The Knight of Cups, the 3 of Pentacles, and Me

I really enjoyed the experience in (The Queen, The Tower, and Me) and decided to have another. This time I changed it up a bit by picking a deck I love but that isn’t based on the Rider-Waite tradition (by that I mean decks with cards that are recognizable to those familiar with the Rider-Waite deck). I selected another court card with which I don’t have a great relationship: the Knight of Cups. The card that the Knight and I will interpret is the 3 of Pentacles (just because I took a fancy to it). These cards are from the Tarot of the Sweet Twilight.

For me, one of the hardest aspects of working with a non-Rider-Waite clone is letting go of the ingrained meanings I have for the cards. It is hard…after all, I’ve worked with Rider-Waite based decks for almost two decades. How does one know what to bring with and what to leave behind? My approach is to start with a core meaning and see it through the lens of the deck I’m using, but to rely mostly on the image itself.

Let’s see how the Knight and I both respond to the 3 of Pentacles.

Me: The girl in the image is looking into a mirror. She is aware of who she is and has a clear vision of who she wants to become…what she wants to accomplish. It seems to me that she wants to embody her ideals, to transform herself, to become more spiritually connected (based on the crescent moon on her headband in one image and the crescent moon on her forehead in the other image as well as her hair hanging down in one image and her hair on fire and rising upward in the other image). She knows that before she can make a plan, she has to know exactly what she wants. She needs a clear vision. She needs a vision so clear that that is what she sees when she looks in the mirror. It must be real in her mind before she can make it real in her physical life.

Knight: This poor girl has a dream, a vision, a burning desire. It is all she sees and it consumes her mind. It gives her hope, but it also blinds her. It may possibly break her heart. Such dreams are bittersweet. They may devastate and destroy…but without such dreams, life is but a hollow shell. If we are to really live, we cannot help but chase the dreams of our hearts whether they lead to joy or to sorrow.

Remember, I consider myself as a King of Swords/Queen of Pentacles, so it makes sense that I focus on the goal and how to achieve it. This Knight is perhaps one of the most mournful Knight of Cups that I’ve ever seen. His focus, as a knight, is on the quest, and not just any quest, but those of the heart. And he knows, no doubt from experience, that there is no way of knowing how such a quest will end.