Admittedly, I only peek at Houses occasionally, and it seems to be helpful. But I fear that using them more consistently than that will turn the whole layout into a 36-card spread with fixed positions, which does, as you said, quickly expose the entire lack of any coherent underlying structure. To me, the charm of GT is in the flexibility of its positional meanings, a sort of an empty canvas on which the cards can paint whatever picture they see fit. Nailing the whole reading rigorously into all the 36 Houses seems, at least to me, like robbing it of that freedom. Distributing Houses randomly seems like an interesting experiment, though. If you ever do it, I'd love to see what happens 😉

This is the crux of it all. The norms of an era require that we conform to those norms. The personal desire to belong (originating in the stone ages for safety) means we will agree with others and modify who we are and our behaviours in order to fit in, whether or not that is honest representation of ourselves, or honest more generally. Today's context is we're supposed to be professional. And nice and diplomatic, polished. Usually to grease the wheels of economy and maintain social inequalities. Civilisation isn't civilised if we look around at the environment. Now everybody's looking at their phones and don't look up - it will all disappear - and 'they'll' blame someone else, when in reality it was because they were in a culture that brainwashed people through slick marketing by psychologists not working to heal but make people think a particular way - in this case - that they need to consume. That we need to wear designer labels because hand-me-downs are shameful, who cares about environmental sustainability - or let's greenwash. Sacrifice is limited to going to work to provide for the children we bred - encouraged by the government - so they'd be unknowingly enslaved and provide billions to some guy with no name dodging tax, that should pay for the world's healthcare and educational needs, in the Cayman Islands. Everyone is so busy meeting the housing and food needs through externalised providers that have turned these essential needs into consumer items, that they don't stop to think that this is not necessary, or right, that the commons have been enclosed, and that if they do not work for someone else they cannot eat. Then there are people forced to be poor and go without because of the system. When it is all free in nature! We would behave much better and protect these things if we were closer to them. Yet we're told someone needs to pay for all this healthcare, when everyone could volunteer 3 days a week and get the belonging they seek, and contribute meaningfully to a community who knows each other, and meet their needs, But we leave everything up to someone else. Even our 'new agers' encourage people to meet their own needs without regard to the wider world's. So that's some of our current zeitgeist context. Let's hope that's a zeitgeist that transforming. People are protesting all the injustices, but the state is moving to outlaw protest. Governments have been leaving things to the market, and works for the corporations, not the people now. Everyone needs to act quickly. Sadly, the world could be destroyed in front of our eyes, but some of us need to be seen in a particular way for our ego's sake, status is important and maintaining our self-image. Another burden of being so-called 'civilised' meanwhile killing others to take their lands and food and water - and the Animals are especially included in this self-riddled era. So the external context I rambled about above, and personal things like religion, caste, even historical standing in the little village, and blood feuds, marriages, all of these things add context that are worth exploring. We are more than the sum of our parts, we are own and we are others'. I'm known as a bit of a ranter and raver on a soapbox around these parts, but I settle down occasionally. My intentions are good.