Missing out on the Pentacle

Ace of Pentacles, Knight of Swords, 10 of Wands

I was up early this morning. An old friend of mine got in touch this week and asked whether I'd be interested in going along for a job with her. It was as an extra in the new film of Les Miserable, since part of it will be filmed not a million miles from us. I haven't seen my mate in a good year and a half, so it was a good opportunity to spend some time catching up with her. We took a train and bus to the place where the castings were being held. I had thought that there would be other people going along, but I hadn't expected the thousands that did. When we got there, we joined the queue, which snaked down some steps, under a bridge and into a car park. Where so many people continued to arrive in the hope of being a French peasant or nun in the movie, the queue began to spiral into two or more further inner rings. It took us an hour to go round half of the ring before getting onto the home straight. As more people arrived, the lines of the spiral began to get blurred, and with no crowd control, those who had been queuing a good hour and a half less than we had started to push through in mass; the orderly queue soon turned into a crowd, where many who had just turned up pushed ahead of us.

I could have quit the whole thing pretty early on, but I knew my friend wanted to go for it, so I stuck with it in the freezing cold, queuing for four and a half hours. Despite it tiring me and feeling as though my toes were made of ice, there couldn't have been a better person to have been there with than Katie. She has a brilliant sense of humour and we laughed a lot. By the time we had shuffled along for four and a half hours, we were probably about a metre from the final steps. The last slog was the hardest, since I was tired, cold, and hungry by that point. We were both wobbling on our feet, due to standing for so long. It was at that point that the bigwig in charge came and and said that anyone not already on the stairs would not be seen and must go home. The crowd released one big loud boo. I was irritated that they hadn't done it earlier, but I was more annoyed with all of the people that shoved themselves in front of us. I could see many of them, who I know queued for about two hours less than we did, standing at the top of the stairs, knowing that they would make it into the casting. We had no other choice than to walk away, so we went in search of some hot food.

The Ace of Pentacles is an opportunity. Yup, there was money to be made from the film, but we didn't bag any of it. The Knight of Swords rushes by to the finishing line, just like those who shoved themselves into our places. This knight can be insensitive in the same way that they were. The 10 of Pentacles is a card of burn out. God, sitting down was such a luxury; as was warming ourselves up and having something to eat. If I had looked at these cards before leaving the house this morning, I probably would have read that final card as a bad outcome.

My maths class went well yesterday. I passed a test I was set, beating my initial score. While doing it, a message came through on my phone. It was from one of my friends; the woman I mentioned in my reading the other day, who was represented by the 4 of Cups. Do you remember how I said she was not moving on from the break up of her friendship with another mate and that the card looked to the past, rather than the future? Even though I thought she was a bit distant the other day, I wondered if she'd be in touch when I pulled the 4 of Cups in the morning. Sitting next to The Tower, I wondered if she presented some kind of unexpected problem. She did. She had been upset about how I was not playing ball between the two of them and letting her know what the other lady was thinking. I explained how uncomfortable I feel in the middle and she apologised. After I had told her about Dad's news and what had happened to Annie, I think she kind of put things into perspective. Those cards made some sense for yesterday. I was a little upset by the message initially, but I am glad that I had the opportunity to tell her how I feel.

Illustrations from The Tarot of Reflections by Francesco Ciampi