Oct. 19 – 25, 2026
- The Reading
- Thinking About the Reading: Questions for Journaling or Reflecting
What a speedy month this is; today I found myself wishing there was a pause button on reality so things could just hang a minute, briefly suspended, like a pendulum at its down-most stroke. Just for a day or two, just to catch up before it all swings into motion again. But no! Apparently this is our life now! And these are our cards for this week:
- 9 of Cups reversed
- Lovers reversed
- Temperance reversed
- Ace of Cups
- Page of Swords reversed
- 3 of Cups
- Queen of Pentacles
(“Let’s do extra cards,” I said this time, “It’ll be a nice thing to do. Maybe it will help.” )
Omigawdddduh. Okay, right, what to make of this mess. So many reversed cards, such heavyweights. At first glance, I’d say we are being firmly directed back to our own pursuits and that makes sense; the distractions of the wider world seem to multiply disproportionately and what can we fix? Nothing. Just ourselves, when we veer off track. And when are we prone to do that? Yep, when we’re distracted.
We start this with a reversed 9 of Cups, and a reversed Lovers card. Let’s not put too much emphasis on other people and what we think it takes to fill our emotional tanks. We don’t have the energy for it and more than that, with these cards reversed we are not likely to properly understand what we’re feeling. And that reversed Temperance? I hate to see that, but it’s a good warning against …what…yes! Distraction!!!
Temperance asks us to stay in the middle lane when life is fraught and we are being pulled in one direction or the other. To have her show up reversed, or offline, is real indication that we’ve got to center ourselves.
Into this flies our lovely Ace of Cups, and how welcome she is. Aces initiate momentum and Cups speak to all the elements of our emotional well-being. We can do this, she signals. We can reorient ourselves when we have gone too far out of balance. It’s not hard. It just takes a willingness to raise our awareness of the environment in which we are operating.
Reversed Page of Swords offers immediate instruction on how to do just that: shut up. We needn’t offer opinion just to insert ourselves into a situation and, by doing, take a stand. This is not the week for taking stands.
And look at that contrast between the extroverted social effort of the 3 of Cups, which (while enjoyable) takes an awful lot of managing and playing by rules. The Queen of Pentacles may respect rules, but hers are created to support a solid foundation — not social hierarchy or doing a careful dance around emotional frailties we may not even be aware of.
This is the standout pairing of this reading, then: the Ace of Cups, who has not yet been tempted to lie or play games, and the wonderful Queen of Pentacles who knows exactly what she needs to do to protect her environment and those it includes.
Isn’t that what we intuited from the beginning, with this reading? This is a week to guard against being affected poorly by the environments of other people, lest we believe them to be true for us, too. If it means another week (like last week) of making our way forward alone, then that’s the energetic path that will best serve us.
Questions for Journaling or Reflection
In what areas of my life have I drifted off-center or gotten pulled by distractions? What small, concrete steps would help me return to a middle-lane sense of balance this week?
Where might I be tempted to insert an opinion, take a stand, or manage social dynamics simply to stay involved? What would it feel like to practice quiet restraint instead and protect my own energy?
What does a solid, self-created foundation (the Queen of Pentacles energy) look and feel like for me right now, and how can I prioritize guarding that environment over adapting to others’ rules or emotional atmospheres?
