When I came home yesterday, I wanted to search for the lie.

I went on vacation with a solid plan in place for my future (one that more or less resembled a bulldozer). I had thought it all out to the nth degree, had worked every logical turn and twist of it out until it looked like the only possible choice, the only real path my life could possibly take. I did tarot reading after tarot reading to reinforce my ideas, and cards with descriptions like “inner peace” and “passage from obstacles” kept coming up. The readings seemed positive.

And then I when I tried to bend the framework of my life, of TBC’s life, and most of the universe to fit this grand plan, it all rebounded right on my head with a resounding crash, and all the misery that goes right along with trying to force things instead of letting them naturally settle out.
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Those are the words that came to me. Putting down a life to end. I feel very much like I am at a turning place, a threshold. I have created an order and a plan for my life. I created it from nothing out of my own wishes and dreams and what information I could find that I believed in.

Tomorrow, I begin work on my projects that I want to finish, and that I want to being me success. I have mapped out their trajectory over months, some into next year. I have broken down each large goal into little bite-sized tasks, done in an hour or two at a time, a little every day. Tomorrow, I begin a diet and exercise plan that will bring me optimum results and no over-exertion or deprivation.

This from me, who procrastinates, who waits till the deadline and rushes to get everything done. This from me, who has in the past done whatever others wanted her to do. This from me, who generally neglects proper diet and nutrition, and ignores her body’s demands for food and rest.

I didn’t even know here was possible.

A scare of truly succeeding caught me at the eleventh hour last night, and so I did a little three-card tarot spread to calm down.

What is passing out of my life:

The King of Pentacles here represents the striving for security and material gain, through practical deeds. He also is the intuition of what is feasible, and the search for the satisfaction of desires. This is, of course, right on with my recently finished goal-planning and project management.

Where my life is now:

The Four of Wands points to a period of peacefulness, wherein we become more open and social, and begin to enjoy life. We have good motivation, and successfully finish tasks with such cheerfulness that it becomes a pleasure. It means joy and fulfilment in work, in play, in love, and sunny times.

Where my life will go:

It was going so well, right? The Devil in my future points to dependence, a loss of will, the failure of good intentions, and action that goes against personal convictions. In other words, all the things that I have struggled with all my life. (I think I actually lived my shadow self instead of suppressing it…)

And so, I asked what I could do to overcome the Devil’s influence. And the next card I pulled was:

Oh, happiness. One of my favorite cards. I am to remember my inner harmony. I shall need courage, and to be aware of my fear. Strength is to remember who I am and to trust it.

It is such a lovely, hopeful spread. Auspicious, one might say.

Goodbye, life. You were nice while I had you, but tomorrow a new life takes over, one that is not Transition. Welcome, truly, bienvenue Activation.

Thanks to Sacred Texts for the images and Hajo Banzhaf for the inspiration from his book The Tarot Handbook.

It was last year during a time of extreme existential angst, loss, and grief that I ended up turning to a deck of Tarot cards for wisdom. I’ve had a Rider-Waite deck for over half my life, but I never really got into it, and mostly the deck was stuck in a box somewhere and it just moved with me from place to place across the country over the years.

Last year, I ended up reading a book by Hajo Banzhaf called Tarot and the Journey of the Hero. It’s an excellent book, and it explains the major arcana of the Tarot as a progressive story, a metaphor told in archetypes that represent universal situations that people in general must face, in light of the fact that we are human and insist on living in civilizations (aka, the human condition). And by recognizing what these symbols mean when you draw them out of the pack, you can apply them in light of your own life and try to sort through some of your own issues in a larger context.

Do I believe Tarot can predict the future? Yes and no. That’ll have to be a subject for another post entirely.

While I enjoy reading for others and will, in the near future, open up the possibility of reading for you-my-readers, right now I am the one needing guidance. So I’ve done a reading for myself tonight, and I’ll share it with you here, because it is a part of me and what I do.

The question:

I did the question a little differently than usual tonight. I identified a life goal of mine: To support myself so that I stop worrying about everything. Then I thought of a question in reference to that specific goal: Are the plans I have made today ones that will help me attain my goal?

The spread:

A simple three-card spread. The position of the leftmost card is the recent past. The middle card is the current situation, and the rightmost card is the advice for the future, or what to consider doing next.

Tarot Reading 10/16/08

The reading:

First I turn to books, because I am not yet so proficient that I have all the meanings memorized. Here are the most relevant quotes from the two books I mainly use (The Tarot Handbook by Hajo Banzhaf and The Hero’s Journey Tarot by Arnell Ando.)

2 of Swords: In need of direction in order to move on. Gnawing, stubborn doubts. Desperate attempt to achieve a definitive stance and decisive power on an intellectual level while ignoring feelings. The difficult position we fall into when we struggle for clarifying perception without listening to our inner voice.

3 of Swords: The decision that is made in opposition to feelings. The tyranny of the mind makes a martyr of the emotional life or, freeing oneself from the dependancies and doubtful habits through the power of the mind.

3 of Cups: The healing of emotional wounds. Hopes realized. An expression of joy, carefreeness, thankfulness (the experience of thanksgiving).

I studied this and rued over the huge 180 disparity between the current situation and the advice going forward. And so I let me ask myself the question in the form of freewriting to access that inner voice that I have not been listening to, and this is what I said to myself:

Bloody hell, universe, how am I supposed to get from point A to point B? How much room do I have to be thankful? I cannot live the life I want to live right now, in my respects. There are some wonderful things about my life but they are still moving toward what I want in entirety. A 3 and a 3. Does that represent a shift in perception?

Stop pretending you don’t want what you want. Showing patience does not have to come at the expense of you expressing your wants, of you acknowledging those wants. Don’t pretend that less will be ok. Patience is not surrender, not sublimation. Patience is the grace that one person can grant another. Don’t pretend that a one bedroom condo and $30k a year will make you happy, that it is enough. Patience is a space, it is not fulfillment. It is a gift, to others or oneself. It is the realization that you cannot accept too much into your life at once, or it would overwhelm you. That you need progression, coherency, for your mind to comprehend, and the universe knows that. You are not giving up. You are not submitting. You start this dream to your own fulfillment with nothing. People you have. Yourself is what you need now. Allow yourself hope again. Allow yourself dreams. And instead of crying over them not being fulfilled on the instant, give yourself the gift of your own grace.