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.
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.