Confronting the stalker cards

'Stalker' cards are those that keep turning up over and over, no matter what deck you're using, what question you're asking, or sometimes even what person you're reading for! The lovely and wise Pearl Annie shared a technique for looking at stalker cards (she calls them 'cards that haunt me') in a group on Facebook called The Tarot Readers Development and Study Group. She shuffles her deck thoroughly and then divides it into five piles to determine what plane of existence the stalker card is attempting to deal with: Fire, Water, Earth, Air or Spirit.

I thought I'd just try that with my two recent stalkers, Knight of Wands and Chariot.

Three cards into the Fire pack, I found the Knight of Wands. I placed the two cards before him face down above the Fire pack, and placed him on top of them facing up. Then after two more cards, I found the Chariot! So I placed it and its previous cards below the Fire pack. 

(It doesn't matter what order you put them, that's just the order I said out loud as I laid them out so I stuck with that, even though normally I would have done Fire - Water -Air - Earth - Spirit. It's early, and I am a witch of dismal memory.) 

Both cards have fallen in the Fire pack, which comes as no surprise at all, but you never know until you ask. Knight of Wands is a Fire card of course, being Wands, and its elemental affinity is Air, so he is Air of Fire. The Chariot is a Water card, associated with the moon and Cancer. It's action that they're calling for, both in thoughts and feelings. I should act on thoughts and feelings, and not just think or feel them. 

I thought it would interesting to take this technique a bit further. What would happen if I looked to see what cards fell in the same spot in the other packs? Would that give me insight into how to support the Knight of Wands and Chariot across all planes? How can my other aspects aid this one that wants so much to come out?

I counted down into each pack and repeated the laying out of the cards as I did for the Fire pack:

Aiding the Knight of Wands

Fire - Knight of Wands, Water - 9 of Wands, Earth - Queen of Wands, Air - 2 of Cups, Spirit - 8 of Wands (confession, the 9 of Wands and Queen of Wands came out reversed, but I turned them over for the photo, so I'm going to read them reversed). 

I can aid the Knight of Wands' manifestation by watching out for feelings of being judged by others, being more sympathetic and forgiving of my physical body and habits, sharing ideas with others, and engaging in a daily spiritual practice. 

Aiding the Chariot

Fire - Chariot, Water - 7 of Wands, Earth - World, Air - 9 of Cups, Spirit - 2 of Pents Rx (confession, 7 of Wands was reversed so I will read it that way.) 

I can aid the Chariot's manifestation, again by avoiding defensive reactions, glorying in my physical self (note the glorified naked form in the card), thinking about where I am satisfied and successful, and accepting that being alive means not always (or even usually) feeling anything like being on an 'even keel'.

In summary 

My stalker cards want very much for me to make progress. The other cards show the blockages to these cards -- possibly they are the real reasons the stalkers keep stalking. They're not waving but drowning, as the poem says. They're stymied by attitudes in the other planes. The cards are telling me to stop seeking balance and get on with things. Lighten up. Stop looking for perfection in myself or my methods. Just DO something. Knight of Wands and Chariot will be satisfied if they see me do something, anything. So stop telling myself it won't be good enough.

Good insights. 

Oh look who's back

The Queen of Wands and I have never had a very close relationship. We're like distant cousins -- we've heard of each other but wouldn't recognise each other in a crowd. She turned up in my reading on Sunday paired with 6 of Cups as an outcome, and now here she is in my daily draw.

This Queen of Wands from Sacred Rose Tarot (US Games 1982) holds a staff, symbol of action and fire,  in her right hand and a red rose, symbol of passion and emotion, in her left. The right hand symbolises assertiveness, mercy, the sun, logic, giving and consciousness. The left hand represents passivity, justice, the moon, emotion, receiving, and the unconscious. Around her neck and on her head is the upward pointing triangle representing fire. The one on her head is red, for passion, the one on her breast is white, for purity or clarity. This shows a balance of polarities, passion usually being associated with the heart and clarity with the mind, you would expect to see red closer to the heart and white closer to the head. Not with the Queen of Wands -- she's got it all in balance, so that one does not overpower the other. Surrounding her are four wands in a square, a symbol of stability and firm foundations. At her feet, a bed of roses with green shoots rising up, representing flowering and growth. This is balanced by the starry twilight behind her.

