Tarot Of The Day June 22 2018 - Day 4: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Empress

Tarot Of The Day June 22 2018 - Day 4: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Empress

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the fourth session follows.

At first glance, the Empress card is quite similar to the High Priestess in the Rider-Waite deck; a woman seated is the main focus of the card. However, where the High Priestess card is blue, white, black and grey, the Empress card is full of warm color. She is seated slightly to the left of the card, and although she is facing the viewer, her body is pointed away a bit. Her seat is made up of a pile of cushions resting on a stone block, on a stone platform in a field of wheat, with a forest in the distance behind her the stream that was at the feet of the High Priestess appears coming out of the treeline, cascading toward the Empress. She wears a crown bearing 12 stars, and her robes are white with a print that echoes the pomegranates of the tapestry behind the High Priestess. She carries a golden scepter, and at her side is a stone heart with the symbol of Venus carved in to it.

The Rider-Waite booklet provides the following keywords for The Empress: fruitfulness, initiative, action, long days, clandestine, the unknown, difficulty, doubt, ignorance (upright) and light, truth, the unraveling of involved matters, public rejoice, and vacillation (reversed.)

In some decks, the Empress is portrayed as pregnant, and there some discussion on whether the Rider-Waite empress is pregnant - her robes are loose. 

I often read the Empress as a mother nature card, about fertility and the harvest, and all of the wisdom that goes along with motherhood. To me she represents the cycles of life, and in reverse, the disruption of all of that. Sterility, poverty, and destruction.

In Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven’s Prophecy deck, she provides the keywords Mother Nature, fruitfulness, creation, and sensuous, and depicts it as simply a forest. She writes: 

“I chose a forest for the art on the Empress card because the Empress is often depicted as the Earth Mother. Indeed, she is the perfect mother archetype. She is loving, caring, and fruitful. It is not that everything she touches becomes fertile; it is that her fertility has created everything. The Empress is firmly fixed in this world, unlike the airy, moonlit High Priestess, and she adores everything good this world has to offer. Beauty, love, plenty, touch, sight - she is in love with all physical things.”



***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***

TOMORROW: The Emperor
I LOVE audience/student/ peer reader participation! Please feel free to follow along, comment with your perspectives and questions!

TOTD June 21 2018 - Day 3: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The High Priestess

TOTD June 21 2018 - Day 3: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The High Priestess

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the third session follows.

TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round.

Today, we will go over the High Priestess. With her, we enter a group of 4 cards that to some may seem to be almost duplicates of one another: The High priestess and  Empress, and the Emperor and Hierophant. You will want to look closely as we progress through these four cards and learn to make the distinction between the two ‘couples’.

The Rider-Waite deck shows the high priestess dressed in blue/white robes, sitting in the center of the card on a stone block, holding a scroll marked TORA in her hands (either the Jewish Torah or an anagram of TAROT where the final letter is left unseen, but more likely the Jewish Torah due to the connection between the tarot and the Kabbalah), a white solar cross at her breast, wearing a crown similar to the triple goddess symbol, but is the Moon Crown of Egyptian Goddess Isis. On either side of her are two lotus, topped pillars, the left one is black stone with a B carved in to it (B is for Boaz, signifying ‘negation’), and the right one is grey/white stone with a J carved into it (J is for Jachin, meaning ‘beginning’. Spread between the pillars and behind the Priestess is a tapestry showing a garden of pomegranates and other foliage, and behind it are the waters of enlightenment and knowledge. The priestesses’ robes become a stream at her feet, and a crescent moon rests in that stream. This card is simply loaded with some very heavy symbolism and opn references to a lot of stuff. We will address more of this later on.

The booklet offers these keywords for The High Priestess: secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed, the woman who interests the querent if male, the querent if female, silence, tenacity, wisdom, science (upright,) and passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, and surface knowledge (reversed.)

The High Priestess is often seen as the guardian or gatekeeper of knowledge, one who you must path along your path to reach enlightenment. When she turns up in a non-signifier role, I sometimes read her as indicative of something the person I’m reading for is seeking, or something that is being hidden from them.

