Nine of Cups...and some reading resource tips!

I did a reading yesterday for a wonderful client gifted with amazing artistic talent.  We did a Celtic Cross spread, and the Nine of Cups fell in the "will come to pass" position.  This card is a phenomenal coup in a reading--it means, in relation to the question, a future of assured satisfaction; the ability to maintain and radiate inner security; generosity and goodwill; emotional, material, and physical well-being; and a bunch of other good stuff.  Even when things that are rosy start to fade slightly, the buds will bloom again. It's often called the "Wish Card."  I was thrilled to turn this over for her.

I chose this card to write about for two reasons:  because of my great experience with it yesterday, and because it's a good example of a card that I think isn't quite as intuitive as others in the deck.  In other words, if you look at the image, you see a man with folded arms sitting in front of a curved buffet table.  On the table sit nine cups.  In the other cards I discussed below, the scenes are so richly depicted that one's intuition might be able to nail the traditional meaning of the card; in the case of this card, it might be harder to get a read from intuition alone.

There are clues, certainly.  The man looks jovial, content, and happy.  Cups signify emotions, relationships, things at the very heart, literally, of life.  There are nine Cups, and nine is a number of culmination, fruition, and achievement.  The suit of Cups is associated with water--love, fluidity, intuition, inner peace.  Yellow dominates the card, a color of positivity.  The tablecloth mimics a waterfall, which stresses the things associated with Cups and water.

There's more; this is just to offer a few ideas on how to look at a card without a fully fleshed-out scene.  My point is that intuition is critical in doing readings, but learning the traditionally assigned meanings of the cards is, in my opinion, a key first step.  Reading with other systems (psychology, Qabalah, numerology, astrology, Christianity, mythology, etc.) can be picked up as you go with study.  It's not a deal-breaker if a new reader chooses not to use these or other systems, but I happen to think that having multiple reading systems at your disposal as resources just makes you that much more articulate with the cards.

So, where do you go to learn assigned card meanings?  This is a very good question, as there is no one easy answer!  I think it's a great idea to try and find in-person classes at your level, or even outside your level just for the review or exposure.  I like this because it's interactive.  The next best thing is to read whatever books you can get your hands on.  If you're just starting and you're interested in learning to read the cards, Joan Bunning's Learning the Tarot is an excellent book.  There are plenty of exercises, but you'll learn  something whether you do the exercises or just read and consider them.  A. E. Waite's Pictorial Key to the Tarot offers some explanations and keywords and was published in 1911, just a couple of years after he created the Rider-Waite-Smith deck with Pamela Coleman Smith, the artist.  Waite's book is often the starting point for other books in terms of offering the initial set of intended meanings for the Rider-Waite deck and its clones.  I recommend it first because it's a classic, second because the author created the most popular deck in use in the West today. There are so many other wonderful books; here are just a few, linked to their Amazon pages: 78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack; Tarot for Your Self by Mary K. Greer; Tarot for Life by Paul Quinn. For even more suggestions, visit my Amazon store on the Interactive Tarot site, where I wrote a brief blurb for every book and deck I recommended!

If you're interested in learning to read the Tarot, feel free to contact me at jennifer@interactivetarot.net and I can give you references for a good set of starter readings.  We all have to start somewhere.  My best advice?  Don't be afraid--jump in and trust your instincts!

Eight of Swords

The suit of Swords tends to put people off a bit...and yeah, some of the cards are a little scary looking (the Nine and Ten in particular).  I thought I would choose one of them to examine this time.

A word about the suit of Swords first.  As I mentioned in an earlier post, each of the four suits is commonly associated with an elemental dignity, as follows:  Wands=fire; Cups=water; Swords=air; Pentacles=earth.  In Tarot, air (and, consequently, the suit of Swords) is associated with precision, intellect, judgment, harshness, strife, and confidence, among many other things.  As with all the suits, the Swords in general have both positive and negative connotations.  The whole point in the appearance of any card is to enlighten, and I think that's the best way to view the Swords.  Their message in any reading is meant to show you either what you can use or what you can overcome.

The Eight of Swords shows us a woman, loosely bound, mostly--but not entirely--surrounded by swords piercing the earth. The key here?  Her prison is largely self-imposed.  She is capable of releasing herself from her bonds and blindfold and making her way around the swords at her back and sides, but at that moment she is choosing not to.  We see here excuses, rationalizing, justifying something that might make your life easier but not necessarily better.  Often the most beneficial path is the most difficult.   As much as we know this, who doesn't want to try and take the easy way and avoid/ignore what we know we need to do? I think this card is an excellent example of enlightenment: get over the excuses, take a hard look at reality and do what needs to be done.  Sure, the message can sting a bit, but the outcome will only make us stronger and offer greater insight into and knowledge about what we can truly accomplish.

