Today is Thursday, which means it is my day to pray to and worship Aphrodite (though truth be told, I pray to and worship Aphrodite much more often than just on Thursdays). Today I spent time meditating on the birth of the goddess, and then I offered my typical prayers, hymns, and offerings. When I was finished, it occured to me to do a tarot reading about my relationship with the goddess, so I sat down with my cards, I invoked Apollo as the god of oracles and prophecy, and I asked for the cards to reveal to me the nature of my relationship with the goddess, past, present, and future. This was the spread I laid out:
(In case those links ever expire, those are the Ten of Cups reversed, the Page of Wands reversed, and the Nine of Swords).
Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of it. The first card, the reversed Ten of Cups, makes sense. After my initial contact with the goddess, which blew me away and filled me with warmth, light, and love, my continued spiritual floundering has left the fulness of spiritual joy represented by the Ten of Cups, that I feel can be available to me through Aphrodite, has been truncated and stunted. My own hemming and hawing, whatever my reasons, has kept me from having the joy in the goddess that I might otherwise have had. Nothing odd or unexpected there.
Its the reversed Page of Wands and the Nine of Swords that have me troubled. The Page came up ecently in an extremely important reading I did for myself, and at the moment I am sort of getting ready to embark on a path of (spiritual) action: a very definite journey of spiritual work that I think the Page represents. So why is he reversed? Am I doing something wrong?
And the Nine of Swords? What does that mean? That my Page-of-Wands journey is ill-considered and abortive and will lead to regret and hearbreak, at least as far as the goddess is concerned? Or is the whole thing a warning? Could it not be saying that my present quest is in fact corrupted and askew, but that if I do embark on it like I have planned, but then I let it fall by the wayside, if I am lazy about it, then it will end in sorrow and tragedy, and a possible loss of relationship with the goddess altogether?
In other words (because I know I am being cryptic and confusing), is the reading telling me something definite or conditonal? Is it warning me that my present course is distorted and cowardly, and will result in anguish, or is it warning me that if I veer from my present course–reverse the Quest, in other words–that it will lead to anguish? It seems a bit vague about something that is kind of important.
Sailing to Byzantium 
Hey, it’s Waldfrau from Hellenistai.
I’m not necessarily an expert so you have to see if what I get out of this really fits you.
To me it looks like you’re simply a bit impatient (page of wands reversed) because you haven’t fully gotten what you needed or expected in the past. (10 of cups reversed) The 9 of swords tells me that you might focus too much on one single thing (like it’s the same sword all over). Your spiritual path may be generally right or the reading might not have anything to do with the path itsself. Maybe you shouldn’t look at it like a straight tunnel. There might be one aspect you maybe overgeneralize.
This is just a suggestion. As I don’t know you that well it could be completly off the road.
Greetings
Waldfrau
Tarot gives guidance for the place we are in now and helps us to see, based on past and present circumstances, where we are heading. Doesn’t mean that’s where we’ll go – we always have choices – but it’s a tool for getting another perspective on the path. I see this as a sort of “sharp rocks ahead!” kind of warning – keep going the way you’re going and here’s what will happen.
Here’s my take, fwiw: In the past, you were given a great treasure which you either didn’t fully appreciate or squandered in some way. Now you find yourself full of enthusiasm and passion concerning this treasure, but that passion is being blocked. As a result of this, you are moving into a place where you are allowing your worries and fears to overwhelm you in this matter.
In context, I think that this refers to your own fears about your path – 9 of swords is about internally-generated cruelty, the thoughts we think that hurt us, not something coming from outside. For reasons known best to yourself, you think a whole lot about this relationship and have all kinds of worries and fears bound up in it. These fears are actually a bigger problem than whatever it is you’re worrying about – it’s the fear that’s keeping you from doing the thing you need to do.
Actually, rereading your post, this sentence: “My own hemming and hawing, whatever my reasons, has kept me from having the joy in the goddess that I might otherwise have had” jumps out as pretty much what the entire reading was about – whatever your reasons, the relationship is blocked by your own overthinking and fretting and worrying. 9 of Swords can have this effect that’s kind of funny – it’s a message that your own fears can hurt you, but when it turns up people get all afraid. Which of course is just what the card is warning about. So if you decide not to pursue the connection because of this reading, you are in effect fulfilling it.