One Important Thing: Where To Focus Tarot Reading

In this Tarot reading from Insight Timer's first Tarot teacher, the cards will help you to consider where to place your focus and energy for the most meaning and impact.

Check out Keziah's Tarot, Intuition, and Reiki courses and other Tarot readings right here on Insight Timer.

Transcript

So it's a small, Or not small, There might be big energies in it, I don't know yet, Haven't seen the cards, But it's a short reading today just for positions and these are kind of really bare bones positions for what we need to know for now and the coming time. So I'll talk you through that. And here at the top, The main position, Is the one important thing or the most important thing. So as those of you who've known me for a while may know, I live with significant pain and fatigue, Multiple disabilities, Which mean that as one person described it, Their own experience recently which resonated with me, My world has got smaller as I've sort of learned to live with this. And one of the impacts of that is that I have to be very, Very careful about where I invest my energy. I have to learn to prioritize very, Very carefully because I simply do not have the energy and the pain tolerance to do more than what I can do, To do all the things that I used to do. So I've had to learn to prioritize. And for a while that seemed to be about what's important. And what I've been learning, This kind of journey that I've been on with my health and the universe sending slow-down messages to me through my body, Is that even the things, All of the things that are important, All of the things are meaningful, Even all of, You know, Even if they're meaningful to me, If they're important, If they matter, If they can make a difference in the world, I still can't commit to them all. I have to choose perhaps. At the moment I have got it down to one important thing. So my important thing for today is to be here with you all. This is what I choose to prioritize, Where to put my energy today. My important thing on other days or other time periods might be something else, You know, Another day it might be to rest or to do the washing up or to, You know, Whatever the different things. But I've had to whittle it down to one important thing. So today's important thing for me was doing Tarot with the community. Now that sounds really simple. And anyone who is here who has practiced that will know that it can be a little bit of a challenge to kind of let go of all of the other things which are also important, Which are also meaningful. And this is the second position in the spread. So we've got one important thing to focus on now and at this current time. What's the most important thing to focus on right now? Right at the top. And then here we have this position of letting go because we have to let go of some of the things if we can't do all of the things. And no one, You don't have to be chronically ill to not be able to do all of the things. Doing all of the things is an unrealistic expectation that we have often of ourselves and each other. So we have one important thing to focus on now and in the coming times and we have what else to let go of. So these might be things that are still meaningful, That are still important, But that you just have to choose to let go of for now so that you can focus on this one important thing. To help us to do that then we have the resources. Resources are really important and so you know we have internal resources. So that might be our resilience, Our motivation, Our sense of compassion, Our intelligence, Our different capabilities that we have. There are so many internal resources that we all have. Sometimes we're aware of them and sometimes we're not and sometimes we need a little bit of help to get to them. Or we can have external resources. So these might be people that can help, There might be things which help to support us. So you know my wheelchair is an external resource, It's something that helps me to get to where I want to go. It might be organizations, It might be courses that you can do, All of this kind of thing, They can all be external resources. So we have one important thing, What to let go of and what resources are available. And then I wanted to just allow space for a little bit of blessings, We're going to call it blessings, This fourth position. So this is the blessings that are present with us at the moment, The things to be grateful for, To appreciate, To yeah I think appreciate is the word, You know we all have blessings even if we have challenges as well. And so by focusing on these blessings we just, We accept them, We create some gratitude for them. So those are our four positions and today I will be reading with the Modern Witch Tarot by Lisa Stirl. It's a lovely version, Very closely based on the Rider-Waite-Smith, A little bit more modern, Little bit more diverse and it's got a great energy to it. So I'm going to invite you to take a deep breath and just go inside and ask to receive what you need from this reading. And then our first position, The one important thing, The most important thing to focus on now and at this current time. Oh and look at this, It's a beautiful card, It's a Major Arcana card and it is Temperance. So Temperance and we have here this beautiful angel, She's got a lovely stripey jumper on, Lots of different colours, Big red wings, Of course red is a colour of protection and of power as well, You know it's quite a sort of physical material colour as well. She's got one foot in the water, One foot on the land and she's pouring between two cups. So she has a cup in each hand and she's pouring a stream of liquid between them and none of the pouring out, It's going where she directs it and in the background there's a bit of a path leading away and it leads between two mountains to the sun and she's on this shore. So Temperance, It's a lovely card to come up for us for this one important thing and I believe in this position it is about inner balance. So you know, How do we balance, How do we pour between our cups, How do we keep one foot on the land and one foot in the water? Temperance historically, Linguistically was associated with abstinence, So you know not