Tarot-py

Deck: The Faeries’ Oracle (artist Brian Froud)

Card: 64 - Gawtcha

Keywords: Surprise, trepidation, denial, shaken awake, the unexpected

It has been over two YEARS since I updated this blog with a Card of the Day. And dude, SO MUCH has happened since then. I began seminary shortly after the last Card of the Day entry, and since then I’ve been studying to become a Unitarian Universalist minister. One of my mentors is a minister and also a priestess in Stone Circle Wicca, and I’ve learned I want to go a similar route and take up the double mantle of minister and initiated priestess as well (although to what extent that was a choice, I still wonder). In the wider world, we in the US affirmed our worst authoritarian and fascistic tendencies by electing a grossly incompetent, sexist, racist, vile faux-strongman of a President, and coming into my own as a progressive faith leader has all been done with that as the backdrop. This whole time I haven’t stopped working with the cards (many decks worth) for personal use, but I’ve been offering readings more as impromptu gifts to others than for personal illumination, because we’ve all got to keep going somehow.

Just recently, however, I had a health crisis: a routine laparoscopic gallbladder removal surgery turned into something far more complicated that resulted in a second full open surgery within the week. All told, I spent 12 days in the hospital and I’m still recovering, which means I will have missed out on an entire month of work at my parish internship. But the important thing is, I’m here and I’m alive and my whole experience was a physical ordeal that I’ve been interpreting as a kind of uninvited initiation. Shortly after the big surgery, I had dreams about discovering my “essential Fae nature” and wondered a lot about what that might mean, and my mentor suggested I work a bit with this deck. My husband luckily had it on hand because we’re big Froud fans in this house, and Alan’s relationship with the Good Neighbors is far more explicit than my own; I respect them, but I’ve been reluctant to work with them because I prefer my spirit experiences to be at least *slightly* more predictable and interpretable. But I guess I’m being asked to cultivate comfort with the chaos and the mess of working with the Fae, so… here we are. As I get to know the Faeries’ Oracle, and as I get back into the practice of writing post-surgery, I’m hoping to do a card-a-day thing with them. So here we go. Expect these readings to be less systematic and more freewheeling and intuitive than traditional tarot, because that’s the nature of this deck.

An androgynous, humanoid faerie sits in a closed posture with legs crossed and drawn up to their chest; their three-fingered hands obscure their face, and one penetrating eye peeps between the fingers directly at the viewer. They have small wings on their back, unengaged. Their hair is tangled and short, bare branches stick out the top; their ears are pointed and also stick out of their mane of hair.

On its own, this card is hard to interpret. The instructions for the Faeries’ Oracle suggest “finding one’s own meanings” before looking to the book for interpretation. The first thing I see in this card is hiding and surprise; the name “Gawtcha” suggests catching someone out. I can see that this faerie is a truth-seer from the direct gaze of that one visible eye, but doesn’t want to be seen themself. I don’t think he’s confrontational per se (he’s suggesting I use “he” pronouns), but he’s a revealer of truth while also revealing little of himself. The masked identity is important to him, more a tool to reveal other people’s Stuff than something that says something about himself. There’s a playfulness to the card, like a child playing peek-a-boo; there’s no malice here, just the spirit of joking that happens when someone behaves according to their old, destructive or unhealthy patterns and someone’s like “you know you’re doing that THING, right?”

Well, yup. Of course. Now that you’ve SAID it, I can’t pretend it’s not a thing.

In ministry training, we do this thing called CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education), and it usually involves going into a setting like a hospital, nursing home, or prison to learn how to do chaplaincy. We have a supervisor and a student cohort, and a huge part of CPE is noticing—and calling out—one another’s shit. So is Gawtcha here basically the CPE faerie? God, I hope not. I like to think he’d be a bit more fair than my supervisor was sometimes. So where, I guess, do I need to get shaken out of my patterns?

During my training, one of my big areas of interest has been the Enneagram of Personality. My mentor’s done some study on it and it was she who pointed me at my correct type (Type 1, which I had previously convinced myself I couldn’t possibly be, because I’m not THAT uptight and inflexible and perfectionistic and rules-abiding, am I?). The Enneagram materials talk a lot about being “entranced” by the personality rather than having an attitude of openness and fluidity that allows for growth and development to a healthy direction. The time I spent in the hospital really made me double down on the more unhealthy parts of the 1 type, and on the behaviors associated with my stress direction as well. Ideally, when I’m developing healthily, I’m supposed to become more open to spontaneity, joy, and the fun side of life, and there hasn’t been a lot of opportunity for that.