I tell you what, I never felt as emotionally intelligent, well-adjusted and rah-rah-siss-boom-bah as this lady is meant to be. I guess that's why she always sort of makes me feel suspicious, cynical -- surely it's all just an act! Why doesn't she just admit her hair gets greasy, her face breaks out and sometimes she just wants to tell the world to fuck off? What is her problem??? Or maybe it's more like, 'Oh, child. One day someone's going to step on your pretty little neck and then you'll know what real life is like.' I'm just being honest. My Queen of Swords has always been waaaaaay stronger than my Queen of Wands.

Today's draw encourages me to look at my Queen of Wands qualities. 'The Queen of Wands offers advice and encouragement regarding the sacred practice of service...she personifies the feminine aspects of wisdom, which includes understanding other people and being supportive of them' (The Soul's Journey, James Ricklef, 142). When I'm honest with myself, I do that. Tarot readings do that. I am in a few groups online where I offer support and encouragement for a variety of endeavors, for example. I probably just don't do it often enough for her to feel strong enough to stand up to my towering Queen of Swords and say, wait a minute. Back off, bitch! And I don't have to just see the Queen of Wands as some fake-tanned, bleached-toothed motivational speaker from Orange County. Maybe, just maybe, it's not that simple.

 I can look for more subtle manifestations of the Queen of Wands in myself and others. Then I may be more inclined not only to recognise her but to warm to her and give her room in my life.

The Hamburger Moment: A Reading

An article that's making the rounds on Facebook caught my eye the other day:

The Hamburger Moment: I wasn't treating my husband fairly and it wasn't nice

I recognized a lot of my own patterns of behaviour in that article, and not for the first time. I know from experience that I am not the only woman who tends to come down very hard on her partner for small things. I've listened to women complain to each other vigorously about such sins as leaving wet towels in the floor, not opening the hamper but leaving clothes on top, and putting toilet paper the wrong way round. I have certainly seen a lot of this sort of behaviour on TV shows like 'Everybody Loves Raymond' and 'Home Improvement,' etc (forgive my ancient TV references, I don't watch a lot of sitcoms anymore). I guess we've been doing this crap for a long time; it's even mentioned in the Bible: 'A quarrelsome wife is like the dripping of a leaky roof in a rainstorm; restraining her is like restraining the wind or grasping oil with the hand' (Proverbs 27:15-16). Ha ha!

I don't have a clue about the bigger picture of why there seems to be a pattern of women nitpicking. Maybe it has something to do with some underlying pressure to be perfect ourselves, imposed on us by cultural and societal expectations, maybe it's learned behaviour from watching our mothers, don't know, but what I do know is I can try to recognize and address this sort of thing in myself. Better late than never. So here is what I asked:

1. Why do I slip into the habit of constant fault-finding in my husband? 

2. What is the best course of action to address this? 

3. What is the biggest challenge in this course of action?
4. What is the biggest support?

5. What is the outcome? 

I then pulled 5 cards and examined them:  7 of Cups - 2 of Pents - 10 of Swords - 10 of Wands - 6 of Cups. I was getting an impression of the reading, but decided to pull clarifiers for each card in the spread (not something I usually do) and laid them in a second row beneath: Sun - Ace of Wands - High Priestess - King of Swords - Queen of Wands. Each card I laid down felt like 'Boom! There it is!' They just solidified the original draw so well. Let's take them in pairs. 

 I do this because of deceptive, destructive fantasies of perfection. It's not just him I hold to these unconscious rules, it's the entire world! I've been reading a lot about irrational beliefs that underlie our unhelpful responses to life, and I've identified several from a list produced by Albert Ellis (12 Self-Defeating Beliefs). The ones at work here seem to be:

*People should always do the right thing and when they don't, they must be punished.
*Things must be the way I want them or life will be intolerable.
*My unhappiness is caused by things outside my control, so there is little I can do to feel better.
*Every problem must have an ideal solution, and it is intolerable when one cannot be found.
*To be a worthy person, one must succeed at what they do and make no mistakes.

I have no idea how these irrational rules and beliefs become embedded in us, but I have found that when I feel upset about something, if I have a look at these lists, I can usually quickly identify the irrational belief or demand that is causing the discomfort. It is rather uncanny. So what's the best course of action?

To create 'a partnership working with proper energy flow and support', I must remember that 'mood swings may threaten stability' and that 'anger and not fully understanding the consequences of actions' will break down the balance. (The quotations come directly from the LWB of the Sacred Rose Tarot deck. It's useful to keep and to check the LWB! Sometimes what you find there is spot on!)

