The Queen of Cups
I heard the thunder/ Before we saw the rain/ I felt it rumble/ Before we felt it quake. The Queen of Cups is the card I understand the least in the entire deck, bar none. In part, that’s because the Queen of Cups is a pretty cagey card. The Queen keeps to himself. He has that thing where he understands everything that’s going around him and just sort of smiles and waits for everyone else to catch up. He’s not being mean or anything. He just knows that no one would benefit from him sitting everyone down and telling everyone what they’re feeling and how to most effectively act on it. All people that go into ‘helping professions’ have a bit of the Queen of Cups in them (this is a self @). There are many wonderful things that come with the Queen of Cups. They truly have the capacity for both a macro- and micro-view of people’s emotions, and they’re capable of guiding people slowly to themselves. Also, they can be a little snooty. When you have a genuine grasp on emotional things happening around you and other people don’t, it’s hard not to be. It’s important for the Queen of Cups to remind themself that knowing more than other people is not the same as knowing everything.
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Fairies away/ Fetch me that flower. The Queen of Cups is one of the only cards that’s explicitly thought of as magical. Or, magical isn't right. Having some sort of intangible quality, an ability to know things that one can’t know. Uncanny. The Queen, in my experience, is a little like having a tarot reading. For me, getting read for is mostly shouting “fuck you, bro” and laughing with relief. The cards know something I don’t. If I’m ready, I’ll listen. If not, I’ll wait. (One of the more interesting things for me, as a reader, is when someone takes a card I’ve brought to them and talks about it non-stop without saying anything. I often wonder when those people will come back to it, and if they’ll remember the card when they do.) The thing, though, is that the Queen’s magic only goes so far. The Queen is so quiet that it can be easy to over-credit her, be so impressed with what she’s brought that we ignore what’s she’s missing. We want them to be real. He wants to be real. The Queen of Cups is dangerous when she’s like this, and other people endanger themselves when they treat her like this.
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Well the holy water caught my dress/ And I fell down into a holy mess. I am truly surprised, writing this, that it’s one of the posts that’s come most easy. I went in being prepared to struggle and glare at my clock and alternate sentences with homework until I was cranky at both. So I’m thrilled to be ending with the one thing I’ve understood about the Queen of Cups for years, my only place of comfort with them, which is: the Queen of Cups is floating in the Dead Sea. They are surrounded by emotion, but they’re not concerned about drowning. They can be surrounded, they can get wet, but they pretty much know that they’ll be safe. Oceans are oceans; there are no guarantees. But the Queen of Cups is well within her rights to think that they’re going to be okay.
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The End, Jennah Bell
Were The World Mine (if you follow one link in the entirety of your time reading this newsletter, make it this one) (like) (do it)
Nine Pin, Kaia Kater
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