8 of Swords
Mar. 6th, 2017 09:41 amThe 8 of Swords typically features a captive figure (usually a woman) who is bound, blindfolded, and surrounded by swords, often some distance outside of a village, town, or other indication of civilization. Here is the Waite-Smith image that serves as the basis for many decks today:

In the Thoth deck, this card is titled "Interference"; in the OGD it was also known as "The Lord of Shortened Force." I think this is one of my favorite of Harris's cards; something about the colors and the background geometry and the placement of the swords all works together to invoke a sense of static-y disruption. For whatever reason, it's a card that I have no problem responding to an on instinctual level -- maybe even easier than I do with the Waite-Smith version.

One thing that comes up often with the 8 of Swords is that it represents a self-imposed bondage: one that is a result of overthinking, or in refusing to accept some obvious reality, rather than outside forces conspiring to keep you in your place.

In her companion book to the Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg, Giles highlights the differences in representations between the Russian Tarot and the Waite-Smith and other Waite-Smith inspired decks available at the time. Here, the captive figure's eyes are closed, instead of blindfolded, which highlights the self-imposed nature of the interference. Giles also points out the ambiguity of the floating sword: is it coming to cut through the binding ropes? will it simply settle into the ground with the other 7 swords? Is it, like the floating fourth cup in the 4 of Cups, potentially something unreal or imagined in nature? Overall, Giles concludes that the Russian Tarot's 8 of Swords is a little more hopeful than the Waite-Smith version.
My favorite name for this card is the OGD's "Lord of Shortened Force." I don't have ADHD myself, but I get that kind of vibe from the card: constant distractions, unable to focus, getting nothing done as a result. (Or having to do a lot of extra work just to tread water.) I admit to feeling like that a lot, recently. Seeing this in the outcome feels a lot more like "results unclear, try again later" than "no bueno." I'll have to lay out another reading later, when I'm less harried, and see if anything changes.
I've owned a copy of the Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg deck for years now—possibly since 2008? The art is certainly striking, especially against the black background.

But it always felt like much of the art and symbolism that was beyond me. I didn't realize until a couple of years ago that there was a companion book; I didn't get around to acquiring a copy until this year.
The reason for my hesitance was partially my generally uninspiring previous experience with "companion books." They felt more like diet versions of a generic Tarot book then an in-depth exploration of a particular deck's art or history (the obvious exclusion being Crowley's Book of Thoth). Moreover, it seemed for a long time that the standalone book was unavailable; it only occurred in a package deals with the deck, which made it unnecessarily expensive and wasteful. Finally, as a Christmas gift to myself, when I found a used standalone copy available, I cashed in some Visa reward points and got Cynthia Giles's Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg for eventually free. It arrived a few days ago and I've just finished reading it now.
This is probably the best Tarot deck companion book I've encountered yet. Giles goes beyond telling you about the deck; she also delves into Russian history, culture, and folklore, much of which turn up in the actual cards. The casual user will no doubt recognize Josef Stalin as the figure in The Devil; if they page through the accompanying LWB, they'll also learn that Princess Olga of Kiev is pictured as the High Priestess, or that the Hierophant resembles Saint Vladimir. But without the background knowledge Giles collects in this volume, they would be much harder pressed to recognize other personages, like Ivan the Great, Grand Princess Sofia, or Ivan the Terrible. (Unless they were hardcore Russian history buffs, I suppose!) She also provides more details and context for the figures only briefly alluded to in the LWB. There is less detail when it comes to the specific court cards and pips, but that is largely due to the fact that there is an abundance of background information elsewhere. The amount of research and work that Giles put into this volume is staggering; she also makes numerous suggestions for further reading and includes her complete bibliography at the end.
I love this deck, and while I've read (relatively) successfully without Giles's companion book, after finally getting my hands on it I can conclude that the information and context provided in the book is, if not 100% essential for working with the deck, it's 100% important. If you've seen me mention this deck and have been thinking about getting one yourself, I would recommend saving up to get the deck and companion book package deal. Absolutely worth it.
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
Generally speaking, I don't like the Celtic Cross spread. I can't really make it click with the way I read cards and what I want to know from a reading (or what I think others want from a reading). The one thing I do like is the visual poetry of the first two cards: "This covers you, and this crosses you." An upright card and a card rotated 90*. It has a mystical, mysterious look to it. Moreover, those two cards contain immensely useful and pertinent information: here's the crux of the issue, here's your relationship to it and maybe what you need to know to fix things.
I knew I wanted to implement that cross imagery when I did a general reading for TG way back. In that top row you can see four crosses, one for each of the relevant parties of said reading: TG, their spouse, and their two oldest children.

