King of Swords

Card of the Day: King of Swords

This (and all the cards this month) is from the Ceccoli Tarot.

From the LWB: "One who plans and strategizes thoroughly before acting. Brings a brilliant mind to any situation."

A man of intellect. Honest, truthful, insightful and eloquent, impartial and incorruptible.

The Queen of Pentacles

Card of the Day: Queen of Discs (Pentacles).

This (and all the cards this month) is from the Ceccoli Tarot.

From the LWB: "One who gives abundantly of all of life's sweetness. Generous and motherly, a resource for wealth."

This Queen is sensible, down to earth, matter-of-fact. She doesn't have the time or the inclination for a lot of foolishness. Loyal, steadfast and trusting, she just takes care of things without worrying too much about it. She's nurturing, but she won't put up with a lot of your nonsense. A lover of nature, she represents involvement with the physical world, reliability, pragmatism, success, security, wealth.

In readings, the Queen of Pentacles may represent someone currently in your life or someone that you may meet. All of the Pentacles cards represent money or finances in some way; the Queen is strong, affectionate, nurturing and wise. She is financially secure and spends money wisely, but is not particularly frugal. She enjoys the things that her wealth brings, i.e., a beautiful home, gifts for her family, the ability to pamper herself with beauty treatments--maybe a spa day or two.

The World

Card of the Day: XXI, The World.

This (and all the cards this month) is from the Ceccoli Tarot.

From the LWB: "Everything seems complete and perfect just as it is, but don't be afraid to shake things up. A new pattern will emerge."

Key concepts: Completion, wholeness, breaking through.

I love the card from this deck, with the little gingerbread house and the little girl inside a snow globe. I've always loved snow globes -- a whole little world inside a sphere, with "snow" or glitter inside. A couple of years ago I made Christmas ornaments for everyone in my family by buying clear glass fillable ornaments and filling them with plastic "snow." There's just something about that little self-contained world that intrigues me.

Traditionally the World card shows an dancing woman with her feet crossed in the manner of the Hanged Man, but upright rather than upside down. According to Rachel Pollack in Tarot Wisdom, "the World represents the culmination, full consciousness unlimited by dualism or ignorance," and "the World card doesn't just overcome limits, it transcends them to show us a vision of fully realized existence."

In readings, the World represents a positive result, a breakthrough of some kind, "some powerful understanding that leads to wholeness and freedom. . . mostly, it promises success." Rachel Pollack's Tarot Wisdom

In Learning Tarot, Joan Bunning equates the World card to a feeling of thanksgiving: " It's Thanksgiving Day. . . . You're happy, fulfilled and truly thankful . For this moment, the World and everything in it is yours." So while I was first thinking that this card would be more appropriate for the last day of the year, I also think it's very appropriate to start off this month, this season, with a wish for wholeness and completion, to go into the holidays on a positive note.

A day, a year

I love the "photo a day" challenges, and I sometimes start them, but don't usually finish them. I was going to do a "tarot card a day" one (no challenge, just for my own learning), and I did it for a few days, then something happened that destroyed my mood for a few days, and I couldn't go on. Isn't it silly how that happens? But it does. I have a really hard time bouncing back from from things sometimes--disappointment, a perceived insult, something that doesn't work out the way that I had hoped.

I'm going to try the card a day thing again for December, as well as doing Susannah Conway's December Reflections. I was going through my Day Timer, putting the prompts in for each day, and when I got to the last day, it asks for your word for 2016.

I can't remember for sure what my word for 2015 was, either "sparkle" or "shine." I got a manicure right after the first of the year, and my nail tech convinced me to do gold sparkles (I always get French manicures), and I thought, well, that fits in with my word of the year, so, okay. But then Bob went into the hospital on the 5th, and was away from home, either in the hospital or in rehab, for six weeks, and I didn't feel like I did much sparkling. It was much more like my word for 2014, which was "believe." I did a lot of that in 2015. Bob says that was what made the difference -- my belief that he would live, and maybe so.

I notice that the prompt for December 1 is "sparkle," so I guess that's appropriate. I'll have to think about what I want my word for 2016 to be while I take photos this month.

It seems like we sure spent a lot of money this year, from the mountain of medical bills following Bob's hospitalization, to having to have our trees pruned, to having to get an unexpected set of tires this weekend. But we will try to have a small Christmas this year, and it will be fine. I have a secret thing that I'm going to be saving money for, and I'm really hoping that I can make that work. I'm excited about it.

The photo above is a selfie that Bob took a couple of years ago. I posted it to my company's Slack channel saying, "This is the face of retail from now until the end of the year." It makes me laugh every time I see it, he's so serious. And I love the bent "antler."

Quiet Power

Okay, so . . . this is getting weird. For the third day in a row, I've drawn The Sun. Completely by accident. I've mixed the cards pretty well, although since I'm not actually doing a reading, but wanting to get familiar with these cards, I didn't actually shuffle them.

I recently read a book called "Getting Wilde," by Jenn Stark. The protagonist, Sara Wilde, is a professional thief and carries a pack of tarot cards in her pocket and pulls one from the deck when she needs guidance or inspiration. Occasionally one will fall out of the pack, and if that happens, it takes on even more significance. So that's basically what I'm trying to do. So I guess the cards are doing their best to tell me that everything is going to be okay.

So I pulled another card for today and got the Queen of Swords, "one who wields quiet power behind the scenes. May be more dangerous than is easily perceived." Perfect! That's me.