Cups and more cups

Looks like our house purchase is proceeding, now the question has turned to insurance. Home owners, life, critical illness, income protection, and all that jazz. How much insurance cover do I need? What action should I take with regard to insurance?

Jean Dodal Tarot, Flornoy 2009 

I was really surprised by this draw, as I was expecting a lot of swords, to indicate both trouble and decision making. Three cups in a row! Really?

So yeah, three cups in a row, and on either side, the World and the Empress both look away from the cups. I also can't help but notice that 21 and 3 are both 3, and two of the three cups is a multiple of three. What you make of that is up to the reader, but there it is.

The first message: There's all the insurance in the world out there, and it's an extremely emotive subject that plays upon our instinct to protect the nest.

The second message: This emotion doesn't have a great connection to the actual world or actual nurture. Ie, fears and reality are not necessarily directly linked.

The third message: The best action I can take at this point with regard to insurance is to look away from the multitude of emotions -- most to do with fear -- and look to more pertinent issues.

That's funny, because I didn't think I was being emotional, I thought I was being quite rational and gathering information at this point.  The cups represent being fed, basic needs, and by association, fear of not being fed or having basic needs met. And that of course is the very driver of insurance.

If the two figures are looking away from all this emotion, what are the they looking at instead?

What is the World looking at? 4 of Swords -- I figured a sword would turn up.  There may be a World of insurance out there, but I am constrained by certain limitations. I must avoid being led by emotion and turn my attention toward what is actually a logical best choice. 'Four does not change.' The only unchanging aspect in this equation is the finite amount of money I have to work with. That should be a prime consideration, obviously.

What is the Empress looking at? 7 of Wands -- 'Seven brings troubles that fate has assigned.' The Empress looks toward the likelihood of trouble. Trouble is pretty certain to come, but we don't have much chance of knowing exactly what it might be or when it might occur. There are lots of troubles that never happen at all. But she's looking toward the card that represents problems, so it's important to identify those things that are most likely to be an issue for us, and not get carried away by lots of fears and wild what-ifs.

My two real advice cards, then, seem to be 4 of Swords and 7 of Wands, as they are the ones that pull away from the quagmire of emotion in the middle. Both cards suggest protection. 4 of Swords shows a central flower encased in 4 curved scimitars. It is protected by the four interlocked blades. Similarly, 7 of Wands shows an upright wand shielded behind 6 interlocked wands. One is surrounded, the other is shielded. There may be a story in that, but either way, a lone figure is protected, which would have been quite vulnerable on its own. Both are defended.

It seems to me I should examine my current protections and look for gaps that would need to be filled by insurance coverage, rather than being led entirely by the hungry mouths of emotion.

It's interesting that no Coin cards have turned up. I suppose once you identify the type of cover you need, the money side of it is ruled entirely by ability to pay. Not much use looking at prices. Just identify cover and then buy what you can afford.

Analyse it all you want, it comes back to the first impression. All those cups cards shouted to me at once: 'Too much emotion, whether you realise it or not. Dial that back and then proceed.'

Money, money, money

Funny I should draw this card today, as I woke up at 4.00 this morning 'dreaming' about critical illness vs income protection cover. Money, money, money has been on my mind a lot for the last few days.

Six of Pentacles can mean lots of things. The interpretation I usually see in it is charity or lending. The querent may be either the wealthy man holding the scales and deciding what is the right amount to give, or the beggars receiving alms. This could represent applying for a loan, or waiting for an inheritance, insurance payout, or other cash windfall that must be determined by the judgement of a third party. It could be the querent deciding how much to pay employees or whether to lend someone money or cosign a loan with them.

Another interpretation is the flow of money in your life. The 6 of Pentacles would represent a balanced flow of income and outgo -- not necessarily an abundance of riches, but a balance, as represented by the scales and the fall of coins from the hand of the standing figure. You have enough money to pay everyone who holds their hand out to you, ie, your bills and other financial obligations.

The card can also carry warnings (if you read reversals, these would come when your card lands upside down). Obviously, no one wants to be a beggar. The shadow or reversed meaning of 6 of Wands could be a warning not to take on too much debt, or not to become too dependent on handouts (such as from the 'bank of Mom and Dad'). There could also be a shadow side to being the giver -- are you giving as a way of showing off your wealth? Are you lending with strings attached? To lord your power over someone? No one wants to be a tyrant, either.

The card, then, carries both positive and negative meanings for me today. Yes, I can find a way to balance a level of insurance cover within my budget. But it is possible that I could bite off more than I can chew, debt-wise, and even if I find a policy that is not a burden to pay the premiums on, I might find myself at the mercy of the insurance provider as to whether they are going to pay any benefit, should the time come for me to make a claim.

Of course, I already knew all this, so the tarot has simply given me a snapshot of my current state of mind. It will almost always do that if you don't ask a specific question.