Deck: Cosmic Tarot (artist Norbert Lösche) Card: XIII - Death Keywords: Transition, ending, shedding excess, inevitability

A skeleton clad in a decaying black robe holds a gleaming scythe and a black bird. It stands on a stone floor that appears tiled; around the skeleton are fallen, crumbling headstones, a broken sword, a crown in pieces, columns, a large clock, and skulls, one of which is wearing a soldier's helmet. Far in the distance, the tiles recede into sand, and an illuminated ocean lies beyond. A golden sun rises behind the skeleton; the sky seems full of planetoids and stars.

The Death card is one of the more confrontational images, especially its stark no-nonsense portrayal in the Cosmic deck. While the Fool represents the beginning of a cycle, Death represents the end: the close of one chapter and the opening of another. This Death in particular serves to underscore the futility of human endeavors: the rulers are dust under its feet as much as warriors are. The folk song "O Death" has a line that goes "The old, the young, the rich or poor, all alike to me you know". Change, like death, happens to us all, and like death, it's disturbing. This card suggests to us that the pursuit of power and wealth in this world is perhaps less important than we're led to believe; in the face of this kind of change, our priorities come into focus.

I've been waiting for my little skeletal buddy to show up, to the extent that it actually hijacked part of yesterday's Card of the Day entry. Yesterday and today, I've really been feeling what this card is about. A lot of my time has been taken up with paperwork and the other administrative stuff that's going to prepare me for school in the fall, including an hour-long phone conversation with my faculty advisor, and a flurry of emails sent out afterwards to different people. There are a lot of ducks I need to get in a row, and I'm feeling kind of swept up in it. If I'm being honest (and I try to be, for the purposes of journaling in this blog), I'm scared. I'm worried about my own adequacy; I'm worried about student loan repayment and making this work for the next three years; I keep wondering if it's too late to chicken out. I'm still excited, but the size of the commitment is already daunting- how am I going to be able to stick it out when it gets harder? How am I going to be good enough to deal with all this stuff?

It's unknown. The answer to all these questions is unknowable and I keep feeling like this decision, probably more than anything else I've done before, is a real leap of faith. When I decided to quit my job and go freelance with art, there was risk I'd fail (and hey! Look at that- I did, for the most part!), but art is a skill I knew I had. I've done some ministry-related stuff before as part of the work I've been doing with the church, but it's nothing like the amount of practice I got making art before going to school. I never really thought I'd fail at art. This, though? This I really worry about. And the scariest part is that I can't really envision what's on the other end of this passage. I don't know how I'm going to be changed by the process, or even what my end goal for “my ministry” is. Picturing myself in a stole and a clerical collar is admittedly kind of fun, but being able to wear those symbols indicates a certain amount of training and practice that I take very seriously and still don't know if I'll be able to withstand.

Deck: Cosmic Tarot (artist Norbert Lösche) Card: IV - The Emperor Keywords: Rule of law, control, order, establishment

A bearded man in rich robes and extravagant jewelry sits on a throne, decorated with the heads of two rams. Before him is a silver plate bearing a gold scepter and a glass globis cruciger. Behind him stands a sturdy stone wall and tower with a pyramid in the distance, and tropical plants bloom behind the throne. As pointed out on tarotforum.net, the composition is inspired by the Bust of Charlemagne kept in the Aachen Cathedral Treasury. Fun fact: Norbert Lösche, the artist of the deck, is from Aachen himself, which would explain the familiar influence.

The impression here feels staid and inorganic, like a Byzantine mosaic or a Russian icon. Compared to the Empress, who's all sensuous curves, this person appears stiff, almost locked into his position. It's interesting that he wears the same animal-skin stole that she does, denoting their status as a royal pair, but while they both represent power, they're emblematic of very different types of power. In some circles, the Empress and Emperor are thought of as the "mom and dad" of the tarot, but again, I like to interpret their qualities without bringing unnecessary gendered constructs into it. The Empress represents the abundant and dangerous natural world, whereas the Emperor is all about the constructions of humanity: law, authority, hierarchy and order. The symbolism in this card draws on Christian imagery, emblems of sovereignty, and monuments of the ancient world (the wall, tower and pyramids).

