King of Cups - Creativity and Compassion

I often draw the King of Cups. There is a implicit message here in this card for me, that until now, I've missed. The two primary words used when describing this card are creativity and compassion, that both have evoked and created a kind of vision quest for me throughout my life.

Over the years my understanding and exploration of how I defined what both of these words meant to me  in relation to myself, to others and to the God of my understanding, began for  at an early age, for reasons that perhaps are not fully revealed to me

I was told as an adult, by an astrologer who read my chart, that it was extremely important for me personally, to find my spiritual purpose in life in order to find a deep happiness. This has certainly been born out and because it has long been my focus, through creativity and compassion, especially toward myself, this greatly helped me to find my purpose, mission, and define my vision for living life.

The road was often not an easy one at all, filled with loss, struggles and temptations, after trying unsuccessfully to fill that hole in the soul, that came with the territory along the path on the journey of self-growth.

In retrospect, I wouldn't change a thing, because these experiences have made me the person I am. Today I continue on the path to creativity and compassion, learning important life lessons along the way, and very gratefully, this has helped me to patch up and heal that hole in my soul, restoring the emotional balance that the King of Cups reflects.

Seven of Swords - What Interferes with my Ability to Make Discerning Decisions

This card, the Seven of Swords relates to our ability or inability to make rational decisions, and doing the right thing. Of course making the "right" decisions is much easier said than done, no matter how good our intentions. The adage, the road to hell is paved with good intentions comes to mind. As human beings we can easily deceive and betray ourselves

I know this through experience, decisions that I've made in the past solely based on emotion have often lead me down the wrong road. But I learned from these mistakes. I've also learned about discernment that  enabled me to fine tune my ability to make decisions using my intuition and my mostly sensible mind!

The mythic figure of Orestes in the Seven of Swords represents an application of mental energy in a cautious and cunning way. Fact is Orestes must live with the decision he makes and the consequences that follow.

Although Orestes is walking a dark path, there is a shining light behind him that enables him find his way, if he chooses to be led by this light.

It's easy to fool ourselves into believing we're doing the right thing, without a thought to how our decisions will effect others in the present, or in the long term future.

My experience has been that when I've made decisions based upon my emotional reactions, or on my intellect alone, void of having any balance between my head and heart, this mostly resulted in a negative outcome. And I've paid a price for making decisions this way, because my ability to make discerning decisions has been hindered and interfered with by my emotion. It's what I'd call having dis-ease of the emotions, which is manifested in numerous ways, be it alcohol or other addictions.

So this card for me has a significant and important caveat. I'm reminded to allow for faith in the balance between my intuition and intellect to guide my way, enabling me to make discerning decisions in my life based on faith. That's what makes you strong.



If you love somebody
Then that means you need somebody
And if you need somebody
That's what makes you weak
But if you know you're weak
And you know you need someone
O it's a funny thing
That's what makes you strong
That's what makes you strong
That's what gives you power
That's what lets the meek come sit beside the king
That's what lets us smile
In our final hour
That's what moves our souls
And that's what makes us sing
And to trust somebody
Is to be disappointed
It's never what you wanted
And it happens every time
But if you're the trusting kind
This don't even cross your mind
O it's a funny thing
That's what makes you strong
That's what makes you strong
That's what gives you power
That's what lets the meek come sit beside the king
That's what lets us smile
In our final hour
That's what moves our souls
And that's what makes us sing

Written by Jesse Winchester • Copyright © BMG Rights Management US, LLC

King of Cups - The Ideal Father

The King of Cups is a card of emotional balance. Something that's often hard to find within ourselves.
John Bradshaw once said that 95% of the population is dysfunctional and co-dependent in some way, and the other 5% are in denial.

I remember back in the 80s when I first heard about ACOA Adult Children of Alcoholics and the given description of the behavioral personality characteristics displayed by those who grow up in alcoholic homes. It very accurately described me to a tee and that was just the beginning of my own personal recovery journey.

 I was relieved to learn why it was I'd felt so emotionally imbalanced all my life, and to know I wasn't alone in what I thought was my weirdness. It has hard for me to remember there ever being a time I didn't feel this way, that I didn't belong or that happiness was for everybody else, but it eluded me.

What an incredible relief it was to finally begin to understand why I behaved the way I did, to appreciate, accept and eventually come to love the person I am.

The King of Cups embodies the mythic figure Orpheus the singer. He represents for me the kind of father that most of us envision as being ideal.. He is both priest and healer who seeks to form relationships with others and yet his relationship with himself is lacking in that he doesn't seem to know how to make himself happy. The King of Cups is the image of the Wounded Healer and he is far from perfect.


None of us grow up with an ideal father though it is often easy for us to put them on a pedestal and see them  as perfect, even in the face of abuse, neglect or abandonment in some way.

