I hadn’t done a one-card pull in a while, opting to do spreads instead to get answers to my personal questions. So yesterday (6/15), I decided to pull one card to get some insight into what’s going on in my life right now.

I chose the Osho Zen tarot deck, a Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) “clone” slanted toward the teachings of the Indian mystic, Osho Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. I figured it would give me a deeper, more spiritual understanding of some problematic circumstances I have been experiencing and hopefully what to do about them. Yes, you CAN get all of that from just one card.

Don’t get me wrong. I learned the tarot using the RWS deck, and I encourage beginners to start with that deck because all of the clones out there are based on this deck. Once you have a basic understanding of the RWS, you’ll have an easier time using other 78-card decks.

And perhaps “clone” isn’t the best word to describe these decks because clone implies an “exact copy.” I use the term here to describe any 78-card deck with a major and minor arcana based on the symbolism and meanings of the original RWS deck but whose images and meanings aren’t an exact match to those of the RWS but come pretty close. Read on to see what I mean.

OSHO ZEN 4 OF CUPS

The card I pulled in search of some insight and guidance was the 4 of Cups. Actually, it kind of fell out of the deck while I was shuffling, so I figured it was the card that would answer my question. And as soon as I saw its imagery, I knew immediately what I needed to do to get some relief from the mostly negative thoughts buzzing around in my head about my predicament. And the phrase, “Turning In” makes it pretty clear what this 4 of Cups is about.

Despite the fact that I’ve been meditating for some time now, I still can get caught up in the mental chatter of the “monkey mind” that sometimes just won’t shut up! I’d also been telling myself for a while now that I need to add a second meditation session to the one I do every morning, or at the very least, take time out during the day to be quiet and still, especially when the “voices in my head” are shouting at me from every direction. The Osho Zen 4 of Cups is letting me know that if I quiet my mind and turn within, those voices will die down and a solution has a better chance of making itself known.

This got me thinking about how this version of the card differs from the traditional RWS 4 of Cups. And that lead me to look at one other deck to see how this card is represented.

RWS 4 OF CUPS

The RWS 4 of Cups, taken from my Radiant Rider-Waite -Smith deck is saying basically the same thing as its Osho Zen counterpart. But, in my mind, it’s more focused on the dissatisfaction one is feeling around a situation and on the problem, so much so that the person depicted, with arms AND legs crossed, can’t see that a solution (the hand with the cup emerging from a cloud) is available.

But this particular 4 of Cups doesn’t tell me HOW I can drag my attention away from the problem to focus on the solution like the Osho Zen version does. On the other hand, perhaps a person getting this card in a reading needs to be shown just how closed off he or she is to accepting the gift of a way out of the problematic situation that the universe is offering.

LE TAROT KITARO 4 OF CUPS

This is my “French deck,” one I purchased back in the 1990s on a whim because everything from the little white book to the names of the cards, is in French, a language I studied in high school and college.

What surprised me about this deck when I delved more deeply into it is that, despite the somewhat simplistic images, each card comes with the most wonderfully positive and optimistic affirmation written on it. Even the Devil card in this deck is “cute,” looking more like Puff the Magic Dragon than a scary Devil.

Le Tarot Kitaro Quatre de Coupes is at the opposite end of the “dissatisfaction-satisfaction” spectrum, in that the individual has turned the three cups of dissatisfaction face down and is totally focused on the fourth cup. Like its Osho Zen counterpart, this card tells you exactly what you need to do — stop focusing on what you don’t want and focus on what you do want. The affirmation for the Kitaro 4 of Cups bears this out:

Je desire utiliser d’avantage toutes mes capacites. Je fix un nouveau but dans mon esprit.

“I want to use to advantage all of my strengths. I (therefore) set a new goal in my heart (mind, spirit).”

That’s a rough translation, but you get the point. The focus here is totally on moving forward and letting go of what no longer serves. Perhaps in quieting the mind in meditation as the Osho Zen card advises, this person has received guidance and knows exactly what to do to move forward.

In fact, the three cards read as a spread tell me what the problem is (RWS), what I need to do to resolve it (Osho Zen), and the next step to take on my journey (Kitaro).

And this is why I collect tarot decks.

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