The King of Cups is no stranger to self-love, self-indulgence, and emotional mastery, with a helping of emotional manipulation on the side if necessary. This King has felt it all, as there is no feeling or emotion that they have not learned to control or work through. This King knows when emotions are weaknesses and when they are strengths. The King of Cups has played with and tested the limits of all those pesky human “feels.” This King understands how to use the flow and ebb of their emotions to navigate and guide them along the path to success, health, and joy. There is an air of smugness about this King, and rightly so, as not everyone can get a grip on their feelings as quickly as this King does. Imagine being able to harness your most crippling feelings and use them to drive you forward. Think about what you could achieve if you knew that no matter what situation presented itself, you could handle it with ease and grace, never letting your emotions get the better of you. Perhaps then there would be more “yes” and less “no” in your life. What would that mean to you? The King of Cups is a “yes” person because they do not have to worry about what happens next, as they just deal with whatever rises and falls in the moment. There is real freedom to not being a slave to your emotions anymore. To finally be free of all of that draining energy is liberating. This is the level of life the King of Cups has achieved. This is the throne this King now sits upon, which is why this King can be prone to the odd bit of emotional manipulation, sometimes by choice and sometimes by accident, for they can’t always be held responsible for the reactions or actions of others who have not yet reached the same level of mastery.
Pathwork
Intentional
For this exercise, you need to find your inner King. The King that represents you at your best. The King that is in your zone—confident, driven, focused, and in complete control. Take the four Kings out of your deck and place them faceup in front of you. Which of these Kings best represents what it is you are trying to achieve? Do you own a business and want to be seen as an expert in your field? Do you want to be the King of your checkbook and master of your finances? Or do you wish to set the gold standard inside your family and be the inspiration you wished you had while you were growing up? There is a King for everyone once they know what they want to master, who they want to lead, and what influence they wish to have. So go ahead and pick your King. Select the card that is aligned to your personal aspirations, whatever they may be. Place this card somewhere you can see it throughout the day, perhaps on your altar, or maybe you need to take a picture of it and keep it as the lock screen on your phone. Whenever you catch a glimpse of your King during the day, repeat the following mantra: “I am King of my domain and I move through the world with confidence and ease.” If you want to write a more specific mantra for your chosen King, go right ahead. But just remember, it should be quick, easy, and get you into the flow of the King’s energy.
Intuitive
How do you envision the view from the top? Being King is not easy, nor is it often comfortable. But this is because most people never plan to be King. They don’t really see themselves pulling it all off and mastering the mountain. This lack of planning often means your King status will be short-lived and possibly even traumatic.
In this exercise we are going to do a bit of forward planning. You are going to see this coming together, your moment of kingly glory, and embed it into your vibrational memory. Sit down in a comfy chair, take a couple of nice deep breaths, and start to imagine your perfect day. You have to imagine it from beginning to end, from the moment your feet hit the floor in the morning until you drop off to sleep at night. If you need to close your eyes to visualize this, by all means do so. If you can daydream with your eyes open, then do that. Make sure you soak up every detail, from the weather to what you are wearing to who you are sharing this day with. Allow yourself to really sink into this daydream. Listen to the conversations you might be having. Notice how your body feels, how your face looks, and how you are carrying yourself. Depending on how good of a daydreamer you are, spending about five to ten minutes will be more than enough for the visualization side of things.
Once you are done with the daydreaming, pick up your journal and write it all down. Title your page “My Perfect Day” and date it. This exercise takes the pressure off being King for a while, and instead reminds you why you want the things you do, and why you work so hard to both achieve them and keep them. Or maybe it shows why you climbed the mountain in the first place and why it is important to soak up the view for as long as possible. Before you know it, all of your Kings will be right side up and working to assist you in running and maintaining your personal empire.
Wandering
The Kings in the tarot can often represent a certain time of life or the senior part of our mortal journey. We enter this elder phase of our existence somewhere between sixty and sixty-five years of age. I work with many clients who are in their King phases of life, and they teach me so much about what it means to be an elder. For one thing, just because you made it to the King phase in your life hardly means you have everything figured out. Oftentimes, the longer you live, the more things you realize you don’t understand at all. They also teach me the magic of time, and how with decades of time to view the soul’s journey, they can pinpoint divine moments in their lives, seeing how the flow and rhythm of their lives has played out.
In this exercise, think about what you want to be doing in the King phase of your life. You might want to consider the following: What wisdom do you want to impart? What new skills or adventures would you like to have? What places would you like to see, and what do you want to do when you see them? Just relax into this exercise and let your mind wander into the age of the King, a place where age is revered, elders are respected, and your knowledge and wisdom opens new and exciting doors that before were hidden. Even if you are already in this phase of your life, hold the vision anyway. Allow your awareness to wander to places you have yet to travel to or to achievements you have yet to attain. Just breathe, relax, and wander through this King phase of your life, without rules, without restrictions, and, most of all, without judgment. If you wish, you can take your daydreaming to your journal and write this all up to explore it further.
