I’ve been wanting to write something, but hadn’t put aside the time to sit down and do it. Ironically, I was stuck in my head about writing. A few (several) weeks ago I was using the Unofficial Schitty Tarot Deck, a Schitts Creek inspired deck. I can’t remember the spread, but I do remember pulling the King of Hearts, which in that deck is Johnny Rose. I was going to title it “Who’s Your Daddy” and write about how masculinity (toxic and otherwise) shows up in life. It sat there in my brain for a long time…. Yet never made it “onto paper”. And now, only its title remains in my brain.
A few days ago, determined to have a blog come to fruition, I sat down in front of my altar for a fresh start and a new draw. I picked a few of my favorite decks and after meditating a bit started shuffling and seeing what cards decided to pop out and waited for a story to present itself. And as always, the cards blended together nicely, as if on purpose, and the story that lay in front of me was one about getting out of the invisible realm of thoughts and being fully alive in the present.
Sometimes (often), when I pull a spread I get overly excited and SO MANY thoughts and ideas start swirling in my brain. I got excited about this spread and the messages it contains, so much so that I decided I needed to let it marinate in my brain before I started trying to express my thoughts. However, everytime I would think about writing about writing this blog the song Chop Suey (System Of A Down) would start playing in my brain. Yeah, that’s not a calming and meditative song. ANYway, I decided to give into it and just play the song as I sit down and write.
There’s an urgency to that song that probably goes well with my spread….. Which brings me to my spread. What cards did I draw? I thought you’d never ask! Please, let me share!
As pictured, you can see there are three rows.
Starting from the top, on the first row there are two cards from the Wisdom of the Oracle deck:
Card 1: Yang
Card 32: Here and Now
On the second row, the first card drawn is the Nine of Swords, from the Rider Waite deck.
The rest of the second row are the following cards, pulled from The Wandering Star Tarot deck:
Six of Cups
Three of Wands
The Magitian
Ace of Wands
From the third and final row, the first card is from The Wild Unknown Alchemy Oracle deck:
Card LIII – Sun’s Splendor
The next card is the Awakener, from The Archeo Personal Archetype Cards deck.
And the final card is the Six of Swords, from the Rider Waite deck.
When I draw a spread to write about, I like to draw and then immediately meditate on the spread in order to see if any story (theme) presents itself. This spread was no different. At first glance it seemed as if that first card on the 2nd line was out of place.
I mean… SO MANY bright and vibrant cards and then…. THAT card. I have said it before and I will repeat myself here: I don’t believe that there are any “bad” cards in tarot. For me this is a conscientious move on my part. Because, yes, this card looks very “doom, doom, gloom” and you know what? It is very doom, doom, gloom. Speaking as a person who has spent a lifetime with the companions of depression and anxiety, I have consciously and purposely looked for the light in seemingly dark cards. This card in particular radiates a very familiar feeling for me. That feeling of middle of the night racing thoughts. Woulda-coulda-shoulda thoughts. This person is so deep into their thoughts, their hands are covering their eyes. Have you had nights like this? Not to be totally crass, but yeah…. I’m going to be totally crass… My first thought about this card in relation to the rest of the cards in this draw is that it’s the “Cock-block” card. I sincerely tried to think of a less crass metaphor, but it wouldn’t come to me. Haha.
But seriously, this one card is the antithesis of all the other cards in the draw. This card is eyes closed and abundant inaction. All the other cards are about being vibrantly awake. My take away? Sometimes being stuck in life can all boil down to one little card.
Nine of swords…. Look at it. Its overall feeling is dark. However, look at that bedspread. I’m all about having a proper duvet cover, even if 75% of the time my bed isn’t made. This beds covering, even at night, is a vibrant one. Yeah, there’s a bit of a struggle depicted in the beds carving, but that’s carved in wood, probably expensive wood. And those swords, though not my particular aesthetic, probably have a totally different vibe in the daylight. In fact, this room is probably spectacular in the daytime. It makes me think of a room that would be found in a castle. My point being, this is a room of a person that is not in want, at least in the material sense. In tarot swords represents thoughts and intellect. Though this person’s external world is amazing, this person is suffering from things inside their head and things that exist when things are dark. What will happen when the sun comes up? Whatever window is in that room will no doubt bring out the colors of the bedspread, allow light to bounce of the metal of the swords, and make everything look different. It’s amazing how different things can look in the middle of the day. All those boogie men, ghosts under the bed, and midnight thoughts don’t really hold their power in the daylight. Same room, yet different point of view.
One card, but what a heavy one. Negative thinking is such a heavy weight and a true nemesis to happiness.
So yeah, that one card is enough of a counterbalance to all the other cards and definitely a weighty one to overcome in this reading. But how, how do you overcome this card?
The 9 of swords has an interesting position in this spread. It has “positive” cards above and below, as if it’s surrounded by positivity. Personally, I believe that one can’t just snap out of this sort of negative thinking. However, opening one’s eyes is a good start. When we open our eyes and turn on the light, the laws of reality can start taking hold. In dreamscape there are no rules and that only adds to the chaos. With our eyes open, reality can help to ground us. Byron Katie is an author who is known for relying on four questions to help ground us back into reality:
1. Is it true.
2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
3. When you believe this thought to be true, how do you feel?
4. Who would you be without that belief?
When I first read her book and read her four questions, I laughed at the first two. I mean, come on, they’re very repetitive. But sometimes we need that repetition because our thoughts can be so magnetic and hypnotic. That last question, once you let go of the thought, that’s where the rest of this reading exists.
