Am I busy? You could say that. I’ve been busier, particularly in the mid-2010s when I was doing everything I’m doing now only about three times as much of it. Yes, I was younger then, but mainly I didn’t have all the “background noise” we have now. The arc of the moral universe was still bending toward justice and we (or at least, I) thought Obergefell was just the next step, not the peak.
Seriously, don’t underestimate the amount of energy it takes to just keep moving forward in times like these. Cut yourself some slack. Keep moving and keep fighting and keep living your life your way, but cut yourself some slack while you’re doing it.
But yes, I’m busy. I’m approaching a major crossroads of life with my paying job, with my public-facing religious work, and with my geopolitical environment. I have plans for all those things, plans that are supported by long-term magic, short-term magic, and ordinary effort. A lot of ordinary effort.
Part of that ordinary effort is monitoring my progress towards my goals, identifying threats and devising countermeasures, and staying on the lookout for things I might have missed.
This is where divination comes in.
Asking the cards what I’m overlooking
Divination cannot tell you what you should do. It can show you where you’re headed. Then it’s up to you to decide if that’s good or not, and if it isn’t, where you should go instead. Divination is like turning your headlights on when you’re driving at night. It can help you see obstacles in the road while you’ve still got time to avoid them instead of running into them head-on.
Tuesday night was a regularly scheduled divination night for me. After considering everything I’ve written so far, I asked “what am I overlooking? What am I missing that would significantly impact my plans?” That was specific enough to get a useful answer without being so tightly constrained I’d end up with an answer that was precisely correct but impossible to put into a meaningful context.
I used the Celtic Cross layout. I know some people don’t like it, and I don’t use it all the time (I’m using a lot of three and five card spreads these days). But for a question that needed plenty of room for an answer, it was the right tool for the job.
The reading was overwhelmingly positive. I’m not going to share the whole spread. This is private, and some of you are good enough readers to pick up more than I want to share just yet. But mainly, I don’t want you wasting your time trying to interpret my reading when you could be spending that time interpreting your own readings. But I will say it showed I have a good plan, I’m making good progress, and achieving it is very probable.
The one challenge to all that was the Wheel of Fortune in the “crossing it for good or for ill” position.
The Wheel of Fortune
Some cards are in your face – think of The Tower. Some cards are subtle – think of The Star. Some vary widely depending on the question and their relation to other cards in the spread. We have to be careful to read the cards in front of us and not rely exclusively on consensus meanings, especially if we’re reading with a deck that doesn’t exactly follow the Waite-Smith system.
But between the usual meaning of the card, the artwork on this particular card, and its position relative to the question I asked, this card’s meaning could not have been clearer.
The one thing I’m overlooking right now is random chance, some low probability event that could pop up out of nowhere and throw a wrench into my plans.
The limits of divination
Divination does not and cannot show you what will happen in the future with certainty, because the future is not fixed. What a terrible world this would be if it was.
Divination – good divination, anyway – shows you the most likely outcome, given the path you’re on and the direction you’re headed. But you have free will – if you change directions, you’ll end up somewhere else. And so does everyone else.
More relevantly to this question, low probability events can and do happen. Closer in, these things are easier to see. Further out, they’re almost impossible to predict.
When I was a kid, the nightly weather forecast was good for tomorrow and that was about it. Now the five day forecast is usually right and the ten day forecast is still really good. Better technology and better predictive models have greatly improved weather forecasting. But long range weather forecasting is still not much more than a guess. There are simply too many variables for even supercomputer modeling to be useful in predicting daily weather that far out (predicting average climate is another matter).
I can see the potential obstacles in my path for the next couple months. I can see big things that might interfere between now and completion. But I can’t see every little thing that might go wrong.
So given that, given the limits of divination, what do we do?
Trust in your own abilities
We begin by understanding that low probability events are just that – low probability. I like my odds. Now, it’s not time to ease up – there’s a lot of ground to cover between now and then. But there’s being prepared and then there’s being paranoid. I occasionally end up on the wrong side of that line. I’m trying not to do that now, and I hope you won’t either. Whatever your circumstances, put your energy toward what you think will happen and what you want to happen. I have a friend who used to have a bumper sticker that said “the best way to predict the future is to help create it.”
But what if the proverbial black swan pops up? What if something nobody saw coming happens? I know a few people who predicted 2020 would be a difficult year, but nobody predicted the worst pandemic in a century (one or two said they saw it and didn’t say anything for fear of frightening people – I struggle to believe them).
Something similarly unexpected could interfere with my plans. Or your plans. Or anything else we read in our divinations.
If that happens, we’ll do what we did in 2020 – we’ll deal with it. We’ll figure it out as we go, because we’re capable and resilient. Yes, I’m sick of that word too. But it’s still necessary.
I’m working Plan A. I have Plan B and Plan C, even though I don’t expect to need them. If I have to go to plan D or E or F I’ll figure it out when it happens. And I’m confident I can do it if I have to, because I’ve done it before. Getting old isn’t all bad – the wisdom of experience is helpful.
The warning of the Wheel of Fortune prepares us to see
Unlike what some skeptics (and some whose religions forbid divination) say, the fact that divination can’t tell us precisely what’s going to happen doesn’t mean it’s useless. I was already confident my plan will get me where I want to go. The nine positive cards mean I’m now more confident and I can rest easier. That’s helpful.
But also, the Wheel of Fortune serves to remind me – and us – that life is never fixed, that stuff happens, that Murphy’s Law cannot be repealed. With that in the front of my mind I’m more likely to notice small things so I can address them before they become big things.
Divination can’t tell us everything. But what it can tell us is immensely helpful.
We’ll see how things go…
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