Different faces of the Star

Hello everyone!

Somewhere deep inside I knew I would come back. It's been over a year since my last post. There were various things going on in my life and tarot was not so present during that time. But now I feel that it's time to come back to tarot world.

I have calculated my year card for 2016 (by adding the day and moth of my birthday to the numerals of 2016) and it seems it's XVII The Star. It honestly seems right, because then 2015 was XVI The Tower and 2014 XV The Devil. These were very difficult years for me, and full of radical changes. I'm still recovering. And when I looked at The Star from my favorite Tarot de Marseille deck, it looked to me like she's pouring a lot of dirty water to the sewer. I know it's against the traditional view of crystal clear water... But that's how it looked to me at the time. She's cleansing her life. I need to get rid of many painful things and take the next step.

I took the Star cards from most of my decks and spread them on the table. They all seem to be saying the same thing (except for the "1001 Nights Tarot", but this deck doesn't talk to me anyway).

2017 should be XVIII The Moon... Shoud I worry?

A Friday trip

I wanted to know what chances do I have of going on a trip I had planned. Today some obstacles appeared and it's possible I won't be able to go in the end.

I pulled three cards from The Tarot of The White Cats:

2 of Swords, 2 of Coins, XVI The Tower

I think I won't go. Tonight it will be questionable (2/Swords), tomorrow will be unclear (2/Coins) and tomorrow evening (I can even see the moments of the day by the colour of the sky in the cards!) will bring the news that the trip is impossible (XVI).

Did I read correctly? We'll see in two days ;)

Edit: indeed the trip was impossible. It wasn't exactly as I have interpreted, but the last card - The Tower - shows precisely my baby's high, flaming fever!

New Year's Reading - First Quarter

Just after New Year I did a reading for each quarter of the year. For the first quarter (January, February, March) I can say it's pretty much spot on.

I pulled from my Tarot of The White Cats:

First quarter in general: 3 of Swords

Work (working on my book with the editor): 10 of Cups, 9 of Coins

Health: XIII Death, 10 of Swords

Husband: VII Chariot, 5 of Coins

Baby: XVII The Star, XI Strength

Only two thirds of this quarter are gone, but I already can tell, that the beginning of this year was hard (3/Swords). The editor is still reading the text and I have nothing to do, so cards like 10/Cups (relaxed idleness) or 9/Coins (relaxing in luxury) fit well here. My health is portrayed well too: I struggle all the time, catch infections, I'm weak... Death and 10/Swords sum it up. My husband has a lot of challenges (VII), because he has to support me and he's quite exhausted (5/Coins). With the baby I got better - I'm better at handling him and also he himself became easier to care for. Still, some struggle is needed (XVII, XI).

When I saw these cards just after New Year, I was not delighted. I started wondering if there's any sense in reading the cards about the future - then see they're not promising and starting to worry. Now I think it's not bad to see difficulties coming. Seeing them in the cards gives us opportunity to mentally prepare.

November - monthly read

This time... I was on time :D

This month I used Tarot of the White Cats.

Atmosphere of the month, important event: XVII The Star

Health: 7 of Wands

Baby: Queen of Wands, XII The Hanged Man

Writing: 7 of Swords, XV The Devil

How I love the method of adding a card into the direction where the person on the card is looking. It makes the reading easier for me. For example, in "Baby" section I pulled the Hanged Man first and then pulled the Queen, which made things more understandable. I did the same with The Devil and 7/Swords.

This month should bring some hope and a chance for self-development (The Star).

With health I still will be struggling, maybe I will have problems with my running due to colder weather (7/Wands).

The baby will still be quite dependent on me (The Hanged Man looking at the Queen of Wands).

With writing things start looking fishy, I should probably be careful... (7/Swords, The Devil).

Edit: the cards look very clear now. 7/Wands for health indeed meant struggle, struggle, struggle... I had a cold and depression issues. I felt like that cat fighting many enemies.
With the baby I felt almost trapped, like the Hanged Man, with no chance of escaping. 7/Swords and The Devil show the moment, when I felt like I was in hell (XV) and went for a walk between 4 and 5 a.m., when it was still dark, with the hood on my head... Just like the cat from 7/Swords card. Then I contacted the publishing house again - and I got an answer. The Star shows, that it was a positive one.

Cold

It seems I caught a cold and I wanted to know how it will be the next four days. I pulled one card for each day: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

I pulled 4 of Swords, XV The Devil, V The Pope, 9 of Wands.

Tuesday will be without changes, I will feel the worst on Wednesday or maybe I will infect someone else... Thursday will bring better health and on Friday I should be quite OK.

There might also be a suggestion for me to stay at home on Tuesday in order to get physical energy the next day. The Devil appeared in the spreads as a rush of energy before. Hopefully I can go to my German class on Thursday (The Pope).

Update: indeed I stayed at home (and a bit in bed) on Tuesday. On Wednesday I felt not perfect yet, but much better - only the weather was disastrous and I feld CHAINED at home ;) Today (Thursday) I attended German class again.

