Tag: tarot reading

divination, life

Reading Lenormand and Tarot — Together.

J.

The end of October marks the beginning of a new year for me, and that means taking stock. I like to do this with something I jokingly call “the whole hog,” a single reading that uses tarot, Lenormand cards, Ogham, and oracle cards to give me as complete a picture as possible. It’s fun, interesting, accurate, and, once you’re used to it, surprisingly easy.

There’s really no reason not to combine whatever forms of cartomancy or sortilege you like best. I’m not suggesting you shuffle all of your cards together, of course (I mean, the differences in size and texture would turn that into a nightmare). There’s only one thing you have to keep in mind:

Each type of card is best suited to a certain type of question.

For example, you wouldn’t want to ask a Lenormand deck what energies you need to focus on for the coming year. (Coffin + Birds + Woman + Lilies + Bear will tell you a lot, but not that.) Similarly, you don’t want to ask an oracle deck what will happen if you make a specific decision, because drawing a card that tells you, “Remember, you are enough” isn’t going to be… well, enough. Combining decks is more of a holistic approach to a question or problem, allowing you to explore it across multiple dimensions.

What’s the difference between tarot reading and reading Lenormand cards?

Lenormand is very specific and concrete. A basic reading might entail asking something like, “What will happen if I accept this job offer?” You then shuffle the deck, then fan it out and look for the signifier relating either to yourself, or the question at hand. (Personally, I usually choose a signifier related to my question.) The two cards in front of it, the card itself, and the two cards behind it are the reply. They’re able to give you very detailed information, like, “A woman will deliver you a message related to your career, which will result in a social engagement and creative opportunity.”

Tarot, I’ve found, is better suited for describing the energies around a situation. If you ask your tarot deck the same question, you may draw cards indicating celebration, growth, female energies, and even communication. It won’t necessarily indicate a specific situation that you may anticipate, but it will tell you how you’ll feel about it.

Tarot also has a lot of psychological and spiritual overtones, where Lenormand is all practical. Many tarot readers would bristle at the idea of tarot reading as fortune telling, but that’s pretty much exactly what Lenormand cards purport to be — a tool for telling fortunes.

This is a mixed blessing. Reading Lenormand is simple, though not necessarily easy. There are only a few spreads, and cards are always read the same way: in pairs, with their own set of grammar, the way one might read a sentence. For people used to the fluidity of tarot, where there are millions of different spreads, multiple interpretations of the same card, reversals, and a heavy emphasis on intuition, Lenormand can feel rigid. On the other hand, for people used to reading Lenormand cards, tarot can feel too vague and subjective.

So how do you put them together?

The trick is to choose your subject matter carefully. Remember, Lenormand is best suited for concrete answers to questions. (Think “What-ifs,” and things of that sort.) Tarot is best for exploring the energies, archetypes, and other less concrete aspects of a situation.

Combining the two goes something like this:

  1. Consider the situation you want answers about. What ways are there to approach it? Do you have a certain approach you favor? What specific steps are you planning to take in order to address it? Keep this in mind, or write it down.
  2. Next, consider how this situation extends beyond the physical world. Imagine that you have questions about a romantic relationship. Outside of this relationship’s impact on your daily life, what kind of effect will it have on your highest good and spiritual growth? What’s do you need to know about what’s happening beneath the surface?
  3. Formulate a set of questions based on this information. One should be a straightforward “What-if” based on the approach you plan to take. Another should be related to how this situation will impact you spiritually and mentally.
  4. Choose a signifier in your Lenormand deck. If you identify as a man or woman, this can be the Man or Lady cards. If you don’t identify as either, feel that another card is more appropriate, or are reading for someone else, choose a signifier that relates to the situation. (For example, the Tree card is often used as a signifier in health-related readings.)
  5. Shuffle the deck. Keep your “What-if” question in mind.
  6. Fan the deck out, face up. Look for the signifier you chose.
  7. Read the two cards in front of it, the card itself, and the two cards behind it. This will describe a chain of events. (Remember: No future is set in stone. This tells you the outcome if all of the people, energies, and other factors remain the same as they are right now.)
  8. Write your interpretation down.
  9. Next, shuffle your tarot deck. Keep your second question in mind.
  10. Read your tarot cards using a spread of your choice (or draw the top card, top three cards, and so on).
  11. Write this interpretation down.

