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Four Card Reading with Le Tarot du Chat - Reading by Diane Wilkes

This four card spread is based on the four elements: fire, for the spiritual state; water, for the emotional; air, for the intellectual; and earth, for the physical and mundane state of the querent.

The person for whom I did the reading was concerned about issues involving an extra-marital relationship, and what it said about her present spiritual journey. She also had monetary and health concerns.

Fire is the position of spirit/spirituality: Six of Cups    This card made me think that the querent was a bit lazy in regard to her spirituality. She might have tended to act on a natural hedonism and sensuality instead of determining what was best for her on a spiritual level. While it could be legitimately argued that following your instincts is the highest form of spirituality, her present resultant unhappiness didn't promise a great deal of spiritual balance and harmony, all of which showed up in the next cards. While I didn't scan them as reversed, they all were. Only the first card in the reading was upright. I found this particularly significant, as I try to read only upright cards and shuffle accordingly. These cards were determined to come out reversed.

But I digress.

Since this card represented her spirituality, I would say that the only way she could get her spiritual life in order was to go for balanced emotions. Note that all the cards in the reading, with the exception of this one, were majors. To me, that was an indication that emotions (cups) were over-running her spiritual, physical and mental life (no wands, pentacles or swords in the reading). If this emotional overflow was giving her unalloyed pleasure (like the cat in the image), I'd say, "Go for it," but her concerns (which I have abbreviated significantly) indicated a great deal of emotional (and mental and physical and spiritual) unrest. So this card could suggest it was time to shift the way she had been approaching her life.

Another thing this card indicated to me is that, for her, spiritual life had to be comfortable, natural. I urged her to meditate in nature, or just spend time outside in an environment that pleased her, made her purr with satisfaction. I wondered if she spent enough time consciously relaxing and feeling "one with nature," which might restore her natural balance.

Water is the position of the emotional state: Temperance reversed        Upright, this card shows an angelic feline who is able to perform magical acts of alchemy because of her divine balance. The querent's concern with her emotional roller-coasters explained why this card came out reversed. A reversed card can also indicate potential that has yet to be actualized--and she couldn't have a more positive role model for this card than this divine alchemist who can create magical blends.

Answers can be found in this card. Look what she's doing...pouring WATER into two receptacles. The nature of the querent's job is even in its name--Aquatics. (The querent is a water therapist!) The water has been very healing for her for many years. I wondered if she was staying cognizant of that when she was working with others...if it sometimes became "just a job." I didn't think so--because water impacts her physically, its immediacy is intrinsic and tangible. The more she works with it to heal herself and others will help her to regain her natural balance as well. Early on, she instinctively went with something that ensured her bliss--and, I suspect, was one of the reasons she was put on this earth.

I noted that the water on the card is in motion, going from one cup to another. This suggested she needed to keep a balance between water as her own healer and what she gives to others in her aquatic work.

Notice also that, though the figure works with water, she is on dry land in this version of the card. The querent needs to stay grounded and in the real world, and not lose herself in water--both literally and emotionally. This water is CONTAINED. I asked if she would say the same of her emotional life--and asked if she wanted to.   I suggested this was a question she needed to answer the question for herself. If she had yet to direct her emotions in a way that worked for her, I wanted her to think what her payoff was.

Now we move into the intellectual realm...and we get Death reversed. Transformation is both desired and blocked (reversed). It seems as if the querent knew what she needed to do on an intellectual basis (her email proved that she had thought things out deeply on a psychological level), yet her intellect and actions seemed opposed. She knows there are real issues from her past, but she has yet to change her actions to take on the personal power that she says she wants.

How? Here again, the answer is in the card itself. She needs to cut away the emotional lies that leave her nothing but broken-hearted, much like the skeletal reaper is doing in the card. While this card usually shows the skeleton on land, this blackness looks more like the murkiest of waters to me. Or it could be pernicious quicksand. Note how the skeleton's aura is bright white. Whatever she can do to "lighten" herself in order to achieve the detachment to remove the detritus from her landscape, she was advised to do. I think, in this card and placement, she should continue to think about why she does the things she does, and how she can use her considerable brain-power to sweep away the things that no longer serve her. The fact that we see cat limbs scattered about said to me that 1) she felt scattered and/or shattered and 2) making changes will seem like she's cutting off a limb of her own. She needs to find a way that isn't so painful that she'll avoid therapeutic self-surgery.

She has been moving towards this goal...it's still within her (reversed card)...and only she can make it emerge.

Finally, we get to the health/mundane concerns of earth, and the card is the High Priestess, called Papess in this deck, reversed. Physically, she has been able to achieve a great deal, despite a physical disability, through sheer determination and a willingness to explore both holistic and traditional medical treatments. Yet part of holistic health involves the individual operating on a balanced level. Because this card is reversed (along with the missing elements that I mentioned earlier), we get a sense of someone whose balance is not all that it could be. I have no doubt that this impacts on the querent's physical well-being, and that includes her concerns about financial prosperity.

It is my belief that, once she starts focusing her emotions like the Temperance card shows her how to do, other aspects of her life will come into balance as well. Notice how the Papess' book shows the black cat and the white cat. They are divided, two parts of one whole. I asked her to see where the grey areas are in her life, and how she can successfully blend the white/black energies in a way that works for her.

You can't see it on the scan, but the words on the top of this card read, "Je suis tout..." I am all. The querent is also all...the darkness AND the light, the yin AND the yang. To get this card AND Temperance (and in the little white book that goes with this deck, the sixes indicate a search for harmony), says to me that balance is what she now needs to focus on most. She can use her intellect to remove the things that cause some of that imbalance.

You can read a review of this deck here.