I thought I would do today’s reading a little differently.  My first card drawn was The Fool.  He represents the situation, condition, and-or the lesson – what needs to be looked at today.   The Fool is oft times described as an open minded adventurer.  A clean slate starting out on a life journey.  But, he can also be foolhardy or acting a fool, too.  The Four of Wands I see quite often as a stable home and strong foundation.  The door and Wands appear as an illusion floating above the trees.  It’s almost like looking into another dimension with the blood red moon hanging in the sky – a dream.  The Queen of Cups is immersed in her underwater world, her world of emotion.  The expression on her face says to me that she is not a “happy camper”.  She is probably over-reacting.  The Moon says to me to look a little deeper, there is something that is not actually hidden, but it’s not real obvious either.

What does all this mean, you might ask.  We (my husband and I) have been planning and discussing the home improvement/repair/remolding that we are going to be tackling over the summer.   It will be the biggest job of this type that we have tackled before, and when I say we, I mean HE.  I’ll help all that I can of course, but it will mostly be on his shoulders.  You hear lots of horror stories and have even experienced some of them when talking of these types of projects.  This is not a, I wanna remodel the bathroom and kitchen because I want a new look, project.  It’s a, I’m going to be taking a shower in the crawl space soon because the bath tub is sitting on a bad floor, kind of project.  This is a job we knew we had ahead of us when we bought our little fixer-upper.   How does this apply to my daily draw?

Don’t be foolish, expect the unexpected.  Plan for it.  No job like this ever goes like you think it will.  There always seem to be surprises and delays along the way.  Emotionally I know major projects like this can be very emotionally draining and physically exhausting.   I don’t want to sound like I’m predicting disaster.  I’m not.  But, realistically I am pretty sure it’s going to take longer and probably cost more money than my contractor (aka my husband) thinks that it will.   I hope I’m wrong LOL.

Today’s reading is all about my grandson.  While shuffling for the COTD, Judgement was a jumper.  Ok, I thought.  I’ll start there and proceeded to post it on the facebook – New Paths Tarot page.  Then I began to wonder, as I often do, if the jumper is the card of the day, what would the card have been if picked randomly as usual?   The Six of Cups turned up.  Now, as far as Six of Cups cards go this is not one of my favorites, but these cute little faces can’t be denied.  When I looked at the next two cards, (Two of Wands and Eight of Wands) I had my answer.

For a couple of weeks now we have been trying to figure out what has been going on with my grandson.  After three trips to Urgent Care no one seems to agree or come up with any good ideas as to what is causing his problem.  One Doctor suggests chicken pox, but that doesn’t explain the rash and other symptoms.  Another says its eczema and spider bites, and so on.  It’s all very frustrating for all of us and everything tried has not seemed to help.  So today’s reading is very clear to me that its a Wake up call, a decision has to be made and it needs to be made fast.   I couldn’t agree more!!

Tarot of Dreams by Ciro Marchetti

What is my lesson for today?  What do I need to be shown?

I have the IX of Cups again, this time flanked by the Priestess and the Moon.  They both appear very mystical and mysterious to me.  Normally these two Major Arcana are two of my favorites.  For some reason, this combination gives me the heeby-jeeby’s.  The outer cards are almost reflections of each other.  The full moon hanging large in the sky, the mirror like sphere that takes up a large part of the middle of each, and dancing shadows make up these images.  On the Priestess scroll is the message Darkness into darkness, The Key to all mystery.   The Moon is a definite influence bridging this reading, but with an almost science fiction twist.  As if channeling, not only between the conscious and the sub-conscious, she looks to be channeling between these spheres.  My dreams of late have been filled with stories and tales that feel like hidden messages, riddles that almost make sense.  These images are a nudge from the universe to add to the clues to help solve the message.  Obviously I’m just not getting the message.   I have the key to unlock the answer(s), now it’s just a matter of finding the correct lock.

Images are from Ciro Marchetti’s Tarot of Dreams and is only available on his site.

Tarot of Dreams, standard edition, comes with four extra cards titled Palace.  Each Palace corresponds to one of the four suits of Cups, Coins, Swords, and Wands.   Lee Bursten, author of the companion book, describes the Palace cards “as a fifth Court card, an opportunity to give the King, Queen, Knight, and Page a place to interact and a context in which to express themselves.”   For example, the energies of the suit can be expressed  in an environment – current, past or present.  How is the environment of the Palace card affecting the other cards in a spread or vice-versa.  I think this will add another dimension to a reading, and can easily be incorporated into the deck as a whole.   An added environment to enhance any reading  that a Palace card makes an appearance.

Now that I have a better understanding of the Palace cards and how they can be used in a reading, I can get a clearer picture of today’s reading.  The first card down was the Palace of Cups, followed by The Chariot, Kings of Cups, and Two of Wands.

With the environment placed in the Palace of Cups of water/emotion and the King of Cups (which I usually associate with my husband) this is about our relationship.  All relationships evolve and change over time and to keep them fulfilling the people involved must change also.  There are always choices to be made and motivation is needed to evolve and grow with the changes.  The horses in the Chariot (card) may run off in different directions were it not for the driver holding the rains.  The driver here to me is what holds them together, which in this relationship reading is represented by love.  As anyone knows, it takes willpower, drive, motivation, and a mutual respect for each other to keep any relationship happy and healthy and moving forward.  But, if one or both people are not willing or motivated to do this, then, there is the possibility of going separate ways as shown in the Two of Wands.  There are two choices, the pink window or the blue window.  Will the wands climb the stairs and step through the same window together or go their separate ways?