When I originally came up with the spread—which was all a very organic "if I wanted general life advice, what questions would I ask? Which ones would I want answered?"—I came up with three questions:
What should I keep doing?
What should I stop doing?
What new thing should I try?
At the time I mentioned possibly adding a fourth question—What new thing should I not try?—but ultimately let it be.
A couple years later in my
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
1. What you're doing to your benefit.
2. What you're avoiding to your benefit.
3. What you're doing to your detriment
4. What you're avoiding to your detriment.
You can stick the four cards anywhere you like. I like to put them under the cross, with cards 1 and 2 on one side and 3 and 4 on the other (I like symmetry) but that's just me.
You'll note there aren't any future positions in the spread. I don't like predictions. There is almost certainly some level of aversion to Popperesque falsifiability in that—it's hard to disprove a Tarot reading that doesn't make predictions—but also, at this point, I just don't think they're helpful to people. Predictions—and, it should be noted, the original Celtic Cross spread—don't give people actionable advice they can do right now. And I think that when people come to the Tarot (or their oracle of choice), many times they're looking for someone or something to tell them what to do right now rather than wanting assurance about the future.
So there you have it. My Celtic Cross alternative. Feel free to take it and make it your own!
Shadow Work Whatever, Day 18 (22)
May. 2nd, 2016 11:23 pm
( What is the lie I keep telling myself? )
Speaking of Tarot history and the origins of the card, Biddy Tarot has a really great interview with Robert Place about the history of the cards. It is academically and authentically grounded (protip: they're not Egyptian) and easy to digest, and even though it's a podcast interview, Biddy is really great with having transcripts so you can read instead.
Shadow Work Forever: Day 16 (20)
Apr. 11th, 2016 05:39 pm
( What should I attract into my life? )
Shadow Work Whatever, Day 15 (18 & 19)
Apr. 5th, 2016 08:50 pm
I'm not sure what today's first question ("What do I hate about myself? Why?") has to do with purgatory, but I'll just let that sit. But what do I hate about myself? I had plenty of time to sit and stew on this question before I actually flipped over a card. I thought about my tendency to be loud and domineering in circles; my tendency to just hold forth without actually facilitating a conversation. I thought about my need to always be right; to have the last word; to be sarcastic.
Five of Swords wouldn't be too far off the mark, I thought, and then drew my card. Page of Swords. Not too far off the mark, then?
The trick is connecting the Page of Swords to the reversed 10 of Pentacles, which came up way back on Day 11. I want to like that spread. I really do, but I had such a weird non-reading with it. Maybe that means I need to try it again. And if you go waaay back to the very first spread in this monthly meme, the Page of Swords comes up as my quest. But reversed. So if the Page of Swords is what I hate about myself, is the quest about ridding myself of that energy? Hm. Hmmm.
Likewise with the 4 of Cups: we've seen this card before: what I can't accept about myself. But this is in the Victorian Romantic Tarot, not the St. Petersburg or any other Waite-Smith clone, so the image is a bit different:
Someone is not having a good time! But seriously: what do I hate in other people, and why?
This one I didn't think as much about beforehand. I hate when people are greedy, hateful, self-serving, and so on...but that isn't what the 4 of Cups is about. It's about something so much more mundane and harmless: being grumpy.That's kind of low-key thing to hate, isn't it? So...petty. But I guess it isn't just any kind of grumpy that grinds my gears. It's the self-indulgent and childish sort of "I didn't get a pony for my brithday wah" grumpy. Depression is real, and we do all have to process disappointment and despair to be healthy, but then when it becomes that masochistic and self-destructive grumpy...no thanks. There's so much worse stuff going on that you should save your grumpy dollars for.
This is one I hate in myself, too. I know I can get this way fairly easily. And I guess you often hate in others what you don't want to admit to yourself....
Shadow Work Winter, Day 14 (17)
Mar. 22nd, 2016 03:30 pm
Maybe another reason I've slowed down with this shadow work meme is that a lot of the prompts are sort of meaningless for me. Last one was about my Inner Child, which is frankly in the category of New Age concepts I don't buy into (maybe that's why my card was the 10 of Swords?); coming up is "inner god" and questions of divinity, which I don't really know if I hold truck with either. But I'll keep on keeping on. It's better to use my cards more often than not, right?
Today was day 17. According to the meme:
( Intimacy: How I can strenghten [sic] my bond with the loved one(s)? )
Shadow Work Winter, Day 13 (16)
Mar. 3rd, 2016 03:11 pm
I started this in November. Now it's march and today marks the halfway point. Even with skipping some prompts and combining others, I'm still (obviously) lagging quite a bit! It doesn't help that even with extra time and thought, the "Shadow Work Spread" reading doesn't make any damn sense.
( So what advice does my Inner Child have for me )
Shadow Work Winter, Day 12 (14 & 15)
Jan. 19th, 2016 01:53 pm
I've never really had conflicting feelings over my biological sex or gender identity but I've been watching the discussion around trans identities unfold and really skyrocket the last five years and it's been really educational, enlightening, and occasionally heartbreaking. Needless to say, much as dualism can be appealing, I'm casting these question in a slightly different light: boldness and patience. Am I too bold/patient, or not enough? How can I better channel these two conflicting qualities to achieve what I want?
Shadow Work December, Day 10 (12)
Dec. 13th, 2015 11:49 pm
The card I pulled was the 4 of Cups, reversed. Oh boy, reversals!!
If the Page of Clubs was straightforward, this was another think-y draw. On its surface, the 4 of Cups is generally about discontentment and dissatisfaction. The honeymoon period is over, the magic is lost.
This is a card where a Waite-Smith (of which my St. Petersburg Tarot is a clone) and Thoth comparison is interesting and potentially fruitful.
In the Thoth deck, this card is titled Luxury, and is associated with Moon in Cancer. As the Moon is Cancer's natural ruler, this would initially seem like a positive and comfortable card. I mean, "luxury"? But the colors and image, while not devastating, are hardly warm and fuzzy:

