Did November fly by, or is it just me? I’ve felt like I’ve been in a total maelstrom of change and transformation — interesting key words, as they are directly indicated in the spread for this post! We are currently at the end of the Moon’s First Quarter, having come up with a picture of what we want to be celebrating by the time the Full Moon rolls around and begun to lay the foundations… now we come to the point where we test those structures out and see if they’re good to go (or not). We still need to be thinking on our feet because this is the point in the cycle where we get the hiccups, where dreams meet reality and often don’t quite match up. Here we identify the actions we want to be taking and the obstacles that meet us in our progress!

 I drew this spread from Oracle of the Mermaids, the Kuan Yin Oracle, and Shadowscapes tarot to pick up on the “Piscean” energy surrounding — the sign of Pisces is about connecting with your inner depths through spirituality, healing through self-understanding, and befriending your “Shadow.” As a side note, I almost used my I-Ching set instead of Oracle of the Mermaids, and the oracle card — Book of Changes — is a direct reference to that divination system! Too neat.

I laid out a crystal grid of selenite and desert rose to clear our energies and establish Higher Self connection, a large amethyst cluster and a small pice of amethyst to further connect and to calm any current anxieties, raw emerald to open our hearts and bring in an energy of nurturing and abundance, two shells to connect us with our emotional depths, amazonite to balance our inner masculine and feminine dualities, Apache tear for protection of our personal energy, moonstone for understanding of our personal cycles, ruby zoisite for grounding from the heart, amegreen for connection between the heart and the intuition, carnelian for creativity, labradorite for intuitive connection with the “flow” of things at present, and howlite (with a little heart!) for protection of the self-realizations and progress you’ve made to date.

This spread is adapted from The Numinous’s Moon Tarot Spreads — I switched the 3rd and 4th positions because I like cards asking “what holds you back” to be oriented to the past, with cards offering advice oriented towards the future.

Oracle cards: 16. Reflections reversed + 35. The Book of Changes

You’re in the process of major change — it’s to the point that you almost don’t recognize yourself in the mirror, which can represent a confusing time indeed. But what’s really happening is you identifying and acting on the parts of yourself that need “tweaking,” and what you’re seeing is the direct results! You have changed, and the challenge now is to stay on track, not letting yourself slip back into your old comfort zone where little to no progress was being made. You’re done with personal stagnation and are seeking anything that will help you continue to grow: be careful not to get confused as the waters become murky with all that you’re shedding, as it’s all still floating around in your energetic “field,” waiting for you to give permission for it to be flushed away. Part of what you need for this is some sort of approval — you’ve given it to yourself, and now you need to share what you’re learning to get others on the same page in your progress.

Card 1: Your self-perception: XIII – Death

Truly, you’re in a period of intense transformation, a “death of the Self,” if you will! All year you’ve been thinking on what you do not like about yourself and your life, and the Eclipse Season this summer was the trigger point where you realized what you needed to do to release, reset, and Rise. You hoped to be rising even more by now, but you’re still resetting — you’ve chosen the funeral accoutrements for the past-Self, but they’re still hanging around, waiting to be excused. Who knew self-improvement could be so much hard work?! You’re doing everything right, and just need to continue to allow your more regressive patterns to fall away through acknowledging them as they crop up and feeling them through, as bottling them up at this point very much means hanging on and staying close to where you were and decided you did not want to be.

Card 2: Your obstacle: VI – The Lovers

The funny thing with self-improvement is it is a very personal inward journey — sometimes we forget to fill the people most important to us in on what we’re going through, be it for self-protection, for fear of judgment, or simply for not wanting to slop our burdens around unnecessarily. Well, you have people who care about you very much, and they are wondering what’s happened to the old You! Tell them! Let them know how you’ve been thinking, where you’re at in your process, and seriously, let them know what they can do to help you continue moving forward. They want to help you, they want to support you, from a true place of love that you can trust in. You must choose to share your realizations surrounding the decisions you’ve been making, and step outside yourself a bit to remember the Big Picture, the Real World, as the person you’re becoming still has to live there!

It’s so, so important at this time not to blame others for what we perceive to be happening to us — we are all fighting our own battles, and we become a true army when we share our aims and experiences and open ourselves to positive resolutions.

Card 3: What holds you back: Ace of Wands

Part of the challenge is the sheer force of your motivation, the pure magical energy that’s surrounding all you’ve been experiencing, the miraculous realizations you’ve had and the many, many new ideas coming to you as a result. You’d love to get started on all of them, but there is much to take care of first! You have responsibilities to people and things that need attention, and only through taking care of those things will you be able to focus on taking up your new adventures. This will ensure that they can spark and sparkle to their best capacity! You wouldn’t start a new painting with the dirty water from the last, so do what you know you need to do, and maintain your current excitement, save your little match of inspiration, for that time when the coast is clear and you find the perfect spot to strike it and let your new vision glow.

Card 4: What will help you overcome: XVIII – The Moon

Embrace the darkness you’ve been feeling — you are incubating, growing in this darkness, and must allow the necessary time before you’re ready to bring everything out into the light. You are healing through processing all of your recent experience, bringing it all together subconsciously and slowly, slowly “percolating” a way out, a way forward, a way through. It’s coming to you — now you know that you can’t make this journey alone, and can feel filled up with the knowledge that the healing support you need can be found simply by asking. This is a tall order, as your sense of pride would rather not share the intensely personal stuff you’ve been processing — but the “necessary ear” is readily available, and the real magic can begin when you pour out the last of that internal junk so you can re-fill with much better, much clearer, much more positive thoughts and emotions.

Truly, truly you can trust that things are coming together! The bumpy whirlwind of a road that this past month has represented the presentation of what wasn’t working so you could begin to make amends. There were necessary endings to be sure, but these have put you in the direct path of what will be much better for you, and revealed to you who is still very much there to be on your team moving forward. You have the power to inspire as a result of all the good you’ve been trying to do, and the results are becoming more and more apparent to everyone else as well. Keep working at it, keep making adjustments to ensure you’re at your full energetic potential, and anything that continues to hold you back can be identified as what to focus on releasing next. You’ve done so well in taming your more regressive emotional and mental patterns, and can continue to maintain hope surrounding your material situation. Stay calm — there is balance to be found in recognizing how you’ve seemed to swim through your recent conflicts, managing to persevere against the odds, constantly finding yourself closer to your life goals than you ever expected to be at this point. You’re doing it — stay calm! — the changes you’ve wanted are so, so close!

If you’re interested in a reading with me, head over to my Etsy shop! Feel free to use the coupon code THANKS15 at checkout for 15% off your reading.

Decks used:

Kuan Yin Oracle. Alana Fairchild. Artwork by Zeng Hao. Victoria, Australia: Blue Angel Publishing, 2012.

Oracle of the Mermaids. Lucy Cavendish. Artwork by Selina Fenech. Victoria, Australia: Blue Angel Publishing, 2013.

Shadowscapes. Stephanie Pui-Mun Law. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Publications, 2010.