PDR: Burnout

I haven't posted here for two weeks, although I've been working with the Tarot Nova daily, and with the Anna K almost as frequently. At some point I succumbed to burnout. The readings have been for the most part interesting and thought-provoking, but my desire to write about them has dwindled away. In other words, fun has become drudgery.

Is this a familiar pattern in my life? Why, yes it is... 

I told myself to just draw a couple of cards, write up a brief post, and let that be enough for now. Here's what I got:

I love this Knight of Cups -- going with the flow, free & easy, ridin' the wave. And there's the 7 of Pentacles, signifying taking a breather from work, standing back, reassessing, letting things progress for a while on their own. The message?

"Dude, give it a rest."

Sounds good to me.

Deck Interview with the Nova

I interviewed my Tarot Nova two weeks ago, when I first got it. A deck that gets right to the point, it's pithy, frank and quirky.

1. What is your most important characteristic? Page of Cups
Taps right into my intuitive mind, expresses itself in playful and poetic ways, enables deep communication, isn't afraid to look silly.







2. What are your strengths as a deck? 13 Death
Cuts right to the point. Will help me let go of old ways of doing things, including reliance on external sources.








3. What are your limits as a deck? 6 of Wands
Limits? Ha! I spit on your "limits"! :) Hmm... maybe it will make other decks look like losers in comparison.








4. What are you here to teach me? 20 Judgment
How to hone my own judgment, and to trust it. To show me that I myself hold the key...








I have to say that so far, it's delivering on all of this.

Goodbye Elemental, hello Tarot Nova

I feel fickle, but I'm going to put the Elemental aside for now, and take up a different deck for the PDR. I still love the Elemental, and would like to return to it later in the year. However, in the last few weeks I've acquired two new decks that I can read with like I've never been able to read tarot before. One is the Anna K, the other is the Tarot Nova. A fellow PDR participant, firefrost, is going to be blogging with the Anna K over at Tarot for the Soul, so for now at least I'm going to use the Nova.

Here's what the Aeclectic Tarot website has to say about the Nova: It's a cute gift shop tarot, and the cards are appropriate for children. Oh, the pain! The humiliation! I think the Nova is a work of inspired minimalism, full of humor and joie de vivre. Above and beyond all that, it reads like -- like -- well, like a thing that reads very well. A book. That's it -- it reads like a book.

Here's what I got today when I asked it, How's this PDR thing going to go for us, deck?

Yes, but...

Yes: 6 of Wands. Ha! It won out over the Elemental and the Anna K! Tough competition, indeed. This collaboration is going to be a success.
But: The Fool. Only a fool would have made this choice! No, seriously: Leave behind your expectations and climb aboard the giant kitty-cat -- it is going to be a fun ride.

Seriously cute: the Tarot Nova

In the last two weeks I’ve acquired three more tarot decks and one more oracle deck. One of the new tarot decks is the Tarot Nova. I’m in goofy love with this deck -- it's small and cleverly illustrated and eminently readable. It is seriously cute: adorable to look at, but no-nonsense to read with.

Today I found myself wondering, at noon, where the morning had gone, whether I was going to get anything accomplished, and what I should focus on for the remainder for the day. I shuffled the Nova, intending to draw 2 cards, wanting a “Yes, but...” reading from them. Two cards flew from the deck and landed on the floor. I flipped them over to find:

Yes, but...

I laughed out loud at the Knight of Pentacles. Look at him riding the turtle! He’s getting somewhere, yes, but at a modest pace. Slow and steady wins the day. I see his message as: “Keep plodding along. You’re doing fine.”

The second card is the 6 of Pentacles, a loaf of bread baked in a pan. Another Pentacle, probably work-related, let's think about it, but -- bread? What does that have to do with anything? I puzzled for a moment, and then my jaw dropped. I remembered I’d promised to bake Irish Soda Bread today, to go with tonight’s leftover lamb stew.

Yes, you’re doing fine, but... don’t forget to bake the bread.

Is this deck cute, or what?