The Daily Draw: Seven of Swords

Off You Go

In the RWS Seven of swords we see someone who is sneaking off with five swords. It should be seven, but he’s in such a rush to get out there he dropped two. Or maybe he’s looking around to see what happened to them and is about to go back and get them. Or maybe he’s not stealing them at all—maybe he’s sneaking them in to some captured rebel alliance in an effort to break them out. Or, looking at it a little less literally, maybe he’s striking out on his own because he’d rather do whatever he’s doing without objections, interference or other points of view, although how he’s going to manage all seven swords at once is beyond me. He can’t even do it in the Pamela Coleman Smith illustration, let alone on the field.

The Seven of Swords is one of those cards that makes it obvious that interpretation is in the eye, mind and intuition of the interpreter. The meaning can go in a variety of directions depending on the context, what you’re picking up from the seeker, and your own internal filter. Yes, we try to be objective and as clear of our own stuff as possible when doing a reading, but admit it—one or two interpretations jumped out at you while others didn’t occur to you. For me it was sneaky dealings of one sort or another with lone wolf following quickly behind in second place, ironically enough.

I will give you some context now. The question was, “What do people need from me today?” We can all make a case for our different interpretations of this single, stand-alone card. And as long as we come by those definitions with a certain degree of honesty and integrity, who is to say whether one is better than the other, more “right” or more “wrong”. We don’t all interpret identically, not just with the cards, but in all things.

Even taking one of the possible interpretations here, that he is stealing the swords, some might assume that he is acting dishonestly and some might not. Your own feelings about that are probably tied to the question “why is he taking the swords?”. The obvious answer is that he’s a thief. Maybe, and maybe those were his swords to begin with and he is taking back what is rightfully his. Or maybe he’s trying to prevent a battle that would end in disaster. Of course he might not be stealing them at all. How do you know? We need more context, insight and intuition?

On a more logical level we’ve probably all read up on various interpretations of this card from sources good, bad and indifferent, so that will come into play. Swords, relate to the intellect, justice, force and fortitude. The number seven is where spirit and matter unite, and perhaps conflict, forcing us to make a choice, take us out of our comfort zone and do something we wouldn’t normally do. We can juggle all those swords in our left brain while deciding on an interpretation, and probably drop a few in the process like the guy in the card.

So what is the answer? Wait a minute, what was the question again? “What do people need from me today?” Hmmm, I seem to have just wandered out on my own and done my own thing without giving you a tangible answer. Yep, you’re on your own. Don’t worry. There’s so much to work with here I’m sure you’ll come up with something. It will be the interpretation you think, feel and trust in, without anyone telling you what it should be. You can collect all the information and second-hand insight you want, but eventually you have to strike out on your own. You alone know what this card means to you, in your life, on this day.

Hey, I just thought of another one—maybe this guy is playing a practical joke on his friends. Maybe he’s practical joking with intent.

The Daily Draw: Page of Pentacles reversed

Learn to Be Effective

Page of Pentacles, reversed The pentacles are about the material, the tangible, the pragmatic. They also have to do with what is sturdy and what is trustworthy. With the youthful energy of the page the Page this card can relate to learning to create something solid in the 3-D world or having a youthful eagerness to do so, whether that be a house, a business or a good reputation, for example.

The young person here is standing in a lush, grassy field. A grove of mature trees are in the background. To the right there is tilled farmland. My guess is this person didn’t make it that way, but they might be the latest generation of those who did, or someone who is drawn to this work but just learning the craft.

With the Page of Pentacles reversed I get the sense that something isn’t quite right. Maybe the page has taken his or her eye off the pentacle being gazed at with such intent. Maybe not enough attention is being paid to detail. Maybe corners are being cut due to impatience or external factors. The king and the knight know it takes time and effort to produce a quality result. While there may be time-saving tips that come with experience, there are no shortcuts. You have to pay attention to the process, and not just focus on the desired result. Otherwise you may find more time wishing you were making something as opposed to actually making it.

Alternatively, reversed cards can have an internalized aspect. Depending on the context the advice here might be to think through the project, study the blueprints, plan things out before you begin. The temptation might be to just start doing your work, but some consideration beforehand can improve the effectiveness of that work greatly.

If you’ve already started the project, maybe you need to ask yourself if what you are doing is really working or whether it just seemed like a good idea at the time. There’s no harm in taking time to see whether the steps you are taking are leading to your desired outcome. Chances are you’ re working individually, so you have sole responsibility but you also have freedom of choice to change what you are doing if you don’t seem to be getting the result you want.

