Help interpreting patterns in daily draw

[Melora]

I'm sorry that this post is so long. I use the Estensi deck (Golden Tarot of the Renaissance) so some of the card meanings are slightly different from the RWD. However, I'm hoping that my question is general enough that the differences won't matter.

After a fairly long lapse in reading cards, I've started working with this deck and I'm generally very happy. At first, differences between the LWB interpretations and the RWD meanings frustrated me and I kept wanting to interpret the cards according to the more standard RWD, but after working with them daily for almost a month, I've become fairly comfortable with the LWB interpretations and appreciate how well they fit the scenes depicted by the respective cards.

The times that I've used the cards to do larger 8 to 10 card readings I've been very pleased with the wealth of knowledge offered up and specificity of the cards message to the situation being queried.

Because this deck is still new to me, I've been utilizing a daily three card reading that I found on this site. It involves pulling a card from the major arcana to represent a daily lesson or situation; a card from the court cards to represent a person I might meet or something I might learn about myself; and a card from the minor arcana to represent advice or an obstacle for the day. I keep a written record of each days draw and at the end of the day go back to make notes on what I've observed and how the cards seem to have related to my day. Herein lies my problem.

For the last 9 days I've been pulling similarly unsettling cards from all three groups.

The Major Arcana: The Moon (reversed), The hanged man (reversed), The Fool (reversed), The Star (reversed), The Wheel, Justice (reversed), The Hanged Man (reversed), Strength (reversed), The Tower (UPRIGHT!!)---I should noted that my cards are not being kept in some sort of weird overwhelmingly reversed order.

My Court Cards have also hinted at difficulties: Q of Pentacles, Knight of Chalices, Q of Pentacles, K of Wands, Knight of Chalices (reversed), K of Pentacles (reversed), K of Wands, Knight of Pentacles (reversed), Knave of Chalices.

The Minor Arcana has been overwhelmingly pentacles: 2 of Pentacles (reversed), 4 of Pentacles (reversed), 9 of Pentacles, 3 of Pentacles (reversed), Ace of Chalices, 2 of Chalices, 3 of Swords, 2 of Pentacles, 5 of Pentacles (reversed)

Surprisingly, my life has been really good over the last 9 days. Each day I draw my cards brace myself and nothing happens. At the end of the day I'm at a loss to see how the cards related to the events of the day. But I can't help feeling like the cards are trying to tell me anything. Am I giving these daily readings too much weight? Any interpretations? Words of wisdom?

Thanks much,

 

[Mellifluous]

It's hard to say much without knowing how you interpreted the cards and the reversals. I was surprised you listed the court cards as hinting at difficulties though. If you're taking them as 'opposites', knight of cups could be a lack of flightiness or fickleness and knight of pentacles could be a lack of (excess) caution and inhibition. These could both be good things/people to run into, if you see what I mean. Depends on the circumstances you are in that day and your personal tastes.

One could say similar things about all of the cards. There's positive and negative in each card, whether you use reversals or not. Unless you decide for yourself there isn't, I guess. lol

Also, and others will no doubt disagree, I think you might be looking for too much in so-called patterns. You're doing the wise thing in getting to know the deck, doing daily readings, keeping a journal... You've had good experiences with all of these cards from the sound of it, so that's the truth of what they represent for you at this point in time. (You might have a tendency to be overly negative or fearful of certain cards. It'll pass in time if you let it.) Give hindsight a bit more time maybe than nine days before trying to draw hard and fast conclusions or looking for patterns.

Keep on doing what you're doing though. Matching experience with all of this study will be the real teacher (beyond the LWB or any rules you try to impose on the cards about reversals).

Happy tarot-ing!

 

[rwcarter]

Melora,

Welcome to AT.

When it comes to daily draws, the cards can (and often do) represent more mundane things than the earth-shatteringly large events that a single spread on a single event might discuss. Instead of the Tower being about something that rocks you to your core, it might just represent an AHA! moment. The Rx Hanged Man might represent a situation where you should've held back instead of jumping right in. Rx Justice might have represented a coworker getting credit for something you did or someone cutting in front of you in line.

About the courts, you have to remember that they can represent people you interact with, facets of yourself or situations. Even if you overwhelmingly identify with a particular court card, that doesn't mean that on a given day or in a given situation that you won't/can't be a different court card.

For the Minors, pentacles can be about money, but they can also be about health, the self or the home.

