Halcyon: a mythical bird said by ancient writers to breed in a nest floating at sea at the winter solstice, charming the wind and waves into calm. From halcyon (n.), late 14c., from Latin halcyon, from Greek halkyon, variant (perhaps a misspelling) of alkyon "kingfisher," from hals "sea, salt" + kyon "conceiving," prp. of kyein "to conceive," lit. "to swell," from PIE root *keue- "to swell."
The Positions in the Spread:
(1) The fulcrum, the pivotal point, the present moment.
(2) What I need to leave behind.
(3) What I need to learn from.
(4) What I need to take forward.
(5) An opportunity to look for.
(6) A challenge to face.
(7) A message for the year.
The Reading:
(1) Six of Cups - Childhood innocence and playfulness, an openness to the world that is not hedged in by expectations about what is or is not possible or realistic. Welcoming seen and unseen companions, enacting "deep play" rituals that invite the opportunity for communion with Spirit, playing in the realm of the imagination and exploration.
I only discovered the meaning of "halcyon" after drawing all the cards, but I think the Six of Cups captures that sense of the idyllic calm of the ocean, the conception, the new beginning, the nest within which new life begins. An alternate meaning of the word "halcyon" is an idyllic time that was happy and peaceful, and the Six of Cups has also sometimes signified an idealized or romanticized past. In this case, however, I think the reenactment or ritual recreation of the halcyon days in the present moment is a good, healthy and helpful thing, a way of entering a contemplative state open to Spirit and the gods.
(2) Judgement (XX) - Weighing the past and judging previous actions, facing potentially harsh judgement, embracing the process of death, but coming out of it renewed, given a new life, hearing the call to a more fulfilling life connected with Spirit and the Song of the World, a card of transformation but, more so, a sense of destiny or calling.
I was surprised to draw this card in the place of "What I need to leave behind." In relation to the Six of Cups, perhaps it suggests that I need to approach the past with a more open attitude of childlike wonder and appreciation, rather than with the heavy hand of judgement and assessment which lends so much weight to everything. The message here seems to be, in some ways, to "lighten up."
(3) Three of Pentacles - Teamwork and community support which help to make great work possible. Working with others, combining your will and vision, you can accomplish many things, bringing works of strength and beauty and permanence into being. Also, allowing others to shine while you play a supporting role, and allowing others to support you when it's your turn to work or act creatively.
This card makes me think immediately of my working relationship with Jeff on the podcast, and the work that he and I have done together to create something we are both very proud of. The larger lesson that I need to learn might be that I can release my need to stand independently and accept a more supporting role in our marriage (financially speaking), or on the other hand, to accept and appreciate the supporting role that Jeff plays in being the primary breadwinner and set aside my ego-need to earn more money as a validation of my work. Again, as this relates to the Six of Cups, maybe there is some indication that "community" is more than just the other people in my life, and another lesson I need to learn is to recognize and accept the support and aid from the gods and from Spirit, rather than feeling like I need to go at it alone.
(4) King of Cups - A protector and nourisher, though his masculine energy expresses his emotional side in a more subtle and structured way. The seahorse, as the protector and main caregiver for its young, is both sinuous and fluid, and also spiny and tough, blending both the more watery/emotional aspects with the stability of structure and resistance.
This card has always strongly reminded me of Jeff and his personality, as a man who is very strong and hard-working, very family-oriented and loving towards his children, and also very empathetic and emotionally sensitive to those around him (sometimes almost too much). Of course, I will carry my relationship with him forward into the new year. On another level, this may represent some advice about how I can internalize and embody this archetype more myself, especially in relation to the Six of Cups — perhaps that structure and outer strength is necessary in order to protect the childlike innocence of imaginative engagement with Spirit in the present moment.
(2 - 4) Three Card Spread - All three of these cards have figures facing to the left, which suggests to a certain extent that the energies are flowing backwards into the past, but perhaps also into the areas of memory and the depths of history that go to shape the present and the future. The Angel of Judgement in Card 2 faces to the left, while the "souls" of the dead that rise up out of the poppies face to the right, looking up towards the Angel. In the King of Cups, this energy is somewhat reverse, with the King of Cups (arguably the more powerful and dominating figure in the card) still facing to the left, but looking upward at the seahorse, which faces to the right. To me, this suggests that the energy carried into the future is not necessarily the energy of overtly powerful or dominating figures, but of a smaller and more humble nature. In the Three of Pentacles, both figures are primarily facing away with their backs to the viewer, with the upper figure turning her face as if to look over her left shoulder, keeping with the main flow of the energy but not as directly as in the other two cards. The energy in the center card also seems to be a bit more vertical, with the carvings in the stones overlapping in circles that rise up the wall. To a certain extent, this seems to play Card 3 as the "fulcrum" within the context of these three cards, a center around which the other two are organized.
(5) Two of Cups - A partnership or relationship born of mutual love and attraction, the blending and intertwining of the different elements, of masculine and feminine. There is both union and a tension between opposites, but the tension is like the taut string that vibrates to create a clear-toned music. Love crowns the couple as their roots reach deep into the earth to seek stability.
