When will there be an end to the war in Ukraine? The Crow caws. The Hanged Man speaks

No-one knows the answer to this question. I certainly don’t. But what does the Tarot have to say about it? I have looked at the same question in another very recent post, where I used ordinary playing cards. We seemed to be seeing a Russian regrouping with big bumps in the road Oct and Nov and again before Christmas, a new offensive in January, and something big happening in March, and then again by Gemini time, late May-late June.

Last night I asked again, this time working with Tarot, asking, “in what month or year will there be a truce, ceasefire or permanent cessation of military action in Ukraine?”

I drew a single card. This was The Hanged Man- yet another outing for a card which has been jumping out of the deck since the invasion 24 February.

The Hanged Man stands for a waiting game, a state of limbo, an inability to make a decision. Or it can signify a sacrifice for a higher purpose, surrender, letting go, breaking a pattern, metamorphosis, suspension in time, meditation, changing one’s perspective, transcendence.

The Knight of Cups also corresponds with Pisces and The Hanged Man. He is the warrior who is a bringer of peace. He is the bearer of the Grail, of the loving cup or the healing chalice, who may be seen as Siegfried, or as one of the Knights of the Round Table, Lancelot, Galahad or Percival.

He rides along the shoreline, the knight of the liminal spaces.

Traditionally, the image is associated with a punishment once meted out to traitors in Italy, who were hung upside down by one ankle. Another interpretation is that this ties in with the story of the Norse god Odin. He hung upside down on Yggdrasil, the giant ash tree in exchange for the knowledge of the runes and they came to him in a vision on the ninth day without food or drink. One imagines he also had a mighty headache by that point. But the Tarot has its artistic roots in the courts of northern Italy during the Renaissance.

From the Tarot Illuminati, artist Erik C Dunne

Turn this card the other way up. Does he remind you of someone? Who does he look like? OK. He is not a dead ringer for Zelensky but let’s be reasonable- the Tarot is doing its best.

Tarot is not astrology and I am not an astrologer. However, there is a lot of astrology embedded in the Tarot, and clients have often asked the reader to have a stab at timings, with interesting feedback in respect of results.

In astrology The Hanged Man signifies Pisces, and the dates of Pisces in 2022 were 19 February to 20 March. This card was an apposite reflection of a recent event that had already happened since the invasion happened 24 February

This is what Tarot does- it detects, reflects and projects. Just treat this as a curiosity. I had not predicted the invasion of Ukraine, except that in a general 12 card reading done in December 2021 the Tarot had alerted me to a issue or problem attached to energy supplies from Russia, specifically NordStream 2.

I had also commented in an article published on Ask Astrology in January, that I had misgivings about 2022 on account of a general theme to do with the blurring or crossing of boundaries and borders. This again was connected with the Hanged Man. Its traditional ruler in astrology is Jupiter but its modern ruler is Neptune. Either way, 2022 was promising to be a year of deep waters and seismic events, metaphorically as well as physically. Jupiter goes large. Neptune goes deep.

Pisces, *Atlas Coelestis* John Flamsteed

“John Flamsteed FRS (19 August 1646 – 31 December 1719)^[a] was an English astronomer and the first Astronomer Royal. His main achievements were the preparation of a 3,000-star catalogue, Catalogus Britannicus, and a star atlas called Atlas Coelestis, both published posthumously“-Wiki

According to Western/ Tropical astrology, Jupiter is currently retrograde in Pisces and goes direct again 28-29 October-20 December 2022

According to Eastern/Vedic astrology Jupiter will remain in Pisces until 23 April 2023.

In Summary

Based purely on the appearance of The Hanged Man, we have a range of possibilities here, suggesting that the war in Ukraine will end when:

-Mr Zelensky agrees to make a sacrifice, Hanged Man style, and decides to relinquish the Donbas to Russia. Mr Putin would claim this as a win, and use it as his way out of an increasingly untenable situation, though he or a successor of his same ilk could be back again in time, for another bite of land.

There is no reason why Zelensky should agree to such a thing, since Russia has broken international law and then gone on to commit war crimes. But if the population of the Donbas genuinely were more than 50% pro Russian separatists, might Zelensky decide that Ukraine would do better without them in the long run, given the state of affairs since 2014. Mr Putin after all, *only* wants to protect the 25 million Russians now living outside Russia’s borders in Ukraine and all across the Baltic.

