psychic advisor – Page 5 – True Tarot Tales

Hi Ho, Hi Ho and off to work we go…

Not long ago I did a reading for a father, worried about job and training prospects for his sixteen year old son who had just left school. The teen years had been turbulent. It seemed important that the young man should be helped to find his feet with a new role, routine and responsibilities sooner rather than later.

The Tarot indicated that the hiccups were not yet over, but the cards offered encouragement by way of these three cards. The reading timeline indicated that the developments illustrated by the cards were likely to materialise within 3-4 weeks at the soonest, six months at the latest,

Most promising was the appearance of the 2 of Wands, the 8 of Coins/Pentacles and the King of Wands.

The 2 of Wands indicated an agreement or contract to come, career related. A job therefore, or work placement or traineeship. Travel, relocation, even migration are sometimes associated with this card.

2 wands — Rider-Waite's Two Of Wands: U.S Games Systems

The 8 of Coins or Pentacles indicated again, an apprenticeship with pay, in which hard work, consistency and attention to detail would be expected.

The King of Wands indicated a man of business, bluff, outgoing, direct in all his dealings. A no-nonsense employer. I asked the father if he was already aware of such a placement provider yet. He wasn’t sure…he had been casting about and had one or two possibilities in mind. Wands is a suit I have come to associate with sales, estate agencies, travel and transport. I sensed heat and thought of engines. This King of Wands might possibly be a garage owner? Or something else connected with cars, maybe motorbikes?

king wands — The Rider-Waite's King of Wands: U.S. Games Systems.

The client had actually already considered this idea, which was interesting.

A month later, and I learned yesterday that the young man had relocated to take up a work placement traineeship. It wasn’t with a garage. There wasn’t such a placement available at present through the Jobcentre. But it was a placement that would be reviewable in 13 weeks, when a change might be possible. Meanwhile, it represented an arrival into the world of work.

Good luck to him, there may still be a garage placement when the 13 weeks are up and he could be re-allocated. I hope he’ll stick with the start he’s made meantime, as shown by the example of the apprentice in the 8 of Pentacles. It can be a hard and fearful leap, from the safety of home out into the wide world, but for the well supported child, as this young man has been, at least it can be made in guided stages and with a safety net. Many might think that a luxury.

Tarot Marshmallow

Psychic Marshmallows…

Love n light. Well, these are beautiful words and mean beautiful and all important things. But they will take a tarot card reader only so far in delivering meaning and resonance for the other person in a reading.

Readers must aim for meaning and precision, and avoid waffle at all costs. Being ‘psychic’ is one thing. Being a practitioner of a discipline is another. Effective communication is another. Clients want specifics.

They want to know what do the cards MEAN? For them? Right now? In terms they can get hold of and use, should they so choose?

We live in a physical world and must wrestle with ourselves, yes, at times, but so many life challenges focus on matters of practical substance, and this is not the lesser stuff. It is simply temporal, time specific where the metaphysics is the stuff of enduring truths and eternal experiences.

I was doing a reading for a lady who worked as a hypnotherapist, when the Tarot suddenly seemed to suggest it was time to put her cigarette out. This was the feeling I got, drawing The Ace of Wands Reversed, and although it may mean many other things. I put this to her.

‘Why is the Tarot saying stub out that cigarette?’

It is important to emphasize the Tarot wasn’t making any criticism in saying this. It wasn’t presuming to nag the lady about smoking. It was simply sensing something, picking up on some thought that was coming from her.

The Tarot does not judge. It detects and it reflects. The reader might judge but they’d better not presume to do anything of the kind. It will get in the way of the view. It will interfere with their ability to do the truest possible reading, as in, truest to the person being read for, who is the only person who matters in that moment.

The client confirmed that she did smoke. She had taken it up again recently, not feeling settled in her new job. This job situation was the reason for the reading. But just before we got stuck in, and just by the by, something else leapt out at me, looking at the cards laid out before me.

My eye was unaccountably drawn to one card in particular; the Page of Cups.

This card traditionally symbolises offers, gifts, advents and arrivals. It might turn out to mean an invitation, a proposal, a new friendship, or a birth. It may be announcing an engagement or wedding ring, a recovery from illness, or a new creative or spiritual project. I have also come to associate it rather less romantically, with fish oil supplementation, for reasons you’ll guess at, studying the image.

