9/25/15 Nine of Cups and Seven of Swords

Today I took out my Llewellyn Welsh Tarot, and threw the Nine of Cups and the Seven of Swords.  Now, there’s an interesting combination!

The Nine of Cups (Jupiter, expansiveness and growth, justice, fortune, in Pisces, “I believe,” feelings, duality, suffering, soul growth) is about emotional satisfaction and the ability to find pleasure in feelings and emotions, and in our expectations for the day.  This card is about getting what you wished for, but it reminds us that we need to be detailed in our visualizations if we want to receive exactly what we are wishing for.  Yes, it is one of the best cards in the pack

The Llewellyn Welsh Nine of Cups shows a beautiful young woman dressed in a gauzy with and blue dress with a white veil blowing in the gentle breeze, seated in a lush green area dotted with red flowers, next to a small waterfall and brook.  The woman has a gentle smile on her face and is holding a Cup in her right hand; placed around her are eight other Cups.  The whole atmosphere of this card is warm and serene and encouraging, encouraging us to allow our hearts to overflow with the effects of the natural beauty around us and to be nourished and inspired by the emotions and feelings that fill us.

The Seven of Swords (Moon, feelings and emotions, illusion, imagination, in Aquarius, “I know,” friendships, cause-oriented, the group, aloofness) in an upright position tells of the effort to maintain things as we want them, often through the use of deception and without considering the wants or needs of others.  Trying to keep things the same is an exercise in futility, but sometimes we get so caught up in our own story that we forget we are affecting others.

The image on the Llewellyn Welsh Seven of Swords is traditional.  A man, under cover of the darkness, gathers Swords and carries them away from a sleeping encampment.  Very little about the Swords cards is comforting; this card brings forth the reminder that clinging to the old way of thinking ends up progressively narrowing our field of vision until we don’t see anything else any more.  But this card is not all bad, at least in the Llewellyn Welsh Tarot it is not all bad; one interpretation presented in The Llewellyn Welsh Tarot Companion for this card is “rejecting outside expectations for an individually fashioned lifestyle.”  Perhaps today this one is not necessarily so much about keeping things the same, but rather it is about doing things my way.

There is a visible difference between these two images.  One is warm and sunny and open and accepting, the other is cold and dark and secretive and conspiratorial.  Generally, when two seemingly opposing cards present themselves in a pair, I see them as offering a choice (and that could very well be the situation today, and I must remember that), but I am seeing a different message today, particularly in light of that slightly different interpretation of the Llewellyn Welsh Seven of Swords.  Today I need to be at peace with the decisions I make that are oriented toward achieving my own needs, even if those decisions seem to counter the needs of others.  If I don’t make a habit of doing this, it is not necessarily selfish but rather, self-nurturing, and we all need a bit of that every now and then.

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