Without Ukraine’s agreement to recognize referendum results held under the current conditions of duress, Putin will be forever fighting to hold on to the Donbas, and that’s no substantive win.

But it’s not a win for anyone else either, and won’t be unless the West can dig itself out of the hole it has got itself into, and continue to say no to cheap Russian gas this winter. If not, this whole thing simmers indefinitely or escalates next spring.

-or the war may end when Jupiter goes direct in Pisces, Tropical astrology style, 29 October-20 December. This seems highly improbable. Putin will want to squeeze the situation as hard as he can over the winter, praying the energy crisis will really bite down on the current levels of western support for Ukraine and leave her naked unto her foe.

-or the war may end during Pisces season, 20 February- 20 March. Saturn enters Pisces March 7, 2023 until May 24, 2025. Saturn is big on the status quo, on law and order, and it is big on boundaries and borders. The aftermath of this war will bring a long period of turbulence in its wake.

-or the war may end c late April 2023, according to the status of Jupiter in Pisces in Vedic astrology.

Photo by Sebastian Voortman on Pexels.com

There’s a feeling of events moving in stages, pointing towards something more conclusive or definitive March/April 2023. Tarot seems to be seeing a ceasefire slightly earlier than was indicated in my earlier cartomancy reading, though not hugely so.

But supposing the fighting stops right now, the political backwash runs high until 2025/2026. There will also be the small matter of reconstruction.

Something to watch for that is happening sooner, is an eclipse in Scorpio 8 November. Eclipses do not signify immediate changes, but historically they announce profound changes. Mr Putin is a Libra sun sign subject with Scorpio rising, and conjunct his sun is the fixed star Algorab, the wing of The constellation of the Crow, merciless and rapacious.

It doesn’t feel as though it bodes at all well for him personally. But Putin is choosing to wage a total war, so that any victory here, whether for Russia or Ukraine is a pyrrhic one.

The west is clearly not blameless either in all this, but it likely doesn’t bode too well for Scorpio subject Mr Biden either, in the US mid term elections 8 November.

What a year, this Chinese year of the Black Water Tiger

#BookwormSat 2022, Year of The Black Water Tiger

-Time is the substance from which I am made. Time is a river which carries me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger that devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.

-Jorge Luis Borges pic.twitter.com/UehfCu6KVc
— Katie-Ellen H. (@KatieEllenH) August 27, 2022

Till next time 🙂

Further reading https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Ukraine-Nuclear-Weapons

Leaving The Customs Union, 2

In the previous blog, I used cartomancy divination to look at the question of whether the UK would leave the Customs Union in 2020, and the overall reply was yes, using my playing cards, based on this spread shown below. The yes arises from the appearance of the Ace of Spades in the central column, which contains the final answer of the reading.

Custom Union

BUT talk about hot potato. What will it look like in practice? Let us look at it through the lens of the Tarot today.

Which of these options look more likely?

streamlined customs arrangement – which involves minimal customs checks and the use of new technology to enable as frictionless trade as possible. This option would allow the movement of goods between the UK and the EU to be monitored and recorded, with traders paying duties on a monthly or quarterly basis, rather than paying duties on every shipment or service traded. This is the option currently favoured by ‘Brexiteers’.
A customs partnership with the EU – which involves the UK acting as a tax collector for the EU whenever goods enter the UK. If the goods are bound for the UK, and if the UK tariff is lower than the EU tariff, traders could claim any difference. This was the option reportedly favoured by Mrs May, although it remains unclear whether she still supports it following the Cabinet meeting this week. See Here For Source

Today I have used my Tarot cards. The deck is the Divine Legacy Tarot deck used here for educational purposes by kind permission of the artist, Ciro Marchetti.

Customs Union 2

Cards for Option 1

streamlined customs arrangement – which involves minimal customs checks and the use of new technology to enable as friction-less trade as possible. This option would allow the movement of goods between the UK and the EU to be monitored and recorded, with traders paying duties on a monthly or quarterly basis, rather than paying duties on every shipment or service traded.