My question then became what can I do to help balance those scales in 6 of Pentacles? I shuffled and drew 5 of Cups. I thought that over for a while, then shuffled the deck again, refining the question as I shuffled to, 'What can I do to find the balance of the flow of money in my life with regard to insurance cover?' Guess what I drew -- 5 of Cups.

Fine then! The only way to do this is to go to some dark places. I'm going to have to think about some worst case scenarios. I'm going to have to look at the dark clouds and not the silver linings, the spilled cups and not the upright ones. I'm going to have to look at the situation on this side of the river, not the refuge awaiting over the bridge on the other side. What would happen if... type questions.

But I do not have to decide any of this today. And the 6 of Pentacles takes on a fresh interpretation. Maybe it is giving me a message beyond a snapshot today. Because at the moment, my focus should be on getting the mortgage and paying associated fees. The card is a very literal piece of advice on what should be my focus. I am not even in the house yet. The sale hasn't even happened. I have to pay a lot of folks and get a house and mortgage in the first place before I should start worrying about losing them. I can deal with critical illness and/or income protection after I have a house. The only insurance that is pressing is the home owner's insurance.

For me, trying to decide about everything at the same time is too stressful. I will tell my financial adviser that I do not want to make decisions about illness cover right now. After all, I can't help but remember, he gets a commission from every product I buy, of course he would like to see me do everything at once. But I would like to get settled in my new home for at least 3-6 months so I can make a real world assessment of my income and outgo in the new setting. Then I will be in a better position to determine how much I can budget for illness cover. At the moment, any figure I suggest will be, as they say where I'm from, a wild-ass guess.

So that's what I'll do. I'll take this one step at a time. Right now it's focus on the mortgage, the solicitors and surveyors fees. It's getting into the house in the first place. Other stuff can come later.

Tarot journal - 5 of Cups

Learn to release -- time to drop that sack

I rarely post about oracles because to me, oracles tend to be straightforward, personal messages. There is not a lot of interpretation involved, whereas of course tarot cards are so full of esoteric symbolism and associations that they could be discussed and written about forever (and hopefully will be!).  Today's draw from Conscious Spirit Oracle by Kim Dreyer (2013) gives us an affirmation:

'I release that which does not serve my higher purpose with gratitude and love.'

What unwanted clutter is holding you back from your full potential? We've all got it. It's just a matter of realising you're holding on to it. 

This reminds me of a story I read somewhere. A man is walking down a path, carrying a huge sack on his back. The sack is quite a burden; he's nearly doubled over. The man stubs his toe on a rock in the path and stumbles. 'Oh, idiot,' he says to himself. He stops, picks the rock up, smashes himself in the head with the rock and throws it into the sack. He continues down the path, trips on another large rock. 'Stupid! Stupid!' he mutters, stops and picks up the rock, smashes himself on the head with it and throws it in the sack. He does this another three or four times and finally a second man who had been standing on the road side observing this (the man with the sack wasn't able to move too fast or get too far for obvious reasons!) finally steps into the road. 

Cycling energy

Neuzeit (New Age) Tarot 

I bought this deck in The Speaking Tree in Glastonbury for £3. It's a strange little deck, Neuzeit Tarot (AG Muller 1982).

Now I have no idea what divinatory system this deck is based on, if any. But I have to share what the LWB says about today's card, 5 of Cups:

'Cups of the primal mother above whom the primal seed awaits its earthly awakening. This [sic] where the four dimensions of consciousness become apparent. Divinatory meaning: fertility, strong family ties, you are living in the right place, pronounced femininity, increased cosmic energies. Reversed: Bad harvest, insufficient health care for sick, weak femininity, homosexuality. Mother complexes. Gluttony.'

Yeah.

This reminds me of that New Age Bullshit Generator site. I'll just pop over there and ask it what it thinks this card means:

'You may be ruled by stagnation without realizing it. Do not let it exterminate the nature of your myth. Although you may not realize it, you are infinite. If you have never experienced this revolution inherent in nature, it can be difficult to self-actualize. Prophet, look within and develop yourself.'

Ha ha!

I really have no idea what to make of any of the cards in this deck, and the book is fairly useless, so we'll just have to roll with it.

The 5s are normally up to no good in tarot. I have looked at all the 5s in this deck and they don't seem to bear any relation to RWS/Thoth/Golden Dawn tradition. I don't think they bear relation to anything! But I don't see anything in this 5 of Cups to make me give it a negative spin. Let's look at the imagery.

