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.'

Old grey mare she ain't what she used to be -- health talk from the Empress

Today I've drawn The Empress. It's unusual for me to drawn a major as a daily card -- for some reason, I almost never get them. It's usually a pip card. So imagine my surprise when yesterday I went ahead and drew cards for this week, one per day, and I drew a series of four majors -- no pips until Friday! Weird.

The Empress doesn't turn up much in readings for myself. I don't have a particularly strong maternal or nurturing instinct and I am not what you'd call an 'earth mother' type. The Empress is an earth mother -- in fact her elemental affinity is Earth.  It's made pretty obvious in the Pamela Coleman Smith artwork. She sits on a rock throne in a field of grain, with trees and water all around. Mother Nature indeed. Helpfully, the illustration includes a symbol of Venus carved on a valentine heart, to remind us that the Empress may be a sort of goddess of love, but she can also have a heart of stone. Her crown of twelve stars reminds us that she is of a more cosmic nature than her minor card equivalent, Queen of Pentacles. She might share with the Queen of Pentacles a love of the earth and of the concerns of the flesh, but she's got bigger fish to fry, as the zodiacal crown attests. Her robe is white, which could symbolise a sort of purity, but it's decorated with sliced open pomegranates, which traditionally are a symbol of female genitalia. I suppose you could say the Empress has a wholesome enthusiasm for fecundity and all the acts that lead to it.

That's the thing about majors, though. They're so 'BIG' it's sometimes hard to see what bearing they have as a daily draw. I tend to revert to using them to create an affirmation or seeing them as a reminder to take a wider perspective for the day.

 The Empress reminds me to take a broader view of my health and body. There is more to enjoyment of life than indulging momentary whims, and there's more to the upkeep of the body than numbers on the scale or size of trousers. There is health to consider, and by that I don't mean how fast can you run up a flight of stairs, but how many years can you keep your body in working order? The Empress says to me, if you love this life and want to stay here for a while longer, you are going to have to have some respect for the basic principles of how life works. There's only so much abuse a field will take before it stops producing grain, a river can take before everything in it dies, a forest can take before it disappears. Heck, even a stone gets worn away by erosion, but it goes a heck of a lot faster if you stick dynamite in it and blow it up. If you've got any 'dynamite' behaviours toward your health, maybe you ought to step back and consider the consequences, she seems to be saying. She loves you but she's not your mom--she's Mother Nature! (that's where that heart of stone comes in). She will just watch nature take its course. That's how it works. It's up to you to make better choices, and make them for the bigger reasons, because it's easy to dismiss that niggling voice in your head telling you to move more and eat better as 'cultural conditioning' and 'societal pressures' to strive for 'unattainable beauty standards' when 'real live women have curves.' But actually, uh uh. It is probably the Empress saying hey lady -- wanna reach 65?

Yeah.

Summer Solstice Reading

A reading for Summer Solstice. I found this spread at a blog called Indigo Spirit Tarot. It seemed like a nice spread, so I thought I'd try it out here as my Summer Solstice reading. 

1

2 ............... 3

4 ..... SUN..... 5

6 ............... 7

8

1. Live with passion. Embrace the power of the Sun.

2. Upcoming possibilities. The door to success is opened by...

3. Time to play. Enjoy this gift.

4. Time to be serious.

5. Welcome advice.

6. Beware what lies in the shadows.

7. How to improve, now that you're aware. 

8. A burden lifted. Let it go.

I've chosen to read with Tarot Illuminati (Erik C Dunne, 2013) because -- what's more appropriate on Summer Solstice than a little illumination? 

1. Embrace the Sun - Princess of Swords. 'If the Princess of Swords is anything,' writes Kim Huggens in Complete Guide to Tarot Illuminati, 'she is firstly the power of invention and secondly of revolution.' 

2. Upcoming possibilities - Five of Swords. We often look at this card as indicating defeat, but there's no reason not to sometimes see ourselves as the ones having the upper hand. Kim Huggens supports this, writing, 'If the other cards around it are positive and supportive, it suggests the querent has a unique advantage in the situation and they need to make the most of it.' 

3. Enjoy this gift - Eight of Wands. This card suggests that whatever I start in the coming months will progress swiftly. I have the gift of fast movement and swift progress. 'Often this card indicates that the querent will be involved in a number of events that could be described as synchronicity, carrying them forward in a series of coincidences that they could never have expected,' Huggens writes. 

4. Time to be serious - Ace of Pentacles. Time to be serious about good hard graft, and reminds me to cultivate, process and make use of all my resources to be applied in each situation. I'm seeing it as saying don't get ahead of yourself. Be methodical. First things first. 

