Illuminating Tarot Message: Reversals and Why Certain Cards Appear

Recently I've been having problems with my daily card draws. I find it hard to connect the cards with my life. I keep expecting the Page of Swords or the Knight of Wands to manifest but the day would end without me ever meeting them. I  even switched from my Daily 2-card to a Daily 5-card spread (as demonstrated in Susyn Blair-Hunt's book Tarot Prediction and Divination)  thinking it would help put me out of a rut. It helped for a while and then I started drawing blanks again.

Last Saturday morning I drew the following cards:

 

 10 of Pentacles Rx (reversed) - Queen of Cups - Knight of Cups - The World Rx - The High Priestess Rx

I don't normally read with reversals but started using them recently for my personal draws so I can get a feel for them. There are no positional meanings in this spread so interpretation is free-form. The World and the 10 of Pentacles struck me as relating to completion (both being the last cards in the major arcana and the pentacles suit respectively). But reversed, what do they mean? In the worst case scenario would the neatly-laid foundations of my life be shaken and my orderly world end as I know it? Scary thought but it seemed unlikely to happen in a day given the constant and routine nature of my life. The reversed High Priestess smack in the middle seemed to mock me-- yes, I know I've been having doubts about my intution recently!

So I went to work and spent the day wondering if the cards would manifest. The workday ended normally. No reversed 10 of pents, no nada. I rode the bus home with a co-worker (who I don't know all that well) because she offered to guide me to the wet market at the next town. We started talking and she mentioned how her husband was murdered 4 years ago and how the murderer is still at large because she couldn't pay the 5000 pesos ($110) bribe needed to get the local police to take action (shocking, I know). Since then she'd been a single mom of two kids one of whom has special needs. Her salary is hardly enough to scrape by each month and there was a time she was working only to pay debts and felt like a worthless mother. She took to doing laundry and doing a small-time retail business on the side to make ends meet. Then she said it was her daughter's birthday tomorrow and how disappointed she was that she couldn't take her out on a treat. Her paycheck this month didn't allow it because she had to take time off due to illness.

As I listened to her story I increasingly felt the contrasting and jarring reality of our lives. We live worlds apart, existing at both ends of the spectrum (The World). I could easily pay a $110 bribe whereas for her $110 meant no food and housing for her children for over two weeks. Materially I have everything and she has close to nothing. I am blessed with material abundance (10 of Pentacles) and the means to get anything I want (The World). I realized that the reversals serve to highlight the contrast and say "this is not what it seems."

I admire my coworker who tries her best against all odds and puts her children above all else. I wanted to help her. Before we parted ways I slipped her a 500 peso bill. "This isn't much but I just want your child to enjoy her birthday tomorrow," I said.

I wondered why the tarot didn't give me the 6 of Pentacles -- wouldn't that have been more fitting? The reversed High Priestess smiling calmly at me seemed to have the answer: 

Maybe so, but you have your own free will. The tarot is not to dictate what you should do. It is you who felt compassion for your coworker (Queen of Cups) and chose to do an act of love (Knight of Cups). The mystery of the tarot is deeper than you think.

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