I've been living in Mexico for 3 weeks now, and in all that time I haven't once taken out my cards

I’ve been living in Mexico for three weeks now, and in all that time I haven’t once taken out my cards. They’d still be lying in my backpack if situations hadn’t arisen that demanded a sober look and critical assessment.

Usually I take out the cards when I just want to check whether my feelings are correct. And, to tell the truth, over all the years of my practical experience, my querents have asked about what troubles them, and more often than not I’ve told them the bitter truth rather than confirmed their hopes for anything. At some point I even quit this activity, simply because I got tired of disappointing people and being a bearer of bad news. Since then, I only do it for a close circle of friends when they really need it—people who know me and understand well who they’re coming to—and my work hasn’t been connected to consulting, healing, or teaching for many years.

The situation I decided to do a spread on today involves Luca—I already wrote earlier about our “accidental” meeting. He’s a man of 33, about 178 cm tall, ethnically half Georgian and half Slavic, who’s been living in Mexico for six years now. To remind you, we met in a clothing store and then continued our acquaintance on the way to another store, where I also couldn’t find my size of pants. During our conversation, he offered me work related to being an extra in film shoots and promised to connect me with a woman who organizes this process.

From the very beginning, I had an elevated level of caution—I didn’t trust Luca. My sense of danger is innate; I feel it literally in my skin. He skillfully asked questions about who I am and how I make a living, where I live, and from a careful angle he brought up the topic where I had to tell him that I usually don’t carry much money with me and that most of it stays at home. I lied—that day I had just withdrawn a considerable sum from an ATM, which I later, while in the fitting room at Decathlon, wrapped together with a recently bought action camera in a raincoat, so that if his hypothetical friends attacked me from some corner—the ones he was talking to on the phone while I visited the fitting room several times—I’d have a chance to keep my money.

Luca even asked, as if casually, about my orientation, right at the beginning of our conversation while we were still in the store (he probably thought I wasn’t like most people). At first I figured he himself was non-traditional, but later, from his streetwise mannerisms typical of people from the former USSR, I realized that the reason for such questions probably lay in something else.

He talked a lot about how dangerous it is here in Mexico City, especially in the neighborhood where I’ve settled—that people often carry weapons here, and that some homeless thugs or hungry junkies could easily mess with me.

Luca tactfully wormed his way into my trust using an old technique familiar to many, where between the lines they hint that, you know, with them on your side things will be much easier, that they’ll help you solve many problems, that they’re your ally and friend. Based on my life experience, I can say this style of communication is typical of ex-cons.

In general, after analyzing everything properly, it’s not hard to guess a person’s potential intentions just based on what information they’ve already extracted from you. I understood this even as it was happening, but the subsequent analysis and especially the Tarot spreads made things much more obvious. For example, he found out that I’m living on a family’s property, that I’m securely established there, that there are constantly many people there and those people are good. Signs of paranoia can be traced in all this too, but then the counter-question is—how often in life do you meet people who learn a ton about you in the first three hours of acquaintance?

On the way to Decathlon, he asked me to help transfer money to his mom. Not that day, but maybe later. And he often compensated for my distrust by backing off: “not today, later,” or when he first borrowed small change for the fare, and then, already on the bus, returned 5 pesos that appeared from somewhere, silently hinting again between the lines that I had nothing to fear and that he really could be trusted.

By nature, I’m a very curious person, and if it weren’t for the cards, which put their weighty word into the situation, I might have disregarded the voice of my intuition and tried to establish contact with Luca after all, for the sake of an interesting experience—which might have happened if what he says about film shoots is true.

And just a couple of hours ago, I did three spreads on this situation. The first one—"Partnership Relations"—where I can clearly see his actual attitude toward me at the current moment. The "Choice" spread usually goes together with the "PR" one, because the "PR" spread by itself doesn’t say much. It won’t tell you the main thing—what will happen if? The "Choice" spread, on the other hand, speaks exclusively about the future, and according to my teacher, the "Choice" spread is the main and most important spread in all of Tarot—you don’t even need to do other spreads. And I agree with him. The tarologist’s motto is “Foresee to avoid.” And the "Choice" spread is designed precisely for that, without a word about anything else.

Nevertheless, I did three spreads, motivated by the logic of “why not?” And from the "Partnership Relations" spread, I saw that he doesn’t intend to deceive me directly here and now. Possibly because he simply doesn’t see an opportunity. In his soul, it seems he’s actually taken a liking to me as a person. But in his head, he doesn’t trust me. Maybe he’s not sure he’ll be able to pull off his schemes with me and outplay me, if such schemes are indeed in the works. And his behavior reflected exactly what I had guessed even without the cards—he’s trying to appear as a useful, indispensable partner without whom I’d be lost in this dangerous country of cutthroats.

