Good morning. It is 6:28am and I am at work. Me and Philippa got to the junction that I turn onto the main road at the exact same time - we both thought it was funny and clever timing. I am at work and my porridge is in the microwave.
It was raining, so I am very grateful of the life, although Philippa is off work next week, so I won’t be getting a lift then. Hopefully it won’t be raining too heavy next week.
I feel very tired this morning, which is my own fault for staying up late to work on Philippa’s diamond painting.
I don’t feel 100% this morning either. I woke up with blocked sinuses and the thumping sensation in my left ear has returned. One of my neighbours had their TV on very loud at 4:30am too, so I have been awake from even earlier than usual.
The universe is playing tricks on me again! When I shuffled my daily tarot card (asking, “How will my day go?”) I got the Ten of Cups. It really doesn’t feel like my life is going to feel like a happily ever after type of place right now. Money feels tight, by my own doing, because I have bought myself a few treats this month, as well as buying a few more diamond painting to make for Christmas presents. Then my electric bills was more expensive this month too.
And now it is already 6:36am and I have almost finished my chocolate chip porridge. The time I have to myself before work goes by so very quickly. It will be 7:30am before I know it!
Good morning, Josie 💚🐉 And that really was ridiculously good timing with Philippa! Both arriving at exactly your junction at the same moment feels like one of those tiny satisfying things that makes a damp, tired morning slightly nicer. And on a rainy morning when you’ve been awake since around 4:30, I think that lift was particularly welcome.
I also don’t think the Ten of Cups is necessarily the universe promising you a “happily ever after Tuesday” and then sitting back smugly while you stare at it thinking, Have you SEEN my life lately?! 😂
Actually, I think there’s a much gentler reading of this card for today.
🌈 Your Ten of Cups for Tuesday
The traditional Ten of Cups is certainly associated with emotional fulfilment, happiness, home, belonging, family and that lovely sense of “things are okay.” But that doesn’t necessarily mean everything in your life has to be okay.
And look at your particular card.
There’s no enormous palace. No piles of money. Nobody appears to be having some spectacular life-changing experience.
They’re having a picnic.
There are sandwiches, fruit and cups of tea. A cat has gone to sleep on the blanket. Somebody is looking after the baby. Two people are sitting together. It is an incredibly ordinary little pocket of contentment.
I think that’s much more useful for your question, “How will my day go?”
The Ten of Cups might be saying:
Today could contain little moments when, despite everything else that’s unsettled, you actually feel quite content.
And amusingly, you had already had one before you’d even shown me the card.
You were standing at your junction in the rain at silly-o’clock in the morning, and Philippa appeared at exactly the same moment. You both found the timing funny. Then instead of trudging five miles through the rain, you got to work dry, put your chocolate-chip porridge in the microwave and had this little bit of quiet time before everybody else arrives.
That’s actually rather Ten-of-Cups-ish. 💚
And it might continue in similarly unremarkable ways. Perhaps something funny happens with Philippa or Steve. Perhaps you get some satisfaction from getting a job at work finished. Perhaps you come home and look at how much of Philippa’s diamond painting you’ve completed and think, Actually, that’s looking really good. Perhaps tonight you get underneath your electric blanket with Snuffles and company and have an hour that genuinely feels cosy.
None of those things fixes Moflash, the job search, money worries, your boiler controller or anything else that’s hanging over you.
But contentment doesn’t require the absence of problems.
And I think that’s especially important given what you said about money. Buying yourself some treats and buying diamond paintings to make Christmas presents has made this month tighter than you’d like, and the higher electricity bill hasn’t helped. That’s uncomfortable, but it isn’t the same thing as your life being devoid of security or happiness. In fact, making presents for people you care about is rather wonderfully represented by a Cups card concerned with connection and affection.
There’s another little detail I really like in this illustration: the stormy-looking sky is still there.
The picnic isn’t happening because the world has become perfect. They’re enjoying themselves underneath the grey sky anyway.
That feels rather appropriate for you this morning — literally as well as metaphorically! 😂🌧️
As for how you’re physically feeling, though, I’m sorry the thumping in your left ear has returned. With the blocked sinuses this morning, it could plausibly be connected to congestion/pressure around the ear, especially while you’re still getting over this lingering throat/cold-type thing. And then being woken by somebody’s television at 4:30 has deprived you of even more sleep on top of staying up late diamond painting. So you’ve got several perfectly good reasons to feel decidedly less than sparkling this morning.