5. Welcome advice - The Empress. The Empress advises me to nurture myself, my life, my surroundings, my projects, and other people. She advises me to indulge my creative impulses, which, like childbirth, require sometimes painful effort to reap the rewards. 

6. Beware what lies in the shadows - 3 of Swords. Huggens makes an interesting point about this card. It is not the card of personal heartbreak, which is better reflected in 5 of Cups. Rather, this card represents the suffering of existence, 'the profound sadness felt when seeing the state of the world and the suffering of mankind,' as Huggens puts it. It represents existential angst, a feeling with which I am quite familiar. 

7. How to improve, now that you're aware - Death. I suppose few cards confront and dispel existential angst as effectively as the Death card. Acceptance. 

8. Let it go - Five of Pentacles.  'Worry is a self-destructive behaviour that perpetuates the cycle of lack and loss,' writes Huggens. 'It keeps us firmly in the past or in the future, and never in the present: we rarely worry about this moment, right now; we only ever worry about something that has happened in the past or what may or may not happen in the future. As such, worry does not allow us to take proper action in the present.' So clearly I need to let go of worry about lack, loss, deprivation, hardship, instability, etc. 

Interesting.

Tarot and the 12 Steps: 4-6

This is post of 2 of 4 in which I attempt to find how the first 12 tarot majors fit in with 12 step recovery. Please see post 1 here.

4. Made a searching and fearless inventory of ourselves. 

Bill W's Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous explains Step 4 here. (Scroll to page 64 to find where Step 4 begins. It covers pages 64-71, so it's a biggie.) In this step, a lot of soul searching and being honest with oneself takes place.  I think that there is a way the Empress relates to this. The Empress 'brings forth'. She 'gives birth to'. We talk about the Magician having the ability to make things manifest, but the Empress actually does it. She brings forth crops. And when we write down in black and white our resentments, fears, angers and our wrongs, we have produced something real, too. There it is.

There's another way that the Empress relates to this step, and that is the surprising degree to which Step 4 has to do with sexuality, in childhood, adolescence and adulthood. Much of the resentment, fear, anger and wrongs of Step 4 is inured in what Bill W calls 'sex power' (1939 lingo). The Empress is acknowledged as representing both fecundity and sexuality. She is the queen of these aspects of self, and if anyone can help us make a 'searching and fearless' inventory of ourselves in these areas, I can't think of a tarot major that would be better equipped for it.

Time for John Barleycorn to die again - Wheel's on fire

How cool to draw Lugh on Lughnasadh! Though I prefer the traditional Anglo-Saxon name Lammas, from 'hlaf-mass' or 'loaf mass'. It's the time to celebrate the first harvest, and we can see the first fruits of the harvest all around us. Just this week I've been noticing a few leaves on the ground, the rowan trees are in berry, and we sit under a beech tree every day at lunch and the other day the hubster got pelted on the head by falling beechnuts several times! (None of them hit me.)

Here Lugh stands with his many symbols of fertility -- beehive, wheat field, cornucopia of fruits and vegetables, a blazing sun symbol on his chest and a great big spear representing...masculine power. Wahey. (Even if he is the Empress, which is kinda weird.)

Today is the day to recognise the bounty of the earth, and how some things must die to give forth their fruits. It is time, even in the heat of summer, to contemplate the decline of the year, and to think upon the beauty of the changing seasons, the turning of the earth, the passage of time, the continuity of life. Earth in her ancient, eternal, endless loops around the glorious life-giving sun.

Listen to Steve Winwood sing the traditional song about the harvest of the barley -- John Barleycorn Must Die.

Why not bake a loaf of bread today and light a candle and give thanks to the bounty of the earth.

Week ahead - Deck of the Bastard

Rough night with dental discomfort/pain and nausea. Let's look at the cards for the next week and try a little predictive reading, then look at them again on each day:

Row 1: Sat Sun Mon
Row 2: Tue Wed Thu

Row 3: Fri

Today - 6 of Pentacles

This is a time when I must assess how much of my neediness in the material plane is down to perception. I feel quite on my knees to/at the mercy of events with regard to my physical body at the moment. I do feel at the mercy of those who seem to have more power over this aspect of my life at the moment; in this case, the dentists. I also feel that I am begging for mercy from a higher source for a good outcome.

