‘The hunger for meaning and purpose is nothing less than the human homing instinct — the Fourth Instinct — at work. But in the tangled maze of history, we have been sidetracked; in the long journey home, we forgot our destination. Indeed, we were told that it does not exist.’ Arianna Huffington.
But where is ‘home’, beyond it being the people in your life?
‘There’s that feeling I get, when I look to the west’.’ Led Zeppelin.
‘My sun shall rise in the East, then shall my soul be at peace, ‘ Vangelis.
‘From all points of the compass flock’d birds of all feather.’ Source: Gutenberg. Org
From the beginning, we have been a migratory animal, in some parts of the world, more than others. Several cards in Tarot talk of home, rightly so, as it is a key ingredient of human experience, and a ruling perception. The Ace of Pentacles, Ten of Pentacles, Four of Wands, and Six of Cups all tell stories of a person’s home in a reading.
The Tarot’s Ace of Pentacles, which sometimes talks about food, money, or books, or bricks and mortar says, Earth itself is the nest, the Soul of Man is in the roots of the species. Below is The Ace of Pentacles from The Gilded Tarot, publisher Llewellyn, by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.
A friend mentioned hair loss. It had begun, he said, the day after he had undergone a surgical procedure involving a general anaesthetic. He wondered if there might be a connection, and wanted me to ask the Tarot. Instead, I reached for my new oracle deck based on the Periodic Table. Yes. Mendeleev‘s Periodic Table as remembered from chemistry lessons and beyond. See his portrait, above.
The friend has a background as a research chemist, and in view of the question, being an issue of biology or bio-chemistry, I thought he might be interested in seeing what I would get from this deck.
I shuffled the cards blind, just as I do with my Tarot cards.
What was causing S- ‘s hair to fall out? What was most relevant for him to know?
I drew just one card. It said Potassium = Soundness.
My friend expressed doubt. He was not aware of any particular connection between body levels of Potassium and hair health. Nor was I. I knew it only as a key metabolizer, a crucial part of the body pump that works in tandem with sodium, and that bananas are reputedly a good source.
When I obtain a result psychically that I do not understand in real, physical terms, I use the psychic clue to drive new research. So I searched online, cross referencing ‘potassium‘ with ‘hair loss.’
And found….plenty to suggest that there is a well-known, if not conclusively researched correlation between potassium deficiency ( hypokalemia) and hair loss.
Use of certain medications, including corticosteroids, can create a state of lowered potassium with associated hair fall.
Potassium is a mineral that helps nerves and muscles function properly and is mainly obtained
from foods. The kidneys help remove excess potassium to maintain proper balance
of the mineral in the body. Having a very low potassium level can be
life-threatening. Lower-than-normal levels of potassium in the blood may be
caused by use of medications such as diuretics, laxatives, certain antibiotics
and insulin, according to PubMedHealth.
Citrus juices, tomatoes, bananas, canteloupes, lima beans, chicken, salmon, nuts and seeds are good dietary sources of potassium. The RDI of potassium is about 4,700 a day of which a banana represents only 450 mg. Care must be used with supplements. Excess potassium is as potentially harmful as low potassium.
There are of course, other possible causes of hair loss. Iron, zinc and copper deficiencies, for instance, may also result in male or female hair loss.
But in a psychic reading, my focus is on the person asking the question. I am looking for what is particular to them. This is why, unlike some readers, I don’t make generic predictions along the lines of daily columns such as ‘Today’s Tarot Card.’
Whose card would it be? What would be its meaning?
A meaningful reading needs a context.
This one card reading from the Elemental Hexagon Deck is giving me much food for thought.
It is the reader’s mind doing the work in a psychic reading, not the tools, be they cards, rune, dice, pendulums. These tools are translation devices, whose task is to pick up signals being beamed out from the readers unconscious or sub conscious, and to amplify them, so that the reader can consciously articulate them.
I know far less about chemistry than does my friend, but the cards enabled me to ‘point into the wind’, and we both discovered something new…hopefully, the information may even help him.
English: Monument to the periodic table, in front of the Faculty of Chemical and Food Technology of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Slovakia. The monument honors Dmitri Mendeleev. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Appearing in a reading right way up, I understand the person I am reading for feels well-supported by their family. They have the security of a sense of belonging.
Drawing the card Reversed, I am sensing a struggle. They may be labouring under a sense of alienation within the family, or wrestling with a sense of injustice, real or perceived, over wills and other inheritance issues.
Or they may feel that their family background is a burden that weighs heavy, rather than a resource supporting them on their way.
Or they may be searching for their family, perhaps following adoption, because they need to know their roots.
The Tarot’s advice to people coming to discuss the disinheriting of difficult children has so far been ‘Justice above all’.
This has meant, as the Tarot’s seen it, equal shares between children, no matter what the relationship, no matter what the history. That one does not get on with a child is sad. It is a misfortune in life, and one may not like one’s child, just as a child may not like its parent. It happens.
However, retribution for this clash or misfortune, wielding the power of inheritance as a weapon, is a betrayal of the principle of inheritance.
Because an unjust will is toxic, and can divides families for years to come, perhaps for ever.
You might be the spitting image of a great-great-grandparent. You might be wearing their face reborn, cast to reflect your own spirit. You might have their skills and talents, their voice and intonation, even their mannerisms, when all your life you had thought you were the odd one out in your immediate tree of three generations.
“You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.”
True Tarot Tales 