OOTK initial step - four piles - let's try it

thorhammer

Go for it, psyphy

Would you like to come up with a scenario, to kick us off? Last I heard, rif was moving on from this but I'll play, and maybe similia will join in as well.

After you!

\m/ Kat

psyphy

> Go for it, psyphy

Hey Thorhammer, great to see you.
Yah, yah, I´d definetely love to kick off, so let´s see.

OK, here´s a situation from real life, my beloved Hermetic thrives on a diet of raw drama and lost souls.

A rather creative friend of mine is stuck in his current life situation for some time, he doesn´t really suffer, enjoys his life as it is, seems pretty cheerful most of the time [denial type of guy], has some money on the side so he doesn´t really need to work, but to some extent he wants to change, wants to work with people, has some great ideas about what he could do, has some goals, but his vision lacks power and so he is pretty unfocused [excessive air] and nothing in his life seems to be really moving forward; getting him out of the rut.
How could he empower his vision, get more focused; what does he really need ... to move forward towards realization of his dreams ?

Same order of cards, abbreviations, ... as before
Deck: Hermetic Tarot [G.Dowson]
Significator: Queen of Swords

Queen of Pents........Temperance........Knight of Wands........3 of Wands
Very strong[solid] .....Strong...............Fairly Strong.............KAB@@M
....................................................Significator

Oh boy

. Any need to comment this at all, LOL ?
But then why not having some more fun with those cards.
The so badly needed fire all over the place, positioned pretty strongly, despite the mighty double fiery knight, who is supposed to come to rescue our Queen of Swords ended up on top of her watery pile to join her right away in her dreams, but then there´s fire all around him and that´s just too ballistic a situation for daydreaming and such and he´ll be back into action as soon as he´s needed.
The only non-fiery card, our Queen of Pents found her home right away and rests on her solid earthy foundation, refusing to move. Is she wating for someone ???
Reading those cards in a sequence our friend apparently needs a lot of drive [see below] to get into action and continue moving through a sequence of situations that get him finally out there, out of his watery self, and it seems to take a while before he reaches his land [queen ?] of dreams, to manifest his visions and gain some inner stability somewhere out there.
How can anyone handle that much fire at all, especially when he´s portrayed as an airy sort of lad, fortunately? a queen, so hopefully there´s enough water to keep matters adequately cool.
Anyway, for some airy folks [creative, nervous, ...] sometimes just a little fire can go a long way and all that fire that he needs to move forward maybe just too much to stay calm, so he´s probably facing a critical, stressful phase of turmoil on his way to realization.
I really don´t want to dive into any kind of deeper stuff here, all those factors [fears, self-worth issues, etc...] that might keep him stuck in the first place, but rather focus on the actual question / answer what might bring him out of this rut, into some real outwardly action on the right track into successful manifestation [final position] of his vision. Evidently he needs every bit of this fire, to get into gear, realize his goals, and has enough water and air to to moderate it and do the necessary course corrections on his way.
So what does all this fire represent ? Driving forces, such as motivation, desire, passion, courage > heart > [the power of] love ?
Of all places the significator showed up in the second stack :bugeyed:

[Book T:love, marriage, pleasure].
What does it refer to ? Love or passion for his job or maybe someone else. Has he found his love yet ? Is love the answer ? What does the Queen of Pents have to do with it ?
Let´s have a look at the single positions, starting with the 3W on the Yod position.
I usually try to see this particular spread as a flow of events, most of the time but not always in relation with the Tetragrammaton, it´s 4 hebrew letters in connection with their pretty complex matrix of associations [not that I understand too much of that].
So the first position stands for some kind of seed, the initial impulse, an igniting spark that starts the mighty YHVH engine; the first steps.
On this crucial position we have that very strong 3W [neither Ace, nor Tower [a possible option should he wait too long], a darn LOT of energy is needed here and using the Hermetic Tarot I´d see it in a sense of having to get his homework completed:
- Asking his heart and getting clear about what he REALLY wants
- Making the right decisions [setting up a plan ?]
- Building up an ever stronger vision [lots of that fire goes in here]
- Increasingly realizing that he has the power to get it all done
- Making the first all important steps out of his comfort zone into the world

The 3W speaks of success.

