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December 5 through December 11, 2022

Monday's Taurus Moon will prove most productive, as we plow through our obligations and free up the rest of the week for personal pursuits. Mercury will move into enterprising Capricorn on Tuesday, setting us on a course to gather more information or review current methods to see where change might be needed. The Moon will wax full in Gemini on Wednesday, marking the start of a two-week period of reflection and reconnecting with those dearest to us over the holiday season. Venus will move into Capricorn on Friday, adding a creative flair to all we do and reminding us to practice more authenticity and groundedness in all we do. The Cancer Moon on Friday and Saturday will turn our thoughts to home and family, as well as creating a sense of security and stability around us. A Leo Moon on Sunday will cast a generous and heart-centered air around us, compelling us to take better care of ourselves and others!

What to Do When You Draw a Tarot Blank, by Jenna Matlin

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

She was sitting at the edge of her seat looking at me expectantly. "Well?" she asked, unable to contain her excitement, "What do you see?" There was a long line of people behind her wanting a reading at this event, and they were all asking me to hurry up with their eyes. My querent had asked me, "What do you see about my love life?" And while that is often a question that single people ask, the cards were screaming "marriage" at me.

Instead of asking her if she was married, I plowed through the reading as if it was talking about her single love life. It felt like I was fighting the cards. Besides marriage, it just did not make sense. I forced the reading even though my intuition told me otherwise. As I finished, she said, "Oh, that's interesting because I am married."

Instantly, I knew she had intentionally misdirected me to test me. However, as soon as she confirmed that she was married, the reading fell right into place. The reading I had been fighting relaxed into comprehension, and I was able to give her what the cards were telling me all along. What I've learned is that when I draw a blank as a reader, something is off, and it typically isn't because I cannot read tarot!

Yet, many readers (especially newer ones) will blame themselves when a reading is not working. There are many different reasons why we are unable to make sense of what we see, and we can use the device of "drawing a blank" to be a warning sign that something else is afoot. So, instead of panicking, we can remain calm, cool, and very tarot-collected.

Why are we drawing a blank, anyway?

Misdirection: Sometimes, like in my story above, the querent may give us a question that is a trick. It is not the real question, or it is a vague question when the querent wants a more specific one but is scared to say out loud or even consciously to themselves.

Disrespect: If a querent thinks tarot is a joke, or they sit at my table inebriated, it will often cause the cards to go strange. It's almost as if my tarot deck is mad and won't help the querent unless proper respect has been given!

Chaotic Energy: If the querent is highly emotional, confused, or is thinking about two things at one time, it can often show up as a confusing card reading. Also, if the energy around the session is particularly messy—like a loud party—that can have an effect, too.

Jumping to Conclusions: Sometimes I jump to conclusions and expect the spread to talk about something that it is not talking about. This is where my ego gets in the way. If the cards show something I did not expect, then I may not see what it is trying to tell me.

I Was Triggered: Perhaps there was something about the querent or the question that triggered my own baggage. Perhaps it hit too close to home, and I got emotionally involved in a way that kept me from seeing the cards clearly.

I Am Too Close to It: We can draw a blank if we are reading for ourselves for a situation that we feel emotional about. Because we are in the thick of the situation, we can look at the cards and see the trees but not the forest. We simply do not have enough distance to see the big picture.

As you can see, there are many reasons why a tarot reading is making you go, "Huh?" and it rarely has to do with your skill as a reader! The good news is that there are many techniques that you can use to turn that confusion into some solid clarity, instead! Here's what to do when you draw a blank.

First, don't panic. Take a deep breath and slow down. If you are reading for another person, you may feel pressure to start talking right away. If you don't instantly start speaking, your querent may get anxious and begin to prod you for information: "So, what do you see?" Don't take the bait. Let them know that you are listening for impressions and to give you a second.

While you take that second, visualize above your head a glass container of clear, clean water. Focus on the clear water and breathe into it, allowing any worry or stress to fall away. While you do so, visualize yourself as asking a question and ready to receive a response without forcing it. It is important to stay as calm and centered as you can.

