Saturday five-card spread
Let's see what this week holds, shall we?
The first card-the past card-is the Four of Swords, the Respite card, indicating that in the time leading up to my current situation I either took or needed to take a rest. This is factually true: Last week was a bad week, and I ended up taking Friday off to stay at home in my pajamas, selling stuff on eBay and watching Call the Midwife. It was nice. Most of yesterday was spent reading or workshopping about poker, which was also nice.
The present card is the Three of Swords, the Heartache card. This card symbolizes pain and anguish, and often suggests that you need to let go of something that is only causing you hurt. I will admit I am indeed in a generally irritable, stressed-out spot; I'm feeling better after my time off but I know I do have to start thinking seriously about looking for another job, and that's enormously, enormously upsetting to me since this is basically one of only two jobs I've had since entering the workforce that I've really liked-and this one has so much room for growth that I don't want to give up on.
The hidden influences card here is the Heirophant, which refers to tradition, convention/conventional wisdom, top-down education or mentorship, or moral and spiritual development. The Louis book calls it the high priest archetype; there's also a possibility of looking at it more as a scholar-priest figure. The Stiefvater deck illustrates it as "the spiritual glow of the soul safely contained in a lantern," which I think is lovely. As a hidden influences card, I'm not sure if it's assuring me that some part of The Establishment has my back (my managing editor does, but that is not a secret) or if it's maybe warning me that my thinking/approach to things has been conventional-that I'm more inside-the-box than I had realized. Whether I should stick with this sort if tried-and-true thinking I can't tell-the Heirophant seems to usually be a positive card in its way, but this isn't the advice spot in this reading.
The card in the advice spot is the Moon, a liminal, mysterious card that represents, among other things, fantasy, deceit, intuition, lies, confusion, emotional instability, hunches, dreams, self-deception, psychology, and not knowing where you're going. As an advice card, it recommends that you pay attention to your dreams and feelings, and to confront unconscious forces and become aware of what lies buried in your psyche or in the past. It advises to notice how ingrained patterns from the past are influencing current behavior. It is, to be frank, an exhausting and tricky card. I am sure I am deluding myself about stuff on several levels, probably I'll never master all the things I've decided to study this year the way I've never finished my damn novel, and that's too depressing to think about.
The likely outcome card is the Hermit, which is what I'm gonna have to become if I want to ever pay off my credit card balance, lol. The Hermit is also a "searching within" sort of card, like the Moon; it is a card of rest, of a sort, like the Four of Swords, advocating retreating from the world; in the Stiefvater deck, it is illustrated by a lantern, like the Heirophant, only now the lantern is itself safely sheltered in a cave. So it ties in all the other cards in this spread except the Heartbreak present card, which is maybe the thing I need to withdraw to heal from.
Overall I think this spread is saying I have a lot of self-care to do to safely and smartly get myself out of my current Three of Swords spot. I should not necessarily take this week easy, but take it quietly and seriously.
The first card-the past card-is the Four of Swords, the Respite card, indicating that in the time leading up to my current situation I either took or needed to take a rest. This is factually true: Last week was a bad week, and I ended up taking Friday off to stay at home in my pajamas, selling stuff on eBay and watching Call the Midwife. It was nice. Most of yesterday was spent reading or workshopping about poker, which was also nice.
The present card is the Three of Swords, the Heartache card. This card symbolizes pain and anguish, and often suggests that you need to let go of something that is only causing you hurt. I will admit I am indeed in a generally irritable, stressed-out spot; I'm feeling better after my time off but I know I do have to start thinking seriously about looking for another job, and that's enormously, enormously upsetting to me since this is basically one of only two jobs I've had since entering the workforce that I've really liked-and this one has so much room for growth that I don't want to give up on.
The hidden influences card here is the Heirophant, which refers to tradition, convention/conventional wisdom, top-down education or mentorship, or moral and spiritual development. The Louis book calls it the high priest archetype; there's also a possibility of looking at it more as a scholar-priest figure. The Stiefvater deck illustrates it as "the spiritual glow of the soul safely contained in a lantern," which I think is lovely. As a hidden influences card, I'm not sure if it's assuring me that some part of The Establishment has my back (my managing editor does, but that is not a secret) or if it's maybe warning me that my thinking/approach to things has been conventional-that I'm more inside-the-box than I had realized. Whether I should stick with this sort if tried-and-true thinking I can't tell-the Heirophant seems to usually be a positive card in its way, but this isn't the advice spot in this reading.
The card in the advice spot is the Moon, a liminal, mysterious card that represents, among other things, fantasy, deceit, intuition, lies, confusion, emotional instability, hunches, dreams, self-deception, psychology, and not knowing where you're going. As an advice card, it recommends that you pay attention to your dreams and feelings, and to confront unconscious forces and become aware of what lies buried in your psyche or in the past. It advises to notice how ingrained patterns from the past are influencing current behavior. It is, to be frank, an exhausting and tricky card. I am sure I am deluding myself about stuff on several levels, probably I'll never master all the things I've decided to study this year the way I've never finished my damn novel, and that's too depressing to think about.
The likely outcome card is the Hermit, which is what I'm gonna have to become if I want to ever pay off my credit card balance, lol. The Hermit is also a "searching within" sort of card, like the Moon; it is a card of rest, of a sort, like the Four of Swords, advocating retreating from the world; in the Stiefvater deck, it is illustrated by a lantern, like the Heirophant, only now the lantern is itself safely sheltered in a cave. So it ties in all the other cards in this spread except the Heartbreak present card, which is maybe the thing I need to withdraw to heal from.
Overall I think this spread is saying I have a lot of self-care to do to safely and smartly get myself out of my current Three of Swords spot. I should not necessarily take this week easy, but take it quietly and seriously.