In the Raven’s prophecy deck, Maggie Stiefvater drew a hand holding a looking glass. The background is either a night sky or a dark room lit with candles or magic, and in the looking glass is a cloudy sky. She writes:

“In many ways, the High Priestess represents the art of tarot to me. She is a mystical force - unknowable, unfathomable, spiritual, and mysterious. Her secrets are not secret because of deception but  rather because they are mystical, arcane, and hidden until you are wise enough to discover them inside yourself as well.    ..the mirror on the card reflects you, but what you glimpse inside the glass is far more than your physical form. You are ever so much more than your body or your mind.

When the High Priestess appears in your reading, it’s a sign that you need to step away from external concerns and look inside. Embrace your unconscious.”

The keywords Maggie provides for the High Priestess are spirituality, holiness, dreaming, and unconscious. She does not offer reverse meanings, writing, "Some tarot readers read cards with slightly different meanings (often negative) if they appear upside down when laid out in a reading. I'm not going to go over reversed card meanings in this book; I find the cards carry all the nuance they need without complicating it even more with additional definitions to memorize."

Maggie’s interpretation is appropriate to its traditional role in the tarot, however, as we will learn later on, removes most of the many layers of symbolism and meaning hidden within the Rider-Waite deck’s illustrations.

TOMORROW: The Empress
I LOVE audience/student/ peer reader participation! Please feel free to follow along, comment with your perspectives and questions!

TOTD June 20 2018 - Day 2: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Magician

#TOTD June 20 2018 - Day 2

The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Magician

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the second session follows.

Hello everyone! As I mentioned yesterday, TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be extended from 78 days to 89 days, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that will walk through the steps of interpretation for. After the firs 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round.

Now, on to today’s lesson! Today we are discussing the Magician. Although it is numbered 1, it is the second card in the traditional tarot deck, as the fool is numbered 0. In the Rider-Waite booklet, the Fool is listed AFTER the World card, but still numbered 0. As you explore the tarot, you will come across a few instances of difference in ordering the Major Arcana. Most decks place the Fool first in the deck and their booklets because the Majors are also often referred to as ‘The Fool’s Journey’, referencing his path from his tabula rasa state of innocence, to the The World card and reaching enlightenment. This also references the path of Kabbalah - but that is an entirely different lesson for much later on down the road for us.

Back to the Magician. As you can see in the photo below, the traditional imagery for the card depicts the mage at work, his wand in his hand, raised up to draw down power, the first finger of his other hand pointing down to direct the power. On the altar before himare the symbols of the four Houses of the Minor Arcana: Wand, Cup, Sword, and Coin (or Pentacle) - all representative of the elements (Wands = Fire, Cups = Water, Swords = Air, and Coins/Pentacles = Earth) and all also easily recognisable as the tools of the occult (Wand, Cup = cauldron, Sword = athame, Pentacle.) he is surrounded by roses and lilies, and above his head the infinity symbol floats to mark the infinite potential.

In the Rider-Waite booklet, the keywords listed for the magician are (upright) skill, diplomacy, address, sickness, pain, loss, disaster, self confidence, will, and (reversed) physician, magus, mental illness, disgrace, disquiet.

Although not listed in the booklet, this card is most commonly interpreted to indicate assertion, communication, focus, and strength of will.

Maggie Stiefvater’s illustration of the Magician distills the entire scene down to depict a right hand with the symbols of the Minor Arcana and the infinity symbol either carved or tattooed into it.. To me, I see the hand as the greatest tool given to humanity,other than the brain, and we use it to direct the flow of energy around us. By carving the symbols into the hand, it becomes the tools represented, cementing its infinite potential.

