2024 Leo Season - Choice 4
For Pile 4, Leo Season seems to be quite a tense time, but one that has the potential to result in a great personal transformation. With the center focus being The Sword with the words Suicide, Trauma, and Grief, there’s quite an emphasis on the mental space, perception, thought process, and personal outlook. Obviously, my first thoughts with this were about a person wanting to kill themselves, and that is true to some extent, but here death is always referring to the precursor of rebirth. With such a focus on the conscious mind, the reference to suicide is more so related to a very strong, deliberate personal transformation where you seek to destroy every bit of your previous self in order to become something you deem to be better.
Looking over everything all together, there’s a compressed feeling to this reading that makes this process feel like a fast food version of a proper rebirth. It’s no less effective, but it feels quite heavy or dense with how tightly compacted everything is, with many steps being done at the same time. This gives a feeling of desperation, someone very desperate to change and become something new, to get away from a past version of themselves that is tied to people, locations, or situations that are well rooted in the past.
At the head of the spread, you have Authority which is then followed by Chaos and Conflict, and then the Scorpion. The image of Chaos and Conflict, alongside the Scorpion, gives this feeling of extreme emotional reaction or overstimulation that severely affects the nervous system. With these two cards following Authority, they feel like responses to outside authority with Chaos and Conflict shedding its skin, losing its identity to appease or comply with the authority. The Scorpion raises its stinger in defense and, mindful of its small stature, tries to make itself look as intimidating as possible.
The card, Innovation, follows these two. Associated with Jupiter in Aquarius, Innovation marks the desire to stand out, branch out, try something new, and be something new. Aquarius, ruler of the 11th House and ruled by Uranus, can be quite a rebellious energy, especially toward unfair or unjust authority. Jupiter, ruler of Sagittarius and the 9th House, can be its own force of rebellion as it stands to question the limitations on everything, eager to prove people wrong, and is oftentimes just out to have a good time.
Your first set of astrological focus demonstrates an interesting, and potentially aggravating, system of mental focus that you may experience and that may contribute to the desperation behind wanting to change. First you have the 6th House and the 11th House. The 6th House is ruled by Virgo and at its lowest development is associated with obligatory servitude to others needs, demands, and expectations. The 11th House is ruled by Aquarius and at its lowest development can be associated with hive mind thinking, a loss of empathy, emotional detachment, self-superiority, and a loss of yourself as an individual to the collective. As I mentioned, the 11th House/Aquarius is also very rebellious and within this space alone there is conflict between seeing yourself as part of a collective and as an individual.
The Waxing Gibbous Moon then showcases the back and forth energy as this is described as the point in time where everything is in flux and flow, the time in which you’re mostly waiting around for the harvest. There’s a rushing back and forth of the mind between what was planted and what needs to be harvested, or what was taken care of by you and what will take care of you later. It’s like you’re running back and forth between a sense of obligatory servitude to your friends, family, community, or the world as part of the collective, and a desire to fend for yourself, carve a path out for yourself, and get yourself more out of life rather than having to sacrifice so much.
The bottom row of the first spread seems to be a stack of notes on the energy you’re working with or are generating for this process. First you have a Taurus, marked as “I have,” bringing focus again to what or who takes care of you, how you take care of or comfort yourself, what is yours and yours alone. Then, you have Rebirth reflecting and anchoring in the energy of Suicide, followed by the Flamingo Spirit with the message, “embrace the inbetween.” On one level, this feels like guidance towards finding balance between the 11th and 6th Houses, and on another, the message to embrace the inbetween feels directed at the overall process or transition you are in. Fully embracing the chaos of deconstructing yourself, and potentially your whole life, in order to form it into something entirely new.
The last card in the main set is the New Moon in Gemini with the note, “communication is key.” Going back to the sword, and the defensive stance of the Scorpion, “communication is key,” feels like a note about how to handle Authority. Communication is the key to the problem, the sword is the weapon that destroys Authority. Communication itself may not be literal for everyone, not everyone will benefit from speaking their mind all the time. For some, the emphasis on Gemini/Mercury/Air energy is an emphasis on your own mind, self-reflection, observation, and connecting the dots within yourself for yourself.
