Birthday Reading for Me! — The Willow Path Tarot

I turned 32 years old this week on July 8th! Yippee! I love even number years and also ones divisible by 8 (remind me to look up my Jupiter return!). In honor of my birth I decided to do my special Birthday Reading for my little old self. My girlfriend and I were staying at Devil's Lake for a couple of days this week. My request for my birthday party of two was to go camping, hiking, and swimming some place beautiful and not too far off of our route between Milwaukee and Minneapolis. Devil's Lake State Park is in the middle of Wisconsin with a beautiful lake and lots of purple rocks piled around it. No motor boats are allowed on the lake and the ridge line trails along the bluffs overlooking the lake offer easy hiking and the best views southern Wisconsin has to offer.

Here I am in the woods of Wisconsin doing my birthday tarot reading.

The birthday tarot spread I developed is a 6 question spread addressing: 1. how will your current tarot year card manifest itself in your life, 2. what lessons do you need to learn this year, 3. what particular area of your life do you need to focus on this year, 4. what obstacles stand in your way this year, 5. what can help you achieve your goals this coming year, and 6. what kind of year can you expect to experience? As I wrote in my previous post, my current tarot year card is The Emperor. I used the Shadowscapes deck to do this reading and isolated myself out in the woods so I could really tap into my intuition and see what the coming year has in store for me. This reading ended up being super intense, and is really helping me reflect on where I am at and reinvent where I want to be going with my life and career. Here's what I drew:

How will your current tarot year card manifest itself in your life?: VII of Wands reversed

The Emperor is my current tarot year card, which manifests as a stabilizing, steady force for my year. The VII of Wands reversed indicates that this Emperor energy is something that I will be fighting against. The Emperor wants me to be organized, steadfast, create a solid base and be disciplined with my routine. The VII of Wands reversed shows that I'm going to want to resist this disciplined approach. Life on the road is chaotic and calls for flexibility, readjustments, and adventure. I will have a hard time being The Emperor, and may feel that his energy is chaining me down. Perhaps if I can create a flexible routine, I will be able to get the things done that I want to accomplish. The Wands are all about soul passions and the VIIs are about struggle and fight. I should have the fight and passion to really make my tarot business, my girlfriend’s tour, and our travel blog into something awesome. If I resist The Emperor's insistence on order and structure, I won't get anywhere though. My goal is to create a sustainable traveling lifestyle and that requires a solid foundation that I should be working to establish right now with The Emperor energy, not fighting against in an urge to be totally wild and free.

What lessons do I need to learn this year?- The High Priestess reversed

The High Priestess is a card I associate with a professional tarot reader, or any person who is strongly connected to her/his intuition and sacred femininity. The High Priestess knows how to access the collective consciousness and to explore the inner world and the shadow self. When this card is reversed, it is a challenge to tap into these abilities and develop them. There is a lot of work I can do to explore my intuition and learn to trust it and share it. I am striving to build this tarot business, while also finding time to be tour manager and start our travel blog. I want to be fully aware and in the moment, but also plan for the future. The energy of The High Priestess is crucial for opening up the third eye, which I believe will help direct me in where and how to place my focus on each of these businesses. I love the idea that my lesson for this year is to embody The High Priestess, to really tap into her archetype and take my tarot business a step further in the process. What a huge challenge!

What particular area of my life do I need to focus on this year?- IX of Wands

The IX of Wands is a card of stamina, determination, perseverance, and follow through. In this image from the Shadowscapes tarot to the left I see an adventurer, explorer, a conqueror out following a dream, a passion, and desire. How does this play out as a focus for my upcoming year? It seems like everything is an adventure in front of me right now! The take away for me here with the IX of Wands is that the road will test me and I just need to focus on carrying on, even when I'm fatigued or unmotivated. The gypset, vandwelling lifestyle doesn't pay for itself and I have so much to learn about how to do it successfully. I often relate this card to the Strength card as it reminds me to find my inner resolve, trust in my ability to accomplish whatever it is I set out to do, and keep going. I'm not a naturally competitive person and I have a tendency to let things go that do not come easily to me. This year I feel like I need to push myself, to not just let go of what doesn't just come to me, and to struggle for what I'm passionate about. The IX of Wands indicates that I need to focus on follow-though this year, even when faced with all possible setbacks and difficulties.

