I have made myself a little tarot set. I am not really drawn to tarot in the standard way, with traditional meanings. I tried the conventional version years ago and, by my own admission, I wasn’t exactly good at it. But the beauty of the cards stayed with me. The atmosphere stayed with me. The feeling of holding a small object that somehow gives permission to intuition, imagination, and private symbolism stayed with me. I made the kind of cards I would actually want to pull: reminders, permissions, keys, mirrors, tiny glamorous interventions for the soul. I want the use the occult as an art form, as a psychological tool, as a beautiful little doorway into the secret parts of yourself. Then I started wondering: why am I so drawn to making occult-looking things? Why the mystery, the depth, the shadowy little aesthetics? And perhaps – perhaps! – it has something to do with my possible new birth chart. Apparently, my mother can no longer remember my exact birth time, which is very inconsiderate of her, frankly. One small detail, mother. Just the cosmic access code to my entire personality. No pressure. She gave me a slightly different time, and suddenly my Moon and Mercury may have shifted from the 7th house into the 8th. Which is quite the plot twist. I thought I was a nice, relatable 7th house person – charming, balanced, people-focused, very “let’s all understand each other.” Ha ha. I should have bloody well known there was something more subterranean going on.
Part of me may have liked the idea of being a 7th house house person because it sounds nicer, more relatable, more socially acceptable. The 7th house gets to wear a nice blouse and talk about connection, harmony, partnership, and mutual understanding. Very civilized. The 8th house, meanwhile, turns up late with dark eyeliner, talks about occult things and makes strange little cards in her spare time. So perhaps this is what I do as a coping mechanism in the most elegant sense of the word. A translation. I am taking emotional intensity and giving it shape. I try to take the deep, dark, stranger stuff that lives beneath the surface and make it small enough to hold in my hand. I have Moon square Neptune from this house so it is perhaps how sensitive people survive without becoming permanently possessed by their own nervous systems.
The difficulty is that I may sometimes doubt my own nature because it doesn’t fit neatly into the version of myself I thought I was. I tried to attach to the idea of being easier, lighter, more relational, more straightforwardly lovable (7th). But being complex (8th) doesn’t make me less lovable. I guess I don’t conquer the underworld by necessarily being all tough; I bring a lamp, a notebook, a sense of humor, and create something from it. Little signposts for others. I name the feeling. I try to turn the frightening thing into a card that says, in essence, “You have survived more than this.”
The painful part I found with these 8th house planets is that when I am surrounded by people who value lightness, speed, and social ease, and I can feel this emotional depth like a defect. I start thinking, “Why can’t I just be normal? Why can’t I be fun and simple and relatable?” I get very anxious. It stings. I watch them move through life with this casual confidence, laughing at the right time, saying the right little things, being digestible.
The danger is when I turn this difference into self-hatred. I’m too moody, perceptive, or inwardly complicated, so I must somehow be wrong. If I have this strange, lovely, inconvenient capacity to feel life all the way down to the roots and I start to hate that, then I’ll end up cutting off my own underground water supply, then wondering why everything inside feels dry. But depth also needs humor. It needs ordinary human nonsense to balance it out. I cannot live permanently in the basement of my soul, no matter how beautifully I decorate it. I need sunlight, food, movement, silly conversations, and stupid memes. Depth without light becomes heaviness. Sensitivity without boundaries becomes exhaustion. Darkness without play becomes a personality cult, and nobody needs to become so haunted.
I am newly learning that I can be with these 8th house depths and still laugh at ridiculous things. I can have an 8th-house swamp inside me and still enjoy nice stationery. I can feel an ancient grief and still want to make pretty things. It is called being a whole person. With my newly found planets I am still learning to be gentle with the parts of me that feel dark. They aren’t monsters.
But I still think my Moon square Neptune may be far too sensitive for all this 8th house intensity. I can’t always handle the depths. Because let’s be honest, if my Moon and Neptune are involved, I’m not exactly entering the abyss like some gothic priestess with a raven on her shoulder. I’m more likely standing at the edge of it with big watery eyes asking, “Is everyone in there okay?”
My Moon square Neptune is far too soft for the deep occult basement of the psyche. It wants magic, yes – but preferably magic with fairy lights, gentle music, and a clearly marked emotional exit. Is there such a thing as a soft goth! I really think I’d ruin the 8th house vibe for people. The abyss says, “Face your deepest fears.” And I say, “Of course, but could we maybe treat me with extra sensitivity and start with mild discomfort and work our way up?” The 8th house is like, “We’re here to transform.” And my Moon-Neptune is like, “Lovely. Huge fan of transformation. Could we do it gently, through a glamorous collage, dreams, and one empowering tarot card at a time?” The abyss expected a warrior. It got a woman with Moon square Neptune, three unfinished art projects, and a deep concern for everyone’s inner child.
Maybe this deck is what happens when an 8th house theme meets Moon-Neptune softness. The abyss wants shadow work. I want pretty designs. The abyss wants ego death. I want glam occult goddesses. The abyss wants me to confront the unknown. I want it to match my aesthetic. So maybe this is how I cope with it. I turn the strange feelings, the psychic static, the emotional moods, into something beautiful. Something useful. Something empowering. And so, here it is: my revamped tarot. Not traditional. Not perfect. Just a little deck of magic, meaning, and personal power, for the kind of guidance I actually like receiving.
Language Warning: These cards contain strong language and swear words. They are intended for mature audiences and for people who can handle a little verbal chaos with their spiritual guidance. But I do have a rather suspicious amount of revenge energy in these cards. I promise I am not building a tiny cardboard vengeance cult; I simply made a large batch of those first. Nicer, softer, and more productivity-focused cards are also in progress, for those days when you want personal growth instead of spiritually assisted payback.