My first response is to interpret this card as a promise of opportunity for deepening my relationship with Jeff, but this could very well be some other kind of merging or blending of opposites in a harmonious and balanced way within my life. Since my relationship with Jeff is happy and stable, it seems to me a bit unlikely that this is some new opportunity being presented on that front, and the low number of the card does seem to suggest that this will be a new or just beginning relationship. In general, I interpret it as advice to keep my eyes open for opportunities to balance and blend opposites in all aspects of my life, not just in personal relationships. Relating it back to the Six of Cups, this might mean balancing the past and the present without romanticizing either, or intertwining the mundane/realistic and the sacred/imaginative.
(6) Four of Cups - Self-absorption, losing yourself in reveries and daydreams, spending too much time looking inward and losing sight of the larger world around you. But also, to a certain extent (in this particular card/deck anyway), breaking away from the usual approach, separating oneself from the crowd in order to get a clearer view of what's going on, and the suggestion that this isolation can be taken too far and become a hindrance.
This future challenge to face is not all that unfamiliar to me, and this card has come up in a similar position on several other occasions. I take this card to be a gentle warning not to spend too much time in self-analysis, and in particular I think it applies to my time online and my relationship with others via the internet. (The Four of Cups might just be the perfect card to represent the internet — the stability and structure of the four brought to bear on the emotions — the internet, in many ways, is driven by instincts and emotions much more than the intellect or the physical body, and it provides a way to structure and share those emotions so that they have at least the appearance of permanence and the weight of some authority behind them. Yet it is also a place of self-absorption and illusions, where much of your interactions are your own reflections or projections overlaid onto the words or images of others.) In relation to the Six of Cups, I think it's interesting that in both cases you have the imaginative play of the emotions within vessels, but in the Si of Cups there is more fluidity and connection, as well as creative tension (3 X 2) than in the Four of Cups, which is much more stagnant, with energies working at cross-purposes to a certain extent (2 X 2).
(7) Knight of Pentacle - Energetic determination and unwavering loyalty and dedication to a particular goal, a certain single-mindedness that cannot be distracted by temptations along the way. The Knight is methodical and hard working, akin to the tortoise rather than the hare, but he rides the slow, persistent energies of the earth towards his goal, and he has the power and force of those laws of nature behind his actions.
This message to carry with me into the new year harkens back to the lesson to be learned from the previous year, both of them being from the suit of Pentacles (in contrast with the strong emphasis on Cups in the rest of the spread). It emphasizes hard work and dedication, persistence but also, perhaps most importantly, patience. As it relates to the Six of Cups, I see this as a much more practical frame of mind, grounded in the earth and in the mundane, which might help to balance out the tendency of the Six of Cups towards romanticization and naivety (and perhaps the Knight will also help me to avoid or overcome the challenge presented in the Four of Cups).
(5 - 7) Three Card Spread - In the three cards pertaining to the future year to come, the energies are much more meandering. The Four of Cups and the Knight of Pentacles face in opposite directions (the Four of Cups towards the left, the past, the realm of memory and emotional depths; the Knight towards the right, the future, the realm of action and manifestation). The Two of Cups, naturally, involves two figures who face towards each other, depicting energies that, while they face in opposite directions, work with each other instead of against each other. Within the layout, the Four of Cups, Card 6, being the center card of the three suggests that it acts as a block or obstacle to the energies expressing themselves in Card 5, the Two of Cups, with the Knight of Pentacles being the way to overcome and break through that block to release or realize the energies of Card 5. I notice the recurring motif of the carved mandala — in both Cards 5 and 6, it appears as a yin-yang symbol composed of two fish, but while in Card 5 it is the foundation upon which the union grows, in Card 6 it is in the background, ignored by the primary figure of the card. In Card 7, the mandala of the fish has been replaced by the pentacle itself, composed of an acorn at its center with five oak leaves swirling out to create the star. This ties back to the mandala as a foundation for growth (the acorn as the seed of the great oak tree), but also suggests that there may be many different ways that this seed expresses itself (the five oak leaves, rather than only the two fish).
The Spread as a Whole - Several things jump out at me about this spread. Firstly, the predominance of "feminine" energies, expressed in the water and earth elements, and almost a complete absence of "masculine" energies of fire and air. I'm not sure exactly what conclusion to draw from that, other than that I may need to focus on and work with these feminine aspects of myself and my life more, especially if I've been neglecting them somewhat. However, even with all of this feminine energy, the two court cards that appear in the spread both depict masculine figures (the King and the Knight), perhaps suggesting that I need to find a way to bring these more feminine internal qualities to bear on my more active, expressive "masculine" aspects as well, or explore the ways in which these can be combined and expressed in healthy ways. The other interesting thing to note is that there appears only one Major Arcana card in the spread, and it's in the position of something I need to "leave behind." This might suggest that the coming year will be a fairly quiet, simple and straightforward one, with few grand designs or great changes in store. Instead, it seems like this spread suggests a year of steady, dedicated work, especially with an emphasis on community and supportive relationships that will help to keep me grounded and draw me out of myself when I risk becoming too self-absorbed. At the center of this reading is the emphasis, in the Six of Cups, on recapturing or returning to a more innocent sense of wonder and imagination in which there is plenty of time for playful exploration (and this, too, might partly explain the absence of the intellectual suit of swords and the intensely active suit of wands).
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