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.