Down 'n Out Tarot Spread

Facebook and Instagram are down today. Mondays are when I do the bulk of my marketing work, and most of my followers are on those platforms, so it's a bit of a bummer to not have them available. What's a small-time Fortune Teller to do?

Create a Down 'n Out Tarot Spread! That's what!  Let's see what the cards think I should do about this terrible event. 

Something got you down, lately? Read along with me.

The Down 'n Out Layout:

Card 1 - Why Am I Down?

• Speaks for itself. What's got your goat today?

Card 2 - What Action Should I Take?

• What can you do to lift yourself up by the bootstraps? Consult the Applied Tarot or Applied Tarot Reversed for a list of actions that go with your card.

Card 3 - Who will help me?

• If this isn't an obvious court card, consult the Applied Divination books to see whom this card might represent.

Card 4 - Where should I go?

• This could be a vacation to take, or a place in your city to visit, or it could just be a different room in your apartment that will shake you out of your slump.

Cards 5 & 6 "Outcome"

• This is a two-card outcome. You can read these by picking keywords from the Applied Divination books and reading them together, or analyze the cards together to see what jumps out at you, or what is missing. Maybe you'll never get out of your slump (I hope that's not so!) or maybe it'll be over before this blog is even written.

I did a reading for myself. Although I know the bulk of my issues come from Zuckerberg's shenanigans today, maybe there is something else afoot that is causing me distress, or something I can do about it. Let's see!

Card 1. Why am I, Emily Paper, down? I drew the Ace of Pentacles.

• Apparently I'm down because something tangible, material, or gift-like is just around the corner for me? Maybe this is the storm before the calm? I don't know, I'll take whatever the world is offering next, though! 

Card 2. What action should I take? I drew the reversed Seven of Wands.

• According to Applied Tarot Reversed, I should surrender or try a different way of thinking about this problem. Okay, sounds easy enough!

Card 3. Who will help me? Hopefully whomever is bringing me that ace of pentacles gift. I drew the reversed Seven of Pentacles.

• According to Applied Tarot Reversed, this is a person who is unable to retire. Interesting. I know a few of those. My husband, myself, my best friend, my parent. So this isn't super clear, but I find all those people very helpful whenever I need them, so I appreciate this card for what it is - a reminder that I'm in this boat with a lot of people, and that they give me great gifts every day. 

Card 4 - Where should I go? I drew the Seven of Cups upright. Holy sevens, batman. I'll talk about this in a minute.

• I should go to a gallery, a fancy hotel, Iceland, New York City, or to the shower. I think I'll choose the shower, since I can't really afford the other options. I do need a shower. 

Two-card Outcome (Cards 5 & 6). I drew the King of Swords and the Emperor. Woah patriarchy.

• If I treat these as words, King of Swords is logical or objective, and the Emperor is a father or authority figure. If I use the "Before/After" from Applied Tarot, the translation is "Do hard work for structure." Alright.
  
• Oftentimes I think of the Emperor as the Patriarchy, which I despise so much. So if we think about my problem today - that Facebook/Insta is down and that's where I do the bulk of my marketing, and it's part of the capitalist hellhole that is Patriarchal America, I guess the outcome could mean that I should do some hard work anyway, and soon it'll come back and everything will just magically work in a logical, transactional way again.

Well okay then, I'll take it. I count this blog and tarot spread as hard work. I honestly wasn't going to do this today, but I didn't have a Facebook to read.

On multiple sevens:
It is very rare to get the same number tarot card three times in only a 6-card spread, so let's talk about Tarot and Numerology for a sec. The Minor Arcana follow a similar pattern with numbering.  Here's what the numbers represent:

Aces - new beginnings, potential, fresh starts, gifts
Twos - duality, balance, juggling, choices
Threes - growth, increase, expansion, creativity
Fours - stability, foundations, structure
Fives - instability, challenges, changes, losses
Sixes - comfort, healing, peace, adjustment
Sevens - questioning, spirituality, independence, knowledge, gaining wisdom
Eights - courage, movement, change, disappointment, fortitude
Nines - achievement, awakening, becoming, nearing the end of a cycle
Tens - endings, accomplishment, failure, the finality before a new dawn

So my multiple sevens represents a lot of questions and spiritual insights being gained during this Facebook outage. I suppose that's true. I spend a lot of time on that platform - on purpose, because being alone in my own head is like attending a circus 24/7. But maybe these sevens are telling me to just live with my thought-circus for a bit and see what fresh insights come to me. I guess I'll go do that.  In the shower.