August 4, 2020
Hi everyone! As I’ve mentioned on my home page, I don’t do readings for any health or legal issues, but this is the occasional exception, as the reading is for myself AND I’m waiting for my MD to call me back with her diagnosis. Meanwhile, though, I was curious to see if my cards would arrive at the same conclusion she will?
First let me give you some background on this. A couple of weeks ago I noticed a dull pain around the toes on my right foot as I set out to do some groceries. I hadn’t stubbed my toes or anything, and it wasn’t a horrible sharp pain like the one experienced when there’s a fracture. I was able to shift the pressure on my foot and the pain seemed to disappear. So I went on to do my errands without any problem. I attributed it to general arthritis.
It was only a few days after that I noticed that the second toe seemed a bit swollen around its base and the third and fourth toes were pushed too close together, leaving a V-shaped space between them and the swollen toe. If I put pressure on or behind the swollen joint, the dull pain came back. So that’s why I called the doctor to make an appointment. And then I did this reading.
Question asked: What will the doctor say about my toe?
Cards used: Ryan Edward’s “Playing Marseille” deck. This is a Tarot deck that is playing card size and where the pips are playing card pips. In other words, Clubs, Hearts, Spades and Diamonds, instead of Wands, Cups, Swords and Coins.
As you also may know if you’ve read my other posts, I don’t usually rely on lists of meanings for my readings. I go mostly by what the illustrations on the cards show me. This is not any more “intuitive” than reading a book. You follow the logic of the cards, just as you follow the logic of a sequence of sentences when you read a story.
I do, however, accept certain logical handed-down attributes for the four suits if they make sense to me. Most of these I’ve inherited from Dawn Jackson’s Hedge-witchery archive, with some variants from Camelia Elias (of Aradia Academy) and some from me. (Ex. Clubs are made of wood, and can be used to build things; therefore they can be associated with work, effort and muscles. The hearts pump blood and can therefore be associated with blood, bloodlines, families, love and things that flow. Spades are usually made of metal. They’re sharp and can hurt. I associate them with pain and surgery, but also with mental suffering. Finally diamonds are like fire; although they are dug from the earth, they shine very bright. I associate them with the mind, electrical impulses, such as the ones transmitted by nerves, neurons and the brain, as well as anything electric; of course they are worth a lot, and so they are associated with money and resources.) So this is how I usually read playing cards and Marseille Tarot pips.
Back to my question. After shuffling my cards, two cards came out of the cut: Two of Diamonds, followed by The Fool.
So this shows me the background around the question. In this context the Two of Diamonds wasn’t about money, since we have medicare in Ontario, but my request for a doctor’s appointment by phone (Two of Diamonds) to discuss a walking issue (The Fool). Since the Covid-19 pandemic began my doctor’s clinic has been offering telephone and/or video appointments, that is, not face to face but through electro-communications. The Fool is the only Tarot card that shows a person walking (not just standing). The Two of Diamonds very likely also refers to the fact that I submitted photos of my foot and toes to the doctor by email.
For the reading proper, I pulled five cards. Here are the first two.
Again, since this is a very down to earth question, that’s how I’ll read the cards. The Judgment card is simply a meeting or a call (my doctor will call), and in this context not a “wake-up call” for any kind of “self-realization”. As for the Ace of Clubs, well, doesn’t that look like a sore toe sticking out apart from anything else? Yes, the cards have a sense of humour. So, this line of two cards reads as, “The doctor will call me about the sore toe.”
The next two cards I pulled were the Queen of Spades, followed by the Four of Diamonds. This Queen of Spades is a woman with a very sharp mind (spades can hurt). When I was employed, I often would get this for one of my supervisors who, yes, had a sharp mind, but whose words were often sharp and could hurt. In a health context, I often read this as a surgeon or doctor, pretty well any doctor who can provide a sharp diagnosis or give you injections. I don’t read this as an herbalist or a naturopath, who would use gentle treatments. In a magical context, though, this could refer to a powerful witch. In Dawn Jackson’s archive, she did write that she saw Queens as emblems for the truth of a matter. That’s also what X-Rays are supposed to reveal, and the Four of Diamonds, with its square of four diamonds looks like an X-Ray “sheet”.
By the way, after doing this reading, the doctor called me and sent me to have X-Rays done. While I wait for the results, let’s look at the last card I had pulled.
The last card pulled gives the diagnosis of the X-Rays, and it was the Queen of Hearts. Because in my mind the answer was a toss-up between a fracture and arthritis, I read the Queen of Hearts here as something that is handed down through the bloodline, and so arthritis. So even if there is a minor fracture in the toe, it’s probably related to arthritis through my genes.
I hope you enjoyed this reading. I’ll update it with the doctor’s diagnosis when I find out in a couple of days.
August 10, 2020 update: Heard back from my doctor today and my interpretation was correct. The X-Rays showed no fracture but arthritis around the toes.