The Daily Draw: The Hanged Man

Yesterday’s post, the Nine of Wands Reversed, was basically about letting go of defensiveness. To carry on the theme of letting go, today’s draw is the Hanged Man, a person who has somehow managed to get tied by the ankle to danglie upside down from a wooden T cross. Yet he seems at peace with his predicament, glowing in fact. Maybe he knows something we don’t.

At 12, The Hanged Man comes in sequence between Justice and Death. To condense that down to one sentence: Reap what you have sewn, accept the results, change accordingly so you can move on up the spiral. The Hanged Man, of course, is the acceptance part. Change (Death) is coming whether you accept it or not. Wouldn’t it be to your advantage to go with it and not to fight it?

The Hanged Man can also indicate taking a step back, removing yourself from a situation, or at least the drama of a situation, and becoming more of an objective observer. Part of that is letting go of your own emotional baggage, expectations, or projections of a desired outcome to a situation. When you remove these filters to your perception the picture becomes clearer and you can better see the truth of what is, as opposed to what you wish it was or are pretending it might be.

Maybe you’re part of a perpetual cycle of conflict that seems to be going nowhere. Often the best way to break the cycle is to simply stop. It can be incredibly difficult to let go of a fight when you are right. If you are right you should win, right? Except the person who disagrees with you is also right, or at least thinks they are. You know they are wrong, but they know they are right. But you’re the one who is really right, right? Right! So why don’t you both agree? In fact, why doesn’t everyone agree with you? I’ll tell you why: it’s because everyone is right. Don’t believe me? Try finding someone who thinks they’re wrong. Even if they say they’re wrong, they’re right about being wrong.

So everybody is right. Now what do we do? Maybe the most effective thing you can do is to give up your need for everyone to know and acknowledge that you are right. Sacrifice your desire to be crowned king or queen of the right fighters. At first this may be confusing or disorienting for the people you’ve been arguing with—“This isn’t the expected bow back to my bluster.” The bluster will be taken out of them, or if it isn’t they will have to go somewhere else for their drama fix because they won’t be getting it from you. Be the bigger person, set the example, be consistent. Eventually people figure out who the bigger person is without you needing to tell them. (Hint: If you need to tell them, you’re probably not it). They might even come to realize that you’re…well, you know…

I know those last couple of paragraphs sounded a bit wandy. I guess I’m feeling the progression from yesterday’s Nine of Wands. On the other hand, yer man is tied to a big honking wand, of greater girth than any of the wands in the suit cards. More growth too, if you look at the edges.

Ultimately the message I’m getting today is take a step back to take two steps forward. Sacrifice your ego to fulfill your soul. Let go so you can have what you really want. You know it’s the right thing to do.

The Daily Draw: Nine of Wands, reversed

Is This Battle Necessary?

Nine of Wands, Reversed The Nine of Wands has been through some tough times and they’re not over yet, as illustrated on the card in the RWS deck. This person is banged up and bruised but ever vigilant, expecting trouble and, staff in hand, prepared for another fight.

The Nine of Wands is a card of self-defence and it’s a card of defensiveness, two sides of the same coin really. A person who expects to be attacked often becomes defensive, and the expectation of being attacked comes from a pattern of being attacked previously. On the other hand, a defensive nature can be a magnet for attracting situations in which you need to defend yourself—people who seem to be spoiling for a fight are often more likely to find themselves in one. And before long you have your classic “chicken or egg” perpetual cycle.

As with any cycle, the only way to really break it is to get off the roundabout. Slam on the breaks, stop, go someplace different, drive away from the drama. Yes, I know, that’s easier said than done. Some battles will fall apart like a house of cards when you stop giving them your energy, and others will persist because it’s not necessarily all about you, or if it is, it’s something you need to work on as part of your life path, or maybe you just did something stupid and now you’re paying for it. You’ll have to work that one out for yourself .

I personally have finally realized that not letting people push me around just to keep the peace (which never comes as a result) is probably one of the big things I’m here to work on. And, oh yes, I have felt the energy of the nine of wands. But being defensive has not served me well in the past. It just seems to create more drama.

Here is what I’m thinking today. The Nine of Wands is reversed. Maybe it’s time to try something different, put down the staff, take a different stance, tell your solar plexus it doesn’t need to go through life at DEFCON 2. Sure, you have the stamina and perseverance to keep on fighting, but is it worth it?

What if I told you that altering your perception of what’s going on around you can alter your perceived need to be defensive. Let me tell you a about a real-life Nine of Wands experience…

I’m from America but I’ve been living in Ireland over a quarter century. I don’t get back much. So when I do there tends to be a bit of culture shock. I think it was six or seven years before I made my first trip back (in the late 90s). It was a business trip that involved travelling to Texas. Being from New England, it was familiar yet foreign to me already.

