Latest / Boner and Mirror Tarot / Shagging Grief or Poverty
Transcript
- Molly: Hello and welcome to Bona and Mira Tarot, the delightfully irresponsible little sibling of Bona and Mira Tarot. My name is Molly and every week three Tarot cards will end this podcast. One gets fucked, one gets married and one gets pushed off a cliff. It's childish, it is completely subjective and it is surprisingly revealing because if you know me and you know Bona and Mira Tarot, you'll know that I don't believe the Tarot is about predicting the future. It's a mirror. a way of meeting yourself through symbolism and psychology, embodiment and the wisdom of the cards. And Bona Emeritaro takes exactly the same approach, just with a lot more giggling. put three tarot archetypes through the highly scientific and deeply philosophical game of fuck, marry, push off a cliff. Which archetype deserves your undying devotion? Which one's worth a passionate fling and which one absolutely needs to get into the sea? Along the way, we'll explore what the cards reveal about attraction, avoidance, projection, shadow, values, and the wonderfully strange ways we make meaning. Expect depth psychology, archetypes, embodiments, the odd tantric tangents, and plenty of opportunities to laugh at yourself. And if you want to take the game off the podcast and into your own tarot practice, then I've made something for you. A little field guide called Tarot After Dark. It's packed with ridiculous tarot games, guided reflections, explorations of projection and desire. So you can make your own terrible decisions. and then get curious about what the hell that might reveal about you. you can grab it completely free through the link in my show notes or the link in my bio on Instagram. So whether you're here for the psychology, the Tarot or your own deeply irrational grudge against the Seven of Cups, welcome to Bona and Miratorro. Let's shuffle the cards, suspend our dignity, and see who's getting married today. Hello and welcome back to another episode of Bona and Mira Tarot. I am absolutely delighted and excited to be with Lucy today from the Tarot Cake. So a big welcome to you Lucy. I would love if you could introduce yourself to those who are listening. Maybe tell us what it is that you do, your relationship to Tarot and your relationship to meaning making. TarotCake (Lucy): well, thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. So I'm very excited to be on this podcast because as well as being a tarot reader and blogger, in my day job, I'm an academic and I do a lot of research into sex and sexuality and also pornography and sexually explicit media. So this is a real fusion of my two interests in tarot and bonus. So it's very, very serendipitous and I'm really pleased to be here. So I run a tarot blog called the Tarot Cake where I review decks and then I do needlessly lengthy and time-consuming deep dives into card meanings that I really should instead be focusing that energy onto Molly: Thank you. TarotCake (Lucy): writing papers for my career instead of writing free tarot blog posts. But there we go, that's why I'm a very unsuccessful person but I get a lot of joy from it. And I think my approach to tarot It's largely secular, although I do very much kind buy into this idea of these images being collective archetypes that resonate with us on a very deep level because of the way they tie into our art and our fairy tales and the stories we've told and our poetry and our sort of visual and spoken culture. So I feel very much there is a little bit of collective magic that goes on there. So when I first got into tarot, I was very interested in it from that perspective. My background is in psychology and I've sort thought about how images can be used in therapeutic context to really help people get in touch with parts of their psyche and emotions they might have that it's hard for them to articulate just in words. And also I use photos a lot in focus groups, particularly when I was working in a cross-cultural context where sometimes words don't translate that well. If you show people a photo, they're like, right, I know what you're talking about. Yep, you're talking about that thing. So tarot really appealed to me from a psychological perspective, but I did also like that slight element of kind of magic about it, even though I generally approach it in quite a scientific, secular way. So yeah, that's sort of me. And then I love reading tarot for people as well. I have a market stall I sometimes use. I read at weddings and parties. And I really like the space that offers for a meaningful connection with somebody. think often people just want to have their story heard and have that space held for them, which think Tarot often offers. And also I like seeing them kind of make their own connections with the cards and have a think about what problems they're facing and how they could better tackle those problems or at least just try and be a bit happier with what's going on in their lives. So yeah, I love Tarot, love sex, very happy to be here. Molly: Thank you so much for a really lovely exploration of your work, both in the Tarot space and in the academic space. For the listeners that are listening, we actually live in the same city and have TarotCake (Lucy): Me too! Molly: met for coffee and we will be hosting tea and Tarot mornings. For those of you that live in Southsea, do come along, we'd be very excited to have you. have a very similar approach to the tarot, which I phrase it as 80 % psychology and 20 % magic, because there's TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: always something about the tarot that can't quite