The Queen Issue (v. 17)

overblown.... It’s a good reminder not to do that.”
point. You’re still figuring out how to process everything
In Enders’ deck, The Tarot of Plants, she assigns the
and where to put it.”
Cups suit as the suit of Summer, and the Queen as Mother.
It’s hard to know when you’ve reached the end of the
As such, the Queen of Cups is the Mother of Summer, and
end, and have moved firmly, gratefully into new beginnings
is represented by Kava Root. “She’s second in command
and waxing moons. I realized—holding firmly to the truth
to the High Priestess,” she explained. Kava has the abili-
of what Harris-Choudhry had to tell me—that we learn
ty to open the mind, relax into and accept the world with
through conflict, yes, and we also learn through endings.
compassion. “But take too much of it, and it will turn your
Endings create the internal upheaval we sometimes need
stomach. It embodies the clarity of the Queen of Cups, but
to learn about the strength of our own convictions. When
it has the warning, too.”
we’re brave enough to ask for help, we also learn about the
In Enders’ deck the rounded edges of the triangular
stuff that makes our friends. “If you have a good base level
leaves unfold across the matte card, simple and uncluttered.
understanding of a card,” Enders had told me, “then, you
On this card in Leilah + Olive’s Ophidia Rosa tarot deck,
can interpret it for yourself.”
the deck Maureen used for my readings, a left hand extends
What I came to understand for myself about the
from beyond the frame, cuffed in a frilly unbuttoned blouse.
Queen of Cups is that she is someone to aspire to—her in-
Plants trail up her hand to her darkly painted fingernails.
tuition, her fluidity, her emotional honesty and the way she
Five burning candles float above each fingertip. Closed
surrenders to love when it reaches her shores, creating new
buds bloom on either side of the open palm. I saw the light
terrain in its wake. I feel like I am her, or more accurate-
and clarity of the imagery—the feminine hand open to the
ly, am trying to become what she represents. Perhaps most
negative space, a certain element of growth inherent in the
strongly, I see her reflected in the women around me—my
floral motif.
sister, Rhonda Harris-Choudhry, and Heather Enders, and
Three times. We had broken up in two seasons and
other intuitive women in my life who took the time to guide
had talked about it in two more—September, December,
me to an understanding of the card. The myriad friends
and October of the following year. We spent a night sleep-
that nurture me and encourage me toward greatness. I take
ing in the mountains, each quietly, separately, planning to
heart from the card itself, which offers proof that through-
above: image courtesy of Leilah + Olive
break up with the other, but then not following through.
out the nearly six hundred years that people have been us-
Two months later, we sat side-by-side on the couch outlin-
ing the tarot, that being tenderhearted has always been a
ing what we each knew to be true. We were so almost right.
super power.
So close to perfect, but something fundamental, something
“You have to be honest with yourself when you’re do-
that felt unnameable but vital, missed the center mark.
ing tarot,” Enders told me near the close of our conver-
The Queen of Cups is positioned by the water for a
reason—the water represents emotion, spirit, deep feeling. It
is a mirror, for herself and for others to see their own mysteries.
What is a relationship if it doesn’t reveal us in some way
to ourselves? I had spent three years learning to see myself
the way he had ever seen me—as smart, calm, able, compassionate.
Traits that had contrasted the emotional intensity
and toughness I often saw in him.
Like the closed chalice she holds closely to her, the Queen
of Cups treasures the people she forges connections with—
which perhaps makes letting go harder. An experience that
had always, and this time too, unmoored me. Breaking up
feels so earth-shaking every time, but most of us feel that particular
grief at some point—there’s not much special about
it, though every time is totally particular and completely devastating.
It seems universal, too, that we feel alone wading
through it. “Queen cards can have this callousness to them,”
Heather Enders had explained over the phone from her home
base in Taos, “because they’ve gone through so much, they can
be kind of bitter, moody, or victimize themselves, see things as
Without any fear because it felt impossible that the connection
would evaporate—we broke up. For months we continued
sleeping side by side and spending nearly every night
together, until we broke up for real in January.
So, it felt like Enders was speaking directly to me, not
just talking about a card when she said, “You’re getting
close to the end of something. You can view the royal family
as a progression, like the phases of the moon. The king
is the very end, like the new moon, the younger ones are
the beginning phases, the queen is just gotten to the end
sation. And that’s precisely what the Queen of Cups had
asked of me—to try to understand Her, and in doing so,
to test my own understanding of love in the many shapes it
takes. With every card turned, the Queen of Cups revealed
a new face—some familiar and some not so much—and as
I learned to identify her qualities, I saw her all around me,
as a promise of good things to come.