Tarot reading, "The Veil"

[bloodygranuaile]

Ha, this reading was exactly what I needed.

I did a "veil" reading, which is essentially the signature/gimmick spread of the deck I was using, which is the Penny Dreadful deck from Showtime, a replica of the deck Vanessa Ives uses in the show. It's quite gorgeous and a little hard to read sometimes, as the major arcana aren't numbered and I somehow still don't have them all memorized. I should do flash card drills or something.

Anyway, the veil spread is quite simple. The first card is what the querent thinks they see; the second card is the "veil" -- the thing getting in the way of the querent seeing the truth -- and the third card is the truth. It's a nifty little spread for figuring out where you're fooling yourself about stuff.

In this case, the first card was Death, which, as everyone knows, is something all the movies get wrong and which actually marks major transformation -- the end of one cycle and the beginning of another; major life changes; significant shifts in something-or-other; reinventing yourself (either on purpose or not -- basically, the death of an old you and the implied birth of a new you). In this position in this spread, this would indicate that I see myself as going through some sort of major shift or life change, but I am perhaps wrong. Since my question was about finances and work and all that sort of thing, this seems to be addressing my panic that the amount of wiggle room in my budget has at least halved over the course of the year, between dropping my underpaid ongoing side hustle with Stephen in March, finally getting onto my 401(k) plan like a responsible adult and the accompanying drop in my take-home salary (which kicks in this paycheck), and my rent increase that starts in September. So I am mad panicking that I basically have undone all the extra gains in "living like an adult with disposable income" that I've made since 2011, when I was 22 and contract proofreading for Pearson, since that's the last time the margin of error in my budget was this low. I feel trapped, stressed, defeated, and uncool. I am sure I will adjust and I am equally sure I will not like it. It would be great for this to be a misconception. I am, supposedly, getting a raise soon, and I do not know how much it will be, and I am trying to prepare for it to not be as much as I want.

Anyway, the second card, the one obscuring my ability to see the truth (or the Truth, apparently), is the Queen of Pentacles, reversed. I laughed out loud when I saw this card -- it has shown up, also reversed, in other spreads quite recently. The Queen of Pentacles is my signifier card, so upside down it clearly signifies that I am being fooled by the shadow version of myself -- basically, that I am my own worst enemy, or my jerkbrain is, to put it in Captain Awkward terms. But at any rate, my less wonderful qualities are getting in my own way again. What are they? In the reversed position, the practical, benevolent Queen of Pentacles signifies greed. She stands for acquisitiveness, conspicuous consumption, status-seeking, being overly concerned with material things and devaluing or ignoring other more important things in life, all that kinds stuff. Guilty as charged, probably. I have a lot of great things going on in my life, like wonderful friends and a supportive family and a job I find interesting, and I am basically like "nope I am too broke to leave the house I am gonna sit here and feel lame and daydream about moving out of Boston, because that would be cheaper but also I would be leaving everyone and everything behind." Tomorrow I am not going out to Worcester to support my lovely friends because I don't feel like I can justify paying the $5 cover and buying drinks. I am likely going to instead spend that night being unable to focus on reading and feeling left out while my friendships wither and die, but I'm probably going to stick with this plan anyway because money. One of the things the Llewelyn book suggests for this card is actually "You do not have enough money to achieve your goals," so at least the card does not necessarily mean 100% that it's an entirely in-your-head problem.

The third card, the Truth, is the six of wands. This is the Victory card! This is a great card to have last in a spread in the spreads where the last card is a Final Outcome card, because it means things will get better. In this case, it seems to indicate that things are in fact actually already better, I am currently victorious and just can't see it because I am being a greedy bitch and fussing about my credit card balance. (My credit card balance is currently three times my checking account balance, though, so I don't think I'm completely out of line stressing about it! But it is probably making me a lot more miserable and miserly than I need to be.) I admit I am hoping that it means I am already victorious in the things that will make me not actually have a major lifestyle shift toward the poor end, and I just don't see it yet -- like that I have supposedly secured that raise and it's just not come through yet because stuff goes really slowly at my company, and I've also found one new freelance contact through Julia, for whom I have edited one paper and who promises to have more for me, but I have not gotten paid yet and I do not know how frequently I will get more. So hopefully this card indicates that stuff is in place and I just am not seeing it yet because I have not had it all my victory conditions materially fulfilled yet, but it possibly also means that I should focus on things that are going right that I'm just not paying enough attention to.

But either way, I am apparently ACTUALLY victorious at life and just too greedy to appreciate it, therefore I am convinced of impending doom.

That does sound like me, actually.