Something about the pink of his sleeves arrested my attention, and before I knew I was going to say it I asked. ‘Do you eat a lot of those pink and white marshmallows. You know, the ones you get in bags?’

She stared at me a moment then said. ‘Oh my God. I absolutely love them. I’ve got a thing about them at the moment. I’ve got some right here in my handbag. How on earth did you know that?’

She reached for her bag and opened it, producing said bag of marshmallows, and offered me one. I declined. I don’t eat or drink while reading, though visitors get a glass of water or a cuppa. Biscuits have been known to manifest.

So. Back to her question. How did I know?

Well, I didn’t ‘know.’ I had a sudden sense of knowing. This may seem an odd or meaningless distinction, but let’s take a second to consider.

I didn’t know. Not as such. How could I? I had a passing thought, and then I came out and said it aloud, even though I did not yet know where that thought had come from.

In this case my thought about marshmallows was triggered by the Page of Cups. It was the look of the card. My eye was drawn to his sleeves and tunic. Lateral thinking based on colour association. it triggered the thought that popped into my head, so I said it whereas as a beginner I might not have dared, for fear of being wrong and looking stupid.

This marshmallow thing was new to me. I have never said it before or since in respect of this same card. This was a purely one off interpretation, and this is not unusual in a reading.

One can study card meanings and they will take you a long, long way in reading for someone, but associative thinking can trigger insights that no book can teach you.

The challenge for a reader is to learn to trust the first thought that comes into your head. This means risking being wrong, but if you’re not ready to take that risk, and don’t share that thought, you won’t be able to validate the accuracy of such insights, and that’s how a reader develops their skills and perhaps their so called psychic capability…by going off-script.

But it started with the card.

Till next time:)

The Death Card: The Angel & The Hamster

Death Card To The Rescue…a true tarot hamster tale.

The Angel of Death, by Evelyn de Morgan.

The Death card has in recent years been distanced from death as a physical event by the Tarot profession. The motivation has largely been so as not to frighten or disempower anyone. The Death card has been repackaged with an emphasis upon its power and value as Transition or Transformation.

There is much to be said in favour of this change of emphasis. Life is full of change and flux. Circumstances change, die, evolve. Winter comes. Sometimes a situation is over-ripe for change, and the appearance of the Death card will identify this as a good time to let go and move on, which is helpful to know if decisions are called for. I often draw it in a guise that the querent finds entirely welcome.

But Death is inescapable. It walks amongst us in Life, and is the agent of much of our greatest grief and fear. It is not our enemy, except as the thief of desires unfulfilled. Nature wants Death. It has engineered it for Life In The Grand Scheme.

But it’s the ultimate gateway to the unknown, perhaps to the extinguishing of our uniqueness, our personality? I think our consciousness survives the moment of bodily death at least for a few days. Where it goes afterwards is not for anyone to know for sure.

In my own experience, the Death card is actually not the sole predictor of human physical death in the Tarot. I tend to see instead multiple and repeated combinations including the Fool Reversed, Tower, Judgement dignified or reversed, 4 Swords, 6 Swords, Ace Swords Reversed, Strength, Star Reversed and the Sun reversed.

But I have seen the Death card in readings where the card has done exactly what it says on the tin, detecting a recent death, or presaging one. Tackling or avoiding these discussions when the cards raise them requires careful judgement. Readers must do no harm, and can get it wrong. Humility is the corollary of respect.

But the Death card can be a friendly angel. One afternoon two summers ago I drew this card, and it appeared to be referring to somebody in a state of childhood (The 6 of Cups)

I immediately got up to go and check on the hamster. I associate the suit of Cups not only with childhood, children, nostagia, happy times, but with animals, who live so pignantly in the moment, asking little.

The hamster had recently had a fall. She did not fall far, she tumbled down the back of the sofa on to a cushion. Her landing was soft and Il Matrimonio laughed because it looked comical but something about the way she picked herself up worried me.