The key here is to learn to catch myself between the irrational belief and the consequences (that's the exact term used by Ellis -- fits, doesn't it!) of that belief. It's almost impossible to do that, so the only way you can change a habitual response is by doing what Ellis called ABC analysis (see previous blogs here and here). Over time, with reflection and by disputing irrational beliefs after the fact, the behaviour begins to change. That's the theory, and it's certainly helped with my tinnitus, so why not try it here.

The biggest challenge is of course rooting out and recognizing the self-defeating actions. That's reflected in the pairing of 10 of Wands and High Priestess. The LWB says there are 'excessive pressures and problems to be resolved' and that good judgement is based on 'logic and knowledge removed from the confusion of emotion.' That is precisely the process of REBT. It's not easy, it's hard work. So it's the biggest challenge.

The biggest support comes from the cerebral nature of the whole thing. This is the death of irrational beliefs and the meticulous re-training of the thinking needed to challenge and change them. If the King of Swords were to identify something as entirely self-defeating, he would be merciless in rooting it out. This is a good thing. When my King of Swords nature recognizes how illogical and pointless certain beliefs are, he simply won't allow me to believe them anymore. And when I don't hold a certain belief anymore (like 'people must be perfect and they if they make a mistake they deserve to be punished') then I won't react to events based on that belief anymore (like if my husband or I drop the cafetiere and break it, it is cause for a flash of anger and sharp words). -- If my underlying belief can be changed to 'People make mistakes and though it's inconvenient it is not intolerable and we remain worthy human beings regardless of our mistakes', then dropping the cafetiere would result in 'Oh crap, oh well.'

The outcome of attacking this behaviour using these techniques? I will become responsible (or accept responsibility for) my own emotions. This will allow me to access the better qualities of my Queen of Wands nature: warmth and affection coupled with authority and determination.


I then asked, 'What is the overall message to me about this issue?' and drew three cards:

It's up to me to recall the source of love and emotion and to exercise my free will in deciding how I will react, what path I will choose in response to the cycles of the day-to-day. There is always a choice in response to the Wheel of Fortune. May its genesis be love, and not flawed beliefs and unconscious rules. 

All images in this post are from Sacred Rose Tarot (US Games 1982). 

Sage of Flames

Recently in a Facebook group, the question was asked, 'Which tarot card represents your best qualities?' This was a question to which I had no immediate answer. Can I even identify my own best qualities? The things I value most in myself might not be the things that others see as my best qualities, and certainly may not correspond to what the 'Universe' or existence itself might consider my best qualities. So I thought I'd just ask. 'Which card here represents my best qualities?'-- and the question was open, to include anything that might lie dormant or be unacknowledged in myself, to include the most obvious and overt things. I shuffled the Sirian Starseed Tarot, cut, and drew -- the Queen of Wands, or Sage of Flames. This both surprised me and made me laugh ruefully at tarot's humour and insight.

Pieta

Our last draw from Grail Tarot gives us another court card, the Lady of Lances, or Queen of Wands. This is Mary after the crucifixion of Jesus, and the meaning given bears little resemblance to the traditional Queen of Wands:

'Sympathy, support, refusal to condemn, restoration, companionship. The Lady of Lances offers support to the Seeker at all times on their journey. When things seem too heavy to bear, she walks beside them, offering her gentle wisdom and loving kindness to restore their spirits. She suggests alternative ways to overcome fear and doubt.'

That sounds more like the Queen of Cups to me, or at a push perhaps the Queen of Pentacles.

Anyway, the only message I received yesterday was that my new timetable is still not ready and that I will probably be on a four-week rotation rather than a two-week one like everyone else. Doesn't seem like it would be rocket science to timetable me in half a week in one work base and half a week in the other, but looks like it is.

I certainly hope nothing happens today that would cause me to need the comfort of the Lady of Lances. It's Friday and I can't be asked to deal with any trouble.

Go for the Gold

Enough with the cats, I decided to have a dig around and select a tarot I've had forever but hardly posted with. I chose the beautiful Golden Tarot by Kat Black (US Games 2003). I think there are two reasons I don't reach for this deck very often: it's highly laminated and very slippery, and it has gilded edges that hurt the skin on my fingers and hands when I handle the cards. Some people don't have this happening, but I do. I am loathe to trim the deck, though, as I believe it is perfect in every way and quite gorgeous. I've heard there is another edition that is not so plasticky, but I have no idea how to acquire one.