The card top left, drawn upside down, is the 3 of Coins, suggesting that a streamlined customs arrangement will be harder to implement to start with. This is a money card of craftsmanship and attention to detail, but blocked or delayed, and technology is not of itself the panacea.

The burden and onus on smaller businesses and sole traders, like the craftsman shown in the card, will be especially troublesome to start with, but thereafter, in the longer term, 4-9 years, The Hermit (Major Arcana 9, meaning maturity and independence, going it alone) the Four of Wands (one’s house is in order) and Strength (Major Arcana 8, meaning Courage, health and Power) as the destination card, suggests this option is front- end problematic but becomes a position of increasing Strength over the following 4-9 years.

Cards for Option 2

A customs partnership with the EU – which involves the UK acting as a tax collector for the EU whenever goods enter the UK. If the goods are bound for the UK, and if the UK tariff is lower than the EU tariff, traders could claim any difference. This was the option reportedly favoured by Mrs May,

Let’s look at the cards again without having to scroll up:

Customs Union 2

The first card out is Justice, due process and a need for fair play. We hit the ground running with an idea that is better received by the other side of the table, and with existing infrastructure and legal harmonisation. We wish to play fair, if we are played fair with. Justice is the cards of Libra, the Law and harmony. Key dates September 23-October 23.

This appears to trump the starting position for Option 1 hands down, and there is strong support for it.

The Queen of Cups here represents a key female figure, probably Theresa May herself, although she was represented in the previous playing card reading as a Queen of Diamonds (money queen, fast thinking and this equates more readily with the Tarot’s suit of Coins or Pentacles.) However, we are all multifaceted and this is a card of pouring oil on troubled waters. This is a card of a leader wishing to harmonize differences but is this actually possible if she is not met half way? The Queen of Cups is a peacemaker, and here, looking as she seems to be, out towards us, but also towards Justice, she has an eye here is the pictorial suggestion, to the House of Lords.

The Knight of Coins is a card of slow, steady growth and is by no means therefore a negative card in terms of what it seems to suggest about the financial well-being of the UK going this route.

The destination/outcome card for a mooted Customs Partnership is The 9 of Wands Reversed.

Uh- oh.

The upright 9 is a card of courage and determination, same as the Strength card but there is a blinkered rigidity, a narrowness about it, inferior to the expansiveness of the Strength card.

One may read this as the resistance of a hard Brexit lobby, but there seems no avoiding the conclusion that if the UK chooses a Customs Partnership based on the model under discussion, there will still need to be – this will be crucial to the national interest – the will, the power and the remit to do a lot of saying no.

Traditional Meanings of the 9 of Wands Reversed:

Rut, Off- Loading/Taking on More, Delegation, Taking Matters in Hand, Overhauling, Radical Change, Learning To Say No, Compromising, Weeding, Cutting Out The Dead Wood, Dumping, Reflecting, Learning/Not Learning from Mistakes, Giving Up on a Dream or Ambition, Letting Go, Giving Up/Holding On, Delays, Set Backs, No Reward after Immense Effort, Insurmountable Problems, Being Saddled, Taken Advantage Of, Resigned To Your Fate, ‘Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing’, Clearing Out.

The destination cards represent the likely future of the situation, or the advice upon which future developments will hinge, and The Strength card of option 1 trumps the 10 of Wands Reversed of option 2.

Option 2 may seem the easier route but in time it would become increasingly onerous.

But there may be yet another approach, or a twist on one of these options, that is not yet on the table.

What is not shown here either way in direct connection with the outcome either way? War, civil war or bankruptcy.

Summary. Option 1 – a streamlined customs agreement- drew as its outcome the Strength card- a card of physical and moral courage. Leo hunts because it must, but only to feed itself and support the pride, not with malice to waste, despoil or deny another.

c2241bb1de161c46ab5d31d035428702

Until next time 🙂

Cartomancy’s Sneak Peek at the EU Repeal Bill

KTLN 2

Late on Monday evening Il Matrimonio reminded me that the vote for the EU Repeal Bill was due to take place that night, and I reached for my playing cards. It was already 10.00 PM, just hours to go as I drew the cards illustrated below, asking, would the Bill be passed? I left the cards out on the table, made my initial assessment which was that it was a yes answer, then went to bed and tried to forget about it till morning.

