2024 Leo Season - Choice 2
For Pile 2, there is a major focus on relationships, particularly romantic and sexual relationships, and for most people you’re being told to cut this shit off as soon as possible. For those of you that are not in romantic or sexual relationships, there is a message here of a significant change to your path or a significant opportunity coming through another person in the near future.
The keywords at the center — Libra, Sex, and Conformity — drive a lot of attention into the lower levels of Libra or the 7th House where assimilation and conformity are the main themes and personal identity can be lost in an effort to reflect another person or a group of people. With these words laying over the center focus card, The Desert, it starts to feel quite stagnated and depleted, as if your own essence is being lost within this reading, sinking into the sand under an eclipsed sun.
At the head of this reading, you have Divine Masculine which feels quite abrasive and restrictive here, as if the image of the card, the sharp angles, represent energy that has been captured and encased, no longer able to pulse outward and flood the image, and instead left to bounce around these four corners. Alongside that, the next three cards, Soul Mates, Octopus, and Quarrel, continue the tension and create very twisted and tangled versions of these images alongside each other.
In all three of these images, my mind is brought to focus on painful or restrictive connections. The Soul Mates, with their heads together, remind me of The Devil card in the Linestrider Tarot deck where the two individuals are tied together and trying to get away from each other, heads held down as if they’ve passed out or are exhausted with the fight. The penguins’ heads at this angle feel uncomfortable and forced, and overall it just feels very gray and isolated. On the right side, Quarrel is an obvious representation of an argument or upset positions, but more specifically I’m brought to focus on the ring being fought over in the lower panel. For some of you, this could be you holding out for a ring, for a proposal that I’m going to assume your future self really doesn’t want, or you are involved in a situation where there is an affair occurring within a marriage.
The Octopus in the center feels like a horrifying inability to let go of either of these images, where even if the Octopus wanted to let go, its own tentacle are tangled up and suction cupped to these situations. For some of you, this is your energy, you are the one holding on even though you can feel yourself sinking, but for others, this energy is someone else’s wrapping around you from the shadows and pulling you down into a space that might look good to you, but is detrimental in the long run.
Down below, in the second tear, the set starts with Lunar Eclipse, marking Change, followed by the card Rebirth. For some of you, these two cards stand alone in the corner of this reading, and on some level it almost feels like this is the energy being contained or restricted by the Divine Masculine. For others, this feels like something that is trying to be initiated, a process that is trying to kick off, but is being denied or pushed down in some way. Actually, the entire lower half of the upper spread is much darker compared to the top set. Rather than feeling heavy or negative, the darkness here feels more like blinded confusion, a genuine loss of clarity that may go into the loss of self or personal perspective in the lower levels of Libra.
The second set of two in the lower set are the Full Moon in Gemini with the messages, “the answers you need are coming,” and the Dog Spirit with the messages, “be loyal to what you love.” These messages are not connected, but they share the same kind of hidden or shadowed energy as the previous two. The Full Moon in Gemini, the Moon of the mind being displayed in shadow, with the message reassuring you that clarity WILL come, feels like a quiet pat on the back from external helpers, Spirit Guides rather than higher Guides. The message of the Dog feels sarcastic or self-deprecating, as if some part of you laid that card out there to mock the loyalty that you may feel to someone or something that is doing so much damage to you. On a lighter note, this can also prompt the question towards the loyalty and love you have for yourself.
For your astrological focus up top, you have the Ascendant, Capricorn, and Chiron, showing personal healing and self-liberation over spaces of corruption or manipulation. Just as Libra was presented in its lowest levels, Capricorn is here as well. However, the ascension through the space of Capricorn on the back of Chiron suggests a process in which you elevate yourself into the higher spaces of Capricorn, which would mark personal control, will power, personal responsibility, and can even be represented by the process of liberating one’s self from The Devil, the card in the Rider-Waite tarot that is associated with Capricorn. The Devil is an important card to ponder on at times as it points out where we may relinquish our own free will and hand it over to other people or situations in order to avoid personal responsibility or to protect our own egos at times. It can come with warped beliefs and corrupted self-awareness that can keep people in negative cycles, mindsets, habits, and relationships. This card is often associated with abusive relationships and drug abuse as those are matters where you can feel completely helpless and trapped, but at the end of it, no matter what, you are the only one who can get yourself out of that situation and you are the only one going forward who can make sure it never happens again.
