Spiral Tarot 8 of Cups

Spiral Tarot by Kay Steventon US Games 1997

I like the Spiral Tarot a lot, but it's such a shame about those borders. I even cropped them off a deck, but then it felt denuded and wrong, so I passed that deck along to someone else and bought a fresh copy. You just have to wonder - why? Why purple and white marbling? Why a red and white inner border? Why the white on red italic, why outline that in white? Did the artist come up with this or was it the publisher? (Shaking my head.)

Anyway, I do like the Spiral Tarot. A lot of the cards depart from traditional meaning, like this one, 8 of Cups. The LWB says: 'The goddess is returning to the underworld for the winter cycle. A need to go into your inner world to find what is missing from your life. Unfulfilled love. Leaving an unhappy situation.'

Okay, 'leaving a situation' is a common interpretation of 8 of Cups. But descending to the underworld, or going within, is not seen so much. That would make this figure Persephone (or in Roman mythology, Proserpina). Persephone was abducted by Hades, which you'd think would be a bad thing, but Persephone adapts so well to the Underworld that she becomes its strong and powerful queen. She loves it down there, and loves Hades, too. When her mother Demeter finally finds her, Persephone doesn't want to come back, but she agrees because, well, it's her mother. But she had tasted the pomegranate in Hades (which has all sorts of juicy connotations having to do with awakenings of various appetites, ahem) and is no longer 'pure'. She's tied to the light and to the velvet dark. So for part of the year she visits her mother in the light, and brings with her growth and life, and for part of the year she goes back to the arms of Hades and her role as Queen of the Dead, so the earth lies dormant and cold for lack of her presence.

Well now, that brings up all sorts of possibilities for reading this card.  But the crux of it is changing directions, or turning away from one path to follow another, or moving your attention from one thing you love to another thing you love. It could even be moving into the underlying or deeper levels of a situation, or examining its hidden or shadow side, particularly of emotions, as this is a cups card. Eight of Cups is Water of Water, so this is the 'feelings of feelings' card. Maybe it's a time for doing some introspective journaling, or listening to music that amplifies your mood and just going with it, or immersing yourself in a book or film that brings out your emotions. Anything that helps you experience your emotions more fully and perhaps explore what lies beneath them. Most importantly, like Persephone, you get to come back from this journey. You don't have to choose one or the other. You can have both.

Or maybe you just need a big juicy bite of pomegranate, if you know what I'm sayin'.

8 of Cups as hope

Turning the corner and embarking on an unknown new path. I'm reading this with Marseilles or playing card meanings today. 'The hearts (or cups) count as love, family and friends,' and 'an eight shows ideas or thoughts of the mind.' The 8 of Cups in this reading style is 'emotional thoughts', even 'hopes'. I see the figure in this card embarking on a fresh journey into the unknown, starting so early it's still dark with only the moon to light the way.

Buying a house is a business transaction, and all the advice says to look upon a potential property as merely a 'building', but there also the emotion behind it -- the new 'home', with all its connotations. Making a financial commitment and buying a property is also an emotional commitment to the person you go into it with. It's a trust thing, and in a way, a more solid way of saying, 'I intend to be in this with you for life.' I never considered how buying a property might make one feel more deeply committed to one's relationship.

The figure in this card is alone, but I don't think that matters to my reading today. The emotional realisation and feeling of fresh start happens inside oneself, probably not a shared experience.

In any case, a new era is dawning in my life. We viewed our first house last night, and for the first time felt the possibility of owning a property. It was nice. :)

Another viewing tonight!

Reading using directionality and reversals

Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Tarot  

This is the reading I've been exploring in my journal for the last few days. I'd drawn cards of the number 5 two days in a row (not pictured). Five being associated with finding balance, I asked 'What is attempting to find balance in my life right now? What is out of balance? and What is maintaining equilibrium?' I drew Magician Rx, Strength, Star.

So, a weakened Magician is attempting to find balance right now. Personal power is not being used to bring my needs into reality. I am not identifying my true needs. Strength has come forward as what is out of balance right now -- again a card of personal power and taking the bull by the horns (or lion by the jaw). The Star has maintained equilibrium -- hope has not been lost. I have felt all along that there is plenty of time to address my issues. I just haven't done anything about them. (The reason why is seen in 9 of Pentacles later).