Bam-Bam the Bold, Beautiful and occasionally Bad (a toe nipper in her youth) had been ill two days after this fall, and we had thought she was on her way out. Tears in our eyes, hankies at the ready, spritzing the air with Rescue Remedy we took turns to hold her for more than three hours.

Then ANTICLIMAX. All at once the small personage decided she was better, and scrambled off. She was bright as a button next day, trying to climb the wine rack (that’s my girl) and chomping my Gombrich’s History of Art on the lowest book shelf (in hardback)

We were delighted of course, but puzzled. She was my tenth hamster and I’d never seen such a recovery from prostration. The little things don’t ‘do’ illness.

So now, drawing the Death card ten days after this event, an awful thought struck me. I headed upstairs as fast as I could go to the Hamster Palace and found her in great distress, stumbling about. She tried to evade my hand and knowing she was sexist, as animals often are, I knew she would prefer my husband’s smell, I mean, scent, and went to fetch his pyjama top to use for getting hold of her.

I held her cuddled upright in this for two hours while she rested, unmoving. Later that evening she was sufficiently recovered to eat a small square of brown toast with acacia honey (good for rodents with diarrhea) I offered her cooled chamomile tea, which she first refused at first but later took a real shine to. I had read this would calm her and possibly offer pain relief.

Speaking with the vet on the telephone. I wondered if Bam-Bam might have had a hernia of her diaphragm. If she did, then when it popped out that would explain her struggling to breathe. When it popped back into its rightful position, it would explain why she recovered and why holding her almost vertically against my body produced recovery, gravity doing its work. The vet thought a hernia highly likely after the fall. But he had nothing to offer that would not involve distress for an animal so small. And at 18 months, she was at a classic age for hamster health problems.

The third attack will be her last, I told my husband. (The 3 of Swords)

She left us two weeks later. The Angel of Death took her away in a kindly fashion with nothing of Swords in the manner of it. I was deeply grateful to the Tarot for the forewarning that sent me to her when she was in distress. Even animals who are solitary by nature, will learn to look for company and when she went, she was not alone.

Bam-Bam The Bold is buried under the pink rose in the back garden with her predecessor, the curtain climbing, mighty-for-her-size but ever sweet-tempered Coco the Courageous. There are Dog roses. I say, let there be Ham Roses or any kind of animal roses we want. Only animals? Well, so are we. It’s all Life, and what would a heaven be without them, anyway?

I’ll still swat a mosquito though, as soon as look at it, and think komodo dragons are entirely disgusting, from which I deduce I am not ready for Enlightenment.

Until next time 🙂

3-Rune ‘Day Ahead’ Reading

I use the Tarot as my chief means of divination, but there are other tools and ways of accessing the unconscious mind and one of these is to use Runes, an entire subject in its own right.

Here’s a 3 rune Day Ahead Reading, drawn for mid-morning on Saturday 19 June:

Rune 1 For the morning to come: FEHU…..fee, job, earnings.

Rune 2 For the afternoon to come: a blank rune…no ascribed meaning. Historically, there is no such thing as a blank rune. Rune scholars usually discount them as an invention of the 1980’s. However, this set had one and I drew it and decided to let it be.

Rune 3 For the evening to come: EIHWAZ …Yew…death/regenaration. Yikes, I wondered what form that would take.

I had made no firm plans for the day at this point.

Within half an hour I took a telephone booking for a reading: this explained FEHU.

During the afternoon I crashed out tired from a poor nights sleep and remained comatose for two hours. This would account for my drawing the blank rune – a reasonable pictorial representation of my scondition between 3 and 5!

In the evening, we made what seemed like an impulse decision but actually wasn’t; to visit a family grave in Preston cemetery, taking a rose from our garden.

I had forgotten the rune reading and only realised on Monday, that this had actually been pre-indicated by the Yew rune. A cemetery (death) with yew trees.

The Yew rune must have picked up on an idea that I had not yet consciously formulated…my plan to go was bubbling up to the surface when I would become aware of it, but hadn’t reached it yet.

Alternatively, drawing this rune was a self-fulfilling prophecy, and had acted to remind me that an anniversary was coming up, that I was in the habit of marking with a visit to the cemetery and a rose and that I wouldn’t want to forget.

