Hi ginandchampers, I’m afraid I’m not skilled enough to answer ‘timing’ questions like yours. However, I can look and see what the cards have to say about your love life and see if that reveals anything that might help you create better opportunities to meet the right man. The ‘How to Find Love’ spread focuses on what needs to be developed so that you’re more likely to create the possibility for a loving relationship. There are 5 cards in this spread. I was drawn to using the Inner Child Tarot, which is a beautifully colourful deck, but which has a habit (like children) of being blunt and direct! Please take most of it with a pinch of salt, since distance readings like this can only really function on assumptions. If any part of it is helpful, great. Ignore the rest! Here goes:
The first card deals with key issues relevant to your love life. I see you standing behind a fence in a patch of sunflowers. There are two crossed swords attached to the fence post and a crow perches atop the post. The figure representing you is based upon the Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz, and has its arms crossed and index fingers of each hand pointing in different directions. Beyond the fence is a cobbled path, and it’s the colour of the Yellow Brick Road. There is straw bursting out of the figure’s clothes. My immediate thought is of your ‘needle in a haystack’ phrase. It’s almost as though you are the haystack you need to search through, and the swords could be seen as needles pointing unhelpfully in opposite directions. The sense I get is of emotional confusion making it difficult for you to move in a definite direction. There’s a lot of brightness in your world, life-giving and life-preserving energy, but you nevertheless feel that there are few good omens for your relationship quest. So, like the Scarecrow, you’re looking for clarity but without a reliable compass to offer more definite direction. There are ears of corn visible behind you, which suggest growth is possible. First, however, you need to uproot yourself somehow and move out of that patch and beyond the fence in order to step onto the path. The crow’s head is tilted towards the left, which indicates a helpful clue as to which way to go. The Scarecrow’s fingers and the two crossed swords muddy the waters, but the bird helps you to choose a direction. You must take the left-hand path, which suggests a journey into your unconscious that will unearth beliefs that may be hampering your progress towards meeting the right man.
Your second card is about behavioural patterns or influences – what you’re doing, or not doing, in your search for love. It depicts two childlike figures each standing on a separate rock in a turquoise sea. Beyond them a large ‘egg-yolk’ sun dominates the horizon, breaking through banks of pink clouds tinged with yellow edges that gather beneath a deep blue sky. The sea around the rocks is choppy, emphasising the conflict between the two figures who are engaged in a duel, their swords crossed. The phrase that springs to mind is “En garde!” which is the typical call a fencer makes to an opponent to adopt a defensive stance in preparation for an attack. Despite the glorious sunlight and idyllic ocean blue, the card suggests conflict and a readiness to do battle. The confusing motif of two crossed swords is repeated from your first card, here suggesting a theme of stalemate or impasse. There is emotional conflict in your past that may have shaped your perspective on love, injecting tension into your efforts to secure it. At a deep level this may characterise your attitude to finding love, perhaps producing behaviours and strategies which are self-defeating. Looking again at your first card, it’s likely that you internalised a conflicting set of beliefs about what the right guy would ‘look like’ on paper. Until those contradictory beliefs are identified and challenged, tension and frustration are likely to remain obstacles to your search. One useful area of inquiry, should you wish to explore it, is the core beliefs you got from your family about loving relationships. Might they be limiting you in the present? Something appears to be making you reluctant to follow the path depicted in your first card, and there may be self-defeating beliefs driving that reluctance. ‘Conditions of satisfaction’ can help us to identify what we want and don’t want in relationships, but they can also be rigid and close down our chances of opening to relationship opportunities. What might you be afraid of emotionally? The choppy sea and the rocks might indicate an aversion to swimming in the flow of feelings.