The first morning I went for breakfast in the small dining area of the hotel (it wasn’t the Hyatt). The news was on. I’d spent the last half dozen years or so watching RTE and BBC news (pre-Sky), low key, rational tones, considered opinions (at least relatively speaking) but when I sat down in front of this newscast in Texas I was suddenly bombarded with an urgent talking head loudly proclaiming “YOU ARE IN DANGER FROM EVERYTHING AND ANYTHING BLACK PEOPLE WHITE PEOPLE RICH PEOPLE POOR PEOPLE THE ENEMY’S GOVERNMENT YOUR GOVERNENT GREENPEACE GREEN PEAS THE WATER THE AIR YOUR CAR CHRISTMAS BLAH BLAH BLAH” screaming while and a banner streamed alternative things to fear at the bottom of the screen. Whether intentional or not, the effect was to pump massive amounts of fear into the viewing public. Is it any wonder why so many people are shooting each other when they are getting pumped full of fear for breakfast.

So, do you think the people watching this newscast would be more Nine of Wands or less Nine of Wands than the people who had music with their breakfast? And yet, both groups of people lived in the same America. The crime rate was not higher for one group than the other regardless of whether they were on guard and stressed out or chilled out.

Sometimes you truly need to defend yourself. But sometimes you just need to let go, unplug. Ask yourself whether you need to get involved with this battle. Maybe this is somebody else’s story and you don’t need to be emotionally involved. Maybe it’s your story and it’s no longer a good enough story to defend. Maybe it’s time to let it go.

The Daily Draw: Page of Cups, Reversed

Have Fun, Be Careful

The page of cups is a young person who is contemplating a fish popping out of the cup they are holding, perhaps a bit amused. “Can anyone else see the fish popping out of this cup?”, the person might say, if anyone else was present.

The pages often represent young people and/or students, and you know what they’re like—always having fun and playing around and doing stuff that older people like me are too mature to participate in. (Yeah, right.) So for me there is a certain playfulness and openness in this card.

With cups you get emotions, intuition and matters of the heart, all of which are deeply connected as you know. So the page would be inclined to play with these energies, experiment, try them out, see what happens, and share, share, share. It can be fun and exciting to develop your talents. Of course you want to share those feelings and talents with the world, and why not?

The Page of cups is reversed today. Sometimes this can indicate obstacles and sometimes it can indicate an internal, introspective focus (to pick just two examples reverse card indicators). I’m thinking this has something to do with being circumspect, which does not necessarily go hand in hand with the young, excited and playful energy that just wants to go out and do things.

Sharing unreservedly is all great while we are having fun, but remember we are playing with the emotional toy box. Unless you live on a deserted island, (and maybe not even then), you are not playing with only your emotions. They are a large part of how we all interconnect and interact. You don’t need to be an empath to appreciate that, but if you are an empath you really appreciate it.

Not everyone is so aware of their internal world, and even those who are can have blind spots, sensitive “proceed with caution” or “Wrong Way. Go Back” areas. These are their challenges to work through, parts of their own life-path experience. As a healer you want to save the world one person at a time. And it can happen in the right context, under the right circumstances and with willing participation.

Notice the last two words of the previous sentence. As healers we are not healing people. We are facilitating people in healing themselves. As readers we are not preaching the truth. People are inviting us to provide insight that will allow them to find their own truth, and even then we may hold back, for good reason, if what we see is not kind or useful.

These are important distinctions, because unlike a medical professional who can set a broken bone or put in a few stitches whether the patient is willing or stone cold unconscious, we cannot go leaping in uninvited with our eager, optimistic, positive energy. You don’t get to decide when someone is ready to heal. You don’t get to decide when somebody is ready to see the truth. That is up to them.

So now kids, go out and play and enjoy the weekend. Have fun. But be careful out there. We don’t want anyone to get hurt. I mean, you wouldn’t intentionally run your skateboard over someone’s leg would you? Of course not. Stay aware and try to avoid any accidents. The internal bumps and bruises can be more painful than the obvious, external ones.

The Daily Draw: Knight of Pentacles

The knight of pentacles is not the fastest knight, the smartest knight or the most exciting knight. But he is steady and sturdy. He might not be the life of the party, but he’ll make sure everyone has enough to eat and that you get home safely.

This knight is focussed on the practical. In the RWS deck, his full attention is on the large, golden pentacle in his right hand, which seems to shine brightly like the sun and fill the sky with light. The panorama of tilled farmland in the background suggests that much work has been done, and there is much left to go. Like the crops growing, it won’t happen quickly, but it will happen provided he remains dedicated to the task.

