What to do when "advice from above" doesn't make sense???

[Pauline Kilar]

Hi!

I'm new at Tarot (just got into it about 3 months ago). I do a daily 3-card draw using a spread someone gave in a forum: 1=Theme of the Day 2=Underlying Influences 3=Advice from Above.

Well, every once in a while I get an "Advice from Above" card that just doesn't make sense. Like today, I drew the 3 of Swords. I don't know what to make of this.

Usually the Advice from Above card makes sense. Like if you get Strength, or the 8 of Pentacles, or the Queen of Pentacles (all ones I've gotten recently), it makes sense. You need to emulate these qualities or take these actions.

But if it's a "negative" card, or a card that indicates outside forces acting on you (e.g., The Tower), how are you supposed to interpret it? To me the 3 of Swords represents Sorrow. I stared at it, trying to get some intuitive meaning from it, but I got nothin'.

(The "Theme" card was 5 Wands and the "Underlying Influences" card was The Empress, in case anyone's interested in the context.)

Thanks for any help or guidance on this!

K

 

[Umbrae]

Uh…take this with a grain of salt…it’s my opinion (this is not a fact), it’s how I feel.

Most daily draws are a waste of time. Especially if done at the start of the day.

It does nothing for your day, serves no purpose, and does not provide a ‘heads up’. It serves to ‘set your mood’. It helps give you a bad outlook on what might be a wonderful day.

Listen:

Do a draw at the END of the day. Then you can meditate and find that brief 3 of Swords moment and weight it for what it is, not what you were ‘expecting’. It will help build a relationship between you and your meanings.

And why three cards? You’ve been doing this for three months and you’re already using three cards to ‘set the mood of your day’? Poor advice. It is designed to fit you into someone else’s shoes – rather than crafting your own pair.

We live one day at a time. Perhaps you should be drawing one card at a time at the end of your day, until you’re comfort level is expanded.

 

[tarobones]

bum rap

I have always felt the 3 of swords gets a bum rap as merely "sorrow." There is no doubt: the graphic 3 swords piercing the heart. But is this all there is to the image? Swords slash through illusions. perhaps this is a painful but importnat thing for me to do. Swords also represent thoughts and ideas. Perhaps my thoughts and my heart my head and my heart need more integration. Those thoughts interpenetrating the heart. A bringing together of mind and heart. Also, sorrow can teach us many things. Even though its painful, perhaps the card is advice to learn from the experience. Just a few thoughts. It's natural enough to avoid pain. But perhaps we could do better to learn and grow from it. I also wince at the graphic image sometimes, but then I pause and ask where I can learn from sorrow's wisdom. BB, Michael

 

[Skydancer]

Hi!
Well, just my 2¢ which can be ignored if you like (!), but a daily 3-card seems like a lot. Unless you're just using or looking for a tiny bit of what the card has to offer. My experience has been that it often takes a bit longer than a day to see just what the card was saying, warning, telling, chiding, kidding, me about. You get the idea!!

3 of S is an old friend of mine. I'm not sure it's inherently negative. Depends. As advice? Well, don't let yourself get caught up in heartache. That would be one. That's not negative; that's a warning, not to get emotionaly caught up in something that happens, or your reaction to something. Or someone. From above means that you are probably not going to be aware of it first hand - otherwise it would be, for example, a theme card.

5 if W - activity, wrestling with new ideas, conflict friendly or not, change of mind, upset in previous plans. I can see how this could tie in with a 3 of S as advice.

Empress - underlying influence, eh? Hmmm ... seems to me that could mean that you are going to be in control of the situations that arise, conflict or no. Fruitful - expecting - mother earth - earth mother - mature - caring - venus on earth -- you get the idea!! She is often the Lady, as consort of the Lord.

So - there you have it; my 2 1/2¢!!

Have a great day, and wait to see how this pans out for you. It might take a day or two to see it.

S

 

[Sophie]

No card is negative, Pauline, and none is positive either. If you're trying to isolate yourself to work and the card you get is the 3 of Cups, you might be in trouble...

Let's look not at the purpose of this advice. Presumably you ask for it so you can act on it? And you wonder - how can I act on three swords piercing a heart? Can the advice be - break your heart?

Well, first, we have a few LWB meanings of the three of swords. Heartbreak, mental pain, blah blah. But how often is our heart broken compared to the number of times we are likely to pick the three of swords? So there are other possible meanings - annoyance, pain in the neck. Or heart surgery. Or mind over emotions. Or a dozen other meanings of that sort you get by free associating on the image.

But what is the 3 of Swords, exactly? You have 3 and you have swords - 3 of the suit representing the mind. So maybe you can imagine that this advice concerns your mind. And 3... 3 is synthesis, imagination, problem-solving, creativity.

When your heart aches, sometimes you need a good dose of mental creativity to keep it from falling apart. When you have a problem, you need some good mental problem-solving skills. When you're just too emotional, you need to detach and think.

