By Sarah Taylor

There is a point of choice coming up. It is time to choose carefully — and you can: you have access to a mature, heart-based wisdom. It is time to situate yourself in loving authority, and as one door closes, so another will open.

King of Cups, Seven of Cups, The World from the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot deck. Both minor arcana cards are Cups, which means that the reading is situated in the realm of feeling. The presence of a major arcana card -- and notably the 21st card -- means that this reading is concerned with evolution at a soul level. Click on the image for a larger version.

This feels like a beautiful reading. The options that it presents to us hold their fair share of perils, yes, but nothing that we cannot overcome. There are going to be choices that are no-brainers; some that look good at first glance but hide their true colours below the surface; and others that might call us into the unknown — perhaps more than we are used to or comfortable with.

The key here is to use our hearts. This is not a time for analysis that remains solely in the head. This is not something that we can work out with a piece of paper and two columns. We need to engage with our feelings, indicated by the King of Cups.

The King’s throne rises out of the waves, solid and enduring as if it is firmly anchored in the seabed. He embodies the collective emotional experiences of the preceding Cups cards — from love to nostalgia, heartbreak to joy. He knows and understands the depths of the emotional currents that lie around him, and yet — like the Queen — remains distinct from them. He has assumed authority over his feelings and his life. But this is not a hard-hearted authority: his posture is one of openness and has a certain relaxed air to it. He doesn’t grasp the accoutrements of his rule — the simple, unadorned Cup, the equally unassuming sceptre — but rests them on his knee and the arm of his throne respectively. There is nothing that needs controlling or fighting. The card speaks of a sense of ease. The waves are in motion — there is no stagnation here — but they are supportive of the life on and under them: the fish can swim freely, the ship is in full sail.
[Authority, power, and balance: the Kings in tarot, October 12, 2011]

The King of Cups refers to our emotional natures when we align them with the flow of life. By doing this, we are fully in our feelings, but we are not dominated by them, nor do they dominate us; we do not shy from them, nor are we engulfed by them. There is a foundation to our experience that is unchanging, even while waves might lap, undulate, and crash around us.

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By Sarah Taylor

Over the years that I have been working with tarot cards personally and professionally, I have begun to formulate in my own heart and mind a set of personal truths about the cards.

The Ace of Swords from the Rider-Waite Smith Tarot deck. Swords are associated with thought; the Ace specifically symbolises, among other things, the potential for insight.

In essence, I have come to see these truths as a ‘credo’, the Latin word for “I believe.” Rather than a statement of fact, a credo is therefore a statement of belief. I cannot prove what I believe to be true about tarot, apart from its demonstrating to me time and again that it works. Nor would I want to foist my beliefs about tarot on anyone else, given that what is true for me isn’t necessarily true for the next person: one man’s tool of divination is another woman’s load of hooey. And fair enough: if we don’t have freedom of belief, then we have nothing (or so I believe!).

Moreover, those beliefs have been, and continue to be, subject to change, reinvestigation and redefinition as my work with tarot and my own ideas about divination — and life, really — have evolved. But I thought I’d share with you what it is that I’ve come up with. So far. Feel free to agree, disagree and add your views. I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Tarot tells it how it is

I believe the cards we get in any reading are 100% accurate, although this statement comes with a few qualifications:

#1: It is the translation that creates inaccuracies — especially when we are reading for ourselves, and/or when emotions, wishes and expectations start to come into play and are not adequately corralled.

#2: Sometimes ‘telling it how it is’ means drawing our attention to something more important than the current subject of the reading. When this happens, the cards tend to communicate in a bolder tone. Think of it as having a conversation with someone where they need to raise their voice, or wave their hand, in order to be heard: you know who it is that you’re speaking to; it’s just that they have to be more demonstrative because you aren’t quite expecting what it is that they’re saying.

At other times, the cards play what I often refer to as silly buggers: they question the question itself. This happens when we do a reading for the second, third, fourth time in a row because we don’t like the response we’re getting. The cards meet our desperation by becoming increasingly dramatic to mirror the desperation back to us. At this point I feel it’s counter-productive to read the meanings of each card literally because what they’re really saying is a collective “Enough already!” in the best way they know how.

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