Mutable water: illusions, hopes + fears, unknown pleasures

A snake isn't worse than a rose if you are looking for a way to kill a character. A jewel isn't better than a tornado if you want to move the action of your story somewhere else.

Mutable water: the unconscious, hallucinations, psychic plane

Rachel Pollock writes that “in divinatory readings the moon indicates an excitement of the unconscious.”

Mutable water: liminality, precarity, recklessness

Emma Cline’s novel The Guest is a thriller where nothing much happens. The tension and dread are evoked from the seemingly impossible drama of trying to live from moment to moment.

Mutable water: confusion, hidden meanings, the moon, intuition

In this card, the figure doesn't notice the moon, and doesn't seem aware of how its guiding force is helping them on their way. The moon in the Eight of Cups is at once a sliver of waxing crescent moon and a full moon, or perhaps it is an eclipse.

Mutable water: surrender, liminality, balance, suspension

When we are used to experiencing adrenaline, or the effects of trauma, rest and relaxation can feel counterintuitive: allowing our muscles to relax can give a stronger sensation than our familiar contractions.