The Hand of Fate & Destiny, Friendship & your True Self

When it comes to the hands of fate, destiny and friendship, which of these do we accept the most readily?

Friendship means a lot, but we have to work out if we trust people. There are also times when it seems impossible to discuss certain issues with friends or other people that we are close to. At such times people will often turn to an outside, trusted source of wisdom and someone who can hear about their situation, or reflect it to them in some way that is meaningful. I think this is often where ‘psychic’ readings and other divinations come in.

As for the ideas around fate and destiny, sometimes people use these words fate and destiny interchangeably. However, to me, the word destiny has tended to always carry the idea of something self-created, whilst the word fate seems to suggest the idea of a sealed fate that no amount of human intervention can alter.

In this model, destiny is in our own hands, whilst fate is something eked out upon us, something we have to endure or, at best, a set of results we have to discover – as though we have no option about where we go or what we do. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter how we view it. The question still hangs in the air – are we victims of circumstance in the situations we encounter or do we create our own lives through our choices?

This is a question I remember first thinking about in depth as a teenager, studying English literature in college. We were looking at Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles and one of the exam questions centred precisely on this subject. Tess, the central character, appeared to be lucky in some ways and unlucky in others. Was her sorry situation all her own doing or were others to blame?

I did not have a strong opinion about it at the time, although now I think that Tess was sometimes too proud. But she tried to keep to her principles and some would admire her for that. Either way, whether we see ourselves as victims, whether we our own worst enemies and whether we choose the hard path in life are all worth considering. Because there are always choices; sometimes we just don’t see them. Not without some help, anyway.

Think about a situation in your life now, especially one you are not too happy with. Ask yourself: are we victims of circumstances or do we have a hand in our own fate? Maybe you will have some feelings coming up as you consider this.

Interestingly, this is also a question that often appears in the context of giving and receiving Astrology, Tarot and Angel card readings. These are basically private, person-to-person, soul focussed readings, designed to put a person in touch with their true, inner Self. My belief is that this inner Self is a part of us (or may even consist of several parts!) that can get overlooked or repressed in various situations. I find that the tools in these readings act like witnesses and advisors. Tarot and Astrology never lie and Angel energy adds a strong sense of protection.

There are times when the true Self gets closed down – when the mores of society or the limitations of our personal circumstances don’t allow us to say what we really think and feel. Indeed, sometimes we can’t even feel what we really do feel, we go numb for a while, which can lead to feeling depressed or disoriented, tired or heavy. When we have a chance to acknowledge feelings, then these symptoms of dis-ease lift. The relationship between a trusted reader and the person seeking the reading (the client or querent) is in my opinion sacred because it allows for a person to explore their truth and thereby to contact their true Self in a safe environment. This is one of the reasons why readings ‘work’ for people. So, when clients come asking me “what is going to happen in my future?” I often go into their reading with the question in my mind: ‘well, what do you want to happen in your future?’ – because I don’t see it as cast in stone and fated. I see the reading as an opportunity to explore the paths ahead and for the client to discover more about what he thinks and feels, as an individual person. For therein lies some freedom, power and a chance to choose and create more of his/her own destiny.

Tarot Reversals

Students of tarot often wonder how to handle reversed cards. Sometimes even advanced readers dance around reversals, trying to settle on a system that applies across the board. One of those includes the idea that a reversed card means a reversed meaning. Some readers go through their reading process without ever making more of reversed cards and that is also absolutely fine. The reversal can be ignored, or we can read meaning into it if we want to. I generally find, however, that, if I need to take notice of something within my divination practice, it finds a way to let me know. It might show itself in a repeated way or it might stand out in some sort of unusual way. And that is the reason for this particular piece of writing.


For quite some time now I have read reversed cards based on my frame of mind at the time of the reading. In other words I have read them intuitively. That seems to have worked ok and I see no particular reason to deviate from that general approach, since intuition in a reading seems to have served its purpose well over the years. However, I did notice a certain pattern in the cards just recently, which stood out and made me stop and think. It was in the context of being aware of changes in another divination system, which is astrology. I have always thought that these two systems held equal value and so I learnt about them hand in hand. This seems to have been helpful in unexpected ways because, for example, when I find it hard to find a reliable answer on timing through the tarot, I can turn to astrology instead. Similarly, when I cannot see an obvious answer to my current question in the birth chart, the tarot will often give me a clearer clue. Interestingly, the observation that I made seems to relate to something that ties astrology and tarot together, although I have not noticed it mentioned much elsewhere. This is that there is a way in which planets seem to “reverse” in the skies, at certain times, just as there are moments when tarot cards appear reversed. Notably, these two phenomena are based on appearances only, but as readers of symbols we can ascribe significance to those appearances.