You now have answers that cover two different aspects of your question. One tells you what will happen purely in the physical realm, the other tells you the mental, emotional, and spiritual impact it will have. Put together, you can develop a pretty accurate (and very helpful) picture.

This isn’t limited to Lenormand and tarot cards, either. As I mentioned, I’ve done something similar with Ogham staves, oracle cards, and more. The only thing to keep in mind is that each type of divination has its strengths and weaknesses. None are inherently superior or inferior, they’re just different. Think of them like cardiologists and plumbers — both are professionals in their fields, but you don’t necessarily want them to have to do each other’s jobs!

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divination

The Sun, some fruit, and a guy with a sword.

J.

Okay, so “fruit” is a bit of a misnomer. I felt like using the gorgeous Tarot de Maria-Celia deck this week, and it’s not so much about the fruit imagery. Still!

I gave myself a little three-card spread. I’ve been working on fine-tuning a spread of my own devising, but I didn’t feel like I needed quite that level of detail for a simple weekly reading, you know? For getting a general feel of things, three cards is usually plenty for me.

I drew Le Soleil, Neuf de Deniers, and Roy d’Epée. For the most part, these have the same meanings that they do in RWS-style decks. For the most part.

Le Soleil, believe it or not, has some surprising parallels with Le Diable. It, too, has two minions — both with red sashes like shackles around their necks. While the Devil is deception, manipulation, and control, the Sun is its opposite — the light banishes shadows, and brings everything into clarity. The Devil is entrapment, the Sun is freedom. The Devil is the addiction that saps your energy and your money, the Sun is vitality, growth, and prosperity.

It’s a great sign for new beginnings. Like the return of the sun heralds the new growth of spring, It’s regeneration.

The Neuf de Deniers follows this. Unlike other decks, Marseilles-style decks don’t really have a lot of imagery for the pips cards — just a graphic representation of their suit and numeric value. Deniers (Coins or Pentacles) is the suit of material wealth. Nine is the last number before ten, the ultimate culmination of the suit’s cycle.

It’s a sign of achievement. Material comfort and freedom are at hand, hard work is rewarded. It’s a sign to celebrate!

More than that, though, it points to a time of balance. You’ve achieved this success through hard work and staying in harmony with your surroundings. Prosperity doesn’t always come in the form of a paycheck — sometimes it’s the abundance of the land.

Lastly, there’s the Roy (Roi) d’Epée. He can be a significant person, or merely the qualities of the ruler of the suit of Swords. His power is of the intellect, he is logical and incisive. He can also be a bit of a prick — he’s cunning, but also scheming. He’s intelligent, but may be cold. He is an authority, but may be too detached. As advice, he says to turn away from the emotions for now, and trust in logic and reason.

Taken together, this is a good sign! Le Soleil indicates success, growth, vitality, and fulfillment. Le Neuf de Deniers indicates comfort, abundance, and autonomy. Le Roy d’Epée says that obtaining, enjoying, and maintaining this requires intelligence and discernment. As advice, they say to spread joy and celebrate, but keep a cool head and let intellect lead the way.

Personally, I’m excited. Even as the days become shorter and the nights lengthen, I can feel that solar energy. I feel relaxed, happy, and fruitful. I’m hydrated, moisturized, and well-rested. My vibes are high, my mind is clear, and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

I hope your omens are just as positive. We could all use a little good news.

P.S.: If you’d like a tarot reading, all of the readings in my shop are still 30% off! Place an order, and you’ll have your reading, my interpretation, and a pic of the cards I pulled for you within 48 hours.

divination, life

The Page of Wands Squawks Again (Again)

J.

I feel like I draw the Page of Wands more than any other card. Honestly.

I’m not surprised that he’s appeared again, though. He’s all creativity, adventure, and youthful enthusiasm. He’s good news and fast messages. In career readings, he might mean a work trip. In love readings, he’s playfulness and vacations.

So, considering this past weekend’s adventures, I kind of figured he’d turn up soon.

My partner and I want to go kayaking one of these days, by which I mean “he wants to go kayaking, and I am figuring out ways to cover every tragedy that can possibly happen while kayaking.” I don’t do super well with the sun beating down on me, so summer isn’t my ideal time for outdoor sports. The couple of weeks between the beginning of September and the end of October are perfect for me. There’s only one problem: htf do you kayak?