be explained by our depth psychological approach. So I am very excited to have you here. Are you ready to make some interesting choices? TarotCake (Lucy): I am ready. I'm ready to make some interesting choices. Yes, possibly bad choices. Who knows? Exciting for a Monday. Molly: Who knows? Let me pull three cards for us. I'm gonna be using the standard deck that I've used so far in my recording, which is the Light Seers by Chrisann, but I know Lucy, you'll have kind of ingrained in your brain the images that work the best for you. So do feel free to pull from those TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: as well. TarotCake (Lucy): Knight of Cups, I'm gonna be... We talked about him quite a lot when we met for coffee last time and how we think he's the fuckboy of the deck, so he's going straight off the cliff if he turns up. Molly: Honestly, those of you who are listening by now, you know that my biggest red flag is the Knight of Cups. I don't think I've gone a whole episode without mentioning him. We don't have him today. We have a very interesting set of cards. TarotCake (Lucy): Okay. Molly: We've got the Five of Cups. TarotCake (Lucy): gosh, wow, yeah, that is the card that I think came up in my first ever tarot reading, the Five of Cups, when I was about 16. And it was a love reading, obviously, because as a teenage girl, I was very invested in love. And I didn't know anything about the tarot. And that card came up with the little figure staring off across the river, the ruins of the city. was like, I think I know what that means. And it's not good, is it? I still have my ex-boyfriend and he's never going to want me back. And that's right. Yeah, we are still friends, though. So that's that's nice. Molly: We've got another five, we've got the five of pentacles. TarotCake (Lucy): good Lord! Ha ha ha! Molly: And then we have the three of ones. TarotCake (Lucy): Okay. Molly: So you've got to fuck one, you've got to marry the other, and then you need to push one off the cliff. TarotCake (Lucy): god, have we got two of the most miserable cards in the deck? And I've got to either enter into matrimony with one of them or shag it. What are you gonna choose, like heartbreak or poverty? Or I don't know! Molly: What are your immediate kind of thoughts? TarotCake (Lucy): I think my immediate thoughts are Shag would probably have to be three of ones because of their adventurous spirit and the fact they're kind of always looking to the future and they sort of see it as an ongoing adventure so I feel they're not going to be like a sort of two-pump-chump kind of car. I feel they're kind of invested in the journey, not just the destination which is always a good quality to have in a lover. But then it puts me in a really difficult position with the remaining two. I don't know which one would yours be. Molly: I'm interested, like the three of ones for me feels like a very, like a positive choice. It's the one that I would want to start with as well. You know, like when you play this game, you've got to have a little bit of tactic. You know, you're looking at like, okay, which one would I definitely not want? And so when those, when the two fives came out, I was like, one of them is going off the cliff. So then we have TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: to, we have to decide which one to fuck or marry. I'm, I'm actually wondering based on the cards that we have, whether entering into a marriage with the three of ones would be the, yeah, would be a way to make it more palatable. But then of course you're leaving a, potentially having not, you know, a miserable shag. TarotCake (Lucy): A really disappointing sex session, yeah. Also, if you married the three of ones, I feel they've always got their eyes on the next adventure. They might not necessarily be the most reliable over the span of a whole life. Well, I think they'd be a lot of fun just for one evening. Molly: Yeah, I like I agree with you. That was one of my kind of brain workings of is this person going to be someone who is quite steady? But TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: as someone who is a Taurus Virgo Virgo, I can tend to be quite stubborn. I can I can tend to be quite slow. I mean, if you if you're listening, you know, you might know the story that this podcast was. in my brain for like seven months before I even plucked up the courage to like step over the line. And so for me, the quality of someone who is very action oriented, has has made the choice at the two of ones and is like, yeah, let's let's go. Let's do it. I think TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: that for me would be a really good quality in a partnership. This would be the person that I'm like, I've got an idea. I'm going to sit with it. I'm not quite sure. and they would be my champion of like, no, no, no, let's go. Like take my hand, we're going for it. We're going off on an adventure, which I think would work well with my very Taurean nature. TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah, and I suppose after the three of ones we get the four of ones, which is the traditional wedding card, right? So Molly: Absolutely. TarotCake (Lucy): maybe that's showing there's a lot of potential there for that kind of longevity in a partnership. Yeah. Molly: Mm. Yeah, I think I'm leaning towards Mary and you're maybe leaning towards fuck. And TarotCake (Lucy): Yes. Molly: I agree with you that the three of wands would probably be a very, very fiery, mean, wands are fire, right? It would be TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: a very fiery, passionate evening. So then TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: when you're left with five of pentacles and five of cups, and for me, the five just is the symbol of tension and the TarotCake (Lucy): Yep. Molly: what if I could phrase it quite rudimentarily it would be like the worst card in... it's the worst card. yeah like what TarotCake (Lucy): It's the worst card, yeah. The Fives are just miserable. The difficult second album, aren't they, the Fives? They haven't got all the excitement of the beginning or all the kind of going out in a blaze of glory of the end. They're just like, the struggle is long and bleak. Molly: The struggle is long oblique. I think they also personified the, you know, the kind of shadow side of the suit. You know, like if TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: the cups is our capacity to feel, then the five is what's the worst part of being a feeling human being and that's grief. TarotCake (Lucy): Absolutely. Molly: So you've got two fives to choose between. Yeah. What would you? TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah, lucky me. What a joy. Well, I've thinking about it. I think I'd have to marry the five of pentacles only because on the original Rider Waite Smith, right, you have two people with all their various injuries and crutches staggering through the snow while, you know, the church sits opulently in the background gathering all its wealth about itself. And people think tarot isn't political. But there's two of them, right? And I'm like, okay, well, that could be me and my chosen life partner. We struggle on in that sort of backdrop of miserable capitalism, but we have each other. So I guess that could be quite romantic if I imagine we're those two figures, you know, in sickness and in health. And even if you lose a leg, I'll still be there for you in the snow. So yeah, I guess I'm gonna commit, we're gonna marry the five of pentacles. Yeah. Molly: I absolutely love your interpretation of that and just that kind of the dichotomy between that structure, is kind of the, the, said it's not political, it totally is, isn't it? Like it's got that element of like this kind of hierarchical structure that is hoarding kind of quite a lot of wealth and warmth and shelter. And then you've got the two figures. I always find that with the five of pentacles, there's this, this question of like, why don't they go in? Or in the, TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: the light seers, it's why don't they just use the key? And I think TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: in a, interpretation, if you were marrying the five of pentacles, that there could be that, that, that moment where you make that choice together, TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: because you, do have the option to, go into the church, to seek solace, to seek help. TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: And so it might be that that choice is made in, in union rather than on its own. I do have a, it's not even a question, my own thinking process is that the five of pentacles often describes lack TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: and that can be from that poverty sense but I think also from a psychological sense it can be that feeling of lack that is there TarotCake (Lucy): Yes. Molly: and so I think I would be hesitant to marry a archetypal energy that embodies that feeling of lack. because I would worry that that person TarotCake (Lucy): You don't want an emotionally impoverished marriage, no. Molly: is always looking glass half empty. TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: so whilst I see the potential romance in struggling through together and actually our love is enough, TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: from a maybe reversal perspective, like the Five of Pentacles would be someone who is not so forthcoming with looking at looking at abundance. How do you feel about pushing the five of cups off a cliff? TarotCake (Lucy): Well, I think it's interesting that you've obviously saved the Five of Cups to fuck because that's the ultimate going back to your ex and having some sex whilst crying card, isn't it? This will never work, but I still really love you. Which I don't know, only madness lies that way. So I'm quite happy to throw the Five of Cups off a cliff. It's a very sad card. think in the Thoth tradition, it's not just kind of... think looking back on the past and grief and loss, it's also seeing behind the curtain and seeing that the whole dream that you've had of the world is actually just hollow and empty. And I just find that really gutting. I know a lot of people have been through that in their lives. I mean, we all have. You don't get to our big old age not having had those moments, but they're just so like existentially sad. In one of our favorite decks, the LeBanco Tarot, the artist has drawn the five of cups looking very much like that Cacaspid David Heinrich's Wonder Above a Sea of Fog which is quite an iconic old photo like a painting where he's at the top of a cliff just staring out over the kind of mist and you're behind him and you can just see his back and he looks very despondent and that's quite an archetypal image you know have Batman Molly: Thank you. TarotCake (Lucy): brooding over Gotham this idea that you're outside the frame looking at this person their back turned to you and their head bowed and they're clearly having a moment of profound sadness about the state of things. And so for me, LeBanco's Five of Cups reminds me quite a lot of the great Gatsby and that scene where Gatsby is looking out over the bay, at Daisy's light on