December so far has been an unsettling month. Restless; feeling alone, needy, invisible; procrastinating on things. My card for this month was the 10 of Swords, which indicates my mind as the instrument of my destruction. Not a new pattern, by any means. Although there’s relief in the idea that if this is as bad as it gets, I’m actually in pretty good shape. But I’m tired of this, for fuck’s sake, so it’s time to get to the bottom of what’s happening THIS time.
I felt that my go-to deck, the Textured Tarot, with Interrobang’s Root Cellar spread was a good place to start. This spread is designed to track down from the surface appearance of a situation/problem through several layers of “what’s below”. As usual with Evvie’s spreads, there’s the first hit, and over next few hours/days deeper meanings come to light. This morning, the “ouch” really hit in understanding what the Issue’s Surface cards tell me.
The cards:
The Issue’s Surface: The Queen of Pentacles RX crossed by the Page of Cups. Although I put a pretty face on things – open, curious, playful. imaginative – underneath that I squander/discount my resources and am the opposite of nurturing. Longing for a sense of security, feeling unworthy.
What Lies Below That: The Eight of Cups RX. I am not willing to walk away from something that no longer works for me.
Below That: The Page of Pentacles RX. It’s difficult to focus on practical matters, easy to fall into fault-finding and to drop the ball on things that matter.
And Below That: The Devil. Unhealthy compulsions and the desire to try to fill that hole inside with stuff that simply cannot do that.
The reading, like all readings, tells a story. This particular story can be read in both directions.
From top to bottom, it is the tale of the unhappy woman who feels helpless in the schism between the face she wants/tries to put to the world and her actual behavior. She is unwilling to let go of something that in reality is the major stumbling block to her being able to move forward. She doesn’t even want to look at it closely – instead she ignores the situation as best she can and keeps trying to fix herself in ways that can never work.
From bottom to top, it is the woman who wages an ineffective battle against that deepest fear that she will never be enough, that she must try to fill that inner emptiness with SOMETHING, but she makes bad choices about what will work. She does not want to face that fact, and does her best to ignore what is so plainly in her face. She is unwilling to let go of those behaviors that are not working for her. As a result, even though she really wants to BE that Page of Cups, she feels unworthy and insecure far too much of the time, and that plays out in her actions.