As you feel yourself start to settle, check in with your intuition—is anything nagging at you, no matter how implausible or strange it sounds? Is your intuition telling you that the question is off or that something is missing that you need from the querent? Be honest and tell your querent that you are sensing something off and ask whether there is anything else they need to share to clarify the reading. Ask them if they were thinking about something or someone other than the stated question. Or ask if there was something they were worried about in their lives that they did not express.

Asking for clarification as a reader is not an indication that you are a bad reader. It is an indication that you are a careful reader who is not a mind reader. Most querents will end up appreciating your transparency around your process versus trying to force something that does not feel right (and if they aren't, do you want to read for them, anyway?) If the querent reveals a question or worry that they did not express, take a look and see if the reading now makes sense. If the querent expresses no further detail or information, take a look at their emotions. Are they anxious? Do they seem afraid?

If a querent is very emotional while getting a reading, it can often influence what tarot cards show up. I liken this effect to a rainstorm on a lake: the rain is acting to mask the clarity beneath. If you find that this is the case, then you can help the querent center themselves and try again. Usually, the second try from a calmer place will make the cards regain the clarity you are used to seeing.

However, before you fold your confusing cards, try to salvage what you can by sharing what you see even if it does not make sense. As readers, we can lean into dangerous territory if we take on the idea that we have to make everything make sense. That is not how oracles work. Sometimes, we get information that will only make sense later or is meant for someone else. But if we try to make everything make perfect sense all the time at the exact moment we are reading, then we are leaning into speculation. Speculation is logic and reasoning, not a tarot reading necessarily!

When you just spit it out—when you say what you see without trying to make it all make sense—you could be far more accurate than you know in the moment. And, it is okay if your querent is still confused at the reading; they have the rest of their lives to figure out the meaning after!

Another thing you can do is take the confusion directly to your deck. If you decide to ask your deck what's going on, here is what I recommend: use your deck minus the spread currently on the table. Then, as you normally do, ask your deck, "Why is this spread confusing me?" Pull 3 cards and see what it says. Typically, you will get some information as to what is going on: whether it is you, or something happening with the querent. But, if your second reading is just as confusing, then it may be time to scrap the reading.

Scrapping the reading often feels like a cosmic, "Ask again later" scenario, and who are we to defy the Gods? If, at this point, there is still an opaque feeling to the reading and I have not figured out why, then I tend to see it as something that the Fates, the Universe, the Gods—whomever, for whatever reason, does not want to talk about. So, why would I want to go looking for trouble by asking yet again?

One thing I am constantly reminding myself and my querents is this: I am only entitled to ask the question. But, I am not entitled to how the cards wish to answer that question. I am just grateful when they do. If we expect the cards to always tell us the message, every time, in exactly the way that we want it, are we being good tarot readers or good toddlers? Who are we to demand that all tarot readings come to our beck and call? Tarot is not the servant. I am the servant to tarot. At least, that is how it works for me.

At the end of the day, once we have tried to solve every for every aspect that could be interfering with our desire for truth, we have to let it go. And, letting it go doesn't mean that we are bad readers. In fact, learning when to let go is the mark of a very good reader. So, the most important tip in all of this is that we need to be kinder to ourselves. Tarot readers are working with the magic of this indefinable something, a dance of magic and mystery. It is a wonder we get anything at all, isn't it?

The more we acknowledge that we are merely humble readers trying our best but ultimately, there are a lot of things going on above our spiritual "pay grade," the more we can get out of our way and let the cards do what they will. And as you know, they absolutely will!

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2022. All rights reserved.

