Friday 23 July 2021

Divination: The Blasted Oak from the Wildwood Tarot

I drew a card for the world from The Wildwood Tarot. It was The Blasted Oak. That's one of those cards no one really wants to see in a reading - it combines the messages of The Hanged Man and The Tower from more traditional sets - but everything has its place and time. The time for this card is now, or at least in events we might see over the next weeks, as its position in the Wheel of the Year is Lammas. 

The festival of the start of the harvest, at the beginning of August, is associated with the concepts of sacrifice and sudden change. The grain must be cut down to be turned into food as part of the cycle of life. However, The Blasted Oak isn't about planned gathering of crops, it is about unexpected calamity. In the picture on the card a man falls from the branch of a tree that's been struck by lightning. 

The card isn't so much predicting a disaster as showing the forces of nature destroying unsafe structures we might have clung to. In this case, the branch was probably already rotten. That might symbolise a flawed ideology or belief we need to move away from, it might represent an emotional attachment that wasn't helping us, or it might symbolise something material that was only offering false security. It is time for those things to end. If we do not choose to let them go, we might take a tumble when they give way naturally. 

Do not be angry if something happens that strips away your illusions. It is possible to learn from the experience, even if one is burnt by the lightning strike of sudden realisation or bruised from the fall. Allow yourself time to recover, be patient, and be wiser in future.

You can view The Wildwood Tarot on Amazon and read a review here

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Links to previous readings for the world:
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2021/06/divination-begin-now-sacred-traveler.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2021/03/witches-wisdom-tarot-council-of-all.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2021/02/divination-princess-of-cups-from-lovers.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2021/01/trust-in-magic-divination-with.html

2 comments:

Jane said...

This card feels so appropriate for now, Lucya. The Pandemic has changed a lot of things for a lot of people, and a lot of us are going to have to learn to let go. I think it also contains elements of the Death card - the cutting away of dead wood, and new beginnings. I see it as a message of hope.

Badwitch said...

Yes, I thought it seemed appropriate too. Thank you!