August Tarot Forecast 2024

1st- Lammas, Lughnasadh (First Harvest)

4th - New Moon in Leo

13th-15th - Nemoralia (Diana)

19th - Super Sturgeon Blue Moon

21st- Festival of Hecate

23rd- Vulcanalia

The first two months of summer, we experienced a shift from primarily outward growth to the inward journey. In August we can expect to integrate these learnings. We’ll be using the Dalí Tarot Universal deck to explore the bleeding of worlds from a surrealist perspective –external and internal, dream and reality, psyche and manifest. Salvador Dalí was a Spanish surrealist artist in the 20th century who used trancework to transcend preconceived notions of the world, and build novel connections for his paintings, so that the viewer may experience the subconscious. He was the first famous painter to create a completely new deck of tarot cards, a medium which is also intended to make the unconscious conscious. At Angel Intentions, we offer tarot readings to create an understanding between these two states, so that all aspects of the psyche can make a collaborative effort to make meaningful change, and fulfill one’s purpose and dream.

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Lughnasadh, the festival of the Celtic sun god, marks the beginning of the harvest season. Lugh’s influence grants us the ability to collect the wisdom and divination we’ve conducted thus far this year from a broader, big picture perspective. We can re-envision our lives from the framework of an epic poem in which we are the warrior who renders obstacles obsolete and creates the conditions for meaning and beauty in our lives. With a New Moon in Leo, we are further encouraged to bolster self-confidence as the protagonists of our own story, and to immerse ourselves in free creative expression. The interplay of solar and lunar energies continues with the celebration of Nemoralia, a festival of torches at Lake Nemi in ancient Rome. Gratitude is expressed for the year’s bounty to Diana, Goddess of the Moon. The Super Sturgeon Blue Moon in Aquarius, named after the ancient fish species, symbolizes sturdiness and resilience through the ages, intuition, and insight. These qualities can help reignite our inner fire for any innovative visions we may want to actualize. The festival of triple moon goddess Hecate towards the end of the month reinforces crone wisdom brought forth from the underworld to assist us in navigating the crossroads and liminal spaces. Vulcan’s festival at the end of the month celebrates fire once more, the force which purifies, hardens, and strengthens our resolve. 

The Key or Main Aspect: Four of Cups ~Step Into Your Power - Ray Lamontagne~

In Dalí’s rendition of the four of cups, our eyes are drawn to a nude seated figure, perhaps feeling vulnerable and exposed. He hugs his legs and presses his forehead to his knees, as though trying to hide or console himself. He pays no mind to the three golden cups before him, that represent the current gifts he has at his disposal, nor his natural surroundings. Awareness would reconnect us to ourselves, the present, nature and the world. In the backdrop is a tree from which a hand, representing Spirit, emerges. It seems that solace is but a tap away, bent fingers hovering just above his head. If the man were to look up, he would see the golden cup that Spirit has to offer–a bright opportunity to stir up complacency and renew his vigor. The bird could be likened to our soul still in its familiar nest. A spectral female with bare breasts and a hen’s head stands behind him, with a trailing blue line that could be imagined as a phantasmagoric placenta. This Freudian imagery suggests what keeps the man curled into a nearly fetal, infantile state. From birth and early development, we subconsciously learned to associate safety, survival and comfort with nourishment, with the person who would act as our mother hen. Learning to be mindful would allow for the enlightenment necessary to see that remaining in this state hinders our growth, whereas Spirit offers something more. A shift to a curious mindset will allow us to transform the bird soul atop the tree, free to erupt into birdsong or erupt into flight.

