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Will I Find a Lover? (Example Reading)
Category Archives: Card Reading
Great News, I’m Pregnant!
No, not me–science hasn’t come that far. I picked three cards for the day around a week ago.
In a daily reading, these cards could indicate just about anything, although the tone is positive and it is connected with good news for sure. But two days later a friend in our group announced she was pregnant. The Hope card is strongly connected with maternity and nourishment, and is often present when asking about pregnancies, and the Child card speaks for itself. Also note that daily readings can come true even in the following days.
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The End of Misfortune (Example Reading)
This is a cool reading because it shows that the cards tend to describe a situation and take their time to do so, so that trying to immediately get a yes or no out of them can be problematic and cause mistakes (though making mistakes is part of the human condition, obviously). This is the reason why, talking about the Bolognese tarot, I tend to disregard the yes and no rule of the Death card. It is also the reason why I don’t believe in the yes and no value of playing card colors. To me, that’s just a coin flip, and coin flips don’t work as reliably as actual divination, which is a language.
Here the question was if an unemployed man would get a job.
The first thing I noticed is that the reading ends with a very positive combination of Queen of Diamonds, Eight of Clubs (work) and Six of Hearts (reconciliation/solution/adjustment). This bodes well, but the rest of the spread is more disastrous.
The first row shows that the subject is a thorn in the heart of the person (Two of Spades, Ace of Spades and the Six of Diamonds showing worry). Then we see that every step taken (Two of Clubs) to solve the issue has met with misfortune (Seven of Spades), meaning that the person has probably tried to find a job repeatedly but failed. This explains the very emotional cards in the first row, as well as the fact that the Happiness card (Ten of Hearts) is squeezed between Misfortune (Seven of Spades) and Tears (Eight of Spades). This is a whole unfortunate period unfolding in the person’s life.
There are some cards I am not quite sure about: the Two of Diamonds, Seven of Diamonds, Seven of Clubs. 2♦️ + 7♦️ can be a cheque or paper money, or projects about money. I asked the querent a couple of questions and it didn’t really help. I think a more general reading would be that, quite obviously, the lack of a job has impacted negatively (7♣️) his financial situation.
Then finally we have a woman who is either going to help him find a job or give him a job. If I had to bet I would say this is a female boss, since she shows up as a Diamond and not as a Heart. Either way, the period of misfortune is going to thankfully end.
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Is He Gay? (Example Reading)
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What Have I Done to Him? (Example Reading)
Here the querent is a friend of mine whose live-in boyfriend is acting aloof toward her. She was afraid that he was either having an affair or he was falling out of love with her, or that she had done something to him (he does have a tendency to keep things in until it’s time to explode).
My querent doesn’t come up, so we can exclude that she has done something to him or that his love toward her is an issue. There is also a complete absence of mistresses, so we can immediately rule out that he is cheating, especially since there are no cards indicating sneakiness (like the Ten of Spades or the Jack of Spades). There is a Three of Spades, which might indicate intrigue, but clearly this is not what the spread is driving at, and the Three of Spades can also indicate a ‘knotted’, complex situation that doesn’t flow harmoniously.
His significator comes up in the second line, surrounded by cards that show positive development, so the situation is not permanent. However, the first line is a bit concerning, since we have tears, worry and the complex situation. Note that the worry card (the Six of Diamonds) is hemmed in by the spades, so it gives us a picture of the person being somewhat overwhelmed.
Then we have the two Eights and the Ace of Spades. As I wrote sometime ago, the Ace of Spades is often sterilized as a card of change, but at least in my tradition it shows great grief. The grief here is connected to cards of work and business, so this is the problem. The querent said that he doesn’t know if his temp job is going to be renewed. So that’s the problem.
Finally, to complete the picture, there is the house card with problems (Seven of Clubs) next to it. The steps (Two of Clubs) he takes at home (Ace of Hearts) are problematic, as a consequence of the issues shown in the cards above.
We have a final card, the King of Diamonds. We couldn’t identify him, although we suspect it’s either a colleague or a boss. We don’t know from the cards if his influence is positive or negative. It would require another spread, but it doesn’t matter since my friend’s worry was of a different nature.
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There Is No Ghost (Example Reading)
When we give a reading about extraordinary questions like the occult or the paranormal, it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting to confirm the querent’s bias or subjective experience.
This is why I tend to avoid queries about such things as past lives: for one, I don’t believe in reincarnation, or rather, I believe that the soul of the world constantly reincarnates through every individual that is born, but I don’t believe in the existence of seprate or individual souls that reincarnate karmically; for two, I fail to see the importance of knowing about what one might have been in a previous life; for three, suppose I tell someone that they were an illiterate farmer, when another reader convinced them they were a cool witch who was burned at the stake for her mystical powers, how is the querent going to choose who is right apart from their whim of the moment?
Still, certain topics, such as magic or spirits, are within my tradition and I do believe in them, so I accept readings, but I warn querents that the likelihood of something of the sort happening in their life is very low even if they go looking for it, let alone randomly.
This one querent thought there is a ghost haunting the third floor of the building she moved to. This is the spread that came out:
As can be seen, even without interpreting the spread, there is no trace of haunting in the cards. The final two cards, the Nine of Diamonds and the Ten of Diamonds, are a lucky combination, they can show success, protection or even simply the fact that the “energy” is clean, not charged with magical or paranormal forces. The querent shows up at the beginning of the spread with the Three of Diamonds, which is a doubtful card in this context. It makes me think more about random things that she, the Queen, misinterpreted.
