Basket of Kisses

Sorry this took so long.

I’ve been reading the Tarot for almost thirty years, and I’ve been teaching it for maybe twenty, so when my favorite show incorporated a Tarot reading in the episode The Mountain King, I was fascinated.

I have tried to make this completely accessible, even if you know nothing about Tarot at all. There’s illustration and everything.

As we discovered in our interview with Matt Weiner, this is a reading that Matt received. Nonetheless, for the purposes of this analysis, I’m reading it as if it is a reading that Anna Draper gave Dick Whitman in 1962, otherwise it has no purpose. The reading given to Matt by his reader is private to their relationship. A reading combines objective and subjective; cards have meanings, but how those meanings are interpreted is up to the reader. Matt’s subjective reading is not the same as Dick/Don’s subjective reading, it’s a jumping off point.

Earlier I’d said there were no reversals in the reading, but I was wrong. Both the Sun and the Three of Cups are reversed. Neither Roberta nor I noticed the Sun was reversed when we re-watched the scene together, I think because Anna looks with such delight at the Sun, the reversal didn’t register. Use of reversals makes sense; no-reversals is a more modern, New Age sort of thing, in keeping with avoiding negativity. Earlier occultists didn’t avoid negativity.

I looked up which version of the Celtic Cross reading Anna used. It’s not from Eden Gray, whose 1960 book The Tarot Revealed was hugely popular. Gray was the author I first studied; her simple yet rich explanations make the Tarot accessible; her later Mastering the Tarot is still the book I recommend people start with.

But Gray places “hopes” in position 7; Arthur Edward Waite, in the Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910), uses position 7 as “self,” which is what Anna calls it. Based on this, I think Anna has been reading Tarot for years; long enough not to change because of a new, popular writer on the subject.

The reading
1. Covering: The Sun (XIX), Reverse
2. Crossing: 8 of Cups
3. Foundation: Page of Pentacles
4. Behind: 3 of Cups, Reverse
5. Crowning: Judgement (XX)
6. Ahead: 5 of Swords
7. Self: The World (XXI)
8. Home: 9 of Wands
9. Hopes and Fears: The Wheel of Fortune (X)
10. Outcome: 8 of Wands

This is a reading of unusual power. There are only two reversals, and one of them is positive. Yes, there are negative and painful cards, but the overall impression is that Don is doing exactly what he must do, and that happiness is at his fingertips. The Wheel is turning and his path is being followed. Reversals are damage to the path; mistakes you’ve made or that have been made by others that are screwing you up. They are the universe saying “no.”

Second, the Major Arcana is a kind of Hero’s Journey, a path of self-actualization. There are 22 Majors, beginning with 0 and ending with 21. Don has 19, 20, and 21…the end of a journey, the completion of his current life’s work. He is taking the final steps towards fulfillment of this part of himself, and we can see he is on the brink of rebirth…powerful stuff indeed.

Okay, the cards.

Don’s “covering” problem, how he sees himself, is successful but limited. The Sun is depicted as a beautiful child leaving a walled garden. Waite says of the Sun: “Innocence is renewed through discovery, bringing hope for the future.” The wall represents limitations, conventions, and expectation. They are confining him. For this reason, he leaves the garden, he moves beyond walls, and he takes a journey. He is joyful and full of hope. This card is so good that even in reverse, it is considered positive. The journey in reverse has bumps, and the garden is harder to leave, but the outlook is still sunny.

Anna says to Don, “but here’s the Sun,” implying that she reads it as a card of optimism and protection; that everything will be okay with the Sun in that position.

Crossing him is the Eight of Cups, a profound dissatisfaction with life. I walk away from everything I have, disregarding how fulfilling it might be, because what I want cannot be found in those lovely full cups, it can only be found in a journey to the mountains of my soul. Don is seeking inward because outward has become a dead end. The cups of life’s joys are bitter to him now, and so he travels. Waite also says “A matter which has been thought to be important is really of slight consequence.” This last bit reminds me of, “Mr. Campbell, who cares?” Don’s problems are not as painful as he thinks.

The foundation card, the Page of Pentacles, suggests a beginner, learning, exploring, possibly starting over. Before I froze the screen, I thought this card was The Fool. The have similar postures, angles, and colors. I’m kind of reading the Page like the Fool here, risk-taking for a new beginning. But interestingly, the Fool and the Page look in opposite directions. Knowing that the Fool looks towards an unknown future, there’s a suggestion that Don as beginner and learner means Don going back to the past. And since this is the foundation, that’s what he’s already doing.

