There is usually a gap between knowing something and being able to look at it. In that gap the mind does strange work: it explains, excuses, reorders the story so it stays liveable. Then something shifts — a sentence, a silence, a small inconsistency — and the explanation stops holding. If something is surfacing for you right now, hold it in mind and turn a card.
The Empress is the universal mother, symbolizing abundance, fertility, and creation. This card indicates growth, prosperity, and connection with nature. A favorable time for creative projects and nurturing relationships.
Read against what is surfacing, The Empress puts the weight on abundance and fertility. Read against something surfacing, a card points at what the knowing costs. Truth is rarely the hard part; the hard part is what becomes impossible to keep doing once you admit it. That is why the mind delays — not to stay ignorant, but to stay comfortable.
The same card has an opposite face, and it is worth holding both. Reversed, may indicate creative blocks, excessive dependence on others, or neglect of self-care. Reconnect with what nourishes your soul.
So sit with the question you arrived with — What have I half-known for a while? — and notice which of the two readings you flinched at. That flinch is the reading. It is the one piece of this page that came from you rather than from the deck, and it is the only piece that can change anything.
Allow yourself to receive abundance. Nurture your dreams as a mother cares for her children.
Nothing here can tell you what happened. It can tell you what you already suspect and have not said out loud yet — and saying it out loud is usually the whole of the next step.