The Jack of Hearts is even more doubtful. It could show the presence of a child (a living child, that is) or an animal (again, a living one) who does something the querent misinterprets. The querent said that there are both children and animals in the building, so that’s a possibility. Frankly, I should have either added cards or done another spread.
Still, this is enough to make me think that there is a non-paranormal explanation for the querent’s experience, so the spread is enough to answer the question in that regard.
The funny thing is that, after the reading, the querent started talking to me like I am not very competent at reading cards. I am obviously open to being wrong, and I understand that it must be frustrating being told that one’s subjective experience is probably the result of a misinterpretation (it must feel like ‘gaslighting’, to employ an overused word). All I could do was trying to be as understanding as I could in delivering the answer.
After all, for every instance of real haunting or real magic (at least, real according to the oracle) there are thousands of cases of people who spend years burning sage to smoke out a presence that isn’t there, yet the ghost who isn’t there often ends up influencing their life more than those that are there.
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Video: Love Unwanted But Desired (Example Reading)
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The New Doctor (Example Reading)
I find it funny how sometimes the Sibilla just steamrolls you with just three cards. A friend of mine had an appointment at a new psychiatric clinic and wanted to know if the new doctor was any good:
I don’t there is much need for interpretation here: the change brings her to someone who is her enemy. Doesn’t mean he will tie her to the train track, but he is not reliable (Butterfly). Interestingly, she was under the impression she was going to be visited by a female doctor, but it turned out that one had too much on her hand, so my friend ended up with the male enemy. In her words, he is probably the one who needs a psychiatrist.
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An Assault (Example Reading)
I don’t often pick three cards for the day, and usually when I do they show very minor situations, for the very good reason that most days are very minor in themselves. The day before yesterday I shuffled the Bolognese Tarot and this came up for the following day:
The Sun and Moon, in the Bolognese Tarot tradition, indicate sorrow or tribulation. Usually, when the Moon falls last, the sorrow is serious or lasting, while if the Sun falls last it eventually overcomes the Moon, so the sorrow is shorter or less impactful. Still, what we have here, is sorrow knocking at the door, even though it’s passing. Curious, I decided to deal out some other cards, even though I wasn’t sure the cards would keep talking about the same thing. This came up:
Clearly this is not a happy string of cards, and it seems to be dealing with a young woman (the Page of Cups). I wasn’t sure if the young woman had anything to do with me or was experiencing something herself, so I left it at that.
Yesterday, aside from being a mentally taxing day for me, a friend of mine was assaulted by a junkie while walking the dogs, but she managed to make it out of it with nothing more than a big scare and a broken fingernail. She alerted the police, and she asked me what I thought would come of it. This time I whipped out the playing cards.
The Jack of Spades immediately calls attention to himself, showing a criminal in this case. It is surrounded by two Spades, so trouble or inconvenience for him. The Four is also a card of violence, but I don’t think it has anything to do with it: they are describing what happens to him. Then the spread takes a sharp turn for the better (for the criminal, that is): things change (Five of Diamonds) and he walks (Two of Clubs). I doubted there would be serious consequences. Note also the absence of the law (the King of Spades) or of the prison card (the Five of Spades).
The man was stopped, since he is known around town for being a weirdo, but my friend is probably not going to press charges since she was told there were no witnesses and it would turn into an endless battle of he-says-she-says for what, in the eyes of the law, was a minor scuffle on the streets between two adults. I’ll update the post if anything new happens.
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The Main Problem (Cross Spread Example Reading)
Those who read my Sibilla and Playing Cards sections are probably familiar with the cross spread I use with those decks. Turns out, the same spread can be used with the Bolognese tarot.
This querent is the same I read for here and had a crush on a colleague. The cross spread I present here is a prequel to that spread.
The cross spread may be used to look at a person’s life in general or to answer general questions (“tell me about my career”). In this case it was general. I’ll keep it short:
- Above the head position (what the querent would like or is thinking about): King of Cups, Juggler/Magician, Ace of Cups. This screams “pucture perfect family” with a husband (King), children (Juggler) and a hearth (Ace of Cups)
- Under her feet (what she doesn’t want or what she has trouble with): Love, Ace of Wands and Eight of Wands. Love and Ace of Wands together represent a relationship, and the Eight of Wands is a road or path, so it could indicate a love life. Note that this position could indicate that she doesn’t want a relationship, but considering what the cards on her head are saying, it is more plausible that she wants a relationship but has trouble obtaining it.
- To her left (past or present): Star, King of Coins, Death. This position talks about work. After checking with her, I discovered she had lost her job in the months prior to the reading and had found a new one.
- To her right (near future): Page of Swords, Fool, Seven of Cups. This speaks generically about confusing messages concerning the home.
- Center (in her heart): Angel/Judgement, Devil and King of Wands. Well, Angel and Devil together represent, traditionally, great satisfaction, connected to a man. This seems to be the cards’ polite way of saying she’s turned on by him.
- To the side (for her): Ace of Swords, Knight of Coins, Ace of Coins. Speedy positive news about money. Probably connected to the near future position, but we didn’t look further into it.
And the reason we didn’t look further into it is that the most important cards (those comprising the central column, i.e., above, heart and below) are all connected with love. This is how the spread about the colleague was born. Note, however, that this spread, when done in general, can give us brief messages about the most disparate fields of life, and it is up to us then to expand on them by either adding cards or doing other spreads.
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