The Augur's House of Weal And Woe

I love divination! Every real and fictional magical tradition that develops a method for answering questions or seeing the future or discovering the unseen is fascinating to me, both as an interesting cultural artifact and as a means of getting some procedurally-generated perspective on something. I've been practicing learning and reading new spreads lately, and in lieu of driving my roommates crazy by making them come up with new things to ask every day, I figured some people on the forum might have some fun with it.

If you want a reading, just ask! For those who don't know much about tarot, it can pretty much be about anything, and as general or as specific as you want; asking a specific question is common, but you could simply focus on a problem or situation in your life, or a person or relationship, or even just try to find out the general shape of your next year. If you'd like one, say so in the thread or PM me, along with either your inquiry or a general description of the shape of your inquiry so I can pick an appropriate spread. I can also just do a more general pentacle spread if you really don't want to show your hand (or just want to see me do a reading with no actual inquiry), but it'll help me learn more varieties if I can be sure I'm using the right ones. Plus, it's more fun than getting a red answer to a blue question.

ps depending on who you ask and what you believe the forum might be tainted with my foul darkness and/or haunted now sorry

e: I feel like the title makes it sound like I take this a lot more seriously than I do. Oh well

ooh okay I'm down. I guesss I'd want a general spread, or just an idea of how this year will go, seeing as I'm stressing over possible travel and trying to get into grad school and whatever else.

Will I be the buffest this year?

You can use tarot cards for this one.

Sanzh: An annual reading is one I've been wanting to play with for a while, so we're going to look at the shape of the next twelve months. I'm starting with May, for obvious reasons; May suggests a time of renewal of things you've been depleted on, especially things related to your mental and social well-being. In particular, I get the impression you may have been struggling with maintaining hope and hopefulness, which May should restore somewhat for you. Focus on keeping yourself sane and happy, and take some time to maintain non-physical needs you have been neglecting; treat yourself a little.

Keep an eye on your surroundings, however, as you face pretty significant challenges once you're back at full strength. It looks like the root of a lot of your problems for much of the summer are going to be rooted back to one particular source, either a paucity of material resources like money and time or a person or institution that is actively deceiving or cheating you. Whatever primary obstacle you face, it's mostly going to result in difficulties related to work and school; you'll find it hard to juggle all the responsibilities you feel you have to maintain, and it will be hard for you to continue developing your skills and knowledge because you're so tied to material concerns. The spread itself suggests little in the way of advice for how to deal with these issues, but warns that the primary influence over the next year of your life will concern the balance of reality and fantasy and the effective use of imagination and creativity. My inclination is to suggest being very careful to catch yourself indulging in unrealistic pessimism or unhelpful optimism.

The end of the summer will either bring a very abrupt and unforeseen change to the trajectory of your plans or an event that causes significant delay.

It looks like you're likely to view this change as very negative or have a hard time adapting to it, but stay flexible. While you're still struggling to adapt, you'll find something to hold on to; this something is quite, in fact almost overwhelmingly, likely to be a person, and probably a person that is already in your life at this point. The fall will be a time of social cultivation and the sharing of wisdom, and it will be lead or inspired by a single guiding beacon; start exploring the people in your life you wish you knew better now, because they're going to be the catalyst for very fulfilling change in your priorities and philosophy. Again, pay special mind to the veracity of your own thoughts and feelings, and be ready to be proven wrong. It will be worth it.

Winter is going to be the time when things have stabilized enough that you're going to start to feel like it's time to take the reigns of your life back, but impulsiveness is your enemy right now; it just sucks that impulsiveness is also going to be sitting at the back of your mind a lot, urging you towards action that will end badly because you feel like it's what's right or necessary in the situation. You are still in a period of regrowth, now not because of problems wearing you down but new opportunities and important changes requiring a new set of mental tools and assumptions. As spring finally starts to come around, a window for action will arrive: you have the chance to either achieve great romantic success, likely with the person who was so influential to you this year, or to seize a life-changing opportunity. Probably not both. It is important that you make the correct choice here, but the deck is again being coy on what that choice is; take time to know yourself and your new desires fully before making that choice, but follow it faithfully once you do. Don't forget to ensure your reasons for making it are valid and uninfluenced before you do. Correct isn't even a good word here; more like "best for you". There is no wrong decision, just make sure you make the most Sanzh-appropriate one.

Interestingly, a temporal analysis breaks down at this point. It's rather adamant that it can't say much beyond the beginning of the end of winter because your choices in the intervening time are so crucial and varied. Any number of things can happen, and -- beyond a few upcoming hurdles -- those things are all going to depend on what you do and say rather than the vagaries of chance. Next spring represents a new beginning for you, a beginning for a future that will stretch far into your lifetime. There is no sense of urgency, so you don't need to feel rushed to make your choices. Quite the opposite in fact. Just keep in mind that the world is a bigger, more complicated place than you feel like it is right now, and it's okay that the future you want now won't always be the future you strive for.

Change is not inherently bad. If you don't let illusions and misconceptions push you into ugly situations, you will find yourself with the whole world in front of you. Your greatest enemies are lies and the human tendency to deceive itself.

Gatr:I don't know if I find it funny how on the nose this is, or if I feel like I'm being made fun of. The entire spread is so straightforward, unambiguous, and germane that I probably couldn't have assembled a less difficult one if I tried.

