August 24 – 30, 2026
When we sum up the energetic forecast for next week, we have to factor in not only a Full Moon on Friday but a lunar eclipse! I’ll post that reading on Thursday. Safe to say we’ll get through at least half a week without having to worry about it, and some folks won’t even notice it.
As I’ve mentioned before, reading the energy forecast is like saying your area has a 45% chance of showers. Will you get rained on? Maybe. Maybe not. Should you throw an umbrella in the backseat of the car? Not a bad idea. Our cards this week:
- The Emperor reversed
- 6 of Cups
- The Hermit reversed
- 10 of Pentacles reversed
- 6 of Swords reversed
Omigawdddduh. No, I’m not happy, and sometimes I will just leave out all the reversals and only read the uprights, even when there is only one; but this time our upright is the whiny, indecisive, overly emotional 6 of Cups and I’ve got NO PATIENCE with this card, no patience with this card today!
So that makes this entire spread, to me, a cautionary tale that I’ll have to read backwards. That stupid 6 of Cups is the ending, and how we get there will be held in the inactive energy of those big time reversals.
The six in the suits is about where to go next, once you’ve been forced by a five card to make a decision. We put on a brave face and march onward, like the 6 of Wands, even if we have to fake it. Or we get the hell out of Dodge (6 of Swords) or we resolve to be much better people and rebalance our personal sense of uprightness and fitting in (6 of Pentacles.)
Or…we take a few faltering steps and then fall down in the path, grabbing up handfuls of dust in our grubby little fists and letting the silty earth fall through our fingers while we cry and moan about how hard this is, and how tired we are, and how we have changed our minds and want everything put back exactly as it was. Very emotional, those Cups. Very sentimental and attached to memories, those recollections having softened with the passing of time.
Anything is easier on our emotional systems than changing and facing an unknown future.
But here we are, being forewarned that our default response to the energies of this week could be to hide on the sofa with a blanket over our heads and think about how good everything used to be.
Here are all the things that could fail, and contribute to this attitude: refusing to manage our personal responsibilities (reversed Emperor,) ruminating on old stuff instead of trying to expand our thinking into new insights (reversed Hermit,) not appreciating what we have accomplished (reversed 10 of Pentacles,) and not knowing when to get up and leave (reversed 6 of Swords.)
I don’t “read” reversals; meaning, I don’t have a completely fleshed out narrative and interpretation for a reversal, as if it were a stand-alone card. I look at reversals as dead batteries. The energy that would have normally fueled them, and given meaning to the card as we read it upright, is not available. It’s offline.
Sometimes knowing what hasn’t worked as it should is helpful, as is the case in this reading. And it is interesting that those failed elements are all so closely linked to the 6 of Cups and why it is a weak link in the chain of any reading.
Irresponsibility? Ingratitude? Indecisiveness? Ruminating? Yep, they certainly go hand in hand with the 6 of Cups, and its refusal to get up and start walking. So! Knowing that, we have a clear map of what not to do if we start getting wobbly and unwilling to move ahead in whatever recent emotional decision we’ve undertaken. It’s not a jolly reading, but I hope it is a helpful one – if nothing else, there’s no flinging our arms out this week and sputtering, “I don’t know what’s wrong with me!” Yes we do. And we can stop doing it, and see if things improve.
It might not be pretty, but the 6 of any suit says you’ve got to move. Even a 6 of Cups has a 45% chance of taking a deep breath, and stumbling forward this week.