drinking for example. I don't believe this is here to give us abstinence but Temperance is more like doing everything in moderation. So anything that you're doing, Anywhere that you're investing your energy or time, Your money, Your whatever resources you are investing, Moderation is a key word here. So checking that you're not over committing or under committing to things and that's your invitation with Temperance. Also because this is a major arcana, It's telling us that we are in a time of, This is kind of big energies, Life lessons. So this is more likely to apply across several areas of life rather than one specific area of life or one specific problem or issue that you or just thing that you're working with, Working through right now. And because we have that angel there is a reminder that and because it's major arcana that we are of course always in touch with Spirit, However you choose to conceive of Spirit. So you know the divine, Perhaps higher consciousness, Whether your own higher consciousness, Higher collective consciousness, Deities, Guides, Ancestors, All of these kinds of wonderful energies that come to us through Spirit and make up part of Spirit. And I'm just getting a little whisper in my ear to say Spirits of Place and Spirits of the Earth as well, Who is of course a very big Spirit who looks after us all. So it's a lovely invitation perhaps to find balance through spiritual practice and to just be listening to your guides, The energies that you work with, But also to temper that, To perhaps not overdo it. So we're not using spirituality to remove focus from other realities that are also real. So we're not spiritually bypassing, But we are consciously and deliberately cultivating a connection with Spirit, With that which guides us, That which is meaningful to us on a soul level. And this is what helps us to stay balanced in the world and perhaps to be able to deal with all of those other areas of life that are touched by Spirit. And when we have a spiritual practice, Again, Whatever that is, There's no right or wrong spiritual practice, As long as it's meaningful to us and feels meaningful and is empowering for us and for all beings, Then that really does help us to experience life and approach life and participate in life in a way that is much deeper, Much more meaningful than if we're just always sort of in our heads or reacting to the mundane world. So that's our first position, Our first card for the reading of the one important thing is actually finding balance within yourself. And we can do that with an appropriate attending of spiritual practice. That doesn't mean like turning away from the world, That might be too much, But appropriately attending your spiritual practice, Whatever that is. So our next position then is what to let go of. If we're focusing on this one important thing of finding balance through spirituality, Where are we not focusing? Where can we turn our focus away? It doesn't have to be forever, Just for now and this little while. And perhaps if you did bring to mind something specific as we open this reading, Then the card may speak to you in a more specific way as well. And we've got the, Oh this is interesting, So it's the nine of wands. So the wands is the suit of energy, Of fire, Of passion and creativity. The nine of wands, We've got this person who is in kind of sporting gear, Got a headband, Kind of sports jacket and shorts. They look a bit battered, They are holding on to one wand and the wands in this case are sort of long, Almost staffs of wood and they've got little growth on, Small leaves on. They're holding on to this one wand, There's another eight wands behind them in the background standing up and they're standing, This looks very defensive, Like they have been in the wars and they're ready to fight a bit more. And often with this card that's how I'd interpret it, That you know something's been going on and it's not quite over yet, It's near the end because the nine is near the end of the numbers in the minor arcana but it's not quite over yet. There may be something still just about to come into the picture to deal with and so kind of being about being ready for that and sort of having your energy ready for that. Now in this position of what to let go, It's actually an invitation to look at those habitual patterns of defensiveness or responsiveness and by responsiveness I mean more how we respond or perhaps reactiveness, How we react to things and let those take our attention away. So you know whatever it is that you are feeling like there might be something that's still going to be thrown at you somehow, That might be true but you can within yourself, You can let that go anyway and I know that again it's not always easy because it might be important. If you've spent nine wands getting to this point, Putting your energy, Your focus into something then it probably is important to you for whatever reason. So that might be the challenge there in actually getting out of this habitual pattern because if you're at this point of the nine of wands then you have been perhaps dealing with a lot stuff that has been coming at you and you've got really good at reacting to it straight away and sort of defending yourself, Hopefully metaphorically. And this is an invitation that maybe just let that habitual response or reactivity go and see what else comes in, See what happens when you respond as temperance rather than react as the nine of wands. The next position is resources, So what resources are available to us now and at this this little time, This little period of time that's coming up, That we're in right now. And we've got another Major Arcana card and it's the Fool. So the Fool is Major Arcana card zero. It was put into the beginning of the Major Arcana in the Rider-Waite-Smith about 100-ish years ago now. Before that it was more of a kind of wild card, So kind of joker card, Could turn up at any point in the Major Arcana and we often call the journey through the Major Arcana in the Fool's journey. So the Fool is the protagonist of the journey, Can turn up anywhere and has something to learn everywhere. And we can see here, Here is a person who is wandering off, Looks like they're about to wander