Seeing the woods AND the trees

Sometimes I want to write a post and realize it's becoming a maze,  I'm cramming in too much information and meandering through too many trails.  

Sometimes when we are looking at our own lives,  we can't see the wood for the trees - we either get lost in the details or fixated on one issue and can't see the big picture or how things are playing off each other.

That's where a reading helps.  It starts with a big picture overview,  (the celtic cross reading) and then gets down to the nitty gritty (the questions) and hopefully gets you to a clearer place. 

Of course sometimes we want simple solutions to complex questions.  And the tarot can do that too,  but there is always effort and cost (emotional,  spiritual , physical and financial) to shift and you have to be prepared to do that... 

Sometimes it takes a crisis

Sometimes you need a crisis to see a solution.  Sometimes you put so much energy into keeping the status quo,  that it's only when it (you) break that you can find a different way of doing things.

People come to me to find solutions but often, sadly,  the cards say if you keep doing what you are doing,  you're going to keep getting the same results.  If you are looking for love,  sometimes I can pull 10 cards and not find a relationship card there.  Then I say,  we have to do something different.  And we talk about what you are doing,  and what you won't do,  and what needs to be done.   And it can be a different doing for each person that comes to the reading.  Some people are too swift to cut their losses,  some people date for 6 months when they knew on the second date this wasn't going to be what they wanted.  

So if you come and feel a crisis brewing,  that may not be a bad thing - a crisis can give us the energy to change... 

Change is coming

 

Often people come to tarot readings to preempt change.  Or to try to control it.  Change is like an ocean wave,  surf it or swim under,  but you can't control it.  However knowing the wave is coming (it's always coming) and how big it is,  can help us prepare. Do we duck under or crest above?  Can we paddle before it? Often we can!  

But change is always coming... that's life. 

The scariest card

No one wants to draw the Death card.  Even if you know nothing about the tarot, one look at that card,  and you feel deep unease.

But Tarot is a subtle guidance,  and death doesn't mean death is coming for you.  It means change is coming,  deep change,  transformative change.  I wrote a blog on butterflies and change and the death card in 2012 (which just goes to show how old this blog is!) and now I'm thinking of it again.

I used to tell clients that I was thinking of getting a word tattooed on each of my wrists - the right would say LIFE and the left would say CHANGE.  Life, Change.  Life, Change.  Just to remind me and them that all life involves change.  And often is it the resistance to change,  as opposed to the change itself,  that can hurt us the most.  (I couldn't find images of that,  but I did find lots of heart beats,  whose very syncopation says that all life involves the heart moving and changing beat,  so I used that image.) 

If you draw the death card,  change is coming.  Now we can discuss how to deal with it,  see if we can modify it,  but mostly see if we can surf it to get to the shore safely.  Things never stand still,  life is always in motion, and if we can accept that,  then the Death Card need not be so scary... 

Changing Decks

People like reading from old decks, there is something about the sense that other hands have handled these cards, that they have a history, that they (and I!) like. However, over the course of a year, hundreds of people will have shuffled those cards and after a while they start to look tired. I change my deck about once a year, when the old cards start to get frayed and dog eared. The time has come… today I start with my new sleek deck…

I use a version of the Rider Waite deck, called the Radiant Rider Waite Tarot, which is basically a brighter, more colorful version of their original drawings.

If anyone wants the old one, just drop me a line and you can come and pick them up…

Hanging in the moment.

The Hanged Man (12)



Some cards are easier to explain than others, some resonate more in a Western, fast paced culture. The Hanged Man is not a card that New Yorkers necessarily want to find, but it is a card they often need. In the hanging moment, in the stillness and suspension, answers become clear. Solutions to problems are found.



The Hanged Man is about insight. Suddenly the pattern will emerge, and you will something truly, clearly. But there was a reason you weren’t seeing clearly before, and sometimes clarity can hurt. Sometimes a really clear insight means there is no going back. I like the alien abduction card as a visual metaphor, because once you know something so extreme, you can never be the same...