We have arrived at the last month of the year 2018, and the Visconti cards are giving us a lesson to contemplate and wrap up the year before we move on. It’s a melee of cards that represent transition; starting a new journey and the end of a cycle. Significantly, and for the first time, in our readings there’s a lack of humans as portrayed in the characters of the deck. Instead we have symbols and designs, shapes and colours, that are our own meditative world. To indicate and inspire an inner reality. Detached from people and events we are going to be asking deep questions about where we are headed for and how we can connect with our truth unequivocally and undeniably.

In a back and forth situation our enquiries have been answered throughout the year. With the Three of Wands we certainly start from a position of strength firmly grounded. We are confident of success, we have been here before, we know what we want. But there’s a pause. Thinking ahead, it is all about communication and movement. It relates to resources and accessing resources, as we stand at a vantage point, before making our next move. Creativity, travel, new projects and adventures are imbued with positive energy and become clearly defined. A better direction is open and available.

An abundance of opportunity and material success is there for the taking. The material world – possessions and money – is all around us. The Nine of Pentacles represents the rewards of life; hard work and leisure, mind and emotions, a practical, disciplined and contented mind. Through our own activities we have a lot to be grateful for that has come into fruition. However, as we find ourselves in a place of material luxuries, and while we have entered the slow season, we need to ask if what we have achieved in the practical world matches our inner world, our ethics, our beliefs, our dreams. And therefore the Nine of Pentacles mostly becomes an invitation to live in truth and realise that other things matter than working for money. A strong sense of self must be balanced with a spiritual life that includes the pursuit of learning, literature, beauty, poetry, art, cooking, travel or any form of creative expression.

And no doubt the gravest and more profound lesson comes together in the Nine of Wands. The many wands of the card create a conflicting and very complex situation of both protection and restriction. Because of the positive and challenging aspect, this is a difficult card to read. The fact that it dramatically denotes completion, closure, endings makes it particularly gloomy. An enclosed environment that is there to protect from harm may have turned into a self created jail. A prison of our own making due to past hurt and trauma. But strength is invulnerability. Therefore we should see this as a card that supports us to keep going with open minds and no regrets. Shedding prejudices and bad thoughts that poison our everyday lives. Having to overcome adversity, situations, relationships and events that have wounded us, we should remind ourselves of how strong we really are emotionally, physically, intellectually, and to let go of anything that holds us back as the cycle closes. The past is not the future. Accept change and a brighter beginning is here.

Flavia