The only cards that've been repeated in that 9 day run are courts - QP (upright twice), KnC (once upright, once reversed), KW (upright twice). When I do and track my daily draws, I usually don't worry about repeated patterns over less than a month's time, so I wouldn't worry about "unsettling" cards over a relatively short period. One of the functions of daily draws is getting to know how your deck works with you. As you continue to do daily draws, you should start to get a sense of when the Tower is a foreboding card and when it just represents that AHA moment. All 78 cards have both positive and negative attributes in both upright and reversed positions (a reversed Sun could be a good card and a reversed Tower could be a bad card), and as you continue to work with your deck, you'll continue to learn the nuances of every card.

In short, don't let the "unsettling" cards worry you, especially if nothing bad has happened when you've gotten them. But the cards you pulled for a particular day do have relevance to that day even if you can't find the relevance at the time.

HTH,
Rodney

 

[Seafra]

Would it help you to look at the cards at the end of the day after drawing them in the morning? The fresh look at your day with hindsight guiding you until you are able to loosen the deeper meanings of the cards could aid you in seeing them express more mundane meanings for day-to-day life.

Consider that the tower and page of pent reversed and the two of pentacles might be the mundane (pents) stuff -- a favorite breakable biting the dust because your son wasn't paying attention while playing with the nerf basketball. (Son is playing with nunchucks near my new oil lamp as I type. K, I moved the lamp ... ) The daily lesson would be s**t happens, don't keep your valuable breakables exposed if you don't want to risk losing them, move that oil lamp, etc.

You say your focus is on "daily" lessons. The spiritual messages of the Majors aren't really "daily" lessons but "life" lessons. Could be a matter of semantics but my cards pay A LOT of attention to semantics and have let me know this time to time.

Blessings -
Seafra

 

[AJ]

I've been pulling a card a day for years and find them to be useless in the predictive sense. I use mine as personal growth messages. I only pull one per day though, not a spread.

I keep track of them on Corrine Kenner's card-of-the-day sheet, and on one of my blogs

 

[rwcarter]

I've been pulling a card a day for years and find them to be useless in the predictive sense. I use mine as personal growth messages.

Good point AJ. I'm doing Daily Draws with the Transparent Tarot, but I'm not using them in the predictive sense of what will happen in my day; instead I'm using them to show me what I need to be aware of in my day. That awareness may be of an event that happens (or not), but it also might be of an emotion, thought or desire that I should pay attention to.

Rodney

 

[Melora]

Thank you so much for all of the replies. It has been very helpful and I feel much better. I'm not sure how to put things in quotes, but I tried.

You might have a tendency to be overly negative or fearful of certain cards. It'll pass in time if you let it.

After reading this post I think you might be right. Without realizing it, I think I've been looking for 'bad news'. Hmmmm, something to think about.

One of the functions of daily draws is getting to know how your deck works with you. As you continue to do daily draws, you should start to get a sense of when the Tower is a foreboding card and when it just represents that AHA moment. All 78 cards have both positive and negative attributes in both upright and reversed positions (a reversed Sun could be a good card and a reversed Tower could be a bad card), and as you continue to work with your deck, you'll continue to learn the nuances of every card.

In short, don't let the "unsettling" cards worry you, especially if nothing bad has happened when you've gotten them. But the cards you pulled for a particular day do have relevance to that day even if you can't find the relevance at the time.

I think perhaps I've been relying too much on the predictive value instead of observation for learning the nuances of the cards. I don't know if that makes sense to anyone else, but I think it may be my 'aha!' moment of the day : )

The spiritual messages of the Majors aren't really "daily" lessons but "life" lessons. Could be a matter of semantics but my cards pay A LOT of attention to semantics and have let me know this time to time.

This has actually occurred to me while I've been working on this exercise. I think there's a lot to semantics. I also like the idea of reading at night, but I'm not sure how that would work in clarifying what I am asking for?

I've been pulling a card a day for years and find them to be useless in the predictive sense. I use mine as personal growth messages. I only pull one per day though, not a spread.

This was definitely reassuring thanks for sharing.

I really like this community. As I've been reading over old threads and posts, I'm always struck by the support that exists.

 

[Melora]

Sorry, my quotes didn't work. sigh!

 

[rwcarter]

Sorry, my quotes didn't work. sigh!

Melora, to get quotes to work right you need to begin the quoted text with [ QUOTE ] or [QUOTE = username] and end it with [/ QUOTE ] (without the spaces).

This link shows you all the different vbcode tags you can apply to messages.

HTH,
Rodney

 

[Mellifluous]

Glad you found something useful here. Good luck!