Weekly Forecast: November 26 - December 2
This hefty Knight of Cups is staring out at us as if challenging us to a duel. Hardly the sensitive dreamer from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, artist Jonasa Jaus' version of the card seems confrontational and blunt. We're being asked to see our feelings for what they are this week, even if they're challenging or something other than what we've been hoping for.
This hefty Knight of Cups is staring out at us as if challenging us to a duel. Hardly the sensitive dreamer from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, artist Jonasa Jaus' version of the card seems confrontational and blunt. We're being asked to see our feelings for what they are this week, even if they're challenging or something other than what we've been hoping for.
And yet the center of this reading is The World, a hopeful card, yes, but also a deeply personal and expressive one. It tells us that confronting these feelings is freeing us up to be ourselves. Denial can make us feel stagnant and inauthentic, out of sync with our true selves. This week, the other side is just within reach; all we need to do is harness our bravery and face things head-on like the Knight of Cups.
There's a rebellious immediacy to the knights that can bring refreshing verve into tender situations. The Knight of Cups, in particular, is not one to discount their feelings. Sometimes this can lead to impulsive drama when we allow our emotions to get the best of us. Yet in other situations the Knight of Cups gives us a direct line to our true feelings, the ones that have been begging to get out.
In this reading, our formidable Knight is leading us towards The World, so we can trust that identifying and expressing these feelings supports our personal growth and the world around us. If we march towards them deliberately - we're ready to go and protected with all that armor - and display them with the genuine self-expression and vulnerability of The World we might be surprised at how much our lives open up.
There's another option in these cards, too. The Seven of Swords introduces an element of self-deception. Some of these feelings have been buried and repressed, hidden from ourselves and those around us, and therefore cloaked in confusion. Part of us would like to bypass all this intensity - acknowledging our true feelings and seeing things as they are. Oh, yes, and the most important part: doing something about them.
The Seven of Swords wants to skip past all the hard stuff and move to the next level without doing the work. As you may have guessed, this doesn't work for long. Eventually these feelings catch up to us. We can either examine them now and tease apart their importance or do so later, but after things have become more confusing and even hurtful.
The beauty here is that The World is waiting for us, right here in the center. Paired with the Knight of Cups, we can see that clarity is closer than it's ever been and it's bringing a sense of wholeness. Though The World is an inherently joyous card it also makes room for the tenderness of being our true self in a constantly changing and unpredictable world. Our only constant is ourselves and how we choose to show up. Weaving together all the stands of life - difficult feelings included - gives us a sense of precious beauty and gratitude.
Running away from difficult emotions, choosing to shove them away because they seem purely negative, cheats us of a sense of fulfillment and the self-trust that we'll be there for ourselves through the good and the bad. Embracing them and respecting them like the Knight of Cups not only restores our sense of agency, but may surprise us with the rapid healing and complex fulfillment that comes from self-love. The World is in our reach and there's room for every emotion and experience.
Weekly Forecast: May 7-13
It feels so good to put a plan into action. After spending lots of time in our heads creating strategies, imagining outcomes, and weighing options, this week we're putting our feet on the ground and committing to making things real.
The Three of Wands is a card full of excitement, expectation, and anticipation. Our ideas are still tender and new, untested by the world, and yet we've tapped into something special within ourselves. It's the intoxicating feeling of choice. We can choose to do things. We can make things happen.
It feels so good to put a plan into action. After spending lots of time in our heads creating strategies, imagining outcomes, and weighing options, this week we're putting our feet on the ground and committing to making things real.
The Three of Wands is a card full of excitement, expectation, and anticipation. Our ideas are still tender and new, untested by the world, and yet we've tapped into something special within ourselves. It's the intoxicating feeling of choice. We can choose to do things. We can make things happen.
This card is big and visionary, and I love its bravery. It's one thing to imagine possibilities, getting lost in the world of lists and brainstorming. Making moves to bring these ideas into reality is a whole other ballgame, and this week we're walking onto the field, a little jittery, but mostly raring and ready to go.
And what do we run into? Why it's The Tower! Everybody's favorite card!
Of course I'm being sarcastic here. The Tower, with its themes of destruction and chaos, is usually met with groans or outright fear. Yet in this reading it has a very important message that gives us a helpful choice to navigate all the potential shown in the Three of Wands.
The Tower shows us the downside of structure, particularly what happens when the structures we have at work in our lives can't contain us, our energy, or our hopes and dreams. Left unheeded, this pressure can lead to destruction. Yet we always have the choice to look at The Tower and make changes, using it as a catalyst to take the change into our own hands and not let the pressure build to an inevitable, surprising explosion.