Maggie writes in Illuminating the Prophecy: “The Magician is no illusionist - he’s the real deal. I have always loved the magician card, as he is sort of an unsinkable ship; you can’t keep someone down if they are always capable of building themselves back up again. The art on the card depicts a hand tattooed with all of the symbols of the tarot deck, and this is because the magician has skill in all of the suits. The infinity symbol illustrates how his command over all of these suits comes from something outside him…”

Maggie’s keywords for the Magician are ability, versatility, control, and connections.She does not offer reverse meanings, writing, "Some tarot readers read cards with slightly different meanings (often negative) if they appear upside down when laid out in a reading. I'm not going to go over reversed card meanings in this book; I find the cards carry all the nuance they need without complicating it even more with additional definitions to memorize."

The Magician card is often representative of a male figure in your life, depending on where it appears in a layout, and more often than not seems to pop as the card representing the querent in a reading. When I see it outside of the signifier roles, it often is a reference for a need for communication or assertiveness in a situation - but of course every card must be read within the context of the layout, and in elation the cards that come before and after it.

TOMORROW: The High Priestess

I LOVE audience/student/ peer reader participation! Please feel free to follow along, comment with your perspectives and questions!

Tarot of the Day - Introduction to the Raven's Prophecy Deck and The Fool

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the first session follows.

Tarot of the Day - Introduction to the Raven's Prophecy Deck and The Fool

Well, the poll closed and you all chose the Raven's Prophecy Tarot by Maggie Stiefvater! (If you are wondering about the poll, I did a poll in the group with a list of several of the decks I own that group members were allowed to vote for. The Raven's prophecy deck won! I'm happy because I have barely worked with it yet and it is my most recent deck acquisition, a gift from my son for my birthday!) We will be working our way through the deck, from the Majors all the way through the Four Houses. Since the symbolism and imagery used in the raven's prophecy is quite different from the Rider-Waite deck, commonly accepted as the 'standard' from which most decks are based, I am going to pair this deck with the Rider-Waite in order to compare and contrast, and help, I hope, develop a greater understanding of each card's meaning.

But first, an excerpt from the Raven's Prophecy companion book, 'Illuminating The Prophecy' by the artist and Author, Maggie Stiefvater:

"About the Author

Maggie Stiefvater's life decisions have revolved around her inability to be gainfully employed. Talking to yourself, staring in to space, and coming to work in your pajamas are frowned upon when you're a waitress, calligraphy instructor, or technical editor (all of which she's tried), but are highly prized traits in novelists and artists (she's made her living as one or the other since she was twenty-two). Maggie now lives a surprisingly eccentric life in the middle of nowhere, Virginia, with her charmingly straight-laced husband, two kids, and neurotic dog."

" Chapter 2: About the Theme

...I was writing a series that reveled in Welsh mythology and involved tarot, and what started as a gentle dabble in combining the two as a visual extra for readers exploded quite naturally in to me drawing the entire deck. I was shocked to discover that the challenge of illustrating tarot was not dissimilar to writing a novel. Each piece of art was an agreeable puzzle. An opportunity to illustrate a succinct metaphor, to create a visual shortcut for the meaning of the card. I also found that the imagery of Welsh mythology paired beautifully with traditional tarot visual. I borrowed the curious and cunning Welsh ravens to symbolize our logical, conscious minds and emphasized the traditional fire of the wands to represent creative force throughout the entire deck.

It took no time at all before it became a deck about being an artist.

I'm biased, of course. As a storyteller, a musician, and an artist, the push-pull relationship between logic and creativity has always fascinated me. So much of tarot is about balancing opposing forces in your life; it only took a bit of a nudge to make it about balancing our creative and logical selves."
I bought this deck because it spoke to me on a base level - the instantly recognizable texture of the chalk pastels, the raw energy and the simple images.

Together, we will walk along the paths of The Fool, The Wands, The Cups, the Swords and The Coins, and explore this deck, beginning with The Major Arcana and The Fool:

Pictured below, I have laid out both of the Fool cards from the Raven's Prophecy and the Rider-Waite decks.

The classical or traditional depiction of the Fool is a youth, male but androgynous. He appears to be walking towards a precipice, with his belongings over his shoulder, a rose in one hand, and his face turned up to the sky. A dog gambols beside him, and can be interpreted as either trying to warn him of the fall ahead, or to be dancing joyfully alongside him on his journey.