So how about the Knight of Wands [Fire of Fire] on the 2nd position. Does he need any help to stay clear or possibly get out of that water and back on his stallion - reconnect with his fire ? Not necessarily with all his ballistic drive that might have been set free at this stage. I see this more as a warning not to fall back into the rut, the comfort zone that our friend is just about to leave. This phase is all about realizing his inner powers, staying focused on his job and on course. Once he fully realizes the incredible power of this card http://www.albideuter.de/html/hermetic_35.html and gets into some rapidly accelerating motion what on earth could stop him ?
So he needs to hold the reins tightly, stay in control, invest all that fire into building up his business and at some point start looking for the brakes to come down to a more comfortable cruising speed.
Here come the brakes - Position 3 - Temperance [Fire].
Despite being seen as fire card this trump mainly talks about moderation and balance, resulting out of the meaningful combination of forces [elements]. Anyway, again it is more about action than relaxation.
Interestingly this card lies on Position 3, which also has a lot to do with combined energies [position of the son or prince]. One thing I remember about this card is a comment by Rachel Pollack that it deals with the ability to combine wisdom with spontaeneity and there´s an indication that all the elements we can find at this point [relatively strong fire and air + water [card´s theme] blend together to form the first stage of realization of our friend´s dreams - there is some success, albeit not lasting at this point [no earth yet] so he needs to move on. In the meantime riding that fiery horse feels more natural, he seems to be in control now, can take it all more relaxed, and while enjoying the ride and his first phase of success he can slowly start looking around for new options and chances, he´s in control.
Keeping in mind that he has already mastered some distance and that Temperance came as a lesson [Major] from somewhere outside he learns to trust - the Game of Life, himself and his ability to master this game and feeling more centered and freshly motivated moves on to card 4 - The Queen of Pentacles.
What does this card have to offer our friend ? What does it stand for ?
A new level of self-realization ? Somebody else ? What´s waiting for him ?
In terms of elements it´s watery earth, the earth being very stabile in this final-Heh, speaking of lasting success.
Getting stuck again, hehe ? Let´s have a look at the card. At first glance the Queen awaits our friend with a huge hammer

, which the LWB describes as a scepter, and while holding a golden orb in the other hand, she´s looking in our friends direction.
To make it short, the whole card screams fertility, stability and rich rewards :party:

. Everything his heart desires, it´s all waiting for him somewhere out there.
Heck, I have to stop it here; there´s just so much more in those 4 cards, I could read on and on.

To me the most critical card is the 3W in the first position, as it is all about making the first crucial steps to embark on that adventurous journey toward his goals. Again, it feels like that if he waits any longer he´ll face a Tower kind of challenge. Does it really need something like that to get him started ? Time will tell.
However, instead of revisiting this card/position for some closer inspection maybe someone else would like to join in and give an interpretation of this spread.

To sum it up:
Our friend needs to ask his heart and get totally focused on what he REALLY wants from life, get his act together and make those first all-deciding steps. The main part of the journey looks almost like a home-ride on autopilot, green lights all over the place to finally find his love, seeing his dream come true and be amply rewarded.
Good luck Amigo !

Thorhammer, Similia, you´re here ? I´d really love to hear from you.

Anyone else, comments, criticism, own takes ?

rif

I'm just passing through and look what I found.

I'm too tired to fully go through your post this evening, work was very challenging today.

However, I do want to point out that Knight of Wands would be weakened greatly, being fire in water. Although you seem to view this card as strong in its own right, it's still greatly weakened here because of the elemental dignities.

So you are considering the Queen as a circumstance or state in this case? In pure Golden Dawn Book T rules, she would represent an actual woman who is involved in the situation. An alternate approach to this would be to read this combo as inertia: An earth card in earth, meaning there is a great reluctance to move on. The Queen could represent nearing the end of a project, say the 75% mark; so combined, it's easy to get most of the way done, but then there is a missing ability, or emotional investment, is getting the project completed to the 100% mark.