I feel like there's something to be said for the fact that I seem to keep drawing cards from the Major Arcana lately. Pretty much the entire last month, I've only drawn Minors a few times, which is overwhelmingly unlikely in terms of chance: out of 78 cards, only 22 are Majors. When I draw a lot of Major Arcana cards in succession, I often feel like I'm being instructed to pay attention, because this WILL be on the quiz later. I'm going through a big transition right now: preparing to go back to being a student, of something totally different than my current area of expertise, at a school that's far away from home. Seminary is supposed to be a big, transformative experience for a lot of people who go, so I'm trying to get ready for that. I'm having trouble seeing how the Emperor is really relevant to me right now; if anything, what I'm feeling corresponds much closer with Death. In fact, today I actually got really sad thinking about leaving this chapter of my life behind and facing something so big and kind of scary. Interestingly, I threw a full Celtic Cross spread for myself today, and the theme of change and adapting to something new dominated the whole reading (and surprise- our buddy the Death card showed up in one of the "you right now" positions!).

Today was mostly spent trying to wrangle student loan stuff, and it was stressful and confusing and overwhelming, as student loans are wont to be. You could say I was butting heads with the orderly institutions represented by the Emperor. He's a bit of an uneasy card for me. He's also often characterized as a "daddy issues" card, which seems reductive and too incomplete an understanding for me; however, my antipathy toward the Emperor is very likely based in my distrust of "the establishment" in whatever form it might take (ironic, I know, for someone looking to join the clergy; fwiw, I consider religious authority to be represented by a different card, and my feelings toward that card have changed quite a lot over time; my feelings toward the Emperor have yet to do so). Getting to where I want to go academically and vocationally is going to take a lot of getting along with this kind of institution, so I'd better get over the antipathy quick.

Deck: Cosmic Tarot (artist Norbert Lösche) Card: I - The Magician Keywords: Concentration, potential, force of will, conscious intent

In the lower half of the card, a table with a bright yellow cloth holds four objects: a wand, a sword, a cup and a pentacle. In the left corner is a blooming rose; in the right, a white lily flowering tulip. Over the table looms a spectral head with intense eyes, full lips, a mustache and goatee. They wear a golden circlet with an infinity symbol over their forehead; a golden triangle connects the "third eye" on the forehead with the two physical ones, and beams of light project from the person's eyes. Behind them is a field of stars.

The card gives a sense overall of great magical potential. The items on the table, aside from being emblematic of the four suits in the tarot, are tools of ceremonial magic, and also represent the four classical elements of earth, air, fire and water. In the RWS deck, the figure of the Magician is actually visible; here, they appear spectral, almost as if their force of will has allowed them to transcend physicality and achieve a cosmic consciousness. Traditionally, the Magician is thought of as a masculine card, but here the figure appears androgynous. The traditional cards of the tarot can read as highly gendered and I often try not to bring preconceived notions of gender into my readings (unless, as with the court cards, the figure's gender is explicitly stated), but here the ambiguity of the figure seems important: transcending notions of binary gender and sex is part of the intent and will of the Magician. This person is capable of being and doing whatever they wish, and they've achieved it through both intent and practice. The eye beams indicate that they can see all things, aided by the psychic force that emanates from the infinite.

Deck: Cosmic Tarot (artist Norbert Lösche) Card: XX - Judgement Keywords: Vocation, rebirth, reassessment, absolution

A golden sunburst haloed in orange, pink and purple rises over a desert landscape. Three curved horns descend from the sky, and three figures rise from the rocky soil. One has uplifted arms; one looks up at the horns as if curious and pleased; the third revels in being freed from the ground, underscored by a decaying chain falling from their wrist.

Judgement in this deck is a very bare-bones card. It contains the "risen dead" imagery from RWS, and the horns immediately bring to mind the trumpets of Judgement Day in Biblical iconography, but otherwise this card is noteworthy for its starkness in a deck of such lush detail. Absent is the judging angel of RWS; while the religious symbols are present here, an overt scene of a biblical God is eschewed. More than RWS, the Cosmic deck's image evokes a rebirth theme: finding hope in a barren place; being awakened to a higher purpose; sensing liberation and approaching a new situation with optimistic curiosity.