The R-W keywords for the Fool card are (in the upright position) folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, bewrayment, (and in the reversed position) negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, and vanity.

Typically, this card is about a person who is setting out on their adventure. They are a blank slate, journeying toward enlightenment (The World card.)

In the Raven's Prophecy deck, we see a feminine youth, back lit by the sun, arms outstretched, seemingly ready to face anything that comes at her. Maggie writes, " Childlike and optimistic, the fool ambles curiously toward whatever piques his or her interest, much like the pages you'll meet in the Minor Arcana later. the Fool's unburdened by anything weighty like experience or uncertainty, and the Fool will cheerfully amble into great adventure or off a cliff with precisely the dame naivete. Depending on where the card appears in the reading, sometimes it means that you're starting over again, and that you need to channel that youthful idealism, that fearless confidence that comes from having never been hurt. But it could also be a warning: open your eyes before you walk in to a fire pit; you know better!"

Maggie chose the keywords fearlessness, folly, innocence, and potential to describe the card, and offers no reversals; in fact she writes:

"Some tarot readers read cards with slightly different meanings (often negative) if they appear upside down when laid out in a reading. I'm not going to go over reversed card meanings in this book; i find the cards carry all the nuance they need without complicating it even more with additional definitions to memorize."

Personally, I do use reversed meanings when I do readings, but that has everything to do with how I learned the tarot. Every reader has their own personal rules for reading the tarot, but, as I often tell my students, there are no set in stone rules to tarot. there is a defined structure - 78 cards divided in to 22 Major and 56 Minor Arcanum - but when it comes to interpretation and use, there are no real rules.

I tend to see the Fool card as symbolic of the place a person may be on their personal journey or path, unless the card appears in a position that is designated as significant of a person, in which case it represents, to me, their current outlook or perspective towards life and their path.

TOMORROW: The Magician

I LOVE audience/student/ peer reader participation! Please feel free to follow along, and comment with your perspectives and questions!

Contextual Meaning of Tarot

So, I just got home from the tarot class/group I lead most Saturday mornings. and a small point I made as we were going through our readings today using the layout pictured below was about how we read/interpret the card positions themselves, not just how we interpret the cards. So I'm gonna go over one of the readings, the cards that were laid out and the positions the were in, and how there are a couple different ways to understand the card based on the context AND interpretation of the position it is in, in the layout. So - the layout was a 6 card spread, with the following contextual meanings for each position: 1. What I want. 2. What is motivating me. 3. What I need to release. 4. Universal guidance. 5. Universal goal. 6. Changes for success. Now, to most people using a layout, these contextual meanings are locked in at face value. And before you lay any cards out, they are, for the most part, right. These are the ‘rules’ for this particular game of cards. However, as soon as you lay out the cards and begin your interpretation of THEIR meanings within the context of the ‘rules’ of the layout, those contextual meaning can begin to not make any sense at all. For instance, in today’s group, one of the readers drew the following cards for this spread: 1. 10 of Wands (oppression, burden, trial, ruin, disruption, failure, limitations, restrictions, and holding back) 2. King of Cups, in Reverse (violence, scandal, injustice, and weakness) 3. The Mage (will, communication, inherent ability, memory, clarity of thought and feeling, organization, invention, and originality) 4. Knight of Swords, in Reverse (extravagance, braggadocio, and romance) 5. 9 of Coins (gain, prudence, benefit, balance, order, organization, and unification) 6. 2 of Wands (virtue, cooperation, partnership, integrity, consistency, and congruency) So, when reading those cards and their meanings within the context of the layout, it may not make sense; especially if you read the ‘rules’ very literally. A good example here is the 3rd rule, “What I need to release.” Nearly every person in my group today read that as “What I need to let go of/get rid of,”and to be quite honest when you see that the spread itself is titled “Doubts and Fears” it goes to reason that the 3rd card is meant to, most likely, represent the fears or doubts one is meant to let go of. But when you look at the cards laid out, it doesn't make sense to let go of what the Mage symbolizes. In fact, for this person in particular, these are things they need to express more fully. At roadblocks like these, it is good to revisit the ‘rule’ and read it less literally. Consider that ‘release’ might not mean ‘to let go of’, here, for this person, but actually ‘to let out’. When you read that card from the perspective that this person needs to express these things, to assert their will, to be more communicative, to use their inherent abilities, be more organized, more inventive, have better clarity of thought, feeling,and memory, then the reading as a whole becomes clear. All of the cards in a layout create a context of their own, and demand interpretation using that as well as the ‘rules’ context. We must not, when using spreads and layouts like these, become slave to the literal or more obvious meaning of the ‘rules’, or our readings can become disjointed quite quickly.