These were the cards left out overnight. The top line contained the yes answer, but on what basis did I arrive at that interpretation?

Repeal bill

To get at a yes/no answer, you lay out a row of cards using an odd number, 3, 5 or 7.

It’s a question of preference. On such a weighty and hugely multi-factorial question, 3 might seem too few, and by now I’ve trained myself to read in fives. That’s what this stuff is about. You learn your chosen system of divination, whether that’s playing cards, Tarot, runes or whatever. You study it. You learn and you practise, practise, practise until you internalise the code, the programme, or whatever you like to call it, until, if you persist, it feels like second nature.

You activate your internal oracular programme on request. The most psychic psychic in the world – whoever that is, and it isn’t me, doesn’t go round being psychic all the time. Do they heck. They wouldn’t be able to function. Prescience isn’t omniscience, with tools, you learn to manage, instruct and direct that innate human capability. So, how do you direct it?

If it’s cards you’re reading, you do it simply by stating your question aloud as you shuffle. Not for the purpose of enlisting any rogue, random spirits in the room (or, wait… no, are they…are they… aaaggghhh…imps of Satan come to steal your soul?)

No. It is just so that you will hear yourself say it. Then stop shuffling when you feel ready. That’s it. You just stop shuffling when you feel ready, then you take off the top five cards and lay them out from left to right, creating a story-board moving forward in time.

The red card suits are Hearts and Diamonds, simplistically read as supportive or positive.

The black card suits are Clubs and Spades, simplistically read as challenging or negative.

5 red suit cards represents a definite yes

4 red suit cards represents a probable yes

3 red cards represent a likely yes

2 red cards represent a likely no

1 red card represents a probable no

0 red cards says forget it. The answer is no.

So what did we have here? 3 red cards and 2 black cards, suggesting that it was more likely than not, that yes, the Repeal Bill would pass. But we had those 2 black suit cards. What else could be gleaned?

The first card out, the 10 of Clubs, is a card of business and far-flung travel and clearly represents the bottom line. Additionally, the 10 Clubs also represents the idea of a body of water. It might be a sink or a bathtub, or it might be a sea or a channel. For the first card out to say ‘The Channel! La Manche!’ provides quite a benchmark.

The second card out, the 8 of Hearts, speaks of a gathering, a convocation. It looks surprisingly cheerful here, there would appear to be more goodwill than so much other evidence suggests. It is strongly suggestive of togetherness (huh? eh? really?) It is suggestive of total sincerity at least, on both sides, whichever side of the argument you personally happen to support.

The third and central card, the pivot or hinge card here, is the 3 of Clubs: a card of confrontation but also collaboration. Three way deals. My goodness, there have been some mighty interesting conversations behind the scenes both sides of the House.

The fourth card here represents a male figure, highly significant in this debate. It might be David Davis, Jeremy Corbyn, or both. Any one card may have multiple meanings. My initial impression was that while David Davis was, despite everything, within his personal comfort zone, while Jeremy Corbyn was faced with a perplexity; needing not to alienate Labour voters who voted to leave, whilst needing to reconcile opposing elements within his party.

The final outcome card, the 4 of Hearts, is traditionally a card of a settled home, indicative of a solid, foursquare outcome. Because this card falls in the final position, this swung the cards more strongly towards a yes answer, denoting a solid but hardly sweeping result, and we now know there was a majority of 36 votes, with 126 challenges and amendments already tabled.

And if you got this far, you might be wondering about those other cards. What were they about?

When a question is so heavily loaded, supra-personal and complex, I cross- reference, coming at the question from different directions, looking for repetition, pattern and breaks in pattern.

The second row is talking about Theresa May herself. I had asked, would she achieve the result she was looking for? Again, we had 3 red suit cards and 2 black translating as, yes, more likely than not. The 2 black suit cards here however, were spades, which are to do with intellect, focus, strategy, loss – and stress, suggesting that while Theresa May will hold her nerve going forward, she is acutely aware of past mistakes and errors of calculation (the jack of spades is bad news, tricky in the extreme.)

