Reading for TG: Generic Advice

[tarot_scholar]

An LJ friend elsewhere put out the call for readings from her reading-type friends. I stepped up to the challenge and developed an original 11-card spread based on her current situation. In particular, she wanted to know about the general energy/environment surrounding her and her family (husband, three sons) and what she can/needs to do to improve it, as life is pretty stressful at the moment.

I was inspired by the layout of a spread I saw many moons ago on Aeclectic. Its original purpose was to help a querent stuck between two choices; obviously that isn't really applying here. I also drew from the layout and content of the classic Celtic Cross spread.

Each pair of crosses at the top represent an individual: the querent (far left), her husband (far right), and their two oldest sons (middle). The youngest son is only an infant a few months old at the time of this writing—not an age where I think Tarot is an appropriate or useful descriptor of behavior or inner psychology.

The first card of each cross "covers" the person in the traditional Celtic Cross sense: describes themselves, their general situation/mood/etc. The second card "crosses" the individual and describes the root of their largest or most pressing issue/problem.

The bottom row of individual cards constitute the advice specific to the querent. From left to right: keep doing this, stop doing this, and try doing this.

The rest of this post is taken directly from the message I sent to the querent, reproduced here with her permission.

Deck: Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg

1. Covering you (you in a nutshell at the moment): Queen of Swords

2. Crossing you (what obstacle you're facing at the moment: 9 of Swords

Funny enough before I got started I thought to myself, "Hm, 9 of Swords seems like it would be a really appropriate card." Welp!

The Queen of Swords gets a bad rap: depressed, bitchy, a widow, "the other woman," etc. But I've always liked her because she is the union of water/emotions (being a Queen) and air/intellect (Swords). The Queen of Swords is smart, tough, discriminating (y'know, in the good way), and has the fortitude and constitution to do what has to be done, even when it's tough. Which is good, because the 9 of Swords (~LORD OF NIGHTMARES~) can be daunting to face. The Queen of Swords, though, can handle it.

3. Covering your husband: Ace of Clubs

4. Crossing your husband: 10 of Cups

The dynamic between these two cards is interesting. The Ace of Clubs is about ambition, energy, and virility. (This deck not so much, but other decks have REALLY phallic art for this card.) The 10 of Cups is all about happily ever after, mission accomplished, enjoying the fruits of your labor and so on, but it is also predominantly a card about family. The two are somewhat at odds with each other, here. Your husband has his plans and desires BUT it seems like they're tempered by being responsible for (or FEELING responsible for) the well-being and happiness of a whole family.

5. Covering your oldest son: 3 of Wands

6. Crossing your oldest son: 5 of Cups

I think this dynamic was the most interesting pair in the whole spread. It required a bit of puzzling.

3 of Wands is, I think, a bit of an odd card to describe a child because it's usually associated with business ventures or schooling decisions or so on: stuff that you do as an adult. Still, a kid can feel 3 of Wands-y, I think: feeling like they are growing up and developing and "not a baby anymore." Doing their best to be an adult.The 5 of Cups, on the other hand, is VERY easy to associate with a child. Grief, despair, and disappointment no know age boundaries.

But how do the two work together?

I think there are a couple ways. First, it could be a fear of disappointing his parents or a fear of being ignored driving the "not a baby anymore" behavior. A line of thinking like, "If I can help Mom and Dad, they'll notice me and love me more than if I don't." The fear of being unloved or ignored driving the growing up.

The other way is the growing up driving the fear of being ignored: feeling ignored, disappointed, or unloved because no one is noticing how much he can do and how much more responsible he is now.

Not to mention, both situations could be true at the same time.

7. Covering the middle son: 7 of Cups

8. Crossing the middle son: The Hanged Man

This is the only Major Arcana in the whole spread; I was quite honestly expecting more, since this seemed like a BIG DEAL situation. But a Major Arcana card showing up in a position related to one of your children makes sense: often times, the Major Arcana isn't about daily life or the things we can do, or shouldn't do, or so on, but about times when outside forces control us more than anything else. If there's ever a time when outside forces control your life, it's when you're a kid.

The Hanged Man is about being in limbo and waiting; often about being punished as well (the pose used for The Hanged Man is derived from a popular Italian method of publicly shaming figures in pamphlets and posters in the 1300s, like political cartoons today). My first instinct would be to tie this card to his ongoing medical mystery status and diagnosing attempts. Not that it bugs him---7 of Cups is a card of daydreams and imaginations and being in ~your own world~--but rather he has the vague sense of waiting for the problem to be solved (or for the hospital/doctor visits to end, or whatever a solution looks like to someone that young).

9. What's working; keeping doing this: 10 of Coins

This is an odd bit of advice, I think, but there you have it. The 10 of Coins is about family and "happily ever after," similar to the 10 of Cups. The biggest difference is that 10 of Cups is about emotional fulfillment and satisfaction, while the 10 of Coins is about material fulfillment and satisfaction: a roof over your head, food on the table, a comfortable environment to raise a family in and something of a legacy to leave to your children and grandchildren. Keep your eyes on the prize and keep working towards that. (Which, uh, no shit Sherlock, but sometimes Tarot advice is just like that.) Taking the big picture, long-term view is often a good way to cope with short-term bullshit (9 of Swords).

Not only should you keep focused on the long-term, but you should also keep taking as many concrete, actionable steps towards the long-term as is possible: saving money, looking for new jobs, getting paperwork sorted, etc. Coins are not a suit of abstractions and frou-frou magical thinking: they are things you can hold/make/do.

10. What's not working; stop doing this: Knight of Coins

The Knight of Coins is the perfectionist of the Tarot court cards. Usually Knights have a lot of energy and rush headlong into things, but the Knight of Coins invests all that energy into fact-checking and getting the details just so; as a result he is the slowest and pokiest of the knights. There is definitely a time and place for that level of attention to detail and perfectionist nit-picking, but at the wrong place and time it can be the worst possible attitude. Now is not a time for details or being harsh on yourself for not being perfect. Be gentle with yourself (and others) and don't be afraid to take a couple risks or leaps of faith before you have every last little thing sorted out. "Perfect is the enemy of the good."

11. Try this: 8 of Cups

This is another "no shit, Sherlock" card in this spread, since it seems very much like you already ARE doing this (or at least know that you need to do this). The 8 of Cups is, like the 5 of Cups, kind of a bummer. It is, fundamentally, a card about giving up and moving on. Sometimes the bummer comes from having to leave a good thing behind, other times the bummer comes from the sad realization you've been spending your time on bullshit. This ties in particularly with the first two cards, the pair covering and crossing you right now: to leave behind (8 of Cups) the worries/anxieties/fears of the 9 of Swords (which could even be tied to the perfectionism of the Knight of Coins), you need the strength and determination of the Queen of Swords.