Tag: Four of Cups

Tarot Blog Hop: Odd Associations

Welcome to the Imbolc Blog Hop.  Our fearless wrangler, Morgan Drake Eckstein, has tasked us to come up with the oddest associations we have for tarot cards.  When I first read this topic, I had no clue what I was going to write about, but then I started realizing that some of my associations aren’t quite normal so here goes.

Once upon a time there was a sad and pathetic little pagan who had just been dumped by her husband of 22 years.  Desperate for some kind of help and to cheap to hire a therapist, she turned to tarot.  As she started playing with–and accumulating–decks, she realized that there were certain cards that she had an absolutely visceral reaction to that didn’t match the explanation in the little white books that came with her cards.  Undaunted, she kept exploring and soon came to realize that the meanings in the little white books were mere suggestions and not dogma.  Eventually, as she healed and acquired more decks and did more readings, she found that some of her definitions had been “found” by other people, but others were uniquely hers.  And more importantly, she realized that was okay.

So with no further ado, here are my odd associations:

Six of Pentacles

The six of pentacles is a card of balance and it is a card about opening your heart to give and to receive.  However, the first six of pentacles image that I saw was from the DruidCraft tarot and my gut reaction to this card was that the gentleman was being asked to give everything he had.  In hind site, I realize that this reading was a reaction to where I was in my life.  I had been raised to believe that women were to sacrifice everything for their loved ones and keep nothing back for themselves.    This also perfectly described my marriage where I was expected to give everything and my husband gave nothing.  While I still don’t like the image on the DruidCraft Tarot, as I’ve grown and matured and explored a lot more decks, I’ve come to realize that the card truly is about both giving and receiving.  It is about receiving gracefully and not giving more than you have to give.

Six of Cups

Another card that gives me a visceral reaction is the six of cups in the RWS deck.  While the little white book says this card is about childhood memories, happiness, joy, and new opportunities, this card has always struck me as a little bit creepy.  It feels as if the older boy us luring the young girl somewhere with the flowers.  Just like with the six of pentacles, there is a clear imbalance of power here and when I first started reading tarot, I would cringe when I pulled this card.  However, I’ve started to see the more positive aspects of this card as I’ve started to realize that if the person with the power behaves with respect, the imbalance of power can be a positive experience for both parties.

Four of Cups

While the six of cups is a traditionally positive card that I put a dark spin on, the four of cups is a more negative card that I put a more positive spin on.  I have always viewed this card as refusing something that I don’t need or that is not in my best interests.  To me, it is all about someone shoving something down my throat and not taking no for an answer.  As I’ve dug into my past and started to explore how my worldview got so F*ed up, I’ve realized that this is another perception that goes back to my young adulthood.  When I was first starting out and I wanted nice things, my extended family members would buy junk from garage sales and expect me to be grateful and happy with it.  My mother expected me to take it no matter what it was even if I was seething inside.  If I tried to politely decline, I was labeled as ungrateful.  So for me, the four of cups is me crossing my arms while my relatives try to shove garbage into my hands.

Seven of Swords

The seven of swords in most decks is read as someone being sneaking and taking something that does not belong to them.  However,  over the last few years I’ve read that card as reclaiming instead of stealing.  For me it represents, reclaiming  my self worth and my dignity.  The stealth is taking it back from people with no boundaries and who will do anything to undermine me.  Reclaiming my dignity has been hard as I’ve become estranged from my mother who cannot accept that I am a whole person all by myself and who believes that I exist only for a partner or my children.  It has also been about reclaiming my dignity from my ex who flat out said he thought I “needed to be taken down a few notches.”  In a perfect world, I’d be a knight and storm the castle for my dignity and self esteem, but I’m not quite there yet so I’m satisfied with sneaking in and reclaiming myself.  Outside the den of insanity, I can grow my self esteem and one day I will be in a position to storm the castle instead of sneaking in as the Seven of Swords

What I’ve come to realize as I’ve acquired more decks (some would say too many) and deepened my understanding of Tarot, I’ve come across some sources whose meanings for the above cards are similar to mine.  I’ve also realized how deeply personal Tarot truly is and that the meanings are depending on the deck, the situation, and the person doing the reading.

For some more Odd Tarot Associates, hop backward to Arwen’s Blog or ahead to Joy’s Blog by using the links below.

Shadow Work–Day 22

At this point, what have I learned about my shadow and relationships?

Warrior Ten tells me that I cannot carry the entire weight of a relationship on my own shoulders.  There is a give and take.  I need to let go of my need to “buy affection” or to do more of my fair share of the work so that people will like me.  I need to hold people accountable in both work and personal settings.  That’s hard for me to do because I am a people pleaser, but other people have to own their actions and have to own their responsibilities in friendships, in family relationships, and in other relationships.  Part of this is choosing to value myself and choosing to say that if I value myself, I cam not going to carry the burden of always being the one to contact people.  If someone values me and considers me their friend, they need to share the burden of connecting.  If someone does not share the burden of connecting, that tells me that I am a friend of convenience and that I don’t really matter to the other person.  And that includes X!  He never reaches out and I’m tired of being the one to maintain our friendship.

Dancer Four tells me that it is not all about me.  I need to get out of my own head and look around me and start forming relationships with people around me.  I do spend a lot of time living in my head, not from a vanity perspective, but from a perspective of being wrapped up in my own world and tuning out what is going on around me.  Cam calls me on that all the time because I am just so wrapped up in my own things that I just don’t pay attention.

The Maker card reiterates what Warrior Ten tells me, I cannot be all things to all people in a relationship.  I have to be comfortable being my own shining star and letting other people be their own shining stars.  I also cannot be all things to all people and I have to accept that.  People who want to use me should not be in my life.  I also have to do a better job of drawing boundaries around time with my family, especially C’s demands.

Shadow Work–Day 8: How does my shadow react when I am untrusting?

How does my shadow react when I am untrusting?



The fool jumps off a cliff when I am untrusting as if pushing me to trust, trust, trust.  I also find that when I am untrusting, I am put in situations where I have no choice but to trust.  That is pretty true for me as I took a new job last year doing organizational change management, but while we are selling OCM, I have to be billable so I have been doing project management work for the last year and that has been incredibly hard for me because I do not have the skills to do all the work myself and I have had to trust my team to do the work for me.  Although there have been a few bumps along the way, ultimately the team delivered.

Dancer Four tells me that when I am untrusting, I start to spend too much time looking inward and examining my own soul without liking what I find.  When I am untrusting, I start to see everyone else as other instead of seeing our similarities.  Dreamer Four also tells me that when I an untrusting, I don’t see the help that is all around me and I reject people. 

When I am untrusting of the world at large, I will often find one or two people that I do trust and become obsessive with them.  Dancer Prince speaks of this obsession as he peers fearfully from behind the tree and watches the world as if it is a dark and scary place.  Being untrusting means that I am coming from a place of fear and I divide the world into “Us and Them.” 

All in all, my shadow starts indulging in bad and fearful behavior as a reminder that I need to open my heart once again.  I have to be honest and say that I am so flipping sick of hearing that I need to open my heart.  It seems that the cards tell me that constantly to the point I just don’t want to hear it anymore.