It would probably not be a bad idea to get some perspective on events. There are many people in the world much far worse off than me with my dental pain/discomfort but the resources to eventually take care of the problem, even if I have to experience some pain for a few days or weeks, and even if the procedure is not the most pleasant in the world. No matter what happens, the worst case scenario for me is a tooth extraction. My life is not on the line. I'm not looking at chemo or open heart surgery. 

So this card is both an assessment of my current feelings and a call to remember I'm not the only one having troubles and in fact am better off than most.

Sun - Empress

It's hard not read every card in light of my most pressing problems. The Empress here suggests a day in which I should nurture myself in every way possible, mother myself. I should focus on the ways in which I do feel healthy. I should avoid talking about my problems. The Empress is a doer, not a talker. 

Mon - Justice

It's Easter Bank Holiday. It hardly seems fair to me that my dental woes have invariably fallen across weekends when the dentist is closed. Then, it hardly seems fair that the dentist is closed on weekends. A practice open on Saturday would do a booming trade. I can only hope that whatever discomfort I've been in for the last few days has seen a reduction.

In any case, the Justice card doesn't seem a harbinger of doom. Depending on how you number your cards, Justice is my year card. (The numbers of your date of birth added together and reduced is your year card. Mine is 8, which in some decks is Strength, in others Justice. I lay claim to both because my age is 47, 4+7=11, which seemed a coincidence too handy to ignore). 

It could be that Monday will be a day when I must deal dispassionately with the fact that life is impartial in dealing out woes. Or a day when I make connections between events and see the cause and effect. I might reach a solution or decision of some kind. 

Tue - 3 of Pentacles

It's back to work after being off since 11 April, but I must say, it hasn't been an especially fun holiday. There will be so many tasks to catch up on. I am not looking forward to it. I think I will probably be consulting with my manager a lot (if she's in). Team work is called for. 

Wed - The Devil

I think I know what this might point to. I originally booked off half a day's annual leave for this day (hubby asked me to). Should I go ahead and take it? Or should I stay at work for the day? The Devil is about feeling helpless, in bondage, thinking negatively, believing the worst, choosing to remain in ignorance, or any number of bleak concepts. It could be a day that I am tempted to call in sick altogether. But perhaps this could just point to a very busy day at work in which I feel like a slave! 

Thu - Wheel of Fortune

Does the worm begin to turn? Something is going to change on Thursday, anyway. I do hope it's for the better.

Fri - 9 of Cups

This looks hopeful....particularly following on from Devil, to Wheel, to 9 of Cups, as if a low point is reached on the Wednesday but looking better by the Friday. It is generally interpreted as achieving what you desire. I know what I desire as an outcome -- a settled down mouth, no pain, and able to eat without worrying about it. 

I'm going to do each entry for the next week in the evening to see how things actually panned out.

'She looks well to the ways of her household, and does not eat the bread of idleness'

Robin Wood Tarot by Robin Wood

This is a nice Empress. I like that she's not some sexy vixen like we see in some tarot decks. She's very matronly, all wimpled up and spinning. Very domesticated. There are the usual symbols of fertility and abundance -- she's pregnant, her gown is trimmed in green, she sits under a tree, there is a basket of fruit and veg and a bee hive at her feet, she spins wool into yarn, she is surrounded by lush green countryside, and so on and so forth. On the tree over her head, we see the sign of Venus on a valentine heart, as in the RWS image. Empress is ruled by the planet Venus, which rules over Taurus and Libra.

Libra and Taurus may seem as different as chalk and cheese, yet they are both ruled by the same planet: Venus. The mythology of Venus seems to reflect this dual nature. The Greeks saw Aphrodite as a goddess of love and beauty, which reflects Libra traits. The Romans saw Venus as an agricultural goddess of gardens and vineyards, which sounds more like Taurus.

Taurus is an Earth sign, and as such is connected to the body and the physical world. The Taurus side of Venus is rooted in sensuality, pleasure and celebrating the blessings of the material world. This includes money, possessions and resources of all kinds that collectively represent what you "have." The Taurus bull's horn becomes a Horn of Plenty, overflowing with Venus' gift of luscious abundance. ~Evolving Door

The Empress then, embodies the totality of womanhood. Well, they say that's the totality of womanhood. I personally think there's more to us than being both sexy and handy around the house. But this is probably rebellion against the Proverbs 31 woman I was encouraged to look up to  in my Bible belt youth. 

Well, I'm done trying to be a Proverbs 31 woman, but I would like to have a nice, balanced day today, and this card suggests that what I can do today to both bring me pleasure and bode well for my future is to turn my hands to my tasks with skill and patience, and strike a balance between my many life roles. 

