Eight of Cups
Chapel Perilous
Fortune Cookie: refuse to be confined, repressed, dimmed by anything or anyone – especially yourself!
This is an absolutely GREAT card to guide us during our cogitations, ruminations and exitations about what we would have next year be.
It’s a card that has rarely popped up for the blog, and one that has a lot of helpful direction to it. It is, however, another one of those cards that sets clients awhimpering just from the visuals. [Except for those who are superGoth. They just ask for directions so they can find the place.]
The card, you see, (at least in the deck I use) portrays a wayfaring knight who has ridden into a lonely chapel to protect himself and his steed from a furious storm. He notices that the altar is without any adornment, save for a large, brightly flaming golden candle. As he waits, and drips, he sees a giant, clawed, monstrous hand reach in through the window high above the altar and make to extinguish the light.
Charmeeeeeng, yezno?
So, anyway, some readers believe the Eight of Cups conveys either turning away from felicity and celebration, or the exact opposite [I guess it depends which side of bed the reader fell out of]. Others believe this is a card that calls for the querent (questioner) to look for a deeper meaning in life; it is a time for soul searching.
Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, finds this card to be about abandoning a path, a change of plans, and escaping an unhealthy situation, among other things.
Of course, I have my own particular take on the card. When it turns up for a client, once I have gotten them to calm back down from the impact of the visual, I usually say things like
~ Do not let anyone or anything – especially yourself − put a bushel basket over your light.
~ Do not allow anyone or anything – especially yourself or your perception of your self − hold you under its thumb.
If necessary:
Leave.
Move.
Go elsewhere. Hastily.
Try something else.
Reach out for other options.
Rework your priorities and take life from there.
SET YOURSELF FREE!!!
So:
Today, refuse to be confined, repressed, dimmed by anyone or anything – especially yourself!
Bright blessings and an open path to your true self!
Thought for the Day: By Aladdin’s lamplit scrotum, man! Everything is a story. What is there but stories? Stories are the only truth. ~ Christopher Moore, from Practical Demonkeeping
Today’s Weather: Cumulonimbus praecox (snow early), leading to extravagant metaphors. Polish up your dalgleish.
On This Date: 1853 – A dinner party is held inside a life-size model of an Iguanodon created by Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins and Sir Richard Owen in south London. [Couldn’t make this stuff up. Couldn’t! Couldn’t! Couldn’t!]
And: 1924 – Edwin Hubble announces the existence of other galaxies.
Shamanspath's Weblog 
December 30, 2009 at 10:16 am
Hmmm….a thought popped into my head as I was reading your message. When things are going on around me that throw me (and especially if I’m feeling psychic arrows…or like I’m being repressed…which I absolutely hate), I tend to become like a deer in headlights.
I now see I have other options that would serve me much better:
Leave.
Move.
Go Elsewhere. Hastily.
Try something else.
Reach out for other options.
Rework your priorities and take life from there.
Hmmm…this is most helpful. Freezing is most likely NOT the best choice, and CERTAINLY not the only option.
Most helpful. Thank you, Neal.
~ ~ Blessings, Donna
December 30, 2009 at 10:52 am
Bravo! Or brava!
Yay!
Blessings,
N