A Celtic Cross reading

Tarot de St Croix 

I finally decided to do a reading today. It's been months. I've had decks out and handled them, shuffled them, looked at them, but I haven't read them. Today I decided, on impulse, to do a Celtic Cross about my life situation right now.

This is what covers me: Queen of Pentacles
This is what crosses me: High Priestess
What lies above me: Ten of Cups
What lies beneath me: The Star
What lies before me: Seven of Swords
What lies behind me: Queen of Swords
And this is me: Nine of Swords
This is my environment: The Fool
This is my hopes/fears: The Chariot
The outcome: Four of Swords

This reading shows me that I am struggling now to find balance between carnal matters and higher matters. High Priestess covering Queen of Pentacles says to me that I would do well to break out of my established pattern of daily concerns and get more into the mystery. Whatever that may mean for me now.

My highest aspiration is pure old celebratory joy, some laughing for a change, and I have the foundation of The Star, which is the card of my astrological sign, and suggests that there's no reason for doubt. Joy is within my reach.

The figure in the Seven of Swords is a trickster, wearing the same stripey outfit as seen in The Fool card in this deck (Tarot de St Croix). This is what lies before me. In my immediate future, I should look out for a trickster...which is most likely my own thinking. This is after all the Swords suit. And goodness knows my thinking has been doing my head in for quite a while.

What lies behind me? The Queen of Swords. She's a cast iron bitch and has served me well. But if I don't ditch aspects of her, I am not going to get better. Or at least, I won't get better as fast I might without her input. She's a warrior and she's wise...in this deck, she's Athena. But I need a lot less of her hissing in my ear to go for the kill.

So where does this leave me? Wrestling with illusions and shadows. The Nine of Swords card in Tarot de St Croix shows a woman lying awake staring at swords on her wall -- but the companion book points out that these, her worries and fears, are not real, but just reflections from the blinds at the window, and the butterfly is there to signify transformation. 'Let go or be dragged,' as the meme says. (Is it a Zen proverb? Who knows!) I can stop dragging my own heart around. I can also find that eye mask and see if I can manage more than 5 hours' sleep per night. It could happen.

I am surrounded, apparently, by The Fool, the beginning and the end. I have no idea what the outcome of my current situation will be. This is the second card in this draw to emphasize that 'our fears are fantasies'. We read that statement and wonder what the hell it means. How can our fears be fantasies? Bad things happen! Yeah, they do, but...we survive 99.9% of them. We don't die, we move on. So there was really no point in being afraid. It was wasted energy. I am seeing that more and more. That doesn't mean I don't fear. I just see it a bit more clearly.

My hope is, as the Chariot indicates, that I am well on my way to achieving my ambition. My fear is that I am well on my way, but ... to what outcome? The unknown. But really, is there ever an outcome? There's no ending to our stories, until we get to the end. Ever think of that? And that, too, can be a hope and a fear.

The 'Outcome' card in this spread is Four of Swords. The woman in this card is 'shielded from piercing thoughts.' And so, may I be shielded from, learn to deflect, the dysfunctional thinking that so often plagues the mind. This card and the High Priestess, together with the relegation of the Queen of Swords to the past, certainly point the way to this 'outcome'.