This year, I wasn’t going to be able to visit on the usual day, 21st, and the rune had served me a wake-up call to go earlier on account of this.

Gutenberg: Yew

The Yew is a tree considered sacred since pre-Celtic times, and is still considered special and mystical today. It’s wood is pliant. It bends but does not break; a living metaphor for resilience. For this reason it was often used in the making of bows in archery. Its berries are toxic and can bring death, but its leaves are evergreen and so, and because of the mature trees majestic and moody appearance, it’s symbolically suited to cemeteries…as a symbol of death with resurrection.

More about the yew and its mystical attributes here:-

http://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/yew.htm

A Day Ahead Reading is an excellent way to practice your predictive readings, and develop confidence in predicting (statements about the future detected as virtual fact) or forecasting (detection of trends and future likelihoods)

This applies whether with the Runes or the Tarot. You get the feedback same day and quickly start to amass data on which to assess your predictive ‘hit rate’ while developing predictive capability through the benefits of personalised hindsight study.

You’re welcome to share any of your own experiences of a Day Ahead Tarot Spread or predictive rune readings, clicking on the comment tag below.

That Old Devil! Valentines and Vampires

That Ol’ Devil…True Tarot Tales.

Painting Andrea Camassei 1635, Museo del Prado

Once upon a time there was a fertility festival called The Lupercalia. Men in wolf masks ran about the streets of Rome, and in honour of the fertility god Lupercus and in memory of the she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus, would symbolically thrash (lightly touching) any women they met of child-bearing age. Any woman not wanting to be fertile had better stay indoors. But some would deliberately loiter in the streets, hoping to encounter the wolf men.

Later Christianity claimed the festival, originally held on February 15th, renaming it in memory of poor Valentine, a physician who was cruelly beheaded in Rome after doing many a good turn to other people, including the daughter of his jailer, whom he apparently cured of blindness.

The violent death of a well-disposed person on religious grounds. What could be less romantic?

Valentine’s Day is nowadays an uber commercial-fest, but, still, it serves to remind us, if we ever needed a reminder, of the eternal power of that magical experience of the human condition – ‘that ol’ Devil called Love’.

The Devil however, more truly speaks of infatuation than love. The Devil card in the Tarot speaks of passions and powerlessness. It betokens entrapment, frustration, a need to break free, even if the wish is not there.

Look at the picture below. The man and the woman are being held in bondage to one another and to ‘the Devil’…by the power of their animal nature; their physical passions (food, sex, drugs, alcohol, daily habits etc) to which they are ‘addicted’. In terms of human body chemistry, sexual passion might as well be regarded as an addiction.

The Devil (tarot card) - Wikipedia

Rider Waite Tarot, artist Pamela Colman- Smith

I’ve only once encountered what you might call a vampire, in my professional reading work. But this was the nature of the beast. A Valentine gone to the Devil. And this has been a unique event in my reading experience, a reading that left me so physically drained I had to go straight to bed afterwards, where I slept like a stone all night, but not in a good way.

The client was a very pleasant person to read for, but she was in the grip of ‘the Devil’ all right. She was married, but with a passion for another man, also married. This was a likable, congenial, good looking and glamorous lady and I could tell from the cards that the man had powerful charisma. In fact I had an outright ‘psychic’ moment and guessed who it was and said his name. He was someone who worked in the entertainment industry.

The lady was extremely shocked that I had guessed his identity (although no more than I was!) She asked, rather sharply if I knew him. And I did not. I had never met him. But he had a public profile and all at once I seemed to ‘see’ him in my cards, looking out over her shoulder.

Would she get this man for keeps? I felt she might get a taste of what she was hoping for. She might get time with this man. But if she did, I could see no ‘happy ending.’

It was like being in a negative vortex. I hope she got free one way or another and was happy. But that man moved away to the US and whether or not she went with him, something tells me differently.

It is a curious thing, that often there will be a succession of readings all dealing with the same card as their main focus. The Devil has turned up in 3 readings just recently, each time drawn with the Moon card, which signifies hunting, fantasy, and emotional extremes. Obsession. Illusion.

The Moon (tarot card) - Wikipedia

In each case, someone was having a hard time, struggling to let go of a romantic relationship though they had decided that they must. They no longer felt wanted or even welcome in the relationship.

