UPDATE: The winner is…Liz!
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It’s Sunday. The day I review my plans for the week, and I always start by first drawing a card from my favorite Tarot deck.

This morning’s card is the Four of Swords. Not pentacles for once. Something changed, hmm? Well, I’ll start by examining the card and trying to figure out some personal message the card has for me. I don’t recognize this mythological character, so that’s not helpful.  He is sitting on a flat desert plain. Sitting cross-legged, like he’s meditating. His swords are lying on the ground. The meaning I pull from the image is that he may be tired of the battle and in need of some introspection. The sky is blue and the overall ambiance restful but lonely. So, I’m thinking this card is telling me I need to take time this week, away from my usual frenetic pace of work and family, to contemplate where I am and what I want. Let’s see what my little book says…

This is Orestes. I don’t know who he is, so I’m going to Google him. Orestes is the son of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon (of Trojan War fame). There’s a long story about his father returning home after the war with Cassandra, the seer, as his concubine. His mother conspires with her lover to murder Agamemnon, and Orestes, along with his sister, Electra, flee. He ends up living in exile (this desert plain) until he returns to avenge his father’s murder by killing his mom and her lover. He goes mad after that and is tried by the gods for the crime of killing his mother, but is acquitted. That’s who Orestes was. A son avenging his father and who goes mad. But this card depicts him when he was in exile, awaiting his chance to exact revenge. Interesting.

Back to the book (The Mythic Tarot), it says simply, that this is a time for “quiet recuperation and introversion” while I “build up strength in preparation for further efforts.” So, am I supposed to stay off the Internet? Keep my door closed to family while I contemplate my life? The recuperation of my hand continues. That fits. Keeping my head down, focusing on what I need to do while ignoring the “noise” around me? I can make that fit. The meditation and contemplation? Well, I do kind of go inside myself when I’m writing, so I can make that work, too.

For a chance to win your choice of one of my downloadable stories, tell me whether you ever take time away from “the noise” and what that looks like for you.