Weekly Tarot Energy Reading

July 20 – 26, 2026

Penni Shelton writes in her post about today’s cosmic influences, “Astrology isn’t only about the exact moment an aspect perfects. It’s also about becoming conscious of where we are within a much larger unfolding.”

Love that so much. It speaks to any divination; I don’t do these weekly readings in order to map out events and note them on my calendar, and put them into my phone reminders. I don’t look for specific happenings, but for the environment surrounding me so I can flow through it consciously, like Penni Shelton expresses so well about her astrology forecasts.

That’s what I hope you are doing here, too. Our cards for next week:

• Magician
• King of Cups
• Hermit, reversed
• 9 of Cups, reversed
• High Priestess, reversed

A theme! It’s a theme! I do love a theme, and this this goes with our new moon reading. New moon lasts two weeks, and is influencing us until the end of the month. New moon gave us the King of Pentacles and Knight of Swords, who aren’t ones to sit around when things need to get straightened out – and you can say something similar for the Magician and the King of Cups. There is absolutely no sitting when these two are running about the place unsupervised. The potential for highly emotional decisions and plans to be made, and implemented, is enormous.

Hermit reversed, 9 of Cups reversed, High Priestess reversed – those dreamy, introspective, searching-within for deep meaning cards are out of reach this week. Oh, you can choose to gather them to your bosom and hyperventilate at me, and declare that you will redeem these reversed energies by devoting the week to writing poetry, meditating daily, and having some me-time, but let me know how that goes for you.

Nope, better you should let the water run downhill and accept that this week belongs to the King of Cups, and behind him stands his trusty Magician, more than ready to cook up whatever the King wants.

Problem: these two characters are not known for their strategic planning. It’s all willy-nilly with these guys. Full out running, passionate and fired-up with whatever has gotten them all juiced, they are as likely to create a disaster as a success.

It’s fifty-fifty this week, friends. This is akin to falling asleep in the backseat of a car on a night out with two friends, and you eventually wake up in the parking lot at a gas station in Louisiana with the King of Cups handing you a big cup of gas station coffee and a stale doughnut while the Magician finishes at the pump, and you find out that they’ve decided it is time you finally saw Vegas and that’s where! This! Car! Is! Pointing! And it’s going to be awesome!!!!

And, completely overwhelmed, you go to Las Vegas and have either the greatest time of your life or they lose all of their money, your money, the car, and have to call three exes before somebody sends the funds for bus tickets.

I don’t know what to tell you.

The Magician is fantastic; the Magician makes things, and makes things happen. But he is not the poster boy for maturity or forethought. The King of Cups? On a good day, he is the guy everybody wants to sit next to at the party, full of life, depth, charm, and humor. “I just really find people interesting,” says the King of Cups, and he means it. 

The thing is, at some point we have to come back down to earth. If this spread had only one upright card, and it was the Magician, I would tell you to be ready at dawn and have a good breakfast because it was going to be a nonstop week of expansion through creative effort. I’d also tell you to set aside a week to recover!

It would be do-able. Exhausting, but do-able. And ditto if the King of Cups was the only upright card. “Boy,” I would say, “Are people gonna be all over you this week! Hope you’re an extrovert!”

Here we are, looking at a week of energy that is the combined force of both these cards. It could be great. It could be a disaster. Consider this your caution to stay very aware of what you get into, or find yourself pulled into, and a blank permission slip to quietly duck out if at some point you discover yourself en route to Vegas.