Sample 1-Card Reading: Anna K Tarot

A practice reading with a specific question, for a hypothetical querent.
'What is the best way for me to be supportive of my child right now?'

Anna K Tarot, Klaffinger 2008

Do some soul-searching, and face up to all the fears you have for your child right now. List them. You could even write them down. What are you afraid might happen?  Remember that most of the things we fear and worry about never happen. Thinking about them won't make them happen. Worrying about them won't make them not happen. 

So...make two lists. On one side, list your fears. Then on the other side, list the ways you can see your child preparing himself  to face that very thing. Because chances are, even though you might not consider his way of preparing for or dealing with the issues you fear to be the 'right' way to handle it, your child is doing something. The Moon asks you to accept both your fears for your child, and your fears of the possible outcomes of what you see as the flawed solutions to his potential problems. 

Once you have faced these murky depths you harbor in your heart, you can realize that worrying about these imagined bad outcomes does no good. And you can let go of those worries and trust that your child is capable.

What is the best way to be supportive of your child? The Moon suggests you should have trust in his capability to deal with whatever life might throw at him, rather than projecting your own fears onto them. Just be there for your child should he actively seek your help, and dismiss worries from your mind as they arise; dismiss them as the things they really are -- scenarios of your imagination.

Card of the day: 6 of Swords

Original Rider-Waite

Yesterday was a pig of a day. Youths causing trouble in the public building where I work.  A rather lengthy discussion with a senior manager about an issue that's been troubling me for a long time. Then I get home and have a big row with my partner. Not fun. I feel quite wrung out.

My daily draw this morning turned up the 6 of Swords. How very apt. For me, this card is the aftermath of troubles. It's that feeling that is a combination of relief and weariness, a hollow delicate feeling, as if you're tiptoeing around like some wary fawn in the forest, hoping nothing gets you. Like the figure in the picture, you feel huddled down and passive, hoping that the boat doesn't tip you out, not because you're afraid to drown but because you can't take one more thing happening. 'Please God just get me past this', the card says. What a relief to know that you are already on your way.

Sample Super-Quick 3-Card Reading: Golden Tarot

A practice reading for an imaginary querent.

Golden Tarot, Kat Black 2003

Your frantic search for enlightenment, for answers, for happiness... has led to excess. It's rather urgent that you tone it down. Slow down. The key to true happiness is the 'middle way', and you are going to have to go in the opposite direction for a bit to achieve this, to balance things out. In other words, to achieve balance, you need to become extremely disciplined for a time and back off from the things you've been doing.


Look at the ways in which you are going overboard in your seeking. Step way back from those areas. Become downright circumspect. Teetotal. Party pooper. Stick in the mud. However you see being 'moderate' in the areas where you currently are overindulging. Be that! By doing this  you are quite likely to find your 'middle way' to the happiness you seek. 


(Practising to escape the habit of 'teaching' the cards in a reading.)

Full Wort Moon

Lebanese Tarot, Mehlinger-Jawlakh 2007

The moon was but a chin of gold

A night or two ago

And now she turns her perfect face

Upon the world below.

Her forehead is of amplest blonde

Her cheek like beryl stone

Her eyes unto the summer dew

the likest I have known.

Her lips of amber never part

but what must be the smile

Upon her friend she could bestow

were such her silver will.

And what a privilege to be

But the remotest star!

For certainly her way might pass

Beside your twinkling door.

~Emily Dickinson

Tarot Blog Hop: Lammas

If you've come here following the Tarot Blog Hop, welcome! You can find links to the previous and next blogs in the Hop at the bottom of the page...


Choosing my pentacles card to represent Fruits of the Harvest was no trouble at all! The Pentacles suit has always been a favourite of mine. I just love them, and fancied myself a Queen of Pentacles for a long time--but that was just me wishin'--I've got way more of the Queen of Swords in me than Earth Mother, but still...

I've always been attracted to fields of grain, sheaves, cornucopias spilling with fruit and vegetables, and images of men and women working in fields to bring in the crops that will feed them through the next long year. I once tried a meditation in which I asked for my own personal god/goddess image. I don't know exactly what I was expecting to appear, but to my surprise, I got a sudden and vivid close up image of a head of ripe grain, glowing as if surrounded by a halo. Not sure why I was surprised, really. I've always had a reverence for grain. Stores of grain, loaves of bread, bins filled with dried pasta. There are few things lovelier to me than a window display in an artisan baker's. Is that odd?  I suppose it speak deeply to my love of security, of comfort and of assurance that ample provision has been made against hard times that may come. 

Which brings me round to the Pentacles suit. Surely no other suit in the tarot deck speaks so profoundly to these earthly concerns; and of the pentacles suit, no card so directly as the Nine of Pentacles. 

Morgan Greer, US Games 1979