To rectify the reversed Magician, I drew Hermit and placed it above Magician. I can identify my true needs and establish balance in my personal power within myself, or with the help of a mentor, or in a spiritual tradition or practice. wondering what the Hermit's lamp was lighting, I drew another card to see what was in his line of sight. Queen of Cups. Her posture echoes that of the Hermit -- both facing to the left, both intent upon the item they are holding, for the Hermit, the lamp of enlightenment, for the Queen it's the world's craziest cup, shaped like the Ark of the Covenant with the seraphim on either side (if the Ark of the Covenant were made of spare pipe and hood ornaments nicked from the cars of pimps in Starsky and Hutch.)  Queen of Cups is Water of Water -- and so was the daily card that prompted this draw (not in the photo), 5 of Cups, another Water of Water card. This imbalance or disturbance is in the realm of emotions and relationships and personal power.

 Looking at the Queen of Cups and Hermit makes one long to know what is in their line of sight -- so I drew another card to see what they are looking at and got 8 of Cups reversed. Another Water of Water card! 8 of Cups is recognition of time to move on; reversed suggests confusion or delay in making that move.

How can I overcome this confusion, find some clarity? I drew a card to rectify the 8 of Cups reversed and got -- King of Swords reversed! Fire of Air, reversed. I am Aquarius, and King of Swords is the card associated with Aquarius. He's sort of my default setting. But here, to overcome my confusion about what needs looking at and changing, I can't do it through King of Swords, but through King of Swords reversed. Usually, I tend to be rational about things but now that is not what is needed. To clarify this, I remembered a technique of identifying reversed court cards by identifying their elemental opposite. If King of Swords is Fire of Air, his opposite would be Air of Fire --Knight of Wands!

Knight of Wands, that maker of 'down and dirty' plans, that explorer and adventurer, that risk taker! Knight of Wands? How the heck do I access Knight of Wands energy when I don't even feel that I remotely have it right now?

I took the card out of the pack and looked at it for a while. I noticed the pyramids in the background. The Knight of Wands is not drawing energy from his surroundings, which are dry and barren. His passion is inside him. So it must be somewhere inside of me, even when there is nothing in my environment or situation to feed it. What is the Knight of Wands charging toward? What is he charging away from?

I put the card back in the pack and shuffled to find out which cards he would end up between. I found the Knight of Wands and laid him out with the cards on either side of him: Chariot, Knight of Wands, 9 of Pentacles.

The Knight of Wands is moving away from 9 of Pentacles (Air of Earth), whose energy and line of sight are directed away from him (though her body posture is still open to his direction). Her attention is definitely elsewhere, focused on her bird (Air) of prey (Earth). As Air of Earth, she contemplates the material/physical realm. Her satisfaction with her status quo is evident. She is complacent, self-congratulatory, self-satisfied. These are not bad things, but the way she spends her leisure time may no longer be balanced -- too long standing still. Too long watching others move (her bird of prey, which she will presumably set loose to watch fly).

How does the Knight of Wands move me from too much physical luxury? What does he move me toward? The Chariot, a Water card, associated with Cancer and the Moon. Okay, so the Water of Water cards led me to draw a variety of Water cards that have laid me a path to -- a Water major! The emotional plane is dominant in this issue. Not the material plane or the logical plane, but the emotional plane, and how to take action with balanced emotions.

'Cancer is the gateway to incarnation, as Capricorn (its opposite) is the gateway to ascension. Cancer's energy guides us to learn the distinctions of our emotional and logical reasoning so we can recognise how they don't always agree' - agent64.com/cancer-the-chariot

Like a Cancerian crab, the Chariot has a hard shell and a soft centre -- appearing tough on the outside but deep down quite sensitive and vulnerable.

The Chariot card is full of this tension between opposing forces: black and white sphinxes, male and female, facing in opposite directions, meant to be pulling the chariot but not hitched to it and lying down (they seem ambivalent), the lingam and yoni on the shield (which to me looks like a top that spins in place but doesn't actually get anywhere), the chariot is a conveyance but is built like a cube of concrete, no reins and no motion in the charioteer who is encased in the concrete cube (he seems ambivalent), chariots are often associated with the sun ('chariots of fire') but this one is decorated with moons and starry night skies and is associated with the moon.

In other words, the Knight of Wands is me progressing, through my own inner drive,  toward a state of balance created by acknowledging that there is always a state of perpetual tension, and harnessing that tension to drive my life forward. I have been looking for balance rather than acknowledging constant tension. In fact, I have turned from acknowledgement of tension, turned from the areas that need attention (Water and Fire) and settled into some complacent wallowing in the material realm. And there I've wallowed for quite some time.

'To be useful, either to herself or any higher purpose, she had to use her ambivalence as a driving force in her life, a force that would power the Chariot' (Rachel Pollack, The Forest of Souls, 75).

Much to ponder. The Chariot and the Knight of Wands are going on my altar.

Some of these techniques were shared by Caitlin Matthews in a session at the UK Tarot Conference, October 2015. A webinar and DVD of line of sight and rectifying reversals, etc,  may be available at some point. Visit her website at Hallowquest.