My ex-boyfriend/best friend died three years ago. I've been in love with my current boyfriend for over four years. Two weeks before my ex passed, he told me that he still loved me and would wait until my current relationship ended. He died in October, 2009. Ever since then, every October I dream about him watching me from a distance. Sometimes the dreams are okay; other times they are uncomfortable encounters. Here's the really strange part: every year around October, my current boyfriend suddenly starts feeling stressed and doubtful about us and wants to leave me, but he always comes back to me begging in December. Do you think my ex is haunting my dreams and hurting my relationship with the man I love, or is it all in my head?
Ash

Susyn:

What you are experiencing is real and not in your head. Life has a way of unfolding in cycles; the fact that you have noticed these situations repeating themselves at certain times of the year is no coincidence. October is the time of your best friend's passing and also the time of year you dream about him and experience trouble with your boyfriend, so it is clearly playing a key role in these events. Astrologically, October is also the time when the Sun travels through Libra, the sign of the zodiac that rules relationships.

It is common to relive certain events in the month they occurred each year. Your friend's passing must have touched you to the core, especially after he had revealed his true feelings. While his spirit may watch over you constantly, it would be natural for you to be more sensitive to and aware of him in October.

This could be triggering certain behaviors and energies around you that then affect your boyfriend. We are all highly sensitive to changes in our loved ones, and are subconsciously aware of them even when they aren't obvious. I would not say that your friend is deliberately harming your relationship. Instead, it's likely that YOU are different in October because of these memories, and your boyfriend is reacting to the change in you. When he breaks up with you every October, he is reacting to you feeling different to him, though he is probably not consciously aware of that.

While your friend is indeed infiltrating your dreams, it's not to haunt you so much as to remind you that he continues to be around. Writing these dreams out in detail could reveal if there is unfinished business between you or if he is trying to send you a specific message. Putting these dreams down on paper could eliminate some of the stress that is contributing to the turmoil in your current relationship.

I recommend that you visit a psychic who can channel your departed friend. During the reading, you can ask him directly to step back and allow you more space. Tell him that his visits are interfering with your relationship and ask him to stop.

Remember that you can limit the influence your friend's spirit has over this situation simply by asking him to let go. He may not realize he has passed over (this happens more often than we realize), so not only is he keeping you from moving forward, he is stuck himself. While you'll always share a spiritual connection, you can do so without interfering in each other's journeys if you ask the psychic who channels for you to help him cross over into the light.

*****

Oceania:

I think this is in your head. That being said, heads can be very powerful! What your ex said to you and when he said it instilled a lot of guilt that has been messing with your mind ever since! I hope to help clear your head and ease your mind, which should lead to an improved relationship with your boyfriend. His annual withdrawal is a reflection of your own struggle with the relationship when guilt-laden memories of your ex surface in October.

You're carrying excessive, unnecessary guilt towards your ex, which is preventing you from fully claiming and enjoying your new relationship. You probably felt guilty for the entire year that you had a happy new relationship while your ex did not. Your ex must have been good at guilt-tripping, for you felt compelled to offer him the consolation prize of best friend, which is a role your new boyfriend deserved to take over.

Your reticence to fully commit to your new relationship because of guilt has caused your current boyfriend stress and doubt. I'm not saying he doesn't have issues of his own, but you can only address your side of the street, and most of the time, that's enough! Your steadfastness in the relationship will help calm whatever inner fears he's contending with.

It is very common for people to refrain from diving in and celebrating a new relationship when their exes, dear friends or family members are unhappily single. You can overcome your tendency to hold back from bliss through counseling aimed at bolstering your self-esteem and self-worth.

It's time to face the fact that what your ex-boyfriend/best friend said to you was NOT very nice. When exes say they still love us and will wait, it's not loving. Not only is such a statement disrespectful of the relationship we're currently in, but it's an attempt to lay a guilt trip on us. Instead of telling you how happy he was for you, he declared he would put off his own happiness until YOUR relationship ended. That was a manipulative, self-centered tactic and a passive-aggressive prediction that your current relationship would end.

Not only THAT, the timing of his disclosure practically made it a deathbed revelation, which would tend to have a big impact on you. Your dreams of your ex are uncomfortable encounters because your inner wisdom KNOWS he was behaving selfishly; you just haven't wanted to face that fact. I suggest you do not join your ex in sabotaging your current relationship; rather, release him with love and at the same time fully commit to your current boyfriend and REAL best friend!

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.