Intermediate Divinations - Cups on Elective Hall

Giselle Duell

February 25, 2022 8:20 PM

Intermediate Divinations - Cups by Giselle Duell

Giselle was worried that there was more she was supposed to be doing. She didn’t want there to be any more to what she should be doing, but she couldn’t help feeling like there was more. What did the fates want from her? She didn’t know and she really didn’t want to know. The world was doing so much better than it had in the past, or at least her little corner of it was. She did not want anything or anyone to mess it up, she was happy… well she was content. She was doing okay for once in her life. She was mostly on her own and almost completely calling the shots in her life now. But no, there had to be Xavier. Somewhere inside herself, she knew that wasn’t fair, it wasn’t actually Xavier, it was whatever situation he was in. That made it all the more frustrating, she couldn’t even get angry at the boy because he was just as much (well, probably more) of a victim of this than she was. Previously she had been able to be mad at Andrew and Marissa for what they had done to her, then she learned more and could be mad at Lia. Now.. now she had no one to blame and it was driving her crazy.

Fortunately, she did on occasion have teaching to distract her. Her intermediates were working through the unit on Tarot cards. Giselle stood from her seat at her desk as the students began to arrive. There were round two person tables scattered about the room, draped with various clashing cloth bits. Once everyone was settled, she began.

“Welcome everyone, we are continuing our delve into the meanings of the various cards contained within your decks. As we discussed previously while we examined the major arcana, while these are the traditional definitions they are not by any stretch of the imagination set in stone. They can give you guidance, but they should never take priority over the sense or intuition that you feel while reading the cards. The patterns they reveal may be more than the strict readings, listen to your intuition your feelings. Are there patterns to the colors or images that you are being drawn towards? That is your magic guiding you towards true understanding. It is very subtle and takes a great deal of practice to hone your skill.” Which is why most witches and wizards think the study is a bunch of nonsense. This she just thought naturally and didn’t say out loud. They just couldn’t connect in the way necessary for the discipline.

Giselle lifted her own deck of cards from her desk and pulled cards seemingly haphazardly from it and released them into the air in front of her. Each of the cards hung there in front of her facing the class. They formed the Suit of Cups, floating in order in front of her. “Today we will start looking into the minor arcana with the Suit of Cups.” The fourteen cards circled around her in a slow orbit as she stepped out from behind the desk and moved closer to her students. “These cards are generally considered to represent the element of water, and the more emotional side of someone’s consciousness. They can cover feelings, relationships, love and connections. Like water they can be fluid and agile, but also quite powerful.”

The cards swirled into Giselle’s extended hand. “You each selected your own set of Tarot cards as part of your supplies for this class. While they do not quite pick the witch or wizard as a wand does, you each picked your deck for one reason or another. This will have an effect on how you interpret your cards. Since reading the cards is akin to discovering a story, that is what we will be doing today using only the Suit of Cups and the major arcana cards. Separate them out from the rest, shuffle them properly and deal out six cards.” Shuffling them properly was a skill that the fourth and fifth years should have mastered by this point, but the third years were still working on. The trick was not only to allow the magic to work on the order of the cards but also their orientation, as the cards had different meanings if they were rightside up or upside down.

“Third years can find the standard meanings in the book starting on page 43. Fifth years should have their books away. Fourth years, see what you can remember before you go looking. Consider this class assignment to be one of learning meanings, interpretations and a bit of creative writing. You will not get a good divination reading while only using these cards, what I want you each to do is to write down the story that the cards are trying to tell you. After you are done with that, I want you each to write down the cards you had, their positions and any insights you can give me as to why your story developed the way it did as you progressed. These will be due at the end of class today and for homework you will do the same exercise with the Suit of Swords. You may begin.”

OOC: Information on the Suit of Cups
Information on the Major Arcana

Subthreads:

Let's see how this goes. by Valentine Duell with Jasper Brockert

2 Giselle Duell Intermediate Divinations - Cups 1517 1 5

Valentine Duell

March 11, 2022 7:18 PM

Let's see how this goes. by Valentine Duell

Valentine had heard rumors that Aunt Giselle had been playing 'hide and seek' around the school with her advanced class. She was glad to discover that so far the Divinations professor hadn't done the same with their class. It would probably be possible, but she wasn't sure how much time there would be left of class to do much else. As she entered the room she greeted Professor Duell, unfortunately she hadn’t gotten here as early as she liked and wasn’t able to chat much with her aunt before others began to arrive.

Val took a seat and pulled out her book and cards. She had been doing pretty well with the tarot cards so far and wondered if she had a slight unfair advantage. After all, Aunt Giselle had helped her pick out the deck. She shuffled it idly while waiting for class to begin, she had noticed her aunt did that on occasion. All things considered this class was going fairly well for her. That was a good thing because she thought it could be quite helpful if her career plans worked out.

Aunt Giselle…. Professor Duell made something of a show in her opening for the class and Val couldn’t help but smile at the showy antics. The smile faltered a bit when she learned that she wasn’t going to be allowed to use her book as a reference. True, she'd been learning this for over two years now, she really should know this. Well, one way to find out.

Val sorted out the cups and major arcana cards from her deck. Her cards were colorfully decorated in an 'art nouveau' style. They had caught her eye rather than the somewhat dull looking 'traditional' artwork. She set the rest aside and began shuffling. The movements came easily enough to her now. Normally this is when one would focus on the question they wanted answered, but she wasn't looking for an answer just a story. Stories she could handle.