Action-movie level talk of explosions aside, The Tower this week is showing us how the buzz and action coming into our lives in the Three of Wands is tempting us to fall into old patterns. I love how the artist and creator of this deck, Jonasa Jaus, uses an insect as the protagonist of the Three. Is there a better metaphor for the early, exciting stages of creativity than pollination? And what a fascinating contrast between the vibrant, happy wildflowers in the Three and the epic titan arum in The Tower!
If we're the buzzing insect here, busy traveling from flower to flower, the gigantic titan arum represents a nearly-irresistible temptation. We're feeling a pull to go to The Tower despite the fact that it's not the flower we need to be pursuing at all. In fact, it's quite toxic.
What I love most about the Three of Wands is that is captures both the tenderness and bravery of setting off on any path. When we do this we have to be mindful of our energy. When something's new and budding it needs care, attention, and gentleness. Not to mention focus. In the early stages of a new project, creation, or endeavor we have to remain focused, humble, and in the moment.
In this reading, The Tower shows us a temptation to force our newly budding plans into repressive and overbearing structure. This can show up in a desire to overwhelm ourselves with expectations, judging each and every action and burying ourselves in a pile of "shoulds." Our plans should unfold this way. We should be feeling like that. It should look like this.
Clearly, some form of self-sabotage is at work. Why are we moving from the new growth of the Three of Wands to the cataclysm of The Tower? The Six of Cups appears as our final card to add some insight. This card speaks to nostalgia and early patterns of relating to the world. Taking a risk and committing to a plan in the Three of Wands is bringing up a lot of fear and pressure stemming from how we were taught to look at the world as children.
Interestingly, this card is also showing us a way through The Tower, one that has us bypassing its destructive intensity. Embracing The Tower wholeheartedly (or doing nothing to process the issues it brings up) is leading us towards emotional overwhelm and a desire to control and force our newly burgeoning plans into stale old frameworks. Hardly a goal any of us is consciously working towards! Instead, we can ask ourselves some loving and probing questions. Just what about our new plans and creative ideas is making us feel fearful? Why are we feeling the urge to snuff our our enthusiasm with heavy expectations and judgment?
If we can meet ourselves in this place, lovingly addressing our fears and traveling back to the conditions that they came from, we can enter into the healing space of the Six of Cups. Here, we have the ability to look back at the source of these pressures with all the wisdom we've accrued as adults. It doesn't have to be a big, frightening Tower moment. It can be a gentle moment of reconnection and an act of recommitting to taking our creativity and energy seriously. That means giving it all the space, lightheartedness, action, and bravery it needs to grow.
Weekly Forecast: October 16-22
Sometimes it can be hard to recognize a gift when it arrives in our lives. Accepting a gift means change and change means loosening our attachment to control. We can't grow if we don't give ourselves space to unfold. We can't let in the new, the unexpected, and the magical when we hold ourselves to a narrow vision of the future.
Sometime we're trained to see limitation and obstacles when life presents us with something new. The cards for this week show how that something new, the gift that the Ace of Pentacles represents, can be the missing ingredient - the cherry on top of the sunday of fulfillment if you will. It's glorious, it's unexpected and... it's frightening?
Fear is an interesting emotion. It's deep and powerful, a primal reaction, and yet it's also comfortable, a baseline that's so human and so animalistic that we can't help but be familiar with it. In its own way fear operates on a different level, below our rationality and empathy. Honed in a different time, it's a powerful response meant to protect us at all costs. It's just that sometimes it tries to protect us from the good as well as the bad.
Something about this blossoming (I love the floral imagery that Jonasa Jaus' tarot has given us today) is making us uneasy. Does it feel too conspicuous or ostentatious? Is it activating a sense of shame or "having too much"? Or maybe it seems too simple and doesn't match up with our vision for the future. Do we feel like we need to suffer to earn our happines and our accomplishments?
Whatever these gifts brings up in us it's activating our fear responses with a siren song to retreat and withdraw. It's important, however, to look around before running the other way. Is something else going on? Maybe it is safe after all. Maybe the blossoming is beautiful and something we deserve.
Of course it can be overwhelming, too. There's plenty of room for that. The Eight of Swords shows that overwhelm, yet its tendency is to get swept away with it and back into harmful narratives. In these swordsy situations it's very helpful to connect with other ways of being - the grounded physicality of the pentacles, for example, and the free-flowing emotion of the cups.
Allowing our thoughts and fears free reign to dictate our actions is no way to lead a blanced life. The cards for this week are asking us to be tender with ourselves and peek out after our initial reaction to withdraw. The gift can just be a gift. The success and fulfillment can just be something beautiful we know we've worked hard to create for ourselves. And it's safe to step out of our worried minds and enjoy the life that's presented to us.
We can stop and smell the flowers we've grown for ourselves. They're blooming right now.