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4
the Minor Arcana
Welcome to the remaining minor arcana cards, the Aces through Tens. You will notice that the intentional lessons for this chapter carry on from one number to the next, making the minor arcana look and feel like sequential steps that need to be walked along a specific path in order to get to a desired location. This is done on purpose, as most times the minor arcana cards are dealt with as if they are individual cards that are just hanging around waiting for the other cards in the spread to give them meaning and relevance. The truth is, these cards are already well-grounded into a story. They never show up alone, and they tease you with parts of a story that indicate both where you have been and where you are headed. The cards of the minor arcana suits are numbered for a reason, and to not work with these numbers and the steps they represent on purpose means you are missing out on such an important part of the tarot’s teachings.
Aces
The Aces begin our journey through the four suits by introducing us to the possibilities each suit offers. I like to think of the Aces as dream seeds, full of potential with a story yet to be told. In this respect, the four Aces of the minor arcana are similar to the Fool card, for they don’t really give you any indication of what is going to happen, only the prospect of something happening if all the conditions are aligned in the most divine way. The Fool is all about divine and inspired alignment and appears to trust that this is just how life is meant to be experienced. The Aces may not have the same sort of confidence the Fool has, but they do live in the field of divine potential where the Fool likes to wander. Unlike the Fool though, the Aces hint at the work that is to come, if you wish to go ahead and plant one of these dream seeds in your manifestation garden. The A
ces will grow, but only if you care for them, nourish them, and do all the things that are required for them to fulfill their potential. We are each a dream seed, full of untapped potential and waiting for the right set of conditions to burst forth so we can be the best version of who we are and shine our divine light out into the world.
The Aces help us find out what sort of energy we need to focus on in each step of our physical journey. They represent something we are working on, be it a goal, a lesson, a relationship, or new skill. Each of the Aces offers us a different experience and a different level of engagement through which to see ourselves and the world around us. They show us what is possible without swaying us in one direction or the other. We get to choose how we will use each of the Aces by deciding if what is on offer is something we want or need. We also get to choose how much work we are willing to put into our dream seed, if we choose to plant it. Choices are key when working with the Aces, choices you get to make willingly most of the time. Sometimes when an Ace comes into our lives, it is more of a heads-up of what is to come, perhaps a new experience that is going to require you to put in some effort, whether you like it or not.
The Ace of Swords can get stuck in your head like an earworm, a constant looping song, mantra, idea, or conversation that just won’t leave you alone, no matter how much you want it to. It can cause you to become single-minded and focused, or it can distract you to no end. As a writer, the Ace of Swords will often serve up wonderful ideas to me that become something marvelous, much like this very book you are reading. However, for the most part, it just bubbles up whatever seems to be floating around in the conscious mind at any given time. This is one of the lessons the Ace of Swords brings with it—discernment, which is knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore. Get it right here and it won’t cause you as much grief as you progress through the rest of the suit of swords. It is important to remember that not every idea that presents itself is one for you to take action on, as some are merely cerebral chatter. Learning how your mind works is the seed that is being offered up here. Take time with this Ace and get to know how your thoughts operate. Learn to distinguish between the constant chatter of the ever-processing mind and the vibration of inspired ideas that offer real potential. Seek out moments of quiet and stillness, so you can calm yourself and focus. Practice emptying your head through journal work or meditation so you can see what is left behind once all the noise has moved on by. Only then will you truly be able to see that gift that this Ace offers you.
The Ace of Wands is your personal magic wand. Even though all the Aces offer potential for growth, only the Ace of Wands offers you growth through magic. One of the issues many people have with the Ace of Wands is that it brings with it a lot of energy, and oftentimes it is restless energy that can be hard to direct and channel in appropriate ways. This can cause one to get totally and utterly distracted, or it can cause one to become paralyzed by feeling overwhelmed. This energy only grows and intensifies as we move deeper into the suit of wands, so take your time with the Ace and really learn how to use the magic that is being offered up here. The fiery nature of the wands makes them somewhat explosive in inexperienced hands, which means you might have a few mishaps along the way. But don’t worry, it is all part of the learning curve. Once the thrill and excitement wears off, and it will, you can settle into exploring what untapped magic your wand offers. I should point out that this card offers something different to each person who works with it. Each magic wand is unique and merges in a unique way with whoever is wielding it. What you can create with your wand of potential is not what someone else can create with theirs. This is another lesson of the Ace, and that is to not compare your magic with someone else’s. What is meant for you will come to you in due course, and what is not won’t. It is as simple as that. Wands always work best when we have our feet firmly planted on the ground and open our hearts as wide as we dare. Only then will you see what sort of magic you are capable of creating.