The injection

I'm having an iron injection on Thursday and I wanted to know how it goes. I've never had anything like that done, so I felt a bit anxious, in spite of the doctor telling me I will feel great after that and there's no need to worry.

I pulled 3 cards: 8 of Wands, Page of Wands and VII The Chariot.

The cards are obviously telling me to trust the doctor. I should get a lot of new energy that I'm now lacking!

Edit: the cards actually meant, that 8/Wands was something overwhelming, because the injection/infusion didn't go well and I had to try a new method: Page of Wands (taking tablets instead). After that I've really gotten well - The Chariot :)

Rounded them!

After trimming my Tarot of the White Cats, I had a problems, because they were quite spiky and thus shuffling them was not comfortable. I couldn't find any corner rounders here, so in the end I decided to round them simply by scissors. Now they feel fabulous!

Buying books about tarot

I have some collection of books about tarot already (among which my favourites are those by Hajo Banzhaf), but I found three more that I would like to buy. It would be best to buy them together, since I'll be buying from american Amazon, so buying one by one is not the best solution. I asked my cards how I would be happy with them.

1. Learning Tarot Reversals by Joan Bunning. Ace of Swords.

2. The Way of Tarot by Alejandro Jodorowsky. 4 of Wands.

3. The Tarot Court Cards by Kate Warwick-Smith. 8 of Pentacles.

The most promising one is the first one (Ace of Swords). It should broaden my knowledge very much. But others are also not bad cards for learning, although with the third one I will have to study hard to get good results. All in all it seems a worthy buy.

Who's guilty?

I've been to Poland for two weeks and I couldn't update here, for I was very busy. I hope that now that I'm back I will be able to write more regularly again.

We still have problems with our computer. My husband insists that it's the graphics card, tarot insists on the opposite! I actually made a spread to find out what is wrong.

1. Motherboard. VII The Chariot.

2. Memory. 3 of Swords.

3. Processor. XXI The World.

4. Graphics card. 10 of Pentacles.

5. (in the middle) Advice. 3 of Cups.

From this spread it seems that the memory is guilty. However, my husband tested it some time ago and the tests went OK. So we'll be probably exchanging the graphics card again... >.>
Anyway, the cards say that the motherboard is perfectly fine (VII), so is the processor (XXI) and graphics card (10/Pent). The advice is to ask someone for help, I suppose.

Lost my trimming virginity!

Well, I have never trimmed a deck before. Never even thought about it, before I read so many about trimming on Aeclectic Tarot Forum... I've been thinking that my White Cats Tarot has too large borders (with titles in 6 languages), but the actual pictures were rather small. So first I checked in the computer if I like the result of trimming and I did, so then the scissors came! It was acutally much easier than I thought. Now the deck looks much more beautiful, like paintings in golden frames or windows to the cat world...

I only need to find a corner rounder now, the corners are quite spiky...

After trimming the backs are not reversible anymore, but I don't worry since I don't use reversals anyway :)

Where is my coat?

I couldn't find a nice coat I got from my sister. I thought I searched everywhere and in the end I decided to ask tarot for help. Fortunately, in the newest "Tarocista", a Polish tarot magazine, there was an article about finding lost objects with tarot's help. I used Izabela Podlaska-Konkel's spread. She adapted the classical "Star" spread for it.

The top card is the chances of finding the object (XVIII The Moon). On the left: where is it? (XV The Devil). On the right: where not to search? (Ace of Pentacles). Then the story of the object: IX Strength, King of Swords and 10 of Swords. What will help? - Ace of Cups.

The chances didn't look too promising (The Moon). Acording to Izabela Podlaska-Konkel's tips, The Devil can mean various things, but some of them are: somewhere hidden, something connected to bed and sex. It can also mean the thing was stolen, so I was worried. Where not to search: in the dining room probably (a place connected to work and making money) and the kitchen (connected to food). The story: I came back after a party and pulled the coat off (XI Strength). Then maybe I got distracted by my husband (King of Swords) and put the coat into a carton box near bedroom (we've just moved here, so we still lack furniture and have a lot of boxes). Then it was covered by our spare blankets. What will help: Ace of Cups. First I thought I would have to get drunk to remember the logic I used after the party, LOL ;D But obviously the Cups mean the thing is hidden somewhere deep, in a dark place, also the bedding is mentioned in the article!

So indeed I found it under our spare blankets. Thank you, kitties! Now my husband is suggesting I should try and find a lost tube of wasabi this way...

Graphics cards

We had a complicated situation with multiple graphics cards in our house, in the end we had two: one that was already inserted to the computer and the other, yet unpacked (we wanted to send it back). We had some doubts however, because the card A, let's call it, was using much more energy than card B and also we were not sure if it will work without problems. I told my husband to pull two cards, each for one graphics card. We got King of Pentacles for card A and 5 of Swords for card B.

It seems that indeed card A will be eating more energy, but it should be dependable. Card B doesn't seem dependable at all! There could even be some complications with computer's functioning. So we decided to send card B back :)