So. Spring is finally here. The bitter chill hasn’t quite left the air but everywhere blossom and shoots are brightening the greys and browns of this rough Pennine town and the cold wind is filled with promises of warmer, brighter, freer months to come.

This is my first week in a new home, sans partner/avec myself. Our break-up was as gentle and loving as something so sad can be, and it’s left me feeling a little scared and alone, of course, but also with a strong sense of potential and anticiaption. I’ve enjoyed the past few days getting everything just *so* in my new flat. In fact, I’ve been so busy homemaking and titivating and generally feeling very speedy, buys things, I’ve not yet taken the time to sit and understand how I’m really feeling. Now that I’ve changed everything. Now that I’m alone. Eek, let’s rephrase that. Now that it’s spring, a time of rebirth and regeneration!

This picture is by Joanna Powell Colbert – it caught my eye so I pinched it from her Gaian Soul blog, here.

I need to do some kinda big reading to mark this time. Sooo…someone shared a lovely spread earlier this month which they called the ‘gyspy spread’…I’m not sure about that name so I’m gonna call it my Ostara spread 🙂 It’s one of those huge, detailed layouts with rows and columns and all that – and I’ve actually never done a reading this big before. It’s also the first time I’ve had such a big ‘future’ focus (seven of the twenty-one cards.) I’ve always shied away from predictive readings and often adapted the ‘outcome’ or ‘future’ positions in spreads to represent ‘advice’, or ‘the direction you’re heading in’. However, in the wake of an interesting discussion on the TABI tarot forum on predictions/timings within tarot, I’m ready to give it a try.

PAST

Work/prospects – Eight of Wands  Well, I have to laugh at this. In the past year I’ve been incredibly restless at work, and have tried all sorts of other avenues to find alternative ways to make a few quid to live on. Ultimately I’ve come full circle, as right now I’m realising how much I like and value my job, but it’s certainly the case that I’ve been beginning (and ending!) plenty of mini projects.

Home/needs – Nine of Pentacles  This is interesting. The Nine of Wands to me represents the ultimate ‘independent woman’, someone who has her own means and is happy and successful in her own right, as the result of her own hard work. It’s certainly something I’ve been hankering after…last summer my partner and I moved into a big shared house and for me that in part represented a shying away from the ‘settled’ feeling of being a couple isolated in a house… perhaps the Nine is telling me I was doing better at independence than I felt I was?

Luck/desires – Five of Cups  This card does really represent the way I’ve been feeling over recent months. A gowing sense of despair over past emotional pain (spilled cups) and a feeling that I just couldn’t get over this where I was standing.

Friends/support – Ace of Cups  Awww…this is nice. I’ve developed an important new friendship recently and strengthened/invested in existing ones – all of this has given me a real sense of the ‘overflowing cup’ as I’ve confided in and relied on the support of these relationships.

Love and sex – Two of Cups  There’s no denying that the biggest relationship in my life of late has been my partnership. My love was offering me cup after cup of love, and we haven’t been shy in the sex department either. He has in particular, but we’ve both been trying many different things to strengthen our connection.

Plans and goals – Seven of Pentacles  I do feel I’ve done a lot recently to build myself a ‘winter store’…I’ve been trying to save money, working hard at developing my tarot and other pursuits, and tried out a new career (teaching) too. I had a strong sense of being like the guy on this card, resting a moment and appreciating the first fruits of this work.

Personal quest – Nine of Swords  Oh dear…even in the light of the above, I’ve known I was off-track in terms of my personal quest. Sleepless nights and anguish, scary swords hanging over me in the dark…uh-huh. Ah well, on to the present!

PRESENT

Work/prospects – Six of Pentacles  Interesting again – the first thing I always wonder with this card is, is the querent the recipient or the benefactor in this unbalanced situation. There’s this idea of charity, and the question of who is really benefitting. I work as a community worker – work I like partly because it feels like I’m doing good. I’m taking this card as a message to appreciate just how that ‘do-gooding’ is benefitting me personally.

Home/needs – Nine of Cups  Well, here I am in my new place…and I’m certainly feeling a bit like this chap. A bit satisfied as I look around me, a bit like ‘yep, this is good, this is good enough.’ I know there’s work to be done and probably plenty of lonely nights ahead, but I feel genuinely okay with where I’m at here.

Luck/desires – Ten of Cups  Ha! Yeah – I’ve been really experiencing a sense of good luck right now. This ace little flat was the first thing that appeared when I began househunting and it’s everything I was looking for. Went out to spend lots of money on a new mattress and found one leaning up against a house. Bumped into the cat rescue lady on the market yesterday and asked if she had any kittens needing a home…she’d just that weekend had a litter born.

Friends/support – The Tower  Oh no! I don’t need any towers in my friendship life! I don’t know what this is pointing to but it’s got me all worried 🙁

Love and sex – King of Pentacles  Another confusing card…

Plans and goals – Nine of Wands  There’s a sense here of the battle not being won…of being bruised and tired, but ready to keep trying. That’s nice, considering

Personal quest – The Heirophant  What can this mean? Am I being too structured, to ‘textbook’ in my quest? Was it too obvious to move house? Or am I in need of more structure – someone to come and show me how it’s done? Perhaps The Heirophant represents absitnence…

FUTURE (and it don’t look too pretty, I must say…)

Work/prospects – Queen of Swords  The wisdom of experience, carrying understanding of both good times and bad.

Home/needs – Ace of Swords  A new mental outlook.

Luck/desires – Knight of Swords  Uh-oh – will I be jumping at every opportunity I get? Rushing headlong into things without thinking them
through? Being led by my desires without stopping to think what they really are?

Friends/support – Ten of Swords  Martyrdom and melodrama – oh dear. Pairing this with my Tower, I’m gussing something pretty awful is about to happen within my support network…and I’m not going to be brilliant at dealing with it.

Love and sex – Death  Wowee. So I’ll be leaving behind an old approach to relationships and moving into a different way of loving?

Plans and goals – The High Priestess

Personal quest – Five of Pentacles  Looks like something’g gonna go terribly wrong in terms of my quest, looking at these guys. Knackered and ill and hobbling along in the snow – oh gosh.

Phew, long reading. Sorry about that! x

*I am learning how to be alone without being lonely

learning how to be lonely without

losing my mind*

Paul Barribeau, Christmas Lights

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