What obstacles stand in my way?- III of Cups

Here's a sad but true fact of life: it's hard to be healthy, productive, and run a successful business if you spend all your time drinking and socializing. As it turns out, I am very good at drinking and socializing and do those things quite often. It's also difficult to avoid because of my new lifestyle going to a new bar every night for the show, often getting paid in beer. Then after a few beers, making new friends, and staying up until the bar closes down, the next morning is pretty much shot. So my major obstacle this year will be integrating celebratory abandon with work. If I'm going to be at the bar every night, how can I use this to my advantage instead of having it be a major obstacle to my creating the year I want? If I'm going to be paid in beer, how can I use all my new beer knowledge on my CatvsOwl travel blog to make it even more awesome? If I'm chatting with new friends, or reacquainting myself with old friends, I need to mention my tarot business and give them my business card. Every little step I take toward making my vandwelling lifestyle sustainable is welcome, so I need to be aware of my drinking and partying and try not to let it totally rule over other areas.

What can help me achieve my goals this coming year- The Tower

It's time to shake things up! The Tower advises me to let go of old ways of doing things, tear down old structures and habits, and rebuild with only those blocks that will create a new stable structure for me. This compliments my Emperor year card, in that I am trying to build a new lifestyle and it will function and grow best if it is built upon a solid foundation. I would love to believe that I will have a sudden revelation or epiphany Tower moment and just know how to be successful and sustainable, but I'm not going to hold my breath for that lighting strike of inspiration. The Tower can be something that you work for though, it can be a cathartic destruction that you self-create. The past ways of doing things do not apply to my current situation and I have to trust that a new way can be found. I have that IX of Wands determination and the High Priestess intuition that can make this new lifestyle amazing. I welcome The Tower as a cleansing force in my life right now that can sweep away previous habits and help me clear the air for a new methods of doing things. The Tower is a scary image but it is a healthy approach to a new beginning, I don't want to take any preconceived ideas of what should be, but let what is develop.

What kind of year can you expect to experience?-IX of Swords

This an intense card to be my overall experience of the year. The IX of Swords is a card of anxiety, despair, nightmares, and regret. The Swords suit represents mental processes, the realm of the mind and thoughts. In this image of the IX of Swords we see a figure with swords tattooed across his chest, representing a heart heavy with thoughts. He looks up with worry at a murder of crows swirling over head. Are these crows really a threat though? Are the thoughts resting so painfully on his chest real or imagined? Ahead of me stretches a year of worry and anxiety if I keep going down the path I'm currently treading. I can see this happening in my struggle to embrace the rigid routine of The Emperor energy that is ruling my year, contrasting with an inner desire to be wild and spontaneous. Money is a continuous worry for me as well, as I wonder if everything I'm doing for The Willow Path and CatvsOwl travel blog is going to amount to enough money to live. Also the drive to be constantly creative, produce new content, be always on my game, and never give up is daunting to me. What if I can't access my inner High Priestess and can't learn to trust my intuition? I could worry for days about whether or not people will appreciate my tarot readings or think I'm witty and funny on my travel blog. I don't want to be dependent upon my girlfriend to make all the money and not feel like I'm contributing and taking care of myself. I think the key to breaking out of these mental anxieties represented by the IX of Swords is to embrace the total change of The Tower. Yes, I've been good at taking care of myself in a certain way up till now, but that way does not apply to this new life situation I am starting this year.

This birthday reading was very intense for me, and at first I was filled with dismay at the cards I drew for myself. Why not bright, happy cards!? My style of tarot reading is centered in positivity and self empowerment though, so I put a proactive, positive spin on all of my readings. I'm going to encounter much internal conflict and change this year, but ultimately I can choose how I approach these changes and how I manage my own thoughts and feelings. A tarot reading can point out something so obvious as my own anxiety that perhaps I haven't been fully acknowledging in my quest for freedom and exploration. This reading helps me confront that anxiety, acknowledge it, and do something about it, instead of being overtaken by it at some later point when I haven't done any work to mitigate and neutralize those fears and worries.

How are you learning and growing this year as we slowly revolve around the sun? Do you know what your goals and dreams are? Are you working toward them? Do you know what is holding you back and what can support you in moving forward? I feel motivated and encouraged by this reading. I know I have a lot of work to do, both in the physical world and in my internal spiritual development. It's a wonderful thing to have the tarot for these exercises in self reflection and empowerment.

Are you interested in a birthday reading or even a mid-year check in? I'm offering a special deal to my newsletter subscribers of two for one birthday readings! Why not get yourself and a good friend a reading for the price of one!? Just sign up for my newsletter and write me a note at thewillowpathtarot@gmail.com when you purchase the birthday reading to let me know who you would like the free reading to go to. I can even mail them a handmade gift certificate for their birthday!

Happy Birthday to me! And a wonderful year to us all!