December Portents

Hello, good day, and a happy December-ish ladies, gentlemen, and nonbinary gentlethems. Welcome back to the not-quite-greatest show on earth! Here at Portents I use the limitless power of Divinations to give you, dear readers, a glimpse into the impenetrable sludge that is our future!

Last month I gave you a bit of insight using runes and we’re still waiting for it to come to fruition. Reckon we’re not done with it any time soon but that’s just the way of these things. Sometimes our answers are clear and immediate and other times it takes bloody ages for this mess to come true. Good example’s last year when we opened that time capsule. Someone found a letter written by a seer 500 bloody years ago talking about some nastiness coming our way. Least it was still coming when this seer wrote it way back then but it actually happened a few years before the capsule was opened. Don’t remember the details but ask one of the old people round here about Lovelace… or was it Dorchester? Bloody hell I can never remember that ancient history mess.

And speaking of seers, I have news from the secret cabal of seers living right under our very bloody noses here at Hogwarts! First off I told them to get a better name because that’s such a mouthful but their leader’s kind of a stubborn ass. Come on people, a little marketing goes a long bloody way here!!

Anyway, what news do they bring!? Bloody nothing at all! It’s been real quiet this year so far… too bloody quiet if you ask me. By this point last year we’d had at least two huge visions shared by multiple seers and loads of little nightmares in between. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to be spared the usual doom-and-gloom but the silence is just as unsettling, innit? Puts me on the edge of my seat, just waiting for it to drop at any second. Let your guard down then BAM, smacked right in the gob by some awful vision or other while you’re on the loo or on a broom or bloody skydiving or whatever.

This is the part I’m supposed to say ‘no news is good news’ or whatever annoying dad-phrase but I know better than that. The universe is always sending us messages, even when it’s not, dumb as that sounds. The lack of a sign is a sign itself or maybe think of this period of quiet as something of a Divinations cold shoulder. Reckon that might explain a lot but I’ve no bloody clue why that’s the case.

Ok ok enough of that and onto the main event! 

As I said in an earlier article, I’ve been getting a bit of my own Divs cold shoulder from my tarot cards, also. No bloody clue why but I lost my connection with them at some point and they just don’t speak to me like they used to. Other methods still work alright enough but reckon it’s time to give the cards another go and not just because that’s our homework assignment for Divs this week. Still, two birds, one stone and so on.

Tonight my venue is a very private and personal place that is all my own. Moonlight is streaming in through a dusty window nearby and the room is old and abandoned yet there is something strangely comforting about it. Perhaps it’s the soft plush rug below me or the clutter about the room tightening the space closer to me. I’m lit by a single candle and I take several deep breaths before reaching for my box of tarot cards.

They say that a tarot deck’s power is enhanced when gifted to you and each piece of this is a gift to me. The wooden box lovingly carved with my name in runes, a gift from my person before they were ever my person, and the ancient set of cards within a gift from my grandmother bloody ages ago. Why, then, have I lost my connection to the cards? I’ve no bloody idea but today’s the day I try to take it back!

Perhaps inspired by our latest Divs class, I’ll be doing a nice four card compass spread today arranged in a nice North South East West sort of pattern but I’ll be doing something of an elemental reading. Our South card represents the earth or something in the physical or material world we should be conscious of. The North card will represent water, something in the realm of emotions or relationships or even pertaining to creativity in some way. The West card will be air which is something more intellectual or perhaps mental. Then finally is the east which represents fire which is where we find our strength to push through.

So I’ve laid out the four cards and I take a long deep breath before reaching out and finally flipping the south card. Earth, representing the physical or material realm…

4 of Cups, reversed.
Very interesting. The four of cups usually indicates a need for change or some current stagnation we’re facing but how does that pertain to the physical or material? Perhaps it’s telling us to be wary of hibernating in the coming winter months and pointing us to get out and be more active? Or perhaps we’re being warned to take stock of our material possessions and decide what we truly need before a coming ‘spring cleaning’ of sorts. Perhaps the next card will further inform us. 

The second card, water. Representing our emotions or relationships…

King of Pentacles, upright
Curious, something of an opposing card to the four of cups. The king of pentacles represents a great wealth or positive change of some kind. Perhaps it’s in achieving our goals or pushing through our roadblocks or maybe just making small but steady progress. Then again, the King can be a very shrewd man at times and prone to hoard that wealth for himself. Perhaps this is what the card is meant to represent in this specific position, a warning to not fret over relationships or hoard away your friends to yourself? Then again, hoarding’s sometimes a good thing, innit? Like hoarding food for the winter so perhaps we’re being told to keep our friends close or something along those lines?

Curious, I reach for the third card. West, representing knowledge or intellect. 

Strength, reversed
Right, so we see strength in reverse and assume it’s the opposite but as always there’s more nuance and such to it. Might be referring to inner strength that’s a bit untamed so comes out as anger and aggression or maybe it’s more of a fear or uncertainty of our own inner strengths. Maybe we doubt ourselves and don’t think we’re strong enough, even when we really are. How does this correlate to intellect or knowledge? Well honestly it feels like we’re being told we do a bit too much overthinking and not enough actual doing but perhaps… it’s something else.

Let’s check that last card and see how it all ties together then. East, our fire or passion or inner strength. 

9 of Pentacles, upright
Hmm… So we have two pentacles cards who are very much sister cards despite their elements, fire and water, being in opposition to one another. Much like the king of pentacles, the 9 is all about stuff paying off, achieving goals, and the sort of stability that comes with having all your ducks in a row. Not a card I’d normally expect to find associated with raw power and fiery strength but reckon that’s maybe what the card is pointing to in this particular position. That we should look at our past or current successes and use that to push us forward. Use that to build your walls and fortify yourself from whatever’s coming.

Right, so let’s smash all this into a blender and see what we get, yeah? We got some odd cards in some odd places, don’t we? The king of pentacles often refers to material wealth but in this position in the spread it’s all about emotions and relationships and junk. Then we’ve got the strength card but not in the traditional strength spot neither. Bloody hell do I got this whole thing turned sideways or something?

No! I don’t! Probably. 

The cards being where we least expect them is, in of itself, telling. This alone tells us to expect the unexpected in the cold months to come but what do these specific cards mean? Reckon the Four of Cups is telling us to not become stagnant over the cold dark winter. Get out and be physically active, whether we want to or not, else we’ll get stuck in that winter pit for a good long while. Then comes the King of Pentacles which represents some emotional or social abundance and it seems these two cards together are telling us to be careful we keep that balance because we’re intellectually facing some doubt or insecurity in our abilities as we see with Strength as shown here. And yet the 9 of pentacles is telling us to find strength in what we have now or in our accomplishments and goals which makes sense. Get inspired by yourself and all that!

Well there you have it, I guess. Could’ve been better, sure, but reckon that could’ve gone a whole lot worse too. Like I said, my cards haven’t been talking to me like they used to but this reading came out… fair. Maybe it’ll come back to me if I give it a few more gos but that’s an alright enough reading this time round. A solid middle-ground passing grade but not much better than that. 

Right so the number of the day is 12, the word of the day is “toadstool”, the colour of the day is purple, the smell of the day is butterscotch, and the sound of the day is that kind of “pluh-kunk” you get when you toss an especially big rock in the lake but otherwise that’s all I got. 

Later. Peace. Sayonara. Buh-bye. And so on.

-Riven Redwhisper

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