For Pile 1, right away there is a separation of this channel based on severity of influence within the environment. For some of you, this is as simple as being advised to clean, rearrange, or redecorate your bedroom or living space. For others, this is very focused on your work environment and your relationship with your coworkers. And then for a select few of you, the keywords at the center are very straightforward where FAME, ABUSE, and CHILDREN come together to refer to matters of abuse, potentially abuse in your childhood, is being brought to light and being handled or addressed in a more public or noticeable way. On all ends, for everyone reading this pile, there is quite an emphasis being put on your relationship with your environment or the people in your environment, and making necessary adjustments to ensure a more supportive and hospitable environment for you going forward.

At the head, the Earth card reflects back on the collective reading where I mentioned Gaia standing in as the spirit or energy of the physical body of Mother Earth. Here, this redirect or solidification of this energy affirms to focus on the physical, surrounding environment rather than root causes or concerns being in internal, emotional space.

The Why?, Mouse, and Patience cards all share common pulls of energy over focus, analysis, and organization. Why? presents a lot of questions while the Mouse scurries through the floorboards and the walls, taking notes on all the fine details. The image of Patience brings my attention to the pattern on her dress, the focus needed to create such detail. For some of you, you will be assessing your environment, deep cleaning, concerning yourself more with feng shui in order to get your environment to align better with you. For some, you may be bringing up certain issues or “fine line” matters with co-workers or employers in order to resolve issues and better your experience. Some of you may be involved in literal interrogations where you are questioned by many people, or you are presenting someone with many questions. For those of you where this deals directly with matters of abuse, you will be assessing people based on their responses and reactions to everything. This can make you feel very small in terms of being overwhelmed by everything, being scrutinized and overassessed, but this is shown to be a process of purging and will be quite healing in the long run.

The astrological focus at the top has the Ascendant, the 8th House, and Eris. This combination works for all levels of this reading, and encourages you, through the energy of Eris, to really stand up for yourself and give back the energy you’ve been given this whole time. As mentioned in the collective reading, remain optimistic, give people room to explain themselves, to show themselves, but once you can pass judgment, let that hand be sharp, clean, and true.

The Ascendant alongside the 8th House does give that sense of the self, the truest part of the self, rising from a hidden or degraded space, and being pushed into a much higher, more stable and self-affirmed position through the spiteful Eris.

With the other astrological focus, Pisces, Pluto, and the 11th House continue the theme of something hidden or unknown becoming more visible to more people for the sake of killing off a certain phase, chapter, or version of the self that is no longer useful and most likely detrimental to your personal growth. The 11th House puts focus on public relations, communal relationships, and the thoughts and opinions of many people at once. Pisces brings attention to a space of blindness. In comparison to Scorpio or the 8th House, Pisces/12th House energy can represent things that we have no mind for or any awareness of at all, it holds everything beyond the human experience and can be the source of the most unpredictable or unexpected experiences in a person’s life. With Pluto there, the force of destruction and deconstruction, the initiator of rebirth, it starts to feel like the outcomes of this situation will be something that not even you can predict or see coming. Or it will reveal to you things you never knew you needed to look for. For some of you, this could refer to the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of other people that are now more visible to you, or it can be aspects of your environment that you never took note of before now becoming more prominent or noticeable to you now.

The 8th House card at the head of the second row highlights the significance of Beginnings and Endings, specifically elements of death and rebirth as marked by the transition of the 8th House into the 9th House where the identity is rebuilt. Alongside this, there is I Am Presence, the Moth Spirit, and the New Moon in Aquarius with the messages, “surrender now,” and “bring love into the situation.” Both the Moth Spirit and the New Moon in Aquarius give way to Air energy, but Air energy that is very fresh and new while still being very active and deliberately expansive. Both in terms of personal vision or perspective, and in the realms of communication and personal connections. I Am Presence shows focus on the internal space, or more specifically, this brings focus to your presence within or your connection to your surroundings.

This wraps up and around back into the center of the spread with The Temple. For some, The Temple refers to the body and learning to treasure, respect, and protect it as such. For some, The Temple marks the place of work or living environment, where your energy is either spent or built up in relaxation. For some, The Temple is a representation of the harmony between a body at ease and an environment that ensures and amplifies that ease.

Down below, the oracle cards show Emotions, 999, and Money. This seems to display a spectrum between the internal aspects (Emotions) and the most external, superficial aspects (Money). With 999 in the center, it is putting emphasis on how these two ends of the spectrum meet, but more specifically how they undo each other, where their limitations are, marking their boundaries. On some level, it almost feels like preparation or observation that occurs before the 2 of Pentacles where a person, in the Rider-Waite images, is shown to balance work and homelife, or matters of the world and matters of the mind, represented by two pentacles being juggled while the waves of the ocean in the background mirror the motion to show how both sides can influence each other.

