Birthday Cards!

one-card pulls for those who wanted them

As I mentioned in a post earlier this week, I learned to read cards—playing cards, not tarot—from my paternal grandmother.

The following are the one-card pull readings that people asked for when I opened up that opportunity earlier in the week.

Rhetta asks: What is the most important thing I need to make time for right now?

The Card: 10 of Hearts

The Reading: This card suggests ease after a period of struggle, not an arrival at a place one will stay but a loosening of constriction. In relation to your question, I would say that the important thing to make time for now is whatever thing(s) the previous period of constriction would not permit: whatever it is that you back-burnered, postponed, or told yourself you could just do without because the time or resources did not exist is something that should get some time and love and sunlight now.

Bookie asks: How can I be less bitter about the crappy things?

The Card: 4 of Spades

The Reading: The 4 of spades, my grandmother used to say, was “the card of small change,” meaning “little things, inconsequential things, things that are less important than others.” In relation to your question, I would say that perhaps a dose of perspective is in order: are there ways in which some of these crappy things are maybe less consequential than they might seem? Is it possible to reframe some of them as being “small change” in comparison to the bigger picture of your movement through life? Would it, perhaps, take the sting out of some of the unpleasantries to think about them in that light?

Jacob Silly asks: Regarding the wisdom received in RNTQ #652 ("You don't have to explain yourself to anyone"), I find myself floundering when attempting to endure the adolescent verstimmung currently encasing my household. In this situation, explaining myself to the young louts isn't necessary, nor will it help, but I have the unbearable urge to do it anyway. If not by explaining oneself, or by force, how does one communicate one's needs?

The Card: the Jack of Spades

The Reading: Jacks are usually young masculine people; the Jack of Spades is usually a young masculine person with some kind of chip on his shoulder, maybe jealousy, maybe rebelliousness for rebelliousness’ sake, maybe contrarianism, maybe something else. In regard to this question, I can only note that while I don’t know whether the “adolescent Verstimmung” in your household stems from a masculine adolescent or not, the cards seem to be pretending they are a billboard in your case, unsubtle as a frying pan upside the head. In light of this I would suggest that perhaps it would serve you to cultivate a bit of divine indifference to one’s urge to explain one’s self, since Young Jack is gonna… jack off, as it were. One may communicate one’s needs by embodying their fulfillment and letting the example speak, sometimes.

Catie Bird asks: What do I need to know or do to make my business practice sustainable this year?

The Card: The 9 of Hearts.

The Reading: The 9 of Hearts is, traditionally, “a dream is fulfilled.” While it would be possible to read that as meaning “you don’t need to know or do anything, it’s all taking care of itself, the thing you want is fulfilled,” it is also traditional, if one draws the 9 of Hearts, to draw another card to see what the hell that 9 of Hearts is talking about. You are welcome to take this reading and run with it if you like, but in the event that you’d prefer a more old-school approach, I drew a second card, the 3 of Diamonds, which waggles its finger at us and says “Be tactful.” Not “more tactful,” just “tactful.” Another way of thinking about being tactful is being tactical: to consider one’s possible actions and how they are most likely to play out, and choosing accordingly to favor effectiveness. “Tactful” is merely what we call this in person-to-person interactions where we want to favor effectiveness by not causing offense. Put the two cards together and I’d say what you need to know/do is to be tactical/tactful, and the desired effect may very well be what you get.

Cocoa Puff asks: How the hell do I stop beating myself up for everything?

The Card: The King of Spades.

The Reading: Kings, traditionally, get read as male or masculine figures; the suit of spades is traditionally associated with “darker” or “negative” dynamics. I tend to think of the King of Spades as being about “masculine” attributes like pride and ambition and self-aggrandizement in their less helpful manifestations: the ways people build themselves up by putting others down, for instance, the ways people strive to win in ways that ensure that others will lose (or at least feel bad), that sort of thing. Perhaps there are ways in which beating yourself up for everything is letting you feel like you have “won” in some way — if you are always miserable, always horrible, always in the wrong, you have “won” the security of always determining the outcome, and never having to deal with the vulnerability that comes along with sometimes feeling okay or even good or knowing you’re right or have done well. (After all, if sometimes things feel ok or good, that means it might not always feel like that, and that uncertainty can be scary.) It may be that part of the way you stop beating yourself up for everything is that you consider whether beating yourself up for everything is secretly the way you avoid having to grapple with the built-in insecurity and instability of life’s mixed bag. Beating yourself up for everything is not a fun cheat code but it is still a cheat code… perhaps the King of Spades is asking you “Are you ready to give up my cheat code and play the game without it?”

Thank you all for asking me to pull cards for you. I had a lot of fun. I hope these readings serve you — as amusement, as insight, as something to respond to, as whatever works best for you.