Nine of Swords reversed/Page of Cups reversed. Okay, I may not be worried, but I am also not yet allowing my Younger Self out to play. I need to remember that blocking the tendency to brood too effectively could very well shut down all feelings, not just the destructive ones.

My Thoth card is the Prince of Swords. Again. Here is what SuperTarot says about the Prince and Princess of Swords from Crowley’s Thoth Tarot:

“The character of the Princess is stern and revengeful. Her logic is destructive. She is firm and aggressive, with great practical wisdom and subtlety in material things. She shows great cleverness and dexterity in the management of practical affairs, especially where they are of a controversial nature. She is very adroit in the settlement of controversies. If ill-dignified, all these qualities are dispersed; she becomes incoherent, and all her gifts tend to combine to form a species of low cunning whose object is unworthy of the means. The Princess of Swords is a young, very perceptive person.” (The image on the card appears more defensive to me.)

“A person symbolized by this Prince is purely intellectual. He is full of ideas and designs which tumble over each other. He is a mass of fine ideals unrelated to practical effort. He has all the apparatus of Thought in the highest degree, intensely clever, admirably rational, but unstable of purpose, and in reality indifferent even to his own ideas, as knowing that any one of them is just as good as any other. He reduces everything to unreality by removing its substance and transmuting it to an ideal world of ratiocination which is purely formal and out of relation to any facts, even those upon which it is based. A military man.” (The image on the card appears more aggressive to me.)

It sounds as if I am using my brain way too much and not allowing my emotions or my instincts to even have the slightest input. I need to allow myself to choose one concept to focus on, rather than trying to keep all the balls in the air at once. Things have been so busy these past weeks, and I am feeling more and more that I need to bring everything current. LOL, if only I had the time. Maybe that Prince with his intense focuses is not allowing me to see that I won’t drop all the balls if I allow myself to let one slide away.

My Legacy card is the Two of Cups reversed. Again. Marchetti sees this card as representing romance and recognition, in that the success of any relationship depends in part on how we see ourselves reflected in our lover’s eyes. Perhaps I am not comfortable with the image I am seeing reflected there.

More Shadow Work last night, after I downloaded Snow Leopard. I wonder if all the hidden upheavals hinted by my repetitive cards of late have to do with the deep probing of my psyche that is happening within my Shadow Work. Despite the fact that I have strong lines of communication with my Younger Self, and despite the fact that I have worked with my shadow self and uncovered some hurts that have affected and controlled me through the years, I get the feeling that she is hiding something from me, some deep dark fear or hurt. I also get the feeling that my Younger Self is uneasy because the cards in my Shadow Work spreads are circling ever closer to whatever she is hiding.

The cards that have shown up repeatedly in the past few days are: Two of Cups, Three of Cups, Princess (Page) and Prince (Knight) of Swords; plus I have thrown the Nine of Cups, Nine of Wands and Nine of Swords, and one other Princess, of Cups, with all Court Cards being of the Thoth deck. Seeing the cards as only keywords we get “recognizing love in a mate,” “the power of the group,” “logic and perception,” “purely intellectual,” “satisfaction,” “being ‘aware,’” and “inner or self-caused anguish.” That extra Princess of Cups would be “pure generosity with no strings attached.” I am not including reversals until the next paragraph because I think it is more important, at least while first looking, that I understand the general meanings of the cards, without imposing into the mix the positive or negative effects of their presence or absence. To me, the general theme here is perceived safety, if we assume that being loved and accepted without strings equals safety.

Okay, now for reversals and upright cards. The Two of Cups and the Princess of Swords are reversed each time they appear, as is the other Thoth Princess, of the suit of Cups. The Three of Cups is upright each time it appears, and on one day this card appeared in two different decks. All of the Nines are upright as well. Only the Prince of Swords has been both upright and reversed.

Looks like having the support and caring of the group is something that is important to me right now. While I may not like the way loved ones appear to see me, I am not very effective right now at using logic to define or defend my perceptions of myself, and my intellect seems to be experiencing on-again off-again extremes. This means that what I think someone feels about me may not be what they are actually feeling. One thing is for certain, with three Nines showing up, something is building, and a climax of some sort is approaching.

Add this to the results of my Shadow Work thus far, which tell me that even though I have walked the walk and talked the talk, and even though I have done exhaustive research, I still don’t trust myself to take a stand. I am still afraid of the judgment of others, and I am afraid that all my work will be toppled down with ease and thus shown to be inadequate.

Methinks my Shadow Work is working!!

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