I'm doing
Wyntercraft's 30-day Tarot challenge, but a bit sporadically, and recording it even more so.
Day 14 was a past/present/future spread, which I didn't do until Day 15, which was to spend some time mucking about with your cards in a public place. So I took my lovely new Fairy Tale deck to the geek meetup, where I mucked around with it while I met geeks (or mostly saw geeks I'd met previously, but the point is I left the house and went where the people are).
If I recall correctly, the past/present/future spread went as such: The past card was the 10 of Pentacles, the joy card, representing (more or less) having a lovely fulfilling social support network; in this card, it was represented by the fairy tale "East of the Sun, West of the Moon," which I'm familiar with from the Tatterhood anthology. The present card was the Seven of Cups, represented in this deck by "The Glass Tower," and it represents fantasy/daydreaming/wishful thinking. Lyndsay and I decided that it referred to daydreaming about Vegas and that I should rely on my excellent social circles--circles that include Lyndsay, who is why I am going to Vegas--to keep me and my spending in line until then. The final card was the Queen of Wands, represented by Holly Black's favorite fairy tale, "The White Cat." The Queen of Wands is a boss; she is very focused and gets shit done, so it's good to see that I'll likely be able to move on from my current state of wishful thinking and focus on my goals, hopefully including my goal of regaining my financial discipline so I can be not broke as shit and can have a nice luxurious time in Vegas. This is doable, right?
I also did a spread that's in the Fairy Tale deck book called the Keys to the Kingdom spread; I'm not sure it made a whole lot of sense, which could be because I wasn't doing it right (not focused, didn't have a black or white cloth to put it on, etc.) but also might mean I need to cleanse the deck or let it rest. Which I will do.
Day 16, which was supposed to be yesterday, was to do a Celtic Cross. I haven't done a Celtic Cross for myself in a while, and I didn't do it yesterday either, because I was tired and so I spent the night making stew and reading. So I did it just now, with my old favorite the vampire deck, which I haven't used ever since I put it in its lovely new home from stonesandsigils. (In the time it took me to do the spread my computer restarted spontaneously, forcing me to rewrite this entire post up until this point. Yay technology.)
Anyway, I laid out the spread and immediately went "oh shit," not because every spread looks kind of intimidating with the vampire deck (though it does) but because it had like a shit-ton of swords in it and also had the Tower perched up there at the top as the crown card. So that's going to suck, but let's start at the beginning.
The cover card is the King of Swords, who, being both a sword *and* a king, is gonna be a bit of a jerk; both rank and suit are of the element of air. As the card of "Authority and command," this King can represent sound, rational advice, and has many fine qualities, such as self-control, intelligence, professionalism, an analytical mind, and impartiality. As a situation card--which, in this position, he probably is--he can indicate that, if a major decision is coming down in your life right about now, it will be fair and impartial. More often, as a situation card or a card in which he's indicating the querent's mindset, the King warns that you may be acting in an overly cool or intellectualized manner, and may be giving short shrift to the emotional side of things, being out of touch with your own feelings or disregarding the feelings and opinions of others. Unsurprisingly, the King can also represent fear of intimacy; you knew there was gonna be a card about that somewhere. On a more positive note, the King can indicate a capability for great originality and a desire to break from convention. While I would like to flatter myself that in this case the card indicates that the subject of the spread will be what kind of great originality I am capable of, I'm already suspecting it's going to go down the "being out of touch with your feelings" road, because of what completes the microcross:
The crossing card is the Queen of Swords, the King's "Intelligent and solitary" consort, known for being a strong-willed, independent, and over all else
autonomous creature. The Queen goes it alone; she stands up for herself and doesn't rely on other people. Loneliness in her past has taught this Queen to be independent, something I relate to very well. This Queen, while very smart and tough, is not always as well-integrated as she should be--like her accompanying King, she can indicate that one's focus on rationality has strangled the querent's emotional expression in some way. I feel like I usually don't have a problem emoting all over the place (especially when the place in question is the internet), but my ingrained penchant for lone-wolfery does mean I have some hangups, such as asking for help. Anyway, together the microcross seems to indicate that I have some sort of situation at hand with too much air, and there are still two more swords in this reading. Let's see what the rest of the cards have to say about it.
The "beneath" card here is Major Arcana XII, the Hanged Man (note to self: Justice is 11, not 12). This is an odd placement for the Hanged Man, because the beneath card generally represents the "old news" of the question--habits, repetitive behaviors, general formative backstory stuff--our buddy Le Pendu here represents a new perspective (because he's upside-down, see). He can also represent suspension or limbo, which might make more sense as a beneath card--whatever I've been doing to wind up in a cranky knot of maladjusted Swords monarchs, I've probably been doing it for a long time. Why this is the same card as "a new perspective," Idunno. According to Louis, the state of suspended animation that is either going on or that the cards are recommending you take is for the purpose of reevaluating your attitudes/goals/priorities/etc. so that you can figure stuff out and remain true to your own unique values and perspective. So perhaps this card indicates that I've been in some sort of "fallow period" for a while, but that while it seems to be a period of limbo, it's not stagnation; I've been doing a lot of thinking about... stuff. Which, I mean, I have. I think far too much about stuff and rarely come to any conclusions. Ah well.
