May 18 – 24, 2026
I’ve swapped Tarot decks again, because that’s what Tarot readers do when they are stuck in a rut and hope to shake it loose. Does this actually work? Probably not. But decks all have their own flavors, and seeing different imagery can shift perspective. It’s also how Tarot readers justify acquiring a ridiculous number of decks.
This is not a new deck, but an old favorite: The Paulina Tarot. It’s described as charming, magical, and inspirational. Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we! Our cards:
- Tower
- 4 of Swords reversed
- 7 of Pentacles
- Temperance
- 5 of Swords
- 4 of Wands
The Tower is going to be the shifter, the game changer, of any reading in which it appears; that’s quite a way to start the layout. I can’t point at any other card in this reading and say it has a leg up on the Tower in influence; our other Major Arcana is Temperance and she always comes to counsel measured action and a long, thoughtful pause before making the next move.
The Tower is the crash of something built on an unstable foundation; Temperance is the barrier put up to keep people from running in immediately and possibly being hurt in a secondary collapse. Right? So here we are, looking at the smoking rubble and being held back from approaching, and in our waiting we deal with …
…reversed 4 of Swords, reversed 7 of Pentacles. Reversed means no action, so that is a double emphasis, in the period after the crash, to wait. And wait you will, because if that 4 of Swords were upright, it would indicate the ability to jump into the fray, rested and ready. But it’s reversed, so there is no gas in that tank.
Reversed 7 of Pentacles indicates … well, on any given day, upright 7 of Pentacles is a gleaming pile of avocados fresh from the store, too hard to eat except until they aren’t, which is usually the day after you wanted to eat them, and now they are just all brown and gross. Timing is everything with avocados, and the 7th of Pentacles. Don’t try to understand it. Just accept it.
So you have your depleted 4 of Swords who couldn’t get up if he wanted to, and a bag of questionable avocados that don’t even have a fifty-fifty chance of satisfying you, and that’s the kind of energy swirling around your legs as you stand there watching the Tower burn while an older, wiser friend behind you whispers, “Don’t worry, it’ll be okay. Eventually.”
What’s left but to pick up your Swords and go home? Let the Tower burn. If you had stuff in the Tower, or an emotional investment in the Tower, it’s gone. Temperance says so. Temperance wants no heroics out of you, no frantic attempts to salvage something before the smoke gets any thicker on the lower floors.
Is it the 5 of Swords that has created this energy? 5 of Swords is a stark about-face in the realization of how certain communications have brought things to a crisis point, and can’t continue in this way. 5 in the suits is being confronted with the reality of deciding how to go forward. Swords are what we communicate, to the world and about ourselves.
5 of Swords is when you think, “Oh man, did I say that out loud?” and simultaneously also when you think, “I don’t care, what does it matter, I’m saying it.” We get ourselves in so much trouble, the stuff that comes out of our mouths when 5 of Swords shows up.
“Oh wow,” we tell Temperance, as somebody from the energetic Red Cross puts a blanket around our shoulders and hands us coffee. “It’s really over.” She nods.
“Yes,” says Temperance. “It’s all just the formalities, now.”
And the next day, the big trucks come at dawn and clean up the blacked hunks and ash, and scrape the plot clean, and remove the barricades. Neighbors come and see a fresh opportunity, the sudden freeing of energy that had been tied up, and messed up, for too long. It’s shocking to experience the absence of a landmark, but almost immediately we are driven to imagine what we could do with that space.
That’s 4 of Wands. That’s stability and support, and community. This is the chance to build something with better communication and clarity, that serves not just a few but many.
So we have energies this week, either in your world or in the greater world, that at first might seem very upsetting and refuse all efforts to salvage them as something shifts and crashes. If we put our minds to moving into acceptance and resolve to move forward in a way that avoids repeating this kind of thing in the future, what starts in distress will end in hope.
