“So you know, that you’re over the hill
When your mind makes a promise that your body can’t fill.”
– from Old Folk’s Boogie by Little Feat

AUTHOR’S NOTE: The Little Feat quote was a late pick as I began thinking about a title for this post. The first inspiration was a quip I came across online: A man asked a friend whether he had experienced a “midlife crisis” yet and the other replied “Which one?”

This brief study is a more narrowly-framed look at the subject of two earlier essays about the structure of a five-card line spread (“The Tie-Breaker” and “Cresting the Wave”). The idea of a peak moment in a linear reading is one I’ve examined before, particularly in “bridge” spreads with an “on-ramp, an “off-ramp” and a “summit,” but in this case I’m considering only the post-peak experience.

My favorite way of approaching the five-card line is as a “bell-curve” in which the third – or middle – card reflects the zenith of developments in the situation, often envisioned as a climax, crisis or turning-point in the querent’s circumstances, after which the intensity trails off toward the end of the matter. I also think of it as a “tipping point” where the weight of unresolved problems accumulates, shifts unexpectedly and then over-corrects.

The card leading up to this critical event (Card #2) presages its arrival and the one that follows (Card #4) describes what I think of as the “post-crisis clean-up” that clears the way for the anticipated denouement revealed by the fifth card. Another way to view it is as an advancing wave that swells, crests and then subsides as it decelerates toward the conclusion. Here I’m going to explore the “downslope” shown by the fourth card.

This card will enhance the natural evolution of the final card when the two are mutually agreeable or inhibit it when they are antagonistic, according to a range of “dignities:” compatible or incompatible suit, element, number, rank, inherent nature, etc. While this interaction is operative throughout the spread, it is particularly potent between the last two cards as conditions approach closure. The penultimate (i.e. “next-to-last”) card offers one more chance to optimize any advantage or make a remedial mid-course correction before time runs out.

If the predicted outcome is favorable, a preceding card that reinforces the testimony of its successor will propel the latter toward a satisfactory ending, while one that is less supportive can leave resolution of the affair flatter than it otherwise would have been. Conversely, an uninspiring finale might be further deflated by an adjacent influence of a similarly pessimistic quality, while the same depressing augury could be alleviated by a buoyant interlude that counteracts the dour portent.

This is all part of my creative reworking of the Golden Dawn’s principle of “Elemental Dignity.” I was brought to it by my reading of Isabel Kliegman’s Tarot and the Tree of Life, in which she proposed a comparable set of interrelated correspondences. This is an advanced way of comparing the cards in a spread that will “fine-tune” their affiliation and offer insights that might be missed by more conventional analysis.