The Past or That Which Already is: Reverse Ten of Coins ~Within You Without You - The Beatles~ 

At the center of this card is a scene depicting bathing women, from the painting The Turkish Bath (1863) by Ingres. The figure on the far left idly plays a string instrument while the rest of the women have their attention fixed elsewhere–one even glances at the viewer. The women have been displaced from the bathhouse and appear to exist in a liminal space lined with red drapes, as though they were performers on stage that might soon be revealed to an audience. A distinction has yet to be made between reality and performance, before the actor morphs into persona. We experience a doorway to the surreal in which we can consciously induce the unconscious, using art as a medium to affect great psychic transformation. This is mirrored in Dalí’s placement of two enormous butterflies–one perched on the shoulder of the musician, marking her as the vehicle for transformation and another hovers above her. The butterfly on the musician’s shoulder is red and blue, indicating the active and intuitive principles necessary for music’s creation. This butterfly covers some of the women, as though ready to take them under its wing. The one overhead is yellow, symbolic of alchemical gold, the soul’s transformation made possible to all when music, the unifying force, is experienced.

In the naked indefensive state, the soul should more readily accept this metamorphosis. Instead the women seem closed off from one another. The bubbles, instead of bringing cleansing and uplifting attributes, weigh down the wings of the butterfly, rendering flight impossible. The wings are as heavy as the ten coins that border this card, a symptom of unshared wealth. As this card is inverted, it is indicative that in the past, the figure from the previous card did not take up the golden chalice. At some point in the process, whether due to artist's block, a fear to play, a lack of audience or an inattentive one, withholding the gift only for an exclusive audience…the music never truly had a chance to reach and transform the soul. 

The Future or That Which Needs to be Newly Evaluated: Reverse Moon ~Moon in the Mind - Ed Askew ~

In this position, the reverse Moon suggests we need to reevaluate how we approach the subconscious, lest we experience our unrealized dream in the future. In regards to the four of cups, it means we passively remained in a curled up position, which has allowed us to become haunted by the spectral siren of safety, rather than engaging with our present gifts and more importantly, the golden chalice. In refraining from making a choice, we make a choice. In the short term we may feel comforted, but in the long term our inner moon, the subconscious psyche, will feel great discontent. The divine feminine will not accept confinement to the mother hen role–she will insist we explore subconscious depths, wailing and moaning in a volatile manner until we do so, for she is chaotic matter that cannot be contained. Yet her wolves are miniscule in this scene, their howls drowned out by the city sounds. Her lake mirrors the skyline, and solar colors intrude otherwise blue waters.

The Moon finds herself at odds with the skyscraper–our self-made tower, or the reality which we have locked ourselves into. It is constructed of defense mechanisms that we think will keep us from having to engage with the subconscious world. This tendency is mirrored in the previous card, as well as the red crustacean that refuses to allow gravity to pull down its masculine armor. As a skyscraper, the tower mistakes the Moon as its foe and tries to pierce her with its needle, to kill her off. In reality, it is but an irritant, though the more we do so, the greater we provoke her. The skyline represents phallic man-made ideologies of domination and exploitation, the pressure we put on ourselves to reach our goal in a linear fashion so we may adhere to city standards of material success. We have a tendency to do this without regard to cyclical rhythms, the natural waxing and waning of our energy levels and need for rest. We keep the city lights on to ward off what lays dormant in the night of the psyche. We fear the traumas and negative substances lurking there. Avoidance causes them to grow increasingly until we are forced to deal with them in an unmanageable state. We need to really examine our dreams which inform us what we need to work at so it doesn’t get to this point. Finally, the city pollution dulls the night sky such that we can only see a faint glimmering of a few select stars. In warding off the night, we distance ourselves from hope itself, which rests at the bottom of Pandora’s box.

The Root or Foundation: Reverse Nine of Wands ~Mad Rush: Part D (Bar 232 - Bar 273) - Philip Glass, Vestard Shimkus~

When we look at Dalí’s Nine of Wands in reverse, our primary focal point becomes a vibrant green aquatic scene drifting through muted waters, with the central muted scene shifting into secondary focus. At the top right corner, we see a green amphibian man who seems to be struggling to reposition himself to a point where he can gather back up the nine green wands of vitality that seem to have slipped from his grasp. He may have been swimming upstream for a while and tiring himself out, making him susceptible to a sudden current that caught him off guard. He hardly has the energy to recover them, and ascribes this as a personal failure, when in reality he is very strong, as we can see from how developed his calves are. This figure represents our inner green man, our primal aspect that primarily engages with the world through the senses and direct physical interaction. He longs to connect with our conscious aspect through nature and has gotten very close to doing so. He reaches out to the murky vision through which our conscious mind wanders ungrounded, suggesting that our own mind creates the divide between ourselves and our sense of oneness with nature. We resist metamorphosis, the ability to slip between land and water (the conscious and subconscious) when, as in the four of cups, we remain unaware of the inner green man who would help us reach for the golden cups. 

