Celtic Cross 2

Because once wasn’t enough J

When you are interpreting the Celtic Cross, it's not just where the cards lie - it’s how they balance each other, it’s how many of one suite appear, how many of another don’t (ie do you have all wands and no pentacles? Too much fire/energy, not enough grounding…)

The Basis is balanced by the Self – how you make your decisions,  what you remember about your life,  what holds power for you,  is balanced by how you feel about yourself,  how you see yourself. 

Your hopes and fears play against your possible outcome.  I’ve done readings where the recent future card moves to the recent past as I read for the same person 6 months later..

Lots to play with when you look at how the cards fall…

Celtic Cross Layout

I’ve gone through the cards, individually and by numbers.  Now how do I lay them out? There are many, many ways to lay the cards out in tarot but I only use one.  I’ve used it for so many years now that its subtleties and intricacies just leap out at me…

I use the Celtic Cross,  which is 10 cards laid out in a set pattern

1 & 2 are what’s at your core,  2 is the sideways card which is  your cross at this moment

3  is your basis, the energy/attitude you use to make decisions

4  is recent past

5  is possible outcome, hovering, not quite on the cards – do we pull it in or push it away?

6  is near future (within the next 3 months)

7  is self,  how you feel about yourself

8  is external environment – which I read as work or college, or where you spend most of your day…

9  is hopes and fears - always a rich spot

10  is outcome,  the culmination of all the previous cards…

There have been books written about the Celtic Cross spread, this is only the briefest of outlines, but if you have one of my readings,  it gives you an idea of how the cards will be played… 

Reading in public spaces

Kitchenette, where I do my 8.30 pm readings

I do all my readings in local cafes.  Every so often I get a sweet email like this:  (this is real email exchange that I had with a client)

Hi Liat,

I was wondering if we could be pretty private at the cafe you are planning to take me to? I honestly don't want other people overhear you readings of me. Hope you would understand me.

So I wrote back: I know people have these concerns but I’ve never had any problem and no one has ever said afterwards that they were at all nervous or felt intruded upon. I have no other options, I do all my readings at cafes, but also, all the reviews you read came from these public readings…

And I got this charming reply:- Yes, it's NYC. No one cares! I will stop worrying and will look forward to seeing you pretty soon.

At Le Pain Quotidian,  where I do my 5.30 readings

  

Cafe Josephine,  where I do my 3 pm readings

Let me see what the cards tell me...

I read this review of mine recently where the person wrote of the great lengths she went to, to keep anonymous, giving me a false name,  creating a new email,  all so that I wouldn’t be able to google her, and I wouldn’t know anything about her before we met.  She was thinking that I might research her to trick her…  

Sometimes other people email me and their automatic signature has links to their blogs or websites.  I never look at them.  If people write to tell me about their situations, I try not to read it.  I prefer to know nothing about people before they come and see me. The more I know, the less magic you feel.  It’s when I know nothing, and the cards reveal real and true information, that the reading is exciting.  When I do the cold reading,  I can tell the truth the cards tell me, without having to color my information, and if I know too much,  then it interferes with that.

Of course, once I have read for you a few times, a new way of reading the cards develops. I begin to see patterns of similar cards appearing,  or moving from future to past and new cards emerging.  But again,  when people come to see me again,  I always start by saying,  don’t tell me anything,  let me see what the cards tell me…   

Powerful images by Dina Sierra

Death and Butterflies

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
Richard Bach

When people draw the quite scary death card, I always assure them that the Tarot, which is fundamentally optimistic, sees Death not as an ending but as a transformative experience - the death of the caterpillar to become the butterfly.  But of course, when we are caterpillars it’s hard to imagine that such a transformation can take place, and anyways, once it does, we won’t be caterpillars any more..  

Or as George Carlin puts it - The caterpillar does all the work but the butterfly gets all the publicity.  Of course the essential question is, how does one become a butterfly? “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar,” writes Trina Paulus. All deep change involves some loss… at the end we know it is worth it, but I know it’s hard to let go of the caterpillar sometimes.

What do Reversals mean in Tarot?

When the card in a reading comes out upside down, it’s called a reversed card.  So what do those reversals mean?  Firstly, you can fill a book with that answer, so this won’t be the complete answer;   but essentially, reversals take the meaning of the upright card and twist it a little…  I often call reversals the shadow side of the cards, taking their worst or suppressed qualities and emphasizing them.  

The sadder or more negative cards often hold their meaning no matter which they are spun – 5 ofcups, 8 swords,  – it means you are sadder,  or feeling really trapped, but doesn’t change the essential meaning.  However with the more positive cards, for e.g. the 9 of cups, it can move you from contentment to discontentment…  not feeling your cups overflowing but feeling them emptying…

Showing once again that reading the cards is as much art as science,  it also depends on context – how many of the cards are reversed,  what are the reversed cards next to,  how do they affect each other…   all these affect how the cards are read.

These beautiful images can all be found on artduh on etsy...

Card Images

I find images all over the place and I can't always credit them,  because I don't always know where they came from - perhaps the site I found them on didn't credit them,  or they are all over the place and I can't figure out where the original source was... 

A dear client sent me this today -  a kickstarter project for an urban tarot deck based on New York and as I looked at the images I realized that I had already selected quite a few,  and loved most of the others.   

I really like this project by Robert Scott.  So I've kickstarted him for a tarot deck and perhaps I'll read from it one day for you...