Weekly Reading: How long can you keep that fire burning?

This will be a week of getting things done. This sequence of a 9 followed by an Ace tells me I am reaching the end of a process, but there are still a few responsibilities to fulfil and projects to wrap up.

The A♦ assures me that I have plenty of energy and focus to see it all through to the end. But the 9♦ is a card that tells of a peak of energy followed by a decrease, like the midday Sun, that reaches its highest point right before it begins its journey down...

Thus, this reading asks me: yes, you have all you need to fulfil your responsibilities and keep your promises, like a good hero. But how long can you keep this fire burning at this intensity, until it burns you out?



The Playing Card Oracles © Ana Cortez & C.J. Freeman

PCO: A very heavy mind

This reading was done for myself a few days ago, as I have been experiencing a lot of stress related not only the social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, but also due to the the constant juggling of my work and student responsibilities. 

I have been getting little creative satisfaction from what I do, and that makes me feel blocked. My attempts at keeping up with the social media as a way to advertise my work as an oracle reader and crystal healer have been more of a chore than anything else. I feel often uninspired and am constantly comparing myself with others, which make me wonder why do I even bother when there are already so many readers and healers out there. 

So, I did a spread asking what I needed to know about this blockage, so that I may find a different, more fulfilling path.

Two earth cards on the top -the K♠ (Mardoc) and the 5♠ (Impotent King) – immediately made me think of a heavy mind. A mind that is impoverished because it has reached the end of its rope. And it ringed true – my projects, at least as I was handling them, felt dead to me. The old way of doing things had to end, so that new possibilities could be born. 

Mardoc never really struck me as aggressive, but with all that fire and earth in the reading and no water whatsoever to dilute the intensity, I understood that my own rigid thinking was responsible for making me both tired and angry. And indeed, when attempting to be creative these last few months I often felt bitter and annoyed instead. Not a good place to be.

Back to my saturnian roots

A good six years have passed since my last post here.

Since then, a lot of things have changed, both in my life and in the internet "divination community" as a whole. The Aeclectic Tarot Forum, in which I used to participate a lot, has ceased to exist and became only an archive. A lot of people have migrated to Facebook and to Instagram and, it seems to me, fewer and fewer people write blogs these days. Oracles and witchy stuff are more popular than ever nowadays (at least on Instagram).

As for me, I have changed a lot too. I am (obviously) older – I will turn 33 years old in December. I have more tattoos. I am now an undergraduate student of Psychology, hoping to become a psychotherapist one day. I am about to move to a new place (a flat of my own, finally!). The only things that remain the same are my job at a local book publisher and my love for the art of divination.

Of all aspects of my ever-changing spirituality, this is the one that has always remained with me: my love for the oracles. And that’s what urged me to come back to my roots, to reclaim a very important part of my story – this blog.

Saturness was a work of love. Unlike my attempts at keeping an Instagram account about divination, which always end up feeling like a chore, this blog has always been powered by love. By thoughts. By emotions. By changes. It is perhaps the closest thing I ever had to a journal, a place in which I mulled over my life through oracle-shaped glasses.

Writing in this blog often helped me give new, broader meanings to many important events in my life. Looking back at some posts I can see how juvenile they were, but they are also part of the very process which made me who I am now.

I am no longer quite the same oracle reader and student I was back in 2014. I have sold and given away most of my tarot & oracle collection, keeping only my favourite ones. I have become a bit more cynic in my beliefs, which has given my reading style sharper edges. Doing therapy and studying Psychology has helped me to understand how the oracles can be a tool that, through words and images, gives our innermost and often denied issues a voice.

And through words and images, here in this blog, I too gave voice to myself.

I am proud of this blog. I am happy to rediscover it and glad that I never deleted it, even though I actually considered doing so a couple of times. Because now I plan on making Saturness a living part of my journey once more.

IMPORTANT: In June 2021, the name of this blog was changed from "Saturness" to "Soror Serpentis". The feeling described in this post remains the same though!

Enchanted Blossoms © Carla Marrow & Blue Angel Publishing