Cult of Tarot Forum

Hi Dodalisque, I'm ready! Let me know what topic you'd like me to focus on.

Hi there. It looks like I'm reading for you in the other, non-TdM, reading circle. But I think I have the easier task this month. Perhaps I will let you put this into the form of a question, but the situation is this: I'm 65 now. My best friend and I have known each other since we were 5 years old and remained very close even after I emigrated from England to Canada in my mid-20s. 15 years ago, on one of our holidays together, out of the blue we had an argument and have never spoken to each other since. He recently sent me an email opening up the possibility of a reconciliation between us. For some reason I feel very reluctant to do this and have not replied to his message. Could you please do a reading about the nature of our relationship (past, present, and future) and perhaps suggest why I am being so uncharacteristically cold and unreasonable? My own attitude puzzles me and I would like some insights if possible. Please ask if I can provide any more information.

If someone asked me a question like this I would find it a strain, so if it doesn't appeal to you, maybe we could try something less convoluted. With a TdM spread as challenging as this perhaps a general reading about my past, present and future, as per Charlie Brown's sample spread would be more fun.

None of my business, but your scenario strikes me as well-suited to the spread.

dodalisque wrote: ↑11 Feb 2019, 22:23 I'm 65 now. My best friend and I have known each other since we were 5 years old and remained very close even after I emigrated from England to Canada in my mid-20s. 15 years ago, on one of our holidays together, out of the blue we had an argument and have never spoken to each other since. He recently sent me an email opening up the possibility of a reconciliation between us. For some reason I feel very reluctant to do this and have not replied to his message. Could you please do a reading about the nature of our relationship (past, present, and future) and perhaps suggest why I am being so uncharacteristically cold and unreasonable? My own attitude puzzles me and I would like some insights if possible. Please ask if I can provide any more information.

If someone asked me a question like this I would find it a strain, so if it doesn't appeal to you, maybe we could try something less convoluted. With a TdM spread as challenging as this perhaps a general reading about my past, present and future, as per Charlie Brown's sample spread would be more fun.

Oh, I'm delighted to read about this. But just a warning: I have a very similar situation in my own life, and while I'll try to put a distance between your situation and mine, my own stuff may wriggle its way in anyhow. Are you willing to take the chance?

Yes, now you mention it, we are asking each other very similar questions. Go ahead. It should be interesting to see how much our insights inform one another, or how much we unconsciously impose our own situations on one another. Maybe you shouldn't read what I wrote for you until after you have done your reading for me. I'm about to post it now if I can figure out the software. My computer skills are virtually non-existent.

Charlie Brown wrote: ↑11 Feb 2019, 23:33 None of my business, but your scenario strikes me as well-suited to the spread.

Please feel free to chip in whenever you like. I need all the help I can get.

dodalisque wrote: ↑11 Feb 2019, 22:23 Hi there. It looks like I'm reading for you in the other, non-TdM, reading circle. But I think I have the easier task this month. Perhaps I will let you put this into the form of a question, but the situation is this: I'm 65 now. My best friend and I have known each other since we were 5 years old and remained very close even after I emigrated from England to Canada in my mid-20s. 15 years ago, on one of our holidays together, out of the blue we had an argument and have never spoken to each other since. He recently sent me an email opening up the possibility of a reconciliation between us. For some reason I feel very reluctant to do this and have not replied to his message. Could you please do a reading about the nature of our relationship (past, present, and future) and perhaps suggest why I am being so uncharacteristically cold and unreasonable? My own attitude puzzles me and I would like some insights if possible. Please ask if I can provide any more information.

I used the Beginner’s Tarot my very first TdM deck.

Row 1: Past
Pope, 5 of Cups, Queen of Coins
The Pope and the Queen face each other, with the 5 cups in between. I’m thinking distance but not an unfriendly one. They have some things in common – both are in an elevated position, both hold a staff, both wear a crown, both are outside on a cloudless day, but the 5 cups show that they are not really connected. There is a difference between having things in common and being connected. The 5 cups just – stand there. They have little to do with the two, they’re just filling the big space between them. I notice that both the three flowers in the 5 of cups and the Queen’s dress are blue (and in your question you talked about “out of the blue”). The 5 of cups have more in common with the Queen than with the Pope. Main message: Connected, yes, but not really.

Row 2: Present
10 of Coins, 10 of wands, Hanged Man
Now we see a connection between the first two cards, and again a connection between the second and the third: There is a similarity between the wands and the branches that hold the stick from which the man hangs. The background colours on the two 10s are a bit bleary, almost a little on the depressed side. The Hanged Man looks well fed, more so than other Hanged Men that I can recall. There’s a little bit of blue in the sky, but mostly there are clouds. Main message: It’s all a bit on the blah and meh side.