Anyway, I decided to draw three cards today, no real positions:

Golden Tarot, Kat Black 2003

The King of Coins advises me to take mastery of the material/financial/physical aspects of my life. There are some tasks I was thinking of doing this morning regarding Paypal and so on, actually. And of course I see this as a reference to taking care of myself physically - I do intend to work out today. Two of Wands suggests I need to make plans regarding these aspects of my life, and not just drift about waiting for things to happen. So I suppose I better make a 'To Do' list for today. Then of course the Queen of Wands (stalker that she is) tells me that  it's not enough to make plans, I have to light a fire under my butt and actually get them done.

Gosh, guys, it's Bank Holiday Monday!  Oh well. No rest for the wicked, eh? ;)

'Mystic Bastard' Day Two

Deck of the Bastard 2013, Mystic Faerie 2007

Today's draw from Mystic Faerie and Deck of the Bastard has produced The Star and Queen of Wands. This morning I woke up with a distinct feeling that today is a good day for fresh starts, and this combination of cards suggests I can reach my highest aspirations if I take determined action. I didn't think about the configuration of the cards when I threw them on the scanner, but I like the way the Queen of Wands has ended up pointing to The Star. It's like she's saying, 'You can have this if you want it.' (With a subtext of: 'But if you want it, you have to stop talking and grab a big stick and start beating your life into the shape you want it to take.') That might sound violent, but the Queen of Wands isn't known for subtlety. It's actually interesting to me to see The Star, which I always feel is a subtle, gentle card, combined with the Queen of Wands, who always seems to me quite showy and brash in her approach to things. She doesn't always have to be, but she  is certainly a take-no-prisoners type.

I woke up this morning with the idea to do visualizations during my meditation sessions, to visualize my life the way I want it to be. Then I remembered I have a CD I bought years ago of a kind of guided meditation for weight loss and healthy living. So I dug that out and dug around and found my earphones, and then I came to the PC to find that I'd drawn The Star + Queen of Wands for today, which reinforced my thoughts and actions of the morning.

Well, if I'm going to have time to listen to that CD, I've got to cut this short. Working 8.30-6.15 today!

Off to the docs

Golden Dawn Magical Tarot, Llewellyn

I'm off to a hospital appointment in another town today to get a second opinion about my hearing loss. I thought I'd do a one card draw on it and got 9 of Cups, then decided to go ahead and draw the next two cards to see a fuller message.

Queen of Wands - on the flip side

Druidcraft

Okay, so here's the counterbalance to my rant about the Queen of Wands from the other day. There's nothing wrong with having an opinion about a card, you know, or a type of person. And just because we have a tendency to automatically think of certain traits when a card turns up (because after all, we are only human and we ALL see life through the veil of our own personality regardless of how objective or 'fair' we might think we are) that doesn't mean we shouldn't read for people who have opposite traits to ours. Anyway, we all know that each card has the full gamut of meaning, and that each card is actually present in our own personalities, however dormant. Yes, I've got some Queen of Wands in me--both her positive and shadow side.

So--here's the brighter side of the Queen of Wands.

As a fire card, she is proactive. She is not passive. She does not hesitate to take action. She is assertive. When she sees something she wants, she will go for it with gusto. She lives her life on her own terms, and is not cowed by niceties or expectations of others, if she doesn't see them as falling in line with her own ideas about what her life should be like.

I bought some herbs today, oh boy

I just bought these herbs and pots today. From left to right: peppermint, lemon thyme, oregano, rosemary, sage.

I'm a little worried because when I took the plants from their plastic containers to pot them, they had massive root systems that filled the entire container. I wasn't expecting that, but I'm no expert on plants by any means. So when I put them in the new clay pots, I had to add hardly any soil at all around them. Perhaps I should have bought bigger pots, but it's too late now. I can't very well unpot them all and exchange the pots. It's just like me to take something that was meant to be fun and relaxing and find ways to stress and fret over it. I don't want the plants to die because the pots are too small, they're not getting enough light, the window's too drafty. Etc.

The fact is, I've been way more stressed lately than I ought to be. I don't know if it's hormones, my work situation, worry about things back home in America, or general malaise caused by the upcoming equinox. I don't know what it is.

So I drew from the Haindl Tarot. What is going on today? What is the underlying cause? And what is a possible solution?