In any case, the root of your issue is one of stagnancy. Two forces of equal strength are influencing you, and because neither has majority control you're essentially languishing. I assume you haven't been doing everything you can to maintain your physical fitness, and your comfort and apathy are fighting pretty hard against your body image; you're not making progress, but you're not enjoying your indulgence either.

The primary obstacles you need to overcome are the guilt and discomfort you feel and your tendency to delay what you know needs doing. I'm not telling you anything new here, really, and we both know it. If you're to make progress overall, you need to make significant progress dealing with a tendency towards inaction over action. Patience is not a virtue right now, because patience has become inaction.

The primary strength that you have in overcoming the obstacles you have in front of you is the ability to take decisive action when the need arises. Essentially, you must choose every day to become the buffest, or you never will. The deck itself is pretty consistently suggesting laziness is both the problem and the root of solving it. Laziness is such an ugly word, though, and the concepts it's expressing here could as easily be called mental illness or physical difficulty that makes achieving your goals difficult or unreasonable. Point is, the biggest problems are all internal.

I've been dancing around this bit, but, uh, the final outcome of this read is unequivocal. You will not become the buffest, whatever buffness means to you. The card representing your future is The World, inverted: failure, broken cycles, unfulfillment, discontinuity. In a word, no.

Sorry.

What can you tell me about my career prospects?

I feel I'd be happy enough being a science teacher as a job, but can't shake the feeling I should be trying to dedicate myself to outreach/science communication, despite all my current emotional/attitude barriers that make it seem insurmountable to do so. What's the right course for me, when dedicating my efforts toward an even slightly challenging task is so daunting?

Am I ever going to find peace of mind?

Who should I be looking for in a romantic partner?

snipped quote

This was amazingly accurate. Thank you. And yeah, I'm not let down by this at all! It's nothing new.

I'll ask a more serious one, though, if you don't mind.

Do I get the job of my dreams (something related to game design/writing) this year or next year?

Akumu: Before we talk about your career, let's talk about you for a second. The deck has chosen to represent you as the Page of Swords, suggesting your primary relevant traits are insight, trustworthiness, and observation. The Page has trouble being taken as seriously as he should be or achieving the success he should be capable of, usually because he is underestimated or dismissed by others. Take care that you work to receive recognition for your actions and skills, or that you benefit by others' misapprehensions rather than suffering from them.

You have been brought where you are at least in part by someone vindictive, dominant, and controlling. I don't have a lot of information about who this is -- it could even be you -- but try to figure out what influences in your life are taking up more than their share of your time and stop letting them harm you. It looks like much of what is relevant to you, positive and negative, is was and will be external and social, but not romantic.

You are currently somewhere where a false sense of unity and stability has lead to trouble, and influences outside of your control are seeking to prevent you from realizing this fact. Conformity and orthodoxy are your enemy right now, and there is an organization that would prefer you sacrifice your own needs and desires for its own benefit. Interestingly, your biggest strength right now may be a lack of guidance: by relying on your own intuition and ability to see things as they are -- and thus stepping outside the bad or misleading advice or steering of others -- you stand to progress significantly.

Your house, which is to say the situations and people around you that govern your day to day life, is characterized right now by hubris, arrogance, or ill planning. Be ready to see the flaws in what is presented to you or asked of you, and don't trust anything you don't fully understand too much right now. People will be reaping a whirlwind soon, and it's important that you not be caught up in it.

You need to actively spend energy on enjoying yourself. Pleasure and abundance are not going to come to you, but are there to be found if you seek them out. It's clear that your craft is very important to you and has the potential to really uplift you, but you're going to have to work against the people in your life and career that are intentionally and incidentally hindering you. There is no indication anywhere in the spread that significant change is necessary; rather, you are already on about the right path, you just need to work on ensuring you benefit from travelling it.

Despite being rather adamant that there are significant issues to face and a lot of work to be done, the deck cautions against radical change and impulsive behavior. Don't go out and seek adventure in the wider world, because you'll do yourself more harm than good. Instead, consolidate what's working now and cut the chaff from your social and professional circles; there is a lot of spiritual and emotional fulfillment to be had when you're once again in control of your own journey.

The most central theme I'm getting is this: there will be people, groups, and causes in your life that you feel are important; they may or may not actually be important, but you need to not lose yourself to any of them or put their needs ahead of your own. Sometimes you will feel like it's time to let go of what you've accomplished and start over, but that's just going to come from you feeling trapped and helpless, not a genuinely practical urge. There is a great deal of religious symbology in your reading, which suggests to me -- you not striking me as a particularly religious person -- that dogma and bureaucracy are worth keeping a very close eye on.

How badly am i going to struggle with study for the rest of the year?

(its really cool that you're doing this for folks, slorange :o )

do a reading for me with no inquiry or personal details (other than what you already know about me i guess)

I see that there's already a queue for the readings, but I would like one too. Tell me about my strange romantic situations.

Thank you for the reading, Slorange!

do a reading of donald trump. maybe slorange can forecast election results

...spiritually

will my children be god damn failures or future stars of the X-Games?

No to everyone's unanswered questions. Especially if they weren't bivalent questions to begin with.