Forgiveness and acceptance of our fathers as they truly are, comes when we do this not for them, but for ourselves. Then we can begin to love them not in spite of who they are, but because of who they are.

King of Cups - Emotional Balance Versus Desperation

The King of Cups, a perfect card for me to draw this morning, as it's caused me to reflect on emotional balance and the way I behave. In the past, I've been a person who'd panic when it came to certain situations. Don't get me wrong, this can still be my default, and I really hate that feeling.

Physiologically everything I feel can seem like it's speeding up and about to implode. My heart races, blood pressure goes up, breathing becomes shallow, I can't think straight and simultaneously, everything is in a kind of painful slow motion.

 I think my mind's try's to slow down in order to think, but the monkey brain seems to be more powerful. The fight or flight instinct takes over. I still can find myself reacting this way, but with experience comes wisdom and new skills in order to handle seemingly crisis situations with less muddled thought and more clarity and peace of mind.

As a SCUBA diver I know and understand panic is what kills people. Similarly, the same can be said for most, if not all crisis scenarios. For instance getting a call from an intimidating, rude and threatening bill collector might not cause your imminent death, but there are those who suffer from addictions like gambling, that can cause suicidal thoughts or worse because they can't meet their obligations and responsibilities,and might actually act on these thoughts, which is a tragic. They've reached that jumping off point, where they can't live with the addiction, nor live without it. This is the worst kind of desperation.

The King of Cups embodies the kind of individual who is an em-path, who easily demonstrates compassion toward others and is a kind of healer, but doesn't seem to have the ability to help or heal himself. We all have to learn how to help ourselves in order to do this. Most of the time we need to put our false pride aside and reach out for help. Many who are in the helping professions match this kind of personality type, an empathetic counsellor who is the Wounded Healer, with a kind of hole in the soul.

 When we call upon the authority of the King of Cup's, we can calm the turbulent waters of our emotions that carry us away, which leads us to feel like we're out of control, as we're reacting negatively to our panic.

Life experience enable me to reach out for help, to learn how to be proactive in my daily life. After many years, I finally found preventative tools that center me, slow me down, and bring serenity to the core of my being.
Doing a daily reading or meditation, getting enough sleep, exercise, eating well, and generally living a healthy lifestyle all help to draw on that authority of the King of Cups, which can calm the volatile waters of emotion. In turn I can trust life enough to take it's course, and not cheat myself.

Page of Cups - Tenderheart

When I was little, and a teenaged girl, I was very much this kind of Page of Cups, and exhibited all the page's qualities, emotional, intuitive, inquisitive, naive and innocent. I was pretty regularly getting myself into some kind of pickle from an early age, prone to getting my fingers, arms or feet stuck in some kind of contraption. When I was four I stuck a candy in my ear, and at ten shaved my eyebrow off, and at 14 climbed the Guelph water tower because I thought I was in love with the boy who climbed the tower with me. All of which was mostly out of curiosity that I did these things, and because I thought with my heart, which left me blind sighted. I had no foresight. This carried on into my own relationships, and in the matters of the heart, resulting in a lot of heart ache, because of having a too trusting and a naive nature. I continued to make bad choices and life decisions, but I did manage at least to keep both my eyebrows on my face at this point, although I did give myself some really bizarre haircuts!

As a typical Gemini with my moon in Pisces, and being a water person in every way, I certainly relate to the Page of Cups. The page's negative experiences in life can make them jaded and cynical. If we can find away to hold onto the positive personality traits of the Page of Cups, within ourselves, and learn to temper our emotion with the more prudent,  logical, and intellectual aspects of our nature, we can come into more of a balanced state of being between or head and heart. I have spent many years doing just that.

 I am thankful through the Grace of God that the hurts, difficulties, and even tragedies have enabled me to keep my heart open. This has happened only through discernment, and wisdom that has come with experience, knowledge, understanding and healing the split between love and spirit.

When you are a tender heart, like this Page of Cups, it can be a blessing and a liability, in that this can leave your open heart vulnerable to being hurt and broken. This is the major pitfall of this Page. There is an honesty here, that is not always appreciated by everyone. The Page of Cups is as ready to cry, as to laugh, and there can be those that love these very transparent qualities present in the Page's nature, but some will simply take advantage, see them as a fool, and believe they deserve what they get for being so stupid and naive.

The balance between giving others the benefit of the doubt along with magical thinking, or not seeing reality as it is, can be a precarious tight rope walk for the Page of Cups in today's world, that seems full of unscrupulous individuals, who have hidden agendas, and are only looking out selfishly for number one.

The Page of Cups is a card of love and the world is in need of the loving hopeful idealist that sees the good in people, perhaps when we can't see it in ourselves.

King of Cups - A Man of Emotion

It has been said, that if you don't deal with your emotions, your emotions will deal with you. I understand this very well, being an alcoholic in recovery for 21 years, because alcoholism is a disease of the emotions.

