The Knight of Cups

I started this blog a year ago. I wrote 34 posts during the last 365 days...

It surprises me that I averaged one post per week. I am a horrible horrible journal-ist. I have at least 3 empty journals in my bedroom; 2 of which are the kind that have questions that you are supposed to answer.

I may be writing into a void here, but there is some satisfaction in creating a post. I like having the ability to craft how it looks on the computer screen and illustrate it however I choose. I especially like having feedback from friends and family who are reading along. Sometimes writing it here is a way to express something that I have a hard time saying out loud.

Taking stock of the year I can look back now and see through different eyes what was happening.
Sarah was in the hospital with a migraine that wouldn't quit.
John was really beginning to build his writing credentials.
I had quit one job and started working at the theatre more and more.
Loreena was becoming a social butterfly.
We got Stella from a family who was moving to California.
We moved to Winston Salem. Back to for John... Back to within one mile from the exact spot that we met.

The precise moment that brought us to the place we are now happened in the Spring of 1988. I was 17. I was invited by my friends family to ride along on a trip to North Carolina and visit her at the School of the Arts. I spent the weekend with her; in the dorms, at parties, in apartments... It was a weekend that opened my eyes in ways I could not have imagined then.

I met my first cross dresser. I drank my first bottle of Amaretto. I met my husband.

I do not know the day, or the time. I do know that it was night and that we were not supposed to be in the Boys Dorm. Someone left the door ajar and we went upstairs to "find her friend who reads tarot cards" My memory is exceptionally vague about the whole event except that he was asleep in his bed and that we woke him up. He did read my cards. There is only one that I remember; The Knight of Cups.

The tarot cards are tools that have been used for centuries. They show archetypal people and situations that can relate to a question or problem and help to illuminate the situation in different light.

The Knight of Cups is most definitely John. I did not know that about him at the time.  The Knight almost always carries a cup; he carries emotions, baggage and mood swings. The Knight is usually next to or in the water, a sea of emotions; sometimes it swirls around him, sometimes off in the distance, sometimes threatening to overcome him and sweep him out to sea. The Knight is like Romeo; he objectifies his love and works to manifest his vision at any cost. He is an artist and an idealist who rides from wave to wave throughout his life reaching for his perfect vision.

Looking back... I could have seen it all coming. I could have seen the years of conflict, the bad mistakes, the hopes and dreams dashed onto the rocks of harsh reality. I could also have seen the moments of stunning perfection when that idealistic dream manifests into reality. That is the way archetypes work. That is why they are in fact archetypes. They illustrate a universal experience; painfully typical and totally inevitable.

The journey that took us from that night in his dorm room to living in our own home just a mile from there is seems like an enormous vast sea behind.  In front of me too now that you mention it...

So many changes under our belts this last. I told myself last year that I would give blogging a year. If I couldn't stay with it I would give it up; but I wrote once a week on average and I started a new one about food. So I guess I am going to keep on blogging. There are more changes and waves to ride in this year too. Luckily I have an expert wave-rider with me.


Knight of Cups Shadowscapes Tarot