Pile 5 is a very wet reading. There’s a lot of Water energy here, but stimulated by Fire and supported with Earth energy. The Earth energy in this reading seems to contain and pressurize Fire and Water, turning them into something that feels more like a blowtorch and a pressure washer. These two energies combine and become something that feels more like a lightning bolt at its strongest and static electricity at its weakest. Either way, there’s quite a sparkle to this reading and this seems to point to some pretty strong personal, spiritual development. For some people, this may hit like a lightning bolt, very quick and blindingly bright, and for others, this energy may hum into your space and sizzle there quietly.

In the top center, your keywords are Sagittarius, Warrior, and Cancer. Already, the balance of Water and Fire is present with the combination of Sagittarius and Cancer which hold one of the most interesting dualistic natures — Cancer being Cardinal Water, or Fiery Water, and Sagittarius being Mutable Fire, or Watery Fire. Warrior being between them feels like an anchor tethering these energies together between their elements. It gives me the sense of something suiting up for battle or a mission, like the Knight of Wands, carrying a Cup, being dressed and ready for a particular mission out in the world.

These words lay over The Underworld, which is quite a hefty card and one I don’t see very much from this deck. This card lines up well with the 8th House, the idea of the Black Pond or the realm of Scorpio, the realm of nightmares that we choose to hide from other people, or that our brains choose to hide from us. The Underworld, however, does feel a bit more homey. The 8th House feels like a space of transition, a place most people visit only once, and a place that people visit often, but not a place most people would call home. When they do call it home, it starts to look more like “the underworld.” This is a scary, heavy, tarnished place, but for you, it is one of persistent growth, honesty, transformation, creation, and reflection.

At the head, you have the Third-Eye Chakra followed by Observer. For some of you, it feels like you have a looking glass and you will be looking through a small portal into the space of The Underworld, seeing into your own depths or the depths of the world. For others, you, from within The Underworld, you will explore more in-depth, connect, and be unleashed in some capacity. This could be an exploration of new communities or people, but for some this is a solitary experience.

In the center, the Horse is highlighted as a very focused, forward-facing, third-eye-shining energy that is free to roam and exert its energy as it pleases. With this, I’m seeing the juxtaposition between the association of freedom and a horse that is kept within a fence. The fenced area is massive, to the point where it’s possible the horse doesn’t even know there’s a fence, and therefore, the horse’s life, if you were to ask it, would be no different than a wild horse in terms of its emotional, mental, and energetic experience. It’s a choice, on some level, to not look at walls, obstacles, and limitations as something that only ensures an incomplete life, and instead embrace fully and completely what is available to you and build on it from there.

It’s like if the horse were to have seen wild horses running on the outside of the fence and then started being a jealous little worm, spending its days at the fence, harassing the wild horses and complaining about how unfair it is, how unfortunate it is to have been born on a farm. The horse would waste its entire life at the fence doing this, but it could also see the wild horses running, and decide to run with them, or decide to map out its own course within the fence and run it everyday. And maybe the farmer took note of this and made the fence even bigger to give the horse even more room to run.

When the wild horse’s die, they’ll say, “I ran.”

When the jealous horse dies, it will say, “I was cheated.”

When the farm horse dies, it will say, “I ran.”

The Horse is the main Earth energy in this top spread, mirroring Warrior with how it anchors in the energies of Water and Fire, holding them in balance. It’s energy, its purpose is served much better as a container or within certain guidelines as that is when and how its energy is best focused and directed.

The Influence card follows the Horse, but it’s connected to cards in the second row, so we’ll skip that for now and look at the first part of the astrological focus. There, you have Ceres, Virgo, and Psyche. Virgo brings attention to its own duality within its development, the duality between the lower level of Virgo’s obligatory servitude to others, and the higher level of Virgo’s servitude to the self, with particular attention to mental and physical health. Virgo and the 6th House mark the realm of the Mother in terms of that obligatory servitude that comes not only from the body, but from the mind and the spirit once a woman has a child. Ceres itself is also attributed to mothers, but gives more room to the hostility and anger that a mother can feel. Ceres is typically the bridge one has to cross within the 6th House to liberate oneself from serving others to serving the self, or at least taking better care of yourself alongside others.

Psyche on the opposite end leaves nothing open as concern for other people is not a priority. There is still kindness and nurturing in Psyche, but she is her own priority and she will not bend and break to meet the expectations of other people. In fact, she would bend over forward out of spite.

