The question for today was, “should I continue trading the financial markets, or quit for the day?” We were two hours into the session, and I had made 7 trades for 6 wins and 1 loss so far. The market volume was abysmal. Typical friday summer market! So, I wanted to take the rest of the day off.

Well, I took a walk outside for a bit, and came back in to do the following reading about the situation.

The Reading

I used my Victorian Flower Oracle for this reading. It’s been a really fun deck to read with. Highly recommended!

I laid out four cards, like so:

The positions were:

• West=Situation
• North=Do this
• South=Don’t do this
• East=Outcome

Note the two opposites. On the east-west line we have ‘what is’ versus ‘what will be.’ On the north-south line we have ‘actions to take’ versus ‘actions to avoid.’ I am a believer in placing cards such that we can see the interplay between dual ideas… it’s a powerful way to organize a reading. Not so important for a light question like this one, but for serious work I think it’s valuable.

So, interpreting these cards: continued trading did not seem like a good idea… the name of the situation card was “wishful thinking,” after all! Trading in the summer markets is replete with danger. I decided to quit for the day. Easy enough!

For what to do, I got the Lilac (”message”) card. In contrast, for what not to do, I got Pomegranite (”joy”). That’s too bad, because what I felt like doing was relaxing and maybe watching a DVD. Instead, though, I really need to send some emails out to clients. Many of you may know that we just went into Mercury retrograde, and communication with nearly all of my clients just came to a standstill. So, I need to touch base with them and keep me (and the money they surely want to send me) on their minds.

I think this suggestion is reinforced by the outcome card, Water Arum (”Roots and Ties”). I need to maintain and strengthen my business ties, even though that’s not particularly fun. The dual nature of ties is that they can be support, or they can hold you down. So a balance is needed, of course.

One thing I have to watch for, especially reading for non-tarot people, is a tendency to digress into the minutiae of the symbolism in the cards. I’ve learned a handful of attributions for all the cards, so I can talk for quite a while before I even glance at the freaking images!

But is this good? Thirty minutes into a reading, I could be pointing out that some stray line in the corner of the card may be an oblique reference to the greek goddess Arachne… and meanwhile, the querent is trying to fashion her belt into a makeshift noose to end the pain…

Anyway, that’s been on my mind. And, I started reading the Book of Thoth tonight, and came across these two quotes, in close proximity:

“[list of attributions of the 5 of wands] … This is no more than saying that a Dry Martini has got some juniper in it, and some alcohol, and some white wine and herbs, and a bit of lemon peel, and some ice.”

“…but the Tarot will lose all its vitality for one who allows himself to be side-tracked by its pedantry.”

I think this sums up the attitude I am striving for. You can perhaps get a deeper understanding of a dry martini by understanding the parts that make it up. But, you shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that what you have is still a dry martini… a single, unique combination of those parts with a character all its own. The same can be said, I suppose, for a tarot card. Remaining too focused on the card decompositions during readings is probably a mistake.

Today, I’m giving a talk on a product I sell, and I did a quickie 3-card reading for advice. I chose three positions:

1. What I should do
2. What I shouldn’t do
3. Important consideration(s)

The Reading

I used my Universal Waite Deck and got these three cards:

If the picture’s not clear, these are The Lovers, 4 Pentacles, and Queen Swords.

First off, the two air cards overwhelm the central earth card. This emphasizes that the presentation (a webinar), is all about conversation and ideas rather than physical presence or money. Ok, makes sense.

Having the Lovers in the “what to do” position tells me that I should be trying to create a community and bring people together in harmony with my talks. If I can do that, the sales will follow. Also, as this is a major arcana card, I view it more as on ongoing process I should be undertaking, rather than something I can do in one shot with this talk.

The 4 Pentacles, in this context, speaks to me about fear and protecting yourself, and positioning yourself in a place of “power” (semi-sarcastic quotes due to the Chesed/demiurge aspect of the card). Possibly, it could refer as well to pushing to close individual sales. Grab the low-hanging fruit, if you will. This position says: don’t do that. The sales will come as a natural part of the process.