Your third card signifies areas requiring a willingness to grow, and it shows two childlike figures sitting at opposite ends of a see-saw in a bright green meadow bordered by an orchard. In the distance an empty swing hangs from a branch bridging a gap in the trees, through which hazy sunlight is seen. My first impression is of a need to balance the see-saw to establish an equality of status. At present you might be the figure on the up-end of the see-saw, aloof and looking down at the figure on the end nearest the ground who’s holding out a branch to you. Or you could be the one on the bottom-end who perhaps feels unworthy of the other’s love. The owl sitting in the middle of the see-saw suggests a wisdom through equilibrium, through compromise and ‘meeting halfway’. The large quartz crystal at the centre of the see-saw, holding it up, energises the relationship with a clear point of stability, which requires an ongoing balancing act if the figures are to maintain equal status and a relationship nurtured by a shared ‘eyeline’. The meadow is lush and verdant but also enclosed by trees bearing blossom and fruits, indicating that the intimacy of a loving relationship is a shared space, private to the lovers, and must be nurtured with loving care. The ups and downs common to relationships are also hinted at here: the weight of life can sometimes make our feelings heavier or lighter than our partner’s, and vice versa. This is a factor that must be allowed for, and honoured by, the quality of intimacy generated by the couple. In each corner at the bottom of the card sits a plump toad looking on at the scene. This might allude to unresolved darker feelings about ourselves, such as self-disgust and shame, which have their echo in the projections we can sometimes make in dating and relationships. Healing can come from noticing such self-rejecting feelings and cultivating an awareness of their presence in our perceptions of others. The toads are balanced out, however, by the soft cuddly warmth of a bunny rabbit and a squirrel sitting in the grass at the foot of the see-saw! The message of this card would appear to be that balance and harmony are achieved in relationships through self-acceptance and an equal regard for one’s partner. Are there ways in which you might’ve felt inferior or superior in past relationships, and did such feelings limit your growth or the growth of the relationship?
Card number 4 refers to areas you might need to change or feelings that might require processing in order to find love. The design shows a naked fairy with orange wings sitting in the cocoon petals of a large pink canna lily. She rests her chin in her hands, her head tilted to the side with a disconsolate gaze. In her hair is a ring of fresh daisies. Above the flower an arch is formed of fluttering butterflies, each representing a colour of the rainbow. My sense is that this little girl feels disheartened and reluctant to take part. Perhaps she has been hurt and can’t face more possible rejection, so she prefers to retreat from the field of play. By doing so she’s unaware of the dazzlingly colourful potential symbolised by the liberated butterflies. She might find ways to process her sadness and the rejected feelings that have made her downhearted, and then use her own glorious wings to join the butterflies in their dance. The world seems to run on stiff competition, but the secret might be to gather her courage and renew her determination to find the love she seeks. She could then go back into the field with a sense of her own magic, her own capacity to enchant, which doesn’t need to rely on a ‘competitive’ orientation but instead is confident in its power simply to be attractive. Can you step out of your protective isolation and into your own power? How might you do that, and where might it take you? It might be useful to create a list of possible places or activities that would open up opportunities to meet the kind of man you have in mind. What interests and environments might you share?
Your final card refers to aspects of yourself that need more open expression to prepare you for the moment at which you’ll meet the right partner. This picture shows a Pinocchio-like figure gazing into a mirror and pointing with an outstretched arm - his fingertip against the glass - at his long, pointy nose. He’s in a darkened workshop surrounded by other toys his master has made, and on a long workbench we see a small hammer that was presumably used to help fasten together the wood that was used in the puppet boy’s construction. He has a white feathery plume in his green cap, and a sheathed sword hanging from his belt. And although he has his back to us, the mirror reflects his face and we notice that the long nose is part of a half-mask similar to those used in masquerades. So there is the suggestion of a disguise, and a continuation of the theme of hiding that we found in the previous card. Does this figure say what he really means, or reveal his true desires, or does he obfuscate, hiding his desires even from himself? The truth can be effective in ways that pleasantly surprise us, if we’re prepared to take the risk of really showing ourselves and being vulnerable enough to be loved. Look at where you might be holding yourself back from meeting the right guy, and why you might be doing that. What appears to need greater expression is the real you, the person behind the mask and beneath the cap feathers. Hiding our true self from others can produce a version of ourselves that is inauthentic, which grows the more we cover up our authentic selves, a bit like Pinocchio’s nose would grow whenever he told an untruth. “Dare to be you” might be the pithy message of this card! And like the surface of the mirror, our true self is revealed in the eyes of a loving partner, and treasured.