The root or foundation of the disconnect can be found in the central scene, through which a man wanders through a forest, perhaps for a very long time. At this point his walk begins to feel monotonous, tiresome, and he forgets why he came here or what he was looking for in the first place. The man has left the city we saw in the Moon card, but the city still resides within him. That is to say he has become goal-driven, believing he has a hunt to accomplish, a landmark to find, a home to get back to. Miles from the city, he thinks he has somewhere to be and something to do, but deep in the forest, all he can do is walk and wander. He forgets that this is what appealed to him in the first place. He entered the forest to be mindful, to commune with nature and rejuvenate the self–the journey and the process were the intent all along. This reversed card asks us - why don’t we enjoy ourselves while we are here? Why don’t we delight in our surroundings, in the sunlight, and our senses? Rather than treat the hike as a chore, we can open ourselves up to curiosity and appreciation, so we may live life to the fullest. 

The Crown or Change: Reverse Eight of Swords ~Somewhere in My Heart - Aztec Camera~

Throughout the reading, we have looked at the main aspect, ie the curled up figure in the 4 of cups, from various angles. In the past, there was a missed opportunity to transmute through shared art. We found we need to re-evaluate how we approach the lunar subconscious lest we experience the unrealized dream (the golden chalice) in the future. The root or foundation revealed itself to be a disconnect between our conscious city self and the inner green man that would use nature as a medium to slip between the conscious and unconscious, bringing subconscious desires to fruition. Finally, we have arrived at the reverse eight of swords, which reveals two primary oppositional forces that must be mentally resolved, so we may experience the crown or change that would allow our four of cups figure to grasp the golden chalice. The first force is the superego–defined as cultural and systemic programming that we mainly absorb from our parents–which is concerned with its own spiritual ideals. It prohibits the expression of the id–our drives, fantasies, feelings and actions. The superego is evidenced in the woman who holds a butterfly tight to her chest. It recalls a Heimlich maneuver as though she is trying to revive a choking butterfly, never realizing that she is the suffocating force. She mirrors spectral siren mother hen from the four of cups, because she believes ignorance is bliss, and remaining unaware of the unconscious will keep us safe in what she envisages as a castle in the sky. In reality we know this castle to be the tower from the reverse Moon, which we know to be true because the eight swords appear to serve as bars for her prison cell. This contrasts with the green wands in the prior card, that act as trees in a forest –a necessary life force.

The second force is Eros, or our desire for wholeness. The woman (the superego) holds a loving intent towards the butterfly, which can be likened to our inner child. She is trying to keep it safe from the dark bubbling water that could provide cleansing qualities, because in contrast to the light bubbles in the ten of coins–it is a heavy, dark, and difficult cleansing. The nature of the cleansing, an alchemical process known as nigredo, is evidenced in the butterfly’s black upper wings. In the Jungian psychoanalytic realm, this involves a painful growing awareness of the paralyzing shadow aspects that lurk in the reverse Moon card–undealt with traumas we have compartmentalized, for instance. Per Jung, we must seek the coldness of the moon to find the sun. The superego fears the darkness but it does not know we will rise like a phoenix from the ashes. She fears the transformative death process because she fears she will not survive it. And when we look at this card in reverse, she even seems to want to cushion the butterfly from their fall, though all she would have to do is release it for its true safety. The woman does not realize that in holding it close, she keeps the butterfly from its own nature, to fly, transform, and pollinate. Its life is so short–we cannot waste our time locked in the prison cell. The swords, i.e. rationality and thinking, that serve as bars could be used to cut ourselves free. The lower wings of the butterfly hint at the final process for the figure in the four of cups–the alchemical gold, or final transformation of the soul that can be found when we drink from the golden chalice.

