Money, money, money

Funny I should draw this card today, as I woke up at 4.00 this morning 'dreaming' about critical illness vs income protection cover. Money, money, money has been on my mind a lot for the last few days.

Six of Pentacles can mean lots of things. The interpretation I usually see in it is charity or lending. The querent may be either the wealthy man holding the scales and deciding what is the right amount to give, or the beggars receiving alms. This could represent applying for a loan, or waiting for an inheritance, insurance payout, or other cash windfall that must be determined by the judgement of a third party. It could be the querent deciding how much to pay employees or whether to lend someone money or cosign a loan with them.

Another interpretation is the flow of money in your life. The 6 of Pentacles would represent a balanced flow of income and outgo -- not necessarily an abundance of riches, but a balance, as represented by the scales and the fall of coins from the hand of the standing figure. You have enough money to pay everyone who holds their hand out to you, ie, your bills and other financial obligations.

The card can also carry warnings (if you read reversals, these would come when your card lands upside down). Obviously, no one wants to be a beggar. The shadow or reversed meaning of 6 of Wands could be a warning not to take on too much debt, or not to become too dependent on handouts (such as from the 'bank of Mom and Dad'). There could also be a shadow side to being the giver -- are you giving as a way of showing off your wealth? Are you lending with strings attached? To lord your power over someone? No one wants to be a tyrant, either.

The card, then, carries both positive and negative meanings for me today. Yes, I can find a way to balance a level of insurance cover within my budget. But it is possible that I could bite off more than I can chew, debt-wise, and even if I find a policy that is not a burden to pay the premiums on, I might find myself at the mercy of the insurance provider as to whether they are going to pay any benefit, should the time come for me to make a claim.

Of course, I already knew all this, so the tarot has simply given me a snapshot of my current state of mind. It will almost always do that if you don't ask a specific question.

My question then became what can I do to help balance those scales in 6 of Pentacles? I shuffled and drew 5 of Cups. I thought that over for a while, then shuffled the deck again, refining the question as I shuffled to, 'What can I do to find the balance of the flow of money in my life with regard to insurance cover?' Guess what I drew -- 5 of Cups.

Fine then! The only way to do this is to go to some dark places. I'm going to have to think about some worst case scenarios. I'm going to have to look at the dark clouds and not the silver linings, the spilled cups and not the upright ones. I'm going to have to look at the situation on this side of the river, not the refuge awaiting over the bridge on the other side. What would happen if... type questions.

But I do not have to decide any of this today. And the 6 of Pentacles takes on a fresh interpretation. Maybe it is giving me a message beyond a snapshot today. Because at the moment, my focus should be on getting the mortgage and paying associated fees. The card is a very literal piece of advice on what should be my focus. I am not even in the house yet. The sale hasn't even happened. I have to pay a lot of folks and get a house and mortgage in the first place before I should start worrying about losing them. I can deal with critical illness and/or income protection after I have a house. The only insurance that is pressing is the home owner's insurance.

For me, trying to decide about everything at the same time is too stressful. I will tell my financial adviser that I do not want to make decisions about illness cover right now. After all, I can't help but remember, he gets a commission from every product I buy, of course he would like to see me do everything at once. But I would like to get settled in my new home for at least 3-6 months so I can make a real world assessment of my income and outgo in the new setting. Then I will be in a better position to determine how much I can budget for illness cover. At the moment, any figure I suggest will be, as they say where I'm from, a wild-ass guess.

So that's what I'll do. I'll take this one step at a time. Right now it's focus on the mortgage, the solicitors and surveyors fees. It's getting into the house in the first place. Other stuff can come later.