The second set of astrological focus is put on Scorpio, Mars, and the 5th House. This is quite a striking energy as everything here feels so wrapped up in spite and pissing people off, but in a very liberated and self-affirming kind of way. The energy of Mars in Scorpio is powerful no matter how you spin or where you place it, it is hot, sharp, focused, and emotionally charged from the depths of the soul. Placing that energy into the 5th House, the house ruled by Leo, this becomes a performance, something deliberately displayed with the intention to be seen and heard by your own voice and image alone.
Much like the first set, there is that strong feeling of elevating yourself, but this sits more consciously, more superficially. The first set prioritizes healing and getting you to see yourself as someone powerful who is in complete control over your own being, the second set prioritizes the demonstration of this power and personal control.
With your oracle cards, you have an interesting message here about mental distortion or an issue where wishful thinking leads to you becoming blind to, or intentionally distorting discernible patterns of negative. With Communication, it’s showing that there is deliberate assessment being applied to people or one person, maybe an observation of your relationship overall, but this Air-centered card (yellow) falls into the space of dreams (red and blue) through Wishful. I see the image of Patterns reflecting Communication where the three people with speech bubbles are turned into the three mushrooms who have the same repeating patterns all over them. This is equivalent to someone picking out one positive trait in another person and using that one trait to cover the negativity of twenty others.
Going back to the lower aspects of Libra and the loss of personal identity or thought process, the image of Patterns, which shows a fading face at the bottom of the image, feels like Wishful if the flower in her head, symbolic of an optimistic thought starting to bloom, mutates and starts to grow like a fungus until she herself is covered in the distortion. In that, the same feeling pops up here around the idea of being contained within some else’s energy to the point where you yourself start to fade.
In the energetic space, for Pile 2 through Leo Season, you have the Queen of Pentacles, the 8 of Wands in reverse, and the Ace of Swords. Similar to what was here for Pile 1, you have an intentional break in energy, something occurring to put everything on pause through the reversed 8 of Wands in order to give yourself, the Queen of Pentacles, the opportunity to gain access to the Ace of Swords, symbolic of clarity and a new mindset or perspective. Connecting back to the New Moon in Gemini, the Ace of Swords seems to be the clarity you are looking for or that you will receive, but seems to be something that only becomes accessible when you initiate the process of the Lunar Eclipse and Rebirth, allowing yourself to get away from malignant mushrooms and tangled tentacles of the Divine Masculine energy.
In the internal space, you have the Queen of Cups and the Ace of Wands, both reversed, and split by The World card. In this deck, The World card represents the completion of evolution, marked by the higher consciousnesses of Earth departing in order to make room for a new consciousness to emerge. The World here relates to an individual liberating themselves or ascending into a new reality, one that they have had to evolve into, build up into, earn on some level. This card being between the two other reversed cards mirrors the feeling of the Divine Masculine and the Octopus in terms of your energy or your potential to expand and grow beyond your current position is being stagnated and suffocated.
The reverse Ace of Wands in this deck refers to a person who is overly concerned with other people, offering themselves up as a support system. This would be well and fine, but here, for you, this is showing a toxic quality of self-sacrifice with little to nothing to show on return. The reversed aspects of the Wands suggest a reversal of energy, as in it either cuts off completely or your own personal energy is rerouted and directed toward another person or group of people.
