10 of Soul
10 of Soul
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- Description
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The face of the young female shaman in the 10 of Soul is nearly obscured by her wild hair. Her eyes are looking calmly back behind her. Her face is decorated or tattooed with concentric arcs above her lips and down her cheeks. She wears a collection of bone fragmens from her ears that shake as lightning strikes behind her. THe lightning strikes behind her hair, likely responsible for the strange position of her hair, standing on end.
- Interpretation
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The 10 of Soul is the culmination of the journey through the suit of Soul. To me, this card is something like the 12th Step in AA: there has been a spiritual awakening as the result of this journey. This card to me is about epiphany, the sudden realization of something that seems stunningly obvious in the moment of heavenly illumination, but that was impossible to see without the lightning strike. Perhaps it is a strong enough realization to make my hair stand on end. A teacher of mine says that enlightenment is an accident, but that meditation makes us accident prone, which I think is an excellent way of describing this card. There is certainly no way to plan being in the right place at the right time in order to stand near the lightning strike, but all of the work that I am doing throughout the journey of Soul, and the tarot in general, will help me to cultivate the necessary atmosphere for this realization.
- Application
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For me today my stunningly obvious realization was that I'm too hard on myself; that I take life WAY too seriously. Because of this I always feel not; not good enough, not timely enough; not working hard enough; not partnering or parenting well enough. Whatever action I take, however positive it may be, there is always something more I could have done or some way I could have been better or more efficient. Ironically, this isn't efficient in and of itself. It is a huge waste of my time, and serves no function at all, because it does not make me better, it only degrades me and encourages me to question the importance of doing anything at all. I know that this is tied up in co-dependence and that these voices keep me from validating my own actions, but knowing it doesn't help me to feel it, and if I can't feel it, then it's not real. So today I was lucky enough to realize with my heart the absurdity of the usual litany of reasons why I wasn't good enough this morning and shrug them off with little more effort than it took to slide out of bed.
- Traditional Meanings
- Aeclectic Tarot - 10 of Cups
- ATA Tarot - 10 of Cups