One of these clients was now in danger of starting to behave like a stalker, and I had to warn them against certain plans, although on none of these subsequent three occasions did I feel the same physical impact of the ‘show biz’ client.

Perhaps this was to be expected. A showbiz sized ego is likely to carry a highly charged aura, to be anticipated in such readings, and when we talk about a vampire in real life, this is what we’re talking about. A habit, an encounter or a situation that can physically utterly drain your batteries on contact.

Blake 5 Whirlwind Of Lovers 5 Illustration To Dante S Inferno A4 Print - Picture 1 of 1

William Blake’s illustration, ‘A Whirlwind of Lovers’…from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Obsession Has Consigned the Lovers To A ‘Circle Of Hell’…in Tarot…captivity, servitude, an dependent, obsessional and un-free state of mind.

The Devil card drawn upside down or Ill-Dignified, is usually better for being drawn upside-down, as it often denotes clarity and liberation.

If you are trying to give up a habit that’s proving harmful, this card drawn reversed it’s a sign you’re going to be able to kick that habit, or break out of that trap.

The Devil card is known, and with justice, for its powerful negative aspects. It speaks of fear, frustration, anger, unhealthy habits, obsession and addiction, and the evil that can ensue from these things. Usually, the situation that it’s referring to could do with overturning.

The tough news is that it’s going to have to be you that overturns it. No one else can do it.

Possibly too, there is no real solution as yet, and the situation meantime must be endured. Now it is a case of damage limitation.

But The Devil isn’t all bad. As an image of Pan, god of all wild creatures, rather than in its guise as Christianity’s Devil, this beastly card is still strong stuff requiring careful handling but it signifies desire, animal magnetism, focus and passion…

Artist Helen Stration 1914

The Devil is a sexy beast. It is charisma. It is a drive and passion to create. It is our connection to our roots in earth and our general animal vitality – (steady tiger!) – a strong glue for keeping relationships together over the long haul. As they say, a little of what you fancy does you good.

The anger of The Devil comes in handy now and then, should you be unfortunate enough to find yourself dealing with nastiness. Let that Devil look out of your eyes, as you politely say ‘I beg your pardon?’

Subtext. ‘You had better back off!’

If a glimpse of your inner Devil clears some cr*p out of your space, there’s nothing the matter with that.

No. The Devil is not always bad. The challenge is to keep him in his place and not feed him too often.

Just make sure it’s your devil, or your cheeky imp, that’s under control, locked up inside that cage.

And not you.

House Buying/Selling: The Moon card was not good news

House hunting and house selling are, not surprisingly, a frequent theme in Tarot readings.

The Cards commonly seen around this theme include the Ace of Coins, the Ace of Wands, 4 of Wands, any of the Swords/Wands court cards may represent a property or legal professional, and for relocation – when it’s further afield, not just a move to another part of town – we might see the 6 of Swords.

A client was having trouble selling and asked why. The Tarot drew The Moon and the 9 of Coins reversed. This combination; The Moon showing dogs barking, and implying disturbed sleep, and the 9 of Coins Reversed, indicating boundary issues or difficulties with neighbours, prompted me to wonder if there were dogs next door. Maybe they barked a lot.

The Moon is a tricky card. It means unreliable information, lack of clarity, uncertainty, worry, risk, while it was the imagery itself that prompted me to wonder about dogs. This happens a lot in readings. It will often be the imagery itself that prompts a psychic hit, above or beyond any expressly listed card card meaning.

Oh dear. Yes there was. The doggies barked day and night.

The cards were picking up on her anxiety about what this meant not only for herself, but for selling her property. She had not fallen out with the neighbours—they had only recently moved in and she didn’t know them. In fact she was, understandably, anxious at the thought of raising the matter with them,but the disturbance was becoming intolerable.

This issue directed the next few minutes of the reading.

The Tarot drew the sharp and incisive air sign card, the Page of Swords in response to her question about possible ways to handle this difficulty.

One would always go softly softly to start with, and give others the full benefit of the doubt. ‘A soft word turneth away wrath.’

Who needs wrath, if it can possibly be avoided? Life is too short.