The Ace of Cups is often depicted as overflowing and abundant. There is a piece of me that always wants to ask this card if it could please get a coaster and not spill all over my coffee table. This says a lot about how I see this card, as I don’t like water all over the place and will do pretty much anything to avoid having to walk through puddles in my socks. I am sure there are those among you who love the idea of jumping in the many puddles this card leaves in its wake. But I like my water contained and controlled, which is why I always thank the sea for stopping at the shoreline and not washing us all away. I didn’t realize I had issues with this card until I wrote the Animal Totem Tarot. The Ace of Cups was the very last card I wrote. It eluded me for weeks and was causing me great frustration. Eventually, through a lot of meditation, it finally dawned on me that I truly did not believe in the story this card was offering up, which was the never-ending universal supply of love, wealth, health, happiness, and joy. I was seeing this card through the lens of my personal lack, meaning I was totally disconnected from the card and its gifts. Of all the Aces, this one is the hardest to put into practice for most of us. Sure, we get the Ace of Cups in theory, but what about when it comes to the divine flow and abundance of our day-to-day lives? What do we think we are really worth, and how does that value show up in our experience? There is a lot of healing energy within this card, but in order for you to tap into it, you have to feel worthy of it.
The Ace of Pentacles seems like a gift from the heavens, but in reality it is all about being on the earth and seeing what’s already here, in order to create something that may appear to be a miracle. If you compare the Ace of Pentacles in the Animal Totem Tarot with the Ace of Pentacles from the Llewellyn Tarot you will notice the difference in its representation. One shows the pentacle on the ground, being worked and moved, while the other seems to be miraculous in its giving, as a giant hand plucks a golden coin from the sky. I sometimes wonder how often the perceived nature of this card trips people up. The Ace of Pentacles, in my experience anyway, is the card of blessings. What you bless increases. The art of blessing starts with what you have and what you currently see, feel, touch, smell, and hear. This includes your body, which brings up an interesting question. How many times a day do you bless your body and give thanks to it for allowing you to experience this physical realm? The body is the true material gift, for without it, we would not be able to engage with anything this physical plane has to offer. Through the act of blessing, we tend to attract more of what we bless. Doing so will bring more work, more joy, more abundance, or more responsibility. This is the gift unseen, but it starts with its feet firmly on the ground and with what you already have.
Pathwork
Intentional
One of the most fun ways to work with the Aces is to picture them as actual seeds, which is how I work the them most of the time. I am going to show you how to use the Aces on purpose, to either bring you something you want or open the door to an opportunity you really wish to experience. For this exercise, you need to pick just one of the Aces. Do you want to grow a money tree, a creative spark, a new relationship, or an idea? Once you have selected your Ace or seed, remove it from your deck and place it in a clear glass jar along with a clear quartz crystal (this is to magnify the energy of your path and spellwork), some salt (for protection, as it is important to protect your seeds), and a teaspoon of dirt or potting soil (as your seeds need something to grow in). I recommend you wrap your dirt and salt in some cling wrap and seal it before you put it in the jar, so you do not damage your tarot card, or photocopy your tarot card and put the paper replica in the jar instead of your actual card. Once you have all of your items in your jar, put the top on it, and place it either on your altar, the top of a bookcase, or anywhere else it won’t be disturbed for the next seven days. You will also need some abundance incense and seven green candles, one for each day you are going to be doing this work.
Now that you have your jar, your incense, and your candles, you are ready to get
to work. Remember, you are planting seeds, so you have to be able to see what it is you are growing. This is where your meditation or visualization is going to be important, which is why I recommend doing this ritual for seven days. That way it will hold your focus and amplify your manifestation power. If you have your jar, incense, and candles all set up on an altar, go ahead and get comfortable, as if you are about to meditate, chant, or pray. If you have your items on a shelf, bookcase, or bedside table, pull up a seat and get comfy. Go ahead and light your incense, placing it next to your sealed jar, then light your green candle and focus on the flame as you settle your breath and your body into the moment. When you feel relaxed and grounded, start visualizing your seed fully grown and manifested as a tree, idea, relationship, or creative project. Marvel in all of its amazing splendor. Take in the sensations and notice how happy, joyful, or full of pride and accomplishment you feel. Make this vision as big and as bold as you possibly can. Make it vibrate with color and sound to the point that you could reach out and touch it. Hold that image for as long as you can, and when you feel you are done, bring your hands to prayer position, bow your head slightly, and just say “Thank you.” If you need to close your eyes for this, go ahead. Let the incense and candle burn all the way down. Cone incense and small altar candles usually take about thirty minutes to burn. Obviously, do not leave these items unattended. Repeat this for seven days. You will be amazed at what you will grow if you follow these simple steps.
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