A lot has happened since the last time I updated here. I honestly needed to give the blog a rest for a bit because I suddenly, unexpectedly, had a lot on my plate I wanted to get done after coming back from Chicago. I continued to draw daily cards while I was on my trip (even on the train overnight!), and let me tell you, some of those cards were laughably on the nose to what I was experiencing emotionally at the time. Like, so on the nose that if this had been written into a movie, I would've been like "pshh. That wouldn't ever happen that way." It was so ridiculous that I almost wrote about it, but I just had so much else to process and suddenly do that I decided it would be healthier for me to give it a rest. I trusted myself enough to pick it up again when the time was right.

The people who know me outside of this blog might already know the deal: I did in fact apply at the divinity school I toured. After I came home I immediately started on the application, in spite of the fact that it was long and scary and involved a lot of moving parts that required me stepping out of my comfort zone. Writing to professors from almost a decade ago and asking for a recommendation letter? Filling out the FAFSA? Writing multiple essays? Yes, yes, and more yes. I did all of it without hesitation or delay because it was just… something that had to get done. I wanted this, folks. I really wanted it. And so I actually did what was necessary to obtain it, because I was (am) convinced that this "call to ministry" thing? It's real. It's ridiculously, almost palpably real, and I honestly feel a little stupid for not figuring it out sooner, because while writing one of those essays, it became clear that the signs for this have been staring me in the face for a while. It just took me some time to actually look up at them.

On Friday, I got my acceptance letter. I'm starting this fall as a Unitarian Universalist seminarian, everyone!! This is HUGE for me, because as I've written about before, the last time I had a true career aspiration was back when I was in high school, a bratty teenager totally convinced of my Great Purpose. This feels different, because I'm coming at it with no illusions of my own importance or my clarity of vision or the purity of my intent. This desire is born out of a need to serve, to self-direct, to express, to learn, to listen and to be present with others. There are a million reasons I feel like this makes sense, but I won't go into all of it here (for perspective: one of my admissions essays needed to be 1000 words or less; I gave them over 4000 and had to cut 75% of it). Today I actually was able to share the news with my home church. My minister already knew because she'd written me one of those recommendation letters, but to most of the others, it was news.

As luck would have it, today was also the day of the ordination of the intern minister who did work at my church the first year I started going. She was an absolutely stellar person, and I had planned to drive the couple hours to go see her ordination ceremony when it happened. The ceremony was lovely, and it was great to be there representing her teaching congregation. But of course, even though I went there for her, I couldn't help but think a little about possibly being in that position one day. In a certain sense, I feel like by publicly acknowledging my call, today was almost a "beginning" for me; by seeing someone who was once an intern make it to her ordination, it was like witnessing an end to the educational process I'm excited to start. It was inspiring, not gonna lie. It was like "Hey look! Brand-new student! This is where you'll end up in a few years if you play your cards right!" And it made sense.

While I was watching her, after many years of education and interning, finally getting where she'd been going this whole time-- and hearing everyone speaking about the journey and where she started and musing about the call-- I had this distinct sense that this was indeed possible for me. Not just possible, but something I wanted. Doubt is a thing that most would-be clergy consider a necessary part of the process, but for some reason I haven't quite accepted that doubts are normal and to be expected, and aren't necessarily some kind of sign that no, this isn't a good idea. In the best moments, synchronicity conspires to make things make sense, and this was definitely one of those times. It was hard not to think of the Judgement card’s fingerprints in all of this: in the sense of the end and the beginning (and the beginning at the end), and in hearing the call that wakes you up, in making a definite decision, and in feeling released in the grace of the moment.

Deck: Cosmic Tarot (artist Norbert Lösche) Card: X - Wheel of Fortune Keywords: Destiny, cosmic motion, cycles, new developments

Of all the cards in the Major Arcana, the Wheel of Fortune (sometimes just called The Wheel, which I appreciate because it avoids evoking the image of Vanna White spinning a big game-show wheel) is the card that I have the most trouble understanding. There's a certain randomness to it implied by the name, and so when it comes up in a tarot reading I frequently find it about as frustrating as the "Ask Again Later" side on the floating die inside a Magic 8 Ball. Art-wise, I find the illustration difficult to describe (as it leans very heavily on Kabbalah and alchemical symbols, which aren't systems I use or have a lot of familiarity with) and hard to connect with; for the most part, the strength of this deck is in how eloquently it communicates a lot of ideas, and while I get the sense that ideas are attempting to come through here, it's all a little esoteric and over my head in the specifics. However, as I'm an admitted symmetry junkie, it is a really beautiful illustration; when I draw my daily card in the morning, I usually take a picture and put it on my phone's lock screen, and this one makes a fabulous wallpaper. It really does.