The 9 of Spades together with the Queen of Diamonds, speaks of stress and strain, loss, attack and grief, concerning a reserved, pragmatic woman of quick instincts and warmth. It also seems, interestingly, to have foreshadowed the challenge of the 9 Conservative MP’s now tabling amendments

There is no doubt the Prime Minister has felt the sad and terrible events of 2017 no less profoundly on the personal, human level than the rest of the general population, and if anything, more intensely because some of her responses were criticised, and, wherever the culpability lay, because these things happened on her watch.

See it here below. The black dog.

Below: the Nine of Swords(Spades) from The Golden Tarot by Kat Black, by kind permission of US Games Systems

9 Swords Golden

The third row of cards was looking at those opposed to the passing of the Repeal Bill. Would they be happy with the outcome? We see here 4 black suit cards and only 1 is red. The King of Spades here is Jeremy Corbyn again, or Keir Starmer, but those who were disappointed can be assured that some concessions will be negotiated or obtained, especially and broadly pertaining to business affairs, as suggested by the outcome card on this line; the lively, mercantile Jack of Diamonds.

In laying out the final row, I had no specific question but was looking for a general sense of how things seem set to progress. The indications here are that the UK will leave the EU more or less according to the scheduled deadline. If there had been a spades card at the end of this row, it would have suggested delays, perhaps even significant delays, and if it had been the Ace of Spades, may even have detected an aborted exit process. The only spade card here however, is at the commencement of this row and it is the 6 of Spades; a positive if solemn card, denoting a departure; charting a new course. It represents progress, though of course, not without effort, cost or struggle.

Below: The Six of Swords (Spades) from The Gilded Tarot by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti

6-swordsg

The outcome card, the 2 of Hearts, suggests a 2 year time-frame, possibly accelerated by whatever is being flagged up here by the 9 of Diamonds sitting just in front of it. It looks as though, because of the electricity of the diamonds suit, that certain significant dealings in respect of transport or travel, and possibly also power stations, may be settled somewhat more advantageously to the UK than many fear. Let’s all hope so.

This is not about politics, promoting any political viewpoint. This is about learning how to read the cards in respect of public affairs, reading cold, developing skill of interpretation via benefit of hindsight.

The lessons of hindsight facilitate wider, deeper future foresight. Reading practitioners develop intuitive muscle by tackling questions. All kinds of questions. Exposition builds the reader’s vocabulary, and with it, the capacity for more in-depth precision of card interpretation, and context is king.

Until next time 🙂

The Well of Wyrd

My readings include forecasts not predictions. What’s the difference? Mainly presentation. Otherwise, very little. Forecasts are associated with technically based weather and economic predicting, nowadays largely based upon the interpretation of masses of computerised data, plus educated guesswork. A prediction is based on knowledge, experience, intuition or guesswork, and may be made in any context but is generally understood as being presented as almost a done deal, whereas a forecast deals in estimations of probabilities. I deal in probabilities.

Polls and other forecasts not infrequently get it wrong of course, as do fortune-tellers, no doubt.

When I talk to you about your present and past, as sensed and expressed through my Tarot or playing cards, you are in a position to evaluate what I am saying, and to validate it. When I address your question to do with likely future developments, no validation is possible; only time will tell; the future both exists and does not exist. You will die and so will I, the only things in life that are certain, so the saying goes, are death and taxes, and the taxes were only included as a joke.

But in-between, there are things within your direct personal control and things that are not, and a prediction may interfere, distract, block or stymie you, and become a self-fulfilling prophecy, while a forecast allows for the possibility of alternative outcomes depending on whether you do this next, or that next. This job or that job? This house or that house? This person or that person?

This freedom of choice may also be an illusion of course, just as ‘true’ objectivity is an impossibility, because we are always likely to do, and default to what is in our nature to do, regardless of advice, even when that advice is directly solicited. It is a wise and also essentially confident person who can, without instantly dismissing it, no knee-jerks, coolly pay out enough rope to listen to advice that is contrary to what they want or expect, or that challenges their own preferred version of events and vision of themselves and their past choices.

“What is bred in the bone will not come out of the flesh”, first recorded in England (in Latin) circa 1290, widespread in various versions since the 15th cent.

The version I am used to says that what is bred in the bone will come out in the flesh…meaning, it will unavoidably manifest itself.

Norse mythology took a subtle view on prediction and the nature of destiny. Their Norns were not as absolutist as the Fates of Ancient Greece.

