Knight of Cups - The Hopeful Romantic

Some might see the Knight of Cups is a hopeless romantic, and perhaps this is a fair enough impression, but without the personality of this Knight the world would be a cold and baren place.

 I've a great affinity for this Knight, because he is a romantic and no doubt, because I am an artist and he appeals to my creativity. However I don't see him as being hopeless. I don't see any one as being hopeless. I prefer to call those of us like this Knight hopeful romantics. The Knight of Cups is also seen as being spiritual, considering his high ideals and quest for the ideal spiritual, divine love. He is a worshiper of women and loves his mother.

 Here we see the embodied mythic hero Perseus, the poetic and senstive son of Zeus, surrounded by a romantic landscape of forest, green hills, admist field and stream. Everything is lush and full of life, as he moves along, traversing on his way, mounted on his majestic and beautiful white horse. Perseus was favoured by goddesses, ever step of his life journey. The water-deities and the Graeae, the three old crones who knew the secrets of the future.

  This card implies the romantic dimension of love or perhaps an artistic proposition. Pereus loves beauty and truth and is the defender of high ideals.

I identify strongly with this Knight of Cups, particulary at this time of the year, during the new beginnings of June, when everything is at the hieght of new blossoming life.

Living in the country, in rural Nova Scotia is a conduit to much romanitc beauty, making it easy to feel like a hopeful romantic, who gratefully aspires daily, to loving and living life to the fullest in beauty, truth and high ideals.

I think Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a fine example of a Knight of Cups.

Mine is the Month of Roses; yes and mine
The Month of Marriages! All pleasant sights
And scents, the fragrance of the blossoming vine,
The foliage of the valleys and the heights.
 
–Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82)

The Emperor - The Father Principle

A father figure, The Emperor embodies the mythic All-Father Zeus, the creator of the world. He offers us counsel, guidance, the strength and wisdom of experience. Zeus urges us to rise above the bondage of body and limitations of nature. Both the positive and negative father principle needs to be considered. No one needs a tyrannical father, or mother for that matter. Zeus can be a miserable dude, so safe to say he's not one of my favourite mythic figures.

This Major Arcana card I think is a good reminder to not put all our faith in emperor's new clothes or in any emperor, politicians or human beings. Inspiration comes from truth and creative vision. Creative vision is embodied in the Journey of the Heroine and in our search for wholeness and in re-defining our preconceived  ideas and the principles of both what masculine and feminine means.

The kind of All-Father that I'm drawn to is really an All-Mother but specifically I think of the Sumerian Goddess of the Grape Vine Geshtinanna, who is described by Maureen Murdock author of The Heroine's Journey as being the "new feminine". An ancient mythological story and figure that's so very relevant to the contemporary meaning to our world and our identity as human beings.

Geshtinanna

Queen of Wands- The Sword of Truth Sharpened with Discernment

It's a long time since I pulled a sleepless all-niter. I sure as shoot don't miss those days! But that's what happened last night. It certainly wasn't anything like the all-niters I pulled back in my drinking days! This one was full of happiness and gratitude to be able help out my very good friends.

My friends needed me to travel with them to the airport where they would be taking the plane to visit family out West and their flight would be leaving at 5:20 a.m. this morning. It meant I left with them in their car at 1:30 a.m. and my friend drove us all for 3 hours.We arrived at the airport at 4: 30 a.m. and then I drove three hours back home after I left them to catch their flight.

 I was not having any problems staying awake, until about three quarters of the way home when, I had to fight the affect of my sleep deprivation. I was very grateful to make it home safely and after doing a few things before I flopped into my bed, I stayed there for a few hours and it was sure nice to finally get horizontal. I'll sure be hitin' the ole fart sack early tonight!

My friends very generously have lent me their car while they are away, which I so appreciate, as I have been without a vehicle for a number of months; not a situation I am not unfamiliar with, which it can get very wearisome and trying. It's hard to feel dependent on others to give you lifts or to help you out. It is a very good feeling to be able to return the favour. That said, it's also good to know that there really are folks that are willing to generously give to others, out of the goodness of their heart, when you are struggling.

 My sweet and good friends have always exemplified this kind of generosity of heart and spirit and I am so very grateful to be so blessed have them in my life.
My friends share many similar qualities of the Queen of Wands embodied by the Mythic figure of Penelope.

So after all is said and done, we now get to the Queen of Wands, who is referred to as The Sunshine Lady. She exhibits a loyalty that warms and heartens as it inspires. She is ever faithful and strong.

The Queen of Wands in some ways is the ancient figure of the 'superwoman'. However this does not mean that she has illusions about herself or reality. She has her feet planted firmly on the ground, that has come from her hard won life experience. She is the kind of person I think many can aspire to be.