Row 3: Future
Judgment, World, Tower
Well, well, well. Things are happening. Three naked people are praying to the angel with the trumpet. The angel’s wings are so big, they don’t fit on the card. The water in which the three people stand looks really nice. I think there’s somewhere at a beach. Maybe they were just frolicking when that angel appeared. To be quite honest, I want that angel to go away, let the three go back to frolicking. Talking about frolicking: The naked woman in the middle of the World looks like she’s having a good time, too. A much smaller angel than the one in the Judgment looks down on her from the left. The eagle that sits on the right on the wreath surrounding the woman looks … I don’t know … angry? Stupid? Stoned? The lion underneath looks smart, like a real critical thinker. His steer-buddy – well, he’s his buddy. And then, oops, two people fall off the tower. The sky is blue, there’s just a small cloud with two lightning bolts. The tower is intact, only the top is off, as if someone opened it on a hinge, and it looks like a crown. It doesn’t look real, more like an old play simulating people falling off a tower. Main message: It’s all good, the problem is not really a problem.

Column 1: The querent and/or interior aspects of the question
Pope, 10 of Coins, Judgment
Again the connection between the Pope and the third card. Again a pip card in between, a card that should have us rejoice but I can’t quite go there because of the slightly dirty colours. I think the querent is hung up on something, on tradition, on authority, on material wealth, on tradition?

Column 2: Relationships, exchanges, etc. between the querent/interior and others/exterior
5 of Cups, 10 of Wands, World
Given your question, this is probably the crux of the matter. The middle cards. We start with a friendly-looking 5 of cups with those nice blue flowers. The cup in the middle is a bit overloaded with a huge flower – a yellow tulip? – growing out of it. Yes, that fifth cup is a bit much. The four would be quite balanced but on the other hand, without the 5th they would look pretty boxy. Something has been added to the Pope’s tradition/rigidity. Is that your friend? Then the 10 of wands, oh, what a mess. It occurs to me that usually the 5 is seen as a chaotic card but here the 10 represents chaos, at least some version of it. They make me think of the thorn bushes that make it (almost) impossible for the prince to get through to the Sleeping Beauty. And then the World – something great has happened (was it the angel?) and suddenly we are in a – well in a new world. It’s interesting, it’s happy, and so what if the eagle is stoned. A lot of transformation happening in this column.

Column 3: Others and/or exterior aspects of the question
Queen of Coins, Hanged Man, Tower
There’s that Queen again, looking to the Pope. Is she a bit ditzy? I’m intrigued by how the Hanged Man. He’s like the Queen of Coins reversed. She right side up, he’s upside down. He’s a guy, she’s a woman. His “sign” (the wands that form his – what is it – gallows?) is a male sign, hers is a female sign. Her sky is blue, his full of cloud. She has a flower growing, he has trees. And it looks like he’s about to fall into the Tower, the one with the top open. Will he be the next to fall out? Maybe. I don’t think he cares. I feel the most prominent disturbance in this column.

So much information here! Let me pull some of this together. The past is “out of the blue” – the weather sure is nice on that row (sort of like a vacation is nice.) But there’s the Pope’s rigidity, the Queen’s ditziness, and the lack of true connection. And indeed now, in the present, things are blah and meh and upside down. The central card speaks loudly to me: This is the thorn bush that makes it difficult to get through, and it’s bloody (literally) hard work. I’d be unenthusiastic, too. I mean, what’s there to motivate you in these cards? Ah, but such an interesting future beckons! You’d have to get naked, though, and face the truth/judgment. Your relationship might turn out to be quite lovely and interesting, although there may still be some outside forces that threaten it but I’m not sure whether to take that threat seriously.

Does any of this make sense? Please let me know if you'd like to discuss this further, I'd be happy to! Love the spread.

Thanks very much for your wonderful reading. Some hilarious spot-on hits, and your conclusion - that I am content as I am and probably did the right thing by refusing the opportunity of a reconciliation - completely confirms what I now realise I feel deep down to be true. When I reveal some of the back story you will see what I mean, and also how accurate your reading is. I was going to include quotes from your reading but there are so many.

Since our early schooldays, as well as having an almost telepathic understanding and being reliable sources of advice and support for each other, S + I have been a kind of comedy duo, at the centre of innumerable unforgettable evenings holding court among groups of friends. He was always the instigator, the outrageous, extrovert genius and I was the painfully respectable straight-man. He was always in trouble at school and I was head boy. You get the picture.

Then, after we each got married and I emigrated to Canada from England, a peculiar transformation took place. To everyone's surprise, I turned into a minimum wage, pot-smoking socialist - a Scorpio incidentally, which fits the astrological placement of that goofy eagle on the World card - and he became a very wealthy accountant in the world of high finance. I found I had an affinity for inner stuff - meditation, hypnotherapy, tarot, etc. - and he became a devoted far-right follower of Margaret Thatcher.

Even though we lived on separate continents we would still get together every couple of years to take a holiday somewhere, and we were perpetually writing to each other and talking on the phone. Then about 15 years ago on a holiday in Washington State our political arguments got personal and nasty and we haven't spoken since. The division between us seems representative of the right-left/rich-poor split that we are witnessing in many countries now around the globe in the wake of globalisation. I always thought our a story might make a good novel. Fortunately Herman Hesse had already written "Narciss and Goldmund" so I didn't need to bother. Anyway, there in your 9 card spread is the whole novel in a nutshell.

