Back Again!

I'm so sorry for the long delay, but this thing with my daughter turned out to be a hellish, wearying, and expensive journey through the pits of our legal system.

She had her final court appearance yesterday and was released with some very minor probation. The whole thing started in June when she basically threw a temper tantrum when we took her cell phone away. She started throwing things around and breaking them, so we called the local constables to try and settle her down (she wasn't hearing anything we said).

Things settled down quickly, everything seemed fine, then the female officer who came by suggested "Look, I can write her a ticket, but you'll just have to pay a fine. Why don't you let me take her for a ride down to the station; she might get a wake-up call. You can come by and pick her up later." Made sense to us at the time -- but turned out to be a BIG MISTAKE!

Rather than taking her to the local station (which is what we understood they planned), they took her to the detention center in downtown Houston (30 miles away). They put her in cells with prostitues, drug dealers, and murderers! Rather than pick her up later, it took us over two weeks to get her out (I never knew that juveniles can't get bail).

To make it even worse, the police report -- which was written by an officer we never saw and never talked to -- was a complete piece of fiction. It had her stealing cars, frequently running away for weeks at a time and missing school (she had no unexcused absenses), poor school work (she's a B student), drug problems (?), and so on.

The DA tried to get her placed in state custody -- it cost us many thousands of dollars in legal fees plus loads of stress and worry, but we finally came out on top and she was released to us. This was a very, very scary introduction to the legal system.

The completely fabricated police report was what was really troubling -- there's no "checks and balances" to ensure the police write a correct report. You don't get to see and confirm what they write -- which would happen in any rational practice. Furthermore, what they write is assumed to be the complete and total truth.

We're relieved things have finally turned our way ... but are really disillusioned that it could happen. To top it off, the stress of the events has caused my Bell's Palsy to flare up again. I'm back on Lycene (which was the only thing that worked last time).

Anyway, with all the hoopla going on, I've been remiss in getting these readings out. I apologize -- I tried a couple of times, but just wasn't able to do anything meaningful; I couldn't really clear my mind enough to focus on things other than my personal situation.

Since things are brighter now, how about I get started again?

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:

Seven of Pentacles (Reversed)

Eight of Wands (Reversed)

(Just a side note -- the Eight of Wands is one of the two non-face suit cards in the Rider-Waite-Smith tradition that do not depict a person!)

Our Seven of Pentacles usually suggests pausing and taking stock -- or of assessing or evaluating a situation. Quite often, you'll find yourself satisfied with the assessment. Depending on the assessment, you might even find yourself able to recognize some rewards for your efforts. Now, whenever you evaluate a situation, you may determine to continue your present course – or to make changes. In that sense, this card might suggest considering changes. Since the card is reversed, we might consider what might keep us from realizing the positive attributes of this card -- and the most likely cause would be our assessment. It's difficult to objectively evaluate our own efforts -- we tend to be overly critical. We sometimes focus more on our shortcomings and mistakes and not enough on the postive things we have achieved.

Let's take a look at our second card and see if it helps us pin this down. The Eight of Wands is a card of change – perhaps something new and exciting may happen! Furthermore, when it does, it’s going to happen quickly. This could be something new coming into your life – or it could be a resolution of old hanging issues. When we put this with our previous card, we might focus more on the change aspects of the reading -- perhaps it is time we seriously consider what changes we can make to fine-tune our course.

Since change is difficult to accept -- and kinda scary to contemplate -- I'm not surprised we see the two reversals. I think what our reading is suggesting is that if we seriously considered things we might do in order to best achieve our goals, we'd probably find several things we could change that would help us do so. Change doesn't have to be major upheaval -- nothing like sell all your possessions and go live on a mountain top -- but instead usually works best when served in small doses. "As the twig is bent, so the tree shall grow" and other platitudes like that!

Look for potential minor adjustments -- and you'll likely find them. If they make sense to you and seem workable, then feel free to give them a try (you can always make further changes as you go). Our journey is a constant series of tweaks and adjustments -- don't be afraid to make corrections in your course as you feel the need!

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.