I wasn't a big believer in tarot until one of the cards happened to me in real life. I was given three cups in quick succession and didn't think to look up the meaning of the card until later, much later.
The first was given to me by a new friend - Anna - who asked if she could share my booth at the farmer's market and set up a plethora of cups, bowls and saucers, crafted and painted by hand. We chatted as people passed our booth, intimidated by the prices I'd encouraged her to mark up. She told me about past friendships gone wrong, her overly obsessed boyfriend, and her work at a retail weed shop.
As she packed up to go, she handed me a red cup, the smallest and my favorite, whose glaze was imperfect enough to have that handmade touch, though glazed all the right ares, and blended together nicely into swirls or orange and pink.
The last was given to me after a trip to Israel. He couldn't decide, he said, between the cartoonish buildings of Jerusalem, which read "city" in Hebrew, or else the other one - some simple flowers. He'd chosen city, and I admired his choice.
It didn't occur to me till much later, what these three cups represented. I had puzzled, for a while, over their apparent link. Two might have been coincidence. Three, I felt sure, there was a point I was missing. Then it occurred to me that the three of cups was a tarot card. When It did, I felt like an idiot. I dutifully pulled out my rider-white booklet to find the meaning the universe had in store for me. And the answer was so obvious as to be a practical joke.
I had wondered, would I be able to make sense of this mercurial sign. I had wondered, had I taken the time to study tarot in the past, might I have thought of this instinctively? When I read the words "joyful social contact" it felt like a joke.
The fact that the universe had taken the time to reach out and gift me with this precious sign felt so patient, so kind - a recognition that the universe knew me, accepted me as is, and was aware of my journey, and exactly where I was.