This Queen lives her life with what Maureen Murdock calls in her book The Heroine's Journey, " a Spirituality of Creativity." She manifests the creative feminine. Her imagination and intuition makes her strong, and she holds her great strength and energy within. She devotes herself to what she is passionate about and what she has given her heart to in life.

I think The Queen of Wands is the truest kind of Heroine who has influence, because she has traveled the difficult path of life, first being rejected and vilified by her father as a child, solely based on the fact she was born female.

 Penelope, wife of the so called hero, king of Ithaca, Odysseus (Ulysses in Roman mythology) was off doing the ugly business of war, thought her husband must be dead, as she heard nothing from him for 20 years. In fact he'd left her alone to run the island kingdom with only her young son to help her. She was living life as a single mum while her wandering husband left her and his son to fend for themselves.

 In spite of having many suitors Penelope continued to have a loyal faithfulness toward her absentee husband, believing that he would one day return.

 The Queen of Wands is a magnetic woman who has has learned to rule her own world with ingenuity, strength, creativity and tireless energy. She is self-confident and is full of warmth and life. She has found her own voice.
 The Queen of Wands has carried her own sword of truth and sharpened her blade with discernment.

Justice - The Three Edged Sword - Your Side - Their Side - The Truth

The first of the four cards in the Minor Arcana which are called the first of the Four Moral Lessons, which are Justice, Temperance, Strength and the Hermit.

I  am of the belief, based on my own spiritual values and intuition that human beings have an innate sense of justice that we are born with, that gives us a balanced mind and spirit to allow for our understanding.

Charles Darwin believed that mammals and animals in the wild, under certain circumstances, could be moral  just as do many other scientists believe, like primatologist Jane Goodell . The tide is changing and we are not the only species that experience  and have a sense of wrong and right.

I see Justice as the balance between the two perspectives of classical  and romantic thought, between the intellect and the emotions, the Ying and the Yang of life. These perspectives may appear to be opposites, but they share an essential interdependence. Justice represents the integration and balance between these two necessary perspectives.

Justice - Finding Our Authentic Voice

The Tarot never seizes to amaze me from day to day.

 I will frequently find time and time again, that the cards speak a truth just when you need it, regardless if you want to hear the truth or not. This is exactly what took place today, almost down to the minute, right after I drew the Justice card, and just before I wrote this post.What happened really cheesed me off to put it mildly, because it involved some low life trying to hack into my bank account and I was charged an NSF. This is the second time it has happened. Well this sure got me thinking about justice and what it means even more so prior to this incident.

When an injustice happens, our human nature can immediately want retribution of some sort to even up the score, balance the scales. This isn't what justice is, though it might feel like it. Vengeance and retaliation are not justice either. The fact is, people are not always punished for bad behaviour nor are they rewarded for good behaviour. The opposite is often true. This can allow for good citizens perhaps, but lousy human beings.

So I ask where is the justice in circumstances where injustices occur?

I expect we all have to find this answer within our own conscience, and I also believe a collective and universal consciousness exists that balances the wrong and right, the positive and negative, and distinguishing the light from dark. I do think it all comes out in the wash in the end.

I do choose to have the faith and hope that this happens. I refrain from a force-able resolution that infringes on someone's right or that really infringes on mine. This might sound like I'm sitting on the fence or refusing an assertiveness that is based on advocating for what is right. Advocacy is important but without action, it is ineffective and like a banging gong or a clanging bell. We need the kind of action that Brother Cornell West speaks about. Talk and reconciliation is cheap and empty, with a faith without the action of love.

Justice urges us to have a clarity of vision with an impartial judgement in service to others, balanced and based on ethical principles in fairness and truth.
We all have to find our own truthful authentic voice that takes responsibility for the impact we want to have in the world.

The Moon - Hecate The Goddess of Enchantment

Drawing the Moon card gives me a very good feeling. I've always been in love with the Moon. I think it may have something to do with the fact my Moon is in Pisces, according to my astrological chart, which makes intuition my best friend when I am right, and my worst enemy when I am wrong. Oh how true it is!
My Gemini Sun sign causes me to perhaps appear as a little eccentric or what I call a little wiggy.
The faces of the Moon is associated with self-esteem or one's identity, but I am quite comfortable in my wigginess, and don't much care about what people think. My loyal friends accept me as I am.

Finally the full moon is coming up this first week of March, on the 5th. I don't know exactly why, but I feel relieved and am looking forward to it. It has to do with the unconscious and intuition, which I am feeling very connected with these days. I've been trusting both more, and with more trust, comes an increase in intuition.


There is nothing certain in this card as Hecete, the goddess of the Underworld, and Apollo’s twin sister as Artemis, embodies confusion, uncertainty, the changing faces of life involving past, present and future, even the dark night of the soul, which we all experience at some point in our lives. From out of our confusion, the crab of truth will emerge.