In astrology we call this apparent change of direction by the planets as “retrograde motion”, which simply means that some planets sometimes look to be moving in a backward path, compared with the direction of the other planets in the sky. There are specific meanings given to planets “in retrograde” and I have spoken about some of the ideas and events associated with them before in this blog (see under Mercury Retrograde, Mars Retrograde etc). Moving on to when we turn up cards from the tarot deck that appear to be reversed, we can also assign specific meanings to this phenomenon and tarotists who do see tarot reversals as significant may have all sorts of ideas about what those reversals can mean. One of my favourite sources on this subject is Mary Greer’s book aptly named The Complete Book of Tarot Reversals. As you might guess from the title, Mary looks at every single card in the deck, including the Court cards, so it is a really helpful source. But I want to look at this phenomenon of reversed tarot cards for a moment in another context, because I have noticed that a lot more cards have turned up in their reversed positions, whilst Mercury was last in retrograde motion earlier this year (from April 18 to May 11 2010, in the zodiac sign of Taurus). Mercury is the communications planet in astrology, so I suppose it makes sense that tarot cards, as “messengers” might appear upside down. The question here, I think, is, do they then especially carry reversed messages? I think the answer is that yes, they do – and possibly more.

A clue as to the “what and why” of this can be found through a comparison with retrograde planets in astrology. Frequently, when planets are retrograde, we end up going over things again, either at the time of the retrograde path or soon after it. We end up reviewing matters or revisiting ideas, places and people. Sometimes the world itself seems turned upside down, or at least our own little world may do. Nothing seems to work the way we expect it to. Other people don’t respond the way we think they will. Everything is confusing! In a specific sense this is like the normal appearance of card XII The Hanged Man, in the Major Arcana, which is an image of someone permanently upside down! But in broader terms, across the deck, I think that reversed tarot cards often show these various themes, too: confusion, things being the opposite of what we expect, feeling the need to look again at everything – and so on. It probably doesn’t matter if the cards happen to show up that way when planets are also apparently reversing (so you don’t actually need to know any astrology to make any sense of this, if you are a tarot reader!). What does matter is that there is some sort of linkage of ideas here. The clue, just as with understanding what retrograde planets are about, is really simple – it is to have a think about any words that begin with the prefix “Re”. Because those words will often tell you what the problem is. As a verb prefix in the English language, “Re” simply means “again” or “back”. So, to review is to look over again and to return is to turn back, to revisit is to visit again, to reinforce is to enforce something again – and so it goes on.


Here is a recent example of what I mean, when it comes to tarot reversals.

You may not be too surprised to hear that I have received a lot of questions about work and money, during the current recession (another “re” word!). The Two of Wands, from the Minor Arcana, turned up reversed in a reading for someone who was finding they could not move ahead in the same old way in their world of work. The main issue was that they had to realise that they no longer had the energy and passion for the work that they were doing. They were feeling burnt out and exhausted in that area. So the key here was a need to recharge and review the situation. Confusingly, they had ended up demoted into a role that they felt was beneath them. It was like they were forced to revert to something from the past. To me, this card was showing that the brakes were on, but for a good reason. This person could not just go on as they had done. They had to stop and reconsider everything achieved so far and look at what was now going to work for the future, too. Could it be that they would become resigned to this situation or that they could see some new way of moving forward? Surrounding cards, which were upright, gave clues as to a new approach that would help for the future. However, the one reversed card, the Two of Wands, spoke reams about the problem and the need for action of a certain kind.



It has taken me a long time to feel really comfortable working with reversed cards. Generally, I have done my best to interpret them. Sometimes I have noted them whilst feeling that I did not fully understand, in that moment, what they were trying to show. More recently I have increasingly felt that the reversals are truly there for a reason and have felt their message was clearer. Have you had any memorable experiences with reversed tarot cards in your readings, I wonder? If so why not share about them. If not, I wish you some meaningful – and hopefully useful and helpful – experiences in the future!

Celestially Yours...

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