Golden Shadow

Prowling around the Tarot Spreads forum I once again happened upon an interesting spread.... that's not to say they aren't all interesting in their own unique ways, but this one caught my eye........
After wrestling my eye back into it's socket I decided to give it a whirl...

So.... I shuffle the deck (I am a subscriber to Rifle Shufflers Anonymous........oh wait.....anonymous ....whoops... although in my defence, I do rifle shuffle without bending the cards) asking:
"Where do my highest potentials and abilities lie?"
I then cut the deck into four piles 'Physical', 'Mental', 'Emotional' and "Spiritual' and start searching for the 'Sun' card.
I am not surprised in the slightest when the 'Sun' card is nowhere to be found in the 'Physical' pile. I have no illusions as to my physical prowess...or rather lack there of..... a walk to the mailbox to see if any new decks have arrived is quite physical enough for me thanks.....the mailbox IS a fair walk away, after all I do live on a large block of land.....still...... it's a good thing the mail only comes three times a week...
I look through the 'Mental' pile....once again the 'Sun' is noticeably absent... I feel let down..... I happen to think of myself as quite the little intellectual wannabe..... *makes notes to stop dying hair funky colours....dye must be effecting brain functionality*
A quick search through the 'Emotional' pile once again yields nothing.... so now there is only one place it can be....just to be positive I look through the last pile and sure enough, there's the 'Sun', nestled between the 'Hierophant' and the 'Seven of Chalices'....
So, my highest abilities and potential lie somewhere within spirituality....
I am unsure what to make of this....
I am not a very spiritual person. I don't consider myself psychic or clair-anything.... I'm surprised that I can read Tarot as well as I seem to be able to....
So to be told that what I am best at consists of something of a spiritual nature..... it almost makes me want to do a re-draw!

Never the less, I shuffle the little group of cards. Much to my disappointment the pile is now too little to rifle.... not that that stops me from trying. After five or six unsuccessful attempts I spread the cards out on the bed, swish them around a bit and collect them all back up again...... then proceed to lay them out....it's just a simple three card spread...

1. What aids me in developing my highest potential?
Four of pentacles.
A little girl is holding a skull....her hair is flowing as if blown by some invisible breeze. She is dressed in a white nightgown. Behind her on a tree branch sit two owls.
This scene kind of reminds me of Shakespeare's Hamlet.....
I'm not sure what to think. Four of pents to me is about fear. But in this case a fear of what? The fear of loss? Fear of abandonment? Fear of....I dunno...skulls, owls and gentle breezes? How do these things help me in developing my highest potential??
What do I have to lose? I guess I could lose my belief structure. To not believe that I have any psychic skills or spiritual potential is still a belief... perhaps losing these negative thoughts about myself would aid in my spiritual development? Maybe I need to peal away all my negative thoughts, 'bare my skull' as it were, become my inner child who is ready to believe that anything is possible and find a wise guide who will help me on this journey..... a wise nocturnal guide...one that keeps asking 'who? who?'

2. What hinders me in developing my highest potential?
The High Priestess
I am always drawn to the squirrel at the priestess' feet..... reminds me of 'the happy squirrel' from the Simpson's.... I have my little chuckle, the one I always have when I pick this card, then continue looking at the symbolism.
The priestess sits on a stone outside in the forest. She looks totally aloof. Has her head raised high and is looking down her nose at everything. She has on a funny papal hat and holds a scepter in her hand. The more I study her expression, the more I am convinced that she looks like a real b*&%h....
I find this amusing because her toga style dress has slipped, exposing a nipple and I am SO NOT going to tell her.....*snickers*
The snooty little priestess wears a look that tells me she probably has all the knowledge I seek but is unwilling to share it.
I live in the middle of nowhere, and doubt I am going to find anyone out here who can help me develop spiritually or help me on a spiritual quest of any kind.....unless of course I am interested in becoming a Jehovah's Witness..... yes that's right.... even in the middle of nowhere they will track you down and beat you up with their watchtower pamphlets...anyway... I digress...... I think this card is trying to tell me that gaining knowledge from my peers will be hard to do in person. I will have to rely on other sources such as books and the Internet, not to mention all my lovely new found friends at AT..... I can get the knowledge I seek, it will just be a little harder to come by than if I had someone physically available who I could hang out with and discuss minuscule little details with.

3. A possible outcome once you have formed and developed your highest potential.
Seven of Chalices
A little girl stands, looking confused. She is looking at something unseen to her left. Behind her are some horrible-little-golem-like-elf-things, that I am sure she has no knowledge of else she'd probably have run long ago leaving just a card with horrible-little-golem-like-elf-things to be seen.....
Seven cups along the bottom of the card.
This is really odd. This card is sitting here in front of me.... begging me to interpret it's symbolism....but in my minds eye I keep seeing the Gilded seven of cups instead! This one seems to focus on fantasy and imagination, that the girl is imagining all these horrible things behind her and stuff... I don't know... I can't really get into it because I am too busy imagining the other card. The gilded seven however is a beautiful card, as opposed to this not so pleasant one. It shows 7 cups up in the air, each one filled with a different thing, from memory I think one is a white dove, there is also a rainbow and bubbles. That card I usually interpret as an abundance of choice... that there is so much to choose from and that they're all equally tempting, the only thing being for certain is the fact that a choice must be made!
I think I am going to go with that interpretation....that if and when I realise my highest potential, the world will be filled with an endless amount of possibilities, but at the same time, not to let my imagination get ahead of me! Maybe I shouldn't be imagining that I am going to be amazingly this amazing spiritual being..... it might be the height of my potential, but there will be millions of other people out there who will be better than me.....wow....way to knock myself back down to earth!