In these four cards is a ton of passion and drive, raw ambition (lot of fire); but no idea how to channel it or nurture it. (If you read the missing elements.) Some small sense of practicality holds your friend down, keeping him a little grounded, but it's hard with all the things he is burning to do.

So ... advice for him? Yours stands out:

So he needs to hold the reins tightly, stay in control, invest all that fire into building up his business and at some point start looking for the brakes to come down to a more comfortable cruising speed.
Here come the brakes - Position 3 - Temperance [Fire].

I think that is a nice encapsulation of your whole reading.

In my words, he's at the top of his game and it's going to take some juggling of his current world with the other things he could be doing; and he
is going to have to push really hard to fully break into something new (when it's easy to get most of the way there and just coast).

And kudos on reading with the Hermetic! I always felt the black-and-white would work better for study than reading. It's nice to see someone get such a deep reading out of it.

thorhammer

Hey, psyphy

Thanks for joining in! The great thing about this thread is that we can all have a respectful, civilised, mutually beneficial and stimulating discussion in the Thoth forum, of all places

. So I've just got a little to add to your reading.

psyphy said:
So how about the Knight of Wands [Fire of Fire] on the 2nd position. Does he need any help to stay clear or possibly get out of that water and back on his stallion - reconnect with his fire ? Not necessarily with all his ballistic drive that might have been set free at this stage.

Mmm, now, I'll have to echo rif here and say that the Knight as the Fiery part of Fire would be greatly weakened in the Heh pack. To read the card with its ED - I'd take it inthe context of the question to mean that he has to temper

his natural enthusiasm with some real emotional engagement. He sounds quite the passionate type, but those types are often the worst for sticking to anything. No commitment.

Here come the brakes - Position 3 - Temperance [Fire].<snip>
Interestingly this card lies on Position 3, which also has a lot to do with combined energies [position of the son or prince]. One thing I remember about this card is a comment by Rachel Pollack that it deals with the ability to combine wisdom with spontaeneity

I love that you've drawn a parallel between the card Temperance and the position of the Son. That's something I'll remember for next time! In terms of how I'd read it, I find the Temperance card to be inherently Airy anyway, despite its association, because of the whole Fire + Water = Air thing and also because of the implied duality which links it to the Lovers card. I think the message of the card is to employ self-discipline in all that he does, and moderate his reactions and behaviours in contrast to what seems to be his usual mode of flitting here and there.

I agree wholeheartedly with rif's feeling of inertia with regard to the Queen in the final Heh pack. Further, I would say that as a court card, it is an external force, probably a person, and that your friend needs to look for another person who is holding him back in some insidious way. Most likely a family member who is using guilt or some other nasty way of manipulating him.

\m/ Kat

psyphy

Hey rif and thorhammer,

thanks a lot for your valuable insights.

rif said:
In these four cards is a ton of passion and drive, ...

Ha, you should have seen me when I turned those 4 stacks around.

You´re right rif, it´s not exactly Book T style

During the first run of my interp I tried to stick to the rules as close as possible, but then the pictures came in, I got emotionally involved; biased to some degree and edited some of the stuff I wrote before.

rif said:
However, I do want to point out that Knight of Wands would be weakened greatly, being fire in water. Although you seem to view this card as strong in its own right, it's still greatly weakened here because of the elemental dignities.

Yeah, that Knight of Wands. I struggled for some time, seeing him moving through the water, holding his flaming club, everything on fire, surrounded by fire cards on both sides. I have to admit that I got lost in that single perspective of a chronological sequence of events, transferring that all deciding initial movement, that little flame from Pos.1 all the way through that emotional swamp to ignite that second card.

thorhammer said:
I'd take it inthe context of the question to mean that he has to temper his natural enthusiasm with some real emotional engagement. He sounds quite the passionate type, but those types are often the worst for sticking to anything. No commitment .