But this was not a reading with the Thoth deck. This was, as with most of the readings so far, done with my St. Petersburg deck, which is a Waite-Smith clone.

The primary differences between the two are that the figure in the Russian Tarot is blonde and dressed in noticably luxurious (hey! that word!) clothing (of course, all of the clothing in the St. Petersburg Tarot has lovely embroidered bits along hems and ediges, but here it is overmuch), and instead of sitting with legs and arms crossed, he's kneeling and has one hand raised to his chast, palm out. But there are still three cups before him, a tree branch above him, and an ambiguous sky-hand. Is the fourth sky-cup one the figure is desiring in his grumpy mood? Or is it one being held out to him that he can't see because he's grumpy?
The LWB for this deck takes the reversed meaning of this card (since I did draw it reversed) as unambiguously positive: new possibilities, new solutions, new relationships, new knowledge. More or less in line with the reversed meaning given by Waite in The Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Hardly something I would "refuse to accept about myself."
I am not somehow secretly unhappy or dissatisfied with my life, generally speaking. Perhaps this "generally speaking" is the kernel of the issue: I'm not acknowledging whatever dissatisfactions I do have. In what arena of life could I be ignoring my own unhappiness?
After two years in a foreign country, I have a solid grasp on the language, though not the fluency of my mother tongue. But I'm handling it.
I have a solid, long-term, supportive relationship.
My career is a bit slipshod at the moment. At the moment I'm gunning to be a certfied teacher, but since my credentials aren't originally in education (aside a CELTA, which isn't nothing, but it's also not a multi-year degree program), I'm realizing now I potentially will have a lot to make up. And even now, I only think I'll like it. I know that schools can be a bereaucratic, political nightmare (all this on top of managing students) and I don't know if I have the inner reserves to handles that. Otherwise: do I have the inner reserves to be a proper freelancing editor and tutor? Or do I give up on all of my English-related career goals and return to retail instead? Should I focus more on my fiction writing? On jewelry?
LIkewise my partner's career is slipshod for similar reasons, namely having a lot of education to make up. It would be lying to say that it didn't stress us both out. This goes hand-in-hand with my slipshod career: we both have fairly meager safety nets to begin with, and we both acknowledge a sense of fiscal and general responsibility for the other. I do look at my other immigrant friends who are equally slipshod in their careers but who have partners with stable and fairly well-paying jobs, and sigh wistfully. Sometimes.
It would be a hard thing to admit that the career experience I've accrued so far might not be relevant for what I would actually end up doing, or that I might need to put my career aspirations on hold for the sake of a little more money (and probably a lot more peace of mind). Is this what I can't accept?
Shadow Work December, Day 9 (10)
Dec. 6th, 2015 06:08 pmToday's, for example, is The Devil: What do I need to let go of? And I drew the Page of Clubs. (Clubs = Wands, in this deck.)