The important consideration is the Queen of Swords, who dominates Libra. This tells me that, yeah, I should be trying to bring people together and create a sense of community, but I shouldn’t compromise my principles or play favorites to do it. I should be diplomatic, even-handed, and logical with people. At the same time, I should stand by my decisions. Tough but fair.

Not a bad reading, for just three cards, if you ask me!

I used my Osho Zen Tarot today at the Tarot Talk Dallas meeting. I hadn’t been using the deck much, and wanted to play with it.

I gotta say, though the pictures are beautiful, I didn’t enjoy it much. It’s possible for a deck to be too zen. You know what I mean? The readings I did kept boiling down to “the answer is: it doesn’t matter” That may be true on a deep spiritual level, but it’s not that satisfying when you are doing a reading to locate your car keys….

A smaller issue: The cards are just similar enough to RWS that I want to read them like RWS… but they are just different enough that it doesn’t always work smoothly to do so. I need to get over that and simply go by the pictures, I think.

Anyway, I haven’t written off the deck, but I think it will be relegated to internal, self-transformation kinds of meditations. I’m sure some people out there probably disagree with me, but that’s the conclusion I am coming to.

I have been looking around for more fun decks for purely intuitive use, and I fell in love with the idea of the Lenormand oracle decks. They are typically 36 cards, modeled after a deck that famous French fortune-teller Marie Lenormand supposedly used. You can see a list of suggested meanings for the 36-card version here.

Only problem is, the versions of this deck that I really like are all playing hard to get. I eventually ordered this “French Cartomancy Mini Kit,” which I think looks pretty good…

… and the name will no doubt inspire me to tell fortunes over wine and cheese.

But, I’d much rather have the deck simply called “Lenormand Oracle“….

You can see that the pictures on this unavailable deck do not have the playing card inset. I find that to be ten thousand and three times more appealing. Though, perhaps I will assign meanings to the playing cards in the deck I bought, and eventually be glad I have them.

Who knows?

There are others available, which have poems or something on each card, but I would probably find that more distracting than the playing card inset, so I chose against it.

Today was the Sunday Living Tarot meetup. Valentina, Judie, and Ben went over various tarot ethics scenarios. They dressed up in different costumes for each skit, which was great fun. Here, for example, are Valentina and Judie in one of the skits with big rollers in their “hair”:

When I got to the meetup, they asked if I would be willing to take part in one of the skits, and of course I agreed. I was supposed to play a low-life loser, so I guess they figured I could probably pull that off without rehearsal Anyway, as always happens, I got nervous when I stood up in front of everyone, so I said something unusual to shake people up. I think it worked. Plus, I think it drove home the idea that my character was sleazy, so it worked on an acting level, as well. Yeah, I rock.

Afterwards, we did some readings and ate dinner, which is pretty much the usual Sunday meetup routine from what I can tell.

Someone was asking me about a series of classes they were considering taking. I assigned three positions:

1. Take the classes if …
2. Don’t take the classes if …
3. Important consideration(s)

… and I pulled a main card and three support cards for each (as I described in this article).

The cards (from my Universal Waite Deck) fell this way:

Take the Classes If …

For this position, we got 3 Cups, supported by 7 Pentacles, Wheel, and 3 Wands. I saw Jupiter (wheel) fighting back the constrictive force of Saturn in Taurus (7 Pent), making way for the Sun to shine in Aries (3 Wands). But, not yet, as the Wands are at odds with the watery main card 3 Cups. That puts the immediate focus on celebrating the accomplishment itself, rather than what the accomplishment makes possible. So I responded:

“By taking the classes, you could gain new skills that could expand your possibilities in the future. You’ll be more confident about your prospects, which will be especially good if you have a nagging dissatisfaction with what you are doing now. But I see that result a bit in the future… for now, you’ll feel good about having taken steps in that direction, and possibly meeting similar people in the process.”