Hehe, now that makes sense. Thanks.
BTW: I have a special relationship with the KnW, used to meditate on that card for some time, spending days of being a KNW sort of guy in all kinds of situations, and whenever I need some fiery force e.g. to break through something myself, visualizing this card; feeling that incredible force and myself transforming into some sort of KnW [e.g. an immediate change of body posture, perception, perspective, to name a few ...] has among other things entirely changed the way I see the Tarot [esp. my beloved Hermetic deck], and has helped me a lot in a number of situations. Actually I felt, or maybe knew it would show up in that reading just before I started shuffling the cards and there it was; same with the Temperance card.

thorhammer said:
I find the Temperance card to be inherently Airy anyway, despite its association,...

Heresy ! Heresy ! Same here, but then again, those rules and prefabricated meanings. I love what Rachel P. said about it in her 78 steps..., in terms of overcoming conditioned behaviours ..., it somehow fills in some of the blanks that the LWB and Book T left open and made for a deeper connection with that card.

rif said:
So you are considering the Queen as a circumstance or state in this case? In pure Golden Dawn Book T rules, she would represent an actual woman who is involved in the situation. An alternate approach to this would be to read this combo as inertia: An earth card in earth, meaning there is a great reluctance to move on...

thorhammer said:
I agree wholeheartedly with rif's feeling of inertia with regard to the Queen in the final Heh pack. Further, I would say that as a court card, it is an external force, probably a person, and that your friend needs to look for another person who is holding him back in some insidious way.

Very interesting. I just had all those pictures coming in, seeing my friend in a garden like scene with that or maybe his? queen [leaving that open], clearly enjoying himself having reached his goals and so on.
Possible threats I could see arising from that situation, where not so much about any direct negative aspects or even dangers e.g. of the Queen but as mentioned before more about getting stuck in or overly attached to that situation, getting insolent or lazy, something that more often than not happens to people who finally reached a big goal. A "Everything" achieved-job finished-no other visions in reach-falling into a hole" kind of situation.
However, I got to remember to see that final card as some sort of transit area and yes, I totally agree with you, what a sticky platform it is. To me that last card just felt entirely positive, but then as mentioned before, I most probably have fallen into that position 4 trap myself....

So, after all it still feels like there´s so much more to find in those four cards, I´ll certainly dive into that spread again and have another go at the first and the last card for myself, maybe even pick a clearance card.

Nuff said, just let me add that this is my first reading on the web and in a number of ways differs consideraby from how I normally go about reading the cards [different language, YUK].
I finally want to let you know that I enjoy your feedback immensely, and truly hope that this thread keeps moving on in some way.

Thanks again for your feedback !
What´s next ?

thorhammer

Hey, and it's great to see you back!

*aside to rif: Here's one we don't seem to have scared off!

*

What's next? Err . . . I suppose that'd be me

but it's 9.30pm here and I'm rather beat, so it might have to wait some time. Tomorrow's the weekend and very busy, but might provide some grist for the mill in terms of a meeting I have tomorrow morning. Maybe I can come up with something (using my beloved trimmed Thoth, the only deck worth having

) after that.

\m/ Kat

thorhammer

Okay, let's see what we can come up with here! My meeting this morning was self-explanatory and so hasn't really given me anything to read on; however, I do need to have a look at deciding to stay where I am or move. This is entangled with my relationship, as I've recently moved in with my boyfriend - it's not going well.

Using the Thoth deck as usual

My sig: Knight of Pents

. . . 5 of Wands . . . 2 of Swords . . . Priestess . . . 3 of Swords . . .
. . Mod. Strong . . . . Strong . . . . . . .Strong . . . . Mod. Strong . . .

See? What did I tell you?

The read is dominated by airy energy, and hinges on the central two cards, which read, "I'm retreating into myself in order to escape a situation of tension and sustained passive-aggressive duelling". The 3 of Swords in Fire tells me that we keep aggravating each other, rather than trying to find a solution or clear the air. The 5 of Wands, on the other hand, is restrained in Earth, which suits Saturn. It says that there are too many rules and that we aren't allowing ourselves to express what needs to be said.

Interesting astrological implications here:

. . . Saturn . . . Moon . . . Moon . . . Saturn . . .

You think I'm making it worse by worrying about it??