Below you'll find the Doubts and Fears Layout we used today, found on Pinterest, and credited to pennilesspagan.com.

Simple Cross Reading

I recently got to try a layout I hadn't used before, for a person in a group I moderate in and contribute to, and I really enjoyed the layout, so I have created a layout image for it and will share the reading here to explain how it worked. The person I did the reading for will remain un-named, for privacy's sake. They drew and laid out the cards in this layout, which they then explained the placement meanings for, and they said they found the layout in the book that came with their deck, which I believe is the Royo Tarot, seen here.

So here is the layout, with a background I borrowed from google, which is a still from this video by Dan Lopez. I hope he doesn't mind the use of it.

The following is the write up I did based on the client's draws, seen below. The client also drew two extra cards, in the final two positions, which made the reading really interesting.

In your simple cross layout, in the position of what helps you, you drew the 9 of Swords. Swords are the house of combat, competition, and action. The 9 is a card I call the ‘night terrors’ card, because it represents despair, misery, desolation, disaster, self-criticism, and mental cruelty. How can this HELP you? Perhaps you are motivated by criticism and being down at the bottom of the barrel. The 9 is often about dealing with the consequences of some action long gone. Something that still drives you, perhaps?

In the position of what hinders you, you drew the 8 of Swords. The 8 card is about crisis, indecision, restriction, censure, doubt, mistrust, confusion, interference - thinking things over too much. So this tells me that your actions are hindered by nothing other than YOU. You are allowing self doubt to hold you back - over analyzing the possible results of your action so much that you never actually take that action. This may be a heads up that is it finally time to ‘do the thing’, before it is too late.

In the position of where you are coming from, you drew the 5 of Swords. This makes a bit of sense, because the 5 is about defeat, degradation, unfairness, constriction, fear, distortion, and empty victory. In tradition decks, this is symbolized by a person who has clearly just won a battle, but the war is not yet over as his opponents retreat in order to return stronger. This card often shows up when someone has been dealing with a repeat issue - something that keeps coming back to bite them in the rear, time and again, because they have never actually resolved the issue, just pushed it back for a time. This card says you’re coming from a place where you are becoming weary of fighting that same battle over and over.

In the position of where you are going, you drew the 2 of Wands and the Hermit. These are a good pairing. First, the 2 of wands represents dominance, rulership, enterprise, sovereignty, power, and unification. The Hermit represent guidance, completion, introspection, contemplation, experience, detail, revelation, integrity, respect, leadership, transitions, discovery, wisdom, mentorship, open-mindedness, and courage. I think the 2 of wands describes where you are going/want to go, and the Hermit represents the tools you need to GET there.

Finally, in the position of something important - your message to think about - you drew the Knight of Swords and the Empress. The Knight of Swords is a card I love to teach. He represents impulsiveness, courage, intuitive thinking, and the unrestricted mind. He is the bold leader, but he is one not without flaws. His flaw? He often leaps before he looks. In my deck, he is depicted as a dragon, razing a village with its fiery breath. I like to tell my students that he is doing it for all of the right reasons - but he is in the wrong place! He should be razing the village in the next valley, not this one! He acted before verifying his target. The Knight of Swords often appears as a warning to think things through and to always look before you leap.The Empress card represents fertility, wisdom, prophecy, love of nature, healing, nurturing, emotion, creation, cycles, balance, fruitfulness, and contentment. Paired with the Knight of Swords, she is the foil to his temperament. She calms the impulsiveness and heals and nurtures him after battle, and after he is burned by his own flame when he makes mistakes. I think that while the Knight reminds you to look before you leap, the Empress is the reminder to take care of yourself while you try to become the leader that the 2 of Wands implied in the 'Where you are going' position. Self care is important, especially to those in leadership roles, which can accumulate a lot of stress.

