No, He Really Didn't Make You Do It!

hope your week's begun well -- I'm actually staying home this week! It's nice to catch up on Houston stuff -- and do things like errands, laundry, kid's school stuff, etc, etc.

Not a whole lot going on right now -- my American Idol pool is about to begin and I have no idea what to do. The way our pool works is that you have to pick positions 1,2,3,4,5 and 10 -- you get points for each one exactly correct. My first year (Carrie and Bo), I got 1, 2, and 5 correct and ended up in third place -- my big pick was picking Constantine to go before Scott. Got lucky there!

Last year, I didn't get any correct. Yep -- missed every single one. I had the correct top 5, just in the wrong order.

This year is going to be tricky -- here's how I see 'em. Melinda's looking good for the top spot; I think Lakisha is going to eventually do a Tamayra and mess up by picking the wrong song, Jordin's looking strong (maybe Melinda and Jordin top two?).

It's the guys that are confusing me -- I have no idea where the two Chris's and Blake will end up. Sanjaya? Can't figure that one out at all -- he could finish anywhere from tenth to second. These aren't necessarily my favorites, just the way I think they'll finish in the voting.

I've still got a week before my picks have to be in -- will have to puzzle it out by then. By the way -- when I was in L.A. last week I checked into American Idol tickets -- $1150 a show! Way, way, way, way out of my league!

We'll again pull two cards -- the first suggests something we should focus on for the week. The second suggests things we might consider in order to fully benefit from the attributes of the first card.

The cards are:

The Devil

Knight of Swords

Remember Flip Wilson and his Geraldine character? She had The Devil depicted perfectly when she said -- "The devil made me do it!" Of course, the devil doesn't make you do anything -- we all choose to do what we want to do. Sometimes we make stupid choices -- and rather than take responsibility for those choices, it's easy to say "The Devil made me do it!"

The Devil refers to that little bit of devil that's inside all of us -- the one that encourages us to made poor choices and do stupid things. It doesn't force us to do anything -- the choices remain ours to make; we are always in control! However, sometimes staying in control takes an effort we're not willing to make -- and a poor decision is the result.

The card depiction actually helps us understand this -- look at the two figures bound by chains in front of the Devil. Sure, they're bound -- but the chains are quite loose. It would be easy to free yourself -- just make the effort to lift off the chain.

Same way, it would be easy to make good decisions -- just don't do things that you know aren't smart. Well, at least, it should be easy ... but we all know that sometimes we don't make that effort. This card reminds us that freeing ourself is easy -- but it does take effort on our part.

Let's try and get an idea where this reading is heading by looking at our second card -- the Knight of Swords. I find it interesting that we had the Page of Swords last week -- and the Knight of Swords this week. In general, Pages like to dream and plan, but aren't so good at actually doing. Knights tend to be energetic at doing -- but aren't so hot at finishing.

I'm going to digress for just a second. There are several cards that, when I seem them, I immediately think of some catch phrase. When I see the Page of Swords, I think of "Hey, who let the kids play with the power tools!" When I see the Knight of Swords, I think of "Ready, Fire, Aim!"

This is because the Knight of Swords is always eager to jump right into something -- but doesn't really have a clear plan of how to actually accomplish what he's trying to do. He hasn't thought things through properly and probably doesn't have all that good an understanding of the major issues. Although he begins with lots of energy, this lack of planning suggests he'll flounder before too long.

Let's put these two cards together: The Devil suggests we may feel bound to something that's not so good an idea; the Knight of Swords suggests we may not have thought things all the way through.

When you find yourself in this situation, the way out seems clear -- why are we bound to a poor position? Because we haven't thought things all the way to the end -- we may not see the ultimate reason it's a poor choice. Or -- we may refuse to see it because we don't want to.

In either case, the way to free ourselves from the Devil's loose chain is to use our own abilities to think things through to see the correct course of action. Oh ... and then we have to actually do it -- and complete it!

And that's about it this week; I look forward to seeing you again next week. As always, if you're interested in a private reading, please check out some of the super readers I work with at http://www.woodsongtarot.com/readers.html. I also welcome your comments at http://woodsongtarot.blogspot.com!

Woodsong --
v