Other techniques seen herein have been shared by Alison Cross in TABI conferences, by Benebell Wen in her book Holistic Tarot, and many others.

Tarot de St Croix Diamond Spread

A reading for this week at work

De St Croix Diamond 5-Card Spread

(from Tarot de St Croix LWB)

1. Signifier: What or who am I in this situation? - 6 of Swords
2. Unconscious: What is underneath or hidden? - 8 of Cups
3. Release: What do I need to let go of? - 8 of Wands
4. Conscious: What is on my mind, what do I already know? - Judgement
5. Receive: What do I expect or need to open to? - Hermit

The signifier tells me at least one and possibly all of the following: I am in a position to be a catalyst for change, I am in a position to receive guidance through this change, and this change will happen and will soon be a memory, all behind me. It would seem that it's up to me to determine how smooth the sailing is. The idea of moving on or turning into a new direction is seen in both 6 of Swords and 8 of Cups. Both cards imply that the turning away is caused by some pain (or is causing some pain) but that the transition is both welcome and inevitable. In other words, the situation has reached a turning point and there is no way a corner won't be turned this week.

Tarot de St Croix says this about 8 of Cups: 'Emotional strength is not about overcoming our feelings but instead immersing ourselves in them until we can release them.' There are many ways to read this statement - none of which seem to have much to do with traditional interpretations of this card. It's saying to feel what I feel and not deny it. It could also be saying that there is a time and a place to release emotions and to be aware of that (ie, be on guard against emotive outbursts).  Finally, I also see it as a reminder that I am not the only one with feelings and it might be useful to try immersing myself in someone else's feelings in order to understand them better and be of help to them.

I need to let go of urgency. The race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the strong, as good old King Solomon obligingly reminds us. It is probably time to listen more than I talk and by that I don't mean sitting in silence, but actually understand and accept the ideas and opinions of others in a way that may change the way I behave in the future. Listening may not always be expedient, but it is certainly more helpful.

I already know that a sea change is needed in my work place in order for us to survive. My grave concern is that certain others will not take seriously the precarious situation we are in. It is so important, for our very survival, that we make big changes in the way we do things, and this is where my sense of urgency comes from. I lose patience watching others going through the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) that go along with big changes. Some of us hear the trumpet call and ready to rise up renewed (RWS imagery), others still slumber in the tomb, as it were. The Tarot de St Croix depicts life changing moments in a cathedral: 'Look at your beliefs and decide if they work for you,' the companion book advises. I already know that I have been doing that, and I know that all members of staff need to do it, too.

I need to expect and be open to the fact that this will take time. The Hermit is Father Time and it is that aspect that I see applying here. I don't see how 'solitude' has much to do with anything, though the implication is there that I may not have many allies during this transitional time. I also must be prepared to receive that it's all going to take much longer than I would have hoped. I just hope it doesn't take so long that it becomes too late.

In summary, this spread is telling me that change happens slowly, it is complicated, it involves a lot of emotions, and being impatient is only going to complicate matters. It tells me to LISTEN and to empathise.

Long week ahead. LOL

How about a draw from The Wicca Deck (Sally Morningstar 2001) for a final word on the issue:

Okay, the companion book says and I quote:

High Note - Change is coming. Are you ready?
Low Note - Release; let go. Prepare.

So, that pretty much confirms all of what I said in the tarot reading. The book goes on to say that it is a time to draw toward you what you need to advance your position in life, and that you need to release something in order for this to happen. What I need is for staff to bring their practices in line with the rest of the service, and what I need to let go of is the desire for them to do it how I want it when I want it. As long as they do it, that's what counts.

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.

The Flow. Go with it.

I pulled this card from Gaian Tarot (by Joanna Powell Colbert, Llewellyn 2011) as part of a 4-card spread today. This one was in the 'avoid' position.

The 8 of Cups in the Rider Waite shows someone striking out on a path going uphill, destination unknown, leaving behind a stack of eight cups. This card shows a woman determinedly swimming upstream. In its positive aspects, it suggests that you should go against the flow, be unconventional, be unafraid to move in your own direction in order to 'find your authentic self', even if that means a bit of a struggle. That's all very valiant and good.

Sometimes, though, you're tired of fighting. Sometimes, you realise the fight is counterproductive. You realise that upstream, though possibly the brave and valiant direction, is actually the wrong way.

The message to me today is, stop fighting. Stop struggling. Tread water for a bit and feel the current rushing past you. Let it wash over you. Let it wash you clean. Then relax into it, and let it carry you for awhile. Just float today. Find the flow...go with it.

For today, may I catch myself when I start swimming upstream, stop,and just go with the flow.