There are many ways of using the cards for yourself but my recent use of the AEON cards is a good demonstration. I did this reading yesterday, Saturday the 27th March 2021, the day I also got my COVID 19 vaccine. I'd been feeling really discombobulated, frustrated by small things, pushing off some big things, wonderful ritual and energy from the spring and the equinoctial sun streaming into the house but the energy of it, my joy and my love of spring just wasn't there. I wasn't feeling it.
So in the morning, that morning of my vaccine, I thought I'd shuffle the cards and reflect on a single card. As usual, after shuffling, I cut the cards into three and then re-stacked them and turned over the first card.
NOUS (reversed): Nous means 'mind', so in the upright position this means all that can be conceived and known. It is conscious, unconscious, intuitive and deduced. All senses, including 6th senses and imagination, creativity ideas and emotions.
But in reverse this is about the absence of thinking, the loss of mind. In the AEON book the definition states "not listening to your own needs and what your 'self'/soul is telling you." And that idea resonated with me. I've been in a lot of thinking modes recently. I've been trying to help others and trying to plan for futures that I have no way of knowing will happen. I've been stressing about what will be, plans for my future, how I want to spend my future but I haven't really been listening to myself in this. I haven't looked inward. I hadn't really, truly asked myself what do I want? How am I feeling? What do I want of the universe, rather than what the universe wants of me?
I couldn't leave it at that. This felt so right but wasn't enough. I wanted to use the AEON cards to expand on the truth that I sensed here. A truth that lay under the surface and I was in the mood for some digging because it felt like it might be valuable and important. This is a good example of how you have to be very attentive and mindful of your feelings during a reading.
The 6 card reading
I decided to do a 6 card reading, the most intricate and detailed. A six card reading allows you to explore a specific topic and requires the reader to pick a card from the deck to define the nature of subject to be investigated. In this instance the reversed NOUS had already been chosen.
The 6 card reading can be found on the last page of the AEON book but is also described on the blog. This method was devised before the AEON cards but it works well. https://medium.com/nockwood-cards/the-six-turnings-spread-5d8b29671938
The second card position defines the energy in play.
PATRICOS (reversed): This card is the 'father' - a card of authority, control, limits but, again, in reverse has a different meaning. In reverse PATRICOS is connected to Stauros, the cross, the crucifix and the hanged man in the traditional tarot deck. This is the card of a sacrifice and something that will be given up. Am I to be sacrificed? Is there something that will have to be given up? I don't know what this is, but for some reason this feels right. I feel that spring is here, the COVID vaccination should be giving me joy but there is something else hanging over me. Something still to come that means I can't enjoy this release, this rejuvenation. I feel like i'm waiting for a shoe to drop. My body and mind feels like it's waiting for something. Something significant, something I can't yet put my finger on but it's coming. I know something is coming. I'm anticipating something...waiting for something. I'm mentally on hold...but with no idea what i'm waiting for/anticipating. How can you be waiting for something that you don't know what it is? And, yet that's how I feel.
I turned the next card. This next position determines the focus or control I need to exert. This is the position of 'will'. Of will and active intentionality.
PISTIS: This card is 'faith'...which I guess should have been anticipated.
This card is telling me that there is little that I can do. There is not really any action I can take. This card urges me to trust in something, without knowing...Well, since I didn't know what was coming anyway, that's helpful.
What this card is telling me is that I can't know what's coming but that's ok. To find comfort in not knowing for now, but to be ready for something when it comes. There is almost certainly something on the horizon that will emerge and when it does, that is the time to act. For now, all that can be done is to have faith.
Acceptance of the unknown has always been hard for me. I'm a planner, a strategist, a person who imagines a future and builds towards it. In some ways a fools errand and this card is telling me there's a future out there that I can't imagine...at least not yet. One that hasn't revealed itself yet, but it will.
This wasn't giving me much to go on, but we are still only half way through the reading. Already I feel my shoulders drop. A deep sigh and breath in before the turning of the next card. I'm letting myself fall into whatever will be. The next position tells you the truth that you will discover. And that's the funny thing about truth. We always think a truth is something we know, but the reality is that truth only exists within the unknown. What is known can only ever be a small part of any story. To stick with known truths is to deny new possibilities.
GRIGORI (reversed): A clue here to what i'm waiting for. I've explained Grigori elsewhere in the Syzygies of AEON. Grigori is the 'watcher' the AEON of wakefulness. He is always watching and helps us see by opening our eyes and guiding us to enlightenment. But, here he is reversed (and wow, was the world turned all upside down in this reading?). In reverse, GRIGORI means you've blinded yourself to what's really going on. The truth is that the blockage here is something within me, not the world. The truth I need to face is within me, something i've been deluding myself to. Time to be honest, time to get real. Time to face that truth that i've held in my heart but have been ignoring or avoiding.
Now, without sharing too much publicly, I think I know what that is. I have a sense what this is and yes, I've been avoiding it. I won't share all the details but I have a sense of what this possibility might be and it's been a possibility for a while...if I'm honest.
I was hesitant to turn the next card, because the next position is the 'kicker'. The unexpected. The unknown and unseen aspect that you were not expecting.
AGERATOS (reversed): Ageratos means Eternal but in reverse, it's everything but. The words that struck me deep were "Perishable, in a sense mortal." "Short-lived". It is all of our fates to exist for a limited time only. Sometimes our time comes unexpectedly. Sometimes our plans might be thwarted by a single truth that everyone, every living thing has to face. No-one is here forever. In this position, this card means that around the corner is an encounter with mortality. My own mortality or that of someone close to me. The reason I can't embrace the joy of this time or even plan for the future is that there's something I need to face up to. Short-lived might be me. Short lived might be that this uncertainty, this frame of mind will too pass.
Interestingly, I'm cool with both of these. I am left thinking about the fleeting nature of being, of everything around us. Of our own mindsets, the seasons, the constant flow of life and death, winters and summers, ups and downs. They all add to life.
The final card is placed across the first card. This is the final outcome - what will be.
AINOS: Praise. Well to me, this says it all. The praise, recognition and positive words will come. Not now, so stop expecting constant reinforcement. Life is reward in itself. Let praise after I'm dead.
Comments