I'll try to describe it as best I can. At the center of the card, we have the symbol for the Sun, which appears to be at the center of a six-petaled pink flower. At the end of each petal, counterclockwise from the bottom, we see the symbols for the Moon, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Jupiter and Venus (the symbols for all the planets in the solar system, as well as Pluto, are all present, but these are just the ones in the center). The symbols are contained by equilateral triangles, which form two overlapping six-pointed stars, and they're connected by a circle. Framing the symbols and star is a golden circle with the signs of the zodiac; framing that circle is a golden square. Just above the zodiac ring are the symbols of Neptune and Uranus. Directly above the square is the symbol of Pluto, in its own gold circle and topped with the Hebrew word Keter, meaning "crown". Directly opposed, on the opposite side of the square, is the symbol of the Earth in a gold circle, with the Hebrew word Malkuth, meaning "kingdom". All the planetary symbols are connected by lines, taking the places of the Sephirot in the Kabbalah Tree of Life diagram. All these complex interconnected symbols in the illustration seem to exist inside a great system of gears; we see two orbs, possibly symbolizing heavenly bodies, turning around inside the wheel. The alchemical symbols of water, air, fire and earth are also visible at various points. The background is a sky full of stars.

Phew. What really sticks out to me about this artwork is the sheer number of different systems it draws from with which humans have tried to make sense of the world. From Kabbalah to Western astrology to alchemy, all of these are complex systems of symbols that denote different principles, personality traits, materials, events, archetypal concepts. In this card, we have a sense of the ways in which people want to see and feel and track the movement of the universe and the idea that it affects us even in small form. Astrology is all about this: the idea that the movement of the planets through sections of the sky affects events on Earth and in our lives. I could get all philosophical here about free will and destiny and how much control we really have if indeed the universe is subject to these cycles (or indeed, any quantifiable system, however complex), but I honestly don't know what I believe on that front, so I'll judiciously refrain from weighing in (full disclosure, I know a rather large amount about astrology, but it's mostly in a "this is an interesting thought experiment" kind of way. I am, however, an avowed believer in at least the first Saturn Return, being just on the tail end of a very bad one that did indeed ruin everything and shake everything up, at the exact time it was "intended" to, according to the charts. Whether it's actually caused by a planet or by a simple quarter-life crisis is yet to be determined).

Lots of words about this today. Not a lot to update; I did not end up arguing with anyone yet about taking the (accursed) pair of headphones back, because I just didn't have a good feeling about how it would go, and I couldn't deal with being pointlessly incensed again today. My husband is convinced that I have a very good case, but I was just like "dude, no, I literally can't even think about it today. Maybe in a few days." Instead, I spent my day trying to get back in excited mode for my trip. Not gonna lie, I'm still nervous, but I'm feeling just a little better about going away now than I have been for the last couple days. This card, however, is making me leery, just because it's literally a big shrug on the part of my deck. This could end up in any number of ways. Everything I'm doing could end up in any number of ways, and I'm just going to have to try to stack events in my favor, but there's only so much I can control.

Deck: Cosmic Tarot (artist Norbert Lösche) Card: Nine of Swords Keywords: Disordered thinking, anxieties, catastrophizing, instability

Annnd I'm back. I hope. I've been skipping more days than I want to with these, mostly in the interest of maintaining a reasonable bedtime, but unfortunately I think the lack of the routine and writing things out has been taking a toll (let's just say I'm really feeling this unpleasant card today; yesterday was only slightly less upsetting, and I even would have had a lot to say about it except that I got too distracted and tired). For my first entry on the Nine of Swords, see this post.

Last time I got this card I felt it mostly pertained to my husband's situation, but today I'm feeling more empathy for the little person on there than is healthy. It's no secret that I've been getting antsy about my trip coming up, and I was really feeling that today. I'm irrationally worried that I'll run out of money in the middle of it (logically, I doubt this, but irrational worries are irrational!), or that I'll forget something important at home or leave something there, or that some leg of travel is going to take way too long and I'm going to miss the entire conference, or that I'll go and it won't go well and I'll end up even more confused about what I want to do than I am now. I can tell myself forever that worrying about it this much isn't good, and it isn't helpful, and if anything's going to make it turn out worse than it would have normally, it's me worrying about it… but then I just worry more about how much I'm worrying. I'm trying really hard to jam a stick in the spokes of those wheels, but I'm feeling a little bit at the end of my reserves.

