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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List of Decks as of April 2011

Just to keep track of my collection, I'm posting my list of decks here:




More than 20 decks... I think it's a bit too much. The fact that 80% of the decks were bought in 2008 is somewhat perplexing. I'm not planning to become a hardcore Tarot Deck collector, so I don't plan to buy much more. I actually want to study and use them all, and goodness knows studying even just one deck takes up a LOT of time.

I came up with the Legend system to help me prioritize my studies as a beginning tarot reader. First, I want to nail down the basics with the light pink colored decks. Then to further hone my intuition while still being grounded in the basics, I plan to use the dark pink colored decks. For a real all-out intuitive study where I have to figure out most of the meanings myself (as they aren't traditional in the strict sense of the world), I have the burnt orange cards.

That said, I still have a few decks on my Wish List.

1) Shadowscapes Tarot
2) Tarot of the Magical Forest
3) Tarot of the Sweet Twilight (planning to get this if I spot it at FB)
4) Golden Tarot by Kat Black
5) Alchemical Tarot Renewed
6) Lunatic Tarot
7) Victorian Romantic Tarot

Non-tarot:
8) Victorian Flower Oracle (Magic Realist Press)
9) LoS Lenormand Oracle
10) Piatnik Lenormand

However, I'm not in a hurry to get these decks and at least a couple are Out Of Print. I even consulted the cards with a quick Yes-No reading last time when I was in FB Rockwell and saw 3 lovely boxed decks (The Fairy Tale, Mystic Faerie, and Wizards Tarot) all of which I was fond of but not crazy about. In normal circumstances, it would have been an impulse buy. Aside from saying No, the Tarot told me to work on my existing decks first and foremost!

During the coming vacation (Holy Week) I'm planning to take up a new divination system (Lenormand) using the Sylvie Steinbach book which I've had for a couple years now but never got around to studying. I'm excited! I'm hoping this could open up my intuition more. It's a different system from the Tarot.

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Action, Structure

I love the 8 of Wands in the Robin Wood deck. It just fizzles with energy. You could practically see those wands traveling at supersonic speed to the far reaches of space.

Relating to myself, though no sudden messages came to me, I was much busier today than I usually am. Though I remain a bum, I was better inclined to action: I did interpretations for at least 3 people, labored over a curriculum draft, cleaned the sink and the bathroom. For the curriculum, I was trying to achieve structure and order.

In the literal sense of quick communications and establishing order though, these cards point to what happened with my boss this morning. His MNL-HK-NGO flight was suddenly changed by the airline to an earlier flight, which displeased him greatly. As expected from a Japanese, he is unsatisfied with these random changes and insists on structure, order and sticking to schedule. He wants to dispute with Cathay regarding cancellation charges but it seems the airline refuses to refund. He could even be the Emperor himself (though personally I see him as the King of Cups).

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handling tasks with mastery

My soul and personality card came up - 9 of Pents. Indeed I've been self-assured today, and better in control of myself than usual. I did feel the Knight of Wands' energy-- I was busier at work today than I usually am for weeks at a time.

Interpretation: handling sudden projects and stresses at work with skill and mastery.

My cards make more sense today. Probably because I had a clearer, blank(-er) mind doing the shuffle and draw compared to yesterday.

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Seeing these cards so close together, it's kinda scary how the Knight's horse seems to be charging and as if he was about to trample over the Lady in the 9 of Pents (whose back is turned and oblivious!). It's almost a commentary on how I the precarious hold I have on my lazy, always-in-a-hurry self and my ego.

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