‘Wyrd’ is the Old English variant of the Norse word, ‘Urd’, referring to the destiny of each living thing, cast for them at birth by the three Norns. The Saxon variant is ‘wurd.’ The Well represents the Norse concept of the past – what we might now term birth memory, ancestral memory or the collective unconscious. The Norse view of destiny was that yes, it is written, but unlike the Fates of ancient Greek mythology, the destinies carved by the Norns can be overwritten…though does this pre-suppose that the hero on his or her life quest is aware of the existence and nature of that destiny and decides to challenge it?

The Well of Wyrd

She scrys alone; she is casting stones,

Disposing glyphs on graven runes,

No even numbers speak the Norns,

Wyrd runs water; she must deal,

In whisperings and Fates unsealed,

Winds of fortune shape and shatter,

Time, disposing of all matters,

Is Serpentine, the ouroboros,

Endless, rolling, still coils sinuous.

Katie-Ellen Hazeldine

Circe by Waterhouse: Public Domain

“The Well of Urd corresponds to the past tense. It is the reservoir of completed or ongoing actions that nourish the tree and influence its growth. Yggdrasil, in turn, corresponds to the present tense, that which is being actualised here and now.

What of intention and necessity, then? This is the water that permeates the image, flowing up from the well into the tree, dripping from the leaves of the tree as dew, and returning to the well, where it then seeps back up into the tree.^[5]

Here, time is cyclical rather than linear. The present returns to the past, where it retroactively changes the past. The new past, in turn, is reabsorbed into a new present, whose originality is an outgrowth of the give-and-take between the waters of the well and the the waters of the tree.” Source and Further Reading:

One can see the flexibility of the Norns arising in the sphere of genetics.

It is not clear why blue eyes spread among ancient Europeans. One theory is that the gene could have helped to prevent eye disorders due to low light levels found in European winters, or that the trait spread because it was deemed sexually attractive.

Source The Independent

Further Reading:

Reading re: Retrogenes

Was Darwin Wrong? Letter from the author of Lamarck’s Signature

Till next time 🙂

Tarot Synchronicity: The Psychic Hit and the Lucky Guess

Carl Jung speculated that the Tarot works according to the principle of ‘synchronicity’- that psychic insights are triggered by apparently random and yet meaningful co-incidence, which he thought might be explained by Quantum Mechanics.

Bored Boy, Busy Boy, The 4 of Cups And 8 of Coins

During a reading the other day, with a delightful client; charming, brave and resourceful, we looked first at a number of questions focussed on her two businesses. Then the conversation moved to children’s activities and prospects, and in respect of her son, 18, I drew the Four of Cups and said, is this how he’s been sometimes, lately? Fed up, irritable and restless, wanting to do something new but not yet able to decide, or make a start?

The card prompting this question was the Four of Cups, a card commonly nicknamed ‘the bored boy,’ and whether you’re a boy or not, it’s an unpleasant state of mind, even while it’s not exactly a problem you can do nothing about.

I was using The Gilded Tarot, images by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti.

So, what might be the path ahead for him? I drew The Eight of Pentacles, and as you can see, it shows an apprentice at work, happily engrossed, so much so, he is burning the midnight oil, watched by a mouse who’s probably hoping for a crumb of his supper.

‘I think he will do well in an apprenticeship, head and hand working together in unity, making or crafting something,’ I said.

He was wondering about something like that, the client said, maybe technical drawing.

Yes! Good choice.

‘What about the RAF?’ I said, ‘I feel it might be worth his while to see whether they’re recruiting.’

‘That’s amazing!’ she said. ‘How did you know? He has been talking about a technical apprenticeship in the RAF.’

OK then, his next port of call is sorted, and if he doesn’t end up there exactly, it will be something of that kind.

The 4 of a bored boy becomes the 8 of a busy boy, and to be busy, is very often to be happy.

Is the word or idea of the RAF anywhere written in the cards? No, of course not. This was just another instance of a word springing out, using a card as a diving board. Gob-shiting, I call it. Such are the various ways of reading the Tarot.

Until next time 🙂

The King Of Swords Had A Kukri

My brother and his wife were selling their house. The Moon card reflected, amongst other more specific things, their uncertainty about when it might sell and where they would go next.

