Tarot For the Day

Just for kicks, I downloaded a Tarot app to my DroidX phone.  Yes, it's an upgrade--previously, all my fortune-telling chores were handled by a virtual Magic 8 Ball on my iPod.  But tarot--that's like having TEN Magic 8 Balls all at once, or something.  At any rate, even with a completely random, free app, tarot card reading, at least you get more than a mere yes-or-no answer.

So, offered for entertainment purposes only, here's my tarot reading for the day:

1. Your Position: Temperance.  Keep emotions in balance.  Synthesis.  Create something new.
2. Cross/Opposition: Nine of Swords.  Sense of despair or dread hangs over you.  Temporary.
3. Immediate Future: Ace of Pentacles.  Luck.  Financial propositions, business opportunities.
4. Recent Past; Eight of Swords.  Fear, doubt and anxiety.  You can escape, but with some bruises.
5. Distant Past: Judgment.  Recurring illness or problem.  Old debts, old scars come back.
6. Long Term Future: King of Swords.  Calm and self-assured, with a deep sense of inner strength and conviction.
7. Position You Will Soon Be In: Seven of Wands.  Deep purpose and valor.  Stiff competition and opposition.
8. External Influences: Six of Swords.  Moving away from strife/difficult times to calmer waters.
9. Hopes/Fears/Concerns: Two of Pentacles.  Success is achieved through skillful manipulation of goals and objectives.
10. Final Outcome: The Devil.  Temptations.  Addictions.  Raw, primitive instinct.

As I was reading these, I went through the five stages of fortune-telling:

1. Hope that it would tell me something; 
2. Skepticism that these things ever mean anything; 
3. Consideration that maybe there was something in what the cards mean that I could at least take as ideas about things to do in my life; 
4. Critical skepticism, trying to figure out how often a mix of "working toward calm" and "escaping old bad habits" would come up and be applicable to how many millions of people; 
5. Total WTF?!?!?!  The Devil?  After all these cards saying that I am temperate, escaping doubt and anxiety and old scars and moving away from strife to calmer waters--and I end up with Addiction and Temptation?

 Who knew that calm and inner strength, deep purpose and valor were the harbingers of addiction?  Does that mean that the Buddha got Nirvana and heroin addiction confused? 

Well, Kurt Cobain seemed to have, so maybe that's not a hard mistake to make.

 [Drum hit here: Ba dum shish!  I'm here all week!  Try the veal!  Watch for me on HBO!]




But seriously, if you think of people with whom you associate the terms "temperance" and "inner strength" and "conviction," don't you think of --well--the Dali Lama, or Gandhi.  Not so much "raw, primitive instinct."

Oh yeah, right.  "Entertainment purposes only."  Well, I guess that was fun.