I thought about it really hard, does that count?

July 2025 Collective Offering

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Hi digi-coven, how you doing?

I’m pleased to say that after a two month hiatus, the monthly collective offering is back!

A personal update from me… We exchanged on our first ever home (woohoo!) which turned out to be a lowkey death trap (shitman!) and I’ve spent the last few months learning how to plaster, lay floor, apply silicone and caulk, drill into tile, waterproof floors, and god knows what else (jfc i am dead). In that time, my ability to take bookings for tarot readings dropped off a cliff, and I am now playing catch-up with it all.

My bbyz, I would love to meet with you over the cards again, so do book in if you’ve been contemplating it.

Other than that, I’ve (obvs) been relishing the heat and hazy gaze of sky-daddy that have defined the last couple of months. I hope that whether you are a summer person or not, you have felt some warmth stirring in your belly and bones, too.

Wishing all of us a hazy, sun kissed July,

ilayda x

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Wtf are the cards saying?

I wish I could tell you that when I have a vision, (Ace of Pentacles), the process of realising it is always intuitive and simple, and the results are always exquisite (Father of Pentacles). I wish, I wish, I wish.

Here’s what really goes down:

I have an idea of something that I want - something I fancy creating, improving or chasing - and I recognise it for what it is: an opportunity. A portal opens. And beyond it, in my imagination, lie all sorts of lush, frankly ludicrous visions of success.

I want to increase my income? No problem. My vision tells me I can eventually get £2k a pop for tarot-related activation events with the right clients, just a bit of considered marketing and consistent content creation and I’ll be doing one a month!

I want to write a sitcom about a Turkish man masquerading as French and running a dilapidated café called Petit Parisienne? No problem. My vision assures me that once I write the script, it will be so silly and funny and perfect for a prime-time viewing audience, that I’ll feel perfectly confident shopping it around and catching the attention of a major broadcaster!!

I want to write a memoir about a life lived in the liminal? ABSOLUTELY. Once I actually figure out what that, y’know, means, and write it, it will be moving and funny and quite frankly, SINGULAR!!!

Etcetera, etcetera.

In these visions, I am baller. I am bold. I am the Father of Pentacles: grounded, competent, successful; fucking resplendent.

And then comes the time for action… and this is where I falter.

***

In the tarot, the suits - Pentacles, Swords, Cups, and Wands - represent different aspects of life. In traditional divinatory readings, Pentacles are associated with material matters: money, jobs, and housing. I tend to read them more as an insight into the human capacity to act: to do, to move, to make. To take tiny, grubby little seeds and cultivate them into gardens. Gardens that may well bear the fruit of income, houses, and other treasures.

The Swords, I see as thoughts and challenges (as in traditional readings), but also as all things related to cognition: memory, imagination, self-awareness. They are all the ways in which a person perceives, both themselves and the world, and all the ways those perceptions shape experience.

And when it comes to crossing that great divide between idea and output, I have a habit of putting Swords where Pentacles should be.

The space between my ideas and their realisation usually feels like a dark, choppy, foggy lake (Six of Swords). Scary to contemplate crossing. Disorientating. More often than not, I’m standing on the edge, building increasingly elaborate maps instead of just getting in a boat, sticking an oar into the black water, and rowing.

Ideas lead to plans. Plans lead to contingencies. Contingencies lead to backup contingencies. Which leads to… paralysis.

Don’t get me wrong, having a plan is good. Being thoughtful is useful. But at some point, the idea has to leave your head, your Notes app, your 18-tab spreadsheet, and enter your body. Your day. Your hands. Otherwise, it dies in the dirt.

I frequently roam and roam from idea to idea, opportunity to opportunity, looking for the perfect one. Looking for something that will allow me to circumvent the often shitty, always uncomfortable, transitional phase (Six of Swords) that’s essential for development and growth. Looking for something that takes me straight to the reward. Of course, no such idea or opportunity really exists.

Soon after roaming, I usually start hoping for an all-knowing guide to tell me exactly what to do (Six of Swords). And shortly after that, I find I’ve already, unconsciously, started to turn away from the opportunity I was once so lit up by.

I know I’m not alone in this.

Over the years, I’ve done hundreds of tarot readings with clients in this exact place: beautiful souls standing on the edge of a good opportunity, a wild hope, a strange little dream - and feeling utterly overwhelmed by the enormity of turning it into something real.

Hell, ask any artist and they’ll say the same: getting started is the hardest fucking part of any project. Until of course they get started, and then keeping going is the hardest fucking part.

Likewise, talk to anyone with a small business: the idea for the business isn’t the hard part. The hard part is the daily, nitty-gritty, detail-driven work. The ‘must show up even when it doesn’t feel glamorous or fun’ parts. The ambiguous, ‘not a fully formed story yet’ parts.

I am lucky in that I see opportunity in so many places. I am less lucky that it’s not in my natural wheelhouse to get my hands dirty and start cultivating those opportunities. The space between opportunity and measurable rewards or outcome often feels enormous, unfathomable, very difficult for me.

But I’m also lucky to know this about myself. I’ve spent years navigating the disparate parts of my inner world (Six of Swords), and forming bridges between them, getting familiar with my triggers and motivators, the ways I stall or shrink back.

This doesn't mean that I've eradicated the tendency to think my way out of doing things... But I can see it for the unhelpful pattern that it is. And that means I can preempt when I'm most likely to do it, prepare myself to face transitions better, and gently encourage myself to just do something, anything, no matter how much I want to delay.

Sometimes that’s enough, sometimes it’s not. I’m finally okay with that.

***

The Ace of Pentacles isn’t guaranteed success. It’s not a golden ticket. It’s a seed. A portal. A moment that could become something more. But only if it’s met with effort, practice, and presence.

The Father of Pentacles – the big baller sugar daddy of our dreams - is not an overnight success, and we, in all our endeavours, don't need to be either. He is someone who has worked for every inch of beauty and abundance that he's in possession of. He wants for nothing, because he truly understands and appreciates the effort - both mundane and monumental- that got him his throne. He is satisfied, not because he has it all, but because he gave his all. Despite his resplendence, he is not someone who skipped the hard bit. He showed up day after day, seed after seed, until abundance surrounded him.

So, in the spirit of helping ourselves grow, maybe this month we take the impulse, the glimmer, the flash of insight, and we do something about it. Act on it. Scatter some seeds. Of COURSE, make some plans and strategise properly too. But know that no amount of planning and ideation and checklist creation can prevent having to navigate the choppy, uncomfortable waters of transition on the journey from opportunity to success.

Maybe it’s a cliché, but doing the thing confusedly, badly, weirdly, and fearfully is still doing the thing. And that, at the very least, moves us through the portal.

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UPDATES

July Availability for 1-1 Tarot Readings
The calendar is open for bookings, and I’d love to connect with you over the cards again. Book your readings here.

Events
Did you know I read Tarot for parties and events?!

I also run workshops on how to read and use the Tarot!

Add some magic to your event - email realvibestarot@gmail.com to discuss your needs.