So there you have it.
Shadow Work November, Day 8 (11)
Nov. 29th, 2015 04:21 pm
If you're not up on your Freud, the id, ego, and superego are the three parts that make up the sum total of your conscious experience. The id is pure desire and impulse; the ego is calculated strategy, and the superego is the conscience and ideal self. One way to envision the three parts is the ego navigating conflicting desires: what the id wants (usually something akin to immediate gratification) and what the superego wants (usually to be a better person, or to live up to some ideal).
( Id, Ego, Superego )
Shadow Work November, Day 7 (9)
Nov. 21st, 2015 11:07 pm
I thought a lot about this day's prompt before I shuffled. I think this may be the most uncomfortable question so far. Sometimes I do a thing where before a reading I wonder about what cards would be especially appropriate, or confusing, or just plain funny.
What would happen if my significator (Queen of Cups) or any of the Cups courts came out? That would be a laugh riot. 7 of Cups would be a funny card, too: I'm out-of-touch with the ideas of my own out-of-touchness? 7 of Swords: I see myself as honest but I'm really a tricksy, lying bastard? Ace of Swords? And so on.
What I got was a reversed 7 of Clubs.
Calm down, child. Not everyone is out to get you. Not everyone is glued to your every move, waiting for you to make a mistake so they jump down your throat. You really do take shit way too seriously and get needlessly defensive—it's okay to chill the fuck out once in a while.
Shadow Work November, Day 6 (7)
Nov. 21st, 2015 10:20 am
So today's prompt is Day 7: Sage/Crone: What is my Inner Truth?
With all the heavy words like sage and crone and Inner Truth, I was ready for this to be a heavy duty card. And I get...
8 of Pentacles, reversed.

(I can never find the image I want of cards from the Tarot of St. Petersburg, so all you get are my crappy cell phone pictures. Sorry!)
The 8 of Pentacles is about hard work, perfection (often in the form of studying, or apprenticing under a master), and fine-tuning details. Some people thrive under that; for other people it's tedium with a capital T. Golden Dawn correspondences peg this card as Sun in Virgo.
When you set up a day with words like Sage and Inner Truth, a ho-hum little Minor Arcana is a bit of a let down! (Though, scrolling through the #shadowworkoctober tag on Instagram, someone else got 10 of Swords as their "full potential" so oof could be worse...)
So much of my anxieties boil down to the struggle between perfection and imperfection. I bust my hump on my work (creative or paid) and it's worries over the imperfections and the flaws that keep me up at night—am I really being the best teacher I could be? Will this manuscript ever be good or am I too much of a talentless hack to bring this idea to fruition? All very relevant to the discussion in the previous post as well.
I drew this card days ago but it was so weird and confusing that I sat on it until now. Like: it is a pretty perfect reflection of my innermost drives at the moment, but it doesn't feel like a "crone-like" truth, won after years of reflection and experience. Is this going to be my eternal struggle, something I never quite make peace with? But that is mostly me, getting hung up on a name and expectations.
Shadow Work November, Day 5 (6)
Nov. 14th, 2015 02:22 pm
I thought this prompt was going to be serious and difficult. I was fully expecting to cry over this one. Instead, I was just...puzzled.
I have always been inclined to see the positive side of the 9 of Wands (or Clubs, as in this deck). Its presence indicates struggle and even conflict, but also success. The figure in the Waite-Smith 9 of Wands may be exhausted and beaten up, but he's at least accomplished something.
And I do not believe for a second that I need to forgive myself for some faux flaw like "working too hard" or something, because what kind of "shadow work" would that be? So what are the negative, reversed, inversed meanings of this card? In other words, even though I drew it upright, how would I read it reversed? It's embarrassing that it took me basically an entire day to consider that angle.
What is the inverse of the 9 of Wands? What is the opposite of that meaning? Overwhelmed and exhausted but without success, failure, defeat, overrun.
In other words, a lot of the feelings I've been staring down in my personal/professional life. I'm in a situation right now where I feel like I've failed to meet all of the challenges set before me. Not only that, I don't have any energy left to try again or to face any new ones that may come my way.
That I should forgive myself for being so despondent and defeated is strange. Had I really been beating myself up that much about it?
Maybe not exactly, but I haven't been allowing myself to feel that way. Not really. I've had temporary bursts at my boyfriend or elsewhere on LJ, but within the paradigm of "let it out so it will go away, get over it so you can stop sitting around and feeling sorry for yourslf." Not the healthiest attitude towards one's own darker moments: "I'm getting real sick of this shit." How would my friends react if I said that to them while they were having an awful time? Never mind that it would never, ever in my life occur to me to say something like that to them. I treat myself worse than I treat my friends.
For that, I'm sorry.
Shadow Work November, Day 4 (8)
Nov. 13th, 2015 12:37 pm
I'm doing things a bit out of order, here. The truth is I need a bit more thinking on Days 6 and 7, so I'll come back to it in a moment. Day 8, on the other hand, is at least halfway easy!
For me (and honestly, I think if you polled people), the three scariest and most negative trumps are Death, the Devil, and The Tower. As is practically the in-joke right now, "DEATH ISN'T ALWAYS ACTUAL ACTUAL DEATH IT'S USUALLY CHANGE!!!" and so there's the positive spin. The Devil—The Devil is the card of Capricorn, which is all about hard work and creating structure and form. Even the artwork on the Thoth version of The Devil has an image of the anaphase portion of mitosis (a cell dividing in two to reproduce asexually) right in the foreground.
That leaves us The Tower.
But good spin can you possibly put on The Tower? It is the worst. It is losing your job, your spouse, and your parents in the same 24-hour stretch.
I guess, if one recovers from The Tower, you can say that it's given you a clean slate. A new start. That's the gist of what the Instagram posts for this one say. (A lot of other people also chose The Tower.) But if you never recover....?
I am dubious of this particular exercise, I suppose. "There is good and bad in everything!" smacks of the wrong kind of New Age frou-frou sweetness and light philosophy. Sometimes, things are terrible, and there's no two ways about it. Sometimes shit happesn to a person and there's no lesson to be learned, no "new path" to be taken. Sometimes it's just one more turd on a shit sundae, and to pretend otherwise is harmful.
Shadow Work November, Day 3 (5)
Nov. 8th, 2015 11:59 pm
Putting aside the possibility of "my least favorite card to interpret," I'm going to assume this question is aimed more towards: which card's energy/appearance makes me uncomfortable?
Putting aside the Majors (they get their own question later) and the court cards (just because, as a class, they're weird and difficult), I sat and thought about all of the negative, uncomfortable pips. And there are definitely some that are uncomfortable! In general, I think the most heart-breakingly terrible cards are the usual culprits: 3 of Swords, 5 of Cups, 5 of Pentacles, 8 of Cups, 9 of Swords, 10 of Swords, etc. Those turn up and you just want to throw your hands up and say fuck it, I'm running off to join the circus.
But the funny thing is, a lot of them don't touch me. They haven't all turned up a lot in my readings (at least, about my own shit), so I don't have a particular memory of "oh that time I did a reading and then there was card and that thing happened." So after a lot of reflecting and thinking on the pips, I finally have my least favorite one.