The reversed Queen of Cups in this deck refers to someone who is anxiously disconnected from the present moment, caught up in feelings and situations of the past while worrying desperately about what the future holds. With that, she stagnates, just like the Ace of Wands. Here, both mind and energy are shown to be distracted or redirected into places or people that don’t support you or give you what you need in return. The World, something connecting to Lunar Eclipse and Rebirth, is trapped between these lower energies and is unable to move forward.
Through Leo Season this could cause quite a bit of trouble with observation and communication, and could be what contributes to the issue of Wishful and Patterns. Your emotional state as well as how you react to things needs to be minded and observed just as much as you mind and observe others. Your emotions, especially if linked into a relationship built on patterns and habits of repeating arguments or problems. It can be instinctual to justify or excuse bad behavior or your own bad feelings in order to avoid confrontation, but it will do nothing to help you going forward.
In the space of relationships, you have the King of Swords and the Ace of Swords sitting on the foundation of the 5 of Pentacles. The 5 of Pentacles is very interesting here as I’m seeing it in a very toned down, but very focused way. Traditionally, the 5 of Pentacles refers to spiritual and financial poverty, which is depicted as two homeless, sick, and injured people moving past a lit up church on a snowy night. This is meant to be positive as you can assume the people will be welcomed in by the church and offered food and assistance, however, sometimes I do see this card in a different light where the people are escaping from an abusive establishment. Now, with this 5 of Pentacles, I’m seeing it both ways but stripped away from their context. Essentially, all I’m seeing is the potential of this card — the potential of people being helped, of people escaping, of people walking by and choosing to not get help, of people getting caught before they’re able to make it away. I just see potential, but the potential here is limitless as it is with a card like The Fool. You have limited outcomes here, but the number 5 alone would suggest that which direction you take is fully up to you to decide.
With this as the foundation, or a kind of background energy to your relationships through Leo Season, you then take the seat of the King of Pentacles holding the Ace of Swords. There’s a very strict, cold, detached feel to the King, but it’s out of self-preservation. It’s making me feel like someone who’s gotten dressed up in extra-comfortable clothes and grabbed a flashlight to keep in hand because they knew a storm was going to be blowing through overnight. The King feels very deliberate with his words and actions, keeping a clear eye, minding his emotions, in order to observe everyone and everything as clearly as possible, and when his judgment is passed, that sword swipes through the air, through the situation, through the relationship and it is a done deal.
Finally, in your last set covering the physical and conscious influences and experiences through Leo Season, you have the 2 of Cups, 5 of Cups, and the 8 of Swords. The way these were laid out in the spread had the 5 of Cups overlaid onto the 2 of Cups, making it appear as if the person in the 5 of Cups had replaced the man in the 2 of Cups. The 2 of Cups is the only card I associated solely with romantic connections, especially deep, emotional connections as the two are exchanging cups. Although, sometimes I get put off by this card as it looks like the man is reaching for the woman’s cup without actually holding his own out to offer it to her. It’s meant to be balanced, but there’s an underlying hint of an unequal match or unequal expectations for what is supposed to be given and who is supposed to be giving it. Here, this man is displayed as the 5 of Cups while you are the woman in the image of the 2 of Cups.
Very similar to Wishful and Patterns, the 8 of Swords appears here at the end, over the other two, blindfolded and bound away from the other swords, symbolic of her blinding herself to the words or thoughts of other people, or her own observations, some she may really need to hear or consider more.
With the 5 of Cups becoming part of the 2 of Cups, the man’s uneven sharing turns into hoarding as he keeps two cups behind his back as he seems to pretend to grieve or be saddened by the cups, yours, that are spilled in front of him. This is making me think of the matter of redirected energy where your energy that should be going to your own progression is being directed toward, slipping through, and being wasted on this person here. They ask for too much with no intention of giving you anything in return, and the second you say you have nothing left or can not meet their “needs” they begin to mourn, tantrum, guilt trip. It becomes overwhelming, so the 8 of Swords becoming a response, a defense mechanism makes sense, but it needs to be kept under control. You can blind yourself to this person in a way that can help you ignore them and move on, but you can also blind yourself in a way that keeps you there.