Your second set of astrological focus expands on that with Taurus, Mercury, and the 1st House. Taurus and Mercury highlight the focus on your own thoughts and desires, as well as your own physical and mental health, while the 1st House just amplifies the self-focus and personal priority. This energy here is about self-focus, but as these point to foundational energies in astrology — 1st House/Aries/Mars, 2nd House/Taurus/Venus, 3rd House/Gemini/Mercury — these also suggest genuine rebuilding of the first three houses, or a redevelopment of the three layers of consciousness. It’s showing how you are rebuilding from the ground up on all levels at the same time, energetic, mental, and physical. This may go into what I was feeling with how compressed the process seems.
Your oracle cards also carry the compressed feeling, which turns explosive with Fire, Inspiration, and Idea all feeding into each other, causing both the mind and the Universe to rip open with creative and productive stimulation. This just generates a lot of energy that pushes that urge to change things on all levels and really go for a full reinvention, a full reality overhaul.
In the space of energetic influence for Pile 4 through Leo Season, you have The Fool, the reversed 10 of Swords and the reversed King of Cups. The Fool and the 10 of Swords suggest definite ends leading into new beginnings, but with the open potential of The Fool and the reversed state of the 10 of Swords, there’s a hesitation or a sudden block that can rise up from the reversed King of Cups. This suggests that while you want to change and are willing to put an end to everything, there’s still emotional ties, possibly to family, but certainly a community of some kind, that make it difficult to move forward. As this is an energetic influence, I am wondering if this is something that is occurring for the sake of you being able to find a better balance between yourself and others, or if it’s to put the power in your hands to cut things off, a test of commitment to yourself.
In the space of your internal happenings, you have the 6 of Pentacles, Justice, and the 10 of Swords. These three cards together are very interesting, especially with Justice in the middle. Justice is mainly about balance, and in this deck it emphasizes passing judgment fairly by weighing pros and cons fairly to see which weighs best in your favor. In this deck, the 6 of Pentacles encourages you to be there for others with no expectation to receive anything in return, but the 10 of Swords states how important it is to limit how much of ourselves we give to others as it can leave us feeling like a fractured soul. This set acknowledges the internal struggle between caring for yourself and caring for others, or being so willing to give to others without getting anything in return. This feels more like a matter of learning that there is no equal payment in these situations so rather than seeing it as what you receive in return from other people, you may need to think about what you give yourself alongside and in comparison to what you give other people.
In the realm of relationships, you have the Page of Swords, The Star in reverse, and the 5 of Cups. The Star in reverse feels like a deliberate cut to emotional connections with the Page of Swords feeling to be wielding The Sword from the main set. There’s a subtleness to it, a childishness to it where the sword almost feels too big in the hands of the Page, and the 5 of Cups suggests a heavy heart every time they have to bring that sword down on a relationship, but it is necessary work. The image of the Owl on the 5 of Cups feels very stable and headstrong, eyes focused up and away toward the future rather down at the ground at what has been lost.
Lastly, in the realm of conscious and physical influence and experience, you have the 6 of Wands, 8 of Pentacles, and the 8 of Wands. This energy seems to loop on itself with the 8 of Wands stimulating the 6 of Wands, which fuels the physical and conscious efforts of the 8 of Pentacles, which generates the push of the 8 of Wands. The 8 of Pentacles is the main physical experience, while the Wands cards around it are more in the energetic space. The 8 of Pentacles shows a lot of focus on work and perfecting things, minding the details, and really lining things up for yourself. For some, I can see this as carving out stepping stones for a new path for yourself, and for others this could be a more literal depiction of preparation, working to save money or acquire necessary resources. For everyone, the 8 of Pentacles is a good sign that Leo Season will be quite productive in some way, and you’ll be coming out of it with more than what you started with, and hopefully with enough to get yourself to where you want to go from here.