A full spread.
YOU DREW TEN CARDS:
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Environment
The Wheel of Fortune
X – The Wheel. Feeling helpless in the grip of fate. Accepting the limitations of life. Awareness of the cycles of life. Foolishly chasing after success. A promise of rebirth.
Destiny, fortune, success, luck, felicity. Reversed: Increase, abundance, superfluity.
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Obstacles
Ace of Wands
Staves: Creating. Creative energy. Think of building a house with wooden planks.
Ace: There’s a first time for everything. Beginnings. A seed that will grow.
A hand issuing from a cloud grasps a stout Wand or Club. Divinatory Meanings: Creation, invention, enterprise, the powers which result in these; principle, beginning, source; birth, family, origin; the beginning of enterprises; according to another account, money, fortune, inheritance. Reversed: Fall, decadence, ruin, perdition, to perish; also — not unclouded joy.
New beginnings. The birth of an idea that leads to action. The start of an enterprise or new challenges. You are filled with a sense of optimism, eagerness, enthusiasm, excitement, and boundless energy. You can sense the potential. You are looking forward to what’s ahead. Reversed: Difficulty in getting something started. False hopes. Misdirected energy. You are lacking motivation, ambition, or drive to face the challenges. You don’t want to attempt anything new.
A hand comes out from a cloud holding a flowering wand. In the distance is a mountain peak surmounted by a castle. Divinatory Meaning: The beginning of an enterprise, creation or invention. A birth, the starting of a family or of a fortune, possibly an inheritance. Reversed: The new enterprise may not materialize. Clouded joy, false starts.
Fresh starts bring spiritual awakening.
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Above
Ten of Pentacles
Coins: Obtaining. Providing for yourself. Establishing a comfort zone. Taking risks with resources. Think of the thoughts and feelings you experience when you buy a lottery ticket.
Ten: Enough already. You’ve attained your goals, but find them unsatisfying. Time to begin something new.
A man and woman beneath an archway which gives entrance to a house and domain. Divinatory Meanings: Gain, riches; family matters, archives, extraction, the abode of a family. Reversed: Chance, fatality, loss, robbery, games of hazard; sometimes gift, dowry, pension.
You’ve achieved much of what you want, but you don’t know if it’s enough and you should seek more, or if it is as satisfying as you hoped it would be. At a minimum you are secure, have comfortable home, and sufficient wealth. Reversed: Financial security in jeopardy. Not a good time to invest in new projects, gamble on possible return. You are facing a multitude of financial problems. You feel constrained, unable to do anything to improve your lot.
A patriarch rests at ease in the foreground, surrounded by his family and dogs. An archway emblazoned with his coat of arms opens onto an impressive house. Divinatory Meaning: An established family of material prosperity and lineage. Gain, riches, family matters, inheritance. May refer to money spent on a house or business property. Reversed: Chance of loss of inheritance. Family misfortune or loss of family honor. Robbery, gambling. Caution against getting involved in project that may be a poor risk.
Unexpected wealth from an outside source.
Once prosperity has been obtained, there is a complete spiritual work to be accomplished with the riches we’ve amassed. The way of prosperity has closed. In the material domain, it is time for creativity to enter into action.
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Behind
The Lovers
Love and attraction as forces which overpower rationality and social mores. Romantic triangles and complications. Sensual motives underlying seemingly virtous actions. Choice. Choosing goodness over sensual satisfaction. A marriage or committed relationship. Creating a formal mechanism by which two energies can be combined.
Attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome. Reversed: Failure, foolish designs.
On its simplest level, The Lovers represents the act of union between the male and female spirits. Man and woman together are a potent creative force.
On another level, the card speaks to the next stage of a development — the point at which we move forward to begin building for the future with another.
A third meaning relates the male and female sides to a personality that exists within each of us — men and women alike. The male side represents the intellect, which is linked to the outer world, through conscious thought and reason, whereas the female is our connection to our unconscious self.
The card also acknowledges the emergence of sexuality within each of us — a change in our physical bodies and emotional and intellectual framework that both separates man from woman and at the same time creates the dynamic tension that draws us together. Similar tensions exist within ourselves as we try to live in both the external and unconscious worlds simultaneously.
