Finding Your Career Path
Example Reading 2: Evaluating a New Career

Deck: Spiral
Question: I am starting a new career as a writer - how will this work out for me?

Spread: This 7-card reading is laid out as shown above – the meanings of the cards are summarized below:

Card 1: Strengths in pursuing this career
Card 2: Challenges that will need to be overcome
Card 3: Planning or preparation that would be helpful
Card 4: Outcome - Intellectual stimulation (natural suit - Air/Swords)
Card 5: Outcome - Achievement and recognition (natural suit - Fire/Wands)
Card 6: Outcome - Personal fulfillment (natural suit - Water/Cups)
Card 7: Outcome - Financial and material (natural suit - Earth/Pentacles)

READING

Strengths Card 1: Six of Pentacles .  The Six of Pentacles shows that you are building this new career on a solid foundation of practicality and past successes.  Your abilities as a writer are recognized by yourself and others, and you have the support of at least one person who is influential in the business. You have a reasonably solid financial position, so you are well-positioned for a period of transition that often accompanies the start of a new career. You have a reasonably good business plan and are able to work with others as a team in accomplishing your goals.

Challenges Card 2: Nine of Cups. The Nine of Cups shows a tendency to daydream and enjoy the pleasures of life - not a bad trait for an author, but there may be a tendency to spend more time thinking about your novels than buckling down and writing them. As you transition from working for an employer to working for yourself, you may find that having so much unstructured time takes some getting used to - it will seem like a wonderful benefit and you will want to enjoy your newfound freedom and time at home. However, it is still important to put in a full day's work, and not take too great an advantage of this benefit, particularly when the type of work you do is relatively unstructured and long-term - it is easy to let it go and then find that time passes quickly without much to show for it.

Preparation Card 3: The Emperor. This card goes along with the previous one, and suggests establishing a writing routine that you adhere to strictly.  The Emperor is all about authority, work ethic, rules, and responsibilities, and having this major trump card here suggests that this is going to be very important in ensuring your success.  However, he is also about leadership and self-control, and in this case, setting your own schedules and rules.  In order to guard against a tendency to spend most of the day on "recreational" pursuits that don't actively lead to income :-), establish a plan of work, and a schedule, and do your best to follow it. Make sure you are setting goals for yourself, and periodically checking to see if you are meeting those goals, and adjusting if necessary.  This kind of steady, routine, consistent work will get your writing career off to a good start - later perhaps you can relax a bit.

Intellectual Card 4: Princess of Cups, reversed. You have a Cups card in your intellectual or air position, and a Swords card in your fulfillment or water position, which suggests that for you, finding intellectual challenges in your work is linked to your feeling of fulfillment in your career.  The Princess of Cups reversed suggests that you may feel a little bit thwarted when it comes to doing the types of stimulating projects that you find really interesting, but which may not bring in as much income as other things.  The ideas are there, but you are having trouble figuring out how to make them into reality.

Achievement Card 5: Eight of Wands .  On the other hand, the Eight of Wands suggests rapid success and achievement, perhaps faster than you might have imagined or really thought was realistic.  You may be a bit surprised at this success, as it may come from a part of your work that is not the closest to your heart, but rather something you think of as "bread and butter" writing.  Once you get started writing, you may find that it brings a lot of changes into your life, most for the better.  On the other hand, there may get to be some time pressures and deadlines associated with this success that you should be prepared for.

Fulfillment Card 6: Knight of Swords. This is another card showing things rushing by quickly.  The Knight of Swords shows that you will be excited and happy that your career has at last gotten started and that things are moving along rapidly.  However, the main thing to watch out for is that you don't let things get out of control and start moving in a direction you didn't really mean to go.  Watch out for writing projects that may take you away from your main goals, even if they seem to be hard to turn away.  There may be some trade-offs here to consider - rapid success in areas that you hadn't really expected and a career that goes off in an unanticipated direction - or a more moderate and slower-paced career that is closer to your intellectual and emotional heart.

Finances Card 7: The Empress, reversed. The Empress is the card of fertility and creativity, and generally bodes well for your literary and financial success in this position. The reversal indicates some compromises you may find yourself making along the way - some of which are described above.  You may not get to do everything just as you hoped, and you may end up spending more time on things that are not as personally satisfying, yet this career will work out and be successful financially. It does seem to be the right choice for you, or the Empress would not have turned up here. It is interesting that the two Trump cards in this reading are the Empress and the Emperor - it seems this writing career is very important to you in defining your own sense of self and direction.

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