Hecete controls the hidden things of nature. The light over her head symbolizes how she illuminates and brings wisdom, through faith and hope.

The Moon




ND, like a dying lady lean and pale,

Who totters forth, wrapp'd in a gauzy veil,

Out of her chamber, led by the insane

And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,

The moon arose up in the murky east

A white and shapeless mass.

 

II.

 

Art thou pale for weariness

Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,

Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth,

And ever changing, like a joyless eye

That finds no object worth its constancy? 

 

- Percy Bysshe Shelly

The Chariot - Decisions

Interpreting this card on a intuitive level, The Chariot is about decision, trying to get from one place to another, moving forward safely, and surely. It is about weighing the pros and cons, harnessing the oppositional forces between knowing what I should do, what I want to do and about discernment.

 I am no different than any one in that, I fight with myself, can be my own worse enemy, self-sabotaging  my intentions and plans. The old adage of 'The road to hell is paved with good intentions' comes immediately to mind."

I have been re-reading and trying hard to not simply grasps the concepts, but the many truths in The Heroines Journey, Women's Quest For Wholeness, by Maureen Murdoch. I want to actualize these truths in my life, so as to lessen the fights I have with myself in order to become whole, mind, body and spirit.

Like The Fool this is the journey of life, and I am at a new chapter. I know this deep in my soul. If I do not  begin this journey it is to deny all that is youthful, creative, and that which is greater than myself.

The Fool - Egg Tempera on Porcelain Tile, 2015 - Catherine Meyers

Maintaining Focus - The Chariot

The Chariot symbolizing war or battle, is for many of us, what life often seems to be about. Fear, and terror can be our battle field. We spend time fighting situations, others, or even ourselves. Life shouldn't be about fighting, in a destructive sense, but be about advocating for ideals such as justice, freedom, and peace.

I have learned that I can advocate, for myself and for others, but if I really want to make a difference I also need to get organized to be effective warrior, in order to walk the talk.

Aggressive retaliation or reaction, results in a no win predicament. Passivity is not an answer either. A position of assertion is what I aim for in all aspects, and circumstances in life. I understand this is easier said than done, given our fight or flight instinct, and depending on the situation.

The message for me of the seventh Major Arcana card, is about having knowledge, truth, understanding, and discernment which act as our the sword and shield, the amour of wisdom, necessary before we decide to move forward toward the light. This is the better way to ensure a likely win, win outcome. We need an informed enthusiasm, to make the right decision. Other wise we have out of control, runaway horses.

Strength, self-assurance, and having an iron willed determination, must be creatively balanced, and harnessed with the spear of love, tempered with a healthy fear, a spiritual vision, and a clarity of mind, which will create order out of chaos. 


The harmonious blending of love and strife strengthens and develops our whole personality.

A very Happy New Year to all. My prayer is, that all will be enabled to balance the negative, and positive forces in life, to maintain our focus, to control of our lives, to achieve success in the now, and in the future.

How To Take Control of Your Red Shoes - The Devil

I don't believe I've ever drawn the Devil card in my daily draw. This card represents the passionate side of the individual, from which we can experience growth if we recognize and accept this aspect of ourselves. Pan also plays the truth on his pipe, and the scene takes place in the depths of the unseen unconscious. The dancing figures represent the fears we have in facing the truth, and how we can often lie to ourselves.

What we think we want, is often not what will truly bring happiness, and we become addicted to what is outside of ourselves, trying to fill that hole in the soul,  instead of finding happiness, and fulfillment from within.

This card reminds me of Hans Christian Andersen's story, about the Red Shoes.
The young girl becomes completely enamored and then obsessed by her red shoes which causes her to continually dance, and this leads to dreadful torment, and suffering.

The Red Shoes - Catherine Meyers

The Devil - Bondage

When the Devil card comes up in Tarot readings people generally get into an state of anxiety. I could be the same if I didn't know better, and besides I've been experiencing enough anxiety the past few days, without heaping more upon myself.

 There are positive and negative aspects of this card. I understand the negative very well, as a person in recovery and a member of a 12 step program for over 20 years. The positive is that I became honest, open minded, and willing enough to accept my shadow self and I have been recovering ever since.

Pan is the great god represented here, once worshiped by the Greeks, as the Great All. He roams and haunts the woods and pastures of Arcadia. His nature is characterized as being wild, fertile and untamed.
In Greek myth, Pan was not considered evil, but simply being in his natural state, untamed, and amoral.

Not surprisingly his name is derived from the word 'panic' and he likes to give folks sudden frights. Whenever this card comes up in readings I do, though it seldom does, the thought that comes immediately to mind, is one who is in some kind of inner bondage.


