Im not spiritual, maybe a realist with benefits.

I was recently gifted a tarot deck. Which is cool because I have been thinking about tarot for a while.

 When I was about 12 years old I really enjoyed fantasy books and shows. I wanted to have supernatural powers, practice magic, I wanted to be a witch. I got some Wicca books, collected crystals, burnt incense, learned about chakras. And one day my friends mum gave me a tarot deck, a really classic one, one that I have seen often since. 

She told me that to start tarot someone should gift you the deck. I was honoured, I did some readings but learning the cards was overwhelming. I never completely got into it and in all the house moves we made when I was a teen, the cards got lost. 

Fast forward almost twenty years, I’ve read a bunch of spirituality, lightly studied astrology, numerology, religions, been a yoga teacher, and I make a new friend. This new friend is the most unspiritual person I know. She studied theology at uni and through that process saw through organised religion. She thinks astrology is nonsense and essentially bases her well being and peace of mind on practical endeavours with practical outcomes. I have leaned away from many spiritual things and I think she has opened her mind towards them in a way, a little more. We are both very grounded people, who see things from different angles. 

I have two cats, she now has two kids. We buy gifts for each other sometimes. She bought me a tarot deck, a cartoon cat, non traditional tarot deck. I love it. And I have found myself using it as a tool to talk to myself and my subconscious mind. It has come at a great time as I no longer believe in the woo woo of astrology, or tarot even. I see them as tools, tools that use the idea of the metaphysical because, lets face it, we don’t know everything about our universe and I think for many of us using a system that allows for a bit of the unknown is helpful. 

So I read tarot now. But learning the cards is tricky. Its quite a bit of work. Understanding the story a reading is trying to tell. How the cards speak to each other, and of course how they are being interrupted and received. 

This series is going to be a dive into these cards, either as a single card or maybe a group, a suit, a number. Whatever your beliefs about these kinds of things are, each card represents an emotion, a situation, a vibe or circumstance that is very much real. 

Today I drew the six of cups. In my non traditional cat deck this looks like two houses side by side, a window of each is in the frame and a small gap between the houses is visible. Below each window is a ledge. Each ledge has two cups on it, cups which are acting as flower pots with flowers in them. There is a cat in each window and one cat is handing the other a cup flower pot. The last cup rests on the roof of the the receiving cats house. There are a few mountains in the background. 

The art work is vibrant, the colours are super bright. The cats are little odd, beady eyes. I get the impression the giver is a male cat and the receiver a female. One has eyelashes which we typically associate with femaleness. The two cups on her ledge are sleeping (the cups all have faces) and all other cups are smiling. 

Six is not a number I understand well. I don’t get a big vide from it. Its divisible by two and three, which tells me it could have themes of balance, partnership but also family. It is a number within the 3,6,9 of creation, so its powerful. There is a giving nature within the card, as one cat is literally giving a cup away. 

Cups represent the element of water in the tarot, so this card could hold meanings of partnerships, family, giving, emotional wellness. There is also a wholesome feeling to this card. It looks nice. 

There are some cards I am more familiar with than others, and this is not a card I know much about. But this is how I want to learn tarot, through ideas and interpretations. 

I will go and read about it now, and see what else is out there. 

We’re back, after reading a few websites and watching a few TikToks. I like the six of cups. It seems to be a positive card, dealing with nostalgia and childhood memories. Urging us to look back at who or what we used to be, maybe guiding us back towards an abandoned inner child. The giver in the card is a child in traditional tarot (I didn’t see child in my cats). It is an innocent card. In looking into the six of cups, the five of cups was often mentioned. That the five depicts a struggle, a shadow time and this next step, represented in the six, is about acceptance and re-balance. 

A fitting card to have pulled on my first day of what I hope will become a series on exploring tarot and at the same time, learning to write and tell stories. 

I started this piece by talking about my own childhood, my memories and my own delve back into an old part of myself. I am sure there are a number of cards that could have been fitting to this day, this moment, but I think this is the point of tarot. The cards pulled will highlight parts of ourselves and our lives. It will make you observe things that maybe you hadn’t or give you a focus that was lacking prior. 

I saw one interpretation that said the six of cups is about rediscovering awe and childlike wonder. That is the kind of energy I need to bring to this writing project. I have been trying to bring myself into more structured writing for months and I cannot seem to find my voice, my topics, my style. The six of cups could be what is missing, the lesson from the ideas that are depicted in the six of the cups.

I do not think it is fate that I chose this card (or that it chose me ;) ), but how I associate it to my present moment and the way I chose to interpret it can have a powerful message that can set up new ideas, break down old patterns and give us guidance through our often uncertain lives. 

Even further than that, the ideas that these cards depict are deeply human. They are at the heart of what are internal struggles look like, the external circumstances that show up throughout our lives.

The six of cups, reclamation, childhood, innocence, nostalgia, the effect our pasts can hold on us. These are themes that we will all deal with at times in our lives. They will come up at the forefront or linger in the background. They will need addressing and embracing at times, at others these things may need to be put down and let go of. Whatever it is that we are dealing with in our present, there is usually not a right or wrong answer, but an unfolding to experience.

In my life right now, I am struggling to find ways to express my humanity. To feel the burden of our world today and still show up with love and joy and hope.

These silly little cat cards with meanings as deep as I want to take them, with symbolism as hard hitting as I can take might just bring me a little relief and a few laughs.