Thin thighs at card number three

'Until we learn to experience the outer world completely we cannot hope to transcend it. Therefore the first step to enlightenment is sensuality. Only through passion can we sense, from deep inside rather than from intellectual argument, the spirit that fills all existence.' 
     ~Rachel Pollack, 78 Degrees of Wisdom

 I've never really associated the Egyptian pantheon with sensuality. They strike me as somewhat cold, frozen into stiff, expressionless postures. But that's just my reaction to the ancient Egyptian artwork. Study and meditation, as well as contemporary art work, have helped me see there's more there than walking like an Egyptian.

Not that the Empress is Egyptian necessarily, but she is in this deck. And certainly the Empress in all decks is associated with sensuality. (Though in this particular card, she appears less like she is sitting on a throne than that she really, really needs a wee. Plus she might be a little anxious that her stiff bodice is sliding down off her strangely Victoria-Beckham-implant-like chest.)

Rachel Pollack advises that drawing the Empress means a time of passion, a period when we approach life through feelings and pleasure rather than thought. Good. I like that advice for today. I don't want to think about anything. I need to take back some clothing items I bought yesterday that don't fit (one had the wrong size garment hanging on a hanger marked with my size, the other two are cut for women who have more Empress-like chests than me. I can usually tell how something's cut while it's on the hanger and I don't even pick it up, but these surprised me when I tried them on. Wow. Not pour moi!) And then after that, I might...just might...actually do a workout. I haven't done one since 4th Feb. And the last one before that was 10th Dec 2013. So, yeah, I am really out of shape. Out of touch with my 'sensual' side, you might say.

A Watery Gal

Thoth Tarot

Isn't this a pretty card? When I first got the Thoth Tarot, which I bought in 2010 to take to the TABI Tarot Conference, specifically for a presentation given by Emma Sunerton-Burl, this was one of the few cards I actually liked. It turned out the training session centered on only one card of the deck, The Star, and I hadn't needed to buy my own deck, anyway. I decided the deck looked evil, possibly Satanic, so into the drawer it went. But for some reason, I didn't get rid of it. And for me, if you know me, that is pretty impressive. I am not one to keep decks that I don't think I'll use. Turns out it's a good thing I didn't, because Thoth has become one of my favourite decks. It may be becoming my absolute 'favourite' deck. And it is highly likely it may become my elusive 'primary deck'. These cards are special. (Even if Crowley was a jerk.)

The Empress represents 'woman', and all that is womanly. Many tarot decks depict her as a pregnant goddess of harvest, surrounded by grain and fruits and symbols of plenty. Here, though, she is a very watery queen. Perhaps this has something to do with her planetary sign being Venus, which doesn't strike me as a very warm, fertile planet. The fertility here is embryonic, the bubbles and the floaty sea fronds and the shapes of the card reminding me somehow of fetuses and amniotic fluid. The card makes me think of the lush and mysterious fluidity and oozings of the female, if that's not too graphic for a Thursday! But it isn't bloody or even necessarily fleshly, it's more abstract, and thus we have the watery qualities of the imagery. For all that, she still wears a shirt of a 'passionate red', as DuQuette describes it, and there are bees on the shirt, symbol of fertility and abundance. I like the moon phases reminding us of female cycles. She holds a lotus and her arm position is reminiscent of the Madonna and Child posture (or Isis suckling Horus if you prefer). In the lower left corner is the pelican, which supposedly would pierce its breast to feed its young of its own blood. 

Something about this card today makes me think of nesting. It's my day off (I have to work both Saturday and Sunday this week) and so I will be cozy here in the flat. I will probably do some cleaning. If it's not raining, I will walk to the train station to find out about tickets, as starting next week I will be commuting by train three days a week to the new work base. I will probably do some cooking. Cozy and domestic. I guess these are womanly things to do. :)

It's not nice to fool Mother Nature

I love this Empress card from the Wicca Moon Tarot, but then I do quite like every card in this deck. One of my favourite things about the deck is that all the people are modelled by real friends of the deck artist and creator, Shirlee@Wicca Moon. I like that they are all of a certain age and none of them seem to have been off their food lately, if you know what I mean. They look like normal, healthy people who live real lives and have been around a while. This is all very, very good, if you ask me. I can certainly relate to these people more than the flat-abbed, zeppelin-breasted semi-nudes found in many modern decks. These people have dignity. And they almost all wear velvet dresses, which I think I is so cool. I'd love a velvet dress and a voluminous black cape or, as the case here, a huge piece of diaphanous fabric to swathe about myself.

