Prophecies and Foreshadowing

It's a wiccan tradition to use Samhain (hallowe'en) as an opportunity to look to the future--it is, after all, the wiccan new year. But the looking-forward comes with a distinctly witchy twist: there's no goal-setting (I make my resolutions in January just like everybody else), but fortune-telling. October is a veritable orgy of tarot-reading around these parts. And in my usual way of mitigating the flakiness by subjecting it to the scientific method, all of the spreads get written down so I can squint at them years after the fact to see if they came out or not.

Normally, they do. I have no solid explanation for this; my hypothesis is that using cards is simply a different way of thinking, a more visual way, so it accesses intuition and basically shows you things that you already knew, but didn't know that you knew, or didn't want to admit.

Initially I was going to share a general "what's likely to happen in the next year" spread, but it turned out to be unbloggable. I know that's a tease, so I'll share a little without the photo:

Self: victory after a struggle, but it's not all done yet, there's one more push coming. A new path will need to carved out. A great deal of restlessness and continual change.
Environment: Divorce. Unbloggable unbloggable unbloggable. More unbloggable. Even more unbloggable. You'll have to take my word for it, though; it's pretty well bang on.
Hopes & fears: Imagination and creativity, new beginnings, career progress, new friends, plans, and routines.

...and pretty well everything after that is unbloggable too. Tarot aficionados with enough curiosity to kill a cat can email me and I'll send it to you privately.

After this, I thought perhaps I would ask a nice, safe question (what's likely for writing in the next year?) and share that instead. There are still unbloggable bits, but on the whole it's much more satisfactory, and you can read it above.

So there you are, Julie: my goal, where I want to go, as always, is towards writing. But will I?

According to several assorted pieces of colourful cardstock, the answer is a qualified yes.

A more detailed description of that qualified yes follows:

The current situation is one of conflict and tension resulting in an inability to make a commitment or decision regarding writing currently, not helped by the covering card, as the tarot aficionados in the audience can make a stab at for themselves. The near future will see either a modest increase in material circumstances (I am getting a raise in a few weeks) or slight movement towards a long-held goal (that's promising) or both. The current block has been partially contributed to by unbloggables, and also the financial negotiations associated with divorce. I am leaving behind a stagnant relationship and a set of limiting beliefs, but the transformation has not been pretty. Coming up is either a powerful woman who is inclined to help me (introduce yourself please!) or an emphasis on creativity and intuition. Personally, I'm pulling for the former, but I suppose the latter would work too.

I'm on the threshold of a journey, ready to take a gamble and try something new; what's on my side is that the current sadness and loss of faith is temporary and will soon shift to renewal and positive changes, so long as I reassess the situation. The ultimate outcome is a period of withdrawal and rest to recover from a recent stressful phase, resulting in a change of direction. I'm going to say that this means I will write next year.

In case any non-tarot aficionados in the audience are curious: the "slots" (what is recent past, recent future, applies to self vs. environment, and so on) are determined by where the card sits. I don't get to decide which card applies to which situation and so interpret it to suit.

Posted by Andrea at October 24, 2007 6:16 AM under Witch

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