Eight of Cups- Moving On – juniper cameryn

A brown cloth with scissor designs printed on holds a scene of tarot cards. Three stacks of face-down Rider-Waite cards are scattered around, the Motherpeace tarot is in one pile and the Herbal tarot is in another. The Rider-Waite and Herbal Tarot boxes are visible on the upper left and right sides of the image respectively. In the lower middle are three cards, each of them the Eight of Cups from the three decks in the photo. The Motherpeace tarot features a purple octopus in a blue ocean holding a shell in each tentacle. The Rider-Waite shows a person in a red tunic with yellow tights and red boots holding a walking stick traversing what appears to be a rocky beach shore. In the background are some large rocks coming out of the ocean. There appears to be a partial eclipse in the background. In the foreground are eight stacked cups. The herbal tarot shows an ocean shore scene with a sailboat in the background, eight cups stacked in the foreground, and a picture of flowering fennel. The top says “fennel root”.

The scene: A person walks along a rocky shoreline, away from the eight cups pictured in the foreground. A crescent moon hangs in the sky, with earthshine illuminating the moon’s face.

This afternoon as I sat with this card, I closed my eyes and passed the card in front of me, in front of my face and my heart. Some strange images came up, but I quickly understood why, and knew that there was a message of disappointment. Opening my eyes to the image, I was drawn magnetically to the moon and to the ocean. The figure in the card walked on, towards the moon, almost as if to walk straight into the water and be engulfed in the waves, drawn down into it’s depths.

I encountered this card some months ago while I was facing some very challenging personal circumstances. It was in a past/present/future spread in the future position. To say the prediction has come to pass is an understatement. It has come and rocked my world, turned it completely on its head.

The message I remember from those times is this: things are not working out as you had hoped. It is time to move on.

It’s about endings. Of a relationship, of a treasured worldview, of an emotional reality, and it’s about moving forward.

Do you remember the Five of Cups? Where we were shown what it looks like to dwell? This card to me is on the other side of the five. This person has moved on. This person has crossed that bridge, and has reached a state of acceptance.

The five of cups next to the eight of cups. The five of cups features a figure wearing a black cape and yellow boots stands at the bank of a river. Three cups over overturned with red liquid spilling out. Behind them are two cups still upright. In the background is a bridge over the river leading to some kind of structure.

For me, it was about meeting my true self, and learning self-love and self-respect. At last, I knew what I was and was not willing to tolerate, and I had tolerated a lot. At the time, I didn’t really know the extent of what I was living through, but I knew that how I felt was horrible and I needed space, and I needed clarity if I intended to move forward at all.

This is important- sometimes you don’t need to know why. Many of us get stuck in this place of needing a reason to move on. If you have ever been gaslit, you will know what I mean. We feel horrible in a situation and we don’t know why, so we stay, searching for a problem that is not readily apparent. It is like being stuck in a house of mirrors, where you are using every ounce of energy you have to move forward, and every time you find you are still stuck- which inevitably you do- there you are, your image reflected back at you. So you begin to believe that it is you that is the problem, and not the fact that you are stuck in a house of mirrors.

This is what it is like to be gaslit.

So let me say it again: you do not need a reason to move on. You do not need to know why. Sometimes the reason is as simple as, “This feels bad to me. I don’t want this anymore.” But you don’t even need that.

What you do need is to take a leap of faith, and trust in yourself. Trust in your intuition, and trust in those little signals that something is off, and trust that if you move forward, you will not die. Life will go on. There is more waiting for you on the other side.

This is what the Eight of Cups affirms for us. With the blessings of the waning crescent moon shining down on us, we know it is the end of a certain time in our lives. With the earthshine illuminating Mother Moon’s face, she expresses her empathy with the pain of our loss.

We are going to be okay. We are doing the right thing. We are moving, and that is a blessing in itself.