PCO: Exploring a health issue

If you ask me about health readings, I will usually dissuade most readers from doing them. It's not that I believe the cards cannot read about health matters, but rather because it is a sensitive topic in which badly-interpreted information can have dire, even fatal, consequences. Also, any misstep can cause the unheeding reader to teeter on the edge of unlicensed medical practice, which is bad.

That said, nothing forbids us from trying to gain more clarity about a health situation using the cards. Again, as long as we don't make life-altering decisions or go around advising others based on the cards alone.

With that in mind (and a doctor appointment already scheduled), I decided to ask about strange abdominal pains I have been having every month, right after my ovulation. I asked: "what are these symptoms I've been having telling me?"

The first cards I noticed are the 3♠ in the Head position and the A♥ dignified in the Torso position. Looking at the A♥, I cannot help but find the heart with its lateral red ribbons very... womb-like. This tells me the centre of the issue is, as I suspect, the uterus, or at least the reproductive system.

The 3♠, called The Beggar in the Doors of Somlipith, is a card that speaks of an impoverished mental or physical state. I often associate it with depressive states, and, due to its place in the Head position, that is a possible interpretation: a negative mindset generating somatic symptoms. But since Spades is connected to earth and physicality, I am also inclined to see a physical issue here, in the head. I think this card may be pointing to the lack of a certain hormone, which could be affecting the uterus.

In the Throat position we have the 8♥, The Faun, which is an interesting card. The Throat position shows invisible influences and communication issues. One of keywords Ana uses for the 8♥ in the DOS book is 'lunacy', which hints at a connection to the Moon cycles. Also, it's a card of 'mischief', which for me underlines the idea of imbalance – whatever is being communicated between the Head and the Torso, is happening in a rather disorderly way.

The elemental compatibility between the 3♠ and 8♥ softens the influence of both cards, so, despite the bothersome symptoms, I would not see it as a severe issue. It's more a disruption than a disease. But what could be causing it? The Foot position is the one that relates the most to the physical body, and we have the K♣, Sol, there. Not a very comfortable position for such an airy, intellectual king.

Sol puzzles me a bit, but I feel like his presence in the Foot position shows an excess of mental work that is keeping me disconnected from my body. I'm trying to fix through the mind issues that must be handled through the body itself – including its emotional manifestations (since the Hearts suit is so prominent). I think the K♣ is the kind of guy who will completely ignore his body to focus on an intellectual pursuit, and maybe this is what is causing the impoverishment the 3♠ hints at. How will your inner chemistry be balanced when you are eating and sleeping badly?

The geomancy of this spread is quite revealing: as the witnesses, we have Puella (number) Conjunctio (colour), and as the judge, we have Puer. DigitalAmbler has a very interesting post on Conjunctio, connecting it to cyclical and impermanent situations, and also to sex and other momentaneous connections. So this combination reads to me as: female cyclical issues (Puella + Conjunctio) that need a masculine (Puer) input or energy in order to stabilise again.

Like I said, I won't be taking any serious health decisions based on this. And in a few days, I will go to the doctor to investigate the problem. I am very interested in comparing my interpretation of the cards with what the doctor will find!

PCO: In the wilderness

Last year, I shared a reading regarding an Ayahuasca experience that has pretty much shattered everything I thought I believed in, leading to a spiritual upheaval. Many months have passed since then and, while I have explored different possibilities, I find myself a bit stuck. I cannot return to where I was before, but I am struggling to see ahead... it's like the trail disappears into the mist.

Rather than forcing the mists to part before they are meant to, I decided to get some clarity of my possibilities in the present. What obstacles I am facing right now, and what resources can help me overcome them, or at least learn from them. For this reading, I chose to use The Bridge Spread.

The first card is about the past, and here we have the 7♥ (The Sword of Healing) – which was present in the spread done back in September 2025. The cards keep hammering home that the whole thing has been (and still is) about healing, even if it doesn't feel like it. We tend to envision 'healing' as a mostly positive process, but ask anyone who underwent a surgery: recovery is the hardest part. So the 7♥ is reminding me that, spiritually-wise, I am still convalescing.

I like to look at the two present cards together. The gift of the present is the 2♦ (The Rivals), and we have another interesting 'coincidence': this card showed up in my New Moon reading, referring specifically to the final week this lunar cycle. The obstacle of the present is the J♠, Pampero. The combination of suits is pragmatic, and suggests a certain hardness, a focus on fixing things so you can move forward. Here the Rivals make sense – my gift is precisely what frustrates me. I want to fix this situation, that leaves me lost and vulnerable, but the universe seems to be opposing my method: a constructive opposition. And the obstacle is my own obtuse tenacity – I keep trying to solve by doing, when the issue is not meant to be approached this way.

A few days ago, I did another reading and got this same elemental pairing, of Diamonds and Spades. It's basically the anti-receptive pair. It does not sit and waits for signs. It's good at striving, not at surrendering. But in matters of spirit, striving doesn't get you very far. Focusing on the airy qualities of the suit that is missing in this reading – Clubs – would be helpful.

And the future position we have the K♠, Mardoc. Yet another card that has visited me recently, this King has mastery over all earthly and practical affairs. This seems to contradict the general feeling of this spread, which so far has challenged this focus on pragmatic action. But Mardoc has other facets. Firstly, as Ana Cortez describes him, he is "a King whose castle has no walls [...]. His home is where he makes it." (p. 100) In short, Mardoc is someone who has not found (or chosen) a permanent home.

Secondly, he is the closing card of the pack, the final king. He oversees all closures and endings, and wherever he appears, we know that we will be facing a death of some sort. In a sense, he fits perfectly the inner image I have of a trail disappearing into the mist... we cannot see beyond Mardoc.

So, the future promises more wandering. There is no point in hankering after a permanent and safe spiritual home, not now. "You need to accept that you're in the wilderness right now", Mardoc seems to be saying, and striving for a solution isn't the way. I need to stop, wait until the mists lift, see what comes. Let what needs to die, die. Stay receptive, even if all I get is silence.

...and yes, this sucks. Especially for a fiery person such as myself. But after this reading, I don't feel so alone... Somewhere out in the wilderness, Mardoc is keeping watch. I don't think he's up for chit-chat, but I don't think he's leaving, either.