If you have learned in your family of origin, that expression of difficult emotion is unacceptable, you learn to suppress and then repress the most painful feelings, and if you do this long enough, it can be very toxic in so many ways, and the emotion comes out sideways, affecting health and happiness.

The stiff under lip only leaves you miserable, sick and unattractive.

If the King of Cups could only open up, accept, and verbalize his feelings, life would be much more manageable. Music soothes his soul, and is for him, the language of the heart, but there is nothing that compares to the healing power of emotionally connecting with the verbal expression of words, through language, that is only found within the complex human brain, as we are the only species that speaks language. In other words really speaking the truth from you heart.

When we can describe, and put names to what we are feeling, it helps us to understand ourselves, and puts order into our world. If we can share our burden with another, our problems are lightened. We also give ourselves the opportunity to listen to another's experience, strength, and hope, that can give us a different perspective, to learn, and realize, that we are not alone. Over time and in turn, we can do the same for another, but first we have to save ourselves from ourselves.

Ace of Cups - I Don't Want To Be Steven Seagal

Getting on an emotional merry-go-round can wear a person out, or may alienate others. It can be very superficial in that emotion that is not tempered with wisdom and insight, can not be sustained and can make for feelings that escalate into despair, and hopelessness. At some point there has to be action taken in order to bring about positive change.

Not every one is comfortable showing emotion or seeing any one else emote. I heard it said many years ago, feelings are just that, feelings not good or bad. Why so many feel compelled to make a judgement about feelings seems a strange thing to do, but I think we all do it at some point. Mostly I think we place this judgement on ourselves.  Why do I feel that way?  I shouldn't feel like that. I wished I felt differently. I'm stupid for feeling this way.  Sound familiar?

The Ace of Cups (Aphrodite) is a force of nature, it's about having your cup overflowing with emotion, and having an outpouring of feelings that well up within, and can't be contained.

It was once explained to me by a therapist that emotions are not something we should get into the habit of suppressing. If we knowingly, and continually suppress our emotion, they eventually become repressed, and we are unaware they even exist in our subconsciousness. She compared this to a old mattress with springs that pop up. We keep pressing them down with our hands and feet. Very quickly we run out of appendages to push them back down, and this repression is what leads to mental health problems or issues with our physical health. This made so much sense to me, and I knew I had to make changes within myself, and in my life.

I learned as a young child, that showing emotion was not acceptable, and so I shut down. I continued on that way into my adolescence and adulthood, until my emotions became deeply repressed. Eventually could no longer control my emotion. This is when I had to seek help and I am grateful everyday of my life that I did.
I heard it said once, ' if you do not deal with your emotions they will deal with you.' As much as a do like Steven Seagal, I don't want to be like him.

The Chariot - Fear & Love

 This Major Arcana card, The Chariot is linked to the Moon, and to the astrological sign of Cancer.
 There are strong emotions here, but simultaneously it symbolizes balance between negative and positive, ying and yang, to achieve success in order to control the direction of one's life. It's been said that true love castes out fear.

Today I read a review of a late artist I love and deeply admire. The critic stated the particular artist reflected a constipated terror in his paintings. I thought this was a very negative and offensive thing to say, however I think it is a accurate description of the way fear can make you feel, leaving us emotionally drained, weak, powerless, and out of control,

 We must understand the nature of good and evil. Maintaining focus, attending to details, which can be difficult for many of us living in a hurried, and overindulgent world, particularly in the West. We can get caught up in our own problems, wants and needs, becoming myopic in our perception.

 We can't allow ourselves to be controlled by fear, but need to allow love to direct our lives.

King of Cups - Emotional Intellect

The King of Cups is all about emotional balance, creativity, control, and the unconscious. It is a very clarifying and affirming card for me today, as I can occasionally feel overwhelmed, and confused by emotion.

I have learned through the Mythic Tarot that emotion and feelings are different.  " Emotion is a visceral reaction while and feeling is an active, intelligent faculty of choice. " Feelings need to be in sync with the intellect, and the intellect should be in conjunction with the heart, if we are to be in a balanced state. If we do not control our emotions, they will control us or often come out sideways. This does not mean we repress feelings and sentiment but our emotion and intellect together allow us to have relationships based on temperance, and understanding.

The King of Cups represents having a deep understanding of what it means to actualize our compassion toward  others and toward ourselves. This card encourages us to consider our dealings with others, and how we interact with them.

 Needing to exercise our emotional maturity when others are exhibiting negative energy is an essential strength and skill.

We must be clear about our boundaries, and know what is acceptable, and what is not, on an emotional level. Developing our unconscious and compassion are the skills that will help us to define these boundaries, they create balance and enable us, like the King of Cups, to be the master of our own feelings and to have an emotional intellect.