(That was sarcasm, btw

). The Priestess on its own, as the only Major in the spread, suggests that going it alone might be the best option for me, rather than continuing to cause myself inordinate stress and pain. It also counsels self-belief, which I'll admit is running at a low ebb . . . he seems to have the knack of making me very unsure of myself, a stark contrast to my usual demeanour.

What do you guys think? No pressure, I promise I won't base my actions on your read

\m/ Kat

ETA: SPOILER ALERT!!! For those who wish to know - the sig was in the Vau pack.

psyphy

Heya,
back to reality :bugeyed:

let´s see what we have.

thorhammer said:
"I'm retreating into myself in order to escape a situation of tension and sustained passive-aggressive duelling".

To me the Priestess in that position represents a challenge or rather a chance to connect with your feelings and your inner truth that is already waiting to be unveiled and faced, to be communicated and acted upon later on [Pos 4.]. But first there´s some heavy turbulence ahead in phase 3, lots of air with the Sig. in that stack, further emphasizing that element.

thorhammer said:
It also counsels self-belief, which I'll admit is running at a low ebb . . . he seems to have the knack of making me very unsure of myself, a stark contrast to my usual demeanour.

I see the 2 of Swords in that pos as a phase of internal conflicts and confusion, struggling with your insights, your own truth, self-doubts, constantly weighing up your options, looking for ways out of or around this, while trying to regain your inner balance and some clarity, to finally realize that there´s no other way out of this than facing the truth and the possible consequences and move on [or being moved on] to phase 4.
There are no indications of a break so far, and to me it looks like you´re about to carry at least some of that internal pressure and tension over into that phase 4 to discharge it there. I´m hesitating to give any prognosis here, this card just smells [to say the least] of a showdown. Again it´s Saturn, the big malefiz, this time in mighty Leo.
BUT whatever might happen, however it might turn out - most probably not too much of something you don´t already know somewhere inside - the 5 of Wands represent the end of that cycle and mark the beginning of a new sequence.

This reading leaves a rather strange feeling in my belly but I feel like I should stop at this point and regarding our discussion leave it up to you how to move on from here.
Maybe a new spread on possible options or alternative solutions, or the best way and means to navigate through all of this, the positive aspects of facing it, ways to move on from there, ... ?
Please let me know if I can be of any help.

All van de best ! :thumbsup:

Kashi

rif

Hi guys,

Kat, that was a clear reading as usual. It sounds like you were confirming (or better verbalizing) things you already know.

Lots of Air -- lots of thought or communication going on. My first thought, before reading your words, was "overanalyzing." Are you overanalyzing or over-thinking the situation? Which could feed into aggravating things.

With the strong 2S, I can see a lot of verbal fencing that tends to go nowhere. What I get from the Priestess is that deep down you believe that you're right, and he's not. Of course, that 5W in earth is ongoing feuding, which pairs nicely with the 2S (in terms of reinforcing the message, that is). 5W in earth suggests that these arguments are becoming a habit; whether you enjoy them or not, they are part of the fabric of your new domestic arrangements.

I almost forgot about the strong 3S. I'm going to go with brittle tempers for this one. It makes sense when I think of the image on my LS Tarot deck; moreso than my first thought, which was a mild depression.

Putting it all together, there's a lot of over-thinking going on about issues that probably don't warrant it. This leads to an ever-present brittle feeling, which leads to further arguments that always end without either person "winning." This feuding is becoming a habit, because it feels like a normal part of the relationship, even though it shouldn't be.

The advice I'd like to draw your attention to, based on these cards, is to step back next time you're going to blow up about something, and ask if it's really so important. Or if you're reading too much into his actions. The trick is to get him to do the same, and remember to show each other affection instead of arguments.

With respect to moving elsewhere, the "over-analyzing" aspect of all that air could also mean you are thinking too hard about whether too move, and overlooking the basics, whatever they are. Maybe you need to look at the reason you're moving, or if moving is really the answer to your problems? I don't know. But again, I think these cards suggests things aren't going to change anytime soon; not without a lot of effort. One way or another, change is needed.

psyphy

Heya,

just wanna let you know that I´m on my [long] way back home and offline until Friday.

Best wishes !