Having moved house recently (ok, more like five months ago), I can appreciate what he is telling me. The last house had such vast attic space that we were able to keep our hoarded goods without having to look at them. The new house has much more living space, but there is no hiding all the stuff we accumulated over the years. So with intentions of doing some serious decluttering (eventually) we stuffed the surplus into a dining room we weren’t using and shut the door while we sorted out the rest of the house. (The kitchen is large enough to accommodate our own dining room table without getting in the way of other kitchen business.). Then summer came, four small children were home from school all day and… you know how it is.

But wanting to use the dining space as a computer room/home studio we eventually had to face the elephant shaped pile of boxes in the room. We attempted to do that last weekend, and we made great progress before we collapsed, but some jobs just can’t be completed in one day. Turning a filled storage space into a music studio while trying to decide what clutter you can part with and reinstalling all your software on a replacement hard drive is one of them.

The knight of pentacles reminds us to keep our heads down and our eyes focussed on our work. Just keep moving forward at a steady pace. Focus on the process, not the result. The result will come. Don’t be distracted by how far away you may be from realizing your goal and how much there is to do before you achieve it. You’ll get there if you keep going.

The Daily Draw: Queen of Pentacles, Reversed

School’s In

Queen of Pentacles, reversed The Queen of Pentacles is a nurturing mother figure. (And, yes, could also apply to a nurturing father.) This is the person who makes the house a home, who takes care of everyone, makes sure the dinner is made, that there are clean clothes, and everyone is safe and sound.

This morning my attention is drawn to two details of this card—the sky and the growth. The sky is yellow, which could related to solar plexus energy, which could tie in with this queen’s ability to give, give, and give some more. The plant life, especially around the throne, grows densely in great, thick lines. So the sun is shining and the plants are thriving.

But this card is reversed, and that that yellow sunlight seems a bit dull to me this morning, maybe because it is letting the growth drain it a little too much. I’m thinking maybe this card is cautioning against burnout – mind yourself as well as everyone else.

I know Trish and I are both feeling a bit dull this morning. With school starting this week and four small children going off in two directions, the last few days have been busy. With no exaggeration I can say that yesterday started at 6:30 AM with Trish and I getting the twins ready for the bus that comes at 7:30, and it ended at 11:15 PM when the last of the dishes were washed and put away, with everything in the middle being taken up by the day job, the kids, housework, a bit of shopping and the commute from one to the other. By that time, Trish was already asleep, having been even busier all day.

So that’s what I need to know today. Nurture your family, but remember you are part of that family and nurture yourself too. Mammy and daddy are people too, not machines. Don’t take yourself for granted even if your kids do. (Well, that’s on their job description, isn’t it.)

Get support if you can, you deserve it. If not, go DIY without reservation. Replenish your energy. Recharge you batteries. You can’t give what you haven’t got.

The Daily Draw: The Hanged Man

Play the Rests

The Hanged Man

Yesterday we had a conversation about the Knight of Cups and how it might not always be appropriate to go charging in full steam with that energy depending on the situation or people involved. Interestingly, today I have drawn the Hanged Man who says, ”This would be a good time to do nothing”.

Of course, even the act of doing nothing is, in fact, doing something in the same way that pausing for the rests in music is a part of playing music. And there are various methods of doing nothing, several of which are implied by this card.

For example, have you been trying hard to resolve an issue or make progress in a situation or in an interpersonal relationship (not necessarily a romantic one). The Hanged Man suggests that maybe it’s time to stop what you have been doing and just let it be, at least for now. Maybe what you want isn’t meant to be—maybe you’re trying to grow flowers in cracked concrete. On the other hand, maybe you’ve made an effort and now some time and patience is required—maybe there’s some topsoil under that cracked concrete after all, but those flowers need to grow at their own pace.

The hanged man is also about letting go. Letting go of the need for a desired outcome, for example, and instead standing back to observe what happens next. You can’t always force your will on situations or events and you sure can’t do it to people, at least not in any way where you get a guaranteed result or even desired one. Push too hard and eventually you will inspire a revolt.

Letting go might include letting go of something you’ve been holding on to—a limiting belief, a goal that might not be in your best interest to achieve, a habit or behaviour that no longer serves you. Giving up something can sometimes look like a sacrifice when in fact it is progress in disguise. It can seem like giving up when in fact it is embracing freedom—the freedom to just be, to breathe, to let go of expectations and the stress that can surround them. Amazing things can happen when you let go and make space by playing the rests in the soundtrack of your life.

