March 2013 Tarot Cups

The Seed of Love

So, what are you feeling right now? You might say, I am feeling my feet on the carpet or you might scan your body to get a feeling.  A tightness in my gut. Or you might try to understand what you are feeling by turning it into an emotion.  I am feeling anger. But how are you figuring this out? With your mind, right?  You are trying to understand what you are feeling on a physical level.  So I ask you to go out of your mind, so to speak, as I attempt to explore the Tarot Cups as pure, watery Feeling.

Many books and tarot readers equate the Tarot Cups with emotions but this depends on what lineage of elements you are referring.  Because I read the Tarot from the view of the Tree of Life, the World of Cups, Feeling, comes before the World of Swords, Thinking.  So fleeting images of the imagination, a constantly running Feeling in our body of all possibility, emerges before we pin it down with understanding through our minds.  We then assign words and states of being which changes Feelings to Emotions, as we try to understand the why of what we are feeling.  We assign words like: anger/sorrow/joy/abandonment/jealousy which immediately  disconnects us from the Source energy/feeling being offered. Cosmic Mind does not relate to emotions.  It is our human minds which try to capture this ephemeral stream.  Feelings are the flowing of Universal energy and we , attempt to contain this flow with the idea of emotion, thinking we can then gain something from this creative flow.  Even as I attempt to write about the Cups, I am experiencing this difficulty of pinning down these watery ideas which come tumbling in like a mountain stream. It has taken hours and pages to finally come to some sort of vague formation of what I want to say. I have to call upon the Tarot Swords to help me solidify my flow of the imagination.

When I look at the Ace of Cups I see this overflowing download of the bliss of Oneness with All.  And the only word we have come up with to describe the indescribable bliss of the Oneness with the Universal Mind is LOVE.  But this assigned word does not begin to encapsulate the small love we know here in physical reality.  Universal Love cannot be categorized and named.  This is the pure force of the Cosmos, ephemeral energy always available to us, flowing through us constantly.  And what separates us from this cosmic flow of LOVE?  Our minds, which bring us back down to earth with the realization that there is no such thing as unconditional love and how were we to think that was possible?  But then think about how our bodies are almost 70 % water.  Why are we so watery?  Perhaps these waterways are within us to carry this Universal flow of Cosmic Love, a Love we cannot comprehend, a telepathic knowing of the bliss of oneness.  And where would this stream of light/love go without the Cup to contain it?   We, as this physical being filled with waterways, are made to catch and direct this LightLove.  We are vessels made for Love.  Made to spread love.  Made to drink it in, absorb and radiate out the nurturance of Cosmic energy. And what do we tend to do with this cosmic LoveLight pouring down on us? Well, look at the suit of the cups. We share it.  We celebrate it.  We forget it’s available, feel awful and disconnected and then we connect up again, tap into it again and we are so HAPPY!    So how to surrender to the flow of LoveLight.?  How to be an overflowing Ace of Cups in your life? 

Ace of Cups Reading with Waite Smith imagery

As with all the Aces in this deck, the hand coming from the cloud indicates this is a gift from Universal source.

Draw a card for the Dove which can be seen as the cosmic messenger

Draw a card for the Wafer which is how this love is showing up physically in your life.

Draw a card for the Cup or Chalice for how to expand to receive this Love.

Draw a card for the drops falling on the water lilies, the Yods of fiery love and compassion which represent your striving for connection to spirit. Ask: How does this message Feel?

Since this is an Ace with no duality, and it’s the Water of Feeling before the Air of Mind, you cannot read each card separately.  Instead let message emerge.   Read ALL the cards together for the message of how to radiate the pure Feeling of Love to our thirsty world.

 

Carolyn Ayres teaches “Tarot As An Evolutionary Path” classes in Arcata and Eureka.  She welcomes private students and creates Tarot Circles for those who want a deeper knowledge of the Tarot. Private consultations on the phone or at her Tarot Studio in Eureka are also available. For more information about her classes or private consultations, call 442-4240 or check her out at her website: www.tarotofbecoming.com.

January 2013 The Pentacles

I write this in December of 2012 with the assumption that not much has changed physically. That we have not all been swept up in space ships or have chosen to leave our bodies or are dealing with some major upheaval  caused by the Earth’s magnetic pole reversal, major earthquakes  or any of the apocalyptic events predicted. I assume we are all still be here, still in our bodies. But I also assume there is  an acceleration of major changes going on within on a subtler level, in our deepest aspects, on the etheric plane of our and the Earth’s body, that which is the Great Work given to us by the Ace of Pentacles.

So since we are still here, still in this reality of the Tarot Pentacles, what does that mean on a cosmic level? Let’s look closer at what this gift of life on Earth, the Ace of Pentacles with the symbol of the Pentagram truly means.  Thanks to a recent lecture from Walt Amberstone of the New York Tarot School, I am looking at this card with much more depth than I ever imagined. The pentagram you see with the Waite Smith and on many other decks is also known as the Triple Triangle or the Pentalpha because it’s made of five A’s, an ancient protective symbol. The earliest appearance of this symbol is in 3000 BCE when the Pythagoreans adopted it as a symbol of holistic health, calling it the  ‘hugieia,’ which means “health of mind and body.”  For the Pythagoreans, health meant balance of the four elements of Earth , Air, Water and Fire in a harmonious union with the  fifth element,  Aether, or Spirit for  the perfect  wholeness of  spiritual and physical worlds.

The design of the Waite Smith pentacle shows a pentagram of five points, the five elements in balance  within a circle which  is also the symbol of the human in balance as in De Vinci’s Vitruvian man.  The human within the circle is the physical being balanced with the cosmos.  We also call a pentagram a five pointed star and what comes to mind when you think of a Star? Magic ?  Unattainable distance? Boundless ambition?  Searing, brightness of light?   When we wish upon a Star are we not calling forth our universal magic?  Our original being?  For the stuff of stars is what we are made of and we were once as expansive as a Star before we came into incarnation, before our essence became manifest into “unique” matter. Now notice the ‘Star’ is circled twice. What happens with this first containment?  An immediate separation from the cosmic whole.  We’re now in body, limited to our own personal universe, with a more practical magic of creating what we want in the physical world.  Then with the 2^nd circle comes an even stronger seal of separation, a symbol for the ego, so our reality is now seen only from our unique perspective. Sealed off from the cosmos, we are now of this third dimensional reality.  Our greater being and connection to all becomes hidden and for many of us lost and not even remembered.

So the suite of Pentacles /Discs becomes all about you, your uniqueness.  You as substance.  You as a manifester, for without these boundaries and separations, there would be no individual experience or expression and the incredible diversity of our world would be gone. As Walt Amberstone would say, “we are created to be as free as Divinity but we are kept separate to describe Divinity.“  We are here to explore and discover as Divine source, so the Pentacles become the holiest of symbols, as Source is given a chance to experience the world created through you.

So, why are we still here?  We are not finished.  In fact we have just begun for we are now becoming conscious of who we are in physical reality.  We are now becoming conscious that we create our reality with our responses and our unique talents.  We are now becoming aware that we can create a positive future with the genius of our minds for we are Source enclosed in the physical.

So what is happening with you now in 2013 within the circle of your ‘reality’ as a human being?

A reading for you as the Ace of Pentacles      Your unique separateness

1.     Pentagram, the Star

One card for your center, your Star, your magical cosmic essence.

2.     First circle which limits the Star’s scope   

One card for what is possible to do with what we are given, how to use your unique magic for creating what you want in the ‘real’ world?

3.     Second circle   which is your hermetic seal the symbol of your ego separating you from all other manifested things. 

       One card for your unique joy                              One card  for your unique pain

One card  which asks how do I use my unique drama for the betterment of the whole?

4.     The Whole of You as a Star being in cased in the physical

 One card -- You can do whatever you want within your own personal limitations, so what keeps you from enjoying your physicality, your separateness completely?  What keeps you from creating the most positive reality possible?