skulls

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The Skulls are mostly another look at similar ideals that are laid out in the Tesseracts suit. In “deck order,” Cups (Skulls here) is placed at the back of the deck, perhaps for a good reason. If you’re reading through the deck in deck order, following the narratives of each card, and each suit, zippering them all together into one collective narrative, the Skulls provide a tidy, happy ending to this story. It contains the happiest pieces of the deck. As mentioned when discussing the Major Arcana, many might think fondly of the Lovers card, for instance, probably something easy to do. The Lovers card, when upright is quite positive, yes, absolutely. But, when read reversed, upside-down, those happy, lovely aspects, as in a pair of lovers’ relationship turned upside-down, these happy sentiments turn sour. Not so, for instance, in the Ace and Three of Skulls, as in many other cards in this suit, even their reversed readings, these cards maintain much, and in some cases all, of their optimism in a way that the cards of no other suit so constantly do. The Skulls suit here is adapted from Cups, which, as stated earlier, is an analog of the poker deck’s Hearts. So, appropriately, the Skulls often surround warm emotions, often in ways that play off of cards from other suits. For instance, in the Ten of Skulls, we get another look at the happy house in the Four of Legs, adding superlative happiness and endless upward potential to it. This suit, as an ending to the seventy-eight-card standard deck, gives us a feeling that, despite the obstacles and tribulations encountered throughout the deck, and in our lives, things can turn out well.