It's not ALL in the cards. (a.k.a How I Read the Cards)

I do not ascribe any divinatory power to Tarot cards or people who read them.  Reading Tarot cards, for me, is nothing more than using images from the deck and some historical information about those images to get the mind to open to new ways of looking at a situation.  I'm not sure how this works, but it does not require any special abilities, though intuition, some level of intelligence, and life experiences do seem to add a lot. A recent examples shows what I mean.

Background:  At work we have seen many changes recently, especially in the overall organizational structure.  Most of us were not happy with these changes to such an extent that no one in our unit of nine people wanted to take on a newly formed coordinator position.  As the weeks passed I began to wonder what would happen if we didn't have someone step forward.  I had to seriously consider taking it myself and decided to get out the cards.  

I did not ask "Should I take this position?" or "What will happen if I take this position?"  My reading of the Tarot is much less amazing, I'm afraid.  I simple quieted myself down and drew three cards and asked "What do I need to think about when considering taking this position?" The three cards served as placeholders to guide my thinking about the things that had had happened up until that point, how the current situation was, and what I might imagine for the future of this position.  This is, of course, a Past, Present, Future Spread, but I shy away from that name with its assumption that there is something in the cards that will "speak" to my personal past, present, or future.  I drew the following:

The One of Cups:  A very emotional situation, but one without focus. Emotions in their nascent form. My colleagues hadn't really laid out what was so terrible about the new situation, but their anger was reactive. Emotion in its raw form.  I realized that my coworkers were still very angry about the decisions that had been made recently.  Any discussions seemed to always degenerate into bitch-sessions, without anything substantive about why the new organization was so bad. I had to get away from that kind of thinking about this situation.

The One of Swords:  A quick decision made with the intellect.  It was clear that something had to be done, someone had to step up and take the coordinator position.  I needed to decide if I was going to be that person.  I thought about how this job would affect me, about the different work I would be taking on.  The problem was I was trying to outguess so many future scenarios that I wasn't being practical.  Make a decision one way or another!

The Four of Swords:  A stable, grounded use of the intellect...and the danger of relying only on the intellect.  Taking on the position meant being rational in decision making and not falling prey to the drama surrounding the situation.  And at the same time, I could not be deaf to the view of those who were still feeling so wounded by what had happened to our unit.  The Four of Swords is in some ways confident in its use of the intellect.  But the danger of that is not being aware when a new, unexpected and perhaps irrational element comes into the picture.

It has been three weeks now since I took the position. So far, so good.  I know there are challenges ahead, but somehow I feel confident I can handle this and will look back on this as one of the best decisions I've ever made.