RWS, Pamela Colman-Smith

Legacy of the Divine, Ciro Marchetti
Everything about this card speaks to some kind of hard-to-articulate disgust. The thing that separates this one from the two other serious contenders I had (8 of Cups, because I've lived that painful moving-on; 5 of Pentacles because DAMN SON WHO LIKES BEING BROKE) is that there is just no possible end in sight. The figure in the 8 of Cups is leaving behind something, but they're also moving to something new. The kind of destitution in 5 of Pentacles at least has a simple solution, if not an easy or possible one (MO' MONEY). But oh, man. The endless drudgery in carrying those wands is my idea of hell.
I value my independence and my freedom. It took me a while to realize that this was a truth about me, because in some ways (emotionally) I am extremely reliant on others. My greatest fear was (and is) dependency; for a while I saw myself as a dependent person just because I was in a headspace that couldn't disconnect "my greatest fear" from "my biggest flaw," or understand that everyone is dependent on other people to at least some extent and that I'm not exempt from that.
The connection to the 10 of Wands is this: I realize that I have the emotional fortitude to get over the 8 of Cups, and I naively believe I have the luck to weather out the 5 of Pentacles. In a sense, much as I don't like being in the space of those cards (and I have been), it's comforting to be able to 1) recognize those times for what they are and 2) have the belief/knowledge that they will end. But when I look at the 10 of Wands, all I see is forever. A trap. "Life's a bitch and then you die." I know myself well enough to know that I will never set down that burden, or ask for anyone's help. And I see a personal blind spot that might trap me without me even realizing it. Because I might convince myself that carrying all that crap by myself is somehow ~*~freedom~*~ or ~*~independence~*~.
In short, it's the only trap in Tarot that can last for the rest of your life.
Shadow Work November, Day 2 (3 & 4)
Nov. 7th, 2015 12:32 pm
( Brief comments on fear. )