The Daily Draw: Knight of Cups, Reversed

Is This Appropriate?

Knight of Cups Reversed Knights are people of action, inspired by their own abilities to charge off and test their skill, often before completely thinking through the implications. In other words, the knights can be a bit self-absorbed, so caught up in the action of the energy their suit represents that they can forget that those actions impact the people around them. Don’t get me wrong—knights often have good intentions. That’s not the issue. It’s more a matter of experience and self-awareness.

Let’s take the Knight of Cups, since that’s the one that came up today. The cups are the suit of the emotions, intuition, love and romance. So what could the harm be in rushing in to share all that energy with the world? For one thing, the world might not be in the humour for it. There are people in the world who would like it to be Valentine’s Day every day, there are people in the world who just about manage to struggle through once a year, for one reason or another, and then there are all kinds of people in between. This isn’t necessarily a good thing or a bad thing, it is just a thing.

Some people can’t help but skip around full of the joys and some people have a hard outer shell that covers a soft center, or soft-ish, in spots anyway. In the abstract you might think those people would complement each other, and in some cases they might. But in other cases it could be like pairing Spongebob Sqarepants with Clint Eastwood – it wouldn’t really work, and things would turn ugly quickly enough. (We can assume Spongebob is the knight of Cups in this scenario).

As another example, those of us honing our intuitive skills can become quite excited by any personal breakthroughs we might have, and can’t wait to share any new and/or improved abilities with friends and family. However, those people might not be quite as delighted as you that you can now read auras, for example, or know what they are feeling the moment they do. Some of them might actually find this a tad annoying, perhaps even voyeuristic and think, “here’s one more blow to my privacy”.

I’m not asking you to be anything other than yourself, of course not. I’m just asking you to consider the people around you who also have feelings, even if they don’t seem to be as vibrantly colored as yours. It’s all relative.

Whether a knight is upside down or right side, before you go charging in you want to ask yourself if using this energy is going to be helpful or appropriate for a given situation or relationship. Or perhaps whether, in this situation, less is more and what is “normal” to you is way, way too much for the other person.

The Daily Draw: Queen of Cups, Reversed

Tired and Emotional

Queen of Cups, Reversed

The Cups are the suit of emotions, so even if you didn’t know anything about Tarot you could probably imagine the Queen of Cups as an emotionally-focused HSP, unless you’re that guy I saw on “Don’t Tell the Bride” last night who showed up to his own wedding in a Batman suit. No, not the kind worn by Christian Bale, I could have understood that, though not condoned it of course ;-). No, this was an actual black dress suit with an ugly, yellow Batman logo pattern all over it. It was a good reminder that there’s just no understanding what goes on in some people’s heads. But I digress.

I needed that laugh. It has been a long week. Wednesday I shed some light on how challenging the day job is at the moment. We’re still resolving fundamental foundation issues even though we’re halfway through the project (on paper at least). Yesterday my partner attended our second session in a course about parenting autistic children. We have twins who are nearly four who are both at different places on the spectrum.

We are in a position where we have to move (our landlord needs his house back—he’s got his own problems) and, if you haven’t heard, there is a housing crisis going on in Ireland. This goes beyond it being a renters market. In the area in which we want to stay to continue our children’s education and quality of care, there isn’t anything to rent at any price. So the landlord is ringing to say “no pressure, but…” and we’re forced to dig our heels in.

Oh, and everybody has a flu virus. Did I mention that? I had my four-year old daughter in KDOCs for a 10:30 PM emergency appointment Wednesday night (it was more like 11:30, KDOCs) to look at a serious-looking rash we discovered at 9 PM. So I bundle her in the car and we wait and wait and wait. At 11:30 we go in to see the doctor. Where was the rash? What rash?

I’m not even going to go into the Springsteen tickets I don’t have.

I’m sure this is all just water off a duck’s back to the kind of guy who wears a Batman suit to a wedding. But for us HSPs the combined wear and tear can leave one feeling tired and emotional with a desire to shut down, shut the door and go to bed, or to the pub, or something.

As counter-intuitive as it may sound, the times when you most feel like distancing yourself from your emotions are usually the times when you most need to listen to them. No one wants to feel the bad stuff, but trying to shut it out does not make it go away. Until you process those emotions, those feelings just get in your way.

Allow yourself to feel your emotions without judgement. Not to wallow in them, but to face them head on. Feel them, feel the place in your body where you experience each one. Acknowledge them, give them a chance to tell you what they need to communicate, what you need to understand. If you give them that space they will eventually pass through and resolve. In doing so you will be able to get past them so you can move on to something more pleasant.