August Tarot Forecast 2023

As an ever evolving tarot reader, I am now learning to read the cards in an Espiritista framework. Interpretations combine intuitive Playlisting and imagery from the Marseilles deck. 

Per the Roman calendar we've been following thus far, August, named after Augustus, is the sixth month in the year. He is associated with the imperial cult and the Pax Augusta, in which Rome experienced relative peace with but a few exceptions. His medicine includes working with the Emperor to recognize the inner divine within and entering an era of peace. Numerologically speaking, six is a lunar and cyclical number. It is little surprise that we will be experiencing both a Blue Moon and a Super Moon. August pushes us forward into revisiting old cycles using the moon's intuitive eye and to evolve in doing so. Nor is the Gaelic Lughnasadh to be forgotten–the feast of harvest. This signifies we'll be reaping the rewards of the month prior. August is going to be a transitional period for many, given that we are also experiencing Venus Retrograde in Leo, which asks us to be more deliberate in the areas of romance and finance, as well as Lion's Gate which brings about accelerated transformation. 

Energy of the Month: Six of Cups ~Spinning Away by Brian Eno, John Cale~

This month we find connection to the intuitive through a playful exploration of the external. Tap into simplicity through doodling, journaling, or simply stepping out under the stars and admiring their beauty. Enjoy the process of creating, or the great creation itself, in the present moment without a thought to the destination or the outcome. This act of enjoyment can be incredibly healing. To find an activity we truly enjoy, we can reminisce and recreate. Think about how we can recreate positive cycles in our emotional psyche. That which makes us feel stable and supported. That which honors the self, the mirror and the duality. 

The Marseilles version of the card recalls a table set with six glasses of wine. To be swirled around and enjoyed in a sensory way. It denotes relaxation, mirthfulness, a night in, and creature comforts. There are six cards in this monthly tarot reading, and a glass is given to each. No matter how the cards are spinning, we are doing okay. We have both come home and become the home that people come to. We can tell stories around the table about past memories and experiences. We are a happy and generous host. Coming back full circle, having a stable sense of home invites play. It invites art, playfulness, nonjudgmental enjoyment, in which we can enjoy the happy little shifts and surprises. 

Sit outside under the moon and the stars. Recharge under their light. Work with lunar energy this month. Let her stir the imagination, and stir you through dreams. 

Love: Moon ~Dreams by the Cranberries~

Seeing the Moon in the love sector, recalls the wolf and the dog as the couple in question. Perhaps one is a bit more restrained and living in the material realm than the other, but they are both made of the same primal nature and howl under the moon together. Together they can live wild, free and uninhibited dreams together. Free from the walls of societal expectations and constraints, true to the more animalistic parts of the self, and the waters of their lunar psyche. This card showing up in the month of the super moon and the blue moon feels especially fitting and powerful. The Moon showing up in upright position in Venus Retrograde also shows it's not such a scary time - - rather this is a time to get quiet, work with our dreams and go deep. 

In love we are not static beings. We are always changing. And our dreams shift along with us as we gain experience. But our needs, wants and desires are impossible to ignore. They cannot be tamed or civilized, they must be born. These dreams want to come to life in manifest reality. When we can meet each other in this way, sharing our truth openly, it feels raw, scary and unknown, but ultimately rewarding. This love with lunar qualities is the love we couldn't find before. Two amazing minds with liberated psyches figure out a path in the dark together. And in howling under the moon together and reaching for each other's dreams, we become a part of each other's dreams. 