As human beings, we are all aware of our shadow self. The saying. " we are only as sick as our secrets" is very true. It takes humility and honesty to face the truth, to confront our shadow side, and the most shameful parts of ourselves, and to look into the face of Pan, in acceptance. The acceptance that Pan is merely natural not evil, enables us to release our creative power when we face our own darkness.

 If Pan does not face his shameful secrets, he will only exhibit a sense of superiority, projecting the worst of his character on to others,  manifested in the form of prejudice, bigotry, discrimination and persecution toward others, whom he considers 'evil.'

Two of Swords - An Open Heart

The Two of Swords represents a delicate balance between opposing forces, which can potentially be destructive, but there is a resolution if one can face reality, and not spend energy in preserving the status-quo keeping up appearances, constantly controlling our emotions. This will wear you out, and you will be neither happy, nor unhappy. There will be no growth or movement forward. It is will be a stalemate.

The message of the Two of Swords is, keep your heart open, and this will give peace and wholeness deep within your being.

I have often heard it said, if you do not deal with your emotions they will deal with you.
It was once explained to me, by a spiritual mentor, that stuffing our feelings is like a bed spring that has popped up through a mattress. You step on the spring to press it back down, and then another spring pops up. This continues until you run out of limbs to keep the springs down, and they are popping up everywhere.

Suppressing our emotion, and not facing the truth, over a long period of time, can lead to a very unhealthy emotional state of mind, creating confusion and grief, to ourselves and often to those around us.
 Initially we are aware that we are suppressing our emotion but after years of doing so, we end up with repressed feelings, that we don't even know we are carrying them around, buried deep within in our psyche. This state can lead to mental and emotional breakdowns, leaving our lives completely unraveled. There can be much good that comes out of adversity, but a destructive situation can be prevented if you deal and accept your feelings. It's good to unhook from the merry-go-round of work, and from the storms of life. Taking ourselves to a quiet, peaceful environment, that will provide serenity  so we can reflect, and do nothing but sit by a stream or on the banks of a river, so we can listen, to that still quit voice, and to begin to open our heart.

Knight of Cups - Love, Beauty, and Truth

Romanticism may seem foolish to a world that appears jaded and cynical in it's perspective, and some might possibly question, if such a thing even exists today. The Knight of Cups is seated on a elegant white horse, carries a golden cup much like the Holy Grail, and is crossing  a stream teaming with fish and life. As mentioned in previous posts, the Suit of Cups are connected with the emotion, relationships, friendship and romance. Also associated with the element of water, and the water signs, Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces. The suit can also refer to those with an artistic temperament.

The Knight of Cups is an earnest, positive, persuasive, and an attractive individual, who is on a quest, perhaps a quest that is romantic or of a spiritual nature. The individual has a vision of what life should look like in the mind's eye, and in their heart of hearts.

 This card in the Minor Arcana, I am personally very fond and identify with, because this is a portrayal of an individual on a mission to find what it is he seeks in life. Some what of a heroic figure, he believes in holy love conjoined with earthly love, in beauty and in truth. Without this kind of individual, the world would be bleak, colourless, and full of despair.

Some can find many loves in life, either in a committed and meaningful relationship with another, or we find a passion for something that becomes our vocation, that gives us another purpose in life. The fish is a spiritual symbol.

I have always been a great admirer of Pre-Raphealite art work, because it is full of romanticism, and it tells a story. The painting entitled, The Lady of Shallot, by John William Waterhouse, though he was a Neo-Classic painter, he was influenced by many of the Pre-Raphealites, and romantic poets. His subject matter was often based on Mythology.

The story behind the painting depicts Lord Tennyson's poem, that is tragic, but beautiful, none the less. Loreena McKennit put Tennyson's poem to music.

Romanticism inspires the imagination and feeds the soul. Artists are often moved to produce great art because of romanticism, as it we longingly aspire to be transported to an ethereal and spiritual world. I believe the world needs to experience romanticism that deepens, nurtures the spirit, and this can be found not only in our imagination but in love, beauty and in truth. This is the message of the Knight of Cups.

Justice - Clarity of Vision

Here we meet Athene, the Goddess of Justice, and the eleventh card in the Major Arcana, and associated with the sign of Libra. Relating to decisions being made fairly with fair outcomes, that set a confused life into a successful order. Divine or social justice where truth  triumphs, and success is achieved through negotiation in legal matters. Her double edged sword signifies impartiality and Athene's white owl, sitting on her shoulder reflects her clarity of vision.

We are reminded of the consequences of our actions spiritually. The often seen purple cloth in some cards is symbolic of compassion, and the pillars indicate confines and limits of the physical world. Meditation and attention to something in particular is needed in order to find a solution.

Meditation, contemplation and attention to something in particular is needed in order to find solutions. Consider if there is deceptive behaviour, justice will prevail regardless and responsibility for your actions must be taken.