NEW LEFT TAROT: A GUIDE

ACE OF CUPS

“LA LUTTE CONTINUE” or ‘THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES’. ANOTHER GLASS OF WINE APPEARS AS IF OUT OF NOWHERE. 

And it’s true, no matter what, the struggle will continue, and so let’s pour another round.  And another glass appears as if out of no where. It’s starting to feel like a ‘work-dinner’. Another round! But who is paying for what? There is an irrational feeling of liberation when you realize, despite any niceties, the boss is always your enemy. It’s not personal, it’s structural.

But because it is structural, you are not alone in this. We find one another, we can find intense passion in our commiseration, we can feel through this exhaustion together.  

The Ace of Cups asks the querent to let their cup be full, full with the truth, with anger, joy, sadness, romance, and hope. The Ace cup in tarot often represents the vessel of your subconscious mind and intuition being perpetually refilled from an inner within abundance. In this case our Ace of Cups is intent on evoking a moment always on the cusp of erupting into ecstasy or insurrection.  This cards want to remind us that there is real political power in solidarity. Because the ability to find common cause and shared experiences of oppression and exploitation–is the ability to build the coalitions that undergird mass-movements. 

Liberation is always upon us, but first we must see one another.

UPRIGHT MEANING

BEGINNING OF A GREAT COLLABORATION(S), JOY, PRODUCTIVENESS, FERTILITY, BEAUTY AND PLEASURE IN THE DETAILS OF LIFE. ALLOW YOURSELF TO BE DRIVEN BY EARNEST CONVICTION. ENJOY CURIOSITY TOWARDS OTHER PEOPLE. 

REVERSE MEANING

FALSE SENSE OF SOLIDARITY, CLOUDED VISION. FALSE EQUIVALENCIES. INSTABILITY. EXCESSIVE INTIMACY. RECONSIDER THE ISSUE AS ENDEMIC TO BROADER SOCIETY. 

TWO OF CUPS

The Two of Cups show a dapper young couple, they cheers one another with champagne flutes, bubbling over on the steps of the University. They are swept up in the moment and they want to make it last. A pledge of love, or revolution. Behind them there is a build-up of plastered posters for the ongoing student revolution. “LA BEAUTÉ EST DANS LA RUE” “UNIVERSITÉ AUTONOME”. After almost a year of organizing the university had now been occupied. While this was the culmination of many forces not pictured here—this couple feels themselves distinctly at the forefront. 

Some of their peers mock them as ‘champagne socialists’ or vanguardists. But this romance is unbothered by the derision, because the chemistry is electric, and they feel a world of possibility in one another’s company. 

UPRIGHT: Excitement, partnership, mutual attraction, affinity.

REVERSED: Insincerity, break-ups, loneliness, distrust.

3 of cups

UPRIGHT: Intense feelings of belonging in social groups. Consider how you might liberate your familial relations, beyond blood relation. Open heartedness towards all things anti-hierarchical & anti-domination. Social events, kinship, creativity, collaborations.

REVERSED: Independence. Need for boundaries. Alone time. Not feeling welcomed. “Three’s a crowd.”