Psychic Tarot Excersie: Light & Shadow Reading with the Celtic Tarot

(Some how this post got removed, after I'd posted it. I had to edit it before or I'd never have gotten it posted.  I like sharing my readings, but not always my interpretations of them.  They're either too personal or too-long winded.)

I pulled these cards on 4/23/11

I was scratching my head over this one when I first laid out the cards.  The Light & Shadow Reading (chapter 4, page 31 of the book Psychic Tarot) has you draw 2 cards randomly from each suit.  One card represents where I am "strong, highly developed, and natural." The other represents where I "need more nourishment, awareness, or growth."

Strengths:                     Needs:

8 of Swords                   4 of Swords
5 of Cups                       Ace of Cups
7 of Wands                    Ace of Wands
2 of Coins                      Ace of Coins

Okay, this is weird, right?  Seems like the columns should be switched.  What's with all the Aces in the needs column???

Eight of Swords: As an area of strength.An ability to filter superfuous information, and choose where to direct my thoughts?  This feels right to me as a meaing for this card in this postion in general - but I would not have said this was one of my strengths.  I have to work really hard to do that.  I also sometimes take this card as one of self-restrictions; like quitting smoking or other compulsive behaviors.  Such as buying too many tarot and oracle decks! Again not something I, or anyone who knows me, would really consider as a strength of mine.

Four of Swords: As an area in need.
It could be that I need to nurture my ability to recuperate.  I'm pretty good at sitting on my butt and vegging out on the TV & reading bad pulp horror and fantasy fiction, but that's not the kind of regenerative rest the 4 of swords speaks of.  There is no healing in the retreats I take.  Only numbing.  From the book: "Quiet pastimes such as reading or meditation."  I guess I need to nurture those habits more (maybe the pulp fiction isn't so bad after all?).  Definitely taking time to clear my mind after troubles so that I can better handle future difficulties in is an area where I use a lot of growth!

It gets pretty personal from here on, so I’ll just post general keywords for the cards from now on.

Here’s a note I wrote in the margin of my journal, “Feels more like psychotherapy than psychic tarot.”  I looked up psychotherapy on wikipedia when I first wrote this post. Words like interpersonal relationship, dialogue, communication, caught my eye before I’d even read the text.  Those words sound to me like what I want to have with Tarot.  Maybe psychicthearpy is a better word for what I’m doing with this book.  Either way, I’m enjoying it!

5 of Cups: strong, highly developed, & natural
Grief; loss, bereft, regret

Ace of Cups: needing more nourishment, awareness or growth
Emotional force; intuition, intimacy, love

7 of Wands: strong, highly developed, & natural
Valor; strength, aggressive, defiant, convicton

Ace of Wands: needing more nourishment, awareness or growth
Material force; prospering, being practical, proceeding with trust




You can see how this reading would spark a lot of journaling and self reflection!  Here's another note from my journal, "I know I'm not supposed to use the book meanings, but frankly I'm lost without them right now.  I feel that I'm getting a lot personally from the exercises in this book and very quickly developing a working relationship with this deck."

So yeah, I'm cheating.  I'm also not using the type of deck the author recommends either.  My plan was to use Celtic Tarot to start learning how to read other non-scenic pip decks.  Now I'm seeing that this deck was designed to be read more like a RWS.  I'm alright with that.  I think this deck is beautiful.