Divinatory meaning: Choice between diverse allurements; the struggle between sacred and profane love. Attraction, beauty, harmony of the inner and outer life. The power of choice means responsibility. Reversed: Parental interference, danger of marriage breaking up, quarrels over children. The possibility of wrong choice.
This is the card of your emotional life with its ups and downs; it suggests conflicts of the flesh as opposed to those of the spirit. It also points to a good relationship or marriage and flows over into the making of positive decisions in your life. Reversed: A wrong choice will be made. Sexual infidelity may rear its ugly head, and you may be in for sexual difficulties as well.
Union, Emotional Life
“I am the sun of the Arcanum, the white sun: almost invisible but casting my light upon all the figures. I am this star: the joy of existing and the joy that the Other exists. I live in ecstasy. Everything fills me with happiness: nature, the entire universe, the existence of the Other in all its forms — the Other who is none other than me.”
“I am the awareness that shines like a bright living star in the center of your heart. I renew myself at every moment; at each instant I am being born. At your every heartbeat I am uniting you with the entire universe. It is from me that come the infinite connections joining you to all creation. Ah, the pleasure of living! Ah, the pleasure of becoming one! Ah, the pleasure of doing what I love! Messenger of the permanent impermanence, I am reborn every second. I am like a newborn archer launching arrows at everything his senses can capture.”
“I am not kindness; I am not ambition for well-being or triumph. I am unconditional love. I will teach you how to live in wonder, recognition, and joy.”
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Ahead
Five of Pentacles
Coins: Obtaining. Providing for yourself. Establishing a comfort zone. Taking risks with resources. Think of the thoughts and feelings you experience when you buy a lottery ticket.
Five: Challenging yourself. A monkey wrench. Things don’t go as expected and you’re challenged to grow. Or you may be deliberately challenging yourself.
Two mendicants in a snowstorm pass a lighted casement. Divinatory Meanings: It foretells material trouble above all, whether in the form illustrated – that is, destitution – or otherwise. For some cartomancists, it is a card of love and lovers – wife, husband, friend, mistress; also concordance, affinities. These alternatives cannot be harmonised. Reversed: Disorder, chaos, ruin, discord, profligacy.
A destitute couple pass under a lighted window. The unfortunates in outer darkness have not yet realized the inner light. Note that the Fives of each suit are negative cards. Divinatory Meaning: Material trouble, loneliness, destitution, spiritual impoverishment. Could mean unemployment, loss of home. Dark night of the soul. Reversed: Money regained, new employment, good companionship, new interest in business or spiritual matters.
The Pentacles deal with money, finance, business, prosperity and security.
Five of Pentacles: Ruin, financial collapse.
In the heart of stability a new interest is opening connected to a spiritual, planetary, or cosmic dimension. The negative dimension can be a reversal of fortune, a bad doctor, a descent into drugs or alcohol, a venal financial advisor, a swindler, an unscrupulous industrialist, a stock exchange crash, or nervous depression.
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You
Queen of Wands
Staves: Creating. Creative energy. Think of building a house with wooden planks.
Queen: Encouraging. Getting things done in a calm, understated way. Using persuasion rather than force.
The Wands throughout this suit are always in leaf, as it is a suit of life and animation. Emotionally and otherwise, the Queen’s personality corresponds to that of the King, but is more magnetic. Divinatory Meanings: A dark woman, countrywoman, friendly, chaste, loving, honourable. If the card beside her signifies a man, she is well disposed towards him; if a woman, she is interested in the Querent. Also, love of money. Reversed: Good, economical, obliging, serviceable. Signifies also opposition, jealousy, even deceit and infidelity.
An appreciation for life, relationships, friendships, family. Work, home life in harmony. All pursuits surrounded by a positive force. Reversed: Under the influence of someone who is narrow-minded, self-centered, domineering. Must guard against feelings of jealousy.
