Friday Reading, May 16, 2025

Past, Present and Future spread. I keep hearing about how linear time is a construct, but let's go with it for this reading. I need help to come to terms with what is going on in America today.

First time here? Please check out Why I Read (which I appreciate isn’t written yet).

I’m not going to disturb your peace by linking to news about James Comey being investigated for an Instagram post, but you can search online for it. You might need to look it up to understand why I’m clutching my tarot cards hoping for someone to please make it make sense.

That said, it’s generally recognized as bad form to read for someone who hasn’t given their consent. So, I’m sorry America, but this reading is not for you. It is for me. But it’s about you though. Is that ok?

The Past, Present and Future (PPF) spread is one of my favorites for its simplicity. Three cards, with which to unlock insights across a span of time. I don’t read for divination, or fortune telling, but for opening up the side of myself that is rarely ever consulted in the very rational, logical, and socially acceptable confines of life. So let’s see what there is to see, shall we? What do I need to know to navigate the next few years?

The Goods: The Rider Tarot Deck (1971) purchased off eBay. A moon phase wooden crystal sphere holder and I-think-this-is-aventurine crystal sphere (please correct me, if you think it’s something else!) from Dances with Stones. Lapis lazuli crystal point, and polished aquamarine crystal from Body, Mind and Soul. Handmade, custom cutting board made especially for me by a Soul Star.

Present: The Wheel of Fortune

Note that cards are read in the order in which they were placed. So technically, this is the Present, Past and Future spread.

In the Wheel of Fortune card, we see the figurative representations of Aquarius, Taurus and Leo. The eagle is said to represent Scorpio’s journey from scorpion to phoenix to eagle. They are in the clouds, whereas in card 21, The World, these figures are present but are shown as they are, without wings, more realistically represented.

These figures all have books open, as if the story is already written. The wheel opens up the possibilities, and the temptations, of the world as it is, not necessarily as it should be. The serpent, a long-time symbol of trickery and temptation, wriggles down the left side of the wheel. The red devil casts a challenging look over its shoulder as it adopts a posture of playfulness. The sphynx, representing knowledge, problem solving, and mystery, bears a sword demonstrating strength. Its perch at the top of the wheel gives hope that Fortune may cast its lot toward stately but powerful knowledge.

In the now, we’re beset from all sides by the greed and trickery of the powerful among us. Knowledge is reviled, bad acts are excused and even lauded, invectives spat into social media are heralded as truth and leadership. Reading the news is a painful exercise in learning how our values have shifted away from love and compassion and toward wealth and power at all costs.

We must remind ourselves that this is just another turn of the wheel. It may be a long turn, but inevitably, things will right themselves. Seasons change, years tick by, and the government are stood up and torn down. Or in this case, maybe torn down to be stood up again in the next turn. There’s a lot of uncertainty at the moment, and it’s easy to give in to anger, hopelessness and confusion. It’s hard. We’re all suffering, but it will pass.

Past: The Hanged Man

The Hanged Man is often considered a negative card, but one look at the radiant figure with golden halo begs to turn that notion on its head. The Hanged Man is different from all the other cards, in orientation, in demeanor, in posture. After taking in that first gasp of air - The Hanged Man! - slow down and really have a look. He is chilling out. He is unfussed. He is relaxed, he is playful. He is doing it his way, and that is ok with him.

Before this administration, we were just getting to a place where people could be seen and accepted for who they are, with more of the attendant rights and privileges that many in the majority take for granted. The executive orders that have been flying out of the White House serve only to dismantle the social gains made in the past. There was a time when we were better humans, and The Hanged Man represents all of the gains we’d made in creating space for people to exist just as they are, in allowing people to be different and also happy with themselves. It’s that taste of freedom, care and compassion that we’ve left behind, and that we desperately need to remember to take with us into the future.

Future: Death

Well, Death comes for us all, that is no surprise. On card 13, the king is dead, the bishop entreats Death or presents an offering, a small child looks on with curiosity, and a young person casts their gaze downward as if in denial. In the face of the inevitable, there are casualties, and everyone deals with the spectre of death in their own way.

I waver between denial and curiosity. I frankly can’t believe where we are today, or what I’m seeing in America’s dark heart. I’ve come to believe that we are actually living in a dystopian novel that someone else has written and yet another someone is reading. It can’t be real!

And so I look on in morbid fascination trying to understand where we are, how we got here. I want to understand how people on the surface can be exactly what you’d expect in polite society, while inside they are harboring deeply disfiguring fears and beliefs. I can’t tear my eyes away from it, much like when I’m watching My Strange Addiction on TLC.

So what does it all mean?

There’s a deeper, very personal meaning in this spread for me today. Maybe some day I will tell you about it. For now, let’s focus on what this spread tells us about the state of play right now.

In the now, the present, the Wheel of Fortune is going to spin around, and we’re going to get what we get. We can’t really control the external world around us, as much as we try to, so we need to work on our “accepting what is” skill. We can accept what is, and still take care of inner peace to maintain our strength. We can accept what is, and still rise up in civil disobedience, in inspiring speech, in collective action.

In the past, we made progress toward a more diverse, accepting, collective society, and we need to take the time to mourn that past. A woman’s body in Georgia is being kept functional, I won’t say alive, for months in order to bring her unborn baby to term. Her family is going to have to endure the months of varying degress of loss and also pay for it. Our past is dead, we need to integrate that knowledge and figure out who and how we’re going to be on this side of it.

As to the future, without making any official prognostications, it’s time to start making preparations. America’s soul is sick, and we’re heading toward some Very Big Thing that signals the death of who we thought we were as a collective. It might have already happened and we just haven’t fully realized it yet.

Take care of yourselves, take care of the people you love, take care of the people in your community. It’s going to take a strength of will to navigate this life for the foreseeable future and filling your energy cup with gratitude, love and compassion is the only thing that’s going to get you through it.

And, I didn’t really mean this to be so dark. Did I mention that I’m still trying to find my voice?

-c-