Circle Spread: a Tarot reading
I usually only give myself Tarot readings when I am about to do something important or new, or when I am at a loss. This is not the relationship with Tarot that I would preach to others, but it is where I am at. At a loss. Many losses. At a time when life seems to be more about what is going to be lost, stolen, taken away than what can be added or amplified. I don’t like this feeling, or being in this type of relationship with life, but because I don’t think I am the only one who feels this way, I reluctantly explore it. And, because the doors to other imaginations feel closed right now, and I don’t yet know how to open them.
I’m writing this on day 4 of a brutal 100-degree-plus heat wave in LA, day 336 of the current genocide in Gaza, 806 days since Roe v. Wade was reversed, 1,566 days since George Floyd’s murder, and 1,639 days since we shut down for the pandemic and everyone’s life turned upside, and hasn’t stopped turning. The spiral seems to be spiraling downward and I don’t know how to reverse it anymore. I used to find solace in the darkness within my spiritual connection, which feels very far away right now. So I turn to Tarot as a last resort even though I feel with all my heart that it is so much more than that. As a way to work Tarot back up to its primary position in my life, I wanted to do a made-up on the spot spread, to let Tarot talk to me, and to listen.
I envisioned a circle before I laid any cards down, and what appeared in the center were two circles: The World and The Wheel of Fortune. Tarot speaking and I am listening. I wrote out my reading of the spread as a lesson and as solace, for you and for me.
When I am feeling in chaos, I want to retreat. The three vertical central cards are showing all the ways that I am inter-linked, but resisting it. My impulse to retreat means that I am not able to function with inter-linked-ness despite it being healing, effective, productive, and natural. I need to learn how to function as myself, not in a vacuum, but with others, instead of having this intense desire to step outside of being in relationship —it just isn’t possible. (My world-view, that I love to constantly forget, is that everything is related and in relationship, and the only thing that modulates our sense of this is our awareness of it. Just because I’m not paying attention doesn’t mean something isn’t there). Resisting connection to something doesn’t give me peace from the tensions of being in relation with it, all it does is shut out the positive aspects of connectivity.
The World on one side and The Wheel of Fortune on another. Two versions of a similar thing; two descriptions of the same thing. A cyclical nature. Feeling the world swirling around us as in its natural order versus feeling it as a chaotic, nonsensical mess. It’s the same thing, viewed from different perspectives.
The three cards to the left refer to the past: energy spent on cultivating and growing, and energy spent on mourning, on running away, on being deep in dissatisfaction and despair. Discomfort as a motivation.
The three cards on the right refer to the future: healthy retreat into healing practices, not running away but moving towards — again, the same thing described in different ways. We are always moving, either with a feeling of running away from something or with a feeling of growing towards something, but the movement is the same. We age, we inch towards death either way. Starting again, starting over, in a more sustainable way that is not all about me; perhaps it’s not my blood and tears that I need to feed the soil. New investment.
(A general rule if you’re making up spreads for yourself, which is easy and helpful to do, and shouldn’t be gate-kept or kept secret or sacred: to the left is the past, to the right is the future, and in the center is the present. You can choose positions for yourself, for other people, for whatever you want. If you ask a question that is disingenuous, superficial or not true to yourself, the spread will let you know, and you can trust that it will answer to your heart and not to your ego. If you’re unclear on a card, you can formulate a specific question about that one card, ask it in your heart, and lay down a new card that will be the answer. Sit with any new cards long enough to get the answer before moving on or laying more cards out, to create clarity instead of confusion.)
Reversed cards show when things aren’t working as they could be. Every reversed card has the potential to switch energy to be upright and working well. It’s like we’re partway there, and the rest depends on how we move forward from here. Trusting your own instincts that if something isn’t feeling great, it’s because it actually isn’t doing well. But at the same time, doing well/not doing well are also constructs that rely on our perspectives. The World and The Wheel of Fortune are two depictions of the same thing: how we understand and interact with the world around us. A circle constantly moving, a web endlessly being spun wider and wider, inter-links of small pieces making up a larger mass.