Down below in the second row, you have Pisces (“I Believe.”), Divine Wisdom, Bee Spirit (“Sweet results await.”), and the Full Moon in Capricorn (“The end of a tough cycle approaches.”) Everything on this level seems to burst upward into the first layer, with the Water energy of Pisces and the Earth energy of Capricorn containing the energies of Divine Wisdom and the Bee Spirit, both of which ascend upward in golden hues. Pisces rises into the Third-Eye Chakra and the Full Moon in Capricorn rises into the space of Ceres, Virgo, and Psyche.

The Water and Earth energy down here mix together into the rich, dark mud that becomes spun together with the seeds of Divine Wisdom. The Bee Spirit is like the first sprouts that break the soil after the seeds have taken root. The image of The Underworld is plantlife and bugs that are pushed up through the soil. It’s a scary image, but it’s one that is evidence of life and growth, evidence of potential. The image of Influence, the flowers that grow up from the bottom, along with the snake that rises over the people, is growing out of The Underworld. The snake and two figures displaying a tongue-in-cheek version of the snake slithering up from Hell in order to deliver knowledge, information to the people, symbolized by Mercury in its mouth. For you, the snake is delivering the harvested blooms of the seeds of Divine Wisdom. It’s carrying something quite divine, but it's coming from a place or through a place that can make things look a little weird or off-putting simply because it is unexpected or different from what is usually experienced.

Your second set of astrological focus is crazy high one the Water energy front with Pisces, Neptune, and the 8th House. All three of these center in the deepest Water energies, Pisces and Scorpio. The energy here feels quite dark and cold, but in the best way, a tranquil way. It’s very thunderstorm over a dark lake in the afternoon while listening to one of those “sounds to die to” playlists on youtube. It feels so gothic and dramatic, I really do love the energy of pile 5 so much.

These energies together place you at the absolute ends of the earth, exploring places of the taboo, occult, or just your own inner depths or creative expression. There’s so much flow between these energies, but it’s heavy and slow-moving, as if everything is being savored and enjoyed quietly and privately.

Your oracle cards highlight personal power with 666 in the center. This feels very fitting for this pile as 666 is a very commonly demonized number associated with Satan or whatever the fuck, but the number 6, and most importantly, 666, is associated with the energy of the Divine Feminine, free will, and manifestation. You will be very in your power going forward, and for some people, that may be off-putting. And for some of you, just the snake in Influence suggests, you could even be put off by yourself, put off by what you are able to do or experience, especially if you are exploring areas of the occult.

On either side of the 666, you have Wishful and Beautiful, which is such an interesting combination. Both of these cards carry optimistic eyes, but they peer through two entirely different lenses. Beautiful is an eye that is able to see the beauty in everything, is able to find the silver lining immediately, and chooses to believe deeply that everything is beautiful. Wishful denotes wishful thinking, as in this person is hoping that the bad thing she believes is going to happen will at least take her to something good. In Wishful, there is acknowledgement and acceptance of the fact that something bad is going to happen, that the experience will be negative, and just by WISHING for a better end to the issue, you are affirming a belief in the fact that can’t be better or that it won’t be.

In short, Beautiful is to believe that something is beautiful, and Wishful is to hope that something can become beautiful later. With 666 in the center, it is within your power to choose how you see the world, your world, The Underworld, yourself within this world, that world, every world. Do you want to believe in something, or do you want to hope for something? Do you want to believe in potential, or do you want to make things happen? Do you want to believe that there is life in your soil, or do you want to crawl down in there and push everything up to the surface so you can see it?

In the space of your energetic influence through Leo Season, you have the 7 of Wands in reverse, the Page of Wands, and the 7 of Pentacles. There’s a significance to the number 7 in your reading, something I made note of but didn’t mention earlier as it didn’t seem to be relevant. The number 7 on Influence and the Bee Spirit had caught my eye together before which is what brought me to see the energy flowing upward in the main spread. Here, the number 7 expresses an exchange or a fluctuation of energy between the 7 of Wands and the 7 of Pentacles. With one being Fire and the other being Earth, part of it feels like an on-off switch and another feels like something be put in the oven (7 of Wands upright, 7 of Pentacle reversed) and that something being taken out of the oven (7 of Wands reversed, 7 of Pentacles upright).

The Page of Wands is between them, eager and charged up to get a lot done or do a lot of things with his day, but he doesn’t feel active outside the way he usually does. The Page of Wands, much like the Knight of Wands, is a very rambunctious energy and is usually a good sign of very active work or creation. Here, it’s very concentrated and stimulated, but mostly it is contained to a single space. I’m seeing it literally in my head as someone in the kitchen experimenting with every recipe in a book in a single day, or someone in their art studio using up every tube of paint they have, or someone in a music studio pumping out five different conceptual albums in one go.

