The Three of Cups Saves the Day

This has been one rough week so far! When I drew Death for my weekly card I suspected that it would relate to the adjustments here at home now that Jorge is in Sweden. Quite right. In the Lenormand system, Death's counterpart appears as the Coffin, and can represent illnesses and cancellations. I've had quite a bit of those as well this week. Now that Gabriel has started at his daycare center (which he really likes, for the most part) he's exposed to all those other adorable-and-germy children, so as is wont to occur, he's come down with a nasty cold. I didn't need the cards to predict that for me! And his sickness has led me to cancel some classes and rearrange my schedule so that I can be home with him, dumping elderberry and lemon balm tea down his gullet on the hour.

I was hoping to return to my normal schedule today, and was hopeful that Gabriel would feel better enough to return to his center. Being rather anxious about it, last night I decided to throw some cards about what I might expect for today. I first asked how Gabriel would do at school, and I pulled the 5 of Cups and the Hermit reversed. Sigh. That blurted out to me: he's going to be really sad, and he'll feel abandoned. Gah.

5 of Cups, DruidCraft Tarot
Will Worthington

Next I pulled a card about how things would go at work, and I pulled the 3 of Cups. Ah hah. I would have some friendly support from my colleagues. I started to wonder if I might even be able to find someone to sub for me for today, but then I realized that it was already 8:00pm, and knew it was a bit late to be scrambling around trying to find help. I would try to go to work, and I'd plan to bring Gabriel to his center the next morning.

After a full day of herbal remedies and rest he had a much better night last night, but he's still healing. He slept so long that I had to wake him up ten minutes before we needed to leave so that I could at least get him dressed and comb his hair before heading out the door. I knew that was a potential recipe for disaster; waking up a sick child and hurrying them out the door into the bright, wide world is not a kind way to start the day! But he did okay. He even brushed his teeth and consented to taking a little heart-shaped homeopathic pill to help with his congestion. It was as we were getting our shoes on that things started to go awry. He said, "I don't want to go to school, I want to stay home!" He refused to carry his lunchbox. He enjoys school quite a bit, so I knew that if he was feeling a preference for home, he really needed the comfort and security. But what could I do? I had no plan B. So we got in the car and drove to his center and as we sat in the parking lot the tears started to roll. He was just so sad. I saw the 5 of Cups and Hermit reversed floating through my mind, and as I watched those pitiful teardrops fall, I made a split second decision to take him to work with me. What the heck??? I didn't know. I didn't know what I'd do with him while I was teaching, I just knew that I couldn't force him to stay at his school in that state. So off we went. We dropped Lourdes at her school, and headed to the university.

DruidCraft Tarot - W. Worthington

On the way I was thinking about that 3 of Cups. I decided to call my colleague, Rose, and let her know what was going on. I explained the fiasco and she listened with a sympathetic ear. She had to give an interview at 11am so it wasn't a straight forward fix, but she thought we could work something out. We hung up as I pulled into the school parking lot. Gabriel helped me retrieve the room key, and my student was surprised and pleased to have a tiny classmate (this was a tutoring session, fortunately, rather than a full-sized class!). Eventually I reconnected with Rose, and in addition spoke with my program coordinator and another colleague, and between us all we worked out a plan to cover the necessary tutoring hours for my student. This allowed me to take my son home to ever more tea and couch-laying. I was grateful.

The cards accurately predicted how Gabriel would feel about attending school, but they also gave me a remedy. Though at first I didn't see how best to take advantage of the potentially available support network, when I made that sudden choice to not send my child to school, I was thrust into a situation that spurred me to reach out to others, and they indeed came together to aid me in that moment of need. What is special about that is the encouragement that the 3 of Cups had given me. I was feeling very much that I had to work everything out on my own. Pulling that card opened up an idea in my mind about how I might leverage help from others, and my trust in that possibility made me comfortable reaching out to ask for what I needed. I didn't have to figure it out on my own, and the positive energy of the card I'd drawn allowed me to believe that a solution was possible, and achievable. And it was.

Go divination. ;-)