off a cliff. We can't tell from this angle if that cliff is like a foot deep or a thousand feet deep. We don't know if they're going to just step or if they're going to fall. We don't know if they know that because their face is kind of in the air, So we don't know if they've taken in that information. They have a phone or an iPod or something with headphones, So they're listening to their own programming, Whatever they've chosen to carry with them. And they have a little backpack, Which is the other things they've chosen to carry with them, And a little dog at their heels. And the sun is present again, As it was in Temperance, Just in the corner of the card, Kind of shining on the Fool, Almost like a halo. And so in this position of resources, It's like always when the Fool comes up in the reading, One of the ways I interpret it is the card saying, Yeah, No, I'm not going to tell you actually, Because there's an element of not knowing to the Fool. So part of that is we might have resources that we're not aware of, Just as we don't know if the Fool is aware of what's coming next. So there might be resources becoming available that we're not aware of. But I am also wondering, Because the Fool carries their backpack, They carry their Walkman, Their own music, If these are about internal resources or the resources we've chosen to carry with us. And because the Fool can be transitioning between life stages, Projects, Lessons in life, Places, You know, Where we put our attention, Then it may be that the Fool invites you to consider, If you had a little backpack for your resources, Internal and external, And you were about to step into the unknown, What would you carry with you? What resources do you have that are essential and that you would want to take with you into any situation, Known or unknown? So I really get the impression with this reading, With this card coming up in this position, That the resources available to us are the resources that have always been available to us, That they may be more internal than external. Now I'm not going to say that like sudden surprise external resources aren't going to drop into your lap, Because that's the kind of thing that happens to the Fool. There could be anything coming up. But one thing we do know for sure is that the Fool has already got what they're carrying with them. So it is this case of the resources that you have to work with at the moment are the resources that are already available to you, That you know about and that you carry with you and perhaps apply in lots of different situations. And if you're not sure what those are, Then maybe spend some time meditating with that, With what those are. And then our final card, Our final position for this reading is blessings. So you know, What blessings are around, Whatever else is going on, What blessings are around, And what do we have to appreciate and enjoy and be grateful for. And we have the Three of Wands, So another Wands card. So in this reading we've had two major Arcana cards and two Wands cards. So I would pay attention to that in that the Wands, As I said before, It's about creativity, Fire, Passion, That which inspires you. So there is something here about soul work, Values and that which inspires you as well. And the Three of Wands is a card of looking forward. So we have this person, We see them from the back, They're standing on a cliff top actually, Similar to as the Fall is, And they're looking out. They've got three Wands, These Wands are again stuck into the ground, So they're big kind of staffs with little leaves, Growth on them, There's always growth on the Wands. And they're sturdy, They're solid, This person's holding on to one of the Wands, Perhaps to steady themselves, To ground themselves. In magical practice we sometimes use the staff for grounding. And they're looking out and there are two boats on the water in front of them. And this is often a card of sending ships, For ships let's say, Energy out and waiting for energy to come back in. And it's a card of looking forward, Planning the future, Knowing what future you want. And with it being a Three, It's not an Ace, It's not a Two. The future is the future, But the future has already started as well, We're not right at the beginning. So looking forward, So it's interesting contrast that we have the Fall on the cliff, Apparently not looking forward, Apparently about to step off. And then the Three of Wands are figures standing on the cliff and looking out into the future, Looking at the ships they've sent out and waiting for their ships to come in. So in terms of blessings, I wonder, Do you have a ship coming in? And if you don't, What are your hopes for the future? Even if they don't feel attainable right now, Even if they feel very, Very distant, Or if you're in the very early stages of planning, Wishing, Dreaming, Preparing, What are your hopes for the future? And why is that so important to you? And just I think with this, Being in a position of blessings, That message from our guides here, That reminder that there is a future and there is always hope. So especially for anyone who's having a dark time at the moment or, You know, Challenges are coming up, Which was seen in this kind of Nine of Wands, There is a future, There is a way forward. And actually we have the Nine of Wands kind of facing almost, If we read from left to right, Facing almost backwards in this reading to the past. And then that Three of Wands looking out to the future. And the Fall is almost in the middle, Protecting that future from the past. So because the Fall is about kind of beginner's mind, So, You know, I talked about choosing which resources you want to take with you. With this Fall there's also an openness, A trust, A faith and of course hope. So, You know, We do not have to assume that everything will be the way it is now or the way it has been before. There is hope. The future can be different even if it feels like that is a long way off. Of course, We can always call it in as well. But I feel like this Fall here is kind of with that not knowing, Not making assumptions perhaps, Perhaps protecting that future, That Three of Wands from this kind of jaded, Resilient fighter of the Nine of Wands.