Dear reader of signs,
Welcome to the Friday, the 23rd of June’s observation from my daily ‘Reading the Signs’ June challenge, an exercise of paying attention with a focus in mind as the day unfolds.
I only own two decks by the same creator — it’s not super common for an artist to design multiple Tarot decks — but this one, The Muse Tarot is my second favourite deck by Chris-Anne. We’ll get to my favourite another day.
It’s a cheerful deck that has a collage style and was created around the concept of artistic inspiration. I often consult this deck when I’m pondering ideas for projects in the early stages. Here is major arcana The Priestess and the 4 of Emotions (being cups in the regular Tarot).
Before I drew these two cards something happened that made the appearance of the Priestess (the High Priestess in most Tarot) more insightful. She is the intuitive conduit of mystery and esoteric knowledge. Unlike the Magician, she is less concerned with paraphernalia and more about plugging directly into unconscious sources. I particularly like this design, with her light touch on the crescent moon and the halo of runes around her head. I’ve also worked with the runes for several decades.
The 4 of Emotions is another beauty of design, and is about that feeling of discontent when nothing is truly awry. The person is focused on one detail that appears missing, while around them everything else is in harmony. This type of obsession and magnification of irritations can end up diminishing all that’s working if you allow it. In the past I was prone to this kind of unhelpful distortion so I saw the card as a warning against focusing on that One Annoying Thing.
I’d woken up this day feeling out of sorts and unwell after a bad allergic reaction that shut me down completely for the night. I had that sense of running to catch up with the day, but also not being able to run.
Later, still feeling like I was operating on a sub-par level, I decided to skip my gym session. Then I got the reminder I’d scheduled an assessment with a trainer before the session, and I didn’t want to cancel so late. It was a clear sign — go to the gym anyway. So I did, and received good news about how much muscle I’ve gained in the past few months with a thankful loss of fat. Then I sweated through the session. The humidity was so bad it felt like I was drinking water with every intake of breath.
This was a reminder that I’m often a poor judge of my own capability and the big problem I have to defeat is simple inertia. On the return journey home I was reminded of that One Annoying Thing (there’s always one in your life) and I could feel my irritation levels ramp up and those drums of aggravation starting to beat.
I remembered the 4 of emotions and dropped the curtain on the drum solo.
Instead, I thought about my hard-eared and steady progress at the gym over the past ten months. In the beginning it was so difficult, and I was so out of shape, I wasn’t confident I could last a month, don’t mind ten.
Now, I want to make it to a year.