The next spread, "Choice," showed me what will happen if I do continue communicating with Luca and what awaits me in that case (the top line; the bottom one in this case is neutral). The first card—"19BA"—means quarrels, conflicts, disagreements, and a possible breakup. And that, probably, would be where I could put a period. In the case that we do reconcile, the communication would be built on overcoming fears and dependencies. Apparently, the previous quarrel is somehow connected to Luca’s attempts to pressure me in one form or another, and here, on the "Princess of Wands," our communication no longer contains any pressure. Next comes the "Death" card—the end of the relationship. Conclusion—it wouldn’t have ended well anyway, and it would have ended the same way regardless, and I definitely wouldn’t have gotten any development in terms of modeling experience. ))

The third spread I laid out simply because I got curious about what kind of person he is, what drives him, and why the previous spreads showed what they did. It wasn’t necessary to lay it out anymore, but I did anyway. The "Celtic Cross" spread was laid out on his personality.

The card that directly describes him is "Self-Blame." Somewhere he doesn’t accept himself, something saddens him, gnaws at his insides, something he can’t forgive himself for, and this leaves a significant imprint on his behavior and self-perception. You could say this is his defining behavioral constant for this period of time.

Overlapping the self-blame are two cards drawn simultaneously from the deck—the "Ace of Wands" and the complementary card "Prince of Cups." The "Ace of Wands" is the desire to create, to build something new, and the "Prince of Cups" is mild depressive states, apathy, going with the flow. That is, the second one stifles the first at its very inception, leaving it unmanifested.

His "brains" work very well, judging by the "6 of Cups" in the intellect position. This allows him to skillfully wield words—this ability is often characteristic of good salespeople.

In his subconscious, he has the "Queen of Wands"—a large energy potential, vigor. That’s in its best manifestations. And so in his specific case, it’s not quite like that, because we remember that his background of self-flagellation conditions him, which stifles the positive effect of this card, turning its meaning toward ordinary impulsiveness, emotional incontinence, and other special effects—where the strength could potentially be there, he feels it and even tries to live up to that image, but something seems to be missing—something essential.

And he really does think of himself that way. In the "Opinion of Self" position, he has the "Emperor"—authoritarianism in behavior, pushing through, the habit of imposing his own rules, his own will.

In the "Fears and Hopes" position, he has "19BA"—a negative card in the deck, which says he’s afraid that something might go wrong, which would make him very dissatisfied. He’s afraid of a breakdown, when it’s all over—the ship has sailed and nothing more can be done. I can assume he’s involved in some not-so-wholesome society, that he has some problems, and in fact he’s just trying to wriggle out of them—the cards themselves in this position don’t say that specifically; I arrived at this assumption based on the entire spread as a whole, including the future cards.

In the future positions, he has nothing but negativity. Not fatal, of course, but not pleasant. The card of the near future is "Orgy" or "7 of Cups." In its basic meaning, it signifies an inability to overcome some addiction—possibly alcohol or even drugs—or it refers to an old behavioral pattern that constantly kicks in and can’t be helped. In communicating with him, it was impossible not to notice that he constantly fiddles with a wrist expander. I even asked him: “Are you an athlete?” In my university years, I myself always carried an expander—not like his, but made of hard rubber—and I usually tried to squeeze it with my last phalanges for maximum effect. He answered no, but that he used to work out. Why does he squeeze it then? Does he want to become very strong? But he doesn’t look like an athlete, though he’s not overweight or too skinny—what does it give him? I can assume the expander distracts him psychologically, helping to shift his thoughts, redirect mental preoccupation from the pressure of some habit. I lean toward alcoholism or drugs. Besides, the "Orgy" card is overlapped by another, the "Prince of Swords," which denotes uncertainty, lack of restraint, imbalance. That is, he fights it, but he relapses.

In the further future, he has the "Interference" card. In my philosophy, suppression and any form of violence always works both ways. You suppress, and someone or something suppresses you. And when something presses on you, you also try to press on someone to compensate for your discomfort. In fact, we press on ourselves when we press, and in reality no one does anything to us. But that’s a pretty deep topic—better to discuss it separately. In Luca’s case, I observe that he himself relapses and starts putting pressure on those he can. And at the same time, pressure is also put on him—some circumstances, an unhealthy society possibly connected to drugs, etc.

I see that he has some kind of addiction—and it’s not smoking. He’s also extroverted, with a desire to talk a lot, and he does it quite skillfully. And based on these traits, he simply can’t help but be part of some society. And, as I’ve been convinced many times in my life experience, the rule always works: “As you are, so is your circle.” That is, you won’t interact with those you don’t resonate with, and you’ll always be connected to people you do resonate with. And what kind of society is attracted to the frequency of bad habits, we all know. Besides, Mexico is a country where, in reality, it’s not officials who run things, but drug cartels, whose combined money exceeds that of the state itself. As the folk wisdom goes—whoever has the dough, runs the show.

My decision is to pause contact. I’m not burning bridges, and maybe our meeting really wasn’t accidental, and it was needed not only for me to pick up the cards again (though maybe that’s all it was needed for), but at the moment this connection is completely useless to me, and I have enough to do without wasting my time on him. At least, not this time. If there’s a sign, there’ll be food for thought.

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