I mean, I get it. Sit in the boaty part, do the paddles, motion happens. I have had to row things before. Still, there’s something about the thought of taking a kayak out on a river that makes my throat tense up.
(That thing is anxiety disorder. Even with medication and a great therapist, some of it sticks around.)

I feel like kayaking would be fun, on a conceptual level. Neither of us have ever done it before, so I have automatically adopted the position of Learning Everything That Can Go Wrong and Preemptively Thwarting It.

(Incidentally, while this is doubtless one of my more annoying traits, it also makes me fantastic on road trips. Need Benadryl? A tampon? A snake venom extraction kit? A small fire extinguisher? Emergency backup water? A convenient source of potassium? I’ve got you. I prepare for everything like it’s the first ten minutes of an action movie where we end up on an island infested with crocodiles.)

My partner says, “Let’s go price kayaks this w-,” and before he can even say “-eekend,” my brain’s off to the races. We’ll need life vests, for one. That’s obvious. Swimsuits — no, wetsuits, since the water won’t be as warm as it would be in July. Water shoes. A waterproof bag to hold stuff. Lessons. What if I lose my ID? I’ll write my identifying information on myself in case I drown. What if we accidentally go over a dam and one of us breaks something? I’ll have to bring a bandana I can use to make a sling. Do I remember how to give first aid for a spine or neck injury? What if I fall in the water and the cold knocks the wind out of me? It happened at summer camp once, and I wasn’t allowed to swim after that. (Fortunately, what I lacked in ability-to-breathe-in-cold-water, I made up for in ability-to-spot-and-subsequently-escape-from-bears-that-got-to-the-blueberry-patch-before-I-did.)

When I was five, my grandparents took me to the beach. I splashed and played happily, but, when my grandma noticed that I’d gone a little too far out and called me back, I couldn’t return. Caught in the undertow, I floundered and sputtered until someone had to come drag me out and do whatever they do to kids they’re afraid will dry drown. As clearly as I remember the helpless feeling of being caught in the current, everything after that is like someone smeared my memories with Vaseline.

Years later, my grandpa was careful to keep me out of the waves. He always fished a lot, and I used to love sitting by the buckets of fish he brought home, seeing what kind of hitchhikers had snuck into the water. Sometimes I’d find a tiny crab, or a snail, or even a sea urchin.

Finally, one day, he decided he’d teach my siblings and me to fish and set crab traps. The other kids were too young to sit and wait for a bite, so they mostly spent the day running around and dropping bait down each other’s shirts. While they did that, I felt a bite on one of the bamboo poles. My tiny heart pounding with excitement, I reeled in my catch. Was it a flounder? A salmon? A tuna? Maybe it was a shark.

It was not a shark.

To this day, I’m not sure. Nobody was able to definitively identify what I pulled up from the depths.

I’m reminded of Eddie Izzard’s bit about the Biblical flood. If it was supposed to cleanse the Earth of evil, there must have been a lot of evil fish and ducks left over.

This fish was silvery. It had spiny fins that flared out like claws, and a long, undershot jaw full of pointed, mean-looking teeth. It thrashed with the strength of something several times its size and, when we put it in the bucket with the rest of our catch, the results were… bad. It didn’t seem like it had much meat on it, either — whatever biological real estate it possessed seemed to be taken up entirely by teeth, spines, and hate.

While it churned the water in the bucket and snapped at the air in fury, Grandpa suggested throwing it back. My tiny child eyes immediately welled up with tears.

“But… I caught it. It’s my fishy.”

I was formulating plans for filling my kiddie pool with table salt and hose water so I could keep it, maybe befriend it through some kind of piscine Stockholm Syndrome. Unfortunately, it died on the way home (as fish in plastic Home Depot buckets are wont to do). I kept it in the freezer for several months afterward, like some kind of incredibly creepy trophy. Sometimes, I’d chase my brother around the house with it. Every so often, I’d take it out to look at it and feel a tiny, bone-deep, neanderthal thrill of survival, as if this dead fish was an assurance that I’d be able to live on a deserted island for a really long time if I needed to.

I have not been fishing again.

It would probably surprise you to find out that I’m a devotee of Manannán mac Lir. It surprised the shit out of me when I finally came to that realization, I’ll tell you that much.

