The card for July is from the Llewellyn deck, a deck of beautiful water colour images based on Walsh landscape and mythology. This month of July we have 4 swords, a welcome rest after so much upheaval in the last month. We may still have much to do but this month at least we can take a little downtime to re-coop our energies before moving forward again full speed in August. Notably the card depicts wintertime and though we are in summer the essence of winter is to store energy, slow down and allow ourselves a break from creation and dynamism. It may be you are taking some holiday time and using this to drift and float along rather than trying to fit as much sight seeing in as possible. It is a time to slow our thoughts and mental activity and put on hold any conflicts, or challenges we know we will have to face at some point. In struggles with others it is a period of truce whilst everyone regains themselves and in effects sleeps.

So spend this month focusing on your need for rest, relaxation and rejuvenation. As you slow down the pace so you will find yourself more productive when you return to action. You may also find that you are able to know exactly where to place your energies for maximum effect, and thus achieve more by doing less. There is a concept of us spending 20% of our time doing 80% of the work.. If we start to think about being good enough rather than perfect then sometimes it is enough to simply do that 20% of effort for the 80% effect and then rest for a good period of time. In this resting phase consider what you do that takes a lot of time with little results and see whether you can reduce this type of activity in all areas of your life and so feel less stressed and pressured as things unfold. This gives you more mental space and thus increased your ability to respond to unexpected developments more quickly and generally be more flexible.

There is protection and companionship afforded to you in this time – shown by the dog on the image, so trust your friends and close ones, allow your connection to sustain you through this gentle time. Let your mental activity reduce, you have no need of learning new things right at this moment.  Meditation and focusing on inner stillness are good things to be dealing with right now.

Enjoy this month and allow yourself to sleep well, reduce your stress and take what steps you need to to put activities on pause whilst you spend some time with your inner world. You will benefit from it more than you can imagine.

Have a great month!

Prize draw

Congratulations to this month’s Free Prize Draw winner BING. You have won a free quick look reading – I have sent you details of how to claim by email.

If you want to sign up for this prize draw use the form in the top blog post to do so or the form on my facebook page. I pick one person each month to receive a reading. I will occasionally send an email to the list updating you of my services etc..