Tarot’s Fool walks in rhythm with the Zodiac, traveling from Aries to Taurus during April. Tarot relies on a compendium of resources that all operate in sync designed to assist us in sorting out our daily life, interpreting our dreams, divining the future, and practice a bit of magic. Astrology, numerology, Hermeticism, alchemy, and semiotics work in relationship with one another to shine a light or our pilgrim’s path. 

I’m not suggesting that to use Tarot we need an in-depth knowledge of these systems. But it helps to be aware that Tarot has an integrated network of unified constructs that supports why I drew the Five of Cups as one of my six Ally cards for 2026. This card is known as the “Storm of Tears.” The image of two full cups set against three cups spilling their contents are designed to challenge us with facing our grief while celebrating it at the same time. Father Michael O’Grady taught me to bring some Jameson’s to every grave. One drink for me, the rest for the dead. And so, on my visits to his family burial plot, I bring a bottle, one drink  for me, well two for me, and the rest for him.

The Order of the Golden Dawn relied upon Death and The Tower as partners with the card of tears and disappointment. Nice trio, I guess? But the first three months of this year has played out this scenario in my life. The Tower has two roles, it can symbolize institutional deconstruction but it can also be a place of shelter where from the top, we can see what’s ahead. And sometimes Death is death. But at other times it symbolizes a loss that leads to transmutation. The pair of The Tower and Death are here to reminded us that two of the five of cups are full and briming over.

To help understand the complexity of such a combination of cards, I turned to T. Susan Chang’s 36 Secrets: A Decanic Journey through the Minor Arcana of the Tarot. I’ve almost worn out my copy of her wonderful resource for parsing out the nuances and correspondences between the cards themselves and the systems that support their connections. She knows Tarot inside and out and she’s a wonderful story teller. Her book is accessible but she doesn’t dumb it down. To know Tarot, is to study Tarot and learn from the masters, like Susan. 

There is hope when all feels like we’re being crushed between Death and The Tower. The Fool’s begins the astrological year in Aries; it’s the Spring Equinox. Our pilgrim reads and interprets the Tarot, life, and dreams through the Aries lens of new energy, independence, and self-awareness. As The Fool’s moves from Aries to Taurus, our traveler transfers the Ram’s positiveness into Bullish material projects. Yes, two of the cups are briming over with a magical elixir that can be applied to heal the wounds of grief, our personal grief and our collective pain.