YouChoose Interactive Tarot: October 11-17

Hello and welcome to a new week. Fall colors are near their peak here. The forecast is for a lovely rainy day this evening and tomorrow, so am hoping to knit a bit. The last couple of weeks have been a giant maelstrom of energy for intuitives and sensitives. So thankful for Twitter friends who were willing to share their sense of it. No matter how experienced you are, everyone can benefit from a little “whew! It’s not just me camaraderie. I’ve had to unplug a little bit just to stay centered. This week feels like it might be shifting, thankfully. The theme is bittersweet and bravery.

As always, pick a card. Pick on impulse, or take a moment and deep breath to clear your mind and choose the card that calls to you. If you need a minute, feel free to pause the video and restart to see the reveal.


Left: Eight of Cups. “Things end. That’s all. Everything ends, and it’s always sad. But everything begins again too, and that’s… always happy.” as Steven Moffet wrote for Doctor Who. The Eight of Cups is very much like that. Walking away from something that is toxic or broken or just didn’t work out or a moderately bad idea. There is change and loss and sadness and ending both in admitting that a thing is broken or wrong, but also in the leaving of it. It is a necessary heartbreak that is welcome in the healing that it ultimately brings. If none of that makes sense to you, simply take this as a reminder to take out the trash, or do a little light housekeeping. SOMEthing needs to be let go.

Center: Four of Cups. As long as we are doing TV and movie quotes, this card reminds me of “Peace be the journey” from Cool Runnings. Supporting someone isn’t necessarily rapid fire platitudes, unsolicited advice or saying something. Sometimes the greater love is a silent presence. The energy here is very introspective. You wouldn’t go into a temple blasting an airhorn. When someone else is hurting and introspective, quiet and also-introspective might be the best way to help. Cups are water and intuition. You’ll know when to sit with emotions and when to cheer or use humor. The best advice is sometimes none at all. Perhaps your calling isn’t to fix things, but rather to bring a peaceful presence to this week’s journey.

Right: The other two cards have an element of the bittersweet endings or some sort of melancholy met with bravery. If you chose this card, you might need just need the bravery kind of bravery. This card is about old fashioned stick-whomping competition. There is strong advice energy around this card. Your quote is from Zen and the Martial Arts by Joel Hyams “The angry man will defeat himself in battle as well as in life.” Brave and angry are not the same thing.

10 of Cups and the Fool: How do you read opposite Tarot Cards?

 

Q: What do you do when two cards in one spread seem to be total opposites? I was reading for myself and had both the Fool and the 10 of cups. I’ve always thought of the Fool as beginnings and 10 of cups as a happy ending. How can you have both beginnings and endings in one reading?

A: Several things come to mind.

First question to ask yourself is “are these two cards talking about the same thing?”

If each card resonates with different facet of life, they could easily carry vastly different messages. For example, the Fool might refer to work where someone might be ending a project successfully while at the same time they may only be at the beginning of a new romance.

Another helpful thing is to look at the placement of the cards within the layout. Could the cards be pointing out different points in a process, or different sequential parts of some larger overall idea. Even though they are different, can they work together in sequence like the parts of a sentence? For example that work project…the Fool and 10 might combine into a sequence something like “Don’t make the new project harder than it really is. A light heart makes for a light load and a happy ending.”

Knowing the “meaning” for each card’s position within the larger spread can help figure that one out.

Like I’ve always said about the 8 of Cups – the best way to solve a paradox is to look for the bigger picture. Often a step back and a wider view will show that two seemingly very different things are just different pieces in a bigger jigsaw puzzle. Beginnings and endings seem opposite if you think of them as a single, linear process. But what if you take a step back and think of them as natural cycles instead? Then they cozy up together very nicely. Summer ends, but fall begins. The caterpillar ends, but the butterfly begins. Is there a big-picture cyclic message of some kind here?

If none of that makes sense out of the reading for you, it’s time to do a little logical legwork. Each Tarot card has lots of “meanings”. The fool can be associated with beginnings…or a reminder to play. 10 of cups can be a good ending…or deep roots and family happiness. If the other context clues don’t help, break out your favorite reference books and warm up the google machine…a little light browsing of other meanings and associations might let an idea jump out at you.

If worse comes to absolute worse, you could always re-do the reading, but in my experience it seems to work out better to wring the meaning out of your original cards rather then keep re-reading the daylights out of a question. Looking for guidance about the same thing over and over and over seems to muddle and frustrate things more than clarify them most of the time.

Good luck! Any other questions, don’t hesitate to let me know