the dock. And at the end, when he realizes their love was hollow and meaningless and Daisy's just a vacuous, terrible human being. and, and the, the kind of the, the process and for Gatsby, his number of enchanted objects had reduced by one. because that green light is just a green light now, whereas it used to represent hope and excitement and love. And I feel that is the Molly: you TarotCake (Lucy): energy of that card. It's when you're, the number of enchanted objects in your life reduces by one. It's one little chip, like taking out the little piece of my heart now, baby, Joplin style. Molly: Bye-bye. TarotCake (Lucy): And I'm like, no, yeah. So it's going off the cliff. Yeah, I have no qualms about that. Off it goes. Bye bye. Bye bye. Molly: Bye bye, bye bye. I honestly love that interpretation so much. So thank you for bringing in so much art and literature and symbol. I am going, I'm gonna, I'm still gonna fuck the Five of Cups because, because for me, the Five of Cups is that capacity to feel grief TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: in its kind of simplest form, right? And as someone who is, I mean, my mum died four years ago and that was and still remains to be the most profound thing that has happened to me. TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: And I would say that my life trajectory has completely changed. There's a really beautiful book called, my goodness, why have I forgotten the title of the book? The Pressure, Tiny Beautiful Things. And it's TarotCake (Lucy): The pressure of the podcast! The pressure! Yeah. Molly: a really lovely book. And I remember in the prologue, she She talks about the death of her mother and she says that it's one of the best things that's ever happened to her. And I remember reading that a month after my mum died and thinking, I will never be able to be in that space. And, you know, I'm TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: not in that space, but I certainly can see how my mum's death and my experience of really profound loss and grief very much has given me, yeah, a new sense of life, a new sense of understanding what it is to be a messy human being that can feel this kind of depth of compassion and love. TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: And because I have such a maybe yummy relationship with grief, it's taught me a lot. TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: would be more inclined to spend the night with the Five of Cups than the Five of Pentacles. TarotCake (Lucy): Yep. Molly: Not to say that fucking the Five of Cups is going to be an entirely pleasant experience, but I think because of my, you know, this kind of yumminess of grief that I have. TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: I think it makes it slightly more palatable and slightly more appealing than kind of the lacking five pentacles. So for me, it's TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: going to be fuck the five of cups, marry the three of ones and then sorry, five pentacles, you're going off the cliff. And then for you, was fuck the three of ones, TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: marry the five of pentacles and then push off the five of cups. So we have TarotCake (Lucy): Yep. Molly: an entirely different take, which is super cool. TarotCake (Lucy): We do and it explains a lot about why I failed to marry a rich person Apparently was just never in the cards for me. My taste always ran to poor struggling artistic types Molly: I love that that has come up for you today. TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah Molly: I have two last questions for you, which is something that I'm asking TarotCake (Lucy): sure. Molly: everybody on the podcast and that is out of the entire deck, who would be the best lover and who is the biggest walking red flag? TarotCake (Lucy): Well, obviously we know who our walking red flag is because we've already discussed it at Infinite Him. It is the Knight of Cups simply because he's got a lot of love to give. It's not his fault. His cup runneth over and he wants to put his cup into everybody else's cup and just share, share all that good cupsie fluid, which I think, you know... I would be tempted if he'd come out to fuck him because he's very romantic and intense. I mean, I he obviously can also be a girl or a non-binary person, but they are very romantic and intense and poetic and I'm sure they would be very attentive. I see the Knight of Cups to me is like Lord Byron, like mad, bad and dangerous to know. Big chaotic bisexual energy, but not necessarily in a good way if you're looking Molly: yeah. TarotCake (Lucy): for the long term. So that's the kind that I'd been like, who do I think would be? The best lover, though probably, I don't know, maybe the King of Pentacles. I mean, he's very generous and he's well equipped. Molly: He is well equipped, he is generous. TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: I love in the the lightsayers you've got this kind of older man who's in his study, like sitting back with the fire. I TarotCake (Lucy): Yes. Yeah. Molly: think that that would be a wonderful evening and I think that, yeah, like you said, I think he's very giving. Yeah, he is, he's daddy, he's totally daddy. TarotCake (Lucy): He's very giving. Everyone's favourite sugar daddy. Yeah. Yes. Molly: It's been so interesting so far to hear everybody's responses because there have been cards that I'm like, I didn't realise how sexy I found that card. TarotCake (Lucy): Yes. Molly: Like the Queen of Wands has come out and I'm like, yeah, she is sexy. she's a femdom, she's so... 100%. And then TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah, she's got a lot of bad boss bitch energy here. Take charge. Absolutely take charge. Yeah. Yeah. Molly: to have the King of Pentacles brought in by you, I'm like, this... I don't think... He's not intense. I don't think that he's like... going to be like an intense person. TarotCake (Lucy): No. Molly: But I do feel that he knows what he's doing. TarotCake (Lucy): Absolutely and that the Pentecost earthy aren't they they're they're interested in the in the lived reality of our existence in our fleshy corporal Self such I think you know you don't necessarily want the swords who's all up in their own head the whole time during sex do you? Cups obviously that's nice emotional connection, but maybe a bit weepy And then once yeah very passionate But I feel that the pence is the real kind of doesn't mind getting a bit sweaty and dirty and getting really stuck in They're pretty present in the moment Molly: Getting stuck in, I absolutely love that. And I agree, the pentacles for me is body. It's just like lived experience body. And sometimes I find the pentacles difficult because I think most of the tarot content that is out there really places the pentacles in the realm of money, health, wealth. And I think that, TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Yeah. Molly: you we spoke about it being political earlier. I think that the fact that so many so much tarot content places pentacles in those realms is a reflection of what we value in lived experience or what is TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: deemed as valuable. Whereas if we just open the vision slightly, actually the pentacles is the opposite of the other three, which are all internal experiences, the cups being TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: that internal feeling, swords being thinking, wands being intuition. And then so the pentacles leaves us with what is it like to exist in a body? what is it like to exist in a physical realm? And so the TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: Pentacles, yeah, very much brings us back into body. And so, yeah, I would also think that the Queen of Pentacles would be a wonderful lover. TarotCake (Lucy): I think the nine of Pentacles too because she's like a self-made woman who knows her own values. She doesn't want no scrubs. I always think of that TLC song when I see her. Molly: No. TarotCake (Lucy): So you know if you're with her, she's going to be demanding of her own pleasure. I think it's a good quality. You don't want somebody who's a complete pillow princess, but neither do you want somebody who's just give, give, give, never take and doesn't really articulate their own desires. So I think she'd be pretty, pretty good. Molly: Mm-hmm. And she for me is like that the very much immediate present moment, you know, she's got that glass of wine next to her grapes and she's like, I've worked this hard. I might as TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: well enjoy what I've worked hard for. It's like, what is fruiting now? And so she TarotCake (Lucy): Yep. Molly: brings us into the now, which I absolutely love about her. TarotCake (Lucy): Yeah. Molly: Thank you so, so much. This has been... TarotCake (Lucy): thank you for having me. It's been so much fun. Molly: a delightful, wonderful conversation. If you enjoyed the episode, please do leave us a like, comment, tell us if you agree or who you agree more with or whether you disagree with both of us. TarotCake (Lucy): you Molly: And do go and follow Lucy on socials at the Tarot Cake. It will be in the description, et cetera, et cetera. But for now, I'm going to bid you all a farewell and we will see you in the next episode. Bye bye. And that is a wrap for this episode of Bona and Mira Tarot. A huge thank you to my guests for joining me and making some truly questionable life choices on behalf of the tarot. If you've enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you subscribed, left a review or shared it with someone who would definitely have an argument with a tarot card. And if you've been listening and thinking, I need to play this game, then good news, I have made you something. Tarot After Dark is my completely free field guide to desire, projection and questionable relationships with archetypes. Inside, you'll find Fuck, marry, push off a cliff, tarot date, red flag, green flag, unfortunately hot, and a whole collection of ridiculous ways to play with the cards. alongside slightly more serious psychology of why these games can actually tell us something about ourselves. Because sometimes deciding that you'd shag the night of ones is just funny, and sometimes asking why tells you considerably more than you'd expect. You can download Tarot After Dark for free using the link in the show notes or the link in my bio. And if that gets you curious about the slightly more serious side of my work, come and find me at Bone and Mirror Tarot, where I explore Tarot through depth psychology, embodiment and transpersonal practices. You can find me on Instagram at at bone and mirror Tarot, where I share readings, workshops and all the ways that I use the cards as a doorway into understanding ourselves a little more deeply. And finally, if you're listening and thinking I would love to come on the podcast and make some terrible decisions of my own, I would genuinely love to hear from you. Send me a message and let's make it happen. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, keep laughing, keep getting curious, and remember, we take the tarot seriously, we just don't take ourselves too seriously.