The Page of Wands means news and adventures. And now we’re going kayaking. Hopefully the devotee thing counts for something, because, after surviving almost drowning and whatever the hell I put in that fish bucket, I would not want to explain to my seafaring ancestors that I died in three feet of water because I kayaked wrong.

“Sure,” I reply, “This weekend.”

divination, life

I apologize for my tardiness.

J.

I ate most of my bodyweight in melon and pasta and, like the mighty African rock python consuming the equally mighty springbok, I needed to sleep on a warm rock and not move for an extended period of time.

Anyway. I’ve been doing a lot of considering re: the Jungian concept of the “shadow self.” It’s a topic I’d like to delve into further, but really deserves a post (or three, or four) of its own. Suffice it to say that I think it’s what’s making the pandemic especially difficult for a lot of people — when it’s hard to be in the same room as yourself, you’re not likely to enjoy having a lot of free time on your hands.

This led on a short free-association jaunt through various meditations, trance work, and sound healing, and I landed on a specific need: a guide to what I’m trying to fix in the first place. I know my faults, and I like to think I’m relatively self-aware, but there’s more to integration than that. There’s really no road map for how this kind of thing is supposed to go, though.

In my search, I came across the Cleansing the Soul tarot spread by Emerald Lotus Divination. “Sure,” I thought, “Why not?”

It’s not a super complicated spread, but it yields a lot of information — from the needs of the physical body, to the soul, to the inner child, to how to stay connected to your higher self. I’m not really under any illusion that the general public is super into my own inner journey here, but, if you’re curious about how a theoretical spread might look and how the cards relate to each other, this might be helpful.

I used the Animalis Os Fortuna deck, and my own spread shook out like this:

What my physical body needs: Nine of Wands, depicting the iguana. In this place, this appears to mean the need to push forward. I’ve been engaging in more physical activity, so the message here seems to be to keep at it, and keep increasing my reps. I even bought a sledgehammer to make a shovelglove!

What my soul needs: Five of Wands, depicting the axolotl. Struggles, obstacles, and rivalry. I’m competitive by nature. I’m at my best when I have an opponent, even if they don’t know they’re my opponent and I make no attempt to take the competition out of my own mind. It’s practically what the concept of Instagram hate following was made for, if you substitute “hate” with “rivalry.” I’m not too enlightened to enjoy opposition. Comparison isn’t always the thief of joy — a little healthy competition keeps life interesting, and helps spur me to be a better version of myself.

What my inner child needs: Two of Wands, depicting the salamander. A pause, and to bide my time. Considering a lot of what I’ve been struggling with lately are childhood memories, it sounds like my inner whelp needs a break. I don’t blame them.

How my shadow self is impacting my life: Knight of Swords, depicting the magpie. Impulsiveness, aggression, and overenthusiasm. Consequences, schmonsequences, he has things to do. He goes for what he wants, and everything else be damned. His intentions are pure, but he’s kind of a dick about them. That’s… Yeah, that sounds about right.

This magpie’s probably choosing a new victim to swoop on.

A way that I can begin to accept my shadow aspect: Five of Swords, depicting the peacock. Defeat, and suffering from egotism. There’s an interesting pathology that impacts people in relationships with others who show signs of narcissistic personality disorder, no matter whether those relationships are romantic or familial. Laconically, it’s usually called “fleas.” They’re behaviors that seem to “jump” from a narcissist to a victim, and, if they aren’t resolved, from that victim to their victims. Essentially, they’re protective mechanisms — tiny things you do to protect yourself from narcissistic rage and other forms of abuse at the hands of someone with a fragile, wounded ego.

I can see a flea here. My shadow self impacts my life by making me impulsive and aggressive. I jump from one thing to the next if I’m not immediately good at it, because my upbringing showed me that failure meant mockery and pain. Aggression was rewarded, while softer feelings were mocked and rooted out.

How to better process my emotions: Ace of Cups, depicting an overflowing vessel. Interestingly, this card stands for optimism and new opportunities. It also shows a cup overflowing, and the suit of Cups specifically relates to the emotional self. This cup runneth over, sharing its bounty. The advice here is to process feelings by sharing them.

Something I need to be more aware of: Ten of Swords, depicting the vulture. Oof. Vulture and I go way back, and he usually seems to show up when some kind of purging needs to or is about to happen. (Did you know that vultures sometimes eat so much that they can’t fly, and need to vomit before taking off? Fascinating! Also super gross!) The Ten of Swords is despair and ruin. It’s the end of a cycle, and the ending ain’t a happy one. In this context, it means to let go and be reborn. This cycle is over, and it sucked, so get ready to start a better one.

