The Devil and the Fool

There are times when the Tarot forces you to put on your reading glasses and look again. At things you may not want to acknowledge even to yourself. Like the lens of a magnifying glass, it brings certain things to focus, points out the fine print we may have ignored in the first glance. So I was a little taken aback when I asked my Anna K tarot deck for insight into the opportunities and challenges for the day and got two cards that sort of repeated the themes of yesterday's reading, nudging me to keep looking until the lesson is committed to mind.

The first card represents the opportunities that we can leverage today and this is..
tada! The Devil again. And I thought about the things we associated with the devil yesterday - the temptation, the bondage, the addictions, the unhealthy habits and patterns..so what next? The answer that came to my mind was a question - why? Why the devil? Today we move beyond recognizing the self created negative forces and dig deeper to know why we have created this bondage in the first place. The destructive actions we find ourselves repeating over and over again have to be a reaction to something that we are trying to hide, repress or come to terms with. Why have we given our power to our animal instincts instead of choosing to act with self awareness? What is it that needs to be known about this situation? And the situation may not be as awful really..you could be having pleasure, you could be enjoying the heady feeling of it but your inner self will have no doubts about the unhealthiness of this feeling. Today is an opportunity to look deep within yourself and find out the motive behind those actions that may be giving you momentary pleasure but are slowly eroding your self esteem and true joy. Today is the day to find out the missing link in your life which you could be substituting with ego gratifying actions.

The second card represents the challenges we need to overcome today. This is the Fool card and just like the Star card we got yesterday this is elementally Air energy. The Fool is all about freedom, spontaineity, boundless joy and trust. The guy shown in the image is a picture of innocence and happiness and unmindful of the danger ahead of him. He doesn't care about the risk, he doesn't carry a massive baggage, all he wants is a bit of fun in the sun and take a leap of faith. And this will be a challenge today.
You cannot go about believing only in the positive aspects of life. You will need to plan ahead for contingencies, consider the worst case scenarios and resist the urge to follow your instincts about someone or something. It will be better to think things through, logically and comprehensively, before taking action. Consider all options and choose the best, avoid unnecesary risks, think before you speak and look before you leap. The spontaineity of the Fool can lead to challenges today so be cautious and guarded and plan ahead.

Overall the cards seem to point at the need for going deeper and acting from a place of awareness. Do not keep reacting to events and thus lose your power of choice. Act with conscious intent and direct your actions towards positivity and light.
Have a great day!