The Week Ahead

Exploring the energies impacting our world

This past weekend the United States entered, perhaps in a way that will prove to be limited, the war against Iran by bombing what are believed to be its nuclear production sites.

Showing us that peace is not yet coming to our world, indeed conflict is spreading.

Here at home this seems to be also increasing conflict, pitting the hawks against the doves in our domestic politics, and indeed within the President’s own coalition.

I thought it appropriate, given what is going on, to perform a collective reading. A reading exploring the big energies that will be impacting our world this week, from today (Monday) through this upcoming Sunday.

I utilized a Majors only spread where one card leads to another in a chain, the reading ending when The Fool is first encountered:

How do you like the awesome surface of my new reading table? Hand punched aluminum I believe.

Our collective reading started with The Hermit.

A lot of us are likely quite worried about what this latest attack means for our country, our world, and future generations. Will it lead to a greatly widening war, or will it be contained? What are the risks of adding additional war to a world already at war in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and elsewhere? Could these conflicts light the fuse for true worldwide conflict?

Our next card was The Moon.

While it is possible to look at these attacks on Iran, first by Israel and now by the United States, as discrete and separate from everything else happening in the world, The Moon reminds us that to do so is an error. Everything is connected, and those who stoke conflict (on all sides) must be ever vigilant against unforeseen dangers and hidden complications. The risks of widening conflict can’t be overlooked. How will Russia react, Europe, China, others? What about the Gulf States, will Iran take out its ire upon them?

Our next card was Judgement.

Can we trust our leaders to keep the best interests of the people as a whole at heart? Any world leader? Do we think that they will work in the cause of peace and the healing of divisions between people, using violence only when absolutely necessary? Or do they have hidden agendas, other things driving them? Since the Second World War we have built a world in which a tiny handful of men (yes, currently they are all men) can destroy humanity with a phone call or the touch of a button. Is this in any way rational? Or moral? If not, what can we do about it?

Our next card was The Devil.

We, through our leaders, are chained to events and ideas of the past. Particularly events that took place during and after the last World War. These past events drive thinking about peace and war today. Likewise these recent events in Iran chain leaders to a future course of events, but not even our leaders know what the future course they will be required to take will be. How will Iran react to the US bombing? How will the US react to Iran’s reaction? No one knows, but a course will be set. Perhaps it will somehow be positive after everything eventually settles, but perhaps it will be negative. No one can know.

Here the cards took a decidedly different, and much more positive turn. I interpret them as applying to us as individuals.

Our next card was The Magician.

No matter what might be happening in the world around us, we possess the tools we need to live a good and positive life for ourselves, and to bring light into the lives of those around us. We must not live in fear, or be mired down in negativity, but are called to be beacons of light and life in the world.

Our next card was The Hanged Man.

By forcing ourselves to look at people and situations from a different perspective we can gain understanding. If we hope to see a world at peace, and a society in which differences of opinion and artificial divisions are not pulling things apart, we need to become the change that we seek. We need to work to understand our fellow humans, and their motivations, because through that understanding peace between people will come. We might not be in a position to effect these changes in the wider world, but we certainly are in a position to bring them about in our own lives, and our own social circles.

Our next card was The Hierophant.

Right and wrong. Mortality, is not dependent upon one person, or a group of people, or a party. We must break free of the view that whatever our side does must be right, and whatever the other side does must be wrong. Our broad society is not a football game, and we must not treat our political side like our favorite football team. We must look at events in the world dispassionately and separated from personality. To judge what is right action and wrong action on the merits of the action, not what side might be undertaking it. Anything less will give us a distorted view of what is happening, and will fuel harmful divisions between people.

Our next card was The World.

Even when things seem darkest, and we are filled with fear for the future, there is always cause to remember that human progress, over the long march of time has led us to a more just world. A world closer to perfection. That march of progress can continue if we all work to lead lives of goodwill, caring for our fellow people, and doing our best to serve as beacons of light in our communities. Our world may seem scary today, but it need not seem that way tomorrow.

Our final card is The Emperor.

It is true, huge international events do impact us and our lives. But smaller events in our State or Province have a larger impact. Even smaller events in our town or neighborhood have an even larger impact. Because that which is closest to us impacts our lives the most. But nothing is closest to us as ourselves. We are the sovereign of our own lives. We get to choose if we will live positive, and meaningful lives that will be helpful and inspiring to those around us, or if we will live lives filled with hate and distrust of all those we see, for whatever reason as ‘The Other.’ We alone are in control of where we go, what we do, what we say, what we think and believe. We exist in this world to create and contribute, not to harm and destroy. Remembering that we must rule our own lives.

Thank you for spending your time reading my words today. I hope that this spread has been helpful to you as we all do our best to navigate through what is happening in our world.