Granny Jones - Nine of Buttons

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Today on the Granny-blog, I discuss the Nine Pentacles, which equates to the RW Nine Cups, and we find out why "the Wish Card" really isn't anything to wish for at all ...

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Another random pull from the Granny Jones Australian Tarot, and today's card is the Nine Buttons. Granny uses Buttons instead of Pentacles as I discussed in an earlier entry, because of their homeliness and their direct relevance to most people's lives as opposed to Pentacles – I mean, how many of us own huge discs of solid gold? Pentacles/Buttons is the suit that rules the physical world (Cups the emotional world, Wands motivation and Swords the world of thought and ideas, while the Major Arcana rule the world of spirit and spirituality).

This card shows us one of her beloved cats, a Siamese this time, hugely obese, lying on a purple ground with a pale-blue sky, the colour of its irises almost matching the ground, hinting at an inner spirituality that really isn't getting much expression at the moment.

This overweight cat who could barely stagger to its paws, is licking its lips in the universal way of cats immediately after devouring some form of really satisfying and pleasing food, and is making direct eye-contact with the observer. The message is: I got to eat it, and you didn't!

This card seems to relate to the Nine Cups in most other RW-based decks. In those decks, it is the Nine Cups that has that hint of gluttony and smug self-satisfaction. I believe Granny took it to the pentacles suit rather than the Cups suit because she properly saw that as a physical-world issue, a material issue, more than an emotional issue.

There is well-being in this image, yes, which is why some commentators in recent decades call it the “wish card”, but I really wouldn't wish to be that cat. The short-term gain of tasty treats has resulted and will result in long-term health problems, difficulty moving and enjoying life, and very likely a shortened life-span accompanied by ill-health. Do we really need the fleeting short-term pleasure at that kind of mid-term and longer-term cost?

Be very careful what you wish for.

In health-related readings this card often comes up as advice, as a caution to lessen all kinds of self-indulgence. Not just food, but drink (the wrong ones), cigarettes, drugs, anything that makes us feel better in the moment and worse overall. It tends to indicate a querent who has self-control issues: often very controlled indeed in other areas of their lives, they might have an addiction to food or other addictive things where they feel completely helpless and out of control as a balance for how disciplined they are in other areas. (When I pulled the card just then, I stopped thinking about making myself Sunday Brunch - and immediately went outside for a cigarette! Go on – laugh at me. I did.)

The lesson of this card is not about becoming completely disciplined in this area of your life as well – these people really need the pleasure their addiction gives them as a psychological necessity in a life that might be starved of other pleasures in one or more areas, and will ultimately fail if they practise over-the-top control in all areas.

More, the lesson of this card is about moderating your urges: instead of buying a family-sized block of chocolate because it is cheaper-by-weight, promising yourself to eat only some of it and save the rest for another week, then wolfing it all down in the course of a day or two, why not buy yourself a small, designer-chocolate of much better quality, savour it slowly, then not have another one for a few days? If you have started drinking too much, why not make a binding commitment to yourself not to drink before a certain time, and after that, wait twenty-five minutes after the urge kicks in before you pour yourself one? If your addiction is shopping, why not put a set dollar-amount in your purse, leave the plastic at home, and window-shop, going around everywhere that might tempt you looking only, and doing a second lap to buy when you have ruthlessly cut back what you desire to fit the money?

In other words, don't starve yourself – ration yourself. This card shows someone with a deep psychological need for pleasure because of a lack of inner self-satisfaction or a starvation of pleasure possibly in their career or relationships, who really needs the little corners of short-term happiness that their addiction brings into their life. The only problem with that is that it's killing them – or will kill them if allowed to continue for too long.

With a regimen of rationing in progress, as it becomes easier to live within the self-imposed limits, the querent will find that with fewer failures and break-outs through time and more successful days, not only will their body become healthier, but so will their self-image and self-respect. And as they feel better about themselves, it will be easier and easier to continue the self-discipline, and they might even choose to tighten their limits because they have begun to like and respect the person they see in the mirror, and want more of this healthy pleasure which is so much more satisfying than the unhealthy pleasure.

The risk with this card is making their limits too tight. They have only gotten into this predicament precisely because they have a need for personal pleasure. Excessive self-discipline bringing a strange pleasure of its own is one of the defining symptoms of anorexia nervosa, as well as of other forms of mental and emotional problems.

So Enjoy your pleasures, completely and without guilt! Just keep in mind the limits you have set yourself, and make sure you have one generous slice of cheesecake, not the entire round.

And all of this translates into other areas of your life fairly directly. If the card comes up for your relationship, someone in that relationship will be looking selfishly to only their own pleasure, and ignoring the feelings of the other partner just as long as they shut up and cooperate.

If it comes up in your career, it might indicate a need to take stock of just why you are doing what you are doing: are you over-selling customers things that do not suit their needs for the commission, or working every hour of overtime the boss suggests in order to increase your pay packet even though your home life is falling apart and you're too tired to work without mistakes, or are you backstabbing co-workers ruthlessly with an eye to the next promotion?

In all cases, whatever the situation, this card indicates selfishness and a wish to garner all the resources available, and in all cases it indicates that though this might provide immediate satisfaction, there is a longer-term price to pay. This is hardly a good thing to wish for, and exactly why this card really isn't the Wish Card.