Welcome to My Tiny Tarot Practice. I'm Amelia Hruby, and on this podcast,

I share my tiny tarot practice as I explore the cards of the tarot

beginning with the suits of the minor arcana.

Today's card is the Eight of Cups.

In the Rider-Waite-Smith version of the tarot, the Eight of Cups depicts a figure,

who is walking away from eight cups cups that are stacked in a row of five on the bottom and three on the top. They're in the

foreground of the cards. The cups are right in front of us. And we can see that there is an

empty space where perhaps one cup is missing. They aren't stacked four on four. They're stacked

five and then three, creating this open space. And so this figure, this person, is wearing a

a cloak, holding a walking stick,

and walking away from the cups toward the mountains.

And above this scene in the sky, there is an eclipse.

The moon moving in front of the sun, the sun moving in front of the moon.

And popular interpretations of this card see it as a card of walking away from something that is stable,

that is fulfilling, that is nourishing.

Jessa Crispin in the Creative Tarot refers to this card as the sadness of walking away,

the recognition of our dissatisfaction even if what we have seems satisfying.

Similarly, Jessica Doerr in Tarot for Change talks about this card as the should I stay

or should I go card, or more accurately, this card seems to provide an answer to should

I stay or should I go, suggesting there might be time to go. This figure walking away from,

the eight cups in the foreground. Knowing that the cups represent our emotions, we can

also see how that sort of walking away requires both an intellectual and an emotional knowing.

We need to know not only in our minds but in our heart and our gut that we need to leave.

It can be so hard to leave a situation where nothing is seemingly wrong, but if we know,

we need to go, that's an 8 of cups moment.

I love what Rachel Pollack writes about this card in 78 Degrees of Wisdom, where she says,

In contrast to the five, all the cups remain upright.

Nothing has been knocked over. And yet the person knows that the time has come to leave.

The imagery suggests one of the true uses of water instinct,

an ability to sense when something has ended before it either dries up or comes crashing down around us,

to know the time to move on.

That image of something crashing down evokes the Tower card of the Major Arcana to me,

and helps me start to think of the Eight of Cups as a precursor of that card, perhaps,

of a reminder that we can leave a situation before it comes crashing down. That we have

the power to walk away, guided by our own inner knowing. Thank you for listening to this episode

of my tiny tarot practice. If you'd like to find any of the books that I've referenced here,

you can head to the show notes where I've included a link to my bookshop page. There

you'll find all of these books and more. If you make a purchase through that link, I'll receive

a small affiliate payment that helps me keep making this show and you'll receive some amazing

tarot resources. I hope that if you're encountering your own eight of cups moment,

you're able to find some clarity toward your next steps.

Be well.