Tarot Card of the Week: Feb. 15-21

Hark, now hear the sailors cry,
Smell the sea and feel the sky
Let your soul and spirit fly
Into the mystic.
— Van Morrison

Another Eight this week, and a rare one, too. The Eight of Cups appears for the first time in about four years, bringing with it its many mysterious implications. In her classic work, Seventy Eight Degrees of Wisdom, Rachel Pollack names the Eight of Cups as one of the Gate cards. Whether by the use of geometrical patterns that stimulate the brain in mysterious ways, or simply because of what she calls “The Strangeness,” the Gateway cards open up levels of information not intellectually understandable.

Like the Five of Cups, this is one of the very few figures in Pamela Colman Smith’s artwork that seems to be deliberately of ambiguous gender. It would appear, then, to be a statement about how such times come to all, regardless of sex or circumstance.

But unlike the Five of Cups, with its sense of grief and loss over the three spilled goblets, all of the Eight’s vessels are all still standing. Instead of the Five’s figure in a black garment of mourning, this person has turned away, crossed the river, and now strides forward, cloaked in passionate red. The choice is made; the heart seeks what it must find.

The Cups, of course, are about dreams, emotions, love, and emotional fulfillment. And all of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot’s eights hearken back to the Major Arcana eight – Strength. So they speak of summoning the courage to move and take action. The easy or well-known ways will no longer satisfy; change and transformation are needed, even if the journey is long and the outcome is unknown.

While it appears that this is a night scene, a closer examination reveals that this is actually an eclipse, with the Moon’s inner awareness overshadowing the Sun.  An eclipse is, itself, a Gate, a time between, when Mystery’s song to us may be clearly discerned. Thus, the underlying understanding comes from the hidden, or unconscious realms, rather than overt, mundane reality.

It seems no coincidence that the powerful exact Chiron/Neptune conjunction which has been building for several years, occurs this week. This event is unprecedented, and promises to bring emotions and old wounds to the surface that need to be expressed and then released, so that deep, profoundly needed healing can come.

What has this voyager decided to release?  The emotional security that appears to have been so carefully tended and neatly stacked up has a gap – what is missing? What higher vision do they seek upon the mountaintop? What lies ahead on this deliberately solitary path?

What similar choice lies before you this week? In what ways are you now finding your courage, perhaps to turn away from what no longer satisfies you? What mysterious longing summons you to leave behind what you have known, before the cups can be spilled and ruined?

By your own volition, you are now free to leave behind the fullness of your experience, without waiting for it to turn sour, dry up, or be dramatically dumped out. Know that there is no one to blame in this, for it appears this is a choice you have been coming to for a while.

The eclipse is a brief doorway of magical time and space; a time out of time, through which you can slip.  Your path is calling to you, but do not delay. You can now leave behind what you know in your heart is finished, without regrets.