The Full Moon Was Tonight...

Moon Tarot Card, Source Unknown. Please notify me if you can identify the artist or deck this is from!

Tonight is the Full Moon, and man, here in Tulsa we usually have some spectacular sunsets, and with the moon rising against the pastels and fire of the setting sun, today was no exception. I wish I had a camera that could have captured it adequately.

For me, the full moon is bursting with opportunities and filled with the energy I need to move forward towards goals and with projects. I've never been one to attend rituals ( I've only ever gone to two full moon rituals, and they sadly didn't go well for me, due to what I suppose I can only say are spiritual or energy blocks) and as I am still settling in to a new home, I have yet to set up an altar either inside or outside. So for this Full Moon, I'm choosing to do a couple of tarot layout I have yet to try, and that I feel are appropriate for my personal way of celebrating the Fullest Reflection of the sun's light onto the earth at night. Space juice, y'all. Moonlight is space juice for my spirit.

The first of the two spreads I have selected is a spread I found at Sybarite Tarot, the Setting Intentions spread. I also have selected one that I found on Pinterest but that is credited to Lavender-moon.com, although I wasn't able to locate the spread on that site. ( I may not have spent long enough looking, however.) THAT spread is the a Light in The Dark spread.

So, without further ado, let us get to it, shall we?

1. The Seed - your intention: The King of Questing (Wands), Reversed. Severity, honesty, Subordination.

2. Hesitation - fears stopping you from planting: Ten of Pattern (Coins). Stability, Riches, Abundance, Prosperity, Enrichment.

3. Push It In The Ground - overcoming fears and waiting: Knight of Questing (Wands). Conflict, Haste, Inspired Creativity, Expression, Concentration, Expansion.

4. Taking Root - how your intention will become reality: The Hierophant. Morality, learning, teaching, Wisdom, the Sacred, Initiator, Challenge, Commitment, Intention, Focus, Spirit, Remembrance, Resolution, Consultation, Counseling, Conformity, Society, Orthodoxy.

5. & 6. Bring It To The Surface - ways to nurture your intention and make it work for you: Five of Questing (Wands): Strife, Competition, Obstacles, Anxiety, Frustration, Freneticism, Hyperactivity; and The Devil: Bondage, Materialism, Fetters, Sensation, Bedevilment, Temptation, Degradation, Domination. 

As usual, we cannot take the cards at their face value - these keyword meanings help, but from them and their positions within the layout, I have to sort out what it all means to ME. This is where, as I always say, the inner storyteller must come out, and construct the story from the bones revealed by the cards. My inner counselor also wakes up, although when I am reading for myself I find it very difficult to give myself an unbiased session. This is why reading for others is so satisfying, to me, because I can step into my role as counselor and give aid to those who need insight. 

But back to it! My Seed Card, my intention, is represented by the King of Wands in Reverse. Perhaps, given his keywords, he is my intention to be a better, stronger self this year. I want to cast aside my depression and anxiety in order to be a more whole self. My Hesitation Card is The Ten of Coins, a card I am typically apprehensive about because it just feels slimy to me, I can't explain why. But it describes my hesitation as perhaps a fear of the loss of the card's attributes - losing the stability we have trying to to reach for something more. And since the reversal of the card talks about greed, that thought isn't too far fetched. So now to overcome my hesitations and fears, the Knight of Questing arrives, describing a situation that doesn't seem to be related to overcoming anything, with conflict, haste paired with inspired creativity, expression...oh, hey, I know this dance - this is me in my daily life, using my usual coping mechanisms for dealing with depression, anxiety, and a mild form of OCD. So perhaps the card is suggesting I keep on keepin' on, and maintain my coping mechanisms. let's see if that thought hold up as we move on to Taking Root - The Hierophant is a card that talks about the moral right, and in fact once upon a time the card was named The Pope, which speaks to its  symbolism further. But aside form its moral high horse, the Hierophant is also about wisdom, commitment, moving forward (taking initiative), intention, focus, and spirit. He tells me that in order for my goals to be come reality, for my intention to manifest, I need to take the steps to make it happen, and follow through with them - always sound advice. Finally, how do I nurture my intention? Well, The Five of Wands says I should be competitive, and work hard, while the Devil speaks about bondage, materialism, temptation - I'd take that as a warning to stay focused, not to stray from my path, be competitive and focused on my goal, and not walk willingly in to a trap of my own design by allowing myself to be distracted.

