My Yule Opening of the Key: The Fifth Operation

This is the fifth and final post in my series on the opening of the key ritual I did for myself at Yule. You can read parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 before diving into this, if you like. TL;DR: I’ve been struggling a lot with feeling stuck, trapped, and generally dissatisfied with my life. Over the course of the reading, we pieced together that a lot of this comes from genuine problems in my external circumstances, particularly in my work life and my relationship with my academic adviser, but that most of what’s going on is just misdirected grief over the sudden and violent death of my father last summer. In short, I have a lot of grief with nowhere to go, and it’s festering and making me feel depressed and dissatisfied with my life. Looking for the solution to this problem, we saw two key things: First, the presence of a person in my life in the form of the Queen of Cups, who can help move me out of this ongoing funk. Second, because the locus of the problem is in my own emotions, there is no magical solution except to adjust my attitude and my approach to life. Looking at the fourth operation in particular, there was a strong indication that if I can just throw myself into the routine of my life as much as possible, things will start to get better.

In the fifth operation, we get the ultimate solution to the problems explored throughout the reading. We begin by dividing the deck into ten piles, which correspond to the ten Sephiroth of the Tree of Life:

The Fifth Operation.

The cards on top of the ten piles, representing the themes underneath, are:

• Kether: Knight of Pentacles
• Chokmah: The Moon
• Binah: The Magus
• Chesed: Seven of Cups (Debauch)
• Gevurah: Five of Swords (Defeat)
• Tiphereth: Two of Swords (Peace)
• Netzach: Princess of Cups
• Hod: Five of Pentacles (Worry)
• Yesod: Ace of Pentacles
• Malkuth: Six of Pentacles (Success)

Looking at the overall shape of the spread, things are actually pretty positive. Yes, there are some worrisome cards (we have two Fives on the Pillar of Severity), but the Knight of Pentacles in Kether and the Six of Pentacles in Malkuth promise that things are actually much more stable and secure than they look. I may feel rootless, but actually my roots go quite deep. I may be worried about failure, dissatisfied with my life, etc., but for the most part, those worries are surface-level emotional things that aren’t reflected in my material reality. Now, there’s still the emotional reality to contend with, of course, but that’s a hell of a lot better as a starting point than “You’re fucked, your environment is fucked, and everything is so much worse than you thought it was.”

The Binah pile.

My significator was found in the Binah pile, underneath the Magus. This is no extraordinary surprise: The Magus was one of the key figures in the fourth operation, and seeing him reappear here just reinforces the message he gave us there. The mastery and self-possession of the Magus is exactly the sort of energy we saw called for in the fourth operation. The Magus is who I need to become in order to get out of this rut: Confident and invested in what he does. I’ve been indulging in a lot of negative self-talk recently, venting how frustrated I am with work, how much I dislike my living circumstances, and how uneasy and afraid I am about trying to finish my degree. The Magus is an indication that I need to cut all of that out and own my worth. I am a good scholar with good ideas. I don’t much care for living in New Jersey, but at the moment, it’s where I live, and I have wonderful housemates, a community of close friends, and am in close proximity to my coven. Things are not as bad as I make them out to be, but by focusing my thoughts and language on the things that are wrong, I don’t give myself enough room to push forward on the things that are right. As my friend Ursula is fond of saying, I should be joking about the outcomes I want, not focusing—seriously or in jest—on the ones I don’t want.

Doing our card counting to pull out more significant cards from the pile, we get this message hammered home even further, as only two cards leap out:

After card counting.

The Fool, between the Seven of Pentacles (Failure) and the Chariot.

The Magus, between the Chariot and the Nine of Pentacles (Gain).

The message couldn’t be clearer. The Fool is afraid of the path forward (the Chariot) and is holding himself back because he’s afraid of failure. What he needs is to take on the confidence of the Magus and just forge a path ahead, and in so doing, he will find not failure, but the gain he hopes for. In other words, you’re fucking great, kiddo. Just go out there and do your thing, and stop worrying and whining.

The operation (and the Opening of the Key reading as a whole) ends, as always, with card pairing. Putting the cards together, we get:

• Nine of Pentacles (Gain) and the Magus
• Five of Cups (Disappointment) and the Chariot
• Ace of Cups and the Fool
• Art and the Seven of Pentacles (Failure)

The final takeaway of the reading, then, for anyone who has followed along thus far: The path to success (Gain) lies through taking on the mantle of the Magus. If I’m feeling disappointed about certain things in my life, the solution is to change those things and move forward (the Chariot)—but nonetheless, there are things about my life that bring me genuine joy (Ace of Cups), and which I’ve been neglecting because of my focus on the disappointment. The true path forward is for me to embrace creativity and passion (Art—a recurring card from previous operations, no less). Through Art, I can overcome failure.

Thanks to everyone who has followed along with this reading. It was certainly mopey at first, but sometimes you’ve just got to lance a boil and get the pus out. The blog serves as my Tarot journal, and sometimes, that means it’s a space for me to hash out my own thoughts and emotions in a way that’s messy and not particularly professional (or, hell, emotionally mature). But reflecting in this way, and actually writing out a long interpretation for a big reading like this, often gives me the distance and insight I need.

Next week, we’ll return with a deck review for a new Tarot deck that I’m absolutely thrilled about. I have a couple of other reviews and at least one YouTube video in the pipeline, so there’ll be a lot happening here in the next month or two. (And it won’t all be about my own whinging, I promise.) Until next time!