Not so, I discovered. I woke up about 2:30 AM Saturday morning and couldn't go back to sleep. Why? Because I had started thinking about all my money and security woes and begun to panic! I don't let my mind run ramped in the middle of the night, and when deep breathing didn’t help I decided to have a beer and try to relax. I put on a movie which gave me the necessary mental distraction and finally fell asleep about 4 AM.
It wasn’t until today that I put all of this together and realized that the time I was awake early Saturday morning was the exact time of that lunar eclipse! I also hadn’t connected the eclipse to the fact that I was feeling very depressed most of the day Saturday, and just generally in a funk. I was still laboring under the impression that this lunar eclipse didn’t affect anything in my chart. By evening yesterday I finally began to react to the funk and lethargy I’d been feeling all day, and before long I was in a full blown argument, with myself, about some of the things which are threatening my sense of security lately, and what to do about them. Much of this argument was also directed at the universe for the supreme injustice in the entire reality construct! I was actually storming around and yelling at the universe! Well, the fire element usually reacts to fear with anger. What can I say. Even the dog went outside.
Of course it's futile to rail against the reality we've created for ourselves, and if we stop and reflect with honesty for a moment, we can usually begin to see how we've done it. So I tried that. Nothing really came to mind and I decided the best thing to do for the moment would be to watch a good movie and leave the whole issue to tomorrow. That worked.
I woke up feeling a bit silly this morning, to say the least. But I wanted to get some perspective on what last night's tirade was all about so I asked Tarot. These cards are always so revealing. I'm constantly amazed. This is a simple three card Situation, Obstacle, Advice/Outcome spread with the option of drawing qualifiers if needed.
The 5 of Pentacles in the situation position certainly reflects the issue around which last night‘s tirade erupted. The issue is money and security problems. The 7 of Wands to me represents ego and image challenges. I'm a Sagittarian with the Moon in Leo. The fire signs, represented by Wands are, among other things, sensitive about image and how they project themselves; and they have ego attachments to their image. Sevens are creative challenges, usually ones that we choose for ourselves, unlike the challenges presented by the fives, which are often sudden and unexpected, and generally come at us from the outer world in the form of some crisis. One of the aspects of this card is the challenge to be ourselves and to become authentic. Coming out of the closet, so to speak and letting people see who we really are. In the obstacle position, this would indicate that I’m having trouble with issues of image and ego. This is also quite true. For instance, I’ve been struggling with how to introduce this blog and begin making regular posts. I’m having other ego and image issues all over the place right now in my life. This is how Tarot has a way of consistently reflecting back to us those things we need to either confront or take a closer look at in our lives.
The Ace of Swords represents a new beginning, one which often emerges out of a period of adversity. Swords are the mind, thoughts and ideas, the communication of ideas through talking, writing, learning and teaching. I didn’t make the connection right away but as I continued to think about this spread I realized that this blog could easily be represented by that Ace of Swords. And how appropriate since this would be my first post.
Checking the Elemental Dignities, this spread is a triad of earth, fire, and air. Triads are read from the middle card, the principle; the two outer cards being modifiers which either support, are neutral to or conflict with the middle card. The purpose is to measure the strength or weakness of each card in the spread. There aren’t really any direct conflicts here. But reading from the middle card 7 of Wands, the two cards on either side are earth and air, elemental enemies. This represents a situation where a battle is going on in the background, or the two outside cards are vying for the attention of the principle card in the middle. The Golden Dawn system says they cancel each other out. Maybe they do in importance, but I don’t think we can just ignore any card in a spread. Each card has something to say. If the middle card had to choose between the two outer cards, it would choose the Ace of Swords because Wands and Swords are friendly and support each other elementally. Wands and Pentacles, I read as neutral to each other. They don’t support each other, but they are not inimical to each other either. So I'm offered a choice here between focusing on the problems represented by the 5 of Pentacles or following the advice offered by the Ace of Swords. Elementally the Ace of Swords is the strongest card in the spread which indicates that it is a good idea to begin the blog. This isn't necessarily a solution to the 5 of Pentacles, but which card would you rather focus on? Yeah, me too! The reading at least gives me some hope that my current struggles may lead to something worthwhile. I decided to take the advice offered, jump in and start making blog posts.
In checking further on the progress of this Sun-Moon cycle I find that this story isn’t over yet for me. On July 11, the Moon will be new, conjoining the Sun in 19 degrees 24 minutes of Cancer and producing a solar eclipse. This exactly squares my Jupiter in Libra, so I haven’t heard the last of this solar/lunar eclipse cycle yet!