1. What is the darkness I'm avoiding? Six of Questing (Wands): Victory, Success, Advancement, Revitalization, Energy, Expansion.

2. How has it been affecting me? King of Pattern (Coins), Reversed: Perversity, Misuse, Speculation, Waste.

3: How has it been affecting others? Justice, Reversed: Injustice, Bias, Inequality, Prejudice.

4. What about it can I use to help me? Eight of Questing (Wands), Reversed: Inactivity, Dispute, Quarrels, Procrastination, Covert Communication.

5. What has the potential to hurt me? Four of Pattern (Coins), Reversed: Setback, Loss, poverty, Legacy

6. How can I heal myself? King of Primordialism (Cups): Power, Emotional Loyalty and Commitment, Spontaneity, Ego, Generosity, Responsibility.

7. What light can I use to balance it (the darkness) out? Nine of Questing (Wands), Reversed: Obstacle, Adversity, Opposition.

So now we come to the A Light In The Dark Spread. Where the previous spread was shining the light of the full moon on my goals and intentions, this spread shines a light on the things I may desire to keep hidden. We all carry some shadow in our hearts, some darkness in our souls that might be a source of shame, something we fear, or perhaps a hidden desire that we feel is too big to let into the light. Let's explore that with this spread, and see what comes up.

So what AM I avoiding? According to the Six of Wands, I'm avoiding my own success, avoiding taking the steps I need to take to be what I have always wanted to be. This speaks directly to the previous reading. How has it been affecting me? Naturally, when you avoid becoming your whole self, you live in a place filled with perversity and waste. The King of Coins says that when you avoid the truth of who you are, you create a chaotic life for yourself. This, too, speaks not only to my previous reading but also to my actual life. How has it been affecting others? When you live a life contradictory to your intentions, you not only create chaos for yourself, but also for others. You begin to blame things other than yourself for your situation, in order to have excuses for why you haven't become YOU yet. The Justice card here means that those around you have to deal with your denial of self, self hatred, which can look a lot like you are treating people unjustly and with bias s you ignore your own faults and become hypocritical, prejudiced. What about it can I use to help me? All that bad behavior leads ot a lot of fighting and can mean you spend a lot of time with your lips at your confidant's ear - I read the Eight of Questing as saying that instead of perpetuating the nastiness, it is time to flip the script and put your ear to your confidant's lips - they probably have some good advice to help lead you away form the person you created as your self while you hid from your own truth. Who has the potential to hurt me? The Four of Coins talks about setbacks and loss, which to me indicate backsliding in to old comfortable patterns of thought and behavior, meaning that the one person capable of hurting you here is YOU. How can I heal myself? The King of Cups is here - the King of the house of emotion, love, family, health and growth - to remind you that you have the power to heal yourself. Be emotionally loyal to yourself, commit to the new path you must forge to be responsible and become the whole self you desire to be. What light can I use to balance it ( the darkness) out? The Nine of Wands is the card I like to call the boy scouts card - be prepared, it says! Reversed, it talks of Obstacles, adversity and opposition - these are all things we face on the road to well being, and most especially in ourselves, caused by ourselves. What is the light here? It's a warning to be prepared for the struggles ahead on the long road to a whole and happy self. It's a reminder that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

Well, for me, the Full Moon has been about reflection and setting goals for my future. What was yours about? Please feel free to comment below.