I found today’s draw especially interesting because the message it contains, loudly, insistently, is that we keep doing the same damn thing over and over and over and over. As I read it, every last one of the five pairs says the same message in a slightly different way, something I find endlessly fascinating about both tarot and teaching and learning in general. If one way of putting something doesn’t get the message across, perhaps a slightly different way of putting it will. Sometimes the universe can be just as stubborn in trying to hammer home its messages as we can be in ignoring it. Today’s draw also really wants us to know we are screwing up — every last card was drawn in a reversed position. Today’s draw can be called a lot of things, but subtle is not one of them.

I’m visiting family in central Texas this week and was stirred to the question once again by the smell of oak and cedar that permeates the area. While oak can be found throughout the state, the redolent smell of the local cedar trees — or juniper, really, if you wish to be correct about it — is particularly distinctive to the Hill Country around Austin, where the trees have become something of a nuisance. Scrappy, twisted little things that have a tenacious ability to thrive even in arid, rocky soils, the trees have taken over the hills surrounding the city, sending local residents into fits of “cedar fever” every winter as clouds of pollen roll down into the valley of the city. As I smelled the trees on the wind, I got to wondering about the juniper’s metaphysical properties. Is it lucky? Protective? Does it represent longevity or wealth or any of the many things various herbs and trees can represent? I came inside to ask the Llewellyn Book of Correspondences, but just before doing so it occurred to me that I might actually be able to ask my tarot cards, instead.

Both the two of coins and the page of coins are interesting anomalies within a suit that is otherwise largely devoted to material resources. The two represents the skill and magic required to manifest our goals, but the magician attains these goals through a careful balancing act that acknowledges all of the elements, not just the material resources of the earth.

The page, like the two, also points us away from overfocusing just on material wealth. She is the innocent and curious archetype of the suit, the one whose purity of purpose looks to the whole of creation for its inspiration, still guided as she is by spiritual hopes and not only material acquisition.

When I was younger, I was obsessed with the story of the Greek prophetess Cassandra, who had the ability to tell the future but was cursed with the fate that no one would ever believe her. As the story goes, she asked Apollo for the gift of sight and he agreed on one condition: that she repay him with her attentions. But after whispering in her ear and giving her the ability to know the future, she recoiled, failing to uphold her end of the bargain.

The Empress also appreciates her men with some spiritual depth and seriousness, but balanced by the joyful playfulness of the child in the sun. Let’s be honest: nobody wants a dour Puritan who sucks the joy and beauty from the brief time we have in the world, but nor do they want a grown man-child who must be tended to as if a toddler. The Empress looks for partners who can keep one foot in the spiritual plane and one foot in the physical at the same time, who know when to be romantic and when to be steady, and who know when to be playful and when to act like grown-ups. In exchange, the Empress offers her partners an abundant generosity, spiritual wisdom and intuitive insight, a sharp and creative mind, compassion, and a steady well of power and support.

In the traditional Rider-Waite, judgment is the last thing that comes to us in this life as we die and move on to the next world, where everything is fixed and perfect all the time. I’m fonder of other decks’ interpretations, where judgment is an act that can occur at any time while lacking the finality of the Christian version. It does mean we don’t get to be absolved forever and never have to worry about slipping up again, but it also means that judgment serves as much of a beginning as it does an ending.

Today’s spread is one I created while focusing on healing work. In particular, the question driving it was “what needs healing before you can manifest healthy things in the world?” Perhaps another way to put it would be to ask what needs fixing in the tree before it can put forward fruits that are sweet and healthy rather than bitter or poisonous.

For today’s woo, I asked the cards about what’s ailing us collectively. What’s out of balance? There was no mincing words with this one. Too many of us have given ourselves over to our own worst tendencies, particularly expecting or even coercing others to do the work that is our own to do. But we fool no one more than ourselves when we think we can get away without paying the price for this particular trick. Our normal strategy for refusing to face up to the truth that the mistake was ours from the beginning — to try and strong arm control when our softer manipulations fail — has long been exacerbating the problem. Collectively, we’ve reached a breaking point.