Asking about Life
This month, I've been thinking a lot about how we "attract" different
outcomes to ourselves. Maybe some things that happen have nothing to do
with us, but I believe a lot of it is affected by out thoughts, which
affect our feelings which affect our actions (or lack of action) which
affects outcome. Since this has been on my mind lately, I thought I
would ask the cards about it here.
The deck I used to ask about this topic is the Tarot of Reflections, by
Francesco Ciampi. I LOVE this deck and it just felt perfect to me here
for this kind of question. The deck does show reflections in each image,
as you will soon see. And the question I asked was in a sense about
how the outcomes we get reflect the thoughts we have beforehand.
So I asked:
How do our thoughts actually affect the outcomes that come to us in our lives?
And the Tarot of Reflections said:
Card 1: 10 of Pentacles (reversed)
This seems like an obvious place to start. This card is from the suit of
Pentacles, which for me is about the goals we set and the work we are
willing to do to achieve those goals. Naturally enough, our thoughts
play a huge part in that. We set out goals by thinking them out. And
also the goals we set will be influenced by the way we think. We are not
likely to set a goal we do not believe is achievable. And how
effectively we work on our goals also has a lot to do with our beliefs
and the thoughts we tell ourselves.
This card is also a reversed 10. Which is about stopping to think over
all that has happened in the past. And then about deciding whether to
continue doing things in the same way, or if it is better to change
paths or to change the methods we are using.
The two taken together are talking about what happens when we are working on a goal
and things do not seem to be working. The thoughts we have then may tell
us to be persistent, or to change tactics (maybe to ask others for
advice), or to give up. Naturally each of these can change the outcomes
that come to us in our lives.
The image shows a home/castle with a bridge to the left hand side
(representing the past). This says that the ways you learnt to think in
the past affect the way you build the structures of your life in the
present. The purples mountains say that the amount of healing wisdom you
learnt in the past affects how lovingly you see the future, your
thoughts about how lovingly/kindly you expect life to treat you
The castle image is reflected here in the sky. And this says that your
thoughts as you set your life goals affect how large you dare to dream
or if you think that dreaming large is just "building castles in the
sky".
Card 2: Knight of Chalices
This card is about your feelings. It's from the suit of Chalices,
called Cups in most decks. And it's the Knight, which is about imagining
yourself in someone else's position. It's about how you imagine other
people feel in the situations you find yourself in. What you think they
would feel.
This card is saying that well, imagination is a useful thing in creating
what you want in life. And that yes it affects what comes to us. This
card is saying that when we try to see through other people's eyes, we
learn to see and think in new ways.
Using our empathy to feel how we might perceive things differently if we
were in a completely different life situation or if we were someone
else, can teach us to think in new ways and find new solutions to
existing problems that we may never have thought of our own. We learn to
think outside the box, the box of our own life experiences and life
lessons. And it can open us to broader and a more diverse way of
thinking about things. This is shown in the image in the person's hat
(representing his way of thinking) that become broader as he imagines
what it would feel like to be in someone else's situation or in
different circumstances to his own.
And when we do that, we try different things and the results we get will
naturally be different. The reflection shown to the right is smaller.
This says that as we broaden the potential ways we can view things, our
potential become larger in the future. It allows us to solve problems in
new ways and to do more good in our lives in general.
Card 3: 10 of Wands
This card is the 10 of Wands, and it's about creating the most we can of
our lives. In this question asked here it's also about which kinds of
thoughts will allow us to best do this.
This is a very interesting part of the answer, in my eyes. The colour
blue is related to the throat chakra for me, which is all about
communication. But as you can see, the person the being here is talking
to is an upside down version of himself. So what we are really talking
about here in this card is about the thoughts (and the kinds of
thoughts, words and language) you use when you talk to yourself
(self-talk). Meaning how much respect you have for yourself inside you
and how that comes out in your thoughts.
In this image, what is growing from this person's mind (represented
here by the hair growing from his head) is a bit messy and unruly. Not
too well maintained or groomed. This person is facing left, and that
relates to the past. And he is talking to an upside down version of
himself.
All this says that sometimes, we pick up some ideas from the past about
who and or what we are that are untrue. Sometimes we learn to talk to
ourselves in the way that others spoke to us in the past. And sometimes
who or what we think we are can be so far removed from the truth that we
are almost seeing a reverse image of who we actually are. Some of these
thoughts run a bit rampant at times and are and are not always under
control.
The gist of this card is that the more the way you speak to yourself
makes you feel "blue", the harder it is likely to be to achieve all that
you can achieve. And conversely, the more you can let go or what you
think you know and open your hands to receive new information, the more
you are can learn that can help you achieve more and more.
The cape this figure is wearing says that most people have more power to create than they yet imagine.
Card 4: King of Chalices
And the last card in this reading is the King of Chalices. Chalices are
about our feelings and emotions. And Kings are about self-mastery.
Naturally here is a direct correlation between our thoughts and our
feelings. Our feelings stem from our thoughts. And the way we feel about
things affects outcome.
The card shows a chalice on a pedestal. And the reflection here in this
card is of two more chalices on pedestals. 3 is a number about kindness,
caring, empathy, nurturing, taking good care of others, and growth. So
these are the kinds of feelings we are talking about here in this card.
This card is saying that the best way to arrive at the best outcomes is
to embody these feelings. And the best way to embody those feelings is
to think thoughts along those lines.
If you think these values are important to you, put them on a pedestal,
and focus on them, you will feel these ways more and more often. And
this card is saying that the more you do, the easier what you want to
achieve will come to you.
This card is talking about the present moment, the now. It says that if
you keep yourself surrounded by kind, caring thoughts it will be easier
to draw what you want to you,. Just focus on that, not on the outcome,
Just have faith, be the best you you can be and the rest will take care
of itself. When you put the focus on embodying the positive
caring values you take it off of the worrisome things and that helps a
lot in getting to the outcome you most hope for.
