WHR: To every thing there is a season

Today I did a reading using my new The Tree Spread with the Wisdom of the Hidden Realms oracle regarding my situation at the moment. Of all "fluffy" Hay House decks, the WHR still strikes me as one of the most profound, precisely because it allows every card to play either as an Ally or a Challenger, encompassing both the light and the shadowy aspects of a situation.

Just to give the reading a context, I confess that I have been feeling very stagnant over the last few months. Of course, 2020 has been a shitty year, to put it lightly, for most people. But I'm not talking only about the pandemic-induced doldrums. On a personal level I feel like I have reached a moment in my personal projects have died and try as I might I have no motivation to resuscitate any of them. Outwardly my life is moving – I continue to study, I am in a good relationship, I am about to actually move to my new place (finally!). But inside? I feel shrivelled up. 

It also appears as a sort of spiritual crisis for me. The recent explosion of people obsessed with esoteric and mystical things... this hazardous mix of social media, attention-seeking and spiritual hubris... it has suddenly made the whole realm of spirituality look like a desert to me. One day I will dedicate a more thorough post about this, but for now let's say that when a friend comes and says that I am "witchy", I am the first one to deny the title because it has lost all meaning to me.

So, amidst this drought of the spirit, this hambre del alma as Clarissa Pínkola Estés calls it, I did this reading to get a better view of what is the issue at hand and how can I improve it.

1. The current situation/issue – The Spiral Dancer

The Spiral Dancer shows up in the upright position, as an ally, to say that my problem is one of perception. Life moves like a spiral, in an apparent circular motion but always heading a little further... so even we when think we have gone backwards, we are not actually at that same place. This card reassures me that I am on the right path, even if right now it feels like I'm stumbling. "Destiny's true path is seldom straight" – that is the Dancer's message.

The Tree Spread

I'm a sucker for short card spreads.

In my many years of practice, I have found that oracle spreads between 3 and 5 cards tend to yield the best results. They are not only more objective and less confusing, but they are also condensed enough so that it becomes easier to feel the "atmosphere" of a reading. The more cards you have, the more diluted this impression becomes.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the general crisis it has unleashed, I have been hearing many people say they feel as if they are not getting anywhere. To be honest, I often feel that way too, like all my struggle is for nothing because I cannot yet envision the results. But I also know that it is very hard to perceive a situation accurately in the midst of living it…. Only in hindsight we can have a proper idea of how much we have grown during a certain amount of time.

So I have created The Tree Spread as a way to help us understand our current situation more clearly and to discover how we can positively and actively grow from it. I was inspired by the trees that are constantly growing even though it is often imperceptible at a first glance.

My intention was to create a more optimistic spread, one that also gives us some agency over our own processes. We cannot always avoid the crisis, but we can attempt to put it within a perspective of evolution. And this is what The Tree Spread is for.

The cards are laid in a single column to represent a Tree in an upwards movement. The positions are as follows:

1. The current situation/issue
2. The origin of the situation/issue
3. How to grow from or to overcome the situation
4. The outcome or future developments

Soon I will post some readings done using it, to illustrate.

I hope this spread may prove useful to others as well! Feel free to try it, share it and let me know the results if you feel like it!

Weekly Reading: Pick your distraction

Water and Earth usually make a good pair in a reading. Water softens Earth, and Earth stabilises Water. In this reading, Nichomiah's festive presence surely eases a bit the impact of the dreadful 8 of Spades.

But you know, when the 8♠ shows up is because we need to stop. Look. Listen. Something's not quite right. The 8♠ is known as the unluckiest card in the pack (as opposed to the 8♦, which is the luckiest), so even though it has a water companion to dilute its effects, it still demands our attention.

Sometimes, we prefer to dawdle through shallow pleasures to keep our minds distracted, than to tackle what is actually bothering us. We know something is not right, but we focus on something else, kinda hoping that it will go away on its own. And this is what this reading reveals to me: there might be a feeling of unease this week, but we will be reluctant to look at it, to give it voice inside us. Like Nichomiah, we will pick our poison – whether it be work, sex, alcohol, Netflix, empty spiritual rituals, self-pity – and look the other way.

Now, I'm not saying that we have to focus on the problems all the time. Everything is about balance. Pleasures and distraction are healthy too, in the right dose. There are days in which we just cannot afford to look into the abyss of ourselves, it's not the right time. However, something darker is asking for attention. And as the Moon begins to wane, it may be the time for us to consider facing what we have been trying to avoid.

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

A Full Moon Birthday

I turn 33 years old today. A good decade older than when I first started writing here.

It is funny though… I have moved a lot and have changed a lot in this last decade. I am not where I would like to be yet, but I like to think that I am going somewhere. Forwards, not backwards. 

And yet... there are many times in which it seems that no matter how much I struggle to progress, I am stuck. I look around and despite all the hullabaloos I am back to the same place, and things have shifted so slightly I cannot really call it an evolution. I try to stay positive and to count my blessings, as a good Sagittarian is wont to do... but despair is a siren song, one I feel undeserving of, considering there are so many others who are much worse off than I am.

Nature gave me the most beautiful birthday gift last night, a perfect Full Moon. So bright and magical, hanging high up like a pearl against the dark velvet of the sky. A jewel amongst the clouds. I was alone watching it. All was quiet... so quiet, it was as if the world had stopped so that I could breathe at last. 

For a moment, things seemed simple enough. Everything was as it should be and I wish I could stay in the hazy embrace of the moonlight forever. Forever lost in this sweet nothingness, never having to endure the glaring light of the Sun – of reality – ever again.

Nature is peaceful not because it does not know violence. It is peaceful because it knows how to be by itself. To simply exist.

It’s we, humans, who have forgotten it.