Comfort to the afflicted and afflict the comfortable

So I read this just now - that the job of clergy is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,  and that's so sharp and smart,  I wanted to repeat it here.

I am not clergy!  But often people come to me in search of comfort,  and if they are afflicted,  I am so happy to comfort them.   I have many readings where I encourage my clients to be kinder to themselves, to be softer on themselves. 

But I still remember the reading where the woman came to me from wealthy Westchester,  with nothing but contempt for her husband who had not reached C level (He was not a CEO, CFO or even COO)  She felt that she had hitched her horse to the wrong wagon and wanted to have an affair.   

I told her that she should get a job. When her husband found out about the affair she would need it, and if she got very engaged with her job, she might not even want to have an affair. She got really cross with me.  I guess I was afflicting the comfortable there.  But it was just the idea that the man she had married and had children with had not risen to the level she expected and she wanted to punish him with an affair. Whereas I  was saying, you're in your early 40's - why don't you go out and get into the C level? But clearly she thought that was impossible for her and was angry at me for looking at that option. 

Those cards,  they can be tough! Definitely comforting the afflicted but they can certainly be an afflict to the comfortable - or vexing to the contemptuous. 

Was he unfaithful?

One question I find the tarot can always accurately answer is ‘ is s/he having an affair’ 

However recently I did a reading where a woman asked,  ‘did he sleep with other people while we were together?’ and she drew 

King pentacles / 9 of swords / 6 cups R / 4 cups. 

She felt he could have been a good boyfriend/ but also felt huge anxiety/ she needed to see the situation very clearly, without rose tinted glasses or being overly romantic/ and she was getting lost in her own thoughts.

That is not a clear answer and I was puzzled.  Usually the cards are really specific around this question.

6 of cups

 

So I asked more about the relationship.  Turned out her big fear was that he would be pressured by his family to have an arranged marriage.

Now I can understand the cards. They indicate that he did not sleep with anyone else while they were together, but he was emotionally unfaithful; he did let his family introduce him to other women.  There was no sex, but he did think about marrying them…   

The second I said that she nodded vigorously, that made complete sense to her.

4 of cups

Those cards, they are so subtle...

The cards just know...

People often ask me how I can be so sure of the cards,  and I say it’s because I see it every day… 

The other day a woman came to me,  we did the cold reading, where I don't know anything about her,   and there were some troublesome cards there – 10 of swords,  justice reversed,  page of swords.  But when I mentioned them she just shrugged and said they didn’t apply to her.  She was here to talk about whether to have a second child.  Her marriage was in a good space and she was worried that a second baby would change things, but it was the right time… so we talked about that for a while but the cards gave it no traction.  They were not interested in that topic at all. 

Finally we drew some cards on her marriage, and there was the tower.  And I looked at her and I hate to say this to people - if they think their marriage is in a good space, who I am to tell them any different? - but these cards were really clear. So I said there was something destructive going on, and until that was cleared,  I couldn’t get any other information.

And she looked at me,  and her eyes teared up and she said,  I didn’t want to talk about this,  this is not what I came here to discuss… and then she told me of her 3 year affair and how it has ended recently because he has married someone else.  

This is not something I could have known or suspected, but this is something the cards saw very clearly, and no decision about whether to have another child could be made without taking it into account…

All these beautiful images are by Andy Cherewick