It had been on the market the previous year and they had pulled it due to lack of buyer interest. It had gone back on the market in late May, and now it was mid June.

I whirled my cards about blind and drew the Three of Wands. Since Wands cards deal with travel, property, sales and movement in general, the immediate appearance of this commercial card was encouraging for better luck this time around.

‘There’ll be viewers soon,’ I said. ‘The future is not set in concrete but chances are good, you’ll have a suitable offer on it within three viewings, or within three weeks, three months max.’

‘We’ve had three viewings already, sis, he said.

‘Oh, OK,’ I said, ‘Well, I’ll be picking that up, I expect, but the cards often say several things at once. It’s still looking likely there’ll be developments sooner rather than later.’

Big deal, one might say. How very oracular and vague.

Well, er, quite. Oracles are not always easy to decipher, even for the oracular practitioner.

I now drew the Ace of Pentacles. This is the Tarot’s ultimate house, job and money card.

My brother and his wife have moved to a country lane near Stroud. This card proved a quite literal foreshadowing of their new home.

Illustrations from The Gilded Tarot, by kind permission of Ciro Marchetti. Buy on Amazon and other places or visit his website: http://www.ciromarchetti.com/

‘Positive developments round about the middle of July,’ I said, ‘It’s looking like the sale of house, or it’s job-related or both.’

Then I drew the King of Swords and the Queen of Pentacles. ‘I’m seeing your buyers here, I think. They’re a couple, just as you’d expect. She’s probably got dark hair and maybe eyes; very house proud, and he…well, he might be a legal advisor, or policeman; or it’s possible, a military man.’

The following week they had an offer on the house which they neither accepted nor declined, as it was well below the asking price and early days, the prospective buyer wanted to push for a very early completion. Then they received another offer a few days after that from another prospective buyer, a few days later. It was closer to the asking price, and less urgent for completion and they accepted.

Sales can fall through of course, and they had quite a rocky time of it but the sale went through and what made me smile was this news of the buyer: a family man, married with three children, and whether currently serving or not, my brother doesn’t know, but the buyer was not only a soldier but a Gurkha.

The King of Swords had a kukri!

More soon 🙂

The Moon Card’s Such A Tricky Beast: A New True Tarot Tale Part One

My brother and his wife are selling their house. They put it on the market at the end of May. Lots of things are up in the air for them both; whether to look to buy again or rent for a while pending possible career moves for them both in the not too distant future. He and I were chatting on the phone a couple of weeks ago, about all this, and I drew blind cards, shuffling them about with my free hand while we were chatting.

‘Hey, Boofs,’ I said (nickname for a younger brother who used to be in his own toddler words, a ‘bad boofs’) ‘has there been any illegal hunting going on near you that you’re aware of: badger-baiting, for instance?’

‘Not that I’ve heard of, particularly,’ he said, ‘but I’ve had a few suspicions lately. I’ve seen a few dead badgers on the road and thought, they’ve not died there. They’ve been put there afterwards.’

That’s probably what I’m picking up, then,’ I said. ‘Or why else am I pulling this card and thinking; hunter, hunting…a hunter’s moon?’

I had pulled out at The Moon Card from Kat Black’s Golden Tarot, pictured by kind permission of US Games, available to buy on Amazon and other places.

Traditional Associations for this card: Psychism, Artistic Vision, Dreams, Delusion, Lies, Error, Infidelity, Danger, Travel, Infection, Fertility, Pregnancy.

‘F*** me!’ he said, ‘We’ve been thinking about maybe going to stay at the Hunter’s Inn, next week, in Exmoor…’

In fact, they did not go and stay there. They went on a day-trip down to the Dorset coast instead, and had a nice day out though my brother got lost, according to my lovely sister-in law, something he indignantly denied.

And so, the Moon card was not predicting, not forecasting, it was just facilitating enhanced telepathic communication, making literal use of the card’s imagery. Tarot will often work this way, and this is often how the most ‘far out’ or psychic insights are triggered.

Establishing the difference is what can make Divination so tricky, you just have to go with your gut, and there is no card trickier than the Moon card.

Constant in inconstancy, fidelity in fickleness…

Part Two coming up tomorrow, that’s Sunday, or else Moon-day *cough* 🙂