They also poop on their own legs to cool off.

How to stay more connected with my higher self: The Queen of Wands, depicting the cobra. I love the Queen of Wands. She stands for generosity, creativity, and drama. She has power and self-possession, she’s courageous and hot-tempered. She’s beauty, she’s grace, she can probably wreck your face. The lesson is to temper that power with kindness, and invest energy into creative work.

The pandemic has done everyone’s nerves up wretched, and I think the shadow self has a lot to do with that. It’s not easy to have a lot of time on your hands if you don’t enjoy your own company, and it’s also not a simple problem to solve. This tarot spread doesn’t offer a quick fix, but it does answer some important questions.

divination

A Tarot Reading from Mintcoven

J.

Note: This post contains affiliate links to the tarot reader I chose. These allow me to earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting tarot readers and this site!

This week, I decided to have someone else pull some cards for me. I didn’t really have a question in mind — to be honest, it feels like a lot of my life has stalled lately. Even my therapist recently suggested making appointments “as needed” instead of regularly, since there’s not much going on. So, I asked Mintcoven for a general three card reading, just to see what messages I should be receiving.

Mint responded shortly afterward with a very thorough analysis and a picture of the reading itself.

And would you look at those reversals!
(Also how cool is this deck?)

The Emperor reversed represents a loss of power — not surprising to me, considering the entire country right now. We’ve more or less surrendered to COVID-19, the ruling class is profiteering with impunity, progress toward justice seems painfully slow at times, and “U.S. Soldier Admits Plotting With Neo-Nazi Cult to Kill Fellow Troops” is a real headline. Point being, it gets hard not to feel a loss of power sometimes. So, Emperor reversed. I get it.

Next is The Chariot reversed. Mint said that this card, paired with The Emperor, represents a spiritual unrest. I feel this pretty hard, too. Isolation makes me feel disconnected — not necessarily from people (as I said yesterday, there are advantages to solitary ritual), but from nature. The cycle of life. The world. I feel like a weed that’s been uprooted from the edge of the sidewalk and put in a pot on the windowsill. Safe, yes. Cared for, yes. But potting soil and glass aren’t the same as dirt and sun. In some senses, I’m spiritually at peace. In others, I’m chafing.

Mint went on to explain that this probably isn’t a super prominent spiritual unrest, but a loss of intuitive guidance and path making. It’s true — every day is more or less the same. There isn’t much to orient myself by, and I have noticed myself doing more trancework, seeking more dream symbolism, doing everything short of reading gallons worth of tea leaves to get some message to hold onto.

Because this is happening on an intuitive and spiritual level, the suggestion here was to get ready for an info dump from my guides, particularly those traditionally considered “feminine.” This is part of a balance that is shifting and recalibrating itself.

The last card is The Priest reversed. This points to letting go of values that were put on me by tradition or other external forces, and a challenge to how I used to live. For the next few weeks, I’m to keep my eyes peeled for messages, and signs of things that are no longer working getting themselves out of my way.

Mint wrapped up the reading with the suggestion to journal my dreams and write down everything that seems significant. This is a big shift, and there probably isn’t one little sign or symbol that will let me make sense of it — this is big picture stuff.

The good news is, I’m probably not going it alone. Others are going through this reawakening too, so I won’t have to travel this road by myself. Are you one of them?

divination, life

Justice (also free tarot readings).

J.

Hello! Instead of my usual Monday posts, I just wanted to let you guys know that from now until the end of June, 100% of the profits (everything after Etsy fees) from any of the tarot readings listed in my shop will be donated to bail funds and Black Lives Matter.

If you’ve already donated to another Black-led organization, bail fund, or mutual aid fund, hit me up with a screencap/pic of the confirmation email (redact whatever information you need), your birth date, and whatever question you’d like answered, and I’ll send you a three card reading at no cost.

Thank you!

divination, life

A road-opening reading from Justincasetarot

J.

Note: This post contains affiliate links to the person who read for me. Thank you for supporting tarot readers and this site!

It’s said you should never read cards for yourself, and, for the most part, I agree — especially with long, complex readings. The more information you have to grapple with, the more likely you are to insert your own interpretations that may be a little off the mark. In a reading where the interpretation of one card can be dependent on the interpretation of others around it, injecting too much of your own hopes and desires can make things confusing and inaccurate.

