Tag: Card spread

Timeflow

Blursday. The 98th day of Maraprilay in the fifth year of the great quarantine of 2020.

I dunno who came up with the “Blursday” thing on the interwebs, but they deserve a pulitzer or something for capturing the flavor of this whole thing in one word. 

It’s not a negative thing to my mind. I like Blursday. It’s my new favorite day, mostly because I was trying to freelance from home long before all of this started. I don’t mind having my all adult fam here. Free pickup at the grocery store is frosting on the 24/7 comfy pants cake. 

No great cloud is without its silver lining, and not great benefit is without its minor asspains. When I was working, even short handed and on call, time management wasn’t that big of a deal. You work your hours, execute some sort of basic hygiene, and if there was any time left there were plenty of things to do. Pick one. Sleep when you can. Easy.

Creative and freelance work is the exact opposite. Following the white rabbit of inspiration when it comes along is part of the job description. With greater flexibility means more effort is needed to manage time, even before Blursday came along.  I’m not super neat or organized in the first place, but I do like to contemplate plans for the day over morning coffee. How else can plans get blown to heck and force a person to adapt if you don’t make some semblance of a plan in the first place?

Even now, in my completely not humble opinion, the five card Modern Oracle card layout is the best all-purpose layout. I designed it to empower choices with a side of validating the path you are on. I wrote it mainly because I couldn’t find another layout that did quite that thing. No one layout can do everything. How do you make a choice when you aren’t sure what the choices are? How do you start down a path when you aren’t sure which direction to take the first step?

I’ve been looking for a good get-organized card layout. Owl and Bones Tarot had one that was close with their “embrace – face – erase” layout. They are brilliant at creating layouts (check out their Instagram feed) Triage is a lot to ask of any Tarot reading. Necessity being the mother of invention, it seemed time to write another one. The “TimeFlow” layout is simply this:

  • Let It Rest: This points to something that may have been getting a lot of your time, energy and attention that needs some space and rest. This isn’t to say that you should ignore it entirely, but maybe dial back the intensity. I want to compare it to a good southern brisket or pulled pork. You season it, then there is nothing more to do for it except low heat and plenty of time. You’ll know when it is time to bring it back out and get it ready to serve.
  • Let It Go: Some things are just plain over. Done. It no longer serves you. It it fresh out of joy to spark. Maybe this is a thought, habit, or thought habit that has grown stagnant if not outright unhealthy. This is something to consider sweeping out the door entirely.
  • Que It Up: This is about preparation and timing. It is the “on deck” circle to borrow from baseball. This is the next issue or idea to come into the spotlight. This is like the brisket in the first card that needs prepared to serve because it is almost dinner time. Think in terms of “not yet, but soon”
  • Let it Roll: Go! This card is the starter’s gun in track meet. This is number 1 on the list. This is where energy is already flowing in your favor. Don’t let the window of opportunity close on this one.

I’ve been working with this layout for a short time. I’ve already learned a few key points about it. First, it isn’t something to do often. Nothing other than a one card daily meditation should be done too often.  Follow your instinct, but don’t second guess, don’t keep asking again and again. As with any Tarot layout, the message gets muddled and confusing if it is over done.

Also like every other Tarot reading, it is more about ideas than concrete physical details. It won’t tell which project to pick up neck. It is better with intangibles. It seems to excel at pointing to the area of life or to the broad topic that most warrants your attention (or needs to be set aside.) For example if someone is frustrated at work, a coins card might say to let career rest, a swords card might ask them to let go of the idea of impressing a certain boss, cups might direct their attention toward a relationship whose time has not quite come, and finally, a wands card might point out the urgency of managing stress and feeding the inner spiritual world right now. It seems to organize within a single topic, too, when the topic is intangible.

So far, I’ve only read for myself with this card pattern, but I’m hoping you will help me change that. If you are interested in a FREE TimeFlow reading by email, please visit the special offers page and use the contact form there. That form is the only place that the free reading is available. I hope you will be patient…I don’t yet know how fast these will turn around or what the interest will be. I also hope you will send your feedback about the reading. I’d love to hear what you think! Don’t wait…the offer expires Blursday, the 98th day of Maraprilay in the fifth year of the great 2020 quarantine…

Q&A: Ace of Cups and the Lovers, combining two cards

How-to post from the Modern Oracle / Tarotbytes archives (2015 reprise of an older post)

Q: What does the combination of the Lovers Card and the Ace of Cups card mean in a tarot reading when part of the question is about romance?

A: It depends.

This where Tarot reading gets a little complicated…this is exactly why professionals charge for their services. It takes some time and effort to get your head around this kind of thing. Good for you for getting help to understand instead of just dismissing it all. Well done! You question is a perfect example of why there is more to reading Tarot cards than just memorizing card meanings.