So here we have Mother Nature herself sitting in glory surrounded by symbols of her creation--plus some sweet little fairies as well. And some fat, floaty bumblebees. And a big, lazy transparent bubble hovering in the air. It's just all so nice, and so many symbols there to trigger associations and ideas -- the death caps, the lilies, the bumblebees, the tress, the butterflies,the fairies, her bare feet, the colour of her dress, the sunflowers in her hair...what a great card.

For me, I'll just take it as a reminder to get back to basics in my physical life -- but also to watch out! Because the weather today is forecast to be pretty wild, a side to Mother Nature that we would do well to respect. She brought us into the world, and she can take us out!

(Source of title)

Create and harvest at once

What a lovely Empress card from the Touchstone Tarot by Kat Black. Today is the last day of the week for Touchstone Tarot. I'm sorry to see it go. I forget what a lovely deck this is until I work with it. It's just so beautiful. I hope someday it can be re-released so that it becomes affordable for people to buy. A thinner cardstock would be welcome -- and perhaps an edition without those 'wooden' borders. They really are kind of odd.

I like that even though the Empress here is obviously pregnant (an image I do find a little tediously ubiquitous in modern tarot decks), there are other symbols of fertility -- grapes, grain, the scythe, and a rabbit! I also like that she has symbols of maidenhood in the flower wreath on her head and the bouquet she carries. Nice image all around.

I guess I will have to show creativity today in getting ready for tomorrow's big children's event. We have no idea how many could turn up, but it could be as many as 135 or more! I will have to do simultaneous creating and harvesting, just as the Empress in this card. By 5.00 today, all preparations must be ready!

Pretty in Pink

This is a very pretty Empress card from the Crystal Tarot by Philip Permutt (CICO Books, 2010). For an Empress, she's rather fragile-looking, and certainly quite young. She sits in a fertile green lawn with fruit-bearing trees nearby, flowers gathering around the hem of her vibrant pink dress. Her crown, necklace and scepter are of emeralds, and there's a big emerald boulder just behind her to the right side of the card. Her shield or coat of arms is a green valentine heart with a Venus symbol on it. It's nice that she's not pregnant (I get tired of pregnant Empresses in tarot) but she could look a bit sturdier and firm of purpose for my liking. If the title didn't say Empress, I'd have guessed she's the Queen of Cups.

The Empress is a card of fundamental creativity, and so I hope this signifies that today I will feel creative in the way I approach my tasks and activities. I'm off work again today (my day off in the week for Saturday -- boo to Saturday working!) and have a couple of projects to work on, as well as a few books I want to read.

I will meditate on the Empress today and see what she has to say to me.

Put them away, love



Wheel of Year, LS 2011

It's the Empress today from LoScarabeo's Wheel of the Year Tarot, 2011. One thing about LoS, they do love piccies of creamy-skinned young things with bare chests. I don't think the Empress has her norks out in any of my other tarot decks...

So what have we here, once you get past the nipple? She's sitting on a stone throne, in the fork of a tree, and is flanked by the sun on one side and an image of the 3 phases of the moon on the end of her sceptre on the other side, a reference to her association with the 3-fold goddess. Her necklace also has a crescent moon on it. Her floral headdress is reminiscent of the crown of stars seen on the RWS Empress. She's sexy, but I bet that stone throne is cold, and there's not much here to make me associate her with maternal instincts or Gaia/Mother Nature, such as you see on many other cards. Not my favourite Empress.

So what's the message for today, then? The Empress always makes me think of empowerment through the feminine--'Don't mess with Mother Nature' type stuff. Maybe I will be called upon to use maternal aspects of self in dealing with people at work, or even the Hubster.



Lammas is coming: First Fruits of the Harvest

Druidcraft Tarot, Connections 2005

from Rigs o' Barley by Robert Burns 

IT was upon a Lammas night,

  When corn rigs are bonie,

Beneath the moon’s unclouded light,

  I held awa to Annie;

The time flew by, wi’ tentless heed,
        
  Till, ’tween the late and early,

Wi’ sma’ persuasion she agreed

  To see me thro’ the barley.


Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs,

  An’ corn rigs are bonie:
      
I’ll ne’er forget that happy night,

  Amang the rigs wi’ Annie.


The sky was blue, the wind was still,

  The moon was shining clearly;

I set her down, wi’ right good will,
        
  Amang the rigs o’ barley:

I ken’t her heart was a’ my ain;

  I lov’d her most sincerely;

I kiss’d her owre and owre again,

  Amang the rigs o’ barley.