Also, as an annoying and petty note, here's a story about trying to do something that I thought would be fairly simple that instead became hard and expensive and upsetting. It's really more of a rant, so buckle yourself in, or feel free to just skip to the end if you don't want to read it. I’ll put it behind a cut so it’s not taking up a ton of room on anyone’s dash. 

Deck: Cosmic Tarot (artist Norbert Lösche) Card: Five of Swords Keywords: Estrangement, mistakes, isolation, self-evaluation

An unusually red Swords card, the Five features a person lying on the ground, arms and legs outstretched. Underneath the person is a red drawing of a boxed-in pentagram, and their arms and legs line up with the four lower points of the star. They wear utilitarian clothes: a sleeveless tee, rolled-up jeans, and no shoes. The ground around them is cracked and dry. No grass is growing, but we see dry twigs and rocks scattered about. At seemingly random places on the arid ground (one lies at the figure's right hand within the pentagram drawing, two above their head, and two along their left side), five roses surrounded by clusters of green leaves are pierced by swords that pin them like butterflies on a display board. Two dried-up, leafless trees lie beyond the prone figure, and one branchless stump also protrudes from the soil. Far in the distance, we see an ocean.

This is a card that's working with some complex and subtle symbolism, and for the longest time I've had a lot of trouble getting it to speak to me. Other Fives in the deck are frequently indicative of some kind of loss or upset; this one is far less blatant than, say, the mourner on the Five of Cups or the Five of Wands's street brawl scene. The kind of problem espoused by the Five of Swords is a problem that you don't really notice until you can feel for this person (for me, it takes remembering what this feels like). They're in a prone state, not rising for anything; the pentagram and swords resemble a trap and prison bars. This is a self-imposed isolation, a thought prison. They're ignoring the world around them; the landscape is barren and empty and harsh. The swords represent ideas; the roses represent emotion or spirituality; the ocean of emotion is far off and this person isn't able to access it from their current position. All these elements speak to me of wrongheadedness, ideological missteps, the kind of trap we set for ourselves with opinions and ideas based in something wrong, pinioning our emotions. The problem described in the Five of Swords isn't a blow that comes out of nowhere; it's a problem that gets piled up with many actions, many thoughts, and many mistakes. This is the card that comes into play when you speak without listening and cause offense; when you fall back on assumptions that aren't based in fact; or even when your high-mindedness isolates you from those around you. This is a time to reflect and think: what have I been missing or ignoring? What's worth holding onto and what no longer belongs in my worldview?

Today has been the sort of day that makes you want to go home and eat a cupcake. Or perhaps knock back a drink, if you're the drinking type (I am not). It hasn't been a bad day exactly? But it has been a tiring one. I'm just a little mentally exhausted at the moment because I'm freaking out a little about my trip coming up next week. As much as I try to tell myself it's totally something I can handle, and the things I'm worried about (like forgetting both my phone and my charger at home and being stuck on a monster train trip without ebooks or music or games) are both irrational and not actual worst-case scenarios even if they DO happen, my therapist at least assures me that it's perfectly normal and okay for even people who love travel to get a little keyed-up before a trip, because it always by necessity requires you to leave your comfort zone. I do not like leaving my comfort zone. Add onto that the fact that I feel sort of guilty for not blogging last night (I wrote half an entry on the Card of the Day- the Empress again- but didn't finish because it got late and I got tired), and an interminable committee meeting, and that constitutes a day that demands a cupcake.

Deck: Cosmic Tarot (artist Norbert Lösche) Card: King of Cups Keywords: Peacemaking, emotional intelligence, tolerance, wisdom

I'm pretty sure most readers who do a daily card draw or a lot of personal readings will relate to cards sort of following them around. Lately, this King of Cups dude is just lurking about everywhere. I'm trying to figure out what I should get out of him. My first post on this card, where I describe the illustration, is here.

Historically, I haven't had that much to say about this card. It always seems to come up on days when I'm drained by some outside circumstance: the first time, I was still overtired from the DST changeover; the second time, I was in the middle of a terrible cold; today, I've been having random anxiety spikes for no apparent reason. Given that, of COURSE I haven't had much to say about it. Pair that with the fact that it's frequently difficult to write about court cards outside of my own impressions of them, and you get a recipe for a card I never have much to say about. But given that he's the first card to come up thrice within the span of a month, I wonder if he might be worth some more thought. Whenever I draw this card, I have trouble figuring out how to make it resonate with what I'm experiencing; there seems to be a message that's not being heard.

