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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!

How to Ask Yes-Or-No Tarot Questions, by Jack Chanek

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

It's something people say all the time: Don't ask a yes-or-no question in a tarot reading. Just about any introductory tarot book you pick up, or any reader you ask for advice, will deliver this counsel sooner or later. There seems to be a broad consensus that tarot is just not good for yes-or-no questions, that it can't (or won't) answer them, and we should never bother to ask them. But most people don't talk about why that's the case.

Tarot is a narrative medium. Whatever question you ask, you get an answer in the form of pictures, symbols, and abstract themes. A tarot reading tells a story with its own characters, conflicts, and even a progression from the past through the future. This means that in order to get the most out of tarot, you want to ask questions that can properly be answered with this kind of story.

In divination, it's tempting to ask small, narratively closed questions—things like, "Will I get the job?" or, "Is he going to call?" After all, we come to divination because we want answers about our lives; more often than not, we'd prefer a straightforward yes or no over something more complicated. However, these questions don't give tarot room to do what it does best. They don't lend themselves to the narrative expression that characterizes tarot as a divinatory medium. Asking tarot a yes-or-no question is like asking Michelangelo to draw a stick figure; sure, he can do it, but he'd much rather be painting the Sistine Chapel.

The best questions for tarot are the ones that give your reading room to breathe. These are, generally speaking, open-ended questions: who, what, where, when, why, and how. Questions like these can't be answered in a single word. They require elaboration and context. To know, "Is X going to happen?" you really only need a yes or a no. To know, "Why is X happening?" on the other hand, you need a much fuller picture. You need to know who the people involved in the situation are, what drives them, and what effect their actions have on you. You need to think about what's happened in the past, the relationship between the past and the present, and the way that current events will continue to shape the future. In short, you need to tell a story.

This is the kind of question with which tarot excels. Tarot is adapted to answer open-ended questions that encourage you to take a step back and consider the whole of your situation. Even if you sometimes just want an answer to a smaller question like, "Will I get the job?" you'll find that your tarot readings provide narrative context anyway. If you ask, "Will I get the job?" and you pull the Six of Swords and the Eight of Wands, that tells you not only that you'll get hired, but that you'll hear back very soon and the whole hiring process will move very quickly. If you ask, "Will he call?" and you pull the Three of Swords and the Queen of Cups, that tells you not only that he won't call, but that he's more interested in someone else. Tarot always tells a story.

Does this mean you must never ask a yes-or-no question in a tarot reading? No, not necessarily. You can ask tarot anything you want to know. However, if you ask a small question without room for storytelling, you may find that interpreting your cards gets a lot harder. Imagine asking, "Will it rain on my vacation?" and drawing the Three of Pentacles. Is that a yes or a no? The answer is ambiguous. The themes associated with this card are teamwork, creativity, and mastery, but it's not obvious how any of those things relate to a question about the weather. You could plausibly look to the specific imagery in your card to see if the weather is depicted as fair or foul, but it feels like thematically, the card is trying to express something that just can't come through.

Now think about the card, not as answering, "Will it rain?" but as answering, "How will the weather affect my vacation?" Here, the themes of the card leap out: You'll find yourself around other people. The weather won't isolate you or keep you stuck at home; rather, it will push you toward other people and encourage you to find a dynamic social setting. Chances are good, then, that the sun will be shining and you'll be able to get out and about.

In a way, the card still answered the closed yes-or-no question, but it did so by telling a story. That is to say, the best way to answer the smaller question was to take a step back and answer a bigger question first. This is how tarot shines. Even if we only want a yes-or-no answer, we often get that answer by asking a narrative question and using tarot to tell a complete story. We get better, more satisfying answers by letting tarot do what it does best. The way to get the most out of your tarot deck is to let it tell you a story in every reading, rather than trying to confine it to a strict yes or no. If the yes or no is what you really want, you'll find that the story leads you there eventually, and does so in a more satisfying way than if you try to take a shortcut and avoid the story altogether.

The advice to avoid yes-or-no questions in a tarot reading is solid, but it doesn't mean that we can never ask those questions or that tarot will break if we try to use it for something specific and concrete. Instead, it means that even if we're looking for a yes-or-no answer, we'd do well to keep ourselves open to other information, and to look for the ways the cards supplement a simple "yes" with information about who, what, where, when, why, and how. What we really mean when we say, "Don't ask yes-or-no questions" is, "Don't only ask yes-or-no questions." Don't look for the yes or no to the exclusion of everything else your reading might be telling you. That extra information tells a valuable story, and you'll understand your situation better for having listened to it.

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.