7 of Disks – or I’m really bored now.
Saturn in Taurus
3rd Decan of Taurus 20-30
The 7 of disks has never been a favourite card of mine, in fact i’d say it’s a card I actively dislike — especially in a Thoth reading.
However like all the cards, this one has a lesson for us if we are ready to hear it out.
The Golden dawn title of this card is Lord of Success unfulfilled. The RWS deck shows us a man tending his crop, rather half-heartedly it would seem to me, leaning on his spade and almost ready to doze off. Some interpretations say he is waiting for his crop to grow, but we all know weeding and care needs to be done to make things grow well. This work may have got too hard or too boring- whatever it is, he needs to either walk away and plant something new, or, put his back into the weeding and fertilising to give his crop the best chance to grow into something of use.
The Thoth 7 Disks is a mess of dead, black leaves – with dark coins formed into the geomantic shape “Rubeus” (an overturned glass, or inversion – meaning Good in all that is evil and Evil in all that is good). Crowley just calls it Failure – which is pretty harsh really because – you can still achieve the things you desire if you can harness the energies you need. But you need to start making choices, and making moves, you can’t sloth about flicking thru your facebook feed all evening, nice as that is.
From the Book of Thoth:
“There is no effort here; not even dream; the stake has been thrown down, and it is lost. That is all labour itself is abandoned; everything is sunk into sloth.”
This card says you need to put some thought into the next stage of development and either become more active in what you are doing, or give up the work you have put in so far and start anew in a different field. You cannot expect your crop to grow, if you refuse to put the energy in and stand idly by in a little dolly daydream.
You might find on deeper analysis you are putting in too much work for too little reward? Or maybe you have lost your desire for the outcome you have been working for and really wish you were doing something else? — Whatever the state of play is – now is the time to stop for a moment and really analyse if you are still moving in the direction that you want to go. Or if some course adjustments are required to get you back on track? Maybe you just need a kick in the butt to get back on with the work lazy bones – “sooner begun the sooner done” as they say.
Blogging again – hopefully!
Quick blog update.
So I haven’t blogged here in over a year, but I have just renewed my site contract as I do want to share my love of tarot. After some deliberation
My plan is for a weekly blog, on decks, cards review etc maybe the odd book review. I might do some Youtube stuff as well. I’ve even joined Twitter, again, for my sins.
Come over and say Hi if you like @loutarot
Five of fire tells me the struggle is real !
Reversals ya or nah
A thing that seems to come up time and again on any forum or group I’m a member of is the age-old dilemma of reversals. In why do some people read Tarot reversals while others don’t? I have seen both sides judging fellow readers on whether they do or do not pay attention to which side up a card is facing. The arguments being that you are missing a lot of extra meaning and nuance if you don’t read reversals. This is countered with the ‘I use my intuition to know’ line 🙂 that’s the one I use generally
I have never read reversals, as they seem to somehow interfere with my process, they threw me into a tailspin generally. I don’t mean I can’t think of the meaning or relate meanings to the question at hand. But when they come up I tend to then over think them and this then can interfere with the flow for me. I have found that my intuition is quite capable of telling when a card drawn has a negative aspect highlighted. I also find that the fact that some cards in the deck are the wrong way round also limit the combinations that come up this is just my opinion.
Ultimately though it is the readers choice whether they take these into account or just right side them when they come up. Looking down our noses at each other’s processes and methods is a bit of snobby whichever way it is given.
Just things about mental health
Pre-amble….. I’m not very good at not just launching myself into my blogging. By which I mean when I read other peoples blogs they have a nice pace, do introductions etc – they do writing that doesn’t just fling you in at the deep end, sorry I’m not so good at that. Hold your nose we are going in… fair warning I’m talking about me a lot. And it’s pretty personal.
So today I’ve been thinking about my recent mental health experiences. I’ve had a pretty horrible 12 months, truth be told. Spent most of the early part of 2017 with a nasty bout of labyrinthitis which you may or may not know is a disease of the inner ear. This affected my balance massively and was exhausting to live with. All my energy was taken up with just getting through the day without falling over. If you have it you have my empathy and understanding.
It took me months to recover from this, then depression and anxiety hit me, I began to question my value as a human. I’d barely worked for months, and although my employment was unaffected they were very good to me, my self-worth waned. That being said it was never that great to start with. By November of 2017, I was in a really weird place mentally. Suffering from obsessive repetitive OCD like ideas, and PTSD from unresolved childhood issues really took hold, thankfully I have amazing friends who made me see a doctor. I wasn’t ready to jump under a bus, but somedays I felt like an accidental bus squishing could only be a good thing. Pretty sad huh? I was sad, and I was obsessing about things of little consequence, ridiculous things it seems to look back. It makes me mad when people make OCD jokes like such mental anguish could ever EVER be funny.
I managed to get myself referred for some CBT if you don’t know what that is it stands for cognitive behavioural therapy – and it’s pretty hard work, and I’ll be honest you need a bit of bravery to look at yourself this way. I’ve done 8 sessions so far, each one hard and found it the most profoundly painful experience, but it has been worthwhile in building coping strategies for when I am being triggered – another word I don’t like jokes being made about. Triggers are real things, real upsets, not to be joked about. And although it is not the aim of CBT, CBT has helped me acknowledge the source of the problems, the unresolved traumas of my childhood. I have no intention of detailing them here btw, but they are pretty horrible, and they have been hidden away in shame for years. They have clouded my everyday life for years without being confronted, tainting a lot of experiences, misrepresenting the truth of lots of situations. I am confronting them now — they need to be exorcised, like a poltergeist who is moving all your stuff behind your back. You don’t understand what is happening until it all clicks together, then that ghost better start packing its bags because the spotlights are out. You can’t heal a wound without examining it, and sometimes that examination will hurt badly. But it’s a worthwhile endeavour to know you can fall asleep at night without wondering why you are so continually hurt and damaged by the world.
I won’t say I’m out of the woods completely, and somedays I feel like I am still grieving for myself and the wasted years, I have cried for the child within me because she did nothing to deserve that pain. That being said I do feel like I am ready to move on with a lot of things, to change a lot of things that I have been frightened of change. Fearing the unknown because the little things I was holding onto might have been swept away by those changes.
The world is a very different place for me now compared with 5 or 6 months ago. I can’t control everything and that’s ok now. I just have to let it go. I am feeling more positive, and things can get better. Sometimes you just need a little help to get through these things. There’s no shame there.
