Thank you so much for this extensive reading. I have found it really helpful in organizing and clarifying my thoughts about the situation and also in helping me get a better sense of what is taking place. And as you know it seriously resonated, and I truly can't thank you enough. I feel like I have what I need to get a better grip on things and approach everything with renewed enthusiasm.
Now let's see if I can get this quote function right again.
Charlie Brown wrote: ↑23 Jan 2020, 05:32
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I'm definitely getting a sense of burn-out or, at the very least, that you aren't entirely of one mind about things.
Summary: Conflict between your external ideas and internal feelings are causing imbalance and disharmony between the pre-formed ideas you have in your head vs. your actual present-day creative needs.
Analysis: In the center of the 7-card line, the 2 of Coins suggests that balance and oppositional forces are central to the issues at hand.
Yes to all of this. When you put it this way, it makes absolute sense and clarifies my understanding of what is going on. It also helps me to feel like I have some more agency here. Rather than, why am I so unfocused.
Visually, I'm sure you'll agree that the most striking thing about this line is The Empress and The Papess giving each other what looks to be some serious side eye here. These two are not getting along (as emphasized by that 5 of Wands). I'm not sure that I can pinpoint the exact nature of their dispute but the Empress tends to be focused on the external and things outside of herself, while the Papess is more in tune with the interior and the intuitive. In the second half of the line, we see that practical reality (6 of Coins), as it relates to your creative ambition (9 of wands), are leading to this burn out and static mental state (4 of Swords).
The Empress and Papess jumped out at me first too. Even though you mention that you can't pinpoint what lies at the heart of this issue, you have given me something concrete to think about. There is actually a lot for me to unpack here the more I think about it, and I didn't realize that. So that is progress. Sorting the two out is difficult for me, but your suggestion at the end of your reading seems the most lovely and functional way to handle this.
I can probably explain this better by looking at the mirrorings. I wouldn't normally read mirrorings this way, especially in tarot, but that Two of Coins in the center seems to demand it. This line is very much two sides of a single coin. The Papess mirrors the 6 of Coins, suggesting that your emotional hesitance to create relates to the practical harmony of your life. Doing the work right now probably strikes you on some level as a chaotic, inharmonious use of your energies. The Empress mirrors the 9 of Wands, signifying your creative ambitions and the prefab writing goals that you've set for yourself. The 5 of wands mirrors the 4 of Swords, strongly implying that the creative conflict your facing is leading to this inertia and burnout (the 4 is a very static number, after all).
I have used mirroring in Lenormand, and I love your idea of using it in TDM. I am going to try this in the future. You found some really interesting and insightful themes using this. Emotional hesitance to create and how it aligns with the practical harmony of my life is so so true. Balance I think not only of my external realities with regard to time and obligations, but also internal balance. I think the reality is I do have the time, but I struggle to order the internal aspects of this process--how do I prioritize, how do I give myself permission to leave something for tomorrow, and as you say in the end, how do I liberate myself from confining expectations and a sense that my worth is tied to meeting these expectations. That last 5 of wands/4 swords bit feels a bit 9 of wands and 6 of coins too. While capturing so well what I feel, including conflict about rest, which burns up my rest time.
There's no water in this spread. I tend to prefer focusing on what's there rather than what isn't, but the absence of any cup seems to underscore the idea that maybe your heart just isn't into what you're trying to do.
So why isn't your heart into this? What can you do in order to start doing creative work that you're excited about and motivated to produce? The cards don't give a direct answer to this question, but I believe that we can make some solid logical inferences based on the information they do give us. I'm going to assume that you do, in fact, want to write and be creative. If that's the case, then the cards say that the conflict is between your actual internal/artistic needs (as symbolized by the Papess) and the external/objectified plans that you've set out for yourself. There's no room for that flower to grow behind all those walls.
Therefore, my best advice is for you to get rid of the plan. Start small and start with whatever happens to tickle your fancy at a given moment. There's no need to be grand or ambitious or to have an endgame in mind. See where things take you. See what aspects of things start to stimulate your artistic intuition. Let your work grow out of the immediate situation of your life at this moment and let it bring harmony into it (6 of Coins types stuff). You don't and likely won't need an elaborate 9 of Wands-esque ediface to hold it all together. The Papess knows what she's doing. If it's authentic, it will cohere.
This last part, I will absolutely do this. I already feel better embracing this idea of no endgame. Maybe to some degree even with my external obligations. I tend to err on the side of having too many expectations and guilting myself when I don't meet them. I lack words for how insightful your last comments are. Letting go, but doing so with a kind of focus on the moment rather than the expectations. Who would have thought this was a sort of focus, but it really really helps. And the idea that if it's authentic, it will cohere is so comforting. External walls are looking more like my own expectations rather than actual external obligations. All of this has given me so much to think about. I am so grateful.
I have no idea how helpful this feedback was. I'm very much in my head with it all right now. 9 of wands I tend to think of as a burden I want to carry. Sometimes in a good way. It's a little elusive to me. All the things you carry that matter to you, but they are sometimes burdensome too. Worth the effort, meaningful for being an effort, but... I feel like the desire to write is like this now.
Your mind hopped through the universe and got inside my own and did a better job of figuring mine out. And I am so glad. Thank you.