The number 7 is a conduit and I do often think about it, because of its shape, like a boomerang that has the power to throw energy back and forth between the number 6 (free will, choice, manifestation) and the number 8 (infinite expansion, inspiration, reward). It’s a very active number, but its action is within its own tension, like a rubber band being plucked as it is stretched between two hands. With this in mind, the significance of the number 7 of the Bee and Influence makes me think of the Bee going back and forth between the flowers and Divine Wisdom, or the seeds. More specifically, it’s like the sparkly bits in Divine Wisdom are pollen which are carried by the Bee, both for itself and in turn, the flowers to multiply and grow. I see it in my head as Divine Wisdom being both a sack of pollen and the hive of the Bee itself, existing on two separate levels, reverberating off of and feeding itself through the energetic conduit of 7, symbolized by the Bee itself.

In the realm of your internal aspects, you have the 8 of Wands, 8 of Swords, and 8 of Pentacles. Following your significant 666 and number 7, you also have 888, which may affirm what I was saying about 7 passing the energy back and forth between 666 and 888. These messages feel very significant and feel like something you may benefit from pondering on in your own time, so I will include the images and full descriptions for all three of these cards from this deck for your reference:

8 of Wands — “This Guardian calls for one to honor the higher self. Allow the messages to transcend into the consciousness. The Trinity rises overhead with the Goddess, arms gracefully holding, reminding us to bring all aspects of ourselves together, to be unified, sacred unto ourselves.

As this card appears in a reading, it is important to honor the guidance from simply listening to your instincts — your inner voice — and to always honor all aspects of the self. Every facet of one’s personality, experience, and desires has importance, value, and love.”

8 of Swords — “The Guardian’s are aware of miscommunication and the adverse effects to those around us, often without intention.

When this card appears, take a moment and reflect what influences have taken your attention away from issues that are more pressing. Ask for clarification before the matter at hand goes out of your control. It is time to prioritize, clear the air, and refocus your energy onto what is even more valuable.”

8 of Pentacles — “This Guardian is a songsmith. She plays a melody that calls in each of our souls, guiding us to always return to the essence of ourselves. Weaving an intricate volley of notes around our inner light, we return to grow and learn the next chorus.

Life plays a cyclical song, always bringing us back until we have learned our lesson and garner passage to the next chorus. Listen to the life song closely. Is it playing the same part over and over again? What part of the lesson do you need to learn before you move to the next piece?”

In the realm of your relationships through Leo Season, you have the 8 of Swords and the Ace of Swords, both in reverse, with The Star on top. There’s a simple openness here where the Ace of Swords is not reaching out, but the 8 of Swords is not in denial or trying to hide either. The Star at the front shows that you may have chosen to, or your Guides and Higher Self have taken it upon themselves, to simply let fate bring your people to you. On some level, for some of you, the reversed Swords with The Star may suggest higher communication or spiritual communication with soul mates, soul family, or Spirit Guides. Whatever it may be for you, there does seem to just be a lot more emphasis put on spiritual connection over verbal or conscious level connection, without a full cut off or rejection of conscious and verbal communication.

Finally, in the space of your physical and conscious level influence and experience, you have the Queen of Wands, 9 of Swords, and the 5 of Wands. Something in this feels a little sunken into escapism, which may be how some of you get into The Underworld and that Warrior energy anyway. You are the Queen of Wands, but your environment is the 5 of Wands. Energy, people, or just your surroundings are agitating, over-stimulating, or confrontational in some way. With such a passive position, this may not be something that is happening directly to you and is more so just a matter of your surroundings in general, but there is a certain dissociative feel to the Queen here. She’s completely detached from her own world, the world of Wands, from the 5 of Wands, and instead is focused on the nightmares of the 9 of Swords. Again, with The Underworld in play, what looks bad, or scary, or heavy isn’t necessarily bad here. While the 9 of Swords is wrapped in PTSD, paranoia, and nightmares, in the vein of creative expression or creative self-exploration, this can be a space of catharsis, or a place to process the mental stress and strain of the environment suggested in the 5 of Wands.

I think for some of you, the Queen does need to be woken up a bit as it’s almost like she has lost all control over her own kingdom as the 5 of Wands falls into chaos, numerologically falls under the number 6 and back into the space of choice or stagnation. For some of you, the 9 of Swords, rather than being a place of cathartic escape, is actually a distraction that keeps you from being able to get a grip on your personal power and your own personal influence over your life. This could be where the energy jumps back and forth between the internal space and the external space, or between the Bee and Influence, or between 6 and 8.

It’s possible for everyone, there is a certain level of balance that needs to be achieved between how you engage with The Underworld and how you engage with the outer world or physical reality.