Have you ever been lied to, in such an obvious fashion that it almost seems silly to bother pointing out that you weren’t fooled? Well, I was lied to in just such a way last night. So, I did a reading on how to respond.

(well, first I did some readings on why they would do such a thing, but that’s not for sharing here!)

Anyway, I did this reading with my Victorian Flower Oracle. I just put down three cards in a single “what to do?” position:

These were the Forget-me-not (Farewell), Water Lily (Piety), and Mimosa (Sensitivity). I have to say I thought the message was pretty clear: Walk Away Quietly. In other words, you don’t want to fight with this person, but you don’t want to be around them either. You want to keep the mood as serene as possible, as you sensitively fade out of this person’s life. The water lily also reminds me of my (mostly) Buddhist ideals, which is not to attempt to hurt people because they hurt you… that is not the way. But, staying in a bad situation is just hurting yourself, which is also not good. Sometimes the best answer is to simply extract yourself, and not throw any more fuel on their fire.

When reading for yourself you have to worry that your ego can get in the way of an objective reading. So, I’ll note here that the advice is exactly the advice I wanted to see. But, I’ve been staring at the cards for the last few minutes, and I don’t see too many radical departures from my interpretation popping up. So, I think I’m safe. As an aside: when I do wonder if I’m being objective, one method I use to test myself is I try to find an interpretation of the cards that is opposite of the meaning I want. The harder that is to do, the safer I feel that I have been sufficiently objective. And, from a metaphysical standpoint, as long as I am convinced it was a “clean” reading, there should be no obstacles between me and manifesting that future.

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.