That’s why I occasionally like to have someone else read for me, especially if I want a lot of information. This time, I chose Justincasetarot’s Ganesha spread.

My own pantheon is a bit limited — I have a very few deities that I work with. While Ganesha isn’t one of them, he is one of my favorite Hindu deities. Even though I don’t make requests of him, I still sometimes leave offerings for him during Ganesh Chaturthi — especially puffed rice, bananas, and incense.

(I actually do this for a lot of deities that I don’t really have a relationship with. I feel like looking up their taboos and leaving offerings they might like is the spiritual equivalent of telling a stranger on the bus “Happy birthday,” you know? It’s just polite. If they don’t want it, they can ignore it.)

According to the listing, this spread answers six specific questions:

  1. Why is your way blocked?
  2. What energy is needed as the first step to unblocking your way?
  3. What energy do you already have that will aid you?
  4. What do you need to rid yourself of on the way?
  5. What is Lord Ganesha’s lesson here?
  6. What will be the results of your way being opened?

I sent the reader the information they needed, and received a very detailed reply the next day.

In short, my way is blocked by miscommunications and money matters, which wasn’t a surprise. I need balance, guidance, and unorthodox action to take the first step to removing this block. Fortunately, I’m already pretty gutsy — if there’s one thing I’ll say for myself, I can act with bravery — and this will help me. Along the way, I’ll need to carefully consider where I get my information from, and refuse to waver from my position.

Lord Ganesha’s lesson here was primarily to stay positive, and be patient. The feeling of being trapped by obstacles will start to go away. I often get the message to wait, even from my own readings for myself. It’s possibly the most frustrating part!

Lastly, the results of unblocking the way will be that my talents begin to shine. Creative partnerships flourish, and I will realize that I don’t need to actively seek validation in order to feel validated.

All told, this reading was very helpful and detailed. It matched a lot of information I’ve received before (though not all of it was something I wanted to hear, admittedly). I was especially impressed by Justincasetarot’s response time — like I said, I sent in the request one day, and had a PDF of the reading in my inbox the next!

If you’re feeling stuck or blocked in life right now, I highly recommend this reading. It’s reasonably priced, very detailed, and answers a lot of key questions.

divination, life

Getting closer, card by card.

J.

Learning Lenormand divination has been immensely practical, especially now. It’s a lot more tangible than tarot — where tarot deals with emotions and energies, Lenormand cards deal with actions and circumstances. Both tarot and Lenormand readings give you a glimpse of the situation as it stands now, if nothing were to change, but having both at my disposal has been very helpful.

I’ve been doing small, two-card daily Lenormand readings for myself. Every day, I ask the same question: What can I do right now to bring me closer to the life that I want?

And I get an answer: Write something, deal with unresolved relationships, make something, focus my energy and attention on a specific area.

It’s nice.

Sometimes, it’s funny — since the readings are very straightforward and practical, the advice isn’t always profound. For example, for this week’s reading, I asked what I should focus on for the week to get me closer to my ideal life.

I drew the Tower and the Anchor. The Tower can represent authority, in a governmental sense. It can be the company you work for (or, in my case, my self-employment). It can be protection and isolation. The Anchor can be achieving your goals — as in, dropping anchor once you’ve reached your destination. It can be stability, or settling down. Most sources interpret this combination as a safe harbor, long-term protection, or a stable isolation.

fantasy-782001_640
This image showed up when I was looking for a public domain image of a tower. Not gonna lie, social distancing would be a lot more fun there, I think.

In other words, “You want to know what you should do to achieve your goals? Really? Maybe stay home and don’t die first, nerd.” 

Which… Okay, I get that. The world isn’t likely to be substantially different over the course of the next week. Safe harbors and isolation it is.

I asked my copy of the Crow Tarot deck the same question. In response, I drew The Heirophant.

The Heirophant is a religious leader. He’s an authority. He is tradition, convention, conformity, and a mentor in The Way Things Have Always Been Done. In a spiritual sense, he is ritual, routine, and ceremony. When he shows up, it’s often a sign not to rock the boat — if you want to succeed, it’s time to listen to people who have gone before you. Reinventing the wheel won’t get you any closer to your goal.

