Communicating Authentically

A few weeks back, I wrote a post entitled, “My Tarot Cards Told Me I’m a Smartass.” This week, my Tarot deck paid me back.

I have two decks – so far. I want to buy a version of the original Rider-Waite deck, but I don’t really need it. I imagine, though, I’ll reward myself with it for some trumped-up reason at some point. Arbor Day is coming up, or maybe it will be “Congratulations on Making It a Whole Day Without Rolling Your Eyes at Someone.” (Probably not.)

One of my decks is the Affirmators Tarot Deck. That one is colorful and relentlessly positive. I find this deck typically gives me upbeat, optimistic readings. I usually use this for my daily one-card Tarot draw in the morning to set positive intentions for the day.

The other deck is called Lucid Dreams – the images are more intersectional and surreal, and seem to be loosely based on the Rider-Waite images. They’re accessible because they’re smaller and also have the meanings printed on the cards, but the readings I get from them also tend to be more sober. I find this deck tends to tell it like it is – not harsh, but direct. I use this card for my weekly spread; the reading that I use to really take stock of how things are going in my life.

Typically with the Lucid Dreams deck I do a five-card spread: past, present, future, guidance, prediction. (I like to pull the prediction first and end with the guidance.) I usually meditate for a few minutes before I do the spread, but this past Saturday I decided I was already pretty relaxed and grounded, so I dug right in. 

For the past card, I pulled the Six of Pentacles, reversed. Usually I’m careful to keep my cards upright, so this threw me, especially since the meaning of this was debt or poor money management. It’s not like I’ve never been in debt, but I’ve always been paid it off in good time and my husband and I have managed our money very well. So I chose to ignore the reversal and take the opposite meaning. Good job staying solvent. Moving on.

For the present card, I pulled the Four of Cups, upright, which usually signifies pessimism, apathy, saying “no” to opportunities and withdrawing into introspection. That didn’t jibe either. If anything, the opposite is happening to me right now.

For the future, I pulled the Ten of Pentacles, reversed. Financial ruin. Holy fuck. 

Prediction: Ten of Swords, upright. Painful endings. Betrayal.

Guidance: Five of Swords, upright. Treachery. Conflict.

What. The. Hell.

Then I realized what date it was. April first. 

April fool!

Very funny, Dream Deck. I see how it is.

I reassembled the deck and laid them in the sunlight to cleanse them while I meditated, before reshuffling them and trying again. This time, the deck obligingly gave me a more realistic and less catastrophic reading.

Whether it was an April Fool’s joke or a good-natured warning not to take shortcuts, it’s clear that this deck has a mind of its own. 

That makes me happy.

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