Closure: The Eight of Cups & Ten of Wands
Deck credit: Moonchild Tarot
Inspired by an essay Elena Ferrante wrote for the Guardian, I wrote on the topic “clean breaks” the other week, and was surprised to discover that I don’t think I’ve ever broken cleanly away from anything in my life. In the column, Ferrante writes, “I’ve always felt the joy of upheaval, and maybe that’s why my relatively recent discovery of the suffering inherent in change has made a deep impression.”
I, too, love upheaval. I create conditions in my life that lead to constant change. Easily bored, once I feel that I’m done with one phase of life ends I throw myself into another. (I even do this with books! I never myself time to marinate in one after it ends; within literal hours, I’m on to the next.) My goodbyes, even if heartfelt, are rushed and half-baked; I find forgiveness incredibly difficult, for myself and for others.
That’s why, if anything, my breaks are filthy.
A season of many retrogrades is upon us and coupled with the eight of cups, we’re all being invited into (hopefully clean) breaks. As we navigate this moment of collective crisis, we are of course as a society needing to move away from very many values and practices and systems but that kind of breaking, which will be messy and too long and too slow, is not the kind of breaking I’m talking about.
I am talking about intimately personal breaks. More likely than not, the endings that we need are internal. The eight of cups addresses some of the most subtle transformations possible—the card isn’t about leaving behind something that is obviously and acutely painful. Instead, it helps us to recognize when we need to break away from something that is comfortable, even pleasant, but not vitally fulfilling. This card isn’t about escape; it’s about pursuit. And because pursuit often feels superfluous while escape, conversely, often—but not always!—appears essential, this card can be a tricky one to work with. It asks us to leave behind what we know that at one point we liked. What we know that at one point was enough.
And it asks us to do that slowly, remembering to appreciate everything that the habit or relationship or home or job we’re leaving behind has given us. Because leaving is painful, there’s such a tendency to rush through them. The eight of cups wants us to linger, but without indulging the illusion that maybe we shouldn’t leave anyway. It asks for a slow, thoughtful goodbye.
The presence of the ten of wands reinforces the slowness of the process that is being asked of us. The burnout card of the minor arcana, the ten of wands shows us when we’ve taken on too much. Rushing from one phase of life, identity, job, or even habit to the next leads to burnout. I know from experience. So many of us know from experience. Taking time to be in the in-between space is revitalizing, even if incredibly uncomfortable. Give yourself space to absorb the lessons of cycles that are closing out. You have the resource of time, even if you think you don’t. Closure is a gift.
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