She smiled at her table-mate as she laid six cards face down on the table in front of her. "What sort of stories do you think we will get?" She asked as she flipped over her first card. Two of cups, reversed. "Self love, disharmony, breakups, or distrust" she quoted without pondering. The card showed a man and a woman, each holding a cup. "It doesn't look like my story starts off happy." she commented aloud.

2 Valentine Duell Let's see how this goes. 1490 0 5

Jasper Brockert

March 21, 2022 9:07 AM

Hopefully well. by Jasper Brockert

Jasper had been completely unsurprised to not get prefect at the beginning of the year. He had not needed Divination to predict that Val would win, not himself or Phillipe. It was okay though, he wasn’t at all disappointed and it wasn’t as if he lost to someone who didn’t deserve the position or wouldn’t be good at it.. Val was social, nice and involved, she would make an excellent prefect.

Although he liked to believe that he was at least nice and could be social-though the fact that that attribute was such a huge factor was kind of overall unfair-but not particularly involved. Which Jasper supposed was another unfair factor. Why should someone join a club or do another activity that they weren’t interested in just to improve their chances of getting prefect? There weren’t any clubs available that really appealed to him and there was nothing that he really felt he could really start one around either.

Still, Jasper was really okay with it. After all, when you pretty much expected something to go a certain way, it was hard to feel too disappointed when it did and he’d figured out a long time ago that he’d had no chance whatsoever.

Besides, he had other things on his mind. The Teppenpaw had decided what he wanted to do as a career, he wanted to work with special needs children. He wanted a career where he could help people and make a difference. People with disabilities, in particular children with disabilities, were some of the most vulnerable and most overlooked people there were. Sapphire, who wasn’t even as bad off as some as were or as bad off as she thought she was, had lamented how nobody cared about those people, how she felt that those with disabilities were ignored, discounted, treated like they didn’t matter.

Of course, Sapphire’s problem was more negligent parents and a psychopathic older sister who had bullied her into thinking herself worthless than her epilepsy. Which wasn’t to invalidate how she felt. Jasper could see that she struggled albeit more with a lack of self esteem than anything. However, a poor sense of one’s own value could be crippling and he was sure her epilepsy had contributed to that. After all, it had taken a while for it to be noticed and diagnosed and recurrent seizures had probably had some effect on Sapphire’s ability to learn.

It was just that maybe in a better situation she would have thrived-and this was even taking into consideration the financial resources their family had. There were probably poor children with more severe disabilities out there who had it even worse. Although it did go to show that money and status weren’t everything and even people like them could have problems.

Still, Jasper did care about these people and wanted to help any way that he could. The problem so far was that he didn’t know what classes he would need to continue with after CATS. He supposed he was going to have to set up an appointment with Mr. Row to discuss it.

Jasper took a seat next to Val and Professor Duell started class. Apparently, they were going to be continuing with tarot cards today. Which he found interesting though he was probably not going to need to use it in his future career. He had a feeling Divination wasn’t going to be a class that he needed to continue with.

However, for now, Jasper laid out his cards, wincing as his very first card turned out to be Death. upright. He knew that it didn’t mean an actual death but instead transformation and transition, endings, but it still kind of threw him when he happened to draw it.

He looked over at Val who had spoken to him. “That sounds…terrible. I got Death. How is it that Death is a more positive card than yours? Also, how can my story be starting with an ending ?” He turned over the next card. “Four of Cups, upright. Meditation, contemplation, apathy, reevaluation.” Jasper paused. “I think those actually go together. My story starts with someone at a crossroads, going through a transition and now they need to…meditate and contemplate what to do next.” He looked back at Val. “Maybe yours will have a happy ending. A lot of stories start with someone having a problem and end with them solving it and things getting better.”

11 Jasper Brockert Hopefully well. 1496 0 5

Valentine Duell

March 23, 2022 5:56 PM

It can't go to bad, can it? by Valentine Duell

Valentine gave Jasper a warm smile. "That doesn't sound like you have a terrible beginning to your story. I do hope this one ends well, I prefer a happy ending." She looked at the two people on the card in front of her. "I wonder if this story is about a couple, or only one of them... maybe neither?" Only one way to find out. She pulled the next card and revealed an upright Sun card. That made her smile, she liked the Sun card. "I've got the Sun next," she commented to Jasper, "That's fun and warmth, success and vitality."

The image on the card was a bright warm sun shining down upon a meadow in summer. Flowers were blooming and there were some green trees off to the sides in the distance. "So, we have these two people, a man and a woman, who don't trust one another. Then there is a good time between them." An odd thought percolated in the back of her mind as she looked at the cards and talked out loud. What if, there weren't two people in the story, but three? What if the Sun actually represented a third person? Some bright and warm person that brought together these first two that weren't so sure of each other? Her mind filled in some potential names as she tried to resist it doing so. This was just a fun story, nothing more.

Her third card was an inverted Page of Cups. "Hmmm..." she examined the card for a moment recalling the inverted meaning. "Doubting intuition? Emotional immaturity?"she murmured aloud, that didn't sound great for the story either. "It could also be new ideas, right?" She asked Jasper, "Or Creative blocks?" This was not any sort of indication of anything to come, they were just random cards. "My story may not be going very well. How's yours?"

2 Valentine Duell It can't go to bad, can it? 1490 0 5