Money: Reversed Sun ~Gamma Ray by Beck~

This card showing up in reverse position in Venus Retrograde denotes that while in love we are doing well working with lunar qualities, in finance we are not quite assimilated or ready to live out in the sun. Instead of looking to ourselves and feeling confident in the light of our own sun, we look to another to show us how to live. We try to hold onto another person's way of life instead of holding onto something stable that will truly support us. Or we interact with others in a very transactional way because we are operating from a scarcity mentality. Like an Icarus in reverse, a lack of self worth has us suffering under external heat and pressure, instead of staying grounded in the cool waters of our intuition. 

When we feel like we're falling, the advice in this card is to hold out for now. Right now it feels like we either have to sacrifice abundance or our true passions. It feels like we cannot have it due to societal structures or other circumstances out of our control. With the latter, we feel unstimulated and wondering what we've lost. We feel stagnant and confined to the backwater. Never once realizing that we are the deadly force the world needs to watch out for. This realization is the key to challenging these perceived obstacles and reconnecting with money in a way that's authentic to the self and allows us to do the work we are meant to do. 

Work: Reverse Page of Wands ~ Solar Pilgrim by Twain~

In a reversed position, the Page of Wands is tired of playing the job and career game. They have an ardent will to do things their own way but not the savvy or experience to sustain it in manifest reality. The body is also tired from so much doing and trying. This is the call to recharge and take care of ourselves while we are still healthy. We seem a bit headstrong right now. It is as though we threw ourselves onto a trail with no map and no research, but the simple will to find our own way. Others would run from this situation because the path seems uncertain, and one that would have to be paved for the first time. This is an admirable energy, but perhaps not the most practical as we are doing things the hard way. It feels as though we're embodying a sunken cost energy - we've come so far down this route that we can't just turn around or ask for help now. But what we really want is to get pulled out of and rescued from the situation. 

In addition, it looks like the page is stubborn about old ways of being and operating that once worked for them but no longer do or may not even be available anymore. They're not resistant to flexibility and a new way of doing things. .As though to make up for a lack of experience. Perhaps there's also a frustration of there not already being a path being laid out already. Why does there have to be this tiresome practice of learning? Our way of operating in the world feels heavy and unwieldy. We aren't rooting our wand into the earth and intuition, nor working with universal energy, but rather depleting our own will and energy. We will get burned out this way if we keep trying to work it out this way. Perhaps it is time to sit down and take a rest, and regather strength for the journey. It may be helpful to find another hiker on the trail and ask for directions, which would better inform our own path. It is time to retrace our steps. 

Health: Reverse Ace of Wands ~Flames by Rey Pila~

Rather than go full force into a new health initiative that we are so eager to jump into, this month we are asked to consider taking a step back to build a stronger foundation for more sustainable action. It seems like right now we are shaking the club (the conduit of our will) in frustration. As though we keep shaking a tree's branch for fruit to no avail. We are yet unaware that there are better tools we could use that would wear us out less, such as a ladder and a basket. We may even feel at the mercy of external forces when things don't go our way. 

It is as though we are striking a match repeatedly and getting increasingly frustrated when no spark comes out. Or the flame doesn't catch to the wick and we're at risk of burning ourselves as the flame travels up the match towards us. We're assuming that we are the problem but it is likely a faulty match or box or wick. At this stage the hand's grip on the wand isn't too steady, so the will to keep going could be lost easily if we don't encourage it in little ways. We start wondering if one little match is even enough. Our ambitious spark is precious, so if this is happening we should take a step back and look into how we can better approach these obstacles, as well as the tools at hand. Is there a way to work smarter, not harder? We need to give the situation a bit more breathing time, research, and renewed energy so that the spark can really catch. 

Spirit: Page of Swords ~Freedom is Free by Chicano Batman~

As the Page of Swords, we stand firmly in our beliefs with our heads on straight and a sword in our hands. We've had a spiritual awakening - - an aha moment so to speak. We've been able to cut through the programmed societal conditioning and recognize the divinity within self, and nature, and the values of freedom, freedom of speech and belief among other things. We know no one can take that away from us now that we've gotten a hold of these firm values. 

