I’ve had this deck for several months and yet I haven’t opened it, haven’t touched it, until now: I don’t know why. Somehow today seemed like the right time and I felt compelled to use it for the weekly reading.
Looking at what it’s offered us, I can see why. Here is Death once again (the Journey) at the centre, after its appearance last week too. This is a time of strong currents of change. We heard this message last week, and here it is again in a different, more powerful form – two strong major arcana cards to push the message home. If we weren’t listening before, can we sit up and pay attention now?
The Ten of Vessels shows us an abundant flow of positive feeling: all our cups are filled. This is what we are aiming for – this vital, refreshing energy – but trust in the cycles of change and renewal we are all subject to will be essential in order to get there. This isn’t always going to be comfortable. Accepting death as a natural corollary of life and progress can be a challenge. Likewise, the lessons of the Great Bear (aka Judgement) do not come easy. After Death has stripped away what is no longer needed, how do we weigh the version of ourselves, of our lives, that is left? Are we ready to emerge into something different, to forgive ourselves for our failings and difficulties on the path to where we are now? Are we ready?
That might all sound like a bit too much existential angst for a Bank Holiday Monday. Fair enough. Consider, though, the world we find ourselves in as we tentatively move away from lockdown restrictions towards a version of ‘normal life’ that is both comfortingly familiar yet distinctly, perhaps irreversibly, changed. We are reshaping ourselves and our surroundings as the longer term impacts of the previous 18 months – on us as individuals and on the collective – begin to make themselves known.
Change is not often sudden and explosive (we have the Tower to tell us when that’s coming!), rather it is incremental and steady: the flow of a sparkling waterfall subtly reshaping the rock below. And yet, so often, those tiny increments carve out huge shifts over time. Harder to recognise, perhaps, but hugely significant. This week, the Journey and the Great Bear ask you both to acknowledge what is changing for you and to do the work necessary to fully align yourself with that process in order to reap the emotional rewards.
Have a good week and stay safe x
Louise Norgate 