A free Tarot reading for your weekend. Meditate, reflect and bring your own understanding.
These are the signs of what was, what is, and what is to come.
XII The Hanged Man – Surrender. Acceptance. Transformation.
XX Awakening – Becoming
The Fool
We cannot control everything. Our plans and stratagems are only as good as the unfolding events of the day allow.
Our journeys through life are a paradox. Our hunger calls us on to seek growth, yet we must surrender to the inevitable, over which we hold no sway.
We must do everything and nothing.
We must quest and explore, and be still.
What was
The moment came when you were swept out of your complacency and routine. Your world was turned upside down.
At first, you resisted. You reddened with anger and frustration. This was not how it was supposed to be.
Then, gradually, the rush of rage softened into a warm glow of new understanding. You allowed yourself to flow and sway, to acknowledge the flourishing abundance around you.
What was impossible was possible.
What was beyond you was within your grasp.
What is
This was your awakening. The moment at which you moved from surrender into power.
The power to act.
The power to do nothing.
Light fills the air. You rise from the abundance, a free, wandering, giving, spirit of joy.
What is to come
You step or plunge into the Void once again, falling or soaring, no matter, dancing in the wind of freedom.
These cards are from the Sheridan Douglas Tarot deck, copyright and published by the Sheridan Douglas Press, 1972/2006.
A free Tarot reading for your weekend. Meditate, reflect and bring your own understanding.
We cannot solve life’s mystery with logic.
As humans, we have to live with uncertainty and our own irrationality. Even as we cling to the rational as our temple of Explanation, we ourselves behave irrationally and without logic.
No matter how deep we go in explaining the “How” of things, we cannot explain the “Why”. Yet it is the “Why” that keeps us awake at night.
Counsellors are taught that “Why..?” is a forbidden question. It is an aggressive enquiry, calling for an explanation for behaviour or responses that the person themselves probably can’t explain. Otherwise, why have they gone for counselling?
It’s true that counselling shines light that can explain troubling things, but it doesn’t use the blunt instrument of “Why?”. It unlocks paths and gently lifts layers until the Truth appears, whole and in its own time.
At the core of everything, we just Don’t Know. This is a most liberating idea. It frees us to accept that some things cannot be explained, or aren’t worth explaining. We can move from knowledge, which can never be complete and is often misleading, to acceptance, which gives us freedom to choose and empowers us to govern our responses to life’s tribulations in our own way.
Knowledge is useful when solving our specific problems. How can we put a bridge across this river? How can we cure this disease? How can I see a Shakespeare play performed in a theatre?
Life, though, is not about solving problems. It’s about meaning and mystery. It’s a pilgramage, a search for meaning which involves accepting that some things cannot be explained. Acceptance is one of the keys to meaning.
Sadness and disappointment are part of life. They are part of what gives us meaning. Joy and triumph are also part of what gives us meaning. These are the things that drive us, that make life worth living. They are fleeting and elusive and the constant quest for them is what makes life mysterious, curious and meaningful.
Death, of course, is the ultimate mystery. Even among those who claim to know what happens when we die there is disagreement and inconsistency. We just Don’t Know.
One of the defining aspects of the human story is our struggle to understand Death. And by “understand” I mean “accept”. A great many religions would have us believe that there is life after we die, or that we do not die, or even that this life is actually Death and that true life is beyond the grave.
We cannot know if any of them are right. Such notions prevent us from accepting Death as the inevitable, reliable, true friend that it is. One of the key steps to embracing our own power is to accept the inevitabiliity of our Death. This is the great liberation.
We are all wandering fools. It’s hard to remember that these days.
Life is a journey of mystery and surprises. It’s difficult, but it’s also full of joy and fulfillment.
The trick is to allow the joy and fulfilment to happen, even in the midst of the difficulties that always come.
That’s why the first person the Fool meets on the journey is the Magician. This is the Trickster, the worker with the power of the Universe. The Fool cannot know whether the Magician is a fraud or the real deal.
Still, the Magician’s message is clear. There are tricks to learn, or to be avoided, or powers to help us, or to work against us. It’s up to us to take that knowledge and turn it into wisdom that will guide us on our way.
The Magician won’t help us, or provide protection or guidance. The Magician takes no prisoners and offers no shelter. The Magician just says:
“This is how it is. You have the power within you to complete this journey. You must decide how you use that power.”
Welcome.
This card is from the Ancient Italian Tarot deck, copyright and published by Lo Scarabeo and based on the designs of Carlo DellaRocca, 1835.
A free Tarot reading for the day. Meditate, reflect and bring your own understanding.
This spread is a reminder that we live in mystery. The strange no-light light of the Moon. The ultimate mystery of Death. And the Hermit, the wanderer, seeker and bringer of light.
The unknown is all we know because most of what we know is delusion or, more generously, story.
We experience the world as stories. The stories of our relationships, the stories of our careers. The stories of our longings and our fears.
We make our daily realities from the stories around us and they are real enough.
Life, though, has a habit of disturbing the flow of narrative. It’s surprisingly easy to disrupt the story of our day. But then they are only stories. They can vanish in a moment, which makes every moment part of an epic adventure, a quest for meaning and truth that never ends, except when Death greets us, as it surely will.
Every day we wander in mystery, letting the Universe of which we are an essential part unfold as it should. The Moon shows us how what we perceive can be other than what is, because it bathes us in a light that is not its own.
This is what these mystery cards are telling us. We are wise not to dwell in our stories with their elusive and transient nature. If, instead, we start from a point of unknowing, then we are actually closer to whatever reality might be because it is beyond the stories in which we shelter.
It could be frightening, but it can also be a great liberation.
These cards are from the Ancient Italian Tarot deck, copyright and published by Lo Scarabeo and based on the designs of Carlo DellaRocca, 1835.