At the top, a crowned, unroasted coffee bean shape glows like the Sacred Heart of Jesus. There's a golden pyramid flanked by silver mountains underneath it. Then a sort of wall with layers of heiroglyphs showing themes of war, travel, music and art, and at the bottom, the alphabet. A table is formed of stones and a slab of wood, and on this table is a big goblet surrounded by four smaller ones. A colour pours from the big goblet into each smaller one - red, yellow black, white. WAIT! That makes me think of a line from a song we used to sing in Bible school: 'Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.' Actually the first thing I noticed about those colours was that they correspond to the German flag. I wonder what significance if any they have to the card. And I wonder what significance that combination may have in the occult world. Wait, the LWB refers to the 'four dimensions of consciousness.'  These are:




'This is where the four dimensions of consciousness become apparent,' says the LWB. The only thing I can think of that this might relate to in a daily draw is perhaps meditation practice. Looking at the picture reminds me of a technique I use called 'cycling energy.' I suppose I will do the cycling energy meditation today, then.

This is going to be an interesting week!

Uneasy lies the head

This week is the beautiful Golden Tarot by Kat Black (US Games, 2003). I do love this deck. It is extremely well done, made up of a collage of images from medieval and Renaissance paintings. The story is that Kat Black was fashioning a deck for herself, and decided it was worth trying to get it published. It is unashamedly RWS. I saw this deck online when I was relatively new to tarot and my only tarot decks were Osho Zen and Universal Waite Smith. That a tarot could be this beautiful was a revelation to me! I thought it was so creative and delightful, and I still find it gorgeous to look at.

Today's card is the Five of Cups. It's funny I should draw this today, because I don't feel like this within myself today. This is a card of focusing only on the negative without considering the positive. I actually feel more lively today than I did yesterday, and more hopeful. Perhaps the card shows some residual feelings from yesterday's despondent mood. Or maybe I take the role of the comforter today.

Whatever happens, I finish work today at 4.00 and when I get home I'm doing a workout!

What to do, what to do, what to do, what to do!

Spiral Tarot (US Games 1997)

I just bought this deck recently, the Spiral Tarot by Kay Steventon (US Games 1997). I really love the artwork, but I'm not convinced about those purple and white borders, particularly with the red and white inner borders. Odd.  I'm just going to conduct a small experiment here and try cropping the scanned image:

Choose how you react

Anna K Tarot, Llewellyn 2013

This week I will feature the delightful mass market version of one of my all-time favourite tarot decks, the Anna K Tarot, by Anna Klaffinger. I have the 1st edition self-published deck, which I've used until the edges are worn as soft as cotton wool and the dark borders are faded. I love it. I had the 2nd edition, but found the cardstock too thick for my liking, so sold it. This new mass-market version is the best version I've seen so far. The cards are bigger, the stock is supple and flexible, the colors are more saturated and benefit from better contrast (some of the other versions of the Anna K were quite dark). I really, really love this deck.

Today's card is Five of Cups. When I was shuffling, this card snapped out, fluttered half way across the room, floated to the floor like the feather in Forrest Gump, and landed face up. How can you ignore something like that?

About as easily as the guy in the image on this card is ignoring the blue sky, golden sun, blossoming trees and three full cups behind him, while he sits huddled in the rain of the storm cloud over head and mourns for the two broken cups at his feet. Well, this card isn't about me ignoring the bright side. This card is about me seeing the light. Things that seemed so awful for the longest have started to seem not so terrible lately. I can turn my back on the dismal way of seeing things, I can turn my face toward the light. The funny thing about it is, I'm viewing the same thing, but just seeing it differently. I'm seeing it as if it doesn't really matter, and when something doesn't really matter, suddenly it's okay to be happy even though the thing is happening. It's only when it does 'matter' that you have to mourn and grieve and tear out your hair and beat your breast and all that other Old Testament type stuff.

When I say it doesn't really matter, I mean it in the best possible sense of 'not mattering'. Not a nihilistic sense, but an accepting sense. I can't think of a better way of putting it than Krishnamurti did when he asked his pupils if they wanted to know his secret. Of course they couldn't believe their luck and were all ears:

'This is my secret,' Krishnamurti told them: 'I don't mind what happens.'

So two cups are broken. So what? Mourning doesn't make them whole again. Regret or shame doesn't undo what's been done. Turn your back on it. There's light there to warm yourself in. Stop wasting your time, go sunbathe and sip something nice and cold from those three shiny cups!

Will I? What then?

Anna K Tarot, 1st edition

I'm just embarking on a new opportunity, which would be of 6 month duration. I thought I'd ask the tarot about it.

Musings on the Celtic Tarot: Cups

Cups suit from Celtic Tarot, Davis, 3rd edition 2002

The Cups do not lend themselves immediately to a continuous story, as the Wands suit does. There is a thread that runs through them, though. Each card features cups suffused in a kind of effervescent glow, suspended in front of a circular pattern reminiscent of a rose window. The groupings of the Cups and a few subtle cues in the rose window are all the clues you get, really, to help you interpret these cards.