Nine of Pentacles

Here we have a woman who is in harmony with her life.  She is completely comfortable alone, enjoying simple pleasures, and is just as happy to be around the close, dear friends she has cultivated...just as she cultivated the garden in which she stands.  There is a reverence here--for nature, for beauty, for peace, and for the truly worthy, important people who complete us all.  There is a happiness that has been earned through life's lessons.  One key to harmony, according to the Nine of Pentacles, lies in the appreciation for both moments in solitude and those in the company of people we trust and love. 

Elemental Dignities: A Bare Bones Intro

I hope to make this blog an open forum for various Tarot-related topics.  If you have suggestions for a topic, by all means let me know and I will happily cover it to the best of my abilities.  If I don't know something, I'll either find the answer or I'll be completely honest about having no idea!

First, a few words about the Tarot in general.  The most widely held belief is that the Tarot originated as a 15th century card game called Tarocchi; its use as a tool for divination occurred later, around the late 18th-early 19th century.  This is a summation on my part of various schools of thought, for there are Tarot authors who ascribe different origins.

The deck is comprised of 78 cards.  22 of these cards make up the Major Arcana (or Trumps), including The Fool, The Devil, The Moon, The Hanged Man, Death, The Lovers...cards that you have no doubt seen here and there.  These cards all bear names.  The remaining 56 cards are called the Minor Arcana.  The Minors are divided into four suits:  Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles.  The 'pip' cards in each suit are numbered 1-10, followed by four Court cards, commonly:  Page, Knight, Queen and King.

Even the small bit of info above is sort of a big ol' can of worms.  For example, the four suits are sometimes known by different names, Wands sometimes as Batons or Staves, Pentacles sometimes as Coins or even Stones, and so on.  What I would like to highlight today is that each suit corresponds to an elemental dignity:  Wands=fire; Cups=water; Swords=air; Pentacles=earth.  In certain decks, these dignities are translated differently, and the Court cards occasionally have different names (Princess, Prince, Queen, King, for example).  The Rider-Waite-Smith style deck offers fully illustrated Major and Minor cards; Marseilles-style decks have fully illustrated Major and Court cards, with the pips having a suit-and-number style only, much like modern playing cards but with a bit more color and style.

So, back to the elemental dignities.  I will use the most common attributions--the way I outlined them above.  If Wands equate with fire, that gives Wand cards an association with the attributes of fire:  powerful, fast moving, strong, confident, sometimes out of control/over the top...the list goes on.  The suit of Cups is associated with water:  fluidity, creativity, psychic ability, love, relationships, transformations, etc.  If you decide to begin reading Tarot cards, this is a great place to start in terms of looking at the cards intuitively.  For example, when you see a Wand card in a spread, you can start interpreting by considering the suit's association with the properties of fire, then look at the scene on the card and tie it all together.  As you get more advanced, you can pull in so many other systems of reading:  psychology, numerology, astrology, etc.

Elemental dignities are just one aspect of reading the cards and a perfect place to begin discovering the Tarot.  Learning the attributes of each suit is key in understanding the cards and telling their story once they're thrown in a spread.

This is a rich topic that I will certainly continue with in a future post; I plan to highlight each suit as time goes on.  Again, if you have a suggestion for a future topic, let's hear it!

Greetings!

Hello!  I'll keep my first entry brief.  I'm new to the world of blogging, but I'm certainly not new to the world of writing.  Hopefully I can blend the two quickly in order to get some worthwhile content out there!

My name is Jennifer.  I picked up my first Tarot deck in 1992 and, though I have had periods where I have had to set it aside for some reason or other, I always come back.  Reading the cards, for me, is always an incredible, comfortable, enlightening experience.  I am empathic and highly sensitive, attributes that serve me well in intuitive aspects of reading.  In my readings, I draw upon Jungian psychology (archetypes), elemental dignities, mythology, world cultures, numerology, the Qabalistic Tree of Life, esoteric systems, astrological associations and other methods based on what I feel is most appropriate for a given consultation.

I am also a trained academic, which gives me a healthy balance of rationality and perception.  As an undergraduate, I was a double major in English literatureand philosophy before continuing on to receive my Master’s in philosophy (concentrating on philosophy of religions) at the University of Chicago.  I view reading as an art and a science, a combination of years of study and a honing of intense intuitive awareness.  With me, you get the best of both worlds:  the academic and the intuitive.  

I plan to use this blog to write about all aspects of the Tarot, including general card meanings, how I've seen cards appear in readings, my experiences with the cards, tips on ways to read, FAQs, etc., etc.  I'm looking forward to taking some time to come up with ideas and share!