So what do I really think of this character? What message SHOULD I be getting? When I drew him out of the deck this morning for the third time in less than a month, I immediately thought "Oh, come on, not YOU again, I don't want to have to write about you." And I nearly skipped writing tonight because I just didn't want to go back to my superficial understanding of this card. But I remembered writing last night about the King of Pentacles, which I really think helped me intuit more about the card and feel a little differently about it; maybe something similar is due with this one.

Of all the suits, Cups are most associated with emotion, spirituality, intuition, diplomacy, and tolerance. They're a very gentle suit and rarely deal in hard truths (exceptions being the Five and Eight, which indicate grief and regret, respectively). In theory, the King is the mature, fully-developed expression of these qualities. He displays patience with others, tolerance for alternative viewpoints, a caring and nurturing personality, and wisdom born of experience delving into the emotional world. He's easily social and connects well with others on a genuine level (rather than dazzling them with natural magnetism). He's sensitive, polite and makes others comfortable. All of these are good qualities. I have no negative associations with them… but I'll be the first to tell you that I actually HAVE very few of those good qualities. I'm trying to learn them not just because they're inextricably tied to ~possible future lines of work~ for me, but because I honestly think that being more in touch with my emotions, and with those of others, can make me a better person. This is not a process that comes naturally for me; I'm a thinker far more than a feeler, and one of the bigger doubts I have about pursuing ministry is the fact that my natural instincts surrounding comforting others amount to a robotic pat on the shoulder and a monotone "there, there". When what I want to do in the world has so much to do with other people and their feelings, writing off this card as being "Eh, too touchy-feely for me", I feel like I might be dismissing important perspective.

Deck: Cosmic Tarot (artist Norbert Lösche) Card: King of Pentacles Keywords: Stability, philanthropy, practicality, dependability

The King of Pentacles is seen sitting in an ornate throne at a desk. His eyes don't meet the viewer's directly, and his gaze is at something out of frame to the viewer's left. Regardless, he's smiling; the wrinkles around his mouth and under his eyes indicate that it's a genuine smile, rather than a perfunctory one. He has styled and trimmed facial hair, and wears a puffy crown, a coat with embroidered trim, and a multi-tiered cravat with the symbol of a ram's horn or cornucopia on it. On his chest is pinned a medal; each of his hands holds a golden pentacle disc, and he appears to either have just unwrapped them from a yellow cloth or is about to wrap them up in it. Behind him, there are high brick arches in the window, and beyond them, a goat stands on a rocky cliff with its head lowered as if about to butt a rival. Pine trees, tall and jagged mountains, and a building (perhaps a granary or storehouse?) are visible in the background as well.

Kings very seldom point to negative traits associated with their suit; the idea of the Queen and King cards is that they're more mature, evolved versions of the young people depicted in the Princess and Prince (or Page and Knight, if you're using RWS) cards; people who have learned to enhance their positive traits, in other words. From the King of Pentacles, I get a definite sense of gregariousness from the facial expression, and generosity from the way he handles the two discs in his hands. He appears very well-appointed; unlike some of the other Kings, this one is comfortable with luxury and wealth that comes from industry, indicated by the visible masonry in the window arches. I get the impression that he may be akin to an angel investor, a fiduciary, or a patron of artisans, helping others to expand their own financial gain and business ventures. The goat signals that he's a surefooted decision maker and knows how to keep his stability; the medal suggests he can be relied upon in a crisis.

And sure, these are all positive attributes. And yet, I find myself thinking that the strength of this archetype is very much grounded in a capitalist world, where ease with money is seen as a sign of favor and responsibility. Put simply, this is not my favorite King in the deck; while he seems like he'd be great to have as a friend in real life, some of the qualities he represents are ones that make me think "I hate money and pretty much everything to do with it; why should I feel required to seek out these traits?" In spite of being one of the most "comfortable" suits, I actually have a certain amount of trouble with Pentacles in general, because the qualities of the material world, finance, the realities of work… these are by far my least favorite parts of life, and by far the energies I have the most difficulty tapping into. You could say that the Pentacles are the suit I associate most with “adulting”: paying rent, maintaining health, having a stable job and home and life. I'm much more comfortable in the realm of the theoretical and high-minded Swords, for example, or even the creative, passionate Wands. The less I'm dealing with the real world, the better (and note that Pentacles have been showing up very seldom for me lately!).