Fittingly, the left-hand column seems to be very much about me, and the right-hand column about S. The middle column deals with the relationship as a whole.

Row 1, Past: I burst out laughing when I saw these three cards. I'm the Pope of course, old before my time, pontificating on all things spiritual, and S is the down-to-earth charmer with his eyes on the prize. Our differences created a weird affinity between us, I suppose - the middle cup on the 5 of Cups is like the grit in the oyster that makes a pearl. The 4 or 6 of Cups would not fit here, it has to be the 5. And of course with me in Canada and him in England we were separated by water: 5 of Cups = Atlantic Ocean. The arrangement of Cups also echoes the design of the World card as though anticipating an eventual happy ending.

Row 2, Present: The central card in the whole spread is the 10 of Wands, which looks like a wall of thorns, very different from other TdM versions of the card. My surname, Thornbury, is an Anglo-Saxon word for a small fortified town protected by thorn bushes, exactly like those fairytale brambles surrounding the Sleeping Beauty. I love the way you give serious attention to the bleary background color of the 10 of Coins and 10 of Wands. Those early years in Canada raising small children with no money in my bank account were pretty grim. That's where my sympathy for socialist ideas took root. See how the pattern on the 5 of Cups is repeated twice on the 10 of Coins - 5 coins for the upper classes, 5 coins for the lower classes: equal distribution of wealth! And yes, ironically, those who scorn riches do tend to spend a lot of their time worrying about money. I suppose I was jealous of S's wealth and he was jealous of my leisure and (spurious) know-how about all things cosmic. Notice on the Hanged Man how his whole personality has done a complete flip-flop, and he's being swallowed head-first by earthly matters. I was the fat one in school and he made fun of me a lot, but lately his slender frame has gone globular. This fills me with tremendous satisfaction. His job, like the Hanged Man's job, is high stress and he has had heart surgery. The 10 of Wands also is a record of all our arguments, 5 clashes replacing the 5 cups above, and traditionally the card's theme is one of exhaustion, so I guess we just wore each other out. Perhaps there is always unspoken competition between close friends.

Row 3, Future: I loved the way you saw a negative aspect to the angel's appearance on the Judgment card. I have never come across that before. I have gotten trapped into invariably regarding the angel as a saviour. This sudden irruption from another dimension must refer to S's email to me "out of the blue". My wife and family are playing happily on a Canadian beach - we do live on the coast actually and life is good these days. Why disturb matters for old time's sake? Exactly. The lightning bolt on the Tower card must be my response, or non-response - "actions are louder than words". I notice the upside-down character on the Tower is like the Hanged Man. In other words, he hasn't changed a bit - he's still a right-wing jerk. I love him so much that part of me would still like to think that his political views are a extreme example of his humor - he loved to take up controversial positions in arguments just for the fun of annoying people. Row 3 consists of cards all from the end of the Majors and this was a major relationship in my life. The World card is a peaceful ending to the relationship. Great. Just what I needed to see and hear. Everyone's happy the way things are.

If you have any more thoughts or would like to draw my attention to something important that I missed, please write again.

dodalisque wrote: ↑16 Feb 2019, 19:15 Thanks very much for your wonderful reading. Some hilarious spot-on hits, and your conclusion - that I am content as I am and probably did the right thing by refusing the opportunity of a reconciliation - completely confirms what I now realise I feel deep down to be true. When I reveal some of the back story you will see what I mean, and also how accurate your reading is. I was going to include quotes from your reading but there are so many.

That was fun feedback! I love how you say that the spread is Narciss and Goldmund in a nutshell - makes me want to go back to that novel. I think I read it when I was about 17, so, uh, a few years ago Also makes me want to play around with expressing other novels/stories/poems/happenings in spreads! And how very interesting that your name is Thornbury. Really, that card spoke to me the loudest.

What satisfying reading and feedback!

Funny you should mention that about using the tarot to analyse the problems of characters in novels and stories or from history. James Ricklef wrote a great book of interpreted spreads exploring that very topic called "Tarot Tells the Tale'. I was thinking of asking Joan Marie sometime if we could open a separate section in Readings for a Literature and History section. Maybe not at the moment because this is a very busy time for me, but sometime in the near future. It would certainly solve the problem of finding good questions to ask. We'd have millions of delightfully stressful situations to choose from.

dodalisque wrote: ↑18 Feb 2019, 05:37 Funny you should mention that about using the tarot to analyse the problems of characters in novels and stories or from history. James Ricklef wrote a great book of interpreted spreads exploring that very topic called "Tarot Tells the Tale'. I was thinking of asking Joan Marie sometime if we could open a separate section in Readings for a Literature and History section. Maybe not at the moment because this is a very busy time for me, but sometime in the near future. It would certainly solve the problem of finding good questions to ask. We'd have millions of delightfully stressful situations to choose from.

Oh, I have to get that book! Also, I was thinking the very same thing about opening a thread/topic about this here.