(Early) Tarot Tuesday!

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We can go ahead and start calibrating the card-o-scope and check what the Astral Light is up to today, this week or the coming months. So if you have a question, bring it on.

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I've been studying and practicing the Tarot for about 2 years now and having cast a few spreads for friends who found it helpful I thought I might make a deal with anyone that happens to read this.

Here is the deal, I will repost this on the last Tuesday of every month and will try to answer your query before the end of the month. Post a comment below requesting for a reading within the week of posting, depending on the number of comments and the situation I can either offer a lengthy reading or a three card reading. What I request back from you is some feedback about your situation and in case of some outcome what I got right and what I got wrong.

So, if you have a situation where you want to know what the Astral Light is up to, be it personal, general or on a broader scale like political events, or want to know what the week or month ahead has in store for you, why then, you know what to do. I would encourage you to post it publicly below, as for others to get an idea of what I have to offer, to encourage discussion and show what divination is about in general but if your situation is delicate post a comment marked NOT FOR POSTING explaining your situation and I'll consider it on a case by case basis.

That said, divination is like weather forecasting not a tablet of truth handed down from above, so take the advice I give you through the cards as such. The conditions that divination taps into are also in constant flux, the same as atmospheric pressure and the Moon. Any unfortunate situation you get yourself into is entirely the responsibility of the querent!

If you wish to make a donation for the readings, though it is not required, you can do so through Paypal by clicking the pentacle.

Comments

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Aha! That's the missing piece, thank you Russel, this actually helps me calibrate my skills for I didn't pay enough attention at the things you were pointing me to (You did call all the cards relating to Spirit to be reversed) and it gives the reading a different spin.

It is definitely reflected there and actually, clarifies things a bit for me as some of the pieces I got was not sure what to make of them and now I do. That is one of the problems of a reading at a distance and through writing. Sorry about that! Let me elaborate.

Magic was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw the card in the center and it was a little bit of a nostalgic sentiment, but since your focus to me seemed to be on work I veered the reading that way. This was my fault actually, since I asked you about your work specifically.

See how he is looking at all those ripening pentacles? Pentacles are a symbol of Magic (and also of work). If you are feeling enthusiastic about Magic and spirituality and the whole new world that opens up, that could be why. This card is the one that I would change the meaning of, the rest are only modified.

So the Seven of Pentacles, being the issue, is your stance regarding this newly found thing in your life. Magic and spirituality --not things that are waiting to happen at work or that are delayed-- and you want more of it. But there are a few things that don't allow you to pursue it as committed as you would like, or give it enough time, or seem to clash with it or perhaps even getting in the way. See how one Pentacle has been harvested but the rest are still hanging? One reason, is that you are just starting with it and the second are the things that are keeping you busy (The Eight of Pentacles). However, and this is important for the change in spin of the reading. The rest of the pentacles are still there but they are just ripening, they are not out of reach by your job or social position --they are not even away from you-- they are just ripening.

Now, regarding the rest of the cards. I think that the sentiment towards monotony is not regarding your class and you being a teacher and it loosing the sense of a new begging with the semester. It's regarding your spiritual practice that somewhat just begun, if I understand correctly. That is why all the Trumps are reversed --the Trumps correspond to the element of Spirit. So let's revise the rest of them.

It seems that the month ahead will take a considerable chunk of your focus from your spirituality into the things that you have to get done, again the Eight of Pentacles, but as you can see in the Eight, it doesn't seem to be a hurdle for you at all, you even enjoy the hard work as you can see in the craftsman face. However this will make it hard for your new beginning in Magic (The Fool, Reversed) and the needed persistence that your work demands (The Nine of Wands) and perhaps even you feeling that you can't dedicate enough time to it by next week (Two of Wands) and by the third week you will have the need reconnect with it if you have set it aside or even consider if your work is compatible with Magic (The Magician, Reversed). So it is not so much about being a teacher and loosing the essence of teaching due to all the off-hours work, but rather that your work to you it seems, is pulling you away from what you want to pursue in spirituality.

Before we get into the last card, Judgement Reversed, I drew two more cards for you because this needed clarification and they were The Seven of Wands, Reversed which is in the position of the sentiment of Magic in your life right now and I also asked what is it a piece of advice that you'd need for your spiritual progress. Bare with me, this will sound a little bit counter intuitive but the advice the cards are giving you ,given that the bottom card is of hard work and persistence at your university job is clear.

The Seven of Wands means that your feeling of Magic and your work are clashing and it feels like pulling you in two different ways but they aren't. It feels that way but, the next card, which is the advice, is The Nine of Cups and this is relating to your material success and well-being. it seems that your work is not really the problem that you think it is. Why?

Because of Judgment, reversed. The card of Judgement is very clearly a heavenly calling, but when it is reversed it means that you are confusing the path and not seeing the opportunity. The Trumpets are still singing but the sound is not very audible to you. By the last week of this month, it's possible you will feel these two things in your life are not compatible but it seems to be that this is process that you need to go though. Why I don't know exactly, the cards are not saying that, only that is seems to be that way but perhaps your job and your spirituality, at least right now, seem to be part of the same thing, though it will be hard work. Perhaps you just need the security and financial stability for you and your family and that will help you, not be against, your spiritual progress by giving you some stable ground.

