coins in the fountain

So, I'm working on this site again, thanks to Agla's prodding - I've done a couple more card entries up in the last few days, and I hope to do another later tonight. But. I draw cards for these musings in threes, and these threes tell interlinked stories. I had the Empress, the Eight of Wands and the Six of Pentacles two days ago, and the Four of Cups, the Knight of Cups and the Six of Pentacles yesterday.

Yep, recurrence, and you know why? Christmas.

I can rarely do much for Christmas, but this year I can't do anything. I'm in a strange place, my immigration paperwork has been delayed due to an RFI, I have no money, little basic liberty, and feel like I have contributed almost nothing to the story of the world in the last year. This sucks because I like giving people things, and as soon as I have any cash I'll likely throw all of it into sending parcels to my siblings and my friends - but that ain't now, and the calendar is running faster than I could keep up with. The Six of Pentacles is the good you get from giving. Not just the warm, fuzzy feeling, but the contribution you've made to someone else's story.

I look around me and see the other people in my life; a wooden snake Agla gave me, the running shoes my sister got me last Christmas, letters from the blue one and the sparkly one, a book that the green one gave to me. Pieces of others, but nurtured by the use I put them to; a book is just a bit of dead treeflesh until you open it and learn its secrets, find how to use them. The shoes are worn to my feet, and I run in them daily; they're my life, and I love them.

Somehow the frustration and the need to be with these people again has stopped me replying to the letters - something that would be very possible becomes hard, because of the distortion of the Six of Pentacles. And what is there here for me? The Four of Cups, sighing into his hand, and that knight, who seems to urge patience and reassessment. Of the previous lot, the Empress is the earth and her hateful expanse of distance, and the Eight of Wands is what I am, what I do, where I've been.

I am not happy, but I might be if I can find ways to give back.