First I must apologise for my lack of posts over the last five days, life has been a little crazy of late, and while I have still been drawing cards I just haven’t been overly compelled to write anything. This could also have something to do with the fact that I have predominantly been drawing cards that I have already wrote a bit on, but I think it is mostly due to a lack of motivation and the stress at work taking it’s toll. Today however I felt my drive begin to return as I shuffled my deck and drew The Lovers.
The Lovers is one of those cards that you may have heard of even if you have never seen a Tarot Deck in your life. It is often misconcieved as nothing more than the card of true love, but it is so much more than that. While The Lovers does represent a relationship based on the deepest love, it doesn’t always have to be a sexual relationship. At it’s base it represents the force that attracts two entities to one another, whether these be people, events or ideas. It is about establishing bonds, and forming a kinship, about experiencing desire in all its forms, making love and responding to a situation with passion. The other side of The Lovers, that is not as often shown in popular culture, is about choice, about establishing your own personal beliefs and determining what it is that you value.
What’s this Ms Shadowscapes, you think I need to learn more about the Court Cards? I haven’t spent enough time on them lately and you feel I need a little more? Ah, ok, if you think so!!! Today, once again, I drew a Court Card in my daily draw :P. The Knight of Cups to be precise. When I turned him over I was a little frustrated, but then I thought that it was quite appropriate after my night last night. I went out for drinks with a few mates from work and towards the end of the night we were talking about me and my romanticised view of the world. I have to admit, I am a romantic, and often fall into looking at the world through a romantic lens. They were trying to say that perhaps I would be better off if I tried to look at my situation more logically and realise that my idolised wants may be making it harder to find exactly what will make me happy. I didn’t really know what to say to this, for I can’t really do anything about my heart or its power over my thoughts, it’s just so natural for me. I’m a lover. I love love, I live for it! Just like the Knight of Cups. It’s funny because when I first started out studying Tarot I did a few little questionnaires to find which court card best represented me at this stage in my life, and every single one of them came up with around 70% Knight of Cups (with a touch of the Knight of Wands and Queen of Cups). And to be completely truthful I understand why.
The Knight of Cups is the classical ‘Knight in Shining Armour’ off on a quest of love and light, seated upon his white horse of purity and hope. He is absolutely compelled to follow his heart above all else, for good or for ill, looking to his emotions to provide a map for his direction in life. He is someone who follows his heart rather than his head and draws upon his intuition and inner direction rather than thought to make his decisions. He is a romantic and sensitive soul who idealises love and responds so very deeply to life, appreciating beauty in all its forms and understanding both the pain and happiness of others. This can have its downfalls though, as he can be temperamental and over emotional, prone to mood swings, jealousy and melodrama when his feelings and dreams aren’t centred. Also if his emotions aren’t set in action and real life they can often get the better of him and turn into melancholy or depression.
He is also seen as an imaginative dreamer and a visionary in realms of love, emotion and art. What is important to note here however is the difference between imagination and fancy. In Rachel Pollack’s “Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom” she says that imagination may lead us to “an awareness of underlying spiritual truth” whereas fancy produces only “fantasies that may excite, but ultimately lack real meaning”. This is definitely a trap that the Knight of Cups can fall into. He could sit for hours upon hours daydreaming about when his prince will come and sweep him off his feet. Or when he will finally get that chance to storm that castle and save his princess from the evil queen.
So this week is turning out to be one of firsts! Yesterday I drew my first Knight in my daily draws and today was my first Queen! And not only that but my favourite Queen of all, the Queen of Cups. To me the Queens are the most mature and developed of all the Court Cards despite the fact that they are the penultimate of the Courts and this honour is usually given to the Kings! The Queens’ inward focus and relaxed and natural way of being to me demonstrates pure mastery. They embody the aspects of their suits without the need to shout them out to the world, more concerned with enjoying their environment than manipulating the world for their benefit, I like that about them :). And the reason why the Queen of Cups is my favourite, well I guess I feel a connection to her, I always have. I admire her qualities and feel like we have a lot in common, and I wish to become more like her as I progress through this journey.
Queen of Cups – Shadowscapes Tarot
So who is this Queen? She is a loving and tender hearted soul who is uncoditionally accepting and easily moved by other creatures’ pain or sorrow. She is caring and demonstrates patience and a kind and gentle sensitivity to the feelings of others. She is highly intuitive, very sensitive to emotional undercurrents and is open to the unconscious. She is a really soothing soul, I feel as if every pain or hurt we feel would wash away with her in our presence. If she was to tell us only one thing in this lifetime it would be to follow our hearts!!
This morning when I woke up I was still thinking about yesterday’s draw. So I decided I would ask another question for my daily draw today. I grabbed my deck, started shuffling and asked “What is the possible outcome if I choose to follow yesterday’s advice and buy my one way ticket to France?”. What was the Shadowscapes’ answer you ask? The Ten of Cups!!! I don’t think I have words to describe what happened when I turned over this card. It was as if everything was falling into place, I was speechless, happy and excited, but overall speechless.
I think my deck is playing a cheeky trick on me today. After commenting in yesterday’s post about how few cards from the Suit of Cups had come up in my draws, what does my lovely deck decide to give me today, not only a Cups card, but the very beginning of the Cups’ energies, the Ace of Cups. I wonder what this could mean for the day!
Ace of Cups – Shadowscapes Tarot
An opportunity for a new emotional experience. The beginnings of love, happiness and compassion. A furthering of your internal attunement. This is what the Ace of Cups is all about.
As I said in my last post, it took me a very long time after my break up to feel centred enough to even think about using my cards. Three months in fact. Those months were so clouded with pain and heartbreak, and it seemed that I was getting more and more lost in the fog as each day past. I had lost the man who I had thought I would spend the rest of my life with. And in such a way that I was left with so many unanswered questions.
I wonder, looking back, what cards would have called to me if I had done a reading sometime during that period. I bet you more then anything that The Empresswould be among them 😝.
Come late July I was beginning to feel compelled to hold my deck in my hands again, I must have been healing, unbeknownst to me at the time, for I still felt as saddened as ever by the events of May. My soul’s call was answered one day at work, when a customer of mine brought out his deck to do a reading for a friend of his. This had never happened at work before, and it must have planted a seed in my mind, awaiting a little watering from the universe. That seed didn’t have to wait very long at all, for that evening my mother and I were watching an episode of a series we had started (Penny Dreadful I believe) and for the first time the main character brought out her own deck to do a reading. I thought to myself, ok universe, I’m going to take this as a hint that it’s time for me to jump back out there, and continue on the adventure I began in March.
So the next day after reading a few posts on the beautiful and inspiring Beth’s Little Red Tarot blog, I decided that it was time for me to pull a card, and see what the universe had to tell me. So I shuffled my deck and composed myself, opening to the knowledge I was about to receive, and lo and behold, The Empress was back to say hello.
We have now moved through March and into April. With my first personal reading under my belt, my apprehension was slowly starting to fade away…
Over the next month I did around 6 or so readings for myself, some more structured, with specific questions in mind, while the others were more for practice sake. And I kid you not, every single time, there was one lovely lady who persisted on popping up, that’s right, you guessed it, the beautiful mother of all mothers, The Empress.
the fox and the otter 