A crowned queen wearing royal robes holds a flowering wand in her right hand, that of authority. In her left hand is a sunflower, signifying her control over nature. The lions on the arms of her throne are fire symbols, and the black cat is a symbol of Venus in its sinister aspect. The three pyramids are seen again. Divinatory Meaning: A blonde, blue-eyed woman, animated and magnetic. Generally she lives in the country, is home-loving and nature-loving. She is friendly, chaste, and honorable. If the card beside her is a man, she is very fond of him; if a woman, she is interested in her welfare. The card may mean success in undertakings and enterprises. Reversed: A virtuous but strict and economical woman. Opposition, jealousy, deceit, or infidelity are suggested.
A strong, independent woman.
The energy of the Queen is positioned between the 4 and the 5, between security and the appeal of an ideal. The Queen rests upon something that has been established, all the while knowing a new point of view exists.
A sculpted wand is propped upon her lower belly; she is holding it with her right hand, while with the other she seems to be shaking a small artificial hand that is colored yellow. She is a sensual and seductive individual who shares points in common with The Empress. In full possession of her sexuality and creativity, she can be passionate, capricious, instinctive, and independent. She represents the satisfaction of a person who has begun to live on her creativity. Her sexuality is fully experienced, and she can symbolize an artist or an energy working, but she can also, in a more negative sense, represent someone obsessed with sex, venality, or excess.
“I have dived into the incessant river of desire. Everything in me is exuberance. With the gluttony of a tornado I offer my burning cavern to every insemination. My voluminous hair is the foam of an ocean that gathers itself in a single wave. Universal power manifesting as sexual action gives me the supreme strength of seduction. I am ready to incubate countless eggs, to make all deserts flower, and to people with my works the harsh kingdom of the Queen of Pentacles. This is why I never stop opening myself and never stop calling. Without a generative intake I would not exist. It is this incompleteness that gives me my giant stature. Beneath my being outside of omnipotence I need to be used, fertilized, and directed. This is what seduction is: a lack transmuted into strength by desire. If I did not acknowledge this lack, if I aspired to complete myself, I would become castrating.”
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Others
Two of Pentacles
Coins: Obtaining. Providing for yourself. Establishing a comfort zone. Taking risks with resources. Think of the thoughts and feelings you experience when you buy a lottery ticket.
Two: It takes two. A dialogue. Weighing and comparing different possibilities.
A young man in the act of dancing has a pentacle in either hand, and they are joined by that endless cord which is like the number 8 reversed. Divinatory Meanings: On the one hand it is represented as a card of gaiety, recreation and its connexions, which is the subject of the design; but it is read also as news and messages in writing, as obstacles, agitation, trouble, embroilment. Reversed: Enforced gaiety, simulated enjoyment, literal sense, handwriting, composition, letters of exchange.
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Illusions
Eight of Pentacles
Coins: Obtaining. Providing for yourself. Establishing a comfort zone. Taking risks with resources. Think of the thoughts and feelings you experience when you buy a lottery ticket.
Eight: The efficiency expert. Through the use of discipline and structure, you reach peak efficiency.
An artist in stone at work. Divinatory Meanings: Work, employment, commission, craftsmanship, skill in craft and business. Reversed: Voided ambition, vanity, cupidity, exaction, usury.
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To Come
Two of Swords
Swords: Defending. Self-defense and setting boundaries. Think of drawing a line in the sand with a sword point.
Two: It takes two. A dialogue. Weighing and comparing different possibilities.
A hoodwinked figure balances two swords upon her shoulders. Divinatory Meanings: Conformity and the equipoise which it suggests, courage, friendship, concord in a state of arms, affection, intimacy. Reversed: Imposture, falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty.
You can’t decide. Instead, you close your eyes to what faces you. You step back from the situation, taking time to get your emotions in check, to ponder things in silence. You can’t remain aloof forever; soon you will have to decide. Reversed: Although a decision has been made, and action has been taken, it is too early to tell if it was the right thing to do. Only time will tell. Either way, things are beginning to move.
A blindfolded woman balances two swords upon her shoulders. She sits on a bench with her back to the sea. The crescent moon looks down upon her. Divinatory Meaning: Balanced forces, stalemate, indecision, impotence, a temporary truce in family quarrels. Reversed: Release, movement of affairs, sometimes in the wrong direction. Caution against dealings with rogues.
Gold circumstances rising out of adversity.
The intellect remains passive, waiting for an action.