But there are also things we can’t reasonably be expected to put up with. This page is all about the fact that Knowledge (Information) is Power. In this case, this suggested a knowledge of the legal rights and responsibilities of householders, and the procedures and authorities attendant upon the exercise and upholding of these in cases of noise disturbance. But this is a notoriously tricky issue.

The Page of Swords suggested she make a polite, clear, and to the point request, possibly a note so as not to appear confrontational, stating the problem and phrasing a clear request to the neighbours. This is the Page’s style – clear, calm, no fudging, and to the point…

The Page of Swords is a researcher, a planner (and plotter) has a highly developed sense of ‘natural’ justice (and does readily not admit defeat.)

If this initial step did not produce results, still, it would serve to benchmark and document the problem, but the legal minded Page of Swords served as a reminder that if the situation escalated to a dispute, this would, by Law, (UK) have to be notified to prospective house buyers.

If she asked nicely and got ‘no joy’ from the neighbours, or if it escalated. then the Page of Swords – a figure of logic, law and surveillance might follow such tactics as these:-

1- information gathering—keeping records in other words, gathering a body of evidence, pending preparatory to seeking help from the local authority.

<p value="<amp-fit-text layout="fixed-height" min-font-size="6" max-font-size="72" height="80">2-possibly, if no joy, and if the problem persisted, call RSPCA (concern for the dogs's welfare…no walks, shut out on cold nights…)2-possibly, if no joy, and if the problem persisted, call RSPCA (concern for the dogs’s welfare…no walks, shut out on cold nights…)

On another occasion, The Moon made a house buying forecast. I could see a house coming up in the coming months. It had a lovely garden (10 cups) but the client needed to be vigilant.

The Moon, coupled with the 9 of Coins Reversed suggested to me that a problem with boundaries and/or neighbours was going to emerge.

Should this happen, then any behaviour that was less than full and frank from the vendor in respect of boundaries should be taken as a warning sign against proceeding further.

The client confirmed she was thinking of moving soon, but had not started hunting yet, and had not therefore identified such a property.

All a reader can say in these circumstances is, in that case only time will tell.

Eighteen months later, the lady returned for another reading. and she had found a house with lovely gardens, and had fallen in love with it, and put in an offer.

However , the subsequent solicitor’s search revealed that the garden did not actually belong to the vendor. Not legally. A sizeable portion of it belonged to the neighbour, and it should not have been included in the sale details -a fact of which the estate agent seemed unaware.

The client remembered the Tarot’s warning and withdrew at this point, sadly, but probably wisely.

Till next time 🙂

The Sun Card, Solstice and Sunflowers.

The Sun card in Tarot forecasts sunny weather at its most literal. It is the card of high summer, no surprise there. Metaphorically it is recovery from illness, respite from care, the gift of the moment. It is playful. It is children, the state of childhood and sometimes predicts the imminence of a birth. It is success. It is travel, particularly to hot places. It is the return of the sun after the winter solstice. It is the zenith of the sun in the summer solstice. In terms of trying to establish timings, we are looking at the zodiac signs of Cancer (the solstice) and Leo.

Reversed it’s the setting sun, delays and lesser joys, the passing away of childhood, nostalgia and beautiful, bittersweet twilight. It may mean getting something less than you hoped for, but what you get is still something to be happy for.

The visionary Star card on the other hand, can- and in readings it often has-indicated a recovery from depression, sickness and despair, a guiding light. Someone can sees a way ahead now, they couldn’t see before. This is a more cerebral card; Aquarian in character, both visionary and analytical. This is the card of the collective, of space

Klytie (or Clytie) was a figure in Ancient Greek mythology, one of the oceanids, a daughter of Oceanus who fell in love with the sun god, Helios or Apollo. Each day she would watch him cross the sky in his chariot of fire. There is a darker version of this story, that Klytie was a demented stalker bunny-boiler whose jealousy brought about the horrific death of a love rival. A gentler version of the story says that Apollo could not come closer without destroying her, but when she pined away and died, he changed her into a sunflower so she could watch him forever, understanding that his love was far distant, it was constant, and he would never desert her absolutely.

