.

These boundaries aren’t about others, but about myself and making sure that I’m not overworking myself. It’s about allowing things to spread evenly, and how by spreading the work load evenly, it opens up the potential for new possibilities.

DECK USED:  TRUE HEART INTUITIVE TAROT

Daily Self Kindness

Confession.  I am writing this the day after… and I don’t remember most of yesterday.  I know I spent time with Gideon in play and I really enjoyed the down time with him.  I know that I slept in.  It’s just… everything else that appears to be missing.

Morning Bonus Read – Difficulties and Safety

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The prompt for this reading came from one of my Discord servers and is as follows:
“If you’re in the states/midwest you’re probably experiencing the lovely winter storm we’re having. If you aren’t, please join us in solidarity with our divination prompt for this week.”

Aves Uncaged Bicycle Playing CardsWhat external circumstances are making my life difficult this week?

Queen of Clubs –  My dedication and drive for the business that I run is being challenged. I have a good deal of experience to work with in this area, and yet I cannot seem to rise above the uncertainty that I’m feeling due to current external circumstances.

How should I stay safe?

Nine of Hearts – Do what feels right in my heart.  I did this earlier in the week with changing the day that I went up to the post office.  I’ve done it, as well, with taking some time off to care for myself as I recover from my depression. This gives me time to practice gratitude for the things in life that bring me contentment and joy rather than staying focused upon those areas that are creating an unhealthy amount of stress.

How should I keep my people safe?

Six of Spades – Give them the room that they need to set themselves to rights, just as I am taking the time I need to set myself to rights.  The ‘time off’ for the business applies to more than just me, and by allowing them to step away from it at the same time I do, it gives them time to decompress and let go of the stress that is riding them as well.

What should I focus on during this time?

Jack of Clubs – Instead of moving forward proactively toward my goals concerning the business, now is a time to step back and allow a bit of distance from that constant push to keep moving forward.  Enjoy the pause instead of pushing for more.  Allow this time to be a time of enjoyment and discovery rather than the slave driver mentality you so often demand of yourself.

DECK USED:  AVES UNCAGED BICYCLE PLAYING CARDS