So wrapping things up, I know this has been a very long comment. Contrary to what it might feel your job is not something that is against your spirituality. It might feel this way because it doesn't let you focus as much as you would like or it even clashes with the ideological and political stances of your teacher but it seems to me that the cards are telling you that is what you need right now.

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Now this is my advice, not that cards'. Magic is a long, long, long process. It is also a disruptive one, specially when the teacher that you have has considerably different stances in the social spheres. That doesn't make him wrong, or you for that matter. It is very normal --certainly it has happened to me-- to have the need of aligning with the things that our teacher thinks and says but sometimes, being different people, not everything has to or even should align. My advice would be to untangle the opposition between Magic and your physical well-being. They are certainly not very compatible but they are not against each other and the work of aligning our lives to our magical calling is slow. You don't want to take a radical decision when you are just staring with it! Meanwhile, we might as well try to make them work until the magical chops to do something about it start to grow.

[jprussell]

Hmm! This is very intriguing and seems very insightful.

I think your reading of the situation (7 of Pentacles) is spot on. I am indeed enjoying what magic/spirituality has done for me over the past few months, and I'm eager for more. This is an area where I've identified a personal issue: for most of my life, the things I've pursued and been rewarded for being good at have been analytical/intellectual. Such pursuits can often be accelerated through cleverness or by grasping the principles invovled. I only recently recognized that I have struggled my whole life with things that you can't accelerate through better understanding/cleverness - physical fitness, dealing with significant emotions, learning a craft, and so forth. I have been struggling to remind myself that magic is one of those things where I just have to put in the work, and that it will take time - there won't be an "aha!" moment that lets me skip any of the work. So the reassurance that the fruits are there, but that they need time to ripen is very helpful.

As for the others, and the advice, that is interesting. I had not intended anything drastic, but the idea "is this what I should be doing in the long run?" has occurred to me. Perhaps I need to focus more on what I can impart to my students and how my spiritual practice might inform that (without pushing any of my own beliefs or the like, of course).

One other factor that might be relevant given the greater spiritual focus of your updated reading: my wife has expressed some unease with my spiritual path of the last few months and years. She fears that I may be growing in different directions than she is, and what that might mean for us. I have reassured her that I don't intend that or see it going that way, but I wonder if the advice to pay attention to the linkages between day-to-day matters and my spiritual path might have some relevance there as well.

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I am exactly the same regarding the intellect but there is a huge throwback as you've mentioned. Sometimes it is not enough to be clever and see how the problem or situation works or could be solved, sometimes you just have to do the thing. That is excellent training by the way. 1) because you'll realize that your ability to experience things changes and new doors open so the problem can't be understood from step 1 at all, because once you open up even just a little bit your perspective is different. In that sense, spirituality bring dynamism. You can stand above a bluff and look at the valley and see the best path to take, but it is only when you get down into the bush that you really know. Think it this way the intellect is only recycling what you already know based on what you can perceive at that moment, you can push the boundaries a little bit with reasoning and logic but it is always standing (static) on previous knowledge. So it is an excellent tool but it can only take you so far. In order to get new knowledge you have to move. 2) You'll realize that there are different modes of thinking within the mind for which intuition is one of them. I divide them in "talking" like mathemtical logical thinking --creating thoughs yourself-- and "listening" like intuition and meditation which is about taking the broader patterns from the cosmos and gestating them into new things.

Regarding the reading. It is very difficult to convey the actual message of the cards because I always have to crystallize it somehow, like taking a snapshot of something that is dynamic, that is where the art of the diviner comes from, by not moving it too much in one direction or another but still saying something useful. It's like the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, if you try to observe it your act of observing has altered the system, so you can never know of a particles its position and its speed at the same time. With a reading it's the same, you can never convey the patterns and what it could be in the life of the querent at the same time! I can see the patterns in the reading but I can only approximate when I have to interpret, however, differently than in quantum mechanics there is a way to by pass this, that is why I post a picture of the spread. With my interpretation in hand, you can look at it and start seeing the patterns yourself through journaling and meditation.

Whether or not your current job is conducive in the long run for your spiritual path, I don't know, but at least for now, the cards seem to suggest that you try to not make them opposite things and figure out ways for the process to be as smooth as possible. In 6 months, a year or five, things could be different but for now it seems the best course of action, taking everything in consideration (economic stability, providing to your family, the current global mess) it seems that you just need to plow through it. What I do know is that by the time you finish the DMH you'll be a different person, you will be in a different place in your mind and be more prepared to do something about it.

Regarding your wife, that happens, and I am happy to zoom in into that as well in a few weeks once you've taken in this reading and the events that it talks about, that way you will integrate them into yourself and be easier to move into another aspect. That said though, have you considered including her in some aspects of it? Joint prayer is a very sweet thing to do, you don't have to tell her all the vastness behind it but just sit and pray. To my friends and family I just tell them all the ritual is a fancy way of meditation and include them when appropriate.