The World shows us what can ground us in this whirling complexity: nature, the natural elements, the directions never changing, the sun coming each day on schedule. The mysteries of the world can be contained within its natural elements, to enough of an extent that we can find our comforts. The Wheel of Fortune shows us what can unground us, when we try to latch on to a moving carousel of both known and unknown parts. The passage of time, the unseen and hidden elements, the moody and changing nature of life. We can get stuck on these prickly complex pieces, thinking they are smooth and welcoming like the more simple truths of The World. The Wheel of Fortune is the surface facade of The World, the samsara that tricks us into struggling with ourselves instead of letting ourselves be. These cards are upright, showing that desire to resolve the tensions between the two is a worthy endeavor. The World is there to remind of the beauty of life experience even in the struggle of The Wheel of Fortune, while The Wheel of Fortune reminds that the peace found in The World first requires passage through the confusion and despair of life experience.
Each of the three vertical middle cards shows a healing, positive image of human inter-connectivity: in romantic love, in work and functionality, in family relations, 2 of Cups, 3 of Pentacles, 6 of Cups. All reversed, the gifts of these relationships are ignored or not able to thrive. It shows there is a block against allowing these relationships to offer their full potential. When we are so overwhelmed that even these positive forces can’t act on us, it’s a sign that surrender to some kind of change is needed.
The 7 of Pentacles upright shows a desire to work, to be useful to the self, to grow and expand, to cultivate. This positive desire is hindered by the more melancholy cards alongside it. Personally, I often think about how I don’t know how to positively motivate myself as well as I am able to negatively motivate myself. I know how to work hard out of a driving sense of perfectionism, to overcome self-loathing, to avoid myself: I know how to change because I don’t want to be myself. I am less skilled in growing and changing out of love for myself. While running away from yourself can feed the hustle, it ultimately also feeds a sense of ungrounded-ness and fosters a chaotic relationship to the self and to the world. In the future positions, the 4 of Swords and the Ace of Pentacles, upright, ask for a healthier relationship to motivation. Doing things because it is what's needed to support the self, not to push further away from the self. Self-knowledge is key here, but The Hermit reversed shows that life experience is perhaps not being used as wisdom to grow from in the way it should be.
The Hermit contains the vast library of the self, and this has to include constant new knowledge about the self that does not simply feed the same narrative as before. As well, the function of this knowledge is to act as a light forward into the darkness, so it must be future-oriented, not stuck in the past. The stars behind The Hermit show us that the knowledge we seek is always available to us to access, but again it depends on our perspective. The shifting sky above us can show us patterns and meanings that can help us to orient ourselves within a chaotic world, or it can push us deeper into confusion and despair if we aren’t able to read the signs. The starry sky of The Hermit matches to the stars within us in the 4 of Swords, showing that meaning comes from both within and without. It’s all about the communication and the meeting of meanings. . . we have to participate and offer up our personal insight into the libraries of the world, as it contributes to greater meaning of a greater whole. We can become a link in a chain with trust and belief. The chains in The Hermit and The World provide foundational support and create structure, while the chain in The Wheel of Fortune is alive with secret motivations that undermine our security— the mysterious nature of the snake eating its tail exists in The World as well, but is detached from the secure structure of the circle container. We can acknowledge the parallel existences of spirit and nature, but without conflating them when it puts us off-balance to do so. . . spiritual chaos is not beneficial to anyone. Again, trusting yourself that when you feel spiritually off-balance, this is a real sign, and re-orienting yourself is the key. Instead of adding more spirituality, or adding more reality, as both of these already exist to their full extents, it’s about finding yourself in-between in a way that feels more calm than chaotic, more hopeful than nihilistic, with more ease than struggle, to any extent that you can.
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