We feel unencumbered at this stage of the journey and eager to learn and take on new challenges. We're ready to start the hourglass and begin to delve into the deep and hidden knowledge of nature and fate. As the page, we aren't influencing anyone yet but we have found ourselves. We are sharp students full of ideas to express even if we are still gaining experience. We have lots of theoretical knowledge and what others have done to draw on. We feel equipped and strengthened by ideas. This is an excellent time to start gaining experience by applying our ideas in the manifest world, and engaging with others. This is how we can best refine what we know as it applies to life itself.

August Forecast

Happy August! How is everyone feeling coming out of the recent Leo new moon? Personally, it helped me release a lot of blockage and some of the things I was overthinking about. The Leo energy also helped me vocalize what it was I wanted to bring into my experience. I hope it was a positive experience for you! Included this time are some optional mixed media recommendations that could lend more insight or interaction with the energy of the card I pulled. Read below for a general reading for what to expect in August 2022.

Energy of the Month: Reverse 7 of Pentacles (Spark Joy ~ book by Marie Kondo)

This month we're being asked to play the role of metaphorical gardener and take a higher perspective to see which creations ("plants") of ours need pruning. Some of the newer plants that we've been caring for have parts that are wilting or drying up, and we will be asked to sacrifice those parts in order to save the life of the plant. Naturally as the gardener who watched over this our new creation lovingly, we may feel a sense of attachment to every part of it and feel discouraged by what feels like a setback or failure. We may not want to acknowledge it and want to leave the lengthy vines as they are. There is an opportunity here however-to pare our vision down to its truest form, and to use some of the plant to propagate new ones that we can share with our friends and family. 

Love: Page of Cups (Rewrite Your Story through the Eyes of Love ~ Lavendaire Lifestyle Podcast Episode 2)

This is a lovely card to come up in a love reading. In this part of our journey, we feel a youthful energy in love, as if rediscovering it all over again. We are finding our footing and grounding each step of the way. We've removed our thinking cap and are now seeing through the eyes of love. We progress on the alchemical journey of life through the balance of male and female principles, and create something lush and in harmony with our nature. We walk with golden shoes, moving ever closer to spiritual richness through love.

Money: 5 of Wands (Fig Tree ~ poem by Sylvia Plath)

In money, we are feeling stuck in a crossroads because of the paths we may miss out on or have missed out on by choosing one path over another. We are caught in the center of the hourglass and preventing the sand from passing through for as long as we can, but inevitably time will move forward whether we'd like that to be the case or not. How can we make peace with where we are now, rather than looking at where we could have done better? 

Work: Reverse King of Pentacles (The Gifts of Imperfection ~ Brene Brown)

We are experiencing resistance and a desire to control our work path, perhaps in response to finances or a perception of finances. We are feeling guarded and wanting to use a domineering masculine force to control the work experience, and it is not grounded in intuition. We are looking a lot to the past to inform our work experience rather than looking forward with a vision towards what would work for the future.

Health: 9 of Cups (Habitica - Mobile App)

In health we are feeling that our cups are filled. We feel satisfaction towards the path we've chosen to increase a sense of health in our lives, and the effect that it's had on us. Perhaps we've surrounded ourselves with a healthy community, improved a routine, or focused on self care in the past months. This month we can readily acknowledge the rewards and benefits that we've experienced in health as a result of our own actions. We are here because of all the ways that we keep showing up for ourselves!

Spirit: 6 of Pentacles (Shine on You Crazy Diamond ~ song by Pink Floyd)

Our spirit this month is strong and we can grow a lot by looking into the mirror of our creation. If this does not look like what was intended--remember that nevertheless you are a powerful creator who manifested it into your reality. This month we are supported and empowered in spirit through strength, love and health. We are resilient beings who have overcome so much--and our spirit shines all the brighter in overcoming that. This month we are able to stand strong in the truth of who we are; we can both reach out when we are needing encouragement and inspiration and in turn are able to give that energy back out.

Until Next!

Zoe (Angel Intentions)

A musical supplement to this month’s forecast