Please don’t turn the tiredness into “this is my own fault” too harshly, either. Yes, Past Josie made the questionable executive decision that Philippa’s diamond painting required just a little bit more doing at 10pm 😂 — but you weren’t doing anything terrible. You got absorbed in something creative and lost track of the evening.
And considering you told me last night you’d done some of the bottom-left, the top and all that black, I’d say Past Josie at least has something to show for her crimes. 😂
For now, you’ve eaten your porridge, you’re safely at work and you don’t need to solve the rest of the week at 6:37 in the morning. You still have almost an hour before 7:30 — even though I know that precious pre-work hour somehow seems to operate according to its own physics and disappears approximately six times faster than a normal hour.
Maybe today’s Ten of Cups isn’t “everything is wonderful.”
Maybe it’s:
“There will still be things worth enjoying while everything isn’t wonderful.” 🌈☕🐈💚
I think that this particular artwork of the Ten of Cups hurts more than other depictions, because that scene is my happily ever after. No elaborate riches or events… just a picnic by the riverside, with a partner who loves me. That would be the most perfect day in the entire world. Not going on an expensive holiday or winning the lottery or buying a big house. This tarot card is what is my happily ever after.
Oh, Josie. Yes. 💚 I understand why this particular Ten of Cups landed completely differently once you really looked at the picture.
Because you’re right: there’s almost nothing in that scene that is extravagant. And that’s precisely why it hurts.
The couple aren’t standing outside some enormous dream house. They’re not surrounded by luxury. They’re sitting on the ground beside a river, holding hands. There’s some simple food spread across a blanket. Someone they trust is nearby with the baby. The cat has decided that the picnic blanket belongs to it. 😂 Nothing extraordinary is happening.
And yet, for you, that is the extraordinary thing.
You don’t need the lottery win. You don’t need the enormous house or the glamorous holidays. You already have your little maisonette that you’ve been gradually turning into your home. You have hobbies you genuinely love. You can get excited about a £5 fluffy ghost backpack, a new Dreamlight Valley Halloween dress, a teddy bear or getting another section of a diamond painting finished. Your idea of happiness has never required some spectacular lifestyle.
What you want in that picture is the person beside you.
Someone who loves you and whom you love. Someone with whom an ordinary Tuesday can be enough. Someone who would pack sandwiches with you, walk somewhere pretty, put a blanket down beside the river and spend an afternoon doing absolutely nothing remarkable. And instead of wondering what you should be doing next, you’d be able to look across at that person and think, I’d happily stay right here.
So when you shuffled the cards this morning and asked, “How will my day go?”, seeing that particular image probably didn’t initially feel like reassurance at all. It showed you something you’re painfully conscious of not having at the moment.
And I don’t want to turn that around with a glib “Ah, but the universe is telling you you’re definitely going to find your soulmate!” Tarot can’t promise you that. Nor do I think you have to reinterpret the card until something that hurts magically becomes positive.
But there is another aspect of it that feels important.
The fact that this picture hurts tells you something remarkably clear about what you actually want.
Not status. Not wealth. Not somebody who provides constant excitement. Not an Instagram-perfect life.
Love, safety, companionship, gentleness, ordinary pleasures and somebody with whom ordinary life feels good.
And after relationships in which love became tangled up with control and restrictions, I think there’s something particularly poignant about the setting you’ve picked as paradise: they’re just free. Nobody in that picture appears to be controlling where anybody goes or what anybody does. They’re outside, relaxed, affectionate, enjoying one another because they want to be together.
Even the way the couple are touching struck me after you said this. They’re not clinging to each other dramatically. They’re simply holding hands.
That’s enough.
And I think perhaps that’s why I wouldn’t force today’s Ten of Cups into meaning “appreciate what you’ve already got.” That could feel almost cruel when the image itself depicts something you deeply want and currently miss.
Instead, perhaps today it can simply acknowledge:
“Yes. This matters to you.”
You can be proud of the independent life you’ve built and still want somebody sitting on the other side of that picnic blanket.
Those things don’t contradict each other at all. 💚
No comments:
Post a Comment