Behind, the past: Three of Cups in reverse. Another reversal in cups. (People tend to read the crossing card as always reversed, or as its most negative. In the case of the 8 of Cups, the upright is more negative than the reversal.) Emotions (cups) are the most negative part of this reading. The 3 in reverse is partying and social life gone wrong. It is debauchery, perhaps alcoholism, gossip at parties, and in general bad things coming out of social occasions and social relations. Certainly that reads like the whole Bobbie Barrett affair, which includes two parties with bad outcomes. It could also be a more recent past, the Jet Set.

Ahead, the near future: Five of Swords. Combat and conquest. The man stands with swords taken from his enemies. He defeats and humiliates an ignoble foe. This looks like the merger meeting, but it could be any of the conflicts Don faces in the coming weeks. For the “Behind” and “Ahead” positions, I read one day at the least (yesterday or tomorrow), two weeks at the most. With “Behind” there’s more leeway, it’s whatever just happened that was most influential on the Covering and Crossing cards. That’s why I don’t know if the 3 of Cups is Bobbie or Joy; is it debauchery that led to his journey to California (in which case Bobbie) or debauchery that led to his journey to Anna (in which case Joy)? With “Ahead” it’s always an event that’s about to happen, so I’m saying it’s the merger meeting in which he ends up holding all the swords, while Duck is humiliated.

It also suggests world events: Don is, in just a few days, about to experience the Cuban Missile Crisis with the rest of the world. Certainly this, and the Nine of Wands, are cards of military stand-off and crisis. (I’m not saying I’d have caught this in a reading, any more than most readers who saw The Tower in the weeks leading up to 9/11 knew that the Towers would fall; hindsight is a beautiful thing, and sometimes the cards are wiser than the reader.)

Position 7, which Anna reads as “Self,” is the World. It is one of the most profound cards in the deck. It’s having it all, in a spiritual as well as mundane sense. The world is at your fingertips, what you want can be yours. Since it is the self, it means Don is the world. Anna’s reading, that Don is connected to all things, that he is not alone, is lovely. I’d never read it that way, but each reader is different; not only is it a valid reading, but as a reader I can learn from it (as a reader, you’re always learning). Because Don’s self is the World and not, say, the Magician, I see his personal power as intuitive rather than structured; he masters by being rather than by doing.

Waite has position 9 as Home/Environment. Here is the Nine of Wands, a dark, guarded sentry. Don is under attack; he can win but he cannot let his guard down. Again, this suggests Sterling Cooper (a sort of home for Don), but it also speaks of Betty. He can go to her and be accepted by her, but it will not be easy for him; there is still a war at home.

Don’s Hopes and Fears are the Wheel of Fortune: Card 10 in the Major Arcana. 3 of his 4 Majors are in a sequence; 19-20-21, but this one is pulled from the middle. The meaning is luck, the turn of fate, the things that are out of our control. The Wheel in the reading tells us we are fortunate or unfortunate. Don has been fighting the Wheel his whole life, trying to remain in control; he can only fear it and hope for the best. This card seems to be the impetus that pushes the other cards forward; plain ol’ dumb luck. It just happened that way. Don is here, getting this reading, because of the Wheel. And as much anxiety as it will always cause him, today it is in his favor.

Outcome: 8 of Wands. Rapid movement, flight, and communication. This almost doesn’t need reading. Don has to go home. The outcome card doesn’t tell us what should happen (that’s the Crown), it tells us what inevitably will happen. Don will go home. Things will move again; he can’t just hang out in California.

There are two eights in this reading, meaning that the number 8 is of significance. Its symbolism is “regeneration and the balance of opposing forces” (Eden Gray, Mastering the Tarot, 1973). This ties in with the notion of Judgement, the crown card. Don’s outcome is a rebirth.

Crowning: Judgement. This is, as Anna says, Resurrection. It is rebirth, a new way of being.

It is the possibility of a fresh start, but only because a changed person makes that start. It is life rebooted. It is choosing to heed the inner spiritual voice that has been nagging at you for so long.

Here’s a link to two other interpretations of the same reading. Note that one of them says the 3 of Wands is in the past, that’s incorrect, it’s definitely the 3 of Cups.