Don’t Take the Classes If …

Here we have the High Priestess, supported by 5 Wands, 5 Swords, and 2 Swords. Here, we get a glimpse that the classes aren’t entirely a rosy experience. We have Saturn in play again in the 5 Wands showing multiple impulses at an impasse. Unlike the first position, Jupiter will not come to our aid this time… instead we get the bitchier side of Venus in Aquarius (5 Swords)… so there could be arguments either in class, or in the other parts of her life that are stressed by the new activity eating up time. Lunar energy dominates this position, in both the High Priestess and the 2 Swords (Moon in Libra). So, it would seem that we do end up in a state of peace and balance, but only underneath a turbulent surface. So, I said:

“I wouldn’t take the classes unless you feel confident deep down that it’s in line with your needs right now. There will be difficulties, perhaps in terms of the material, or competing approaches to it that may not agree with you. Tension between you and others could cause arguments that strain your relationships. You can still achieve balance despite this, but make sure it’s worth it to you to go through all that.”

Important Consideration

Here, we got the Fool, supported by 8 Swords, Page of Pentacles, and Page of Wands. So there is elemental conflict between the Page of Pentacles and the 8 of Swords. To me, this position is about what would happen if she just waltzes into the situation blindly (Fool). It indicates that if she has too many things going on in her life, or merely in her mind, then expanding the list (8 Swords is Jupiter in Gemini) is probably not good for her ability to study and learn (Page Pentacles). And I can even see this leading to her blowing off the class for things that seem more important at the moment (Page of Wands/Fool). So I said:

“Keep in mind that you shouldn’t make this decision lightly. If your life is already hectic, then adding a set of classes to the list will not help…. you might find that you end up dropping the classes, or at least not performing at your potential.”

So, I’ve done a couple readings via keen.com now, and already I can tell it’s going to help me a lot. Both questions I got were things I would never try to solve with tarot cards. They were:

• When should I tell him?
• Where is my laptop?

In other words, timing and location. So, it’s been interesting the last couple days, thinking about various ways to attack questions like these. As I find techniques that I think are useful, I’ll be sure to report them here. For now, though, I just improvise, and try to remember when things go smoothly.

Being happy makes you smile, but smiling can also make you happy. This principle applied to tarot would be: future events affect which cards are spread, but the cards you spread can also affect future events.

Today’s reading was pretty straightforward, and comes from a google search for “ask for advice.” The first question I found was on some relationships forum. If you are too lazy to click over, it says, in part:

so theres this guy (of course) and last year i found out that he had had the biggest crush on me for like a year. … i said no … so when the new school year started the awkwardness returned … he suddenly asked if i would go out with him again … it was a complete disaster! … after that i decided to try to hang out with him more often, if he wouldnt make a move, i would … everything was going fine……untill he sent me this: “i just want you to return my love. Do you know why i act so strange by you? well its because i have a crush on you that you know about.”

… and she wanted advice. I just did a quckie reading with 4 cards (using my Tarot of the Angels, but shown here are images from the Universal Waite):

That’s the Hanged Man, supported by 10 Cups, Ace of Wands, and The Lovers.

My advice: You have all the power to resolve this situation, but for some reason you have gotten stuck in this weird place. Sometimes the weirdness can start to become more comfortable than moving forward, and it’s like you get addicted to these situations. The cards indicate that your intuition about this guy might be hampered by the fact that he isn’t the kind of boyfriend you imagine for yourself. But, you still have valuable intuition, and if you can get in touch with it, you will know whether to pursue him or not. The choice is yours! Either way, you’ll be happier once you can break out of this cycle.

For the tarotists: I was looking in particular at the elemental interplay between the watery main card and 10 Cups, versus the Ace of fire. The Lovers (of air) is sympathetic to all the other cards, waiting for the conflict to subside before her outer world can be put in order again.