The sun means Life itself. The fire of the sun can also be cruel, savage when ‘reversed,’ and then we need shelter. We need ‘dark sacred night’ or we need rain. But in a sense, aren’t we all sunflowers…looking for the sun by day and the stars by night. Like Klytie, we live with our memories of many sunsets past and the hope of a bright new dawn. We are sustained in adversity by resilience, determination and hope.

Venus or Hesperus, ‘The Evening star,’ is also Lucifer, the bringer of Light- the Angel before the Fall-‘The Morning star’.

The Sunflower

Klytie stands and tracks the sun
From dawn until Apollo’s gone
A patient and a hopeful eye
In contemplation of the sky
Her days are rooted, quiet, spent
In upward focus, still, intent
With other suns of earthly gold
Arms outstretched for light’s sure hold
And rich with cargo, every one
Built strong with sugar from the sun.

She’s etched with frosts and winds of loss
But comfort comes with Hesperus
The Morning Star’s deliverance
Alone she stands in fields of fellowship
Hands asking to receive
But with no strength to grip
Yet keeping faith and trusting to the light
The faintest and the coldest star
Still promises Apollo from afar
A spark to resurrect a phoenix in the night.

c. Katie-Ellen Hazeldine 2010.

Till next time 🙂

An Outing for The Justice Card

Injustice eats at people.

Sometimes in a Tarot reading, the issue being detected is literally a legal matter. For a true story about that see my later blog ‘Manpower. The Emperor Card.’

Very often though, it refers to our sense of natural justice, our wish to see fair play done. The Tarot may then kick in as a kind of agony aunt. When we draw it in a reading for ourselves, the advice is to remember to play fair, to try and keep a balanced view, to deal in facts and to keep a cool, calm head.

I recently drew a card, Justice Reversed (meaning injustice or delayed justice) in a tarot sitting with a new client. The client had explained that she didn’t really know why she had come. There was no specific problem to be addressed, she said, but she had a weight on her mind and would welcome a little help in getting free of it. The Tarot adores doing this sort of work.

The Justice Card (Rider Waite, U.S Games)

Justice Reversed was the first card drawn, the keynote card of the reading. Because it’s a Major Card and because of the lack of a clear single theme shown in the other 7 cards of the spread, I felt its influence was working on her in more than one respect.

She wasn’t depressed, I didn’t think. Not as such. (No Star card Reversed) There was illness in the family though. I drew The 4 of Swords nicknamed ‘the hospital’ card. There was great anxiety and conflicted feelings connected to the forming of a new relationship (The Devil) There was a much loved mother on her mind (The Empress)

My client hadn’t mentioned her job. She hadn’t told me anything, only that she had a baby son.

But drawing the Justice card, though Reversed, prompted me to tell her that she could discuss work if she wished, because I had experience of reading for commercial lawyers. She then said she was a commercial lawyer.

Now the Justice card, as with any predominance of Swords cards, can indicate that a client works in the legal profession. However, there are many more occasions when when there’ll be no such connection. So a reader seeing this card cannot assume the client’s job is in Law. But on this occasion the card had served to prompt a hunch. Thisis the bridge between intuition and clairvoyancy.

The client had been harbouring a sense of injustice following a promotion disappointment the previous year. She did not trust the reasons she had been given for not getting the promotion. The Tarot however said that justice had been done. She was still very young, had been in practice 4 years and had been judged not quite ready..it was no more worrying or sinister than that, and so letting go would serve her best now. Promotion looked as if it was in the offing in the not too distant future…positive developments were indicated for July-September.

This the client said she could imagine, as she was aware of activities in the pipeline around that time.

There were other, less easily resolvable issues attached to Justice Reversed, relating to difficulties with a father who had ‘disowned’ her because he hadn’t agreed with her choice of husband. The Tarot had things to tell her and she left saying she felt much better, calmer in herself. She had formulated a strategy now for handling the problem with her father, and other issues

The Tarot is economical. It has to be able to talk about any human experience at all, using a toolbox of only 78 cards. Each card is a plump and shiny-coated workhorse, and will do multiple jobs in the course of a single reading. Especially if it is a Major card – this can really ‘up the ante’.

Comments or questions welcome. See the comment tag below.