Taken together, I should stay home and take this opportunity to study and build more routine into my day. Structure and good advice will bring me closer to the life I aspire to, now’s not the time to take chances.
I agree.

 

divination, life

Heart-Anchor-Birds.

J.

You know that meme that’s been going around, about how if you don’t come out of social distancing with a new hobby, hustle, etc., you never lacked the time, you lacked the discipline? That’s absolute hot trash, but I am trying to use the time I have between bouts of ennui, existential despair, and anxiety to learn new things. It’s a small thing, but it helps me keep sane.

Right now, I’m trying to teach myself Lenormand readings.

It’s a very useful kind of divination. I don’t think it really replaces tarot, but, when used in combination with it, it can give you a really complete picture of a situation. Tarot’s great for giving you an energetic, mental, and emotional snapshot, while Lenormand focuses more on actions. If tarot is the “what,” Lenormand is the “how.”

It’s a bit outside of the scope of this post to dive into the history of divination using the Petit Lenormand, but there’re already a number of very good posts out there on the subject. Instead, I wanted to see how well this kind of divination would work for my usual weekly readings.

Recently, my therapist recommended doing something to add some joy to every day. It’s harder to do with everything that’s going on, but that’s exactly why it’s so important — in the absence of taking pictures of moss and mushrooms, birding, and identifying wildflowers, I have to make more of an effort to find and do things that bring me joy at home.

I asked a simple question: How?

I drew the Heart, Anchor, and Bird using the Seventh Sphere Lenormand app.

I can’t pretend to be an expert at this, since I’ve only just started. What was interesting here is how neatly the advice overlapped with what I’ve been told via tarot: One of the biggest helps for easing my anxiety is to lean more on my relationship. It provides care, stability, and happiness, but, like I talked about yesterday, I’ve also had some trouble with the reciprocal aspect of being a disabled person in a long-term relationship.

petitjeu_heartanchorbirds

In this kind of divination, the meanings of the cards are read literally, the way one might read a sentence. Each symbol has a meaning, akin to a pictogram. The Heart, unsurprisingly, stands for love and relationships. The anchor is stability and resiliency. Birds are chatter, according to some sources, and nervousness according to others. Cards are read in pairs, with the first card acting as the subject of the “sentence,” and the second as the modifier.

Read this way, heart and anchor are a long-term relationship. Anchor and birds are life=long partners, or deep discussions. It’s a deep discussion with a long-term romantic partner.

Admittedly, I don’t really like talking about what’s going on in my brain with my partner. I feel like I create enough of a burden by existing, like I don’t have a “right” to his emotional labor. We don’t really have any friction in our relationship, but there are definitely times when I have too much going on in my mind to be really present. I encourage him to be open with me, though I have trouble doing the same with him. I know that’s something that I need to get past — it looks like doing so is the best way for me to figure out how to be happy on a day-to-day basis.

Sometimes the only way out is through.

divination, life

Le Pendu

J.

Hanging is a lot of things, but it’s not always a punishment.

Part of me wanted to skip this week’s card, because… Well, there’s not much going on, is there? I’ve been keeping busy here, but interactions with the outside world that alter the shape of my internal landscape have been, shall we say, lacking.

Still, I did the thing.

I had to laugh when I drew Le Pendu, The Hanged Man.

Like the man in the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot deck, Le Pendu of the Tarot de Maria-Celia dangles by one foot. His hands are free, though, and he appears to be sticking his tongue out — almost a “Look, Ma! No hands!” face. Nobody tied him there. He isn’t being punished. He is there of his own volition, for his own reasons.

He is waiting. Resting. Delayed. Hanging upside-down certainly gives him a new view of the world, but this comes at the price of his mobility. He is sacrifice.

I had to order a few things today. I would’ve preferred not to, but there are some supplies that are no longer available locally here. I can’t really describe how nerve-wracking it was, scrolling through lists of products to find the things we needed, all while watching things sell out before I could act. Still, this anxiety comes from a fortunate place: We have the ability to order things, or I wouldn’t’ve been looking in the first place.

It’s a helpless feeling, like hanging upside down, but Le Pendu’s hands are free and I am fortunate to be in a position to feel this helplessness to begin with.

Waiting isn’t always a punishment. Right now, it’s the choice we make for our own safety, and the safety of others. The Hanged Man has to come down some time. The helplessness and delays will pass.