With the political situation in the United States being what it is this week, I thought now would be a timely opportunity to take a look at the Vice-President of the U.S., Mike Pence, and what is going on in his life now and in the fairly-near future. Mike Pence has been awfully quiet for most of President Trump’s administration, so a look at him is warranted, especially if he ends up as POTUS. Again, employing the Gilded Reverie LeNormand Fortune deck, expanded edition and the Near & Far spread, the result was this:

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The first two cards in the spread, the Well and the Home, tell me Mike Pence has wishes and ideals for the U.S. that he’d like to bring into being. These ideals likely involve advancing the cause of Christianity, and what he sees as Christian causes, since the next two cards are the Cross (which, among other things, can represent Christianity, and he is known to be a devout Christian) and the Stork, which represents movement, progress, the birth of a child. Pence is also known to be very anti-abortion, and as President, would likely act to severely-curtail it’s availability. Underneath the Significator card (the Older Man), which represents him, we find the Tree and the Snake. The Tree represents something strong, vital and growing, while the Snake represents deceit, sneakiness and malice, in a Christian context, the forces of evil. This seems to suggest Mike Pence views the forces of evil as thriving in American society today, and fighting that is the foundation of his involvement in public life, since these two cards are under him.

The first of the two ‘far’ cards are the Moon and the Younger Man card. I interpret this to mean that if, for any reason Donald Trump leaves the office of POTUS, the person Mike Pence nominates to be his Vice-President would likely be a younger man than himself, who is also quite well-known and prominent in government; his VP will not be someone obscure. The Mask and the Compass, the next two ‘far’ cards, are more disturbing. They suggest a future orientation in the direction of two-facedness; saying one thing publically, while saying another thing privately. I also read these two cards in association with the other cards in that same row, and the way I read those four cards is, Mike Pence would like to advance the country in the direction of a greater role for Christianity in public life, but he either has some mixed motives here, or he wants to do it by masking his real intent. In other words, deceiving people into going into the more socially-conservative direct he wants them to go.

The next two cards are a bit baffling at first glance, because I find the Sun and the Maze cards an odd pairing. The Sun card is a card of victory and success. The Maze/Labyrinth card is a card of complications, false starts, re-routings, frustrations, conspiracies, mysteries, and infilterations. Taking these two together, I would say that as POTUS, Mike Pence’s intended successes as President would be frustrated by the competing agendas of others. So if his grand intention as POTUS would be to make the U.S. ‘A Christian Nation’ as he sees it, he would run into more complications than he anticipated. Others will try to wear him down. They will make him run a veritable maze for each and every success.

I like to look at the left-over cards in the pile, for often those cards contain the ‘real dirt’ of the reading.

MikePenceNear&FarReadingPage2If I could sum up the seven remaining cards in the pile into a sentence (and that is a helpful approach to card reading–to ask yourself, ‘If I could sum up these cards in a sentence, what would they be telling me?’), it would be: Mike Pence’s bright hopes and inspiration (the Star) for his job (the Fox) with the government (the Tower) are going to be subtly-undermined in a piecemeal fashion (the Mice), largely as a result of social media and public discussion (the Birds, card 12a) which send a message (the Rider) to the U.S. (the Dog) about his agenda as POTUS. I think we can safely assume it will be a message not favorable to him.

Still seeking clarification from the cards, I checked two more cards. Now the way I shuffle the cards, from an instruction in a Tarot book I was consulting when I started using the Tarot cards, is to cut the cards in three piles to the left with my left hand. My left hand is my non-dominant hand. Following a tip from the book Signs of Life by Angeles Arrien, I pick up the middle pile first, because that pile contains the truest answer. I then pick up the pile on the right, for that pile can contain those things we don’t want to face or deal with. The third pile on the left is what the conscious mind is focusing on right now and considers important.

So the top two cards in the right-hand pile are the ones I drew, seeking clarification about the question of Mike Pence. Those two cards were the Magnifying Glass and the Lilies. Now the Magnifying Glass, in the context of this reading for Mike Pence, would be an obvious reference to Robert Mueller III and company investigating Russia’s involvement in our 2016 presidential election. At this particular moment, Mueller’s investigation has brought about a raid this week of the home, hotel room and offices of Michael Cohen, President Trump’s personal lawyer and known ‘fixer.’ President Trump may well be forced from office as a result of this investigation and everyone knows it. The Magnifying Glass is a card of taking a closer look at something, and it rules all investigations.

The Lilies is a card of wise elders, wisdom and experience gained. It also represents important life transitions, in the sense of ‘graduating’ to the next level of life experience; things like graduations, marriage, the onset of parenthood, retirement and death. This card can relate to both one’s job and completions. It can be a card of ‘moving on.’ I interpret the presence of the Magnifying Glass card in this particular reading to mean that Mike Pence’s role in President Trump’s campaign, transition team and administration, has not gone overlooked in Mueller’s investigation. The Lilies card could mean simply that Mueller’s investigation will wrap up during a presumptive President Pence’s administration.

OR, more ominously, it could mean that one of the results of the whole Trump/Russia investigation will be that Mike Pence will also be forced to ‘move on’ from public life, if what Mueller finds implicates Pence in any wrongdoing. Representative Devin Nunes of California, like Vice-President Pence, was also on President Trump’s transition team, and he has been notably ferociously fighting Mueller’s investigation. This has led some observers to question what damning information he might’ve been exposed to, or actions he might have taken part in during his time on the transition team, that would lead him to take such an adversarial position to the Trump/Russia investigation. Others on the transition team closer to then-President-Elect Trump were likely exposed to the same information/activities.  Does Mueller have evidence of wrongdoing by Pence? All I can say is, (like Rachel Maddow) watch this space.