At the bottom, in the space of energetic influence for Pile 1 during Leo Season, you have the 8 of Wands and The Chariot, both reverse and split by the 2 of Swords.I see this as two levels of energy, one resonating with the Higher Self (The Chariot) and the other resonating with the lower conscious level energies (8 of Wands). With both of them in reverse, these energies are cut or put on pause at the same time by the 2 of Swords. Rather than its traditional meaning with the crossed swords representing a mental impasse, I’m seeing the two swords as running parallel to each other, creating the Pause symbol as well as a representation of the mirrored energies on different levels.

Energetically, Pile 1 will face necessary setbacks, obstacles, or general blocks that will give you space to pull back and take everything in for analysis and assessment. In relation to your environment, these reflective energies can also demonstrate the push and pull influences between yourself and your surroundings. With this in mind, the 2 of Swords here can start to carry more of a similar feel to the Rider-Waite 2 of Pentacles, it’s just that here, with the focus being on Swords or Air, there’s emphasis put on observation, contemplation, and communication around these matters rather than hands-on action or engagement.

In the space of inner happenings, you have a major focus on emotional state with the reversed 2 of Pentacles, the 4 of Pentacles, and the reversed Ace of Cups. Rather than their actual meanings, I’m more focused on the numbers between the 2 and 4 of Pentacles. With the number 2 there is a focus on balance and creating harmony, while 4 suggests solidified foundations and stability that is already available. The 2 of Pentacles in reverse in this space feels like a warning or a heads-up about how the emotional space will be inherently off-kilter, imbalanced, or just in a more sensitive state overall. With that, the upright 4 of Pentacles offers reassurance that while your inner world could be difficult to manage, you will in fact have complete and total control over your environment and will be able to steer it well. This may be something of a learning experience for some of you as you could find it difficult to see or accept that you have as much control over your reality as you do, especially when in an emotionally painful state.

The reversed Ace of Cups offers more clarity and an affirmation toward this area being more focused on emotional state and the upset of emotions or emotional energy that needs to be fixed or alleviated through deliberate alteration to your environment or relationships.

In the space of relationships, you have the King of Wands with the 5 of Wands, followed by the 5 of Swords in reverse. With the two Wands cards upright, this feels more focused on you as an individual, as in, you are the King of Wands carrying or projecting the energy of the 5 of Wands. Coming off of the previous set warning of oversensitivity and imbalance of emotions, the 5 of Wands shows aggression, hostility, and perhaps some defensiveness. Given the potential issues shown for this pile, these emotions may very well be warranted, but the 5 of Swords in reverse, for everyone, encourages more thought before speaking or taking action as things may come out more harsh or exaggerated at this time.

For some people, the 5 of Wands to the 5 of Swords is saying to cut engagement completely. If you start to feel aggravated with anyone at all, it’s best to walk away and save yourself from that waste of energy. For others, this is less about not engaging at all and learning how to engage better. For some of you, the reversed 5 of Swords is like a cooled down version of the 5 of Wands where the aggression is brought down to something more manageable and rather than jumping up to kick someone’s ass, the person in the 5 of Swords is more in the mode of trying to talk things out in order to be productive and avoid any further conflict that could set everyone back.

Finally, in the space of physical and conscious level influence and experience, you have the happy and childlike 6 of Cups with The Sun, split and spearheaded by the King of Cups. I was really struck by how these energies play out next to each other with the youthful energies featuring children on either side of the very grown-up and stable King. For everyone, this is showcasing self-preservation or self-protection, displayed through the protection and defense of the inner child.

For those of you who are to focus more on your physical environment, you would honor and stimulate your inner child through Leo Season by decorating your space to be more fun and enjoyable. Creating spaces that you are in regularly that are genuinely exciting, that can make the normal everyday routine feel more lively and fulfilling is the suggestion here. Giving yourself a sense of play and whimsy in your living space can really help support your personal progression and could help to regulate personal energy, emotions, and stress levels.

For those of you who are dealing more with the work environment, protecting and deafening your inner child may come up as you have to really speak up for yourself and make yourself heard, perhaps challenging aspects of self-perception or self-esteem from when you were a child. For some, I’m seeing this as, on some level to some degree, treating the workplace like the playground. Speaking up and demanding mediation when someone isn’t playing fair, or not being afraid to tell the teacher when someone says something mean.

For those of you who may be dealing with the heavier matters around abuse and personal liberation, you may find yourself, on many levels and in many ways, standing guard over your inner child, a past version of you, who is now being given a chance to see the light of day and begin healing. I see the more specific meanings of the two child cards for you, with the 6 of Cups relating to the past and childhood while The Sun represents optimism and wonder. Some of you may feel as if you are not only defending your past self, but you are also, through this liberation, protecting and assuring your brighter future, the brighter future of your inner child.