Even if you are only dealing with a one card meditation, you have to consider the context. Full layouts raise even more questions. What layout are you using? What position was the card in within that layout? What meaning does the position have? What type of message was being given for the particular card? Advice? Caution? Validation? Acknowledgement? Something else?

Now raise all of that to the power of 2 cards. Or to the power of however many cards are in the layout. You have to consider all that stuff for each card, plus how each card relates to all the other cards, the question being asked, and the patterns within the layout as a whole. The more cards, the more exponentially complicated the reading becomes. Which in turn is why I don’t like enormous layouts. In my experience, after 7 cards or so, a reading gets real gnarly, real fast. It seems there is a crossover point, a critical mass where the reading becomes more confusing than clarifying. That’s also why I use single card daily meditation readings to teach beginber Tarot reading in my e-book PeaceTarot . That’s the best place to start when you are learning.

Now take all of that and multiply it again by magnitudes of ethical considerations. Romance readings are a special kind of difficult because of the other person involved. Unless you have their significant other’s direct permission read about them, then the reading has to focus only on the person getting the reading. If you are reading for yourself, then you must respect the other person’s privacy and dignity. The key is to look for advice about how YOU can do whatever is best for the relationship.
Putting the special relationship ethics aside, we still haven’t looked at understanding these two cards.

For example if the Ace of Cups represents the lessons from the past, you might get a different overall message than if the Lovers was in that position. For example, if we interpret the Ace as “inner light” (as Diane Morgan does) and that is a lesson from the past, then the overall meaning might be to use your inner wisdom to help guide the relationship. It could be a hint to ket the heart rule the head, and make emotions a prime consideration.

Now switch things around. Lovers symbolizes your deepest desires. If the lessons from the past is to look at desires and what you’ve learned from them…the message may be more like what are your desires are doing to your spiritual development? Are your desires feeding your inner light or hampering it?

The difference between the two messages is a bit subtle, but it could mean the difference between giving a good reading, and giving a really masterful one.
So the real answer to your question is that I can’t tell the meaning without knowing the context in which the two cards appeared.

If you were reading for yourself, jot down your questions, all of cards and their layout positions, then we can look at the layout together and figure it all out in a private Tarot how-to-read lesson instead of the typical private session if you like.

Hope this helps a little. Let me know if you want to set up that lesson.

Best

10 of Cups and the Fool: How do you read opposite Tarot Cards?

 

Q: What do you do when two cards in one spread seem to be total opposites? I was reading for myself and had both the Fool and the 10 of cups. I’ve always thought of the Fool as beginnings and 10 of cups as a happy ending. How can you have both beginnings and endings in one reading?

A: Several things come to mind.

First question to ask yourself is “are these two cards talking about the same thing?”

If each card resonates with different facet of life, they could easily carry vastly different messages. For example, the Fool might refer to work where someone might be ending a project successfully while at the same time they may only be at the beginning of a new romance.

Another helpful thing is to look at the placement of the cards within the layout. Could the cards be pointing out different points in a process, or different sequential parts of some larger overall idea. Even though they are different, can they work together in sequence like the parts of a sentence? For example that work project…the Fool and 10 might combine into a sequence something like “Don’t make the new project harder than it really is. A light heart makes for a light load and a happy ending.”

Knowing the “meaning” for each card’s position within the larger spread can help figure that one out.

Like I’ve always said about the 8 of Cups – the best way to solve a paradox is to look for the bigger picture. Often a step back and a wider view will show that two seemingly very different things are just different pieces in a bigger jigsaw puzzle. Beginnings and endings seem opposite if you think of them as a single, linear process. But what if you take a step back and think of them as natural cycles instead? Then they cozy up together very nicely. Summer ends, but fall begins. The caterpillar ends, but the butterfly begins. Is there a big-picture cyclic message of some kind here?

If none of that makes sense out of the reading for you, it’s time to do a little logical legwork. Each Tarot card has lots of “meanings”. The fool can be associated with beginnings…or a reminder to play. 10 of cups can be a good ending…or deep roots and family happiness. If the other context clues don’t help, break out your favorite reference books and warm up the google machine…a little light browsing of other meanings and associations might let an idea jump out at you.

If worse comes to absolute worse, you could always re-do the reading, but in my experience it seems to work out better to wring the meaning out of your original cards rather then keep re-reading the daylights out of a question. Looking for guidance about the same thing over and over and over seems to muddle and frustrate things more than clarify them most of the time.

Good luck! Any other questions, don’t hesitate to let me know