Or you might not have a problem. This could simply be saying - be intellectually creative.

You get the idea?

Advice is supposed to be positive (or else it's not that useful!). Therefore the advice in reading advice cards is - take a positive spin on that card and apply it as advice to help you.

Another weird one to get as advice is 9 of Swords. This could mean - you need time alone to think things through and calm your mind. 8 of Swords - you need to shut yourself away alone to get some work done. Etc. etc.

If you want a good book about learning how to look at advice cards, Janina Renée's Tarot, Your Everyday Guide is excellent.

 

[Pauline Kilar]

Wow, these are fantastic responses! Tarobones and Helvetica: I hadn't honestly considered the "mind" angle - what a great way to look at this card!

Umbrae and Skydancer, thanks for the advice on doing three-card draws. I'm not sure where to go with this; I'm really enjoying building a relationship with the Tarot by looking at it every day.

Umbrae, I agree that doing a reading at the beginning of the day might have an undue influence on how the day goes. Your suggestion of doing a draw at night is an interesting one; I just would not be sure which interpretation to assign to which cards. I'll go look at the spreads again.

 

[Pauline Kilar]

daily draws

I'm thinking of using this format (from this thread):

i take one card and that card is that days advice/warning/meditation object/study object all wrapped into one.
i write it down, look at it closely, journal about the card, look it up in literature, find correspondances and watch out if i can see the card in my life that day.
i notice if i have had the same card recently and what it means to get it so soon again, what element the card is and what mood i am in.
1 card is body/mind/spirit

I just really like doing a daily draw as part of my morning routine. I don't really have an evening routine (because I always stay up way too late! Hee hee.)

 

[arachnophobia]

Wow, these are fantastic responses! Tarobones and Helvetica: I hadn't honestly considered the "mind" angle - what a great way to look at this card!

Umbrae and Skydancer, thanks for the advice on doing three-card draws. I'm not sure where to go with this; I'm really enjoying building a relationship with the Tarot by looking at it every day.

Umbrae, I agree that doing a reading at the beginning of the day might have an undue influence on how the day goes. Your suggestion of doing a draw at night is an interesting one; I just would not be sure which interpretation to assign to which cards. I'll go look at the spreads again.

I do not feel in complete agreement with Umbrae about only doing daily draws at the end of the day; I do think the morning allows us to plant a "seed" which we can recognise as the "Tarot moment" as it occurs (and yes, Umbrae, I agree it usually = just a moment, rather than the colouring the whole day!) ;-)

Of course, 3 of Swords = a "mind" card; all Swords = "mind" cards, and imho we have to get away from the gross "stabbed-heart" imagery of the RWS to appreciate this (the RWS has a lot to answer for, particularly in this regard, imho, since it fixates us on "heart" when we should think "head"! *grr*) ;-P

To me, as a user of the Voodoo Tarot, the 3 of Swords = the card of the seasoned and well-experienced karmic traveller (Rada Guedeh), i.e. a very 'old soul', who has "been there, done that, seen everything, got the T-shirt", in terms of countless experiences of death and sorrow, and therefore respects and appreciates the depth of both, in their place. Attitude = everything, i.e. the 3 of Swords, like everything else, seems a state of mind more than anything. The attitude can manifest in either a jaded, cynical, worldly-wise, blase air (to protect oneself from the real painful emotions still below the surface) or even at times, and I think more healthily, an occasionally 'dark' or 'black', wickedly morbid, sense of humor!! In the immortal tagline of mythos, *there seems nothing reincarnation cannot fix* ;-))

I love this card!! So don your best and most stylish gothic garb, and go out and celebrate, for tomorrow anyone of us may go to join the ancestors? ;-))

 

[Pauline Kilar]

one-card or three-card?

I've made up my mind to continue doing a daily draw every morning; I normally have a hard time establishing routines, but Tarot seems to be the exception; I love doing my draw every day. I think it would be foolish of me to give this up.

Looking through the forums I've seen more ideas for one-card draws; for example, just watch for the card in your life. Take note of number and element and watch for those numbers and elements to pop up as you go through your day. Or pay attention to stories in the news, or the lives of those around you, to see if there are any situations that relate to the card. I like that approach as it seems to be one of learning and watching rather than predicting or "setting the tone." I'm thinking of phrasing the query as "this is the card I'm learning about today."

And then longer-term I can look back and see what themes and patterns emerge.

The three-card spread appealed to me because I need to learn how to relate cards to one another. But maybe it's better to do that through "playing" with the cards and telling stories, or through doing larger spreads.

K

 

[tarobones]

daily draw

I do a daily draw every morning. I do not look at the practice in a predictive way at all. For me the daily draw is just an opportunity to "spend a day with the image." Learning about it, looking at it, free associating, etc. Should something interesting happen that connects to the card, cool! if not, cool! I don't feel the need to make it connect. I've learned a lot by this practice. BB, Michael