Tarot Readings with Psychic Sarah

This tarot reading begins on a Sydney train station on a rainy day. My flower-and-glitter-laden pushbike stays at home as I choose a day without the need to wear a fluoro yellow rain suit to get myself to work warm and dry.

Considering the wintry rainy weather Sydney has been experiencing as we enter into summer, I thought it a good time to get out my new tarot deck from Iceland: Islensk Tarotspil by Inga Rósa Loftsdóttir, gifted to me by my dear friend Rosa as she traversed the wondrous landscape of Iceland.

All the card names are in Icelandic, but I can recognise the archetypes from the pictures and numbers. I have included the Icelandic names here as well as English so you can learn some Icelandic as well 🙂

To move away from the Diska Atta (8 of Discs/Pentacles) we must have a good reason. As we are leaving this mover and shaker and inspirer of connection with our dreams, we must have decided that we have done enough 8 of Pentacles work already this year. …Oh, it’s the end of the year – that’s right… this is the time of year when people start saying “in the New Year I’ll do…(blah)…” So away from the 8 of Pentacles for now and onto the Diska Ás (Ace of Discs/ Pentacles).

Yes, that’s what we need – a good kick up the butt from the Ace of Pentacles. We may have decided we are done with the 8, but we cannot escape the Ace so easily as she is likely to bring a whole lot of unfinished business that we would do well to complete before the end of the year: financial stuff, tax stuff, general mundane stuff – the Ace will not only give us the inspiration to complete the seemingly tedious aspects of a householder’s life, but will help us do it in a way that is creative and connected to our needs for order and stability.

And then we can have some fun with Sverda Nia (the 9 of Swords) – wheeee hahaha…oh. Poor old 9 of Swords. I mean, it doesn’t look too scary in this deck, but the 9 of Swords is usually depicted as a woman sitting in bed crying, surrounded by 9 Swords pointing in towards her. Sorry about that information if you were blissfully unaware.

So anyway, we’re going to have some time with the 9 of Swords and I think it is very important that we are not mean to her or look scared when we come into her presence. It’s not like she chose to be crying in bed with the Swords – someone many centuries ago painted her like that and now the image has kind of stuck. So be kind.

Let’s have a listen to what she’s needing and see how our listening to her can maybe help us to hear ourselves. For example, I reckon she probably just wants some empathy. Maybe she wants to be heard. Maybe she just needs some time to mourn all that was difficult this year… all the times she said yes to other people instead of herself, and all the times she said things in a way that impeded rather than fostered connection with the world around her.

See? She is beautiful, and because she is a part of us that means we have a chance to have some space with all the uncomfortable parts of our psyche. I’ll leave it to you as to how long you hang out with the 9 of Swords… but maybe try for at least 10 – 15 minutes. Half an hour would be great. An hour – fantastic. Any longer and take a friend with you for support. I’ll leave it to you.

Once we’ve had a bit of unfurling with the 9 of Swords we can have a debriefing and wisdom session with Kylfu Drottning (The Queen of Bats/Wands). She is a warrior for real and gutsy peace, and won’t allow us to take shit from anyone. And with a fierce sounding Icelandic name like Kylfu Drottning she is bound to keep us on track and in our hearts no matter what the circumstances are.

On to the Diska Sexa (6 of Coins/Pentacles)… lots of Diskas hey? 6 of Pentacles helps with the ol’ balancing of things… particularly financial balancing… which is great considering this can be such an expensive time of year, what with festive gifting, parties and holidays. If you are feeling an overwhelming urge to descend into consumerist hell then have a quick chat with the 6 of Pentacles about your options. No doubt you’ll still be able to have fun, yet in a more creative and wallet-supporting way.

And finally, to help us confront all that we need to confront before the end of the year, we have the Djöfullinn. That’s the fancy Icelandic way of saying The Devil. I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to wish I could speak Icelandic. What a nice sounding word (with my no doubt shocking pronunciation).

So, The Devil. Don’t worry if you are worried, and if you must worry – worry about what December would be like without The Devilish doubter to keep us in check. I’m not sure if you have noticed, but December can be crazy! With all the end-of-year gatherings, we tend to be in a big cosmic soup with the main ingredients being joy, merriment, drunkenness, loneliness, tears and neurosis.

Clearly The Devil is a helpful archetype here, because if he hadn’t turned up we would just be rolling around in this soup, completely unchecked by rational thought. Not that The Devil is synonymous with rational thought – but he plants doubts in our head, and that can make us think about what we are doing. And if we are rolling around in the more miserable aspect of the cosmic soup, we can perhaps start to drag ourselves out of the abyss.

Having hauled ourselves out of the craziness, we can quickly dash back to the 6 of Pentacles (Diskas!) for a reminder of how to keep in balance, and then face The Devil again and realise that for all his bad press, he’s really just an archetype trying to help us grow out of our insecurities. (N.B, he also tries to trip us up, but that’s all part of the path, hey.)

So, have a wonderful end of the year, dear readers, and remember to reach out for support if you’re flailing with all the December madness. As a parting gift I will leave you with Kylfu Ás – The Ace of Wands: Our Collective Baton of Power, reminding us that the journey is not yet over and that there are plenty more revolutions of the heart to take place. Enjoy 🙂

P.S. This reading ended after a ride home in the rain, the following day. The rain can only usually stop me riding to work for one day before I long for the freedom and the rain on my face once more! The fluoro yellow rain suit helped me stay dry tonight (except for my feet) 🙂

For fairly regular (most of the time) updates about tarot related stuff and my tarot pushbike go to www.facebook.com/sarahthepsychic and click ‘like’!

The tarot deck used for this reading: Islensk Tarotspil by Inga Rósa Loftsdóttir