There are three wand cards represented in this spread. Wands are about fire and creativity, desire and action. To start it off is the 3 of Wands, on the 2nd row. In the Wandering Star Tarot, this card is depicted with a person using binoculars. It’s a feeling of being on an adventure, looking ahead for more fertile wands to collect. The next wand shows up in the Ace of wands. Though in a traditional deck this card takes place in daylight, in this particular Wandering Star Tarot deck it is a nighttime scene. Even though it’s at night, there is a full moon that lights everything up. On page 69 of the guidebook it says, “Full moons offer the opportunity to see what is not working in your life so you can begin to make changes”. Have you ever been outside at night where there is a full moon that is lighting everything up clearly? There is something magical about that. This deck also uses a snake in this card, which is ripe with symbolism. A snake regularly sheds its skin. When a snake sheds its skin, unlike a butterfly that shapeshifts into something else entirely, it still keeps its same form. After it sheds its skin, it still remains a snake. Metaphorically, a snake sheds what no longer serves it: old beliefs, people, or habits. Remember the 9 of Swords from this spread? Those racing night thoughts? Yeah, those would be a great thing to shed!!
On page 21 of the guidebook for the Wandering Star Tarot, when describing the Magician card it says, “Did you know that when you sweep away the clouds of doubt & fear and sink deeply into yourself, you are magic?” How wonderfully this affirms the need to sweep away those doubting thoughts of the 9 of Swords card. The guidebook also offers this little bit of wisdom in the form of a quote: “ Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it.” – Roald Dahl.
At this point you might be realizing that I’m not reading top to bottom, right to left. And you’re correct. That’s because the cards in this reading came at me and landed much like life: a lot going on, all at once. Can you feel the avalanche? Each card builds upon another and no matter which direction you’re reading, they are gaining in their massive message: HERE! NOW! AWAKE!
At the top of the reading, on the first row, there are two cards that compliment each other: Yang is the first card and Here & Now is the next. Yang is the masculine principle of movement and creative activity. The card Here & Now is unsurprisingly about being present. In this life that we are living, the most important moment– Is right now. Wait… it’s now…. I mean, um… NOW!. I can’t change something that happened one second ago. And though I can give an educated guess as to how things will play out one second in the future, that too is not for certain. When we are in our heads, we are always in the past or in the future. The woulda-coulda-shoulda…. Or what-if’s. None of that is reality.
The 6 or cups is a card that depicts nostalgia, innocence, and memories. This particular deck has two figures that make me think of days spent with my bestie. Can you picture yourself with a bestie? Can you feel that feeling of total acceptance…. Even when you are JUST BEING YOU. So much of life is spent wearing a persona. This is my work persona, this is my parent at a parent teacher conference persona, this is my gotta make a good impression persona. My bestie, though, has seen ME being me.
The traditional Rider Waite Six of Cups card depicts a scene that has a bit more of a childhood vibe. So if I were to take from the vibe from the traditional Rider Waite card and sprinkle it here, I’d point out how it is in childhood where we are our truest selves. If I were to relate this to Jungian Shadow work, childhood is the time before we started shoving all of the perceived unacceptable parts of ourselves into darkness. Childhood, in its best parts, is when we were so free from the what-if’s. And yeah, even when we were complete idiots. I never felt so alive as those days in childhood that I believed I could ride my bike while coasting and standing on the banana seat. In case you’re missing the visual of this…. I thought I could stand on my 1970’s bike’s banana seat, coasting forward, hands in the air, without falling off. Why would I want to do that? I can’t remember why. I was single digits and had no fear. Nope, I never achieved that feat, not even close. And yes, I wiped out many times. However, I remember the thrill of my attempts. I didn’t let the dozens of failures and scabs prevent me from believing I could achieve my goal. I don’t remember when I gave up on that dream, but I also don’t remember being crushed by the inability to achieve that dream. And that’s the spirit that I feel is the takeaway from this card: not being crushed and derailed when things don’t go as planned. Not putting off things because you’re too stuck in the mental constructions of THE PERFECTD PLAN. The spirit of this card is about being childlike in your can-do attitude and jumping all in, even if things seem likely to fail. And when they do fail, knowing that you’ll be okay, because there is always another adventure that awaits you around the corner. Maybe one that won’t involve as many scrapes and bruises! HooRAH!
The final row of this spread begins with the Alchemy’s Sun card. This card is all about being AWAKE in the sunlight of day. It’s all about giving of yourself, abundance, and generosity. It’s the opposite of 3am scarcity thinking, and all about being alive in the sun-drenched NOW. The card next to it, The Awakener card is like a double exclamation point to this idea of being awake and engaged with life. Its guidebook says that this card “calls us to arise from the many centuries of dreamy nightmares…”. YES, it’s time to stop sleepwalking and wake up. EVEN if reality isn’t what we want it to be, it’s only when we are awake that we can make any changes and navigate to a place that we would want to exist. And the final card in this spread is the outcome that could greet us: Success. While I am not going to say that tarot cards can predict the future and success is a given, I will tell you that by meditating on the lessons of a spread, the cards have educated and enlightened my thoughts and helped change the way I view situations in my life. This spread presented a story of getting out of one’s head and working with what is real. Maybe opening one’s eyes will show you that the night terrors are not real. OR, at least with eyes open, you can better navigate your way to calmer waters. Either way, it’s about action on your part and not being stuck in the world of inaction… you know the one? It’s the world that exists when stuck within your thoughts and though it sometimes feels very big, that make believe world, it only exists in your brain.
Sandy's Short Story Long- This is where I write. 
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