Ocean Waves

So sorry I haven't posted in so long! Things got very hectic with the end of school and start of vacation! I just got back from the beach with a very close friend of mine, Max. We had a truly wonderful time. Of course, I brought my cards with me. I did several readings for the two of us over the course of the week, but one sticks out in my mind in particular. I can't remember the exact cards, but I do remember that it was a spread about the relationship between he and his father. We went through the process, he shuffled and chose his cards, and I laid them out in their positions, and began to read them. But from the very beginning, something just didn't feel "right". He felt the same way. There were no aha! moments, no light bulbs clicking in his head. It was almost as if they weren't the right cards...we moved from card to card, but none of them seemed to fit correctly. And then it hit me. What if I had a laid them out in the wrong order...what if the card I started with was supposed to be the card that I ended with?
"Just go with me here for a second," I said, as I began to look at the cards in the reversed order. Suddenly they all seemed to snap right into place! The reading seemed to come to life, and things just started spilling out of me. I kept talking and watched as his eyes grew wider and he began to nod, giving me more confidence that my thoughts were correct. I've never had that happen before, where the cards were laid out backwards! But that was definitely the case here. The only reason I even thought of it was because I vaguely remembered Sarah mentioning it to me once. It was really interesting though that it really happened!

The other reading that sticks out in my mind was a dream spread that I did on myself one night, after Max and everyone else had already gone to bed. A couple nights before we left, I had a dream that I was on the beach and suddenly a huge tornado came and we had to run for our lives. We managed to survive, but everyone else died. I have a huge fear of tornadoes, almost to the point of impractical, and the dream really shook me up. I woke up trembling and couldn't get back to sleep for a little bit, until I finally calmed myself down, telling myself that it was just a nightmare and not a big deal. I thought I would forget about it, but for some reason I just couldn't get the dream out of my head. Unfortunately I was so busy cleaning and packing, I hadn't found a spare moment to do a spread about it until that night. As I was shuffling, I said a little prayer to God. "Please, just give me insight on this...why did I have this dream?" The first card I drew was supposed to signify what I already understood about the dream. I don't know why I'm still so shocked when tarot is accurate, but I found myself staring at this card in disbelief. I had drawn the Five of Cups. A girl stands all alone by the shores of the sea, staring out at the water, the exact kind of place where I had been standing in my dream. The swirls behind her head don't look like a tornado, but in the context of my dream, I knew that's what it stood for. The card itself stands for sorrow, loss, and rejection; a very sad card. Despite my past success, I had seriously been doubting the tarot about this one. What could it possibly tell me about some dream I had like a week ago? In all honesty, I was really only doing the spread as a desperate attempt to get some answers. Kind of a "oh hell, I'll just see what it says" sort of thing. But the first card definitely changed all of that. I was definitely hooked now. I began to turn over my other cards.

The Two of Cups. A card I often draw. It symbolizes two things to me. The first is obviously relationships, and growth within them. But I love the Shadowscapes deck because this card means something more to me than it does in any other deck. At the bottom of the card is the Pisces symbol, the two fish swimming in different directions. I'm a Pisces, so I've always felt a connection to this card. This card position symbolized the hidden and deeper meaning behind my dream. I immediately knew that the tornado was symbolizing my inner conflict that supposedly every Pisces faces...the choice between swimming away and escaping inside one's self, or stepping forth and facing reality. I don't know if this is true of all Pisceans, but it is definitely true of me. It's something that's been on my mind a lot lately as well, so it makes sense for it to come up in my dream. I also love that this is another "water card". Cups are my suit and Pisces is my sign and Water is my element so this card really speaks to me. 

The final card I drew was supposed to stand for why I had the dream. I drew the Five of Swords. I pretty much got the same thing out of that one that I did the Two of Cups. The Five of Swords is another conflict card, just strengthening my "Pisces issue," if you will. I also find it very interesting that I drew two fives in this spread....Fives stand for conflict, uncertainty, and instability, all of which not only make sense, but pretty much describe exactly how I've been feeling for the past few months or so. The reading was really insightful for me and put my mind at peace about the dream. (I was secretly afraid it was telling me I was going to die in a tornado...)

The trip overall was very relaxing, and exactly what I needed. Unfortunately, it's now back to reality again. (There's that Pisces thing again...) I promise to keep up with my blogging better now! Sorry again for the long wait!