Welcome

This reading is my contribution to #tarottuesday.

Intentions for the reading:

Put forth information and energy from a loving place. Using my intuition to get a 'read' on current energies and useful information. Bring insight and clarify issues. Energies will be active for approximately a one week period.

Use as you will, you are free! you are powerful! you are a creator! :)

Tarot Tuesday - Week of 4th August

Ace of Wands - Spark of Life, Sprout of Growth, Rising Power

Wands is fire, and in these cards it is symbolized with living branches. Trees and fire will always rise upwards. They seek the sky, they seek to breathe, they seek to expand and grow. Only under the right conditions will either a tree or a fire grow into something larger, they need a specific set up below as well. We have one fire card and two earth cards, this reading is to do with your fuel sources, how to maintain your inner fire, protect it and manage it.

New life, a small sprout springs from the ground. The basic urge to live and grow is within you as much as it is in a tiny seed. It takes explosive energy to break from that shell and to push up out of the dirt. It takes absolute conviction to sprout up and root downward, there is no other option. Life seeks to live and to grow, it seeks to express its self fully. The potential in a tiny seed is a mighty tree, the distance is only time, inspiration, and commitment.

Contemplation:

• What gives you a surge of life energy?
• What are you re-committing to?
• How have you been tending to the garden of your life?
• What is inspiring you right now?
• What kind of connection do you have with nature?

Inspiration and passion is arising now, it is a tiny fire inside your heart. Alighting those first few twigs and dry leaves the fire comes to life. In the ideal environment the fire will grow easily, if regularly fed and maintained. What is the environment of your inspiration? Do the ashes of yesterday need to be emptied, to allow room for a new fire to burn within you? Do the winds and rains (emotional and mental) of your environment continually threaten to put that fire out?

Know that your creative force can never be snuffed, but it can be smothered and will take time to rekindle. Taking the time to be playful and imaginative could be very useful now, as could revisiting a project that had you fired up but had to put on the 'back burner' for a while.

Five of Pentacles - Be Vulnerable, Always Something to Give, Poverty and Abundance

Not all of the seeds of life will reach fruition, this is not the way of nature. We may see cruelty, but that is our own projection. For every tree that reaches the upper canopy, there are many more which are eaten by animals, or perhaps simply rot away in their seed state to never even emerge.

Let's acknowledge the parts of us that were never allowed to emerge. We can accept what has died and withered as part of the natural way of life, and in accepting and letting go of these things then we can bring our energy into the abundant new seeds always arriving.

To be without things materially may teach us many things spiritually. In fact we might not ever look within if we are continually fixated on money and things. Losing health and wealth greatly simplifies things, it slows everything down. If you have not got a job to go to, or if you lie bed ridden - then you almost have to look within. Knowing your wounds, and feeling your pain. Coming to quiet acceptance of something beautiful which is not dependent of what we do or do not have.

Contemplation:

• Who is suffering in your life right now? Is it you?
• What refuge can we take, or who can we give refuge?
• What constraints do we have physically and materially?
• What opportunity might these constraints be revealing to us?

The Five of Pentacles is sometimes referred to as 'the poverty card', which is the surface reading. There is a deeper and richer meaning which is really highlighted with this Morgan Greer deck. The woman holds the wounded man with a look of such love and empathy. He has nothing to offer, poor and infirm.

What is this love which will give even to the broken and disowned? It is beyond human pettiness, it is a sacred giving which can move through us if we allow our judgements to be set aside. Consider this power in your life and let it move you. This is your true self, boundless in its capacity to give and to nurture.

Four of Pentacles - Safe and Sound, Containers, Reach the Next Safe Point

The Four of Pentacles is the image of security, so in talking about this card we have to also understand insecurity. To seek security can come from a clear place of wanting to establish something beautiful which provides abundance for ourselves and others. We can also seek security for other reasons. We can seek security because we feel insecure, we feel afraid and we want to have some kind of control over the world. We want to 'protect' ourselves, from a perceived outside hostility. This is a biological tendency, but also a program that we run through our social conditioning.

Coming through from the last card, we considered the sacred giving which is selfless and without thought. Let's take a step back from Five to Four, and see what kind of barriers might block us from embodying that divine love.

The need for security necessitates prioritizing ourselves (and our inner circle). Security means to secure something, it means drawing a line. It means pulling energy and resources into that circle and stockpiling them up. It makes sense for a tribe to gather, especially if later the conditions will limit their wandering. Yet this same principle of securing something for ourselves is what has created aggressive warring city states. This same principle is what has got billions of people running on economic hamster wheels, turned in on them selves and blocked from sharing freely.

There's no shortage of people, and there's no shortage of resources. It's an invisible barrier which stops us from sharing and reaching out. This is a barrier on the subtle level, but it is incredibly powerful - it is a spell. This card is an opportunity to explore this idea and energy in our lives. Where have we drawn the lines and cut ourselves and others off?

We may have habits and programming, but it is all contingent on our consent and will. Every moment we get the opportunity to choose whether we open or close to life and it's many inhabitants. Every moment is an invitation to connect out and to connect in.