The "behind" card is the King of Cups, one of the nicer Kings usually. Louis says he represents "wise counsel" and "compassion." Due to his placement this could refer to an actual person rather than a situation; I'm almost entirely certain that it's not a "this is your headspace" card, both due to the microcross and because it really just doesn't sound at all like me lately, haha. When it refers to people, this card can represent mentors or father figures, but can more often just refer to any sort of mature, cultured, emotionally stable, or other functionally-adult-like person, regardless of the nature of their dynamic with the querent. Usually it represents men, but not always (insert ramble about gendered archetypes here). I was going to make a crack about how I don't know "A mature, emotionally stable man" but then I remembered that that is both unkind and not true and oh god I'm the Queen of Swords, aren't I. This card could possibly refer to a number of people--some of them are even dudes!--or even to my awesome, supportive network of friends and comrades in general.
The "crown" card here is Major Arcana XVI, The Tower, which represents BIG CATASTROPHIC CHANGE, although another look through the Louis book reminds me that it's not actually always bad. I'd assume it was maybe indicating movement on the work situation front if a) there were any pentacles in the spread or b) I had taken any action or there was any hint of the possibility of movement on the work situation front, which there isn't. Considering the preponderance of swords and cups in the spread, I suspect this is more likely to be some big change in worldview or feelings-related matters, such as gaining or losing a major friendship. This card shows up when it's time to do things like cut toxic people out of your life even if it means sacrificing half your friend group. But I already cut all the toxic people out of my life, so I don't think it's that. This card can indicate things like "A jolting insight," "release from bondage," "liberation" and "release from self-imposed captivity." Between prior spreads urging me to do some form of moving on/getting rid of baggage and the earlier cards in this spread indicating some sort of out-of-touch-ness/restriction on my emotional expression, this seems to indicate some sort of major shift in the way I go about having feelings or seeing myself or the world, possibly to the point where making the change would feel like an identity crisis. (I will admit there's a lot of things that could be. I could stop being shy. I could stop procrastinating. I could start dating. I could start watching sports! Or
playing them! Any of these would fuck up my sense of self, even though it would probably massively improve my life if I stopped being a socially anxious worrywart who leaves everything to the last minute.)
The "before" card is the Nine of Wands, "Strength in Reserve," an odd choice considering the rest of the cards seem to indicate that shit inside my head's gonna change whether I like it or not, and I probably won't. The "standing your ground" meanings of the Nine of Wands could indicate that either I'm going to resist the shit out of whatever the hell the Tower is trying to make me learn, or possibly just that I'm going to need to work real hard to manage whatever major change is coming correctly. Most of the previous cards in the spread seem to indicate my currently being out of balance/doing something wrong, which would seem to mean that retrenching the way the Nine of Wands usually advises to do would be the wrong move. But a peek forward to my Self card seems to clarify things; the Queen of Cups often represents people who are too easily influenced by others. So whatever happens, I need to learn my own lessons from it, not what other people tell me to learn.
So yes, anyway, the "self" card here is the Queen of Cups, water of water. It's interesting to me that this spread has had sort of a perfect square of court cards--two Kings and two Queens, meaning two air ranks and two water ranks, and of each we have two Swords and two Cups, also two air and two water. So we have air of air, water of air, air of water, and water of water. Gee, I wonder what the main tension in this spread is. This Queen is pretty deep in her feels, unlike the Queen of Swords. As an advice or situation card she indicates that it's a good time to examine your own feelings and rely on your hunches and intuitions; I'm not sure how much advice makes sense for this card placement (I've started thinking of it as the "headspace" card); it might indicate that I am currently "deeply involved in (my) inner world and in the realm of fantasy". At any rate, there's a big split between the indication that I've got the Queen of Cups living in my head right now and the warning from the microcross that I'm somehow cut off from my feelings. But perhaps that's the point, that I've got all this stuff going on in my head and am just bottling it up there? Idunno.
Now we're back to swords, which are generally kind of shitty cards. The "house" card, aka the "peanut gallery" card, is the Two of Swords, "Stalemate," which despite being supposed to be about outside influences and other people is pretty much just repeating some of the things in the microcross: "You feel a need to keep a tight rein on your emotions. You may be using all your intellectual defenses to avoid facing your feelings about an issue." Typical Swords stuff. Apparently everyone else is doing it too. More likely, it means I've gone and arranged the external factors in my life to have enough inertia that they're contributing to me not dealing with my general inner swordsiness. Or possibly it just means everyone else is quietly judging me for it. This card does indicate that the stalemate can't last forever; whether that means anyone else has a better idea of what the Tower will bring than I do, or if it just means that my friends are generally smarter than me, is anyone's guess.
The "hopes, fears, and expectations" card is the Three of Swords, "Heartache," which needless to say falls under the "fears" part, possibly with a side of "expectations." The card doesn't necessarily mean romantic heartache (although it can; ask me about why I haven't dated in seven years sometime! Actually, don't), but generally a fear of getting hurt. While the pain in the Three of Hearts is usually necessary in some way--teaching important lessons and whatnot--it still sucks. There's probably any number of fronts in my life where I limit myself due to fear of getting hurt; my unwillingness to leave my job is one, although again, the lack of pentacles in this spread makes me question whether it's job-related, even though I would likely be able to apply a lot of this analysis to my current employment situation.
Despite this fear, though, I appear to be on an OK track, because the final outcome card is the Three of Cups, "Celebration." How do I end up with something to celebrate out of all this scolding about how I'm doing feelings wrong and The Tower is about to fall on my head? Either The Tower is that I will shift catastrophically into not doing feelings wrong anymore, or perhaps I will have the sense to listen to the Wise Counsel of my buddy (or bunch of buddies) the King of Cups, or perhaps my friends will judge me about stalemate-ing myself so hard that I'll knock it off. Idunno. But at any rate, it is probably time to stop procrastinating with tarot stuff and actually go do some of the things I'm supposed to do, like work on this con packet and go to the movies. I'll do what's supposed to be today's reading tomorrow.
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