By Sarah Taylor
“Whatchoo doin’? Pissin’ around when you’ve got work to do!”
These were the exact words that came out my mouth when I was laying the cards on the scanner in preparation for publishing today’s reading. In that accent too — which sounds a tad incongruous coming out the mouth of a Brit, but there you go.
The Devil, Eight of Cups, The Hermit from the Röhrig Tarot deck, created by Carl.W- Röhrig. Click on the image for a larger version.
This reading will be short, not-so-sweet, and yet loving. A loving slap around the chops for you today.
Because there you are, stuck in no-man’s-land in the Eight of Cups. Indolence. A cobweb of chaos; a mass of bloated, amorphous swirls and adipose that need to be brought into sharper focus; dead trees bowed under their own lifelessness; a metallic river — polluted — feeding nothing and going nowhere.
Except you have places to go. Two, here, to be precise. You can go left, to The Devil, or right, to The Hermit. Or both — because both lead to the same place: out of your predicament, your pissiness, your lifelessness.
There is life, you know. There is. It is beautiful, vital, energising love. It is just that this particular scenario in the Eight of Cups is not it. What the Eight of Cups serves is the ability to make a different choice if you want to remove yourself from, as the card writes, “uncertainty,” “inhibition,” and “mud.”
So how do you break free? By turning formlessness into form; by looking within; by going into the shadows to meet what is waiting for you there. But before you do, here is the one instruction that is handed to you on a small, torn-out piece of spiral notepad, to equip you with what you need to make the journey:
Find your own light, wise leader. Think things over. Rest in your own centre.
What you avoid is the source of your greatest light, you know that? What you have fought so hard not to see is the seat of your most potent and authentic creativity. What you have now — Indolence — is not what you were expecting. That’s because you are leaning away from a meeting with what drives you. And when you see what drives you, you become the driver.
There is no shame required when you take the journey to the centre. What creates the shame is your fear of taking that first step. What will you find there that is so awful?
Or — what will you find there that is so awe-full?
Isn’t that typical: what weighs you down is your own light in disguise.
Don’t be afraid to venture into the darkness. It is in the adventuring into the black interior night of inner space that one mines, and finds, gold. Not the fool’s gold that lies on the surface of your lackadaisical heart, your stifled feelings — is that what you’ve been bowing your head towards all this time, figuring it was going to give up some riches to you?
No, no. The gold you’re looking for takes some work, some effort. But guess what? It’s real.
Go for the real. Go inside. Look at what calls your name. Contemplate the possibility of your own liberation.
Astrology/Elemental correspondences: The Devil (Capricorn), Eight of Cups (Saturn in Pisces), The Hermit (Virgo)
If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread.This article explains how to use the spread.
Goddess spoke to you and through you today, my dear! Brilliant writing and a joy to behold.. gold indeed <3
Thank you, Alex. She sure did!
Sarah, this reading nailed it for me today! Recently I obtained a copy of Jungian Robert A. Johnson’s Living Your Unlived Life, in which he makes a compelling case in support of going “into the dark” (shadow) in order to find, bring to light, come to terms with & heal, our split-off parts which we have abandoned over the years. I’m finding it wonderfully helpful, & it’s becoming clear that there is indeed “gold” in that underworld, but until I’ve done the work of finding it, it will continue to sabotage me, tug at my sleeve, consume energy to keep it down there.
As an older person dealing with having downsized earlier dreams many times, I’ve been feeling stuck, almost as though part of me was saying, “if we can’t have the whole enchilada, we won’t try”. Indolence, indeed. Ennui. Mud. I call it sitting in the swamp.
I’m discovering that what I thought I wanted long ago, in that somewhat vague, idealistic manner of the young, really wouldn’t have been so right for me after all, & would have required the sacrifice (into unlived life) of parts of me who are thriving now. Hence, the immense value in looking straight at that buried past, & discovering that maybe what I’d thought were wrong turns may actually have been just what I had conspired with the Universe to create. That is one of the treasures I’ve found so far. It’s a sort of inward/spiritual archaeology, I suppose.
Thank-you for the additional insight & the “loving slap around the chops”. I’m smiling.
Love your reading.
My favorite gem:
“Isn’t that typical: what weighs you down is your own light in disguise.”
Sarah, this reading is perfect guidance for Saturn s last roll over my natal Saturn, happening now. What a plan! The retrograde roll coincided with the cardinal grand cross and the spring eclipses. This one is catching the eclipses too. I get the indolence part –shadow Pisces